2289 -Proven Strategies to Build Authority in Today’s Market with Red Fan Communications' Kathleen Lucente

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0:58With us right now, Kathleen Lucente. Hey, Kathleen, you are the CEO of Red Fan Communications. You are found on the web at redfancommunications.com. Kathleen, it's wonderful to have you. Great to be here, Josh. Thanks for having me. Before we get into the superpowers that we possess, we're going to talk all about the things that everyone should be aware of. Kathleen, what have you been doing lately for fun? I don't know if you're watching anything, you're in anything. What are you geeking out on? Well, I'm a big nerd when it comes to presidential libraries. So I just spent time this weekend over at the LBJ library looking at the Vietnam 1968 tour.

1:40and then surprisingly i was also uh able to see a jaws uh exhibit there and the reason why is because the creator of jaws the book and the uh movie which is in the 50th anniversary it was also a speech writer for lbj um and so really really fun i brought my daughter who's a college student my husband we went over and i just think there's so like just looking at the the speeches that presidents write and being able to see the scribble outs. And then the kind of, especially I'm a word person, right? So I love communication and just seeing that kind of thing. I really, really cool. You know, if you've been to multiple libraries, I'm sure you, you know, like I think if you go to any museum or any documentary, I think at one time we were a series on the presidents and you just, these are all imperfect dudes, mostly white dudes doing their thing.

2:42But, you know, it's amazing, you know, that some of them come along at just the perfect time. And it's just, you know, Lincoln is probably the most notable example of this. And if you've been to Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois. Wow. What an incredible experience. Like it is just a day where you will, I don't care what your feelings are about the United States today. You cannot walk away from that day's experience. I mean, you, you will walk away with just a sense of reverence and, uh, and love. It's just a mainly oftentimes fragile country that just pulled through. It's amazing. And just starting to understand, I mean, especially I was really interested in this time period.

3:36I lived in Asia for five and a half years. And so I spent time in Vietnam and I've looked at Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, just from a different perspective, and then going back and looking at it from, you know, what was going on politically. So, and then I was an English major in college who studied this. And so just kind of bringing that all together is really, really cool. And I have family members who were in politics in New York. My great-grandfather was the mayor of New York City. He was also part of the Roosevelt administration. And so I have all his speeches too. So I've just, that's always been a fascination for me.

4:17So it's a side hustle, but I love it. I just love it. Oh, wow. Oh my gosh. And just, you know, the art of great, uh, speech writing too, is just, you know, just sometimes, you know, it's, it's the, well, and you're in communications, which here's a segue. No, it's just, you know, the flow of a well, well designed, uh, speech, You know, it just takes the audience on a journey. I love it. So Kathleen, let's talk about the work that you do with Redfin. Who do you serve and what are the outcomes that you are creating? Sure. At Redfin Communications, we focus on B2B companies that are in high growth mode.

4:59And we focus on two different segments. One would be that those companies that are just getting their B series, and they're starting to realize we absolutely need a communications team that's going to help move us, you know, move the needle and get us to the next levels of series and going public. So we focus on that. We also work with companies that are a little bit further established, but are also in growth mode and really need to redo their brand narrative. Maybe it's gotten stale. They haven't established really the thought leaders that they need. And right now the deliverables we're focusing on quite a bit is looking at how are you driving authority in the AI world and how are you changing up maybe how you're using your SEO budget and things of that nature so that you're ready for the modern world.

5:48So we're talking to those sales teams. We're looking at what, hey, what's happening? Why is your top of funnel, you know, falling off? And how do we help the marketing team and PR team really start to reestablish thought leadership and engagement that will change that dynamic. And that's really exciting. That's what we're working on. All right. So to our audience of founders and CEOs, think about, you know, kind of, you mentioned AI and how valuable that is. And what else would you say to this room? Here we are, you know, just in the second half now of 2025, my friends. here are a couple of things you absolutely must be focused on today.

6:32What comes to mind? I think that most people don't understand right now that they need to focus on the fact that if you have a website that takes 20 click throughs to get to content, you're living in the dark ages that today, 60 % of Google searches without and without even a single click, right? So what's, what does that mean? And 30 % of click rate has actually plummeted quite a bit. So, you know, CMOs and CEOs and founders have been using this data to think that this is the way, you know, this is the salvation. But the reality is that the data that was used in the past with SEO is not going to get you where you were or wanted to be moving forward.

7:15You really need to start looking at the fact that this is the invisible influence era. So prospects make decisions made, you know, based on like doing a doing an AI search. And if you're not showing up there, you're going to be in trouble. So that means you have to have a PR firm and a marketing team that is changing that up, that is building out AI authority. And that comes in many different ways. It's the public relations, it's getting a thought leader platform where you've got spokespeople out there that are educating and really giving information away to your customers so that you're building a true relationship that you show up as an authority.

7:56I have a great example. I had a client in the other day who runs a science conference and we wanted to decide who should be the speakers at that conference. And we did some searches and it quickly were able to see who was coming up as an, as a true authority and who wasn't. And it was quite an eye opener. well what like how do we how do we do that so that we we can make sure that we are seen so obviously con and i love that that i think i agree like um you know make it easy for me to get stuck into your world don't gate everything right if all i see when i go to your website is just the equivalent of this card and book time with me.

8:41Like, I don't know if I want to do that yet. You know, the chance that I do like that to me is it would be a small percent of everyone who's visiting your website, like make it easy to build a relationship together is kind of what I hear you saying. Yeah, there's really three things. One thing I call it the revenue bridge. If you build authority, you get access. So if you build authority and you're giving away expertise and you're demonstrating that you understand what your customers' problems are and you're not just talking about your product or services, but you're really on your website and in press interviews and speaking engagements and all these things where you're really out there as a thought leader, you build authority that gives you access.

9:25That means you're getting meetings and things that others would not get. If you're building credibility, that turns into conversion. If you're a credible individual and you're building that credibility, you will get conversions. And then if you're building reputation, you will secure retention. And that can be retention of customers, retention of employees. Those three things, authority, credibility, and reputation, that's what you're supposed to be building. And honestly, you'll see a 25 % increase in everything you're doing if you actually focus on those three things. Yeah, I love it. Let's share just a bit more of the work you do with your clients.

10:06So to our friend that's listening and they're saying, hmm, I wonder if I should reach out to Kathleen and her team at RedFans. So who are you reaching out and what kind of outcomes do you co-create together? We usually sit down with clients and have some really frank conversations early on. So we want to sit down with companies that are usually coming to us with a problem or an opportunity. And it's a B2B company. We work a lot in the fintech, education tech, health tech, helping SaaS companies pivot to AI. Almost every company that comes to us, they're coming to us with, hey, our narrative is not working anymore.

10:47or we or our narrative, the company story or how we are differentiating ourself isn't landing. It's not opening doors or it's not opening the new doors that we need to open. And so we're sitting down with them and doing what we would do as a brand narrative research effort that helps to reestablish, you know, what, how do we help change the content on your website? How do we build out the three or three or four thought leaders in your company and start getting them press and getting them speaking engagements and things like that how do we build out a customized plan that will actually start giving you that authority which will give you the access that credibility that then starts to show wait a second these guys are you know putting out white papers or running their own conferences or doing something that's unique that the competition's not doing so we're about helping companies understand what your competition's doing and not just trying to follow that, but carve your own path that's going to really differentiate you and open up the doors, whether it's customers, investors, more employees.

11:52That's what we're focused on. Yeah. Your website is redcommunications.com. Looks as though you've got some resources. And so, for a friend that's listening, what are some great things that, why should they, or how can they continue this relationship with you? and then potentially lead to having a conversation? I highly recommend if you go to our website that you go to that resource section and you go and look at, there's a couple of really great articles on what's happening with SEO. And at the bottom of that article, there's a free guide that you can access on the zero click world. And that means like, how are you going to change your marketing and PR plan to work within this new AI world, this world where you need to make some changes and what you were doing in the past is just not going to fly.

12:44And your sales team will appreciate seeing that you're starting to reinvest and rethink this through. And we're happy to take calls. And I'm always happy to speak to anybody. One of my big pet peeves is making sure that companies hear the truth early on, even as startups so that they don't make the financial mistakes that we see so many companies make by not doing the brand narrative work, not really understanding that SEO is changing, and understanding that thought leadership, building thought leadership campaigns is not a nice to have. It's an actual revenue generator. And we want to help companies start to understand that, whether they're doing it on their own or we're helping them.

13:31Kathleen, your website, fancommunication.com. A great conversation. Thank you for the work that you do. Obviously, when someone goes to your website, there's ample opportunity then to have a conversation with you or someone on your team. But thank you so much for the work that you're doing out there, Kathleen. Thank you, Josh.

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