For many B2B SaaS companies, PR is a mysterious creature.
They like the idea of media coverage to drive brand awareness and new business, but they're not sure how PR works and how to approach it.
In this episode, Crackle PR's Parry Headrick provides great insight into the inner workings of technology PR and how companies can create win-win partnerships with PR agencies.
We also talk about why entrepreneurs don't understand PR, why PR (and marketing) are among the early budget victims, and why Parry is excited about the work from home revolution.
Auto-generated transcript. Speaker names, spelling, and punctuation may be slightly off.
Mark Evans: For many b to b companies, p r is a mystery. It's exciting to believe that p r can drive media coverage, brand awareness, new business, and entrepreneurial stardom. But the reality is far different. Like any marketing activity, PR doesn't guarantee success. PR requires strategic plans, smart tactical execution, experience, relationships, and the ability to capitalize on opportunities. And even then, media coverage doesn't happen. Here's what goes down for many entrepreneurs and companies. They invest in PR with high hopes. They hire a PR agency for a healthy retainer, and then wait for the coverage to happen. Then nothing happens. Their story is ignored. There's disappointment, frustration, and a lot of money down the drain. And one of the problems is many companies and entrepreneurs don't understand PR and how it works. They operate in blissful ignorance, buoyed by entrepreneurial enthusiasm. And that's the wrong approach and a recipe for failure. On today's episode, you'll get great PR insight from Perry Hedrick, the founder of Crackle PR, which delivers PR fuel for good companies. Crackle has worked with companies like Spotify, Google, Akamai, Sylvania, SoftBank, and Oracle. And Perry is one of the leading PR voices on LinkedIn. His posts are pragmatic, honest, opinionated, prescriptive, and grounded in years of been there, done that. Welcome to Marketing Spark, Barry. Hey. It's a pleasure
Guest: to join you today, Mark. Thanks for having me.
Mark Evans: Why don't we start with a bit of a softball question? I'd like to get your take on the PR landscape and how it's changed over the past two or three years. We've been in this boom for B2B companies, although last year has been more challenging. What are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned along the way as we've seen the b to b landscape surge and digital transformation become a really huge factor? What are some of the lessons you've learned and some of the things that you've tried to impart on your clients and prospects?
Guest: Yeah. It's a it's a good question and it's a big question. So I I think especially in the last five years, what it means to do PR and especially tech PR has just fundamentally changed. So the playbook when I first started in, you know, February was the same playbook that a lot of agencies are playing today, which is, hey, client. Do you have any news? Terrific. Punch up a press release. I will spray and pray that press release to, you know, a 150 reporters knowing that some, percentage of those reporters are likely to write it, repurpose it, whatever. And then you count up all the impressions, report back to the client and saying, hey. Cool. Any more news? Let's do this again. That's kind of the playbook for a long, long while. And I think especially in the last five years or so with the advent, a bunch of really strong communities and podcasts like this, I think that what's happened is that the mainstream approach to PR has become more atomized. And so, yes, I think the traditional outlets still matter a heck of a lot, and we try to pitch those and get that earned media goodness. But really, it's changed from that PR one zero one stuff I just mentioned to more of a PR one two one. And what I mean by that is, you know, you and I are having a conversation right here and I think five years ago, this wouldn't classically be called PR, but this is, make no mistake, part of the PR mix where you and I are having a conversation that has cascading effects once we share this with our networks. There are communities like Discord and Slack groups and Reddit and and Substack and all these disparate ways of connecting with your audience in a much more sort of intimate one to one level. And I think that's the biggest change is that if you're only doing the the PR one zero one press release spray and pray thing, you're you're only playing half the modern game. You really need to incorporate all the elements we talked about and foster real, meaningful, engaging relationships with all those disparate audiences that I just described. Going back to
Mark Evans: my days as a journalist is when a company looks at PR coverage, they're looking for home runs. LA Times, New York Times, Washington Post, TechCrunch, CNET, The Verge, that is is PR for them. That is what they're looking for from a PR investment. But when you talk about Adam Adamized and the fact that PR happens in different ways in different places, there's a lot of really influential places where you could leverage PR to be on that small but really powerful blog, or that really great podcast that attracts influencers and the people that matter to your brand. And is it a matter of helping companies understand that there's different lenses they should look through when they're when they're trying to quantify PR success?
Guest: Yeah. I think that's right. And and and you're keying into something, which I think is another kind of seismic shift in the way PR is is done and should be done today, which is, you know, to even ten years ago. Wall Street Journal, that was the holy grail. If you get your client in the Wall Street Journal, man, is that a home run. The problem is is that a lot of buyers, like even b to b SaaS buyers, aren't calling through the Wall Street Journal today. They're just not getting the paper delivered. And if anything, they're quickly scanning online for, you know, articles that are relevant to them. Where are they actually hanging out? Where do they actually consume their information? And where do they get the trust to reach out to somebody to actually get in that consideration process? And I'll I'll tell you, it's not Wall Street Journal. It might be a TechCrunch type thing, but more importantly, it's group of peers they trust the most. It's very much if I have a a a purchase I'm looking to make, I'm tapping into all the groups that I'm a part of and asking questions there. Like, what do you guys think? What have you seen with this particular company? Do they live up to their promise? How's the customer service? Do they leave you hanging? Like, all of these sort of touch points with real people who have real sort of skin in the game is where these decisions are made, which goes back to again what I was saying is that all these disparate spots like these Slack channels and Discord and all these places are where people are making their buying decisions now. So, yes, TechCrunch is hugely important, helps with SEO. It's a it's one of those things that also once you get one TechCrunch hit, a bunch of other people start writing it. And so in that sense, it is influential For sure. But I think the way people make their buying decisions today is just radically different than it was even five years ago. And so that's why I say I keep coming back to this idea of the mainstream media still important for sure. But if you're only doing that, literally, you're playing half the game. Where the people really get their confidence to buy is in these smaller niche communities where they've established relationships and trust. Couple questions.
Mark Evans: One is the idea of taking a bottom up approach to PR. So you start with the niche publications, those influential podcasts and blogs, those industry magazines that or or websites that people will read, like, you're in the SEO game, you read Search Engine Journal. You build momentum and relationships and coverage there, and then you can start to work your way up the food chain. People will notice that your company has attracted some pretty good coverage, so there must be a good story there, or there there must be something there that they they wanna cover as well. So then you can gradually go from baseball analogy, play an a ball, have some success there, go to double a, and eventually get to triple a in the major leagues. Does that approach resonate with you, or does it make sense in terms of approaching PR?
Guest: I think it does make sense. And and one of the reasons why some folks like tech companies would contact us and work with us is because we've had pretty good success helping people grease the skids for funding rounds as an example. And so when you're looking for a round of, of funding, what you wanna do is, have the perception that you're out there moving and shaking and people are talking about you and are excited about what you're so 100, I think it's really important to have realistic expectations about what's possible early, get those small wins to your point, and then in aggregate, they begin to build the halo effect over your brand. Now against that backdrop, I always say, yes. Do the the the small ball stuff we're talking about here to kind of establish yourself. But at the same time, you can also take those, you know, swinging for the fences. Let's say you have a dollar, you spend 80¢ of that dollar on the things we just talked about and then 20¢ swinging high. So that means things like tapping into the cultural zeitgeist. Like, what's happening at a high level that potentially you could find a way to insert your story into a broader trend or something that's just fundamentally shifting in the marketplace? Those things are so much harder to get, but if you're if you're adept at storytelling and understanding how to connect the dots, then sometimes you can really strike gold and and you can do it early sometimes. And sometimes it's frustrating as hell because you never do. But but I always recommend taking those moonshots as well as that small ball stuff because what we're really talking about then is bottom up, top down. And sometimes one lever gets pressed before the other and makes the other thing work better. So that that's kind of the way we like to approach it. And I'll tell you, when you get some big hits in some of those big publications, boy, does it engender some trust from the c suite who isn't maybe as familiar with the the day to day in the trenches PR stuff, but that earns you more goodwill and more trust. So there's a lot of nuance and a lot of ways to skin the cat, but that's that's my approach. 80¢ on that small ball, 20% on moonshots, and you never
Mark Evans: know how it's gonna mix. I love the idea of the moonshot, and you're doing a little bit experiment and a little bit of laboratory testing when you attempt to do that kind of activity. The one thing that I tell many of my clients when they look at PR coverages, for the most part, no one's going to write a story about you, especially if you're an early stage company and you don't have a compelling story because there are so many other companies asking the media, blogs, podcasts to focus on them. What's a bigger opportunity is, as you say, is making yourself part of a bigger story So that you become a voice of reason, you offer perspective and opinion about a bigger trend or a bigger a bigger news event. And that way, can become a bigger story, small part of a big story, as trying to become the story yourself.
Guest: Well, that's exactly right. And and I think one of well, there's a couple really good ways to do that. One is to use the power of data in your storytelling because then it's not just clearly about, hey, look at how great my company is and my executive team is. It's really more like, wow. Look at these actual trends we're seeing. And here's how our customers are actually using these products and services to fundamentally change the game for how they're they're doing work. So it really comes back almost to the strategic narrative of the company. I'm a big fan of Andy Raskin. And and if you don't know who he is, you guys should all check him out. He's a a master sort of crafter of strategic narrative and works with a lot of, you know, really high powered tech companies. But what he talks about and what I've come to embrace over the years is that what we're really trying to do with PR, with marketing, with all of that is to come up with a strategic narrative that that sort of frames the existential battle between the way it was always done and the new world that you represent. Right? And if you can create that tension by showing the stark difference and be defensible by showing with data how what you're saying is true, then really what you've done is you've made it hard for people to ignore what you're saying Because you've got the data, you've got the receipts to back it up, and you've got customers who are on record happy to talk about this new direction you're willing to go in. That's where the real magic happens. And and I think with most companies, they want to sort of hire a PR firm two weeks in, get these like amazing hits and go off to the races. But really what it is is more of a an iterative process, trial and error, finding what works, what resonates, what doesn't. And the same way that marketers need to talk to their customers to find out what's working, what isn't. That same thing applies to to to PR. So I always say, you know, you should you should expect at least three months of sweat and blood equity into this process before you're really feeling like a PR program has hit its stride, that we have the right message at the right time to the right people. So that's a long winded answer, and I hope I didn't drift too far field, but but it's a it's a it's a fun topic that I I can expound upon. I would
Mark Evans: agree that impatience is probably the biggest obstacle for many companies when it comes to PR. We live in an instant gratification world. People Sure. Expect that if I do this, then this will happen almost right away. As you know, you're well aware of the fact that that's not the way, and that it often takes time for a for a PR campaign to resonate. It's often a slow burn before something really big happens. I wanted to circle back on something you said earlier about operating in communities. There's tons of Slack communities, and there's Discord, and, you know, people are still sometimes operating on Twitter these days, and there's LinkedIn where you and I spend a lot of time. I want your take on the role that a PR agency will play to support a client in those communities? Is it a matter of a person like yourself establishing relationships in a channel with that that you can leverage on behalf of clients, or can a PR agency actually act on behalf of clients within those communities to build relationships? What's the the role that that PR agencies can play in in those communities?
Guest: Sure. It's a it's a good question, and the answer is all of the above. And it really just depends. Every client is a little bit of a snowflake. So for example, clients that work with us, I tend to do because I just like doing it, I'm a connector. I tend to introduce my clients to folks in my LinkedIn ecosystem who I think makes sense to know each other and this kind of thing. So in that sense, I'm doing a little spade work just because I think these relationship connections are always really good and really helpful. There are plenty of other clients we've had where they are relying on us to do their research to find out sort of who is talking about the things they care about most, who would be influential to have in their sphere. So we do a lot of that background research to kind of deliver to them like, okay, these are the people that you really ought to know and should be interacting with to kind of insert yourself into the into the conversation. And then in some cases, we will come up with the pillars that they should be talking about on their on their platforms. Like, hey, based on your your business and what your goals are, we think these three pillars are really what you should focus on to try to add value to your community. If you just ungate your brain and and talk about these things and connect with the people that we're setting you up with over time, you'll end up sort of embracing and extending your circle. So we've done that. We've also done as much as writing for the for the c suite. If they don't have the time, they're just like flat out, but they know they have to be on LinkedIn. We've done we've done writing and and and ghost writing for them. Now, my preference isn't to do a lot of that. My preference is to teach them how to fish and then let them fish and and guide them to where the fish are. But in some cases, they just don't have the time because there's, you know, you know the deal. Wearing multiple hats just don't have the time. So we can learn the voice of the c suite and sort of over time, engender their trust and then, you know, post for them. But I think that's more of the exception these days and and again, I'd much rather teach these folks how to be self sufficient on these platforms so that in the event we part ways, they still know how to do it versus having to pay somebody all over again to learn their voice and just kinda repeat. There's a lot of different ways that we can help. I I think for us, it's really about trying to grab our clients on the shoulder and and bring them into where the conversations are. Teach them how to have those conversations in authentic ways if they don't know how to. And then over time, let them stand on their own two feet and and really sort of own that relationship.
Mark Evans: Off the top, I talk about the fact that many companies operate in blissful ignorance when it comes to PR. Having spent fifteen plus years as a journalist and seen from the outside looking in how PR operates. It's always interesting that people have unrealistic expectations about the PR media relationship, and there's an expectation that PR agencies are miracle workers who can get media coverage right away. Why do many companies and entrepreneurs not understand how PR works? Like, fundamentally, these are smart people who can who know their businesses inside out and know how to operate. But when it comes to PR, there's they just are puzzled or they just have some misconceptions about what the reality is. Why is that?
Guest: No. There are a couple of big big reasons. One, everybody wants to believe there's a panacea, like there's a magic bullet. Right? So if I hire this PR guy, boom. I'm the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, all these. You wanna just believe that that's the case. Look, I'm spending 12,000 a month or fifteen thousand a month. I should be in the Wall Street Journal. Like, make it happen. So there's that, that unrealistic expectation. And then unfortunately, and I think a lot of my peers would agree to this, the PR industry hasn't done itself any favors because what they tend to do is brag about their strong relationships with the media over and over and over again to compel these people to write these big checks. Okay? So like, if you're looking for me to sugarcoat this, I'm not sugarcoating it. It's p r people are shooting themselves in the foot over and over again. I did a LinkedIn post recently where I said something like, happy Friday to everybody except p r people who boast about their terrific relationships with the media Because you're hurting all of us and making us all dance around like monkeys because this is not how it is done. Right? We're not the mafia. I don't say, hey, Donnie, call your friend at the times and get us in the like, that's not how it works. What does work is earned media, meaning you present to these reporters at these top tier publications a strong defensible story with data to back it up, tap into the zeitgeist of what's happening in the day and provide something their readers would genuinely care about. K? So so that's really it, full stop. Now, will a relationship with somebody at the New York Times have them pick the phone up or answer your email? Yes. But if the story that they're I don't care if it's my mother or my brother, they are not writing the story without a good strong hook. So at the end of the day, what I always try to disabuse prospects and clients of is this notion that who we know matters. And sometimes that makes me lose the business and sometimes we never win the business because they just wanna believe that there's a magic wandering wave and you can call it a favor. But that's not reality and what I'm here to do is tell the truth about the industry and it's a hard truth sometimes.
Mark Evans: They make a great point. When I was a journalist, I knew lots of PR people. I had good relations with them. Many of them became my friends. And even the ones that truly had a friendship with me, when they would pitch a story, I would say to them, listen, it's not newsworthy. It's not something I can write about. It's simply not interesting. If you have a relationship and it's good enough for us where a reporter will actually open your email, which is a big win these days, and maybe even read it, that's the value of relationship. At least you get your foot in the door. At least you get in the consideration set so that a reporter can look at it and go, possible, or not really. But otherwise, you may not have a shot even to get their attention, and that's the and that's the big thing these days.
Guest: Well, you just quickly one more point on that. So like, alright, let's I have a bunch of friends who are reporters. Guess what I don't do to my friends? I don't pitch a bunch of bullshit to them and hope that they throw me like a bone and write about some stuff. Like that's abuse of a friendship. That's how you lose friendships. That's how you lose trust. So like friends don't pitch friends garbage is is really what it will help them out to. If I'm a friend with somebody, I'm gonna make sure I go out of my way to provide them with what they need to easily be successful in writing that story. Not the other way around. So I don't sure
Mark Evans: I'm not sure what friendship means to a lot of people, but to me, that's what it means. Here's another loaded question, another PR one zero one question. How should companies approach PR? How do they know when it's the right time to do PR and as importantly, why? Because a lot of companies look at competitors, for example, that are getting amazing media coverage appearing on podcasts, and they look at that and say, I want that. How do I get that? The default is often, well, I'll just hire a PR agency. Strategically, what's your advice to companies that think they have a good story to tell, really believe that they could benefit from PR help, but don't know where to start, and they don't even know if it's the right time and how much they should invest to make PR happen.
Guest: Yeah. I think the the kinda the easy answer for that is if you've got paying customers and some that are happy with your products and services, you might wanna consider doing something. Now, what that something is really greatly varies. Right? So like, did you just get a $100,000,000 in funding because you're you're you're you're mark you're hitting all your marks? Well then, you probably wanna invest in PR because you have the capital to do it. You have a little bit of time to do it and you have the resources to make sure that you're successful. So that's kind of like one way of looking at it. And there's a lot of bootstrap companies that, you know, they they they feel like they have product market fit. They have some customers that are kinda happy and they're they're just trying to figure it out right now, but they know the people should should be hearing more about what they're doing. In that case, I would say, you know, the best place to start isn't necessarily with a full blown PR program, but rather working these channels that I was talking a little bit earlier about, like LinkedIn and trying to get on some podcast. So just doing piecing together a few of these examples, getting better at telling their own story and taking control of their own destiny a little bit. And then seeing what works just the way you see what works with your company, with your customers, with your products and services. Seeing what works in the marketplace of ideas, what's resonating, and and refining that message a little bit by yourselves. And then once you've kinda got those baby steps under you where, okay, I'm I feel like I'm telling a pretty good story here. I'm seeing kinda what's getting a little bit of traction, what's working. I'm building my audience up a little bit. Then maybe it's time to to to think about bringing on a PR firm even at a smaller level just to get some some, you know, trade media coverage maybe and and just kinda start small. But the last thing any PR firm should encourage young company that isn't very well funded to do is spend is empty their ammo out on PR early because it is a big spend and it requires a shitload of effort. And what you could do is find yourself coming up empty after one month and thinking, damn it. It didn't work and I just spent all this money. So it's different for every company. I would say, you know, Crackle, we tend to work with companies that are VC backed. So it's, know, a round, b round, c round, sometimes d round. And we've had publicly traded companies. And and if you're funded like that, you're generally gonna be in the market for PR because you have those resources and you have already the the market validation from these VCs that, okay, we've got something here. But if you're bootstrapped, I would argue that you probably wanna do a little more of the sweat equity yourself first, and and get a good taste of what that's like before you bring in professional help because it can be an expensive mistake.
Mark Evans: I'm a b to b SaaS company. I've decided that I'm gonna take the plunge into PR. I do a lot of research. I hired a PR agency that I believe is gonna perform for me. How should a company and a PR agency start their relationship? What are the what are the keys to success to make sure that expectations are aligned, that you have a vision of what you're hoping to achieve, and that you get the engagement off on the right foot? Because a lot of companies come into PR with unrealistic ex realistic expectations, and that they're they're immediately and quickly disappointed.
Guest: I think part of it is looking at a potential PR relationship not as a client vendor relationship, but as a partnership. And and by that, I mean, you can't kinda just hope to hire a vendor and and hope things work out. You need to have you need to prioritize PR and communications as a key business driver and treat it with the same import that you would any other function, whether it's marketing or sales or customer service. So that's kind of point one. You're you're either all in or you're not. The second thing is you need to be able to provide your PR firm access and action. So access to the executives that they need to be successful. That's your sales team to interview them, your your CEO, your CMO, like access to these folks that are gonna be pivotal in telling your story and then action from them when there are asks that start coming in from from the media and other entities like speaking opportunities and awards. So it's gotta be a commitment to act quickly from the right people at the right time. And what I've seen so often is this sort of atrophy that occurs when the client side isn't taking the period the PR effort as seriously as they need to. Dragging their heels, taking three days to comment instead of, you know, two hours, not providing you the data that you need in order to complete this pitch, not giving, you know, the data that we need to do this survey, whatever it may be. It's the dragging of the heels on the client side that tends to be a real killer. And and we always say, like, at Crackle in particular is, if we don't have you on your heels in the first month or two, then we're not doing our job. Right? Like, the the client needs to be scrambling to try to keep up with what we're doing here and you need to be all in to do it. So that's kind of what I would say is is for me the the recipe for success is. And then the second thing I would say is we have a blood on the walls meeting very early on. I call it blood on the walls because we wanna know the good, the bad, the ugly. So like, don't surprise us, you know. Like, let's sit down and talk about who you really are who has you shaking in your boots at night. Like, who are you thinking about as a competitive threat? Like, what should we know that potentially could blow up in our face? What crisis communications plans should we have in place in the event things go crazy? So there's a lot of really early honesty and planning that has to happen, and that's what partners do versus client vendor where we say, hey, vendor. Go put this press release out. Hey, vendor. Go pitch this story. It's gotta be a collaboration and it's gotta be almost like a marriage where, you know, you don't you don't marry somebody that you don't know a hell of a lot about and trust implicitly before
Mark Evans: you do, and that's kinda how we view it. When I talk to people who are consultants or want to be consultants, one of the things I tell them is that as much as companies hire you, you're hiring them. And the idea that, going back to your point about having a relationship and a partnership, what do you look for in a good client that will create a win win proposition? You'll be successful. They'll be successful. Like, what are the telltale signs that a client, I'm sure you get a lot of people in your pipeline who wanna work with Crackle, that you know this is a good fit, that we can actually be successful and help them do well as as in the process?
Guest: Yep. It's a a really good question and it strikes right to the ethos of of how we kinda started. So just to back up a little bit, so I spent twenty years growing a couple of the largest privately held technology PR agencies in the country. And in that capacity, we, you know, would chase pretty much any client that moved because we wanted the revenue. And once you start getting to a certain size, it's all about that revenue, you know. And so when the pandemic struck, a lot of us were doing some self reflection as we were staring at the walls because we couldn't leave our houses. And I thought, well, I've I've grown, you know, some of these large agencies. Maybe the time to do something for myself is now. And if I were to do that, what's something I would do that my kids who at the time were 11 and 12 could be proud of their dad for for doing instead of just chasing every dollar, you know, win at all costs. Like, what would make them proud of what I was doing? And so for me, that meant working with companies that were doing something demonstrably good in the world. As there were race riots in the street, COVID rampant, I just wanted to figure out a way to do something that was positive and good that still allowed me to use the skills that I had grown over these twenty years. So we arrived on this idea of working with companies that are good, good companies only. And how do you know they're good? I don't know. But you know it when you see it. You know that they're not polluting the environment. You know that they're not giving kids cancer. You know they're not doing any of those things. And then the other thing was the client contacts themselves have to be fundamentally good people that we could work with day in day out. So the the the the the real idea was good companies, good clients, good employees, no exceptions. So like that's it. That's the true north. All those things. Against that backdrop, if we have a client or prospect, I should say, that has strong technology that we believe in, is doing something positive for the world, is not doing anything negative for the world, the client contact is a good solid human being that understands the mission and is trying to do good too, that's how we know that we've got something good there. And I have to tell you, for the first time in my entire career, we've walked away from more business than we've taken on. Not because these people were jerks necessarily or not because they were, you know, killing kids, but because the mix just wasn't right. And you can feel it when it's right. And I've done this so long now that I know what's right and I know what's not. And so we'll politely refer people to other firms that may be a little hungrier for that business. And I have to tell you, because of that approach, Mark, in the almost three years now that we've been doing this, we've lost exactly one employee. One. And that person is actively trying to come back today. And the turnover rate for PR employees is one in four every year. We're doing something right here, I think, by setting the parameters early, sticking to that mission. And and I'll tell you what, there's not a there's not a client that we've had that doesn't like being associated with the PR agency that only works with the monsterably good companies. It's a true north for us.
Mark Evans: It's been really successful for us and I and I think if you ask me what's the the right mix and and what's the right approach, that's it. I love that in a data dominated world, that gut feel and intuition often play a big part in making business decisions. Sometimes it's just the way you feel about something, that that spider sense that you get that tells you whether it's the right way to go or not. Switching gears a little bit, in a recent LinkedIn post, you mentioned how a few clients walked away in late twenty twenty two, and I think this is something that a lot of marketers can relate to because it was just tough times from Oh, savage. Savage. Yeah. And and I think I think for a lot of us, it caught us by surprise because if you look at the latter half of 2020, 2021, early twenty twenty two, boom times for b two b, b two b SaaS landscape. Everybody was doing well. The rising tide listed all ships, including people like marketing consultants and PR agencies, and suddenly the landscape changed, and companies walked back on marketing. A few questions to ask you about Sure. That scenario. Number one is, why do you think these companies decided to back off on PR? Why don't we start with that, and then I'll ask you some supplementary questions.
Guest: Yep. Of course. So most of them happen to be coincidentally SaaS companies. And and SaaS in particular, there seemed to be this edict at the highest levels that every c suite deemed to be gospel that they needed to slash marketing spend. So within two months, we lost literally five clients, four of the five of which were in SaaS. And in many cases, it was because they not only cut the PR firm, also half the marketing team, and in some cases, the entire marketing team. So one of our biggest customers, or clients said, I have some bad news. We've all been laid off, and that impacts you as well. You've been laid off too. So not only were they wiped out, but we were wiped out. And I gotta tell you, it was just one hit after another five clients in two months that almost play it was just shy of a $100,000 in revenue monthly out the damn window through no fault of our own because people were reflexively thinking they had to slash and burn. So that's the answer to your first question. Yeah. It's painful when you
Mark Evans: get that phone call or that email suggesting that you gotta get on this call and talk because you know it's not good news. You know they're
Guest: not It's not your fault. We love you guys. Everybody loves you, but they're they're making us do x, y, and z. It's just like, oh, I'm getting fired, and you love me? That seems cruel.
Mark Evans: It is really the the downside of having really tight relationships and then no longer having them. Lick your wounds. You sort of recalibrate. Maybe you spend the holidays trying to sort of figure out what to do next. What lessons did you learn from abruptly losing business? Because Crackle had this great run. You you decided to start the company for all the right reasons. You I suspect that you started to attract business pretty quickly after you launched. You're an amazing role, but suddenly things change in a very dramatic way. Looking back a few months later, what are the big lessons?
Guest: Boy, I'll tell you. I worked with a number of our clients who didn't let us go, but also did cuts. And so we helped message a lot of that for a lot of clients who are going through similar things. Mean, I don't know many tech companies that didn't do some kind of lay up against that backdrop. We're helping some of our clients message for for cuts. We're also getting cut by some of our clients. And one of the things that I learned through that whole process, Mark, and and I I don't want this to be like self congratulatory or patting myself on the back, but but especially in a services business, a client service business, I know that our people are the most important thing that we have got. And I also know they're incredibly hard to find and attract and retain. So what I learned is that I was smart to cut my own salary. I was smart to offload expenses like my personal office space and other things that were, you know, creature comforts that I was really, really enjoying since the boom times of 2021. And instead, made sure that I kept my close group of employees safe and active and under my wing. And I'll tell you, they worked their butts off to to get us through that time. They were overwhelmingly competent with the clients that we had. And since then, in the intervening two year about two months rather, we've since added a bunch of really great clients back on again. And I guess the learn the learning that I have is that it's the first time in my life that I was put in that position where I had to choose between my employees and my own comfort. I threw down with the employees, and it's the best decision that I've ever made. I'm ready to start paying myself again in March. And and you know what I think has happened is that it's engendered goodwill and more trust with the people that I've brought under my fold. And now they feel some psychological safety that when the first problem arises that they're not gonna be thrown to the wind and that they're part of something that's a little bit bigger maybe than just themselves. You know? Like, maybe this whole good companies thing comes with it a set of responsibilities that that means you need to behave like a good company and a and a and a empathetic leader. So that that's my learning is that leading with empathy and toughness is for me so far, and I know I'm, you know, I'm not speaking for everybody, but for me, that's that's been one of the biggest sort of blessings, I suppose, if you can find one in the really tumultuous end of the year.
Mark Evans: You know, it's a classic short term pain, long term gain management philosophy is that if you think big out or if you look beyond what's directly in front of you, then you can see a brighter future. One other question related to what you've been through is your take on why companies see marketing as low hanging fruit when it comes to slashing budgets. The first, the gut reaction for many of these companies, and we saw it in early twenty twenty and we saw it in in early twenty twenty two, is that, oh my god, leads are drying up, sales are slowing, what are we gonna cut, how are we gonna get ourselves in better shape? We'll just cut marketing. And what inevitably happens is that they discover that that is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Right. And then they turn to people like me and you to fill gaps because they've got rid of their marketing departments. Why do companies behave this way? Why don't they see the long term picture as opposed to reacting in a very rash way?
Guest: Yeah. I think there's a few things that go into it. And first, I'll say that all of the data suggests that that behavior is kind of misguided and and and ham fisted. You know, Harvard Business Review, Sequoia, all these folks say the same thing which is that in a down economy, it's the companies that maintain their spend in marketing and PR or even increase it are the ones that come out the other side much more strongly positioned than those who sort of recoiled in fear. So so that's just like factually true. But I think the other part of it is that marketing and PR sometimes are viewed as overhead by people who don't understand what marketing and PR are which is the bigger problem is that a lot of people just don't know what the hell PR and marketing do and how to quantify that in a way that makes sense to the CFO. Right? So when you're looking at the cold hard light of day at the balance sheet and marketing has a bunch of campaigns that haven't yet bore fruit, PR is, you know, got campaigns that they're cooking and and maybe there's a launch coming up that hasn't yet bore fruit. The one thing they they think they can rely on is the fact that they have sales people and leads and that those two things are gonna solve everything magically if they just double down on that. And it really, unfortunately, is an unsophisticated view of the of the of the way a company is run. And and the the more sophisticated the companies and the more sort of battle scars they have, the more they tend to understand that cutting marketing and PR during a recession is like going on a hunger strike during a famine. I mean, it's it's self flagellation. And it makes it makes bouncing back from the difficulties 10 x harder because now you've gone silent and all of your key audiences are thinking, oh, those guys must have gone broke or what what happened to them? They disappeared. They're they're they must not be viable, which is exactly the perception that PR and marketing do not want your key audiences to have.
Mark Evans: Final question and somewhat related to the PR business. As someone who has worked from home since 2008, I love how you've embraced the idea of working from home. How do employers and employees successfully leverage work from home? And what do you think about companies that are making their employees return to the office? And what's your own approach to your to running your own business when it
Guest: comes to working from home? Boy, bit another big question, Mark. I've worked in the office my whole career until I started Crackle. And I'm not here today to tell you that working in the office is evil or bad or any of those things. I think that there are a variety of professions that require you to be, present. You know, there's the doctors and construction workers and line workers and a million different things where you have to physically be there, so I get that. In corporate America, however, I think that COVID really pulled back the curtain on the absurdity of needing to be forty hours in a cubicle in the office that you commute an hour to because it's always been done that way. Like, we've just always done it that way, we'll always continue to do it that way. And I think where we're at now, Mark, is that there are a whole hell of a lot of companies that are just waiting until their leases finally expire on this expensive ass real estate, and then they're gonna start incorporating policies like hybrid or remote or some combination thereof. But the hardliners who are locked into these releases and they tend to be older folks who have been around a long time and are are reluctant to change, they're they're forcing their people to come in. So I think those people are are quickly going to become dinosaurs. I think flexibility is the way forward. And whether it's hybrid or remote, like, it's up to the company to decide. But that's kind of the direction all this is heading. And and if there's a silver lining of COVID, it's that. Now for us, we were born virtual or remote or distributed or whatever you wanna call it. And we have people all over the country. I have people in the Bay Area and Denver and Idaho and Pennsylvania and Hampshire and Boston, and we're able to be in every time zone, which is fantastic. In some cases, I haven't met in person some of my employees yet, even though they've worked for me for a year. But I talk to them all the time on a platform just like this, and you're able to establish relationships, believe it or not, just like we're doing right now, Mark. And we have team meetings and weekly meetings, and we have all kinds of cultural events that we do online. And then occasionally, I'll fly everybody in and we'll get together face to face, which I think is important occasionally to kinda just do a little in person brainstorming and bonding and just connect, you know, skin to skin chickens and fist bumps and and and some of that. But but for us, it's been it's been really phenomenal. And, you know, I think part of it is having people sent self identify what they wanna do professionally. Do they wanna be people that go to the office? Because they're not they're not gonna come work for me and that's fine. But everybody that were has worked for me and joined up with me knew what we are and what we do and so therefore, they've all opted in to this and surprise surprise, one person is left in three years. I think this whole notion that you can't have a distributed remote team be successful or have a cultural fit is ridiculous because to me, culture means how you feel on Sunday night about going to work on Monday. And I'll say it again. One person is left in three years, which is ridiculous in terms of the attrition rates in a typical PR agency environment. So you can you can cite all kinds of the reasons why people need to be in the office, why they need to commute an hour to and from work, why they need to miss their kids games to to come to the office, and I'm gonna say that's a bunch of bullshit. That's a decision that you're imposing on your people because of one reason or another, whether it's, we've always done it this way, it's your real estate costs, whatever.
Mark Evans: But I I say it's puppycock. Love that answer. Love the insight that you delivered about PR, and I hope that we've provided entrepreneurs and marketers with a guide on how PR works, how to embrace PR, how to make it work for you, and how to make the right decisions at the right time. One final question is where do people learn more about you and Crackle? Sure. Well, they can
Guest: go to cracklepr.com. They can follow me on LinkedIn, which is Perry, p a r r y, Hendrick, h e a d r I c k. If you're on LinkedIn, you'll you'll see me around.
Mark Evans: Well, thanks, Perry, and thanks for everyone for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review. Subscribe by Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and share via social media. To learn more about how I work with b to b SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, strategic adviser, and positioning and messaging consultant, email mark@markevans.ca, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll talk to you soon.