June 10, 2024 • 32 mins
The Power of PR: Navigating Today’s Media Landscape with Sneha Saigal
In our hyper-connected world, the stakes for corporate reputation are incredibly high. Remember Cristiano Ronaldo's simple gesture that caused a $5 billion drop in Coca-Cola's market value? Or the backlash against Pepsi's Kendall Jenner ad? These moments remind us how quickly public sentiment can shift.
Today on the "Things Have Changed Podcast," we welcome Sneha Saigal, founder and CEO of Geeks&Experts, who has pioneered PR solutions that empower startups to turn crisis into opportunity. Her innovative approach helps startups navigate these volatile waters by providing scalable PR expertise, crucial for maintaining a positive public image.
Join us as Sneha shares her invaluable insights into the vital role of PR in shaping public perception and brand integrity. We'll explore how effective PR strategies can help startups not just manage crises but also build enduring relationships and a robust corporate identity. Stay tuned as Sneha reveals the transformative potential of PR in the digital age and how it can make or break a company's reputation overnight.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jed Tabernero (00:00):
In our hyper-connected world, the
(00:02):
impact of a single social mediapost can ripple across the globe
in seconds.
Aussie hosts bizarre (00:08):
Cristiano Ronaldo decided he didn't want
to promote the tournamentsponsor Coca Cola during a press
conference.
That single act has now wiped awhopping 5.
2 billion dollars from Coke'sstock market value.
Astonishing.
Jed Tabernero (00:24):
A misplaced suite or a misunderstood advertisement
can escalate into a full-blowncrisis before the day's even
over.
Remember the backlash againstPepsi's ad with Kendall Jenner.
Or how a mere shift of aCoca-Cola bottle by Cristiano
Ronaldo cost the company'smarket value to tumble.
These moments are powerfulreminders of how public
(00:47):
perception can shiftdramatically and
instantaneously.
Pepsi, Kendall Jenner prot (00:50):
That new Pepsi ad that is sparking a
lot of outrage out there.
Critics are calling it tone deafmany are calling the ad
tasteless, saying it takesadvantage of serious issues and
movements to sell soda.
Jed Tabernero (01:02):
Today on things have changed podcast.
We welcome a pioneer in thefield of PR Sneha Saigal as the
founder and CEO of geeks andexperts Sneha is crafting
cutting edge PR solutions thatempower startups to turn
potential pitfalls intomonumental opportunities for
growth and trust building.
(01:22):
Join us a snack shares herinsights on reshaping PR
strategies to thrive in thedigital age.
Ensuring that startups not onlysurvive.
But Excel in crafting theirpublic personas.
This is things have changedpodcast.
Shikher Bhandary (01:42):
In today's world, with the media landscape,
things move so quick.
A CEO could tweet something onThursday morning, and his
business, his company could beunder fire on Friday or Thursday
night, or even Thursdayafternoon, like things move so
quickly.
So the role of PR and publicrelations has never been more
(02:05):
critical in this always onworld.
I'm thinking through actualcompany examples like massive
behemoths that have had issues.
We've had Pepsi with that wholeKendall Jedner ad, Southwest
Airlines and it's wholeChristmas debacle, Cristiano
Ronaldo and Coca Cola.
Yeah, so the list is long ofpeople just not being able to do
(02:28):
PR right.
So today on Things Have Changedpodcast, we are delighted to
host Sneha Sehgal someone whoaims to reshape the PR industry.
And so PR is fundamentally aboutmanaging those perceptions and
building trust, right?
And that can make or break acompany's reputation overnight.
(02:50):
Sneha, it's great to have youon.
As a CEO and founder of Geeksand Experts, she's built a
platform that enables companiesto access PR A lot better.
Sneha Saigal (03:01):
Thank you so much Jed and Shikher.
It's so lovely to be here and Ilove the context that you gave
to PR.
I think there's an interestingway to look at it.
When you talk about PR, a lot ofpeople focus on all these
failures that stood out.
But I think over time it'simportant to realize the
opportunities that have comewith how fragmented the media
landscape has become.
So I'm excited to dive into thisand, demystify a lot behind the
(03:24):
scenes and then also pick onsome of those case studies that
you mentioned.
Shikher Bhandary (03:28):
Yeah.
I actually wanted to mentionthis one thing.
Jed and I were sending memes ofMark Zuckerberg because suddenly
Zuck seems like a cool dude.
He's trying to be fit.
He's got a chain around hisblack t shirt.
He seems more approachable andthat's such a huge shift.
(03:49):
From a year and a half, twoyears ago, where he was in front
of Congress and he seemednervous, scared.
There were memes of that imageof him being a robot.
You're talking about one of thebiggest CEOs in the world and
having to face something likethis.
It definitely feels like there'sa fundamental gap where folks
(04:13):
were not too keen or didn't evenrealize how important this is.
So why do companies need PR andpublic relations?
Sneha Saigal (04:24):
I'll start with an anecdote or an example of
exactly defining sometimes whatis the difference between
marketing and PR, right?
I think a lot of people tend toconfuse or think they're one in
the same thing.
So marketing is Shikhar tellingJed, Hey, I'm an amazing cook.
I make this amazing steak andyou just have to try it.
PR is three or four people goingto Jed and say, you know what?
(04:46):
Shikher makes amazing steak.
You've got to try his steak.
It's in a, literally in anutshell, and this can apply,
let's say in a job interview,why do you give us reference
letters?
Why do you have a LinkedInpresence?
The same thing applies when yougo on a date and you're trying
to impress somebody and sayinghow fabulous you are until they
hear it from somebody else.
That is the PR component.
And I'm giving this in differentcontexts.
So people realize, That one isyou're a brag, you're bragging
(05:09):
about yourself.
But the other one is somebody isrecommending you.
Somebody is giving you thatadded layer of credibility of
trust, especially since youpointed out how much access
people have to that voice andopinion today.
Nobody takes that for granted.
And more than anything else,businesses are so cognizant of
the fact that.
Everybody with access tointernet has a voice.
(05:31):
They have an opinion, andespecially if they have that
reach and that audience, whichmind you, I think every person
now is thinking about how muchtheir reach is, how much their
opinion matters.
They are all subject matterexperts in some domain or the
other, which is what gives themthe power to actually comment on
how a business is run.
What is the work ethics or whatis the culture?
(05:52):
What is their mission?
And that is a part of PR, whichis now getting so powerful over
the years, as you can see, likeyou said, one meme, one tweet,
and I think we know which kindof CEOs we're talking about, but
it is literally something thatcan make or break, how people
are perceiving a stock or acompany
Jed Tabernero (06:09):
As you were talking about, companies having
a voice I want to think of likereally concrete examples of how.
Maybe a startup for ouraudience, right?
Would think about the role of PRfor them.
So one example I can think aboutis maybe a product launch,
right?
There's a lot of PR maybe thatgoes into a product launch where
leaders have to talk about it.
(06:30):
Leaders can have to, thinkthrough these situations, how
it's going to turn out, who theyreach out to, et cetera.
Can you give us like someexamples of how a startup might
think about why they need PRthemselves?
Sneha Saigal (06:43):
Absolutely.
And I'll give this in differentcontext.
So as a startup, of course youare bringing something new into
the world.
There's no credibility or trustestablished with your existing
audience, unless maybe you'vegot previous companies under
your belt.
Maybe you've raised investormoney before, but if this is
your first time buildingsomething from ground zero, you
need to start with building outthat trust.
(07:05):
Trust with your audience, withyour investors, with the media
to show that you are credible.
And by this, I mean there aredifferent layers and levels to
it, right?
And that's where it getsinteresting because for
startups, a lot of times it'sthis mystique or very far
fetched landscape of media andPR and public relations because
they think you need to maybe goto a big agency, sign an annual
(07:26):
contract and spend 20, 000 permonth.
But PR starts in house from theday you start your business with
your personal brand.
And that's why I'm a strongadvocate for founders in the
early stages to not complicateit, to not spend, those 100, 000
going after a big PR company.
You can do so much of it inhouse in managing how you appear
(07:46):
as a founder.
What are your Early employeestalking about the culture at
your startup.
What are some of your leadinvestors or angel investors?
How did you go about findingthem?
What is their ethos?
What is their value?
What do they bring to the worldthat makes your company resonate
with, their investment pieces?
There are so many things you canpick on early on even as a
(08:07):
founder yourself, maybe.
There's a mission behind why youstarted your company.
It's important more and more totalk about that today.
And with access to platformslike LinkedIn, Twitter, so many
people are using that to justleverage and speak more about
the why, behind their company.
And that is super meaningfulbecause it makes you relatable.
It makes you approachable.
(08:29):
There are different audiencesyou're talking to.
And at every stage, that's thefun part about, being in PR for
startups, because it's sodynamic.
Three months.
Your visibility is, I want to gofor a fundraise.
I want to raise my series eight.
The next three months, you'reputting in that money to launch
a new feature of your product.
That is when you're now changingthe narrative.
You're changing the pitch oryour angle to your journalists.
(08:52):
And now talking, changing thatdirection towards your new
feature.
Another three months, you'reprobably talking about how you
have.
Done something better than acompetitor, but not slashing
them out, but just bringing yourdifferentiator into the
limelight.
So at every point, your PR needsare evolving, and this has to be
done keeping in mind what'sgoing on in the world, right?
(09:14):
That is the most important part.
For me, the PR, component is somuch based on relevance because
that is something that you justcannot take away.
You can be doing the best thingin the world.
Your startup can be meeting allthe line, all the key milestones
that you have.
But if there's something elsegoing on in the world, it comes
across stone dead if you are nottaking that into account.
(09:35):
So all of these parts aboutbeing a founder, talking about
your startup are it's all,pieces of a puzzle that need to
make sense together.
Jed Tabernero (09:43):
It's so important to control, or at least
influence, that narrative.
Everything you were talkingabout was like telling a story.
Okay.
Introducing a new product.
The next three months you got tothink about X, Y, Z.
what are the challenges that yousee with people who come to you,
companies who come to you andsay, look, I haven't been
focused on PR for so long.
(10:05):
What are those common problemsor challenges that you see for
those companies that haven'tdone this before?
Sneha Saigal (10:11):
I love that question because that's the
problem we want to solve is tomake it accessible for a lot of
the early stage companies, fromC to series A, B, C.
And there are a lot of differentcomponents here.
So one.
Sometimes, clients don't knowwhat they want out of PR.
They just know they want to doit, but they don't know why, or
they don't know what success oroutcomes look like.
(10:32):
So it sometimes involveseducating them as to why do they
want to do this?
Because there isn't a one sizefits all just saying that I want
to be on the front cover of afortune or business insider is
not enough.
You need to understand whereyour target audience is.
So for example, I, since youbought up SAS and, me to be,
those kind of niche products.
What?
Where is your audience actuallyreading about you?
(10:53):
For example, one of our clientswas in the cyber security cloud
compliance space, and that is avery specific space to be in.
So where is your audienceactually finding information
about services like that?
Are there niche publicationsthat speak specifically to,
those industries?
Because then getting into toptier outlets should not be your
You should be focusing on thoseaudiences that actually, where
(11:16):
you are talking about thesetopics.
So that is one is justunderstanding your why and what
a success look like.
So define it clearly.
It's, is it just because youthink you should be doing it or
because there's a certain goalin mind?
The second component is budgets,right?
Like I mentioned earlier,Throwing money directly to get
paid advertising or paid mediaplacements is not going to move
(11:36):
the needle for you.
And here's where the componentsof owned media and earned media
come in.
So owned media is, of course,the blogs that you put on your
website, the kind of thoughtleadership articles that you
have.
Maybe you have a podcast thatyou run that is owned by you.
Earned media is when you're notpaying a journalist, you're not
paying to appear in a sponsoredpost by Business Insider or
(11:57):
Forbes.
The journalist has foundsomething relevant about.
Your audience about your companyand that's why they're writing
about you.
So these are components thatfounders often, mistake and they
think, I don't want to spend 5,000 to appear on the front page.
You should not be spending 5,000 to appear on the front page.
So those are parts.
And so a lot of the challengesinvolve educating them,
(12:18):
understanding what do they wantto get out of this PR run.
Even understanding your pitchangles, at every stage, Last few
months, we've seen in the techindustry, a lot of layoffs
happening.
We're seeing a lot of budgetcuts happening.
So how do you make your companysound relevant?
If you are servicing clientsthat help reduce churn, that's a
good way to pitch your productsaying that we help reduce churn
(12:40):
for companies, which means webring in more money for
companies.
So in terms of layoffs, that iswhere companies want to be
focusing on.
What is actually.
Adding value to their bottomline and not adding value to
their bottom line.
Maybe a few months down the linewhen the industry is picking up
again, your pitch angle changesto now talking about how you
have understood how to helpcompanies reduce turn.
(13:00):
So you yourself are a goodbusiness for investors to look
at.
So at every moment you'repulling different.
Relevant angles and changingthat narrative,
Shikher Bhandary (13:10):
Sneha, so how does your platform play into the
space?
Because we definitely know thatthere is a gap here.
What are you aiming to, toprovide to startups, to
companies and what went into thethought process of actually
building it out?
Sneha Saigal (13:26):
right?
So this goes back to my ownjourney starting out, you know
in marketing and PR and it'salways been with early stage
companies I love being at thatscrappy, you know founding team
level where you're literallybudgets are, Scrappy you have to
make the most of whateverresources you have and what I
noticed in terms of PR was a lotof Startups felt like they need
to just straight away hire,somebody full time, or they need
(13:48):
to go after those big agenciesand pay annual contracts.
And I felt like there was a gapin there for something that's a
little more agile.
That's a, especially afterCOVID, with so many fractional
talent platforms coming intoplace.
And the way I like to describeour platform is we are the slow
fashion or the sustainableversion of the gig economy.
So you have the fast fashionwhere you need a logo designed,
(14:09):
you go on these marketplaces,you pay 50 bucks, you have a
logo over the weekend.
PR is not like that.
You can't pay 50 bucks and, seea result next week.
So that is why we come in wherewe plug in specialists into your
team for the duration that youare looking at.
So maybe your needs are justnext three months, or maybe you
have done, a good amount offundraising and you have that
visibility to spend on the nextsix months.
(14:31):
So we have an in housespecialist, and then we have a
whole vetted collective of PRexperts across all those
industries, because this iswhere PR gets a bit nuanced.
Every person who's working PRhas a domain vertical that they
specialize in.
And if you want to tap into theaudiences that are in a specific
industry, those are thespecialists you need to go
(14:52):
after.
So if you're in the beautyspace, if you're in the FinTech
space, you want to establishmedia relations with people who
are experienced in thosedomains.
So they have finessed.
media relations.
They know exactly the kind ofcontent that journalists like
reading and, writing about.
So that is exactly where we comein is to make sure that value
alignment is there.
And the last part that I love tohighlight is why does this
(15:14):
specific audience mean so muchto me is because, as a founder
myself, as an immigrant, as awoman of color, like I honestly
feel that there's so many voicesout there in the startup
landscape that don't get thevisibility that they deserve.
Just bringing out more storiesfrom minority founders, from
founders who are doing trulygroundbreaking work, but just
because they don't have thebudget to pay a big agency,
(15:35):
should their voice not be heard.
So this is where we want to makesure that it's more accessible.
So as opposed to signing 20, 000monthly contracts, we would come
in at 1, 500 or 3, 000 kind ofworking with what, what makes
sense for you.
Shikher Bhandary (15:49):
Is it.
A marketplace where you'relinking folks who are already
experienced with thoseverticals.
So like you said, FinTech,fashion and so on with the
companies.
That's how
Sneha Saigal (16:02):
Exactly.
That's the straight up,distilled version of it.
It is, Specialists acrossindustries and across expertise
as well, because you have, PRspecialists who have been with
an agency for very long, but nowwant to start out on their own
independent practice.
So they'll come with someexperience, but not maybe doing
this throughout on their own.
And then you'll have theseasoned PR specialists who have
(16:24):
been in this industry as anindependent consultant for
decades.
So they'll come with that muchmore seniority.
So it's just giving, thestartups, the option to choose,
Where they'd like to start with.
Jed Tabernero (16:34):
What exactly is fractional PR as it looks like
on your platform?
And what's the alternative, whatdo people tend to do?
Sneha Saigal (16:41):
Yes, that's a great question.
And I love explaining fractionalas just taking the word
fraction.
So a specialist will be workingon multiple projects and a
fraction of their time goestowards one particular company.
And this is different from,let's say a contractor.
So a contractor is somebody whocomes on board for your company
and they're there with you forthis particular duration.
(17:03):
They have these deliverables,these outcomes at the end of
that.
This is more focused on the timespent, the input, and the
process, more than giving adeliverable at the end of it.
So it's a continued engagement,and think of it like, basically
somebody plugging into yourteam, working with other people.
The marketing team working withthe founder to basically get in
(17:24):
your streamline your processand, getting your pitch ready,
getting your press releaseready, depending on where you
are in that journey right now.
So that fractional component isbasically they could be working
on three other companies at thesame time.
Jed Tabernero (17:39):
And is that with companies with an existing PR
department, or is it typicallylike a company that has been
doing PR by themselves and it'sHey, listen, I need a specialist
for this specific piece becausewe don't have that experience.
Both
Sneha Saigal (17:50):
Actually it's a combination and it's interesting
to see with what's happening inthe industry right now, because
a lot of companies that are atthat growth stage and they have
budgets to get a PR specialiston board, they would be probably
doing this for the first time.
So maybe they've done someamount of PR on their own and
now they're ready to amp it upfor whatever goals they have in
mind.
The other thing that we'renoticing is.
(18:11):
A lot of growth stage companiesactually that went with big
agencies are now wanting to cutbudgets slightly.
And so for them, they're like,Hey, I don't need eight or 10
people from this PR company outof which just one or two people
are engaged and actually doingthe work I'd rather cut that and
go with, a fractional PR personwho can just take the workload
(18:32):
and be more hands on.
So it's a little bit of both,which is very interesting for me
to see as well right now.
Jed Tabernero (18:38):
That's super cool that they're coming from both
ends of the spectrum where youhave companies who don't have a
ton of experience with PR comingto you, but you also have
companies who have experiencedbig PR firms and who want to
make it more lean, right?
So that's a really interestingpiece of it.
Sneha Saigal (18:56):
I'd love to share actually a case study about this
more of an agency.
So they're an advertisingagency.
And this is interesting as well,because you would think that
advertising agencies have thewherewithal and all the tools to
do PR for themselves.
But often they end up doing alot of that work for clients,
but forget to toot their ownhorn.
So we've had, client who's comein and said, I have these
(19:16):
amazing.
Case studies and testimonialsfrom my clients, but I'm not
sure how to establish myself asa thought leader So what we did
for them was basically make surethat we tell their stories the
right way We bring them out asan expert in the advertising
space and one you know win thatI love to share is in the super
bowl We were you know, there wasso much buzz about how super
bowl commercials are so Big andthe whole advertising industry
(19:38):
focuses on that.
So we were able to get in, abite and a recommendation from
this business owner, this agencybusiness owner, who was talking
about how Super Bowl commercialshave evolved so much in the last
decade or so.
So it was basically taking hisexperience, his expertise with
the All of this stuff he's donewith his clients and then
bringing him out as a top leaderat that particular time.
(19:59):
So it wasn't, they had all thetools in place, but they just
didn't know how do I get thisout there to make it a
meaningful case study or, givehim that recognition.
So now we're putting him up forawards.
We're putting him in, like adweek.
We're putting him in those.
Places where basically again,he's not saying I want to be,
unfortunate or business insider.
We're going after very focusedad age those kinds of outlets
(20:21):
where people are focusing onfinding those smaller agencies
that can do meaningful work forthem.
Jed Tabernero (20:28):
That's interesting.
So I was telling you before wegot on the call that we read
some of your blogs on medium,really awesome content, by the
way, for us in this community,one of the blogs was about
acquiring.
Your first 100 early adopters,how is that experience of
gathering the first 100 earlyadopters?
Sneha Saigal (20:48):
It is very humbling to say the least, you
go out there thinking I, why isanyone going to say no to me?
This has got to make sense.
And a lot of humblingexperiences there because you
realize that just becauseSomething makes sense to you.
It does not mean that it's apriority for somebody else, or
that it makes sense for themright now or they have the
budget or they understand, whatyou're actually solving for.
(21:09):
I definitely say that there wasa lot to learn in terms of
following the noise and actuallyhanging out where your customers
are.
The piece that you're actuallytalking about was, So relevant
because a lot of timesmisunderstand where your actual
audiences and your decisionmakers could be somebody, but
your users are somebody else.
So in our case for in PR, ofcourse it could be the founder
(21:31):
that actually takes the finalcall, whether they want to spend
or this or not, but who's goingto actually be using our
services, it would be the headof marketing, it would be
somebody who's in the commsrole.
So you have to understand who'syour audience and where can you
actually find them.
So for me, it involved hangingout in a lot of Facebook groups,
hanging out in a lot of Slackgroups where a lot of these
(21:51):
founders are, being a part ofsome of these networks founder
communities having conversationsand just listening to them and
seeing what are they strugglingwith.
Because for some founders, itwas, Oh, I don't know how to
write a press release.
I don't know how to use some ofthese social, monitoring tools.
And that's where I picked up thenoise.
And I said, maybe a lot offounders actually don't even
know where to start.
(22:12):
So that's where I started usingmedium to talk more about.
How do you start PR in a DIYstyle?
And then when you're ready,maybe you can amp it up a bit.
So to your point it was a lotabout following the noise and,
just keeping your eyes and earsopen to where you think your
audience hangs out.
Shikher Bhandary (22:31):
Gotcha.
And.
I'm assuming this is what you'retrying to build while connecting
the experts with the companies,founders and startups, how are
you baking in the requirements,the criteria for, You to have
certain individuals on theplatform.
Are you yourself going throughtheir, previous history and
(22:54):
being like, okay, this would be,this person would be a great fit
for our, fashion vertical or soon.
Like how does that process looklike for you?
Sneha Saigal (23:03):
Yeah, that is a very interesting way that we are
going it out as completely byword of mouth by referrals
through the network itself.
So we have.
Like I mentioned better PRspecialists who have worked in
those industries.
And then from there we've pickeda handful who are more like,
give analysts ratings to a stockthat way they give like ratings
to, who are the PR specialists?
So making it in a very veryquality driven approach.
(23:24):
And the reason I say that isbecause we've had to turn down a
lot of PR specialists who haveapproached us saying, we would
love to be on the platform.
But at this stage, what mattersmore to me is making sure the
quality is maintained becauseThese processes are way more
long term.
The relationships that I willestablish with the clients today
are going to continue evolvingas we go down, because maybe
(23:45):
today they're using our platformfor three months and then they
pause.
And that's where thesubscription model comes in.
And then maybe in a year's timewhen they have done a fund,
fundraise, they're ready to comeback and amp it up a bit more.
In PR, the quality has to beextremely important.
And Especially because valuealignment is a big reason that
fractional teams fall apartbecause you're not, as
(24:07):
Integrated into the teams you'renot going every day, face to
face meeting your team sittingin the same office So those kind
of gaps can easily come throughif your values are not aligned
So the way we are maintainingthat is doing Multiple
onboarding calls to make surethat the team is integrated.
The client is satisfied,comfortable with the specialist
and also the goals are alignedbecause, like you pointed out,
(24:30):
it's what a success look like.
Do they know what they want outof this engagement?
Do they understand what a PR, aPR person is not a magician.
He's not going to be able to,just get you on those front page
outlets.
So just being very.
Honest with them and clear aboutthose goals.
Shikher Bhandary (24:48):
Yeah.
And there's so much nuance inthis industry that you can't
just take one model or templateand just apply it for every
vertical or every industryshipping company is not going to
care what a SAS company needsfrom a outreach and PR point of
view.
Yeah.
Sneha Saigal (25:07):
I was waiting to get to the part where AI is
going to take over, everythingand even pitching and media.
And that is a great example ofthat.
So if you, of course there arethings that AI is capable of
doing, even in the PR landscape.
So I would say.
Getting those social monitoringtools is an AI capability that
you can utilize.
There's also finding thosetargeted media outlets, those
(25:29):
journalists who would be a goodfit for you just in
understanding what people aresaying about your company in
the, social media landscape.
But where AI can't come is thatcontext that you gave, that
shipping versus B2B SaaS is verydifferent.
AI is not going to be able tounderstand context or, Sarcasm
or emotions things like that isnot something that I would be
(25:50):
able to take.
I think that's another thingthat people often mistake is,
oh, I can just get somebody towrite that pitch.
I can get chat to be able towrite this pitch tailored to my
audience and my darn list.
There are so many things thatwill be missed out over there
because at the day, it isrelationship building more than
anything else.
Jed Tabernero (26:06):
Yet.
That's a key word.
No, this topic has come up a lotwhen I was reading through a lot
of your material, and one of thethings that you point out is
hate.
Don't use chat TPT to write allyour shit basically.
That's, it's such a simple thingto say because it's so easy
these days and it's not likeit's really dumb what comes out
of it.
It's acceptable to some degree.
(26:28):
So people think all of a sudden,Oh my, like I can get away from
doing all this stuff by usingchat TPT.
I think one of the themes that Iread through your work is to
say, look, the human element ofthis is so important.
At the end of the day, it'sabout these relationships and
it's a theme of as well of thiscall you talking about how do
(26:48):
you get out there, as a founder?
It's a lot of networking.
It's a lot of me coming to theplaces where we met, for example
looking at things that we mightboth care about and connecting
about something else.
That's something.
That's not yet possible in therealm of AI, but it's just so
interesting to see that to beable to, let's say do a press
release or a product launch orstuff like that.
(27:10):
A lot of what you need as wellis crafting the story, right?
And I think the biggestmisdirection people are getting
these days is exactly this topicof there's so many tools out
there.
There's a lot of LLMs out there.
Why don't you use that to gogenerate this?
And yet.
It's not as effective as we'dlike it to be.
Again, I caveat with, yes, Idon't know where this stuff is
(27:34):
going in the future, but it'sreally interesting that you
mentioned those two aspectsbecause that human key element
of things that you talk about alot, I think it's so important
for me as well, right?
Like I can only give you a nicerecommendation if I've met you,
if I've, done all these thingsto connect with you and all of
that stuff.
So I think it's super important.
Sneha Saigal (27:53):
I love that.
And I think the key part thereis just the relationship
building aspect of it.
Like a lot of people tend toforget that journalists are
humans and they get bombardedwith so many pitches.
They have so many differentstories they need to cover.
They all have deadlines.
So what can you do to be aresource for them and actually
help them as opposed to makingit about you?
(28:13):
So here's what a lot of that,interdependence of give first,
don't make it about atransaction, make it a
relationship.
And I'll give it Example aboutjust, the stuff that's going on
in the media as well.
So for a lot of journalists thechanges in the layoffs that
happened in those different newsoutlets as well.
That is something that's sodeeply personal that if you sent
out pitches to them without eventaking into account that jobs
(28:35):
are at stake You're never goingto hear back from that
journalist.
So sorry, those are just smallthings that you don't tend to
pay attention to.
And like you said, just beingauthentic and actually bringing
out your vulnerabilities andshowing that you care as a
person is such a big aspect ofit that AI will not be able to
replicate or take over.
Like you said, there's a lotbehind the scenes that goes on.
(28:56):
So yes, you can use.
I'm not saying you can't use it.
We use Tragic ity and in manydifferent ways to think out of
the box, to get some ideas.
But how can you make it usefuland more relevant to yourself?
And I'll give an example sinceyou've mentioned, the content
that I write a lot.
I definitely use chat to be ableto turn that content into other
pieces of content.
(29:17):
So it's repurposing in one ofthe best ways because it's my
voice.
It's my authentic piece ofcontent, but I can now use that
across channels.
So I won't say that there, thereis no smart way to use it.
It's just, you have to bethoughtful at the end of the
day.
And you don't want to soundcreepy.
That, if that message comesacross as something out of this
world, like otherworldly, likeit's just going to throw
somebody off.
Shikher Bhandary (29:38):
it's like a perfect sentence.
And I'm like, this is tooperfect.
I know this is not the wayyou're thinking.
And in the future, there's a lotmore authenticity to it.
The next wave is just addingyour voice.
So the AI is personalized toyou.
So I know that's a big themethat we might see.
But still, even in spite of allthat, you really need to be
(29:59):
doing this in a more nuancedway, in a more personal way.
So Sneha, it was great havingyou on.
I think one thing that we liketo do towards the end of our
calls and conversations are givethe founder, the expert, the
stage, set the stage for you togive a shout out to your team,
what your next product releaseor, funding round or so on.
Sneha Saigal (30:22):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, firstly, forhaving me.
And I.
Definitely would love to connectwith anyone in the audience.
Who's looking at starting outtheir journey, whether you want
to start out as a PR expertyourself, or you are looking at
some PR support to talk aboutyour brand story.
And we work with so manydifferent clients from
solopreneurs to establishedfounders who have raised their
series, ABC, that we can.
(30:44):
Custom build that, what you'relooking for.
And I love that you mentionedventure funds because that's
another one of our audiences ispartnering with them as an
extension to their portfolio ofcompanies, because again, you
have venture funds wereinvesting in sector agnostic
companies.
When they set out to do PR, theycan't go get 10 different PR
agencies to do PR for each oftheir founders.
(31:04):
So we plug in an expert who cando that early stage PR support
for them.
More than happy to chat andoffer any resources or support
in terms of doing PR on your ownearly on as well.
Jed Tabernero (31:16):
Awesome.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming on the show.
I know we didn't have the chanceto cover everything we wanted
to.
And I think that means we needto chat again at some point.
Yeah.
And that wraps it up with Acycle.
Thanks for tuning into today'sinsightful conversation with CEO
and founder of kicks andexperts.
(31:39):
Remember.
The right PR strategy cantransform challenges into
opportunities for growth.
And connection.
Join us next time on things havechanged podcast for more
discussions that shape ourunderstanding of the ever
evolving digital economy.
(31:59):
As always.
On things have changed podcast.
Stay curious.
The information and opinions expressed in this
episode are for informationalpurposes only.
And are not intended asfinancial investment or
professional advice.
Always consult with a qualifiedprofessional before making any
decisions based on the conceptprovided.
(32:20):
Neither the podcast, nor iscreators are responsible for any
actions taken as a result oflistening to this episode.
In our hyper-connected world, the
(00:02):
impact of a single social mediapost can ripple across the globe
in seconds.
Aussie hosts bizarre (00:08):
Cristiano Ronaldo decided he didn't want
to promote the tournamentsponsor Coca Cola during a press
conference.
That single act has now wiped awhopping 5.
2 billion dollars from Coke'sstock market value.
Astonishing.
Jed Tabernero (00:24):
A misplaced suite or a misunderstood advertisement
can escalate into a full-blowncrisis before the day's even
over.
Remember the backlash againstPepsi's ad with Kendall Jenner.
Or how a mere shift of aCoca-Cola bottle by Cristiano
Ronaldo cost the company'smarket value to tumble.
These moments are powerfulreminders of how public
(00:47):
perception can shiftdramatically and
instantaneously.
Pepsi, Kendall Jenner prot (00:50):
That new Pepsi ad that is sparking a
lot of outrage out there.
Critics are calling it tone deafmany are calling the ad
tasteless, saying it takesadvantage of serious issues and
movements to sell soda.
Jed Tabernero (01:02):
Today on things have changed podcast.
We welcome a pioneer in thefield of PR Sneha Saigal as the
founder and CEO of geeks andexperts Sneha is crafting
cutting edge PR solutions thatempower startups to turn
potential pitfalls intomonumental opportunities for
growth and trust building.
(01:22):
Join us a snack shares herinsights on reshaping PR
strategies to thrive in thedigital age.
Ensuring that startups not onlysurvive.
But Excel in crafting theirpublic personas.
This is things have changedpodcast.
Shikher Bhandary (01:42):
In today's world, with the media landscape,
things move so quick.
A CEO could tweet something onThursday morning, and his
business, his company could beunder fire on Friday or Thursday
night, or even Thursdayafternoon, like things move so
quickly.
So the role of PR and publicrelations has never been more
(02:05):
critical in this always onworld.
I'm thinking through actualcompany examples like massive
behemoths that have had issues.
We've had Pepsi with that wholeKendall Jedner ad, Southwest
Airlines and it's wholeChristmas debacle, Cristiano
Ronaldo and Coca Cola.
Yeah, so the list is long ofpeople just not being able to do
(02:28):
PR right.
So today on Things Have Changedpodcast, we are delighted to
host Sneha Sehgal someone whoaims to reshape the PR industry.
And so PR is fundamentally aboutmanaging those perceptions and
building trust, right?
And that can make or break acompany's reputation overnight.
(02:50):
Sneha, it's great to have youon.
As a CEO and founder of Geeksand Experts, she's built a
platform that enables companiesto access PR A lot better.
Sneha Saigal (03:01):
Thank you so much Jed and Shikher.
It's so lovely to be here and Ilove the context that you gave
to PR.
I think there's an interestingway to look at it.
When you talk about PR, a lot ofpeople focus on all these
failures that stood out.
But I think over time it'simportant to realize the
opportunities that have comewith how fragmented the media
landscape has become.
So I'm excited to dive into thisand, demystify a lot behind the
(03:24):
scenes and then also pick onsome of those case studies that
you mentioned.
Shikher Bhandary (03:28):
Yeah.
I actually wanted to mentionthis one thing.
Jed and I were sending memes ofMark Zuckerberg because suddenly
Zuck seems like a cool dude.
He's trying to be fit.
He's got a chain around hisblack t shirt.
He seems more approachable andthat's such a huge shift.
(03:49):
From a year and a half, twoyears ago, where he was in front
of Congress and he seemednervous, scared.
There were memes of that imageof him being a robot.
You're talking about one of thebiggest CEOs in the world and
having to face something likethis.
It definitely feels like there'sa fundamental gap where folks
(04:13):
were not too keen or didn't evenrealize how important this is.
So why do companies need PR andpublic relations?
Sneha Saigal (04:24):
I'll start with an anecdote or an example of
exactly defining sometimes whatis the difference between
marketing and PR, right?
I think a lot of people tend toconfuse or think they're one in
the same thing.
So marketing is Shikhar tellingJed, Hey, I'm an amazing cook.
I make this amazing steak andyou just have to try it.
PR is three or four people goingto Jed and say, you know what?
(04:46):
Shikher makes amazing steak.
You've got to try his steak.
It's in a, literally in anutshell, and this can apply,
let's say in a job interview,why do you give us reference
letters?
Why do you have a LinkedInpresence?
The same thing applies when yougo on a date and you're trying
to impress somebody and sayinghow fabulous you are until they
hear it from somebody else.
That is the PR component.
And I'm giving this in differentcontexts.
So people realize, That one isyou're a brag, you're bragging
(05:09):
about yourself.
But the other one is somebody isrecommending you.
Somebody is giving you thatadded layer of credibility of
trust, especially since youpointed out how much access
people have to that voice andopinion today.
Nobody takes that for granted.
And more than anything else,businesses are so cognizant of
the fact that.
Everybody with access tointernet has a voice.
(05:31):
They have an opinion, andespecially if they have that
reach and that audience, whichmind you, I think every person
now is thinking about how muchtheir reach is, how much their
opinion matters.
They are all subject matterexperts in some domain or the
other, which is what gives themthe power to actually comment on
how a business is run.
What is the work ethics or whatis the culture?
(05:52):
What is their mission?
And that is a part of PR, whichis now getting so powerful over
the years, as you can see, likeyou said, one meme, one tweet,
and I think we know which kindof CEOs we're talking about, but
it is literally something thatcan make or break, how people
are perceiving a stock or acompany
Jed Tabernero (06:09):
As you were talking about, companies having
a voice I want to think of likereally concrete examples of how.
Maybe a startup for ouraudience, right?
Would think about the role of PRfor them.
So one example I can think aboutis maybe a product launch,
right?
There's a lot of PR maybe thatgoes into a product launch where
leaders have to talk about it.
(06:30):
Leaders can have to, thinkthrough these situations, how
it's going to turn out, who theyreach out to, et cetera.
Can you give us like someexamples of how a startup might
think about why they need PRthemselves?
Sneha Saigal (06:43):
Absolutely.
And I'll give this in differentcontext.
So as a startup, of course youare bringing something new into
the world.
There's no credibility or trustestablished with your existing
audience, unless maybe you'vegot previous companies under
your belt.
Maybe you've raised investormoney before, but if this is
your first time buildingsomething from ground zero, you
need to start with building outthat trust.
(07:05):
Trust with your audience, withyour investors, with the media
to show that you are credible.
And by this, I mean there aredifferent layers and levels to
it, right?
And that's where it getsinteresting because for
startups, a lot of times it'sthis mystique or very far
fetched landscape of media andPR and public relations because
they think you need to maybe goto a big agency, sign an annual
(07:26):
contract and spend 20, 000 permonth.
But PR starts in house from theday you start your business with
your personal brand.
And that's why I'm a strongadvocate for founders in the
early stages to not complicateit, to not spend, those 100, 000
going after a big PR company.
You can do so much of it inhouse in managing how you appear
(07:46):
as a founder.
What are your Early employeestalking about the culture at
your startup.
What are some of your leadinvestors or angel investors?
How did you go about findingthem?
What is their ethos?
What is their value?
What do they bring to the worldthat makes your company resonate
with, their investment pieces?
There are so many things you canpick on early on even as a
(08:07):
founder yourself, maybe.
There's a mission behind why youstarted your company.
It's important more and more totalk about that today.
And with access to platformslike LinkedIn, Twitter, so many
people are using that to justleverage and speak more about
the why, behind their company.
And that is super meaningfulbecause it makes you relatable.
It makes you approachable.
(08:29):
There are different audiencesyou're talking to.
And at every stage, that's thefun part about, being in PR for
startups, because it's sodynamic.
Three months.
Your visibility is, I want to gofor a fundraise.
I want to raise my series eight.
The next three months, you'reputting in that money to launch
a new feature of your product.
That is when you're now changingthe narrative.
You're changing the pitch oryour angle to your journalists.
(08:52):
And now talking, changing thatdirection towards your new
feature.
Another three months, you'reprobably talking about how you
have.
Done something better than acompetitor, but not slashing
them out, but just bringing yourdifferentiator into the
limelight.
So at every point, your PR needsare evolving, and this has to be
done keeping in mind what'sgoing on in the world, right?
(09:14):
That is the most important part.
For me, the PR, component is somuch based on relevance because
that is something that you justcannot take away.
You can be doing the best thingin the world.
Your startup can be meeting allthe line, all the key milestones
that you have.
But if there's something elsegoing on in the world, it comes
across stone dead if you are nottaking that into account.
(09:35):
So all of these parts aboutbeing a founder, talking about
your startup are it's all,pieces of a puzzle that need to
make sense together.
Jed Tabernero (09:43):
It's so important to control, or at least
influence, that narrative.
Everything you were talkingabout was like telling a story.
Okay.
Introducing a new product.
The next three months you got tothink about X, Y, Z.
what are the challenges that yousee with people who come to you,
companies who come to you andsay, look, I haven't been
focused on PR for so long.
(10:05):
What are those common problemsor challenges that you see for
those companies that haven'tdone this before?
Sneha Saigal (10:11):
I love that question because that's the
problem we want to solve is tomake it accessible for a lot of
the early stage companies, fromC to series A, B, C.
And there are a lot of differentcomponents here.
So one.
Sometimes, clients don't knowwhat they want out of PR.
They just know they want to doit, but they don't know why, or
they don't know what success oroutcomes look like.
(10:32):
So it sometimes involveseducating them as to why do they
want to do this?
Because there isn't a one sizefits all just saying that I want
to be on the front cover of afortune or business insider is
not enough.
You need to understand whereyour target audience is.
So for example, I, since youbought up SAS and, me to be,
those kind of niche products.
What?
Where is your audience actuallyreading about you?
(10:53):
For example, one of our clientswas in the cyber security cloud
compliance space, and that is avery specific space to be in.
So where is your audienceactually finding information
about services like that?
Are there niche publicationsthat speak specifically to,
those industries?
Because then getting into toptier outlets should not be your
You should be focusing on thoseaudiences that actually, where
(11:16):
you are talking about thesetopics.
So that is one is justunderstanding your why and what
a success look like.
So define it clearly.
It's, is it just because youthink you should be doing it or
because there's a certain goalin mind?
The second component is budgets,right?
Like I mentioned earlier,Throwing money directly to get
paid advertising or paid mediaplacements is not going to move
(11:36):
the needle for you.
And here's where the componentsof owned media and earned media
come in.
So owned media is, of course,the blogs that you put on your
website, the kind of thoughtleadership articles that you
have.
Maybe you have a podcast thatyou run that is owned by you.
Earned media is when you're notpaying a journalist, you're not
paying to appear in a sponsoredpost by Business Insider or
(11:57):
Forbes.
The journalist has foundsomething relevant about.
Your audience about your companyand that's why they're writing
about you.
So these are components thatfounders often, mistake and they
think, I don't want to spend 5,000 to appear on the front page.
You should not be spending 5,000 to appear on the front page.
So those are parts.
And so a lot of the challengesinvolve educating them,
(12:18):
understanding what do they wantto get out of this PR run.
Even understanding your pitchangles, at every stage, Last few
months, we've seen in the techindustry, a lot of layoffs
happening.
We're seeing a lot of budgetcuts happening.
So how do you make your companysound relevant?
If you are servicing clientsthat help reduce churn, that's a
good way to pitch your productsaying that we help reduce churn
(12:40):
for companies, which means webring in more money for
companies.
So in terms of layoffs, that iswhere companies want to be
focusing on.
What is actually.
Adding value to their bottomline and not adding value to
their bottom line.
Maybe a few months down the linewhen the industry is picking up
again, your pitch angle changesto now talking about how you
have understood how to helpcompanies reduce turn.
(13:00):
So you yourself are a goodbusiness for investors to look
at.
So at every moment you'repulling different.
Relevant angles and changingthat narrative,
Shikher Bhandary (13:10):
Sneha, so how does your platform play into the
space?
Because we definitely know thatthere is a gap here.
What are you aiming to, toprovide to startups, to
companies and what went into thethought process of actually
building it out?
Sneha Saigal (13:26):
right?
So this goes back to my ownjourney starting out, you know
in marketing and PR and it'salways been with early stage
companies I love being at thatscrappy, you know founding team
level where you're literallybudgets are, Scrappy you have to
make the most of whateverresources you have and what I
noticed in terms of PR was a lotof Startups felt like they need
to just straight away hire,somebody full time, or they need
(13:48):
to go after those big agenciesand pay annual contracts.
And I felt like there was a gapin there for something that's a
little more agile.
That's a, especially afterCOVID, with so many fractional
talent platforms coming intoplace.
And the way I like to describeour platform is we are the slow
fashion or the sustainableversion of the gig economy.
So you have the fast fashionwhere you need a logo designed,
(14:09):
you go on these marketplaces,you pay 50 bucks, you have a
logo over the weekend.
PR is not like that.
You can't pay 50 bucks and, seea result next week.
So that is why we come in wherewe plug in specialists into your
team for the duration that youare looking at.
So maybe your needs are justnext three months, or maybe you
have done, a good amount offundraising and you have that
visibility to spend on the nextsix months.
(14:31):
So we have an in housespecialist, and then we have a
whole vetted collective of PRexperts across all those
industries, because this iswhere PR gets a bit nuanced.
Every person who's working PRhas a domain vertical that they
specialize in.
And if you want to tap into theaudiences that are in a specific
industry, those are thespecialists you need to go
(14:52):
after.
So if you're in the beautyspace, if you're in the FinTech
space, you want to establishmedia relations with people who
are experienced in thosedomains.
So they have finessed.
media relations.
They know exactly the kind ofcontent that journalists like
reading and, writing about.
So that is exactly where we comein is to make sure that value
alignment is there.
And the last part that I love tohighlight is why does this
(15:14):
specific audience mean so muchto me is because, as a founder
myself, as an immigrant, as awoman of color, like I honestly
feel that there's so many voicesout there in the startup
landscape that don't get thevisibility that they deserve.
Just bringing out more storiesfrom minority founders, from
founders who are doing trulygroundbreaking work, but just
because they don't have thebudget to pay a big agency,
(15:35):
should their voice not be heard.
So this is where we want to makesure that it's more accessible.
So as opposed to signing 20, 000monthly contracts, we would come
in at 1, 500 or 3, 000 kind ofworking with what, what makes
sense for you.
Shikher Bhandary (15:49):
Is it.
A marketplace where you'relinking folks who are already
experienced with thoseverticals.
So like you said, FinTech,fashion and so on with the
companies.
That's how
Sneha Saigal (16:02):
Exactly.
That's the straight up,distilled version of it.
It is, Specialists acrossindustries and across expertise
as well, because you have, PRspecialists who have been with
an agency for very long, but nowwant to start out on their own
independent practice.
So they'll come with someexperience, but not maybe doing
this throughout on their own.
And then you'll have theseasoned PR specialists who have
(16:24):
been in this industry as anindependent consultant for
decades.
So they'll come with that muchmore seniority.
So it's just giving, thestartups, the option to choose,
Where they'd like to start with.
Jed Tabernero (16:34):
What exactly is fractional PR as it looks like
on your platform?
And what's the alternative, whatdo people tend to do?
Sneha Saigal (16:41):
Yes, that's a great question.
And I love explaining fractionalas just taking the word
fraction.
So a specialist will be workingon multiple projects and a
fraction of their time goestowards one particular company.
And this is different from,let's say a contractor.
So a contractor is somebody whocomes on board for your company
and they're there with you forthis particular duration.
(17:03):
They have these deliverables,these outcomes at the end of
that.
This is more focused on the timespent, the input, and the
process, more than giving adeliverable at the end of it.
So it's a continued engagement,and think of it like, basically
somebody plugging into yourteam, working with other people.
The marketing team working withthe founder to basically get in
(17:24):
your streamline your processand, getting your pitch ready,
getting your press releaseready, depending on where you
are in that journey right now.
So that fractional component isbasically they could be working
on three other companies at thesame time.
Jed Tabernero (17:39):
And is that with companies with an existing PR
department, or is it typicallylike a company that has been
doing PR by themselves and it'sHey, listen, I need a specialist
for this specific piece becausewe don't have that experience.
Both
Sneha Saigal (17:50):
Actually it's a combination and it's interesting
to see with what's happening inthe industry right now, because
a lot of companies that are atthat growth stage and they have
budgets to get a PR specialiston board, they would be probably
doing this for the first time.
So maybe they've done someamount of PR on their own and
now they're ready to amp it upfor whatever goals they have in
mind.
The other thing that we'renoticing is.
(18:11):
A lot of growth stage companiesactually that went with big
agencies are now wanting to cutbudgets slightly.
And so for them, they're like,Hey, I don't need eight or 10
people from this PR company outof which just one or two people
are engaged and actually doingthe work I'd rather cut that and
go with, a fractional PR personwho can just take the workload
(18:32):
and be more hands on.
So it's a little bit of both,which is very interesting for me
to see as well right now.
Jed Tabernero (18:38):
That's super cool that they're coming from both
ends of the spectrum where youhave companies who don't have a
ton of experience with PR comingto you, but you also have
companies who have experiencedbig PR firms and who want to
make it more lean, right?
So that's a really interestingpiece of it.
Sneha Saigal (18:56):
I'd love to share actually a case study about this
more of an agency.
So they're an advertisingagency.
And this is interesting as well,because you would think that
advertising agencies have thewherewithal and all the tools to
do PR for themselves.
But often they end up doing alot of that work for clients,
but forget to toot their ownhorn.
So we've had, client who's comein and said, I have these
(19:16):
amazing.
Case studies and testimonialsfrom my clients, but I'm not
sure how to establish myself asa thought leader So what we did
for them was basically make surethat we tell their stories the
right way We bring them out asan expert in the advertising
space and one you know win thatI love to share is in the super
bowl We were you know, there wasso much buzz about how super
bowl commercials are so Big andthe whole advertising industry
(19:38):
focuses on that.
So we were able to get in, abite and a recommendation from
this business owner, this agencybusiness owner, who was talking
about how Super Bowl commercialshave evolved so much in the last
decade or so.
So it was basically taking hisexperience, his expertise with
the All of this stuff he's donewith his clients and then
bringing him out as a top leaderat that particular time.
(19:59):
So it wasn't, they had all thetools in place, but they just
didn't know how do I get thisout there to make it a
meaningful case study or, givehim that recognition.
So now we're putting him up forawards.
We're putting him in, like adweek.
We're putting him in those.
Places where basically again,he's not saying I want to be,
unfortunate or business insider.
We're going after very focusedad age those kinds of outlets
(20:21):
where people are focusing onfinding those smaller agencies
that can do meaningful work forthem.
Jed Tabernero (20:28):
That's interesting.
So I was telling you before wegot on the call that we read
some of your blogs on medium,really awesome content, by the
way, for us in this community,one of the blogs was about
acquiring.
Your first 100 early adopters,how is that experience of
gathering the first 100 earlyadopters?
Sneha Saigal (20:48):
It is very humbling to say the least, you
go out there thinking I, why isanyone going to say no to me?
This has got to make sense.
And a lot of humblingexperiences there because you
realize that just becauseSomething makes sense to you.
It does not mean that it's apriority for somebody else, or
that it makes sense for themright now or they have the
budget or they understand, whatyou're actually solving for.
(21:09):
I definitely say that there wasa lot to learn in terms of
following the noise and actuallyhanging out where your customers
are.
The piece that you're actuallytalking about was, So relevant
because a lot of timesmisunderstand where your actual
audiences and your decisionmakers could be somebody, but
your users are somebody else.
So in our case for in PR, ofcourse it could be the founder
(21:31):
that actually takes the finalcall, whether they want to spend
or this or not, but who's goingto actually be using our
services, it would be the headof marketing, it would be
somebody who's in the commsrole.
So you have to understand who'syour audience and where can you
actually find them.
So for me, it involved hangingout in a lot of Facebook groups,
hanging out in a lot of Slackgroups where a lot of these
(21:51):
founders are, being a part ofsome of these networks founder
communities having conversationsand just listening to them and
seeing what are they strugglingwith.
Because for some founders, itwas, Oh, I don't know how to
write a press release.
I don't know how to use some ofthese social, monitoring tools.
And that's where I picked up thenoise.
And I said, maybe a lot offounders actually don't even
know where to start.
(22:12):
So that's where I started usingmedium to talk more about.
How do you start PR in a DIYstyle?
And then when you're ready,maybe you can amp it up a bit.
So to your point it was a lotabout following the noise and,
just keeping your eyes and earsopen to where you think your
audience hangs out.
Shikher Bhandary (22:31):
Gotcha.
And.
I'm assuming this is what you'retrying to build while connecting
the experts with the companies,founders and startups, how are
you baking in the requirements,the criteria for, You to have
certain individuals on theplatform.
Are you yourself going throughtheir, previous history and
(22:54):
being like, okay, this would be,this person would be a great fit
for our, fashion vertical or soon.
Like how does that process looklike for you?
Sneha Saigal (23:03):
Yeah, that is a very interesting way that we are
going it out as completely byword of mouth by referrals
through the network itself.
So we have.
Like I mentioned better PRspecialists who have worked in
those industries.
And then from there we've pickeda handful who are more like,
give analysts ratings to a stockthat way they give like ratings
to, who are the PR specialists?
So making it in a very veryquality driven approach.
(23:24):
And the reason I say that isbecause we've had to turn down a
lot of PR specialists who haveapproached us saying, we would
love to be on the platform.
But at this stage, what mattersmore to me is making sure the
quality is maintained becauseThese processes are way more
long term.
The relationships that I willestablish with the clients today
are going to continue evolvingas we go down, because maybe
(23:45):
today they're using our platformfor three months and then they
pause.
And that's where thesubscription model comes in.
And then maybe in a year's timewhen they have done a fund,
fundraise, they're ready to comeback and amp it up a bit more.
In PR, the quality has to beextremely important.
And Especially because valuealignment is a big reason that
fractional teams fall apartbecause you're not, as
(24:07):
Integrated into the teams you'renot going every day, face to
face meeting your team sittingin the same office So those kind
of gaps can easily come throughif your values are not aligned
So the way we are maintainingthat is doing Multiple
onboarding calls to make surethat the team is integrated.
The client is satisfied,comfortable with the specialist
and also the goals are alignedbecause, like you pointed out,
(24:30):
it's what a success look like.
Do they know what they want outof this engagement?
Do they understand what a PR, aPR person is not a magician.
He's not going to be able to,just get you on those front page
outlets.
So just being very.
Honest with them and clear aboutthose goals.
Shikher Bhandary (24:48):
Yeah.
And there's so much nuance inthis industry that you can't
just take one model or templateand just apply it for every
vertical or every industryshipping company is not going to
care what a SAS company needsfrom a outreach and PR point of
view.
Yeah.
Sneha Saigal (25:07):
I was waiting to get to the part where AI is
going to take over, everythingand even pitching and media.
And that is a great example ofthat.
So if you, of course there arethings that AI is capable of
doing, even in the PR landscape.
So I would say.
Getting those social monitoringtools is an AI capability that
you can utilize.
There's also finding thosetargeted media outlets, those
(25:29):
journalists who would be a goodfit for you just in
understanding what people aresaying about your company in
the, social media landscape.
But where AI can't come is thatcontext that you gave, that
shipping versus B2B SaaS is verydifferent.
AI is not going to be able tounderstand context or, Sarcasm
or emotions things like that isnot something that I would be
(25:50):
able to take.
I think that's another thingthat people often mistake is,
oh, I can just get somebody towrite that pitch.
I can get chat to be able towrite this pitch tailored to my
audience and my darn list.
There are so many things thatwill be missed out over there
because at the day, it isrelationship building more than
anything else.
Jed Tabernero (26:06):
Yet.
That's a key word.
No, this topic has come up a lotwhen I was reading through a lot
of your material, and one of thethings that you point out is
hate.
Don't use chat TPT to write allyour shit basically.
That's, it's such a simple thingto say because it's so easy
these days and it's not likeit's really dumb what comes out
of it.
It's acceptable to some degree.
(26:28):
So people think all of a sudden,Oh my, like I can get away from
doing all this stuff by usingchat TPT.
I think one of the themes that Iread through your work is to
say, look, the human element ofthis is so important.
At the end of the day, it'sabout these relationships and
it's a theme of as well of thiscall you talking about how do
(26:48):
you get out there, as a founder?
It's a lot of networking.
It's a lot of me coming to theplaces where we met, for example
looking at things that we mightboth care about and connecting
about something else.
That's something.
That's not yet possible in therealm of AI, but it's just so
interesting to see that to beable to, let's say do a press
release or a product launch orstuff like that.
(27:10):
A lot of what you need as wellis crafting the story, right?
And I think the biggestmisdirection people are getting
these days is exactly this topicof there's so many tools out
there.
There's a lot of LLMs out there.
Why don't you use that to gogenerate this?
And yet.
It's not as effective as we'dlike it to be.
Again, I caveat with, yes, Idon't know where this stuff is
(27:34):
going in the future, but it'sreally interesting that you
mentioned those two aspectsbecause that human key element
of things that you talk about alot, I think it's so important
for me as well, right?
Like I can only give you a nicerecommendation if I've met you,
if I've, done all these thingsto connect with you and all of
that stuff.
So I think it's super important.
Sneha Saigal (27:53):
I love that.
And I think the key part thereis just the relationship
building aspect of it.
Like a lot of people tend toforget that journalists are
humans and they get bombardedwith so many pitches.
They have so many differentstories they need to cover.
They all have deadlines.
So what can you do to be aresource for them and actually
help them as opposed to makingit about you?
(28:13):
So here's what a lot of that,interdependence of give first,
don't make it about atransaction, make it a
relationship.
And I'll give it Example aboutjust, the stuff that's going on
in the media as well.
So for a lot of journalists thechanges in the layoffs that
happened in those different newsoutlets as well.
That is something that's sodeeply personal that if you sent
out pitches to them without eventaking into account that jobs
(28:35):
are at stake You're never goingto hear back from that
journalist.
So sorry, those are just smallthings that you don't tend to
pay attention to.
And like you said, just beingauthentic and actually bringing
out your vulnerabilities andshowing that you care as a
person is such a big aspect ofit that AI will not be able to
replicate or take over.
Like you said, there's a lotbehind the scenes that goes on.
(28:56):
So yes, you can use.
I'm not saying you can't use it.
We use Tragic ity and in manydifferent ways to think out of
the box, to get some ideas.
But how can you make it usefuland more relevant to yourself?
And I'll give an example sinceyou've mentioned, the content
that I write a lot.
I definitely use chat to be ableto turn that content into other
pieces of content.
(29:17):
So it's repurposing in one ofthe best ways because it's my
voice.
It's my authentic piece ofcontent, but I can now use that
across channels.
So I won't say that there, thereis no smart way to use it.
It's just, you have to bethoughtful at the end of the
day.
And you don't want to soundcreepy.
That, if that message comesacross as something out of this
world, like otherworldly, likeit's just going to throw
somebody off.
Shikher Bhandary (29:38):
it's like a perfect sentence.
And I'm like, this is tooperfect.
I know this is not the wayyou're thinking.
And in the future, there's a lotmore authenticity to it.
The next wave is just addingyour voice.
So the AI is personalized toyou.
So I know that's a big themethat we might see.
But still, even in spite of allthat, you really need to be
(29:59):
doing this in a more nuancedway, in a more personal way.
So Sneha, it was great havingyou on.
I think one thing that we liketo do towards the end of our
calls and conversations are givethe founder, the expert, the
stage, set the stage for you togive a shout out to your team,
what your next product releaseor, funding round or so on.
Sneha Saigal (30:22):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, firstly, forhaving me.
And I.
Definitely would love to connectwith anyone in the audience.
Who's looking at starting outtheir journey, whether you want
to start out as a PR expertyourself, or you are looking at
some PR support to talk aboutyour brand story.
And we work with so manydifferent clients from
solopreneurs to establishedfounders who have raised their
series, ABC, that we can.
(30:44):
Custom build that, what you'relooking for.
And I love that you mentionedventure funds because that's
another one of our audiences ispartnering with them as an
extension to their portfolio ofcompanies, because again, you
have venture funds wereinvesting in sector agnostic
companies.
When they set out to do PR, theycan't go get 10 different PR
agencies to do PR for each oftheir founders.
(31:04):
So we plug in an expert who cando that early stage PR support
for them.
More than happy to chat andoffer any resources or support
in terms of doing PR on your ownearly on as well.
Jed Tabernero (31:16):
Awesome.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming on the show.
I know we didn't have the chanceto cover everything we wanted
to.
And I think that means we needto chat again at some point.
Yeah.
And that wraps it up with Acycle.
Thanks for tuning into today'sinsightful conversation with CEO
and founder of kicks andexperts.
(31:39):
Remember.
The right PR strategy cantransform challenges into
opportunities for growth.
And connection.
Join us next time on things havechanged podcast for more
discussions that shape ourunderstanding of the ever
evolving digital economy.
(31:59):
As always.
On things have changed podcast.
Stay curious.
The information and opinions expressed in this
episode are for informationalpurposes only.
And are not intended asfinancial investment or
professional advice.
Always consult with a qualifiedprofessional before making any
decisions based on the conceptprovided.
(32:20):
Neither the podcast, nor iscreators are responsible for any
actions taken as a result oflistening to this episode.
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