1503 – What an Entrepreneur is with scapr’s Susan Carol

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. commercial-free entrepreneur wisdom podcast. Agency owners, consultants, coaches, and B2B service providers, head to upmyinfluence.com slash guest. And I'd love to promote your expertise to our amazing audience. Let's get on with the show.

0:54With us right now, it's Susan Carroll. Susan, you are the CEO of Susan Carroll Creative. You're found on the web at scapr.com. Susan, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so tell me about the work that you do, who you serve, and what great things you're helping to create in the world. Sure, sure. Well, we're a full-service team of very creative, niche-oriented specialists. We were writers, public relations and marketing specialists, have designers, web developers and social media professionals. We're super knowledgeable in three different areas, commercial finance, technology and health care.

1:42I love the name of your podcast, by the way, The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, because many of my clients are entrepreneurs and we really love the mindset and the values of entrepreneurs. Yeah. How would you define that? Like, what is an entrepreneurial mindset? I mean, you know, because obviously we work with business leaders of all stripes, you know, some folks that have been doing what they're doing for decades, many, many, many, many decades. Some of them are a little bit newer. But in your mind, and obviously, you know, you're a business owner and leader yourself, like, what is that, like that entrepreneurial spirit or grit that the way you identify with that?

2:17I really identify with it because I know that I am one. and entrepreneurs are always looking to the future, always pulling in all kinds of new ideas and ways to do things. And oftentimes we get ahead of our clients and then they look at us like we're crazy. And then like five years later, they're like, oh, can you help us with this? So yeah, And entrepreneurs are usually very quick to respond and to jump into new channels and things like that. Yeah. Susan, talk about your relationship with PR and how you work with your clients in and around public relations as opposed, you know, as part of kind of your suite of services.

3:04Because I know that that's your background as well. And you and I kind of share that passion for public relations in our backgrounds. Right. Well, many of my associates and myself were former journalists. And some of us are still journalists. We're still doing some journalistic work. And because we're focused on just three niches, we're very knowledgeable in those niches. And we still, you know, since we have that journalism background, we still like to get in deeply into a subject and really understand it, pull all the facts together, the research. And a lot of our clients, they're B2B type organizations.

3:43They really appreciate having valuable content that they can share with their audience, not gimmicky marketing kind of stuff, but really something that's helpful to their audience. Yeah. What do you see working well in public relations today? And what do you think is just old hat advice that I don't do that kind of stuff with my clients? Yeah. Well, you know, we are actually still issuing press releases on occasion if we have some real news and we in our niches, we know the media very well. So we know how to reach them. They're still picking up our news. there is a lot of change that's going on.

4:27There's a lot of opportunity for our clients to be publishers themselves. Yeah. We help them do that. We help them get on podcast shows, by the way. So I was just, I'm just testing your show. Oh, good. Well, I hope I pass the audition. You might hear from some of my clients. Yeah. So speaking of which, so, you know, what would you say to other folks that are considering connecting with audiences? Are there any advantages or considerations for podcasts as a public relations strategy? Oh, absolutely. It's, you know, so many people enjoy podcasts and there's so many of them. And a lot of the podcasters are looking for thought leaders.

5:17And so I think it's a a really wonderful opportunity for PR agencies. You know, if a lot of print media is not as robust as it used to be, same thing with broadcasts. So it's the podcasts are definitely a good move for PR agents. Yeah. And one thing that I know that sometimes clients may focus on would be a vanity metric. Yeah. Are you sure, Susan, you want me to do a podcast interview? I mean, there's probably only going to be a few hundred people listening to that. Is that a good use of my time? How do you answer that question? I say it depends on those few hundred people. You know, if it's the right audience, a few hundred people is good for my clients, you know, and some of my clients want to create podcasts themselves.

6:10And sometimes that makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't. I mean, And you really, I mean, it's obvious you put so much energy into this, Josh, and you have to have a schedule of a lot of podcasts. And so we wouldn't advise all of our clients to do that unless they could really dedicate some resources to it. Yeah. What is the, what is kind of the value of leveraging platform yourself? Like, or how would you do that? And how would that be a part of your overall strategy? You mean for a podcast? Yeah, it's being a content creator, being a podcaster. Why get involved? Why not just always be the guest?

6:54I kind of am leaning toward being the guest. I mean, I think it's easier for our clients just get on a show. And especially since podcasters are usually pretty generous about allowing you to post it on your website or share it in your social media. And then you, you know, you're, you're reaching a wider audience as opposed to when you're creating your own, you've got to build that audience. And that could take quite a bit of time. A lot of entrepreneurs are impatient. They want, they want results quickly. What? Well, and then, I mean, but public relations is, is not necessarily one of those quick fix, You know, someone comes in, they're like, we need to make our sales quota next month.

7:39Give us some good PR so we can drive those sales. Not a good match. Yes, it's true. But we have been able to create a lot of buzz for our clients in six months. Yes. And we, you know, we really leverage social media very heavily for our clients. um, a digital marketing techniques, keeping their website, you know, a very, um, current and fresh, all of those kinds of things can really make, you know, if, if you're, if you've got a good campaign, some good themes and you're providing valuable content, I can start to make, they, they start to feel the effectiveness of it pretty quickly. Yeah. Um, and so the, um, So the authority that you get and the kind of building up of your brand through good PR over a longer period of time, say, you know, if you're really focused on this activity for a good six to 12 months, how does that change the life of a, say, client that you're working with?

8:41potentially? Yeah, they become aware that people are noticing them on social media. They start to see they have more followers. They're getting invitations to write a blog or be a speaker at a conference. They're starting to be, you know, we often get our clients involved in trade associations. They're getting invited onto committees. Soon they're part of the committees that are deciding on the program speakers. All of those kind of things start to work pretty quickly. And because we're focused on just a few niches, we can even help them meet the influencers in that industry. A lot of the reason that companies come to us is that they know we know their market and they don't have to spend a lot of time educating us.

9:30And so we can just jump in and start to create some meaningful results pretty quickly. Whereas if a generalist, either they're going to be, you know, providing very light material, or it's going to take a while for them to ramp up. Yeah. So when you're working with your clients, it looks, Susan, as though you and your team are able to work a little bit holistically. So it's not like someone's just coming in and saying, you know, I just need a, I mean, you fulfill on this, but, you know, if they come in, let's say you have a client that's coming in. They're like, we need a press release. Your initial questions are what?

10:14Oh, yeah. I know my first question would be why? Yeah. Yeah. And that has happened. Yeah. They often don't become clients. We start talking with them about what they want to accomplish and then start talking with them about some other things they can do in conjunction with that news. You know, if it's a news announcement of that sort, what else can we do around that? Because one press release is not going to make it. And then they're going to be disappointed. And I think that, you know, actually I don't have this in my notes for today, but something I do want to mention. A lot of small companies make the mistake of trying different things in marketing and PR, but they don't give it enough time to work for them.

10:58And they don't combine the various facets of communications. And so they don't, you know, sometimes they go to events and they don't do anything in advance to promote it. They don't do anything afterwards. You know, so you're really losing money when you're just, you know, taking a stab at something and not really fully developing it. Yeah. So what is it like, Susan, working with your agency, with your firm? What is it like? Yeah. What is that journey? Where does that usually go? You mean for the associates? Yes. Yeah. I mean, for the clients you're working with. With the clients, I mean, many of them, we've been with them for decades.

11:43We can become an embedded communications department. So basically, they don't have to hire a web developer, a designer, a writer. We're basically just there on call. They say they write something for a magazine. They want it edited quickly. They turn it over to us. We get it right back. Or they need a digital marketing piece. they tell us what they're looking for we've been working with them for a while turn it around in a day or two so i think i think that's a big thing that we're we become embedded with organizations and then we're able to be very responsive yeah um yeah yeah are there are there some trends you know just you know again we're recording this toward the earlier part of 2023 here.

12:34Are there some trends that you're particularly excited about right now, this year that you think is going to be, either they're really great opportunities or something that most business owners should or entrepreneurs should really keep their eye on? Yeah, we're looking at the AI. Oh, yeah. And we're not afraid of it. You too, huh? Yeah, just like everyone. We're not afraid of it. We just met recently, we had a virtual Zoom call and we said, hey, you know what? This is just going to be another tool. It's going to enable us to grab some information, start pulling together a draft of something. But as former journalists, we're still going to do the research.

13:14We're going to do the accuracy checking. We're going to create something that's distinguishing. Because if we're all just using AI and we're all on the same subject, everybody's material might start to look the same and we would lose our creativity. And by the way, that's why our name is Susan Carroll Creative. It's, you know, creative services are something you can't just Google. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when somebody goes to your website, Susan, what would you recommend they do if they're like, okay, this sounds interesting. I want to learn more. Are there any maybe epic pieces of content that you'd recommend so that they can kind of continue that relationship with you?

13:58I think on our website, they should look at the talent that we have. I think they should definitely look at that. I think they'd really be impressed with just all the experience and knowledge and education that my associates have. And I think also people like to look at the work that we've done. We do also have a section that is called resources and it has some things like how to do a media tip. And we have some blogs. But I have to be honest, I think I spend more time on my clients' websites than on our agencies. I accomplish kids' shoes. That's all of us. No, it's great. So your website, scapr.com.

14:43Susan Carroll, again, founder and CEO, thank you so much. I really appreciate our conversation. And again, website, scapr.com. Susan, Carol, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much.

15:26You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi. I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day.

16:10Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.