Episode #73 Ixta Gerard | What do you Need to Know Before Hiring a PR Expert?

Success Tips from Public Relations Expert: Ixta Gerard What do you need to know before hiring a PR expert? Bilingual and bi-cultural public relations professional, Ixta Gerard, shares a few things you need to know about Public Relations today, especially for business owners need who wants to succeed in building lasting relationships in and outside of their business.

Key Questions Asked:

How was it like for Ixta when she was just starting her own PR business? How does Ixta go about meeting clients and having them actually pay for the services she’s offering? Knowing what she knows now about public relations, what would Ixta do differently if she were to start all over again today? What sort of things should business owners look for before they hire a PR agency?

Highlights of Lessons Learned:  

You and Your Business

When you specialize in a certain area and decide to build your own company around it, you should know that it’s a completely different thing to manage a business and there are other things you have to learn to make sure that you can succeed or at least make your business sustainable. Business owners have to put themselves out of their comfort zone and learn other things that may not have anything to do with what their core skills. As a business owner, you have to do a lot of self training, you can join webinars, look for mentors in and outside of your area, read various literature that teaches you about different trends or things that you should learn that you can offer to your clients as well as for your business and how to promote yourself. Ixta looks for mentorship because she believes that as a business owner, you need people to guide you. It’s normal to feel lost sometimes, but you need those people to give you some light to make sure you’re int he right direction.

PR Agencies

One important thing to make sure before hiring a PR Agency is whether or not you have a budget assigned for public relations because what happens most of the time is the results that you obtain from implementing PR strategies are almost directly related to the investment that you make. The first thing that PR Agencies review are your business objectives and immediate goals. This is so that they can make a plan for you that’s aligned with those goals that you want to meet.