Zachary Bernard with We Feature You PR

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 afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with We Feature You PR, Mr. Zachary Bernard. How are you man?

Zachary Bernard: I’m doing fantastic. So and thank you for having me on.

Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the show, Zach. I got a ton of questions. I know we probably won’t get to them all, but I think a great place to start would be if you could paint a bit of a picture for for me and our listeners. Mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Zachary Bernard: Man Yeah. No, of course I would say that like, the main thing that we do, like when we work with clients, is like our main goal is to basically take someone from like perhaps just getting into like the industry or they might not have like any branding marketing presence and somewhat like build them as like a thought leader. And the reason we want to do that is we essentially want to create someone like a, like a differentiator. So like when potential like client customers look at you, they see you and directly it’s like, wow, like, I want to work with this company. These guys are crushing it. They’ve been featured in all these major media publications. They’ve been on TV. And automatically it just makes your job much more easier. It’s like if you were to look at like two people, one just got out of college, just started his company, and then you look at the other one that’s been featured in Forbes, he’s getting on CNBC, Bloomberg, etc. you’re probably going to work with want to work with that person instead of the other person that just started. So yeah, our main goal is really just to help these like perhaps entrepreneurs about founders CEOs really differentiate themselves and yeah, just build themselves as a thought leaders in their space. Well, it.

Stone Payton: Sounds like fun and noble work that clearly is having an impact. What is the backstory, man? How did you find yourself in this line of work doing this kind of thing for, for for these folks?

Zachary Bernard: Wow. That’s where do I start? That’s a really good question. So I would say that starting off like a bit, going into like the backstory, like I probably started more like the entrepreneurship story, like journey when I was probably close, like 14, 15, like reselling stuff on like eBay’s like pools, anything that I could find my hands on and then quickly realized that there was like a lot of people out there that could benefit from services. So instead of putting your money to work, like buying and reselling services or like a product, you could instead go into a market, provide your expertise and time, and then people would pay you for like the value that you provide. So after diving into like the like the eBay stuff, reselling stuff, I somewhat stumbled onto like the like the agency like service model, like providing a service to clients, helping them in like any shape or form. And I’ve always somewhat had this passion for like building systems and like operation. So like the first thing that I’ve done, I launched like this one company where we would go in, we would create like automation. We would help you just streamline some processes. I think I had like one client that I worked with on that company. It didn’t last very long, if I’m being honest with you, Stone, we had like this one client where we set up, like a lot of systems, some automation for like their e-commerce store. So then from there they were able to like save like a lot of time. But I eventually realized that wasn’t too sustainable because I was basically doing like all the work.

Zachary Bernard: And I ended up just somewhat like diving more into like, just like branding as a whole. Like I started diving more into, like the marketing components. Thought it was like really interesting where you could push yourself more out there and then from there literally just gain like more business. And I somewhat stumbled onto like reaching out to like journalists, contributors and like publication because I wanted to be able to like, share like an article or like story around like what I was doing with like our automation company, for example. And I realized that we could literally just pitch journalists and contributors, and if they found the story interesting, they would actually like write an article on us or publish in like an article. And that somewhat got me thinking, okay, if I can do this for myself, that means I can probably do it for other people. And I’m assuming these people will probably want to pay for this service. So it’s somewhat just stumbled onto this like, okay, I can do this for other people. We started reaching out first. Like first type of clients were more in like the real estate space, like realtors. We started helping them like get like in the press gain more like credibility. And then yeah, it just built up from there where we got an even bigger publication. We looked at TV, even like podcast, which like obviously you run pretty much every day still and saw. Yeah, I would say that’s pretty much how I stumble on to that.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at this a while, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you these days?

Zachary Bernard: Uh good question. So I would say probably like one of the like the things that I love is really just being able to see clients like, get results. So like any time that you have like a client that says like, hey, like I went on this podcast, I posted this article, I got this person, I reached out to me like, we just closed the deal, just created like a partnership. I feel that it’s really rewarding in a way because you can see like directly the impact that your work has had on people just by them, like sharing it with you. So I feel that just by being able to have like someone like a measurable like impact on people that they reach out to, they thank you saying like, wow, like, this is great. I feel that’s like really rewarding. And we can do this every single day. And it just pushes me to want to do it every single day again and do it again and again.

Stone Payton: Well, and at this point, it sounds like you have repeatable processes, transferrable tools. You’ve got you have a system. You’re not flying by the seat of your pants, having to be super creative and reinvent the whole thing every time. But at this point. Right.

Zachary Bernard: Yeah. I mean, you’re correct. Like, we’ve definitely built like a really great system, but there’s always things to improve and get better at. So we learn every single day how to be more effective, how to deliver better results for our clients. But we definitely have a pretty good system in place that is working pretty well for our clients because we’re still delivering results for them. So.

Stone Payton: Well, let’s dive into the work a minute, and maybe we’ll touch on some key elements of that process. And feel free to walk through a specific use case. Or if you want to use me, you know, I’m an equity partner of a reasonably successful media company, and we do provide an opportunity for other people to share their story and promote their work. But, you know, for us to have a going concern, we have to get out there and promote, but just walk us through. I’m particularly interested in like the early stages of of an engagement with you, of working with you. Walk us through that a little bit.

Zachary Bernard: Yeah for sure. So I would say mostly depends like from like which component we take it, we want to look at like more podcasts press. There’s obviously like two different segments. If we look more at like press and like PR, the typical structure that we look at in, like anyone that hires a PR firm should do is you obviously want to have like a strategy. You want to know exactly like what type of people you want to get in front of, but you also want to know what kind of messaging you want to put out there. Because obviously when you put something out there online, it’s it’s going to stay there forever. And you want to make sure that what you put out there is actually what you want to stay out there. You don’t want to, like, change your entire messaging two months later and be like, oh, I shouldn’t have done this. So we somewhat like, strategize to make sure that what we’re going to put out there resonates with what you’re doing. It’s going to help attract the right type of client. But your main goal again like is to create clients as like thought leaders. So we try to take more of the approach that we want to have these clients speak on topics that they’re like expert on. So providing more like value based like tips, strategies, things other companies or other clients should do to be able to like take their companies to like the next level.

Zachary Bernard: And then by doing so, like we’re building the leadership profile. So like when people search you up, they see these articles pop up, they see these podcasts and automatically like, wow, okay, these guys are crushing it. They know what they’re talking about. They’ve been doing this for a while. They’ve been featured on those publications. So that’s really more like the strategy component. But there’s obviously doing like the actual work in my opinion, which is obviously reaching out to like the journalists, the contributors, etc.. So you’re right, like in the like early years, like it obviously was like a little bit difficult. We didn’t have all the relationship that we do now, so we had to reach out to a lot of people try to provide as much as value as we could. But now, like after that, you’ve done it for a while. Most PR agencies are going to be able to have like a good Rolodex of like contributor connection journalists, that they can just go back and literally just talk like a friend, like, hey, Jack, like, I got this one client we’re working with. I think he’s like, really relevant to, like, what you’re working on. Do you think he could be a good fit? So it’s really just about being able to leverage these relationships that you’ve built.

Zachary Bernard: You obviously want to be able to capitalize on those. And anyone that you built in your network, you can always reach out to them again to see if they’re looking for like new pieces of coverage, etc.. So yeah, I would say that’s somewhat like the approach there, but there’s also going to be the component that even if you get PR like you have to leverage it in your marketing, your sales, your business elements. If you do not use it in like any other way, it’s just not going to have like the same impact. And what we’ve noticed is like, if you actually use it like we’ve seen clients where they could literally, like, double their conversion rate, shorten their sales cycle just by being able to like, use that credibility that’s created like that third party validation, I’d like to call it, and putting it in front of like every marketing channel. It’s like their website, their deck, their social media, their nurturing sequence, etc. so if you have that in place, you’re definitely going to crush it. With PR, you just have to make sure that you do put those in place, and you don’t just get an article out there and then you leave it be.

Stone Payton: Well, that is an excellent point. And I think a really important one. And I will tell you from my experience, we have had guests come through, uh, the Business RadioX network do a marvelous job. And for whatever reason, and maybe we need to do a better job of coaching them up on this, not fully leverage it. You know, they had a great interview, and then we’ve had other ones that did a perfectly adequate job, but they really, really leveraged it. And it made all the difference in the world. Right? Yeah, that’s a marvelous point. So, uh, as I understand it, you left university to to to follow this entrepreneurial path. I’m curious, have you had the benefit of one or more mentors along the way to kind of help you navigate this terrain of having to run your own business?

Zachary Bernard: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So unlike the university point, I was pretty much on my own. I wouldn’t say that. Like I had like any specific mentors, like starting off. So I pretty much just had to make this decision. Okay. This is the progress that we’ve had for like the past few months. This is working like pretty well. Do I see myself continuing to do this for the future? The answer was yes. So after I think like a year and a half after I was like in this marketing program, I just decided like, hey, let’s just take the company full time, let’s hire people, let’s build this out. But afterwards, I would say that for like mentors, like, yes, like definitely. One of the things that I’ve learned, like pretty quickly, is you have to invest in yourself. If you just try to do things like as you know it and you don’t educate yourself, you don’t get perspective from people ahead of you. It’s going to take much more time to actually advance in your career path. But if you take the time to get advice from people who have already done it, who know more than you who are ahead, it’s definitely going to save you, like a lot of time. And whether it’s just people who’ve done exactly what you’ve done or it’s someone in like a capacity or somewhat like little segment that you’re like, not really great at. For example, it could be like marketing. Well, you want to get marketing help for like my sake. I would say that just like organization, stuff like that, some things we were not to like organize. We invest in this program. It’s been going pretty well and now we’re even more organized. So we’re going to be getting better client results. But yeah, I would say that’s that would probably be it. I didn’t have too many mentors in my life so far, but I would consider myself decently young and not to put any offense on. I’m assuming you’re probably a bit older than I am.

Stone Payton: I am a little longer in the tooth than you are. Zach, as we say down this way.

Speaker4: Yeah, but.

Stone Payton: So are you. Finding that your business is gravitating toward or certain niches are gravitating toward you, certain sectors, types of businesses? Or are you finding that man, you can be almost industry agnostic in your work.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Zachary Bernard: No, that’s a good question. So I would say that we can be pretty like industry agnostic, but we’ve noticed that some specific type of clients, you’re going to get the most results or like benefit out of doing like PR for example, if you’re like an entertainment company, like an actor or stuff like that. A lot of people in like LA, for example, will want to get like media attention to be transparent. Typically we will see we will see more like companies actually benefits like CEO, like founders, Executives, as they can use those directly in their sales efforts and like their marketing efforts, anything like that. But if you’re like an actor or anything, it’s more just like the, I would say, like credibility in a way of just being featured in like big publications. But if you are like a small, medium sized business owner, you’re getting all these publications and you have the means to leverage it to gain more business, then these type of people are going to get like the most benefit out of it. So I would say like business consulting, recruiting, finance, AI, those are typically like the companies we’ve seen. And I’m sure you’ve seen some like the past like few months, like AI has been absolutely crazy. Like everyone is just slapping a label on it, calling themselves like an AI company. So that’s definitely been interesting.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practice like yours, for a company like yours? Surely you have to eat some of your own cooking and do and do some of what you’re sharing with your clients, but do you find that that is enough? Or do you have to get out and kind of shake the trees a little bit as well? How do you get the new business? Man.

Zachary Bernard: That’s like a really good question. It’s like the way I like to frame like PR it’s more of like an amplifier towards like the current marketing efforts that you’re doing. If you just expect to have an article be published, have thousands of leads just knocking on your door. It’s just not going to happen. But if you use that credibility that’s built from the coverage that you gain, it just amplifies any other marketing efforts that you’ve done. So that’s obviously one practice that like we’ve been teaching clients, but we also do like ourselves, but we also do like a lot of like outbound marketing, where we’ll send like LinkedIn messages, reaching out to people that we think could benefit from being in, like the press have like an interesting story. Same thing goes for like email. But we also have like clients who are going to like refer us directly to some other people that could benefit from it. And if they’re a good fit, we have some opportunities for them, then we can obviously work with them, but I would say like, obviously when you start a company, you’re going to have to do like business development and like outbound. You cannot expect to just have people knock on your door because you apparently offer a great service. You have to put yourself in the marketplace and have people get in front of your offer. If you don’t, they’re not going to find your offer. They’re not going to work with you in the first place.

Stone Payton: So I got to believe that as prevalent as the idea of promotion and public relations is that there must be some common mistakes, some misconceptions. I maybe maybe it’s not even too strong to refer to them as myths. I know there are in my business. Or do you run into to people that have a certain set of. Yeah. Preconceived notions around what this is and what it should be that you find yourself doing some, some educating before you can effectively consult.

Zachary Bernard: Yeah for sure. So I would say that like when you look at more like press somewhat touching on to like the point I made earlier. Some people will expect that, okay, like we’re going to have like an article like publish, we’re gonna have like a hundred of people, like directly going to your website wanting to work with us directly. Like the, the thing with PR and like press again, is it’s like an amplifier. It’s like any marketing efforts that you do. So I wouldn’t see it as like a direct, like lead generation effort unless you go on to like TV, like podcasts. And the reason I’m saying this is these are more like authentic conversation where you can actually hear a person speak, but if it’s more for like PR press, I typically would say it’s going to be more for the credibility. So like the third party validation it brings of having like a journalist highlight like your company yourself, your your insights. Or there’s also the component of just like being out there in like the media and people are going to look at you, they’re going to see you as more credible. There’s also going to be as well, like the SEO benefits. So like some big media sites, for example, Forbes, if they link back to your website, it’s going to help your website rank heavier. So some people are going to look at it from like an SEO perspective, some credibility. But the ones that look at it from like a lead generation, that’s typically where we have to bring in like a little education that’s like, hey, like we expect this to get you like 50 leads, like in like the next few days, just having an article and you’re not going to leverage it anywhere. Sorry to tell you, but this is probably not going to work out.

Speaker4: Well, let’s.

Stone Payton: Talk a minute about fully leveraging. So let’s say that we get an article written about Stone, right. And it’s hitting a lot of the points that I try to make when I have a beer with someone, you know, just having a conversation. Uh, so that’s great. But just at a very tactical level. What should I do from there? I’ve got this article. What are some, some things I could do from there that to fully leverage that.

Speaker4: Yeah.

Zachary Bernard: I mean, it really depends on, like, what kind of like marketing efforts that you’re doing. But I would say the main ones that are going to apply to like any client that we speak to and it may sound like really simple, I’m sure you’ve seen this before, but having like an as seen on banner that we call it like as featured in and then you have like the logos of the publication, we’ve seen that like help clients where it would increase the conversion rate or like booking rate because people would land on like a landing page, they would land on like the client’s website and directly it’s like, wow, okay, credibility, third party validation. These guys have been in like all these major media publications. They probably know like what they’re talking about. So I would say that’s like the easiest thing that you can do is just like putting it on your website. But there’s also going to be the component of adding it on like your social media. So for example, one of the recommendations I have and I see people do is they’re going to reach out to like outbound outreach via like LinkedIn, for example, or they’re there going to be sending like messages trying to pitch people on, like their product services via like LinkedIn using like Sales Navigator or anything, but they’re going to also use the component having been featured in the press.

Zachary Bernard: And what I mean by that is they’re going to optimize their profile. So they’re going to make sure to have in like their featured section, have like all the articles they’ve been featured in on their banner, they’re going to have all of that. And then when you actually do the outreach as well, like we’ve noticed that if you just mention like an article that you’ve been featured in, like it could like 2 to 3 x, like the reply rate of people just when you’re outreaching to them. So I would say those are just like two main things. But there’s also going to be the fact that if you want to raise like capital, which I’m not sure if that’s the case for you, Stone, but if you have like a, like a pitch deck, for example, you could add like a press section within that deck. So when you have potential investors looking at the deck, they can see like the places you’ve been featured in. And it’s just somewhat showcases like, okay, this company is actually getting traction could actually be a viable option for us to invest in. So yeah, I would say that’s just like the high level that I can think of. But the main goal is really just to make sure you’re putting all your press and credibility everywhere where people can find you, just to make sure that you’re always seeing it.

Stone Payton: Well, I’m so glad I asked. I mean, to me that is a marvelous pro tip, but I might ask you for a couple more before we wrap. But but before I go there, uh, passions, interests, hobbies outside the scope of your work? I don’t know. You sound like a busy guy. You may not have the time. Most of my listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Anything you nerd out about that doesn’t have anything to do with the work.

Zachary Bernard: I haven’t had a chance to hunt yet. That’s definitely on. Like, uh, the bucket list. I would say travel is like a pretty big one. It’s like every year I try to do, like, a major trip. Just try to, like, disconnect from everything. I somewhat see as a, as a session to like, just think about everything that’s been going on over the year, what you can plan to do. But I would say as far as like hobby, I mean like to work out, I’d like to go take walks. Nothing too crazy. Um, just pretty much just focus on working and, uh, just try to deliver for clients. So. Yeah. Nothing too specific there, unfortunately.

Stone Payton: Well, but taking those breaks, even, like you described, walking, working out, I feel like. And maybe you’ve had the same experience, that when you do back off just a little bit and kind of recharge the batteries, I, I feel like it equips me to be that much more effective and productive when I clock back in. Hop in the saddle and serve my clients. I think for a lot of us entrepreneurs, that white space, I call it, I think it can be really important.

Zachary Bernard: Oh, yeah. Like, you’re definitely correct. And that’s like something I started to learn or like the past, like few months that you need to, like, recharge. Like there is this conception around, like hustling, like always working like two in the morning. Waking up at seven. Doing the same thing for like the next like 30 days. What I’ve realized is that it’s not sustainable over time. You have to take these little breaks to recharge your battery to be able to, like, come back like full charge. So these little things working out, going for walks, traveling. They’re definitely needed.

Speaker4: Well, before we.

Stone Payton: Wrap, I really would love to leave our listeners, if we could, with a couple you’ve already shared so much, but maybe a couple of more, like just actionable. Pro tip something to be thinking about. You know, maybe a do or a don’t something to be reading. And look gang, the number one pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with Zachary or somebody on his team. But between now and then, let’s give them a little something to to chew on. Zach.

Zachary Bernard: Yeah. No, I like that. So I would say that there’s again like this misconception around PR that you need to like hire like a PR firm to like leverage your connection. Is it going to make your job easier? Yes, but there is other avenues where you can get coverage yourself. Might require like a little bit of effort, but I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of the platform called hero by any chance. Well, yeah.

Speaker4: We have.

Stone Payton: Absolutely. But I doubt a lot of our listeners have.

Zachary Bernard: Yeah. And I think they rebranded like collectively that one has been like really great. But there’s also another platform that we’ve started using called featured.com. If I’m not like totally mistaken and we’ve been able to like land ourselves like mentions and like entrepreneur medium Grit daily, some pretty major media publication just by literally answering questions from like journalists. It’s like a lot of these journalists are going to use these type of platform. They’re going to look for certain type of people, and you can literally just leverage that instead of just reaching out. And hopefully they’re looking for this type of story. You can just be in the unknown as to what they’re looking for. Answer the question and you might literally just get yourself some free coverage just like that. So that’s definitely something I would look at doing. If you’ve never looked at press but you want to do it, definitely start with that for your efforts.

Stone Payton: Well, Zach, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm. Keep up the good work, man. Congratulations on the momentum, the the work you’re doing and the impact you’re having is really important. And we sure appreciate you, man.

Zachary Bernard: I really appreciate so this is a this is really great.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today Zachary Bernard with we feature you PR and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.