Using the Art of Creative Writing to Grab Your Audiences’ Attention with Mickie Kennedy

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Hey, hey, I am super stoked to have Mickey on the show today. Without further ado, Mickey, I'm just going to turn it over to you so you can share with our listeners, who you are and what you do. Sure. My name is Mickey Kennedy, I'm the founder and owner of he releases press release services. And I

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specialize in helping entrepreneurs, small business owners and authors reach the media through press releases. Amazing. And I know that you integrate poetry to some degree into that. And I'd love to dive into that with our listeners, because I think press releases are content that we're putting out there when it's creative. And when it evokes emotion and all of those sorts of things. It tends to have a better,

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better results that come as a result of it. So share with our listeners, you know, I guess, how did you start in poetry? Have you always been writing poetry? Right? So I started writing poetry as an undergrad, and then went to grad school and got an MFA in Creative Writing, with an emphasis in poetry. I just assumed I was going to wait tables my whole life. And after I graduated with my MFA degree, I did just that and realize that it's to physically taxing and emotionally, psychologically taxing spending 1012 hours on your feet, dealing with people, it's a lot harder than you think it is. And so I decided I needed a safe office job. And I got hired at a telecom research startup. And because I had the writing background, they said, You need to figure out press releases, and how to make them work for us. So I wrote press releases, I found the story that was in there all the data numbers, and sent out press releases, originally by fax, and then a lot of people would call and say, Could you email it over. And that's the aha moment where I said, email is the way to go. And that was the genesis of E releases. So I started 25 years ago, just contacting journalists and asking if I can email them releases. And 24 years ago, I launched the company, and I had 10,000 journalists in the database. And today, we have a lot more. And we've partnered with PR Newswire, so all of our releases go out nationally over the wire. So cool, so cool. And so do you feel like your writing background, then has like really, like helped you benefit in writing press releases? I think it has, I think it's helped me understand the strategies behind the types of press releases that work and work well. At the end of the day, the common denominator among all the releases that get media pickup is they have the genesis of a story. And journalists want to tell a story to their audience. And they're sort of acting as a gatekeeper. And so is what you're releasing as a press release, does it have the material and the arc, that it could be a story, so many press releases or product announcements, they're just a bunch of bullets of features. And that's not a story. So have some use case studies. I'm sure people used your product or software before to test it out, what was their experience. And so if Company X achieved a 70% reduction in cost by using your software, you know, put that in there, get a quote from them, and allows them to build the story of this isn't just a product or service, but it actually is a solution. And here's how it works. And here's how people have applied it and used it and what their experience was. So keep that in mind. You know, when you're out there that you want to sort of develop a story. I have a lot of clients that are just mom and pops solopreneurs. And they want to appear bigger than they are. And you don't have to journalists actually want to curate small unknown gems, rather than large, well funded companies. So don't feel that you're doing yourself a service by pretending to be all corporate large, share your growing pains, the obstacles, you've overcome the embarrassing little things you've done, you'd be surprised how the media responds, I had one client who shared a very embarrassing story, how they canceled Thanksgiving, because they had gotten slammed with so many orders. And the entire family was in the garage packaging boxes to go out that Monday, because they had just been overwhelmed. And I said you've got to put that in the release. And they did. And that was the beginning of the story. That was an Ink Magazine. And they're just a small little company got picked up because people identify with these types of things. And it makes you human. And it's a human interest element. And so many times people forget that thinking press releases just have to be boring and corporate. Yeah. So let's talk about the press release and what that is so that our listeners know like the benefit of a press release and getting picked up by you know, publications and that sort of thing. Sure. So a press release is generally just a

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Third Person announcement, it's got a headline may have a subhead, there's usually a city and state in the dateline, it's usually where you're located doesn't have to be a lot of authors pick New York, because that's the publishing capital. So you know, there's no hard fast rules as to some of these things. And you can afford to break some of the rules. Generally, you want to put your most important elements. First, what you feel the most newsworthy thing is your opening sentence. And you sort of trickled down from there, it's usually anywhere from three to six paragraphs, just describing the matter and going a little more in depth. So they can build, you know, if they want elements to build a story that you've got stuck there. Usually, there's a quote, company quote, or you know, your, your quote in there, I, so many people sort of write those as an afterthought. And spend a little time on that, because a journalist, if it's an amazing quote, can build a story around it if the quote is important enough, and so make it so that it's something that can easily be paraphrased without losing the magic. And that's where me being a poet and having a creative writing background, I those are the moments that I thrive in, where I'm building a quote that just really speaks and it's like, Wow, that's beautiful, or wow, that's really concise, and, and powerful. And so that's, that's definitely where you want to spend a little time. Yeah. And so just for our listeners, to be clear, is like the press release is basically kind of like the pitch, right? Then the journalist pick up based on what they feel like is a really great story that they want to cover, right? Absolutely. So the journalist writes the article, and they take elements that are in the press release, they can also sometimes visit your website to get more information, or ask if they have, you know, some stuff because sometimes they have an agenda, or they write about a particular beat. And they want to take that into, you know, into advisement in what they're developing. So what they write may not perfectly look like what the press release was, but it's inspired by the press release. And you know, what, we're looking for these earned media articles, because they're original articles, original content that speaking to their audience about you. And sometimes they linked to you. Sometimes they don't, the larger publications like New York Times, and Washington Post often won't link to you. But I do have a couple of hacks where I've been able to get people, links from those types of publications. Yeah. And so what does your company do then? Are you actually writing the press releases for businesses, in most cases, we're not writing the releases. And the reason for that is if you look at a press release, they're very simple. They're not, you know, other than maybe the quote, there's not a lot of creativity that goes in it. And I hate to tell people to spend money, to have someone write it for them. But that being said, we do offer writing as a service, 95% of our customers come in with press releases they've drafted, we can help them if they just asked for help, they'll review the document to make sure it looks okay. But, you know, the real goal of it is to put something together, that's good fodder for the media. So when they see it, they go, Wow, this is really cool. I want to share it with my audience and have them write the articles. So what would be some tips or pointers for people of like to what to consider? That would be good story for the media? Like, is it timely matters? Is it recent product launches? Like where should people be timing these press releases around? Right? So I think anything that you have is an important milestone is definitely should be considered as a possible press release. So if you have a new product or service, I feel like yes, you definitely want to get that out to the media. But I think you want to do it with the caveat that is there the elements of a story there. And I think that use case studies is probably the most overlooked thing. When people do those types of press releases that are really, I think necessary for you to really get some traction and build out. Things that the media responds to is,

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you know, owning your own story. Being authentic, maybe inspirational, vulnerable, obstacles that you've overcome, what is your story? And if you can sort of build that as the hero's journey of your company that can do very well. I mean, for years, eBay was sharing their story about how the founder created it so that I think he could help his girlfriend sell the Pez dispensers collection that she had. It was made up by a PR firm that never existed. But the saying the story resonated with people because it was like weird. It's like Pez dispensers. And, but, you know, is there a story in your business of how you develop that's interesting. You know what inspired you? And you know, I'm not saying why

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but you can sometimes embellish a little bit along the way. And you know, anything that sort of creates an arc of a hero's journey or something that people love. They love also David versus Goliath. So companies, startups do very well, with getting media pickup. And it's often because they'd have a very defined unique selling proposition. They are trying to get funding. And they know they can only do it if they can carve out a niche that's unique and different. And so they're doing something that's a little bit different. And I think that makes it easier for them to own their story and get that out there and probably why they do so well. And so I always challenge my customers who feel like they're not doing anything unique. I say, imagine how better your business could be, if you owned something that was unique. And there are companies like people who sell Apple computers, they are limited in what they can price it because Apple sets the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. And they don't want people undercutting it more than two or 3%, or something like that. So, and yet, there are people that buy from particular companies, and it's because some bundle Free Software, some offer gift cards as a rebate, you know, Best Buy is one that bundles, the gift cards often to get people to buy through them. Others offer like really fast shipping and, you know, consultation, consultative setup, and things like that. So you can still even when you're in a commodity type business, sort of craft what you're doing that's different than everybody else. And I challenge customers that if you haven't thought that through, go back and do that your business will thank you later. Yeah, totally. And I've heard that so much, especially from solopreneurs, or mom and pop shops or something. They're like, No, we're not really different, or we don't really do anything that's different. And it's so true as like, not only for like PR and getting picked up story wise, but then your customers start to see what's unique about you and different about you. And you're able to stand out, not just even get, like I said, picked up with stories, but you're able to stand out in the market, which is obviously so, so important. But I also love that you touched on the commodity factor, right? If you're a big business selling, you know, like Starbucks, selling coffee, for instance, which is a commodity is like how do you make yourself different when you're selling something like coffee, or, you know, Amazon shipping products all over and you're a massive massive company has like the different ways that you can had different and unique things into it. You talked about the quote, and how the quote can be the thing that really kind of stands out any tips around how to like, write a really killer quote, I think it's a little bit of practice. And, you know, testing it out and asking for colleagues or coworkers help. How can I say this, it's just amazing. It's basically, I think it boils down to it's really trying to create it, create an elevator pitch about your company. And what's the elevator pitch of this press release, it may not be your company elevator pitch, but it could be and you want it to be succinct, said powerfully. Basically, if a journalist was to paraphrase what you wrote, there will be a loss of something's creativity, Spark, whatever it is, so just just spend a little time on it. Feel free to be creative. Get some feedback, get some ideas, and, and just you know, it's a little bit of trial and error. But it's it's it's a muscle, the more you exercise, it generally the better you get. Yeah, and it's so true with writing, right? Like, I mean, it's, it's the more you practice, and the more you do, I'm a copywriter. So I have clients that will come to me, and they'll often say, you know, I'm not a good writer. And I was like, Well, if you flex that muscle a bit, and you practice, right, you're gonna get better at it, and you went to school for writing,

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I would love for you to share because I know when I did my, my thesis, that was like, probably the first time that I had my writing really critically

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assessed.

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And getting that first draft back of my thesis was like, red everywhere, right? Like, you need to change this. And this doesn't make sense and all of that. And so it's not like we nail it the first time. You know, as a writer, it does take that that flexing. So what was your experience of going through your, your program? Um, it was amazing and brutal at times. So we had a lot of workshops where we would take her most innermost poetic thoughts and, you know, traumas that you've gone through and things that were just very meaningful to you. And then you've offered it up to the group to just sort of hash over. And I think that helped me develop a thick skin to realize that the end of the day, if it makes what I've created better than I'm willing to go through it and so you

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have to be very, you know, critical, self critical, and, you know, looking inward with an eye for at the end of the day you're wanting to make what you went through something that other people can relate to. And if there are things that can make that better than we go for it. Yeah. And I think that's so potent, because, you know, it's, it's, we can sit in a room and write all we want. But if we're not sharing it with people, I mean that the impact, right, but I think a lot of business owners get either get scared to write or put things out there. And and which then I think kind of, you know, affects the creativity of it, for sure. So in terms of your business, then what are this like, talk to our listeners about the services that you offer. So your people come to you with this with a press release that they want then distributed out to journalists, right. And we have a partnership where all of our releases go out nationally through PR Newswire oldest and largest newswire press releases, as well as we have some email offers as well to journalists directly. And so basically, we're just a distribution platform to get that out. And it's much cheaper than going directly to the newswire itself.

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Because of our pricing. Basically, the newswire approached me and I said, my clients can't afford you. And they said, Who are your clients? I said, they're small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups, authors. And they said, Well, we like them. And, you know, we recognize that our salespeople would not go out to people who are doing a couple of releases a year so that, you know, they were able to make the finances work. And so it's been very beneficial. And it's one of the really cool things where a small business that normally couldn't afford to go out over the wire can through a service like ours. And, you know, there is this whole element of leverage that happens on the wire, because there's a lot more potential for people to pick something up if it's extremely newsworthy or relevant. We had one story in early in the pandemic that got over 150 articles, including the Wall Street Journal, New, I think the New York Times, Washington Post, all you know, all the major publications, a lot of food publications, it was basically a, a sort of a nonprofit organization to help businesses, restaurants that were closed during the pandemic, and you could nominate your favorite local restaurant. And if they responded, you know, if you match dollars, it would go directly to them. And it'd be secured sort of like a gift certificate, it was called the dining bond initiative, built off of the war bond initiative during the war. And so I think that it resonated so well and did so phenomenally well and created millions of dollars in revenue for restaurants. Because it was positive news at a time where there was so much negative news. And I think that it was just very unique. It was like one of the selfless things that was set up to do good. And people like things like that. So you don't have to always be profit driven to to work. And there are other ways to make this work. And I think that being creative, and testing things is one of the ways in which PR can work really well. But that leverage element, you know, one release, that would have cost three or $400, yielding over $10 million in revenue, I challenge any marketing person to go do a Google ad campaign that you plug in for 100 and pull out like 12 million or something like that, it just doesn't happen. But it can potentially happen with PR. You know, ordinarily, the types of pickup that my clients see are, you know, four to eight articles. And some of my better clients get regularly eight to 14 articles. And there are certain types of press releases that you do that generally always get media pickup, and the one go to that I always tell my clients, especially if they're discouraged, is to do a survey or study within their industry. And they're just like, ah, sounds like a lot of work. But it doesn't have to be, you can set up a multi page questionnaire on Survey Monkey, I say four questions per page, do four pages on the last page, you can afford to throw in a couple of oddball left field questions. Sometimes those can work. Sometimes they're not going to work, but it's hit or miss. But I liked the fact that on the last page, because if they only complete three quarters of it, you still got their responses, even if they don't finish the survey. And you can then take the link, it's just a survey link, share it with your audience. And you know, the big pushback I get from my clients is audience isn't big enough to send a survey to well guess what, there are probably 30 or 40 independent and small trade associations in your industry that would be willing to send it out through their members and the small and independent trade associations. See it as a win win, especially if you approach it and say, I'd like you to send this to you.

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Your members, I will mention you and a survey that I'll be issuing over the wire, they just like, Wow, that's great, we get some recognition, we're not the largest trade association. This doesn't work with the largest trade associations, but I find it that works with most independent and small trade associations, and they'll share it with their members, you get the responses, a really cool thing is, you can also introduce your company in the survey. So at the end of the survey, you can have like a little bit about you and a link to your website. And you know, that's a great way to get a few 100 people to complete the survey to actually find out who you are and what you're about. So that's, that's a win win. And then you take the survey results, and you analyze them. And what were the big aha moments. And I generally say focus on two or three,

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build a page on your website, where you put all the responses, and all the questions and all the information, because sometimes journalists will dig around and try to, you know, build out a story that you didn't really think of. But you know, and it's also a lot of them will link to you. A lot of the trade publications that don't normally link to websites will link to your survey results, because they find it's got a lot of data and information. And so that's a great way to get a link to your website that normally you wouldn't through PR. And, you know, put a great quote in there as to why you feel the numbers skewed a particular way. And make sure that the questions you asked are relevant for right now. We're coming out of a pandemic, we've got logistics issues, hiring issues, the way people want to work is changing. And, you know, there's also some uncertainty about the economy and people, if you ask, what's your spending look like over the next two or three quarters? You know, are you having hiring challenges or retaining people is that, you know, is that problematic? Asking really timely questions are things that people would want to know? And anything that you can think of that when you're at a trade show, the types of questions you ask your colleagues are like, Hey, are you also experiencing this, then those are the types of questions that you can ask in your industry and get the results from, and I think that you would do really well, a client of mine who does this 30 or 40 times a year, because they are a website that has a lot of verticals, a lot of different niches. And so they do a survey for each one. And so I think they average 30 or 30, plus surveys a year, they generally get eight to 14 articles, just on autopilot. By doing this, they've gotten really good at asking really good questions, and, and then analyzing the results and putting together a good press release. Yeah, that's such a great idea. And I think the whole data like it's data driven to write so there's your it's timely, because you're asking the questions in the moment you're getting the data, you're analyzing it. And that in and of itself can tell tell stories. So when people come to you, is it? Is it on a subscription basis? No, it's per press release basis. Okay, we've we tried subscriptions. You know, most of our clients are doing two to four press releases a year. And it's hard to do do a monthly thing that makes sense. We've tried to say, Hey, can do a press release a quarter and pay $99 a month or something like that. And it just gets too complicated to figure out, it's not something that most small businesses are going to be doing one a month. So it's never really made a lot of sense. So we're just sort of ala carte, we do offer package pricing. So if someone wants to, you know, get an introductory new customer special price coming in and buy three releases, or even six, they can do that. And they're good for a year. Yeah, cool. And then in terms of, like, I know, you don't do the writing and stuff. But like, do you measure your success of how many articles are getting picked up? Like if you like, if you're sending it out? We do watch it, but it's less from a competitive standpoint, it's more of a standpoint of education. Hey, Mickey, what's working? And some of my clients will come in, and they'll be like, Wow, they got 12 articles, what did they do? And that's what made me realize that surveys and studies are so powerful, because I realized that almost every one of those got media pickup. It was, you know, I can almost guarantee if you do a survey or study type press release, you're going to get articles written about it. As long as you're asking the right questions. I had one client come through and challenged me after they sent out the release. And it was they had interviewed people from a dating website and determined that women preferred men who were six foot or taller, and just and I said, and they didn't get the pickup that they were looking for. And I said, Do you think the response you got was surprising, and they didn't understand? And I was just like, nobody's surprised that women prefer men who are six feet or taller. I kind of feel like that was a known entity. And here are two or three other questions.

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So I probably would have asked the audience and got like something more intriguing. So you have to be careful that you're asking the right questions. Because, you know, the the obvious questions and obvious answers are not going to generate media interest. Totally. So it goes back to being, you know, garnering something that's different. Right. So I mean, you might do a survey and get responses, like, more women want men that are tall, over six feet and be like, Okay, well, this isn't like, published worthy. We're gonna go back to the drawing board or whatever. Right? So it's like, it's it's thinking about what can I discover what getting curious of what you can uncover and discover about the topic? That might be different or being talked in a different way? Because that's what journalists ultimately want, right? Not only do they want a story, but they want. They want to cover things that are different and unique. Yeah, absolutely. And so certain questions you could have asked could have, I think, been more interest, like your humor, you know, how does humor play in your dating? Would you date a short, shorter person if they had a great sense of humor? Or would you date someone shorter than you? If X, Y, and Z? I think more questions like that would have put a more complicated question and answer and maybe developed a few surprises of like, yeah, I get a 74% of women said they would date someone shorter than them. If they felt like they were a, you know, funny or humorous, or, you know, more egalitarian or whatever it is that you ask, but you don't know unless you get creative with the questions and build sort of questions that are going to elucidate surprises, and it'd be open to surprises. Yeah. And in terms of, are there any tips you have about asking really great questions? Yes. So I always tell people that the best questions that I've seen systematically come out of people who are at trade shows, it's like it what they talk about with other colleagues, other people in their industry, like, Hey, have you noticed, it's been really hard to get paid from the large, you know, fortune 500 companies lately? And they're like, Yeah, it really has been so like, is there something there this slow pay that's becoming systematized in corporate America, you know, that there might be a great question to ask there. And surprisingly, these are the types of things when people go to conferences, they talk about stuff that's usually not in the trade publications, and not in print. And those are all right, for sharing in a survey, or even building out a press release. One of the press release ideas that I have is research your industry for blind spots. And surprisingly, a lot of these blind spots come from trade shows, or people to talk to colleagues, and they talk about their pain points that aren't really brought up in print. And sometimes bringing those up in a press release makes you fodder for these publications that have ignored this subject. And I've had that work really, really well. I had a carpet company in New Jersey, a local carpet company, I can't think of anybody more non newsworthy than this company. And I warned them going into it that I didn't think they were gonna get media pickup. And they shared this David and Goliath struggle that they have against the big box home improvement stores, and how inferior they are for what they deliver. And so we put that in a press release and sent it out. Almost every floor trade publication picked it up. It was like amazing. So many people resonated with that story. Because the trade publications are just other local carpet companies. They're good. It's not Home Depot and Lowe's, subscribe to that. It's the small little mom and pops. And so they shared their challenges, but they also shared what they do to differentiate themselves from the big box home improvement stores. And it worked did really well, I think they continued to do releases on that exact subject. You know, they tried different elements for each one, to make it unique. But again, they would get picked up again and again. And what they did, it was really smart, because I pointed out to them, This is great. You're getting articles, but your customers aren't reading these publications, your industry is and so they put together what they call a big brag book. And every time they go and give a quote to homeowners, they show them that they've been picked up and forced, you know, floor covering Weekly, This publication floors today. And they said that they started converting, it was over 10% Wow. As a result, so they were converting 10% More from using that brag book. And that's the power of, you know, PR because when you get earned media, which are articles written about you, it's like an implied endorsement. And there is this third party corroboration that happens and so people identify with

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So when people often when people read you read about you in an article and then go and find you, they often are buyers, they don't do price shopping, or how can I get this cheaper on Amazon, they want to do business with this company they read about and they have this good feeling about. And that can happen with your own customers and your own leads, if you get an article, share the article with your leads, because they some of them aren't going to be on the fence. And they've been on the fence about working with you. And then they read this article, and they get that goodwill, that third party corroboration that happens, and they're more likely to convert. So it's a great way to not only get new customers, but to convert your leads in the pipeline as well. Yeah, totally. And so I want to help differentiate, because I know in well, especially in the online space,

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there's like the paid PR that you can pay to be in, you know, entrepreneur or news weekly, or whatever you paid have a spot in there. And this is they pay you to to push out press releases, and then the journalists pick it up for free, like a corrupt pick, yes. Okay. Just to differentiate the two. Yeah. So from the ethics, background of me and stuff like that I don't get involved in the paid placement, because it is you're dealing with AD departments and marketing departments, you're not dealing with journalists. And so where I'm working is with with journalists directly. And I think it's because a lot of those publications that are paid placement, they say sponsored, they say advertise, and people react to those cities, they see that the same way. I'm suspicious of what I'm going to read now, where if it's just an article in their newspaper, they're not suspicious, you know, it's funny, but once they recognize that this is an ad, or this is paid placement, their guard goes up. And so I, I challenge people that yes, you can pay and get these publications, but I don't think it's worth it because it is under that banner of sponsored or advertisement or paid placement. And I think that that's just a big signal to the readers that they can, you know, they don't have to read this with an eye of believability? Totally. It's kind of like when Google came out with the ads up top right, it was like you saw the ads. And that was like, I'm gonna just scroll down to the organic to see who's actually being ranked organically because there there is a different lens that people are viewing that through for sure. And I just wanted to differentiate that because I know there's been a lot of talk, especially in the online space is like, you know, what's the difference between paid placement and actually having your story picked up? So how can people work with you if they want to? Because we've talked about small shops, big shops, because I think sometimes to small businesses, or mom and pop shops or whatever they're like, how I can't pay for PR or PR is too expensive? So like, how do they work with you if they want to work with you? Right? So the websites e releases.com. All our social medias on the lower right, LinkedIn is about the only one I understand I have people who take care of the rest. And

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we have a phone number, we have chat and email. The only people you'll talk to our editors, we have a total of seven editors. And we're we had no quotas, no commissions. Basically, if we feel we can help you, we'll tell you that if we feel that we can't help you, we're pretty honest. And let you know, we're willing to review whatever you have discussed any ideas with you and sort of help you we walk a lot of people through their first press release and through that process to get them going. I do have a free masterclass to press release strategies that I'll make available to your audience. It's an E releases.com, forward slash plan, p l a n. And it's basically a one hour video masterclass, that basically goes through an audit of you, through strategic types of press releases, you could do the survey and study that I mentioned, is one of those elements. But there's several others that you can take and apply that basically, if you run through that, and do releases on those subjects, they're going to be very strategic and have a much higher chance of getting media pickup, the class was created to try and get my customers to do better releases and more strategic types of releases. I will tell you the release that gets the least amount of pickup, and it's probably the the most popular press release that we get. It's the employment change, someone's hired, they move position or is retiring from the company, and they feel like they have to do this release. And so many times people don't care. It's not very meaningful. It's meaningful to the person, but it's not meaningful to the media. So I always say if you have those, send them directly to your local paper, maybe a trade publication and make sure that the employee sees it to create that goodwill, but don't spend money to issue that over the wire because it's a waste of money. It just never almost never works. The big exception being there's an industry veteran and you've learned them to your company, and it's big news

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Everyone wants to know about it. But most of them are not that. Yeah, totally. I love that. And we will link all of those up in the show notes so that people can access that. And I love that you break out the other strategic ways that people can create a press release. And the survey ones just is brilliant as well. So it's been such a pleasure chatting with you, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners, before we wrap up, I would just say, you know, don't worry about being too small or feeling like you're not important. There's this impostor syndrome that goes on with small businesses and entrepreneurs. And I see it so often, some of the clients who've been the most hesitant about doing PR have done the best. And you know, journalists are, you know, little curators looking for little gems, and your company, or whatever you're about could be that gem that they're looking for. And don't cut yourself short. Because no journalist likes to write articles about Microsoft and big, well funded companies. They like the little discoveries and the little entities that no one's really talked about. And so it's a great opportunity. And don't feel that you're too small or not important enough for you to be able to make PR work for you. Yeah, and such a great way to get visible in a different way than what again, what we see so often, like, you know, social media, get on Instagram, go on, tick tock, do all the things on great social media. But this is just, I mean, that's you broadcasting, right, this is just a way for you to have your story picked up by somebody else. And that just again, creates social proof to some degree, yes, they might not have bought your products or services, but it's just a third party, like you said, that's picking up your story and telling it which is has a very different light than you just broadcasting your story on social media or, you know, if you're a brick and mortar locally, and that sort of thing, paying for ads and whatnot. So, again, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you and I cannot wait for our listeners to have a listen to this episode. Thank you. Thank you.