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Speaking of Curves: Talking all things PR with Emma Medeiros of Medeiros Fashion PR
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Oct 31, 2024
We are back! Join us today at 12pm as we chat all things plus size fashion with the small businesses in the plus size fashion space, on Speaking of Curves! Today's guest specializes in plus size PR and is a PR Pro making a name for herself and her clients! Meet Emma Medeiros of Medeiros Fashion PR and join us as we chat the business of fashion, how small businesses are pivoting and more!
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0:07
hello happy new year hey girl hey hey boo hey how you doing
0:13
it has been a very long time since we have gone live with y'all and we're back right we're back we're
0:19
live i'm marie janae the creator of the curvy fashionista your plus size fashion resource
0:26
destination as you're joining in um make sure you let us know who you are
0:32
where you're tuning in from um i love to hear and know like where you guys are watching us
0:37
and it's so like so come on in don't be shy we're going to be talking about um the business of fashion we'll be
0:43
talking a little bit about pr um we're going to be talking and reconnecting with you guys it's been a
0:48
while i think the last time we went live was back in like october um but we are starting off with
0:54
you so this year our facebook um our speaking of curves is only going to be
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on thursdays right only on thursdays at noon and we have like some really cool guests different
1:06
designers creatives artists influencers business owners
1:11
we're gonna have them all on thursdays and you get to meet with them talk get to know more learn how you can
1:16
support and so we've got some people already tuned in hello angela tanya keisha eris thank you guys so much
1:25
for tuning in so here's what we're going to do we have a very special guest today kicking things off and if you don't know
1:32
me i'm marie i am the i'm the nerd i am the business nerd i'm mostly behind the scenes
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i love to talk and to to kind of like type and write and organize and but i
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love the business side of fashion and so today's guest um we kick off with miss emma medeiros
1:50
of medeiros pr and she's going to be talking to us a little bit about
1:56
um public relations what it is what it isn't how she's pivoted through you know she's got clients
2:02
they're trying to get some business and how you guys can support small businesses this is exactly what speaking
2:08
of curves is created for showing ways we can support other small businesses especially through this roma
2:14
because you know ms rona's been acting out and we've had to learn how to adjust to her so this is where our facebook live
2:20
series have come from so what i would like for you to do is to say hey girl hey and please welcome
2:27
miss emma hello emma hello hey girl hey so much for joining us thank you for
2:34
having me right so for those of you guys who don't for those of um who are watching who don't
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know you don't know um about um let's tell everyone what you do yes so thank you for having me again um
2:46
hello everyone so as marie said i am emma medeiros i am the president of madeira's fashion pr
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which is the first public relations firm in the us to specialize in the plus size fashion industry
2:59
i pause there oh god you gotta run that back so folks know sure that you are the first
3:06
to specialize solely in the plus size fashion industry
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that is impressive thank you um so keep going so so how long have you
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done it like let us know some of your clients sure so i started let's see i graduated from emerson
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college in boston in 2012 and for i knew i wanted to do pr
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i have a degree in marketing and underneath the marketing degree you can do public relations you can do
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advertising there's a whole bunch you can do with it and i knew i wanted to do pr because public relations is based on
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merit instead of money so what i mean by that is that when you write that down we'll
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break that down because i hope you want me to wait on that okay yeah we're going to absolutely all right so put that on hold so i
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started materials yep absolutely so we'll do that later um so i started madeira's fashion pr
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in 2015 when i realized i still can't get over this that there was not a single pr firm specializing in the plus
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size fashion industry right and the industry as we all know and we are excited about has been exploding
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for the last what eight ten years maybe so i really assumed i decided when before i wanted
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to have my own firm originally i wanted to work for someone else put my you know make mistakes on their watch that sort of thing why not
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um so i started looking around for different firms to work for and i looked a long time i'm talking like two three months
4:32
and i found a million and a half fashion pr firms they're called usually called lifestyle pr firms
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but there was not a single one that specialized in plus size so i was like well we can't have that
4:43
obviously so i launched it in 2015 so the benefit of that for our clients
4:50
is that you guys know that every single one of my connections are beneficial to you
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i'm not going to waste a single minute of my time or dime of your money reaching out to someone who's not
5:01
interested in plus size so i'm going to stop you right there
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because i want to make sure like we kind of have this conversation because as people are coming in i want to make sure like you know as their
5:13
understanding like what pr is um if you're just joining i'm he i'm marie deny i'm the creator of the kirby
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fashionista and today we have our first guest of the new year miss emma medeiros urban degrees fashion pr
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and she's talking with us about um you know her business and so we're going
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to talk about rona we're going to talk about the start of corona virus hitting us everyone going
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into quarantine you're having to pivot for you publish this
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um especially as like as you know you're self-employed you have your own business
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how did you have to pivot and how like like as we've been in this
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prolonged foreverness oh my goodness seriously any date i could end um so it's really about getting creative
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you know knowing what other skills you have i've done a lot more writing um because unfortunately i did lose a
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few of my clients because of course they lost their jobs you know with the trickle effect so we had to put their um contracts on
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hold thankfully they are starting to come back several have started to come back and i have some new clients starting so
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yay uh but during the worst time um i did a lot more writing i did a lot
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more studying as well i did i was like well i have time now you know let me take some webinars let
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me take some courses online i learned so much and there a lot of people don't realize how many free resources out there there
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are you know this is not something you have to spend money on like google free courses in
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whatever and it's amazing how many come up so those that's definitely one way that i pivoted
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and another way and i think this should continue even after the pandemic eases is talking to your quote-unquote
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competition in other words like other publicists and other whatever
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seriously a lot of people are afraid to do that they're afraid to like either give up their secrets or ask someone for
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their secrets but it's not about that it's like how can we help each other it's really i mean that's something yeah
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that's a mindset thing oh totally yeah i mean you have to be okay with asking for for i mean it's important to
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build a relationship with someone obviously before you ask them for help um and also of course
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offer them something like hey if you can help me with x i can help you with why you know get creative like what can you
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give what do you need and ask each other for help everybody is going through
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the same thing we are everybody what have you noticed or have you shared
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what kind of advice have you shared with your clients with ways that they can kind of navigate
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the pivot so depending on what they do for example models you know by plus models so we
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represent models designers retailers so of course it depends on what they do so models they say oh well you know i
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can't model there are no photo shoots going on i say okay well now is a great time to build your social media presence
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you know it's really important there's always something you can do to build your business always no matter what you do and so for
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like if you're a designer like um because i know she said so we're gonna i'm gonna have you share some tips so that people
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know like kind of like where you come from and you're like kind of your your mindset behind things so when it comes to that pivot
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for models and you know personalities you're saying dig in hone in on your social media
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presence nurture develop and grow that for it for designers what advice would
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you give to these designers as their candidate well first of all know your audience
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you know know your audience i think should be no matter what business you have understanding your audience but
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designers especially so asking your potential clients what are you wearing right now what is you know
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everybody's home they want to be comfortable but they also want to be stylish you know everyone's kind of sick of sweats and everything
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um so understanding what your clients want and also doing more like virtual pop-up shops but
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making it creative making it fun for example one of our clients is envious boutique and we're doing
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um coming up in february a fashion and for babies uh virtual pop-up shop so we're
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collaborating yep it's gonna be a lot of fun everyone knows i'm the crazy cat lady so um it's gonna be a lot of fun we're
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collaborating with um different cat rescue societies so we're gonna be doing an adoption
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event as well as a virtual pop-up shop so doing something fun like that you know creative it's like the
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innovation right yeah limited creative juices exactly that's when the creativity comes out when your
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resources are limited you don't have to be creative
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how you can like really take your business to that next level so so now you have like your models you've
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got your designers what other type of clients do you work with and how and what advice have you given them
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so models designers retailers event planners i've done pr for nationals
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let's talk about these events and event plans yes oh my gosh i think that's probably the like they probably have have had to
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pivot the most as event planners like you know of course gwendovo everyone knows her um full figured fashion week in 2020
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was completely virtual i was actually on a panel i was very glad to be on the panel um but she did a virtual but she did
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um a workshop beforehand that i was found extremely helpful about pivoting you know to virtual
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you know getting away from technical difficulties pre-recording as much as you can
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it's just really really helpful so i mean as far as event planners you can still have events absolutely i
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mean you will usually have fewer people it's important to understand that you know have realistic expectations
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but you can still do events absolutely and again get creative with it don't just have your regular like you
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would models walking down the runway you know have some giveaways have some raffles have some
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um other brands coming in and you know really get creative to make it different because people get bored
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at virtu during virtual events a lot quicker than they would during you know live events not sure my
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attention exactly you have to really be engaged like engagement would probably be the most
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important thing so if you guys are just joining us on hello haze hello sophisticated curves
11:39
lynette shamara and kimberly i'm marie janay i'm the creator of the kirby fashionista
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just to kind of level set i'm here um we're here speaking of curves it's our uh every thursday we do a facebook live
11:52
or we streamline on other platforms so if you're on twitter hey boo um and if you're on my page or on my
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group hey booze but we go live and we're talking with different business owners different
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influencers creatives all around the business side of fashion a plus size fashion specifically
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and also being able to showcase different ways that we can support y'all the small business owners or them
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who are featured so that we can kind of help nurture this ecosystem through the pandemic through this pain
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right and so um we have a different guest on every thursday miss emma she's giving us tips so that she
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shared with her clients as she is a um she is a publicist who runs madeira's fashion pr and
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she's sharing with us like kind of how to navigate and navigate through a lot of us thought this was going to be
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just a temporary thing but we're really we've had to make some shifts that are
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longer than just like you know a couple of months right and so emma
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you noticed that you know you you said you lost some clients so you started um doing you know you spent this time
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personally doing more research doing my writing like really honing in on your craft and i wanted to stay here
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just for a second because you know this if anything rona gave us was time
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yes exactly if that if anything we got time nothing else there's no
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excuse i don't have time to do this yes you do now and so you know one of the things that i stress
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to a lot of folks is really learning how to give ourselves grace through this time because we can
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immediately fall into this spiral of survival um and and operating out of a space of
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survival or you know like if we give ourselves grace like we can just be
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like how did you deal with your mental how did you deal with your mind hey yeah well i mean
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i i'm very grateful to my husband i have to say i mean i have a wonderful husband adam who is just
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you know my rock he really is i mean i really pray a lot for people who are alone during this time you know who live
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alone who don't have fur babies um you know or any that connection the connection is really really crucial
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um you know calling loved ones hearing their voices if not seeing them in person that's you know so important business or no
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business um i would say having a schedule definitely helps you know kind of keeping to that schedule
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any kind of basically anything that you can do to help you feel normal whatever normal means to you try to feel
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yeah recreate whatever normal men is kind of out the window um so try to try to create your new
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normal you know it does help to get some physical exercise i've been running up and down the stairs my neighbor's
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kind of used to it by now they're like okay uh running up and down the stairs in my building um having that schedule trying to get up
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at this you know at the same time go to bed at the same time within reason obviously when you can um but really it does help and it helps
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to keep on track because the worst thing you can do is sit there and do nothing because you're going to start obsess
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about it start to think the worst and just nobody wants to go that way right and so
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for you like you know being able to lean into in creating habit you know like kind of new um habits new
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kind of processes now you started to see so you're starting to see a shift you mentioned that you have
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some of your clients are starting to come back now through this runner people were kind of
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like trying to figure out their new normal and there's kind of a new baseline
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would say yes i mean it's kind of like okay here is what my normal is here's what i
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can do with it okay yeah okay so then with that being said
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like how do you see like your especially your clients who've come back like have they come back with newness or like or new
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kind of a renewed kind of outlook on how they can move their business forward or what they can do you do you
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understand what i'm saying i think so yes like do they have different goals is that what you're saying
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um i mean i think the goal of every business is to be successful you know like if you're a model like one of my clients camille rivers you know of
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course it's important to um go forward but another one of my clients is sabine michelle so not only
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is she is a plus model she's also a mental health advocate like a suicide prevention person so again she's tapping into um other
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things that she can do besides modeling you know so she's doing the same thing that i did you know they all are you
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know they're really it's like okay besides just being a model i don't say just you know that's it so that's a big obvious but besides
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it's the diversification it's tapping into whatever it'll be so fight on being a model
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you're afraid to do other things it's right yes like we have latent gifts that we
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don't focus on because like we're chasing this one thing exactly rona has like kind of really
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allowed for us or forced us to look at the other things around us right so let's go back to kind of like
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let's let's kind of pivot a little bit so when we're talking about pr we're talking about pr what it what
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it is and what it is not because sometimes like people are like oh i need a publicist or i need apr
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where you actually need pr you need a publicist right so just from the verbiage because
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i know some people get real specific about that so for you like what would you say if
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it's to the small businesses who are watching to those who are curious if they need a
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publicist like what would you say to them and especially now in the rona like what
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kind of expectations could do you want them to help manage okay so
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that's it all right so let's break down the question um yeah so basically um for those of you
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who don't know what pr is public relations so public relations is all about relationships gasp um so it's
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really about i am your connection i am your connection so say you are designer you have a show coming up you
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have a new collection coming out you hire me to reach out to my people in the press bloggers journalists tv people
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all of that to get you more attendance at the show to get you more interviews at the show uh interviews about the show more sales
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of course ideally it leads to more sales getting you more well known building your reputation your
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credibility that's what pr is so pr the reason why it's so powerful
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and so important is because it's based on merit instead of money so what i mean by that is when the
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average person looks at an ad whether it's on a billboard in a magazine whatever you understand that
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that is a paid ad so the implication is whether or not your product or service is any good
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if you have the money you can buy that ad so that's advertising a lot of people mix up the two so how pr
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works is yes you're paying me for my time in my services but i'm reaching out to people who are
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not paid to write about you they're paid to write a story not about you
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so if they do anyway it means a lot more in the public mind it's called third party credibility
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it's almost like when you get a when you see an ad for a new restaurant in your area right you see the ad like oh there's a new
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restaurant my area didn't know that but when your friend who's not paid by the restaurant says oh my god they got the best food
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and the best service you're going there the next night because someone you know then trusts is
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not paid to write about it is endorsing it anyway so pr is all about building your reputation your credibility your
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long-term success and it's interesting because you know oftentimes like you know you always hear
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like when companies go through restructure or like their budgets are you know like tight
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they always chop out the whole marketing space like that includes yeah yeah influencer marketing advertising
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like there's all these things that'll go into the marketing aren't i think it's expendable oh my gosh i'll give you the perfect
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example when i was in marketing school we studied a lot about the great depression
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right of course during the great depression my god you would think marketing would be the last thing on your mind
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but procter and gamble who make pretty much everything like beauty products and everything like that look up procter and
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gamble they make crests they make you know whatever they actually spent more on pr
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in marketing during the great depression and they were one of the few you know big companies that made it
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through that time we see it now i mean think about it we saw all the ads from fashion nova yep we saw audience
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posts like they were cranking things out um the brands that were consistent
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and didn't the thing was important in this direction are now the ones who are kind of like
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have pivoted have adjusted and they're moving forward you know through this you know new
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normal or whatever right marketing for y'all who don't know like i'm a big marketing nerd that's what i
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have my mba in like that's like where that's what gets me excited the marketing needs to be kind of
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formulated into the whole mix of things for y'all yeah if anything
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it's more important now more important now because you know pandemic or no pandemic the
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plus size industry is exploding right which is wonderful but the flip side of that is that there's now more competition
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right so you know where to put your site apart on the wall and be like oh if i build it they will come not so
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much you can tell us why we need to come exactly and tell us what's so special and why
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you started now versus 10 years ago yes exactly work into it and sometimes
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that work is a little money yes also it's funny that you said about what makes you
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special because one of the main things that i ask people when i'm consulting with them as a potential client
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is what do you bring to the table that nobody else does what makes you special um because one of my professors i'll
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never forget this in marketing uh marketing school he told us a story about when he was looking for a job in
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his 20s whatever job it was so he went into the interview prepared to answer
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typical interview questions you know that we all are what are your strengths weaknesses that sort of thing but instead this interviewer he threw
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him for a loop he goes so what makes you so effing special
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and he didn't censor i'm being nice um so my professor was like uh uh
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you know he didn't prepare for that so the guy goes okay thank you very much you can leave now goodbye
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so needless to say that was a little brutal but it stuck with me because at the end of the day that is
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what people want to know however they phrase it most people don't phrase it that way why am i hiring you why am i buying your
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clothes why am i hiring your services what makes you so effing special so i
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mean if there's one piece of advice i can give to anyone no matter what business you're in know your point of difference and be
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able to back that up you know make sure it's true i did a lot of research before i claimed to be the
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first pr from in the us to specialize in the plus-size fashion industry right so okay so now we've talked about
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like the importance of look i'll touched a little bit upon like the importance of marketing and how it sits undefeated
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and where pr sits within that and um understanding like your unique selling proposition i.e what makes you so effing
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special now you know for those who cannot like afford
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pr right now because it is an expense i mean you have a lot of indies and small businesses who are
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building up to what would you say um are some good tips um
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for someone to uh kind of bit you know what what should they be working towards or what can they
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do in the interim to kind of offset as they're growing to then be able to have like
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you know to have like a you have a year uh well first of all let me say that we do offer many many different packages
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for different budgets starting at 75 dollars all the way up to 10 000. so don't automatically think you
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know you have to spend thousands of dollars a month on pr but if you really can't um besides knowing your point of difference right
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now i would really make sure to know your audience do a lot of research use send out
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surveys that sort of thing on your audience on your customer base on your social media followers really understand almost like
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intimately who they are so not only how old are they where do they live you know how much money do they have but no they're
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what's called psychographics right which is like how they feel about
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things how their political statements uh political feelings how they're religious like even though that doesn't
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seem to be related to your business it is important because you know you're gonna talk to somebody if you're a business right if you're a
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business and you're setting up an ad campaign that's going to run all over the country
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chances are you're going to tweak it a little bit for people in new york versus in the deep south people have
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different views they have different you know beliefs they have different everything so if i could say right now
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you know before you're ready for a publicist know your audience i mean i cannot say that often enough
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know your audience because you don't know how to reach out to them and how to get to them until you know
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who they are that's real like that's like we call them avatars
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right so you know that's like a whole picture you're painting a picture of who your client is who they are what they do where they
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where they live you know like what their life is like and sometimes you give them little names
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and little personalities so you know on the snapshot yeah right when you're creating a
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whole picture um you're able to have a conversation and you know who you're talking to and how to talk to them
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and what to say to them where to meet them what platform are they on exactly not everyone is on every social
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media platform some people are not on social media at all you know especially if you have an older clientele it's
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really i'm going to say it a thousand times more know your audience you know as much as you possibly can
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about them and because trust me if you do the work and the research now you will save a ton
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of time and money and later on i just have to say thank you so much miss emma like you like the gyms for the
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folks in the audience like tell everyone like where they can
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find you how they can connect with you if they have questions about if they're ready um or and and if they are ready how to
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find you like go ahead and drop all your information for us sure uh so my website is madeira's fashion pr
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uh which is m e d e i r o s fashion hopefully i don't have spell
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that pr.net um can i put that in the comments section or can you put that up later
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can click on it yep um so even whether or not you are ready for a publicist now if you just want to learn more
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oh excuse me learn more about it please set up a free consultation i just
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want to get to know you again start the relationship it's all about relationships um so emma at madeirasfashionpr.com if
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you could you know put that up later marie that would be fabulous and across all social media is madeira's fashion pr
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keep it simple and on the website you can see our clients you can see some places we've gotten them in the
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press you can see our services the pricing everything is really really transparent
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nice thank you thank you so much and then um so your materials fashion pr
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on twitter instagram facebook okay all right you guys like how helpful was
27:47
that thank you so much you're welcome and again you know i really no matter what
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um no matter what part of the industry you're in no matter what industry you are in um again knowing your point of
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difference knowing what makes you so effing special um is the first step to end you know any
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successful business definitely definitely i just want to say thank you again to this emma
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thank you guys for for rocking with us like we'll be back again next week on um next week on thursday we
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will be interviewing um the artist uh jean-claude she is a sketch
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she's a part of her art right so you love her um she you
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recognize her work especially if you especially with some of your favorite um retailers because she has been
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contracted by them but we're literally going to be talking with all different types of folks on the business side of plus fashion
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ways that you can support ways that you can reach out and and engage them and get to know them on a
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different level because it's really about how are we able to support and help bring our small businesses through this
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rona in the best way possible um also if you um just on a sidebar note um we
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just dropped our cultivate awards it is a scholarship program
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with eloqui um created specifically for envy plus size bipoc designers
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created specifically for um these indies and it's a scholarship program where the winner
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will receive a ten thousand dollar scholarship from eloquent and year-round mentorship and a capsule collection will have um
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runners-up will receive cash prizing as well as resources actionable resources and tools
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that they can use to kind of help grow and develop and elevate their business and brand this is one of the things like speaking
29:40
of curves started it inspired it and this is part of an initiative that we started really
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important for me to figure out different ways that we can challenge these brands
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to help challenge them to show us how they can help and
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activate them so that we can help um our indies like because in my mind they're the
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they're the innovators they're the the thought leaders in the fashion space and so it's really
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important to find ways to kind of give back and that's the first one of the first programs we'll have for the community
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um all the cultivate awards and you will be able to find all that information on our website so how to drop that there
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but yes so um thank you guys again for tuning in we'll be back next thursday um at 12 p.m eastern
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standard time we will be streaming on all of our different platforms so make sure you can click the little notification for when
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we go live make sure you follow like our pages and until next week
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we'll catch you guys then bye thank you so much everyone thank you
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