Barrett Y. Bogue is President and Founder of Evocati Public Relations.
Prior to founding the firm, he served as Vice President at Student Veterans of America (SVA) and Acting Assistant Director for GI Bill Oversight and Outreach with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Barrett holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science and Master of Science in higher education administration and policy from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
He served six years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II where he earned a Combat Action Ribbon and Meritorious Mast for effectively leading his team under enemy fire. He was the Lima Company Marine of the Year in 2003.
For over a decade, and with increasing organizational responsibility in the federal and nonprofit sectors, he’s dedicated his career towards improving the outcomes of non-traditional students in higher education, building nationally recognized programs and brands, and improving federal and state policies.
He successfully executed public campaigns promoting the largest expansion of education benefits for veterans since World War II. He helped implement and advertise the Post-9/11 GI Bill, now the most widely used VA education benefit, during his tenure.
He directed more than 15 national public relations and marketing campaigns with cross-functional and multi-agency teams including VA’s Post-9/11 GI Bill national integrated marketing campaign from 2009 – 2011, which increased program participation from 300,000 to over 2,000,000 people in five years.
Other notable high-profile campaigns include a nationwide 70th anniversary celebration of the GI Bill in 2014, and SVA’s annual national conference in 2017 and 2018. He created one of the first Facebook pages in VA history, the first NASCAR race and car sponsorship, first email marketing campaign, and first Google advertising campaign for VA. For his work he was awarded the Advancements in the Customer Experience Award for the Social Experience by Oracle.
In 2016, he joined SVA as the Vice President for Public Relations and Chapter Engagement. In 2017, he co-authored the National Veteran Education Success Tracker, a peer-reviewed report on the academic outcomes of nearly 900,000 student veterans using the GI Bill, which transformed the country’s prevailing narrative around veterans in higher education.
During his tenure he established over 160 new chapters including at schools that never had one like George Mason University, hosted over 150 chapter consultation sessions, graduated nearly 200 chapter leaders through a completely revamped and improved Leadership Institute, hosted a season of Chapter Leader Academy training for over 500 chapters, and executed the most profitable and attended NatCon in a decade. A tireless advocate, he led the grassroots campaign at SVA to pass the Forever GI Bill. A truly bipartisan achievement that made the GI Bill a lifetime education benefit; something never achieved in its nearly 75-year history.
In 2019, he was selected for the George W. Bush Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program, which supports leaders from a wide range of sectors who are working to improve outcomes for veterans and military families through professional and/or community engagement.
In 2020, he co-authored Called to Lead, a qualitative research project at CNAS that examined the connections between military service and higher education leadership roles based on interviews with veterans who work in the industry. He was also selected to participate in Bunker Labs + WeWork Veterans in Residence Program, a six-month startup incubator and leadership program that provides veteran and military family member entrepreneurs the community, business support, and workspace to help launch and grow their businesses.
In 2021, he completed Stanford University’s Ignite, Post-9/11 Veterans Program, an intensive, four-week program for entrepreneurs that’s academically rigorous, hands-on, and collaborative where participants engage directly with the same renowned faculty who teach in the Stanford MBA program.
In 2024, his firm was nominated by Ragan Communications and PR Daily for Nonprofit PR Campaign of the Year for its work titled, “Launching MilitaryConnected.org in a Sea of Goodwill.”
A thought-leader, entrepreneur, and expert in policy formulation, he’s published original research and pieces on state policy, higher education legislation, higher education leadership, public relations best practices, and veteran employment. Barrett has been widely quoted in media including The Tennessean, Military Times, Stars & Stripes, TIME, The Atlantic, Task & Purpose, and The Hill.
Barrett lives with his wife and daughters in Virginia.
Connect with Barrett on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.
Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Evocati Public Relations , Mr. Barrett Bogue. How are you, man?
Barrett Bogue: I’m doing good. Stand on this nice, cold but sunny day. How are you?
Stone Payton: I am doing well and have been so looking forward to this conversation. Barrett I got a ton of questions and I know we’re probably not going to get to them all, but I think a great place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners mission. Purpose. What is it you and your team are really out there trying to do for folks, man.
Barrett Bogue: Um, we’ll talk a little bit about my journey to founding our company, but I’m the president and founder of Evocati Public Relations, and we are identified as a micro PR firm. So we have less than ten employees, but we serve a very important niche in representing nonprofit clients, government contractors or companies that operate government contracts as well as clients in the agriculture sector. We really believe that in in America, there are lots of good groups that are working with and representing underserved communities in our country, and we think that every underserved community has a story to tell. And it’s it’s our mission to empower clients with a cost efficient means of communicating, activating, and inspiring underserved communities. So we represent them to the public. And I’m happy to go in more detail about that and also talk about how I found myself in this role.
Stone Payton: Oh, absolutely. Man, I got to know the backstory. How in the world did you find yourself doing this kind of work?
Barrett Bogue: Oh, man. Listen, I think for for your audience, best way I can describe myself as I’m a, I’m a military veteran and entrepreneur. That’s kind of that’s how I really identify today. But it was a long journey to get here. When I was in college at the University of Tennessee, I was in the Marine Corps Reserve, and I liked to joke in between my bachelor’s or master’s degree, I took a gap year and spent it in Iraq. So I served in Iraq. I came back home and I found a community at the University of Tennessee that was fully supportive of of me as a veteran, but vastly unprepared to meet my needs of a transitioning service member. And that’s where my passion for serving the military connected community came from. And so I took that. And after I graduated, I spent ten years in various executive roles at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, helping build out the GI Bill, and while I was there, I was responsible for a lot of branding and the outreach and the social media marketing for the program to help enroll veterans and service members into the program who want to earn a degree and really better their lives. And that’s where my passion for the intersection of where you have a need, um, and that that can be met with a certain action through a really powerful storytelling and any type of media, you know, TV, radio, social media, etc.. I enjoyed that challenge, spent ten years there and helping build out that program and found a lot of success.
Barrett Bogue: But as I advanced in the organization, I found myself kind of moving further and further away from the thing that I care about, which is veterans and suited veterans in particular. So I took a $40,000 pay cut to go work in the nonprofit sector at Student Veterans of America, where I held an executive role there as as vice president responsible for their PR and their programs and marketing. It reached a lot of great work over two years, and that I’m really, really proud of. But in the back of my mind, I thought, you know, it’s really interesting. I wonder if I could build a company around helping other businesses market to and reach military veterans, spouses, you know, service members, transitioning service members, etc.. So this is my midlife crisis stone. I turned in my two week notice to my boss at SBA. I said, I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t have a business background. I don’t have a business plan. I don’t even have an email. But I have this idea of building out a company and a PR firm that’s very values driven that that serves clients that want to do good for underserved communities in America. And that was the journey towards founding ubiquity PR in 2018. I’ve learned a lot along the way, but every day that we’re still in business is a day that I consider a very strong blessing.
Stone Payton: So what are you finding the most rewarding about the the work these days? What’s the most fun about it for you?
Barrett Bogue: That’s a good question. Um, I think anybody who’s an entrepreneur can probably identify with with what I’m going to say next. But every day is a different challenge. And when you’re an entrepreneur, especially when you’re trying to bootstrap your company, which is what we did, every penny that we’ve made goes back into the firm. We haven’t taken any investors. We don’t have any venture capital. We’ve not taken out a business loan. We’ve done the traditional bootstrap method. So we wear a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats. Our CEO is the CEO, you know, publicly, but he also wears a lot of hats inside the company. But what I love about it is each day is different, and you have to be a professional problem solver when you’re an entrepreneur, especially in small business, you can put whatever title next to your name on your website, etc. but what you really are is your professional problem solver. So I’ve got something new and different to to try and tackle every day. It could be coming up with a proposal for a prospective client. It could be coming up with a, you know, trying to help a client get placed in media. It could be mentoring our employees, it could be finances, accounting, you know, you name it, I’m working on it. And that has provided such a variety and diversity of challenges that every day I wake up, I just feel so grateful that I get to do this kind of work. And that we’re at a point with our company is that we can make a positive impact on the people that our clients serve and the lives that they’re that they’re changing.
Stone Payton: So let’s dive into the work a little bit. Maybe you could walk us through a use case and you don’t have to name any names, but I’m particularly interested in the early stages of an engagement cycle. But maybe create a little bit of a map for us of the work, if you would.
Barrett Bogue: Yeah, it’s the PR industry is changing. I think a lot of people might say it’s akin to to propaganda. I think that’s a bit of a negative outlook on it, but I don’t necessarily disagree with it. So I’ll tell you what, what our approach is and how we interact with, with clients and what that onboarding process is like. So we’ve had clients describe us, describe the PR as a problem solving company disguised as a PR firm, which is a great way to describe what we do. So in traditional PR, you’re going to to have a client and you’re responsible for placing them in the media. We do that. Yes, but what we do so much more. So when prospective clients come to us, they have 1 or 2 Two primary problems. Number one, they’re a nonprofit, and they have a senior leader who’s doing PR, marketing, development, fundraising. They wear too many hats, and they need a professional staff to come in and help promote their programs, advise them on what’s the best, what’s the best way to get media coverage, etc. other companies come to us and say, hey, we’ve we’ve tried to capture media attention and we’ve just not been successful.
Barrett Bogue: Or they’ll say, hey, we have a brand and we want to go through a complete brand redesign and we need help with that. Um, sometimes we have prospective clients come to us because they’ve had they’ve had negative news stories out there, and they want to try and counteract that because they’re either not true. Um, or they know that they have a lot more to offer to the community that they that they need a company to help promote. So there is a lot of, um, background discussion, discovery calls of trying to determine, you know, where your needs are and what that looks like. We we invest a lot of time before we onboard a client with the company in trying to determine what are the most urgent needs, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, what are the opportunities out there in the marketplace for branding, for placement, for pitching, for getting their story told? And then, okay, how tactically speaking, how are we going to do this over the next 12 months. So it’s a very detailed deep dive. And truthfully, Stone, we’re very selective and who we work with and who we choose not to work with as well.
Stone Payton: Now, do you find, especially early in the relationship, early in the work, that sometimes new clients come in with misinformation or incomplete information or some ill conceived sort of preconceived notions that are really off the mark and you really need to do some educating before you can effectively consult and execute?
Barrett Bogue: So we’re a big believer in radical honesty, radical transparency. And you know, we set those expectations early in the discovery call so that once they become a client, there’s no surprise if we have SOPs that they have to follow. We have, you know, biweekly check ins with them. We’re very type a detail oriented company, and that’s probably due to my time in the Marine Corps. Um, so very often, more often than not, where there is a misalignment is they might ask us to, you know, they might say, hey, can you help us with this, you know, fundraising effort, can you help us raise money? And we’re not fundraisers. We’re not professional. We’re not we don’t, you know, delve into the world of professional development. But there’s a lot of stuff tangentially to that that we absolutely want to help you with. Like, okay, what’s the most appealing message or what’s your what’s your programmatic impact that would be the most appealing to funders. Okay, let’s take that. Let’s package it into something and let’s turn it into some type of pitch deck or marketing or PR campaign that would appeal to to fundraisers. But more often than not, we’ve done so much homework with prospective client before we onboard them that there’s very rarely a mismatch in in expectations.
Stone Payton: Early on in a conversation, you started to touch on serving what I think you characterized as underserved constituencies or communities. Can you say more about that? Everything from what compelled you to be of service to that group? And, I don’t know, maybe some distinctive differences in, in trying to to help folks like that.
Barrett Bogue: Any underserved or underrepresented community essentially means that they’re not represented in they’re not well represented in the general marketplace. You don’t hear their stories very often. Um, they, they lack, uh, programmatic and financial support, whether through, you know, state or the federal sector. Um, or you could even consider what would be a protected class of people in the hiring process. That’s the underserved communities that we reach out to. And that was really born out of my work within the military connected community. Now, veterans in America are a protected class, and there are so many storytelling opportunities. Great stories about the impact military veterans are making inside our community that just that need to be told. So so the public and so America knows about this. And we started when we started the firm, we were only representing businesses that that support the military connected community. And what we discovered was that a lot of the work and a lot of our experience is, is a 1 to 1 transfer and representing other underserved or underrepresented communities in America. So we’ve done work with, um, Fayettle State University, which is a historically black college and university in North Carolina. We have a big exposure in the the American potato industry that $100 billion potato industry and and representing agriculture. And there’s a couple other things that we’re that we’re working on right now that I can’t that I can’t reveal. But what we’re seeing is that the work that we’ve done at elevating stories in the military connect to communities. There are other communities in America that want the same thing.
Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a for a practice like yours? I got to believe if someone has this kind of conversation with you, they’re pretty compelled to to work with you. But how do you get that that initial relationship off the ground? Do you have to get out there and shake the trees like the rest of us. Or are they coming over the trees?
Barrett Bogue: This is great stuff. You’re talking to the sales and marketing team, right? Right now. So I could I could answer that question for you. So, um, we started I started this company in my study as, as one person. And I said, I, I don’t want to grow fast. I don’t want to grow slow. I want to just be very diligent and disciplined in how we grow the firm. And so we’ve been able to do that over 5 or 6 years now where, you know, I’ve got a partner, a great partner in Mark, uh, who’s CEO. We’ve got a great team that we’re slowly building out, and we’re very strategic in ensuring that we can manage the workload and the number of hours that our clients demand of us. Um, so for sales and, and, and marketing, most of our business comes through referrals. We don’t spend anything on on advertising. Uh, we have, uh, a, a Twitter or X corporate account, and we have a LinkedIn page and we put branded content out there. The one tactic that we’ve done, which I’m really proud of our team for doing, is we’ve invested heavily in placing our business and our brand as subject matter experts in PR, marketing and leadership.
Barrett Bogue: And so we have a branded, uh, blog on our website where we publish original content. And we’ve been doing that for about 24 months now. And what we’re seeing is a lot of people are reading our content, which is helping our ranking and search results. And we’ve had, um, 1 or 2 prospective clients, uh, come to us because they found us and they read about us and they read what we’ve produced and they like it. And and so that’s, you know, that that SEO play has been really, really helpful. Um, so again, it’s a very disciplined approach. It’s a very lean approach, but it’s playing to what our strengths are, which is, you know, I go back to saying the problem solving company disguised as a PR firm. So on our website you can find, you know, articles about all kinds of problems that, that entrepreneurs and, and nonprofits and companies may have in marketing and PR. We we write about it extensively.
Stone Payton: And you are clearly, um, eating your own cooking, as my dad would say, right?
Barrett Bogue: Yes, absolutely. That’s a great way to put it.
Stone Payton: You’re a living model of some of what you’re bringing to your clients. So some years ago, it sounds like it was 5 or 6 years ago when you jumped off this cliff into an arena you really didn’t know, and you didn’t have the formal credentials and education for? Did you did you have the benefit of of one or more mentors somewhere along the way to help you navigate that, that new terrain?
Barrett Bogue: Yes. Uh, to, to to some degree, um, I think if your audience takes one thing away from this conversation, especially if you’re listening and you’re, you know, you you’re a solopreneur or you’re thinking about starting a small business. Um, and this is especially applicable to, to veterans. But the one thing that helped me that I don’t believe is talked about enough is peer power. So when I started the firm, I said, okay, I’m going to give myself a year. I’m going to invest in myself. I’m going to enroll in programs that leadership development or entrepreneurial development programs that help me become a better owner operator. And I’m going to get connected to peer groups that I can talk to and be involved with and troubleshoot or workshop problems that I have. And it was one of the best things I did. Mentorship is absolutely critical. A 1 to 1 mentorship is very important, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about getting connected into a group of like minded entrepreneurs. And so I did that. I got involved in a veteran serving nonprofit called Bunker Labs, which is an accelerator program for veteran and military spouse business owners. I also got involved in the George W Bush Institute Stand to Veteran Leadership Program, which is an annual program for leaders in the military connected space. And then I also participated in Stanford University’s Ignite program for veterans, which is an entrepreneur program as well. Those three things really were.
Barrett Bogue: Some of the best business decisions that I’ve made, because it was investing in myself as an owner and as a leader. So the mentorship, like you said, absolutely critical. I’m not taking anything away from that. But there is no reason for you to be alone and to feel alone. Go find a peer group that you can get involved in that’s going to support you and help you and invest in you along the way.
Stone Payton: So I don’t know when or how you would find the time based on what you’re sharing with me. But hobbies, pursuits, interests outside of the scope of the work and what we’ve been talking about, a lot of my listeners know that I like to hunt, fish, and travel, and anything you nerd out about that’s not this man.
Barrett Bogue: I wish I had a cooler answer or as cool of an answer as you do. Um, this is like, this is my passion, right? This doesn’t feel like work to me, and I love that fact. Um, and it’s very hard for me to kind of turn off my brain at the end of the day. Um, because I’m always, like I said, I’m a professional problem solver. I’m always thinking about the next problem to solve. But I absolutely love to read. I make time to read, um, science fiction, nonfiction, biographies, you name it. I’m just always reading. I love to write, and that’s pretty evident. And some of the work that I’ve published, um, on our website and with, with other companies, um, but most importantly, I’m a husband and a dad and, you know, being an entrepreneur, being being a business owner gives me maximum flexibility in spending time with my family. So if I’m not working on the business and if I’m not reading, you can probably find me playing with our girls, you know.
Barrett Bogue: Picking them up from school. They’re eight and three right now. Taking them to karate, to chess, you know, to all kinds of holiday events. Et cetera. That’s more likely than not where you’re going to find me, and I. I absolutely love it.
Stone Payton: Before we wrap, I would love to leave our listeners with a handful of, well, I call them pro tips. Just, uh, and maybe it’s around this idea of bootstrapping, which you clearly have cracked the code on that or leveraging peer power or some good reads. But let’s leave them with a couple of, uh, good solid tips. Something to be chewing on. And listen, gang. The number one pro tip I have for you is reach out and have a conversation with Barrett or somebody on his on his team. But between now and then, Barrett, let’s leave them with a little something to to noodle on.
Barrett Bogue: Yeah, absolutely.
Barrett Bogue: I think one of the biggest things is, um, a mindset shift. When you become an entrepreneur, I want you to have a growth mindset, meaning every problem is not a problem. Uh, reframe it as a challenge and enter that with a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. Meaning I can’t change this. Um, nothing’s going to happen. Look at every problem as a challenge and an opportunity and a growth mindset to not to not only invest in yourself, but also to invest in your company. And I’ve been doing that since, um, I founded the firm in 2018 and have learned so much through that process. So, uh, growth mindset for the if you’re a service member in the military, if you’re a military veteran, if you’re a military veteran spouse, I want to speak directly to you. If you have an idea for a business, pursue it, absolutely pursue it. If you’re stuck in startup or if you’re just stuck in general. Reach out to me and let’s have that conversation on how to get out of that rut. But I’m more than happy to meet with anybody who wants to talk about bootstrapping.
Stone Payton: Barrett. What’s the best way to tap into your work? Stay connected, learn more, maybe even have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team?
Barrett Bogue: Absolutely. So my calendar is wide open. It’s it’s published publicly. Go to our company website, evocati LLC. Com. That’s e v o c a t i llc.com and click on Contact Us and that’ll reach me directly. So that’s the best way to um to to get on my calendar. If you’re listening and you’re on your phone, you can pull up LinkedIn. Just search for Barrett Bogue. I there are I doubt there are any other Barrett folks out there. You can find me on LinkedIn and we can connect that way as well. And I’m also on Twitter. And go ahead and give me a follow there. Okay.
Stone Payton: Barrett. It has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast. Thank you for your insight, your perspective. Congratulations on the momentum. Keep up the good work, man. You are genuinely impacting so many so profoundly and we sure appreciate you, man.
Barrett Bogue: You bet. Stone I really appreciate the opportunity. And everything you said is 100% credit to the great team of experts that we have here at Evocati PR, so I really appreciate it. Thanks, Tom.
Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Barrett Borg with Evocati and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.
