Acing your first year with Jacqui Miller
That first year after leaving corporate life can be tricky—do you say yes to most every opportunity or niche immediately and start saying no? Strategic communicator Jacqui Miller aced (by any measure) her first year as a Soloist and describes how she made it happen:
The surprising first thing she did when leaving her corporate job to start her expertise business.
Why she made the decision to niche right away—and then continued to niche down even more.
How she decides which clients to take on and which to refer (and why she’s a big believer in creating a circle of complementary professionals).
What to do when you hit an inflection point in your career/business where you’re “not practicing at the top of your license”.
The communication strategies that expanded her impact and relationships.
LINKS
Jacqui Miller Website | LinkedIn | On Thought Leadership
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Jacqui is a communications professional with over 15 years of experience in early-stage and high-complexity businesses. Previously, she led communications at PillPack, a digital pharmacy, from the first customer through its $1 billion acquisition by Amazon. She’s also launched moonshots at Google X, and helped bring to market the first genomic tumor test for personalized cancer treatment at Foundation Medicine.
Today, she works alongside founding teams to take the long view on communications as an executive function. Her philosophy is that the best PR strategy is ultimately just running a thoughtful business.
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00 – 00:23
Jacqui Miller: I had never in my in-house W2 career tried to grow a big team or even really have many direct reports. So it would have been a new thing for me to do to go and try to build a bigger team as a consultant. So it did feel pretty natural. And then Everybody would ask me, oh, are you starting an agency? Are you hiring people? Are you doing this? And I had to go through a little bit of a moment where I was like, is that what I’m supposed to do? Am I supposed to be hiring these
00:23 – 00:28
Jacqui Miller: people? And was able to come out the other side of that and realize I’m quite happy as a soloist.
00:34 – 01:19
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, formerly known as Soloist Women, where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rochelle Moulton, and today I’m here with Jacqui Miller, who’s a communications pro with over 15 years of experience in early stage and high complexity businesses. Previously, she led communications at PillPack, a digital pharmacy, from the first customer through its $1 billion acquisition by Amazon. She’s also launched Moonshots at Google X and helped bring to market the first genomic tumor test for personalized cancer treatment at Foundation Medicine. Today, she works alongside founding teams
01:19 – 01:31
Rochelle Moulton: to take the long view on communications as an executive function. Her philosophy is that the best PR strategy is ultimately just running a thoughtful business. Jackie, welcome.
01:32 – 01:34
Jacqui Miller: Thank you so much, Rochelle. I’m really happy to be here.
01:34 – 01:56
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, I’m so excited. So 1 of the many reasons I invited you on the show is your powerhouse year number 1 experience as a soloist. So Why don’t we start there? Maybe you could tell us about how you decided to leave your job and to go solo. How hard was it to exit and make that transition to owning your own
01:56 – 02:25
Jacqui Miller: business? Absolutely. So I do also have to say, Rachelle, I found your podcast early on and it has been so helpful to hear other folks who’ve made this jump. So it is really an honor to be here to share my story too. So I had a job, a full-time job, and you know, I’d been in the role for probably 6 months and I was starting to feel like this is not my genius zone. This is just not accessing the parts of my brain that I want. I don’t think it’s the right fit. So I had started
02:25 – 02:49
Jacqui Miller: thinking, what would it look like if I left? What would I do? I don’t know, kind of poking around. And also feeling quite a bit of fear because I’d been there for just a short amount of time and obviously didn’t want to kind of burn any bridges. And all of this was rolling around in my head. And then in the background also had, as you’d mentioned in the intro, I’d worked for a startup, had kind of a nest egg from that acquisition. So I knew I would be okay if it took me a minute to figure
02:49 – 03:19
Jacqui Miller: out the next thing. And 1 day I just, I had, I really frustrated. Something happened at work and I kind of had an out of body moment where I was like, you know, there’s not that many opportunities in life where you get to make a decision based on your gut feeling and what you know is right for you. And this is not right for me and I’m gonna leave and I’m gonna figure out what the next best thing looks like for me. And so pretty rapidly, I closed up shop there and left everything in good shape.
03:19 – 03:22
Jacqui Miller: And the first thing I did, Michelle, was I went and I got a new headshot.
03:25 – 03:30
Rochelle Moulton: It’s funny because that’s the thing that everybody hates. They leave it to the very end. I love it.
03:30 – 03:51
Jacqui Miller: And as a communications and public relations person, I was like, you know what I think is going to make me feel confident about whatever I do next? It’s having a brand new headshot on LinkedIn. So that Saturday after my last day at work, I went and I got my makeup done and got a new headshot. And I kind of just hung my shingle out in the proverbial sense on LinkedIn and started trying to figure it out.
03:51 – 04:00
Rochelle Moulton: So you didn’t do the, oh, let me create this giant website and figure out the 2700 things I can do for you. You started on LinkedIn.
04:00 – 04:27
Jacqui Miller: I did. I think exactly what I did. I switched my role to working for myself. I was fortunate enough to have a couple of folks very early on who I’d sort of been talking to and they were like, if you become free, we have work for you to do. So I was fortunate enough to have that early on while I wrote my website and that sort of thing. And yeah, I just really started kind of putting it out there to folks in my network that I was available to do projects and would love to chat.
04:28 – 04:45
Rochelle Moulton: Okay. So, you know, I always ask people, you know, how long did it take to make your first 100, 000? And I know that you made over 100, 000 in your first year. So tell us how you experience like the financial side of your new business, especially compared to yourself as a salaried employee. Yeah,
04:46 – 05:19
Jacqui Miller: it’s been wild. The pricing side was really intimidating to me at first. As an in-house person, I’d worked with agencies, I’d worked with a few soloists. I understood the value of what I could do. But putting together those earlier proposals, I was lucky to have a few friends who had kind of been here before me who were willing to look at them, but it was very overwhelming. But what I quickly figured out was when I’m doing my best work, it’s very valuable to the companies. And in a full-time role at the level that I’d gotten to
05:19 – 05:45
Jacqui Miller: as a communications professional I hadn’t been in a job for a while that was using kind of my full brain all of the time. So initially I was like oh is it okay to make this much money in a month? Am I overcharging? What am I doing? But I realized that the pricing structure as a soloist at a certain point in your career is really lucrative and fun because you’re doing the things that You know at least for me that I find both the most challenging but also the most rewarding But that are also creating the
05:45 – 05:47
Jacqui Miller: most value for the folks I’m working with.
05:47 – 05:57
Rochelle Moulton: And it’s funny that that would be a disconnect, right? Like I’m doing these things in my genius zone, they’re worth a lot of money. Oh, I can charge a lot.
05:58 – 06:15
Jacqui Miller: Right, and I’m making 3 times as much as I was as a W2 employee, is that right? And when you think about it logically, it makes sense, but it was a strange realization for me. And then really exciting about what that meant for my earning potential and what kind of a lifestyle I could figure out while still having so much fun.
06:15 – 06:37
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and I just want to point out that, you know, mindset is so critical, right? And you just set a magic number, at least in my head, which is 3 times. So you got to a point where you were earning 3 times what you earned as an employee, using your full brain, doing what you love. Were you working as much as an employee, more or about the same?
06:37 – 07:01
Jacqui Miller: I will say I was working quite a bit more. Still, I would say in the first year, probably the biggest thing I need to still figure out is how to get to the number of hours I want to be working a week. You know, I’m not working. I have 2 small children, so they don’t really allow me to work much more than maybe 35 or 40 hours. But I’d like to get to the point where I can just balance that a little bit better. So definitely working more, but I think also just feeling much more fulfilled
07:01 – 07:01
Jacqui Miller: by it.
07:01 – 07:04
Rochelle Moulton: Yes, it feels like a holistic approach to it.
07:04 – 07:14
Jacqui Miller: Absolutely. And just really excited to open my email and see what new things had come in and tackle the next project. I was just feeling energized in a way that I hadn’t in quite a bit.
07:14 – 07:42
Rochelle Moulton: What a difference that is to be excited about the emails coming into your box. So when we first met, you’d already made the decision to niche, which in my experience is boldly unusual. Lots of folks spend that freshman year doing a little bit of everything and then regretting it in year 2. But you focused like right from the beginning. Tell us about that decision and how it played out where you decided to play in a specific niche.
07:42 – 08:17
Jacqui Miller: Yeah, it started out in part based on, you know, other communications professionals that I’d seen going off on their own. The ones that I was most inspired by, I felt like were being quite specific about what they were doing. Communications is a really broad field. It can fit into marketing. It can fit separate from marketing. It can be just public relations. It can be just internal communications. It’s a very broad area of expertise. And as I kind of looked around at other folks who were doing this soloist thing or building small agencies, I was really inspired
08:17 – 08:46
Jacqui Miller: by the people who were saying, you know, quite specifically, we are doing this thing for this industry in this way. So I wanted to get to that as quickly as possible. And I also, you know, having been in house and running these functions inside of businesses for so long, I really had a good understanding of what makes for a good soloist consultant offering in terms of what sort of things you can have somebody like that take on successfully. So those 2 experiences helped me feel more confident and offering a tighter range of services when I first
08:46 – 08:46
Jacqui Miller: started.
08:46 – 09:03
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but as I’m listening to you, it sounds like you’ve got a point of view, whether you’ve fully articulated in writing or not. Is that the case? Yes. Any point of view in terms of communications, in terms of how it impacts clients, the way that it works best.
09:03 – 09:37
Jacqui Miller: Definitely. I would say I’m very passionate about the idea that communications cannot be fully outsourced, nor should it be. I actually, as I’ve gotten further into this first year of business, I’ve niched even more than I think the first time we talked, into really thinking about engagements as working with very, very early stage companies who, you know, it’s still the founder and a small team. And then there’s kind of this valley where I think a lot of companies and startups especially, it was the majority of folks I work with are venture-backed startups, where they kind of
09:37 – 10:07
Jacqui Miller: try to fake it for a while on the communication side and they don’t quite want to hire the expertise so they’re trying to fill the gaps with somebody in marketing or a PR agency. I get really passionate about talking to those folks and telling them, just go hire someone who loves to write and has high judgment and bring them in house and let them work with you and trust them and give them the tools they need to really guide the business. We live in a world where reputation is everything. That person doesn’t need to be super
10:07 – 10:31
Jacqui Miller: senior, but you do need someone who’s looking out for the reputation of the business. It’s a little ironic that that’s my strong point of view, because then I’m here as a consultant. But I think having that point of view helps me give clients really good advice. And then I can tell them, they’re like, OK, great. So what can you do for us? And then I can talk about kind of the range of things that I can do either before you hire that person to set them up for success or after you’ve hired them to be a
10:31 – 10:38
Jacqui Miller: thought partner and a coach and an extra set of hands when they need it, but mostly helping them figure out how to grow that role within the business.
10:39 – 11:12
Rochelle Moulton: Well, 1 of the advantages of taking that position is that you’re doing 2 things at the same time. 1 is you’re telling them to essentially get a trusted advisor that they hire to keep on staff. And the other is by saying the opposite of what many other people would say in order to get work, you have built more trust in that initial engagement. Yeah. So yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. So moving forward though, what do you see is the revenue potential for this business from where you are now? So where you are now, 3
11:12 – 11:24
Rochelle Moulton: times what you were making as an employee, Are you picturing that you can double your revenue, triple a much bigger multiplier? Where do you see the business going?
11:24 – 11:53
Jacqui Miller: Yeah, it’s a good question. And I’m influenced by people you’ve had on the podcast before, and I’ll name drop them because people should go listen to their episodes. But I remember Erica Goodie’s episode, you talked to Heather Welpley and Katie Burkhart, and they all had these amazing points about how they make their business and their financial goals really work for their lives as a whole. And that’s the thing I think I’m trying to figure out. And I don’t know yet what that looks like for me. I think I’d love to kind of toggle the pricing levers
11:53 – 12:04
Jacqui Miller: and the services levers, and then what other things are important in my life to figure that out. But it has been a lot of fun, I think, in year 1 to just really go for it and see what I can do if I’m firing on all cylinders.
12:04 – 12:18
Rochelle Moulton: And it’s also, it’s a little unfair of me to ask you that question at the end of year 1. Right? But sometimes you just see a clear path ahead. Well, do you see adding employees at some point or have you become a confirmed soloist?
12:19 – 12:39
Jacqui Miller: I’m pretty sure I’m a confirmed soloist. I just don’t get as much enjoyment out of managing people. And I’ve actually I’ve got a couple proposals out right now where I’ve brought in colleagues or peers who do similar things and proposing, you know, we can, we can work together to do all of the things that you need. But it’s really fun to only report to myself.
12:40 – 12:40
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah.
12:40 – 12:51
Jacqui Miller: And for me, I think it helps me be more in my genius zone more often when I’m not also trying to delegate and figure out who’s going to do what. And I get to focus on the projects that I feel like are best fit for my expertise.
12:52 – 13:08
Rochelle Moulton: I’m just curious, when you first left the corporate environment, did you know that at the beginning? Because sometimes people will say, oh, yeah, I was in corporate and I was managing a bunch of employees and I just realized it just wasn’t for me Or is this something that kind of grew on you gradually as you figured out your genius zone?
13:08 – 13:40
Jacqui Miller: I’ve always known that I really enjoy being an executive level individual contributor And I think that’s kind of a rarefied position. And I was very fortunate to be able to do that for quite some time, where I didn’t have a team and manage people. And I got to sit at the table and have my thoughts and go and do my work. And I really liked that. So I had never in my in-house W2 career tried to grow a big team or even really have many direct reports. So it would have been a new thing for me
13:40 – 13:59
Jacqui Miller: to do to go and try to build a bigger team as a consultant. So it did feel pretty natural and then everybody would ask me, oh, are you starting an agency? Are you hiring people? Are you doing this? And I had to go through a little bit of a moment where I was like, is that what I’m supposed to do? Am I supposed to be hiring these people? And was able to come out the other side of that and realize I’m quite happy as a soloist.
13:59 – 14:18
Rochelle Moulton: You know, I’m so glad to hear you say that because so many of us went through that process where the outside world is so used to this idea that being an entrepreneur means you’re going to hire people and you’re not successful until you hire people. So yeah, it’s great that you not only resisted that but figured out what would work for you.
14:18 – 14:42
Jacqui Miller: Yeah, and it’s been fun to get to know other people who have kind of adjacent skill sets because when I now when I meet with a client and I might or potential client and I might like them I might think it’s an interesting business but it just isn’t quite the right fit for me. It’s also really rewarding to be able to say, you know, this isn’t quite right for me, but I’ve got 3 peers over here that I’m happy to introduce you to and it’s more in their wheelhouse. And so I don’t know, I really enjoy
14:42 – 14:48
Jacqui Miller: that and I think it’s a fun way to build relationships without having to build a company or build, I guess, a business with employees.
14:49 – 15:02
Rochelle Moulton: Well, it’s also fun just to work with other people that are at your level. Like they have different skill sets and sometimes it’s fun to work with other people versus always doing it solo. Totally. Without the responsibility of employment.
15:02 – 15:05
Jacqui Miller: Yeah. So Jackie, how do you
15:05 – 15:16
Rochelle Moulton: think about and make decisions about who you’ll work with and which projects you’ll take on? Like you just said, oh yeah, if I feel like somebody’s not quite the right fit, I might pass them on. How do you decide?
15:17 – 15:43
Jacqui Miller: It’s gotten easier as I defined my niches even more tightly. And I would say it’s 2 things. The first thing is it’s a vibe. I think probably 1 of my superpowers is I don’t mind Zooms. You know, I think a lot of people were like, you know, at the end of the pandemic, were like, I never want to get on a Zoom again. I find it relatively easy to connect with people even over a Zoom, and I can tell pretty quickly if we’re going to work together well or not. And so as I’ve, you know, been
15:43 – 16:10
Jacqui Miller: able to trust myself more about those judgments, it’s been easier to figure out, you know, yeah, I think this is going to be a great relationship, we should go forward with it, or, you know, maybe this is going to be more of a grind than either of us would want it to be. So there’s that, there’s the vibe part of it. And then getting better at asking the right questions to figure out what the potential client actually needs. Again, I think like communications and public relations can be so squishy for people that oftentimes clients are coming
16:10 – 16:28
Jacqui Miller: to me not quite knowing what they need. So being able to ask specific questions and get to the heart of their business goals and how the things that I do can intersect with their business goals faster and with more precision is something that has definitely gotten easier over the course of the last year and hopefully will get continuously easier.
16:29 – 16:45
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, see, I think of those as consulting skills. The presenting problem is almost never the problem that you wind up actually solving. So it’s all the skill sets that the questioning skill sets that take you through that process where you get to apply your expertise, but in all these different situations.
16:46 – 17:10
Jacqui Miller: Yes. And honestly, a lot of the time, the problem that people come to me with is that they think they need to issue a press release. And it’s very rare that that’s actually the thing that they need to do or the problem that they’re having. So I do a lot of conversations around figuring out why do we think that the press release is the thing we need to do? Can we work back into what problems we’re trying to solve in the business and where communications might help?
17:11 – 17:27
Rochelle Moulton: Perfect example. I love that. Well, when we were going back and forth, You said that no 1 interviews you to be your own boss. And so I’d like you to talk some more about that for anybody listening who is trying to decide whether the soloist entrepreneurial path is for them.
17:28 – 17:56
Jacqui Miller: Yeah, I mean, I talked about this, but I kind of jumped into it without interviewing myself or really having that much foresight into it. But I do think I have some things that have now occurred to me about why this has been so much fun and such a good fit for me that in retrospect, I would have asked myself ahead of time. I think part of it is thinking, would you hire you? What are the things that you would hire you for? And that has really helped me define some of these niches, is thinking about, OK,
17:56 – 18:26
Jacqui Miller: if I was on the other side of this, what would I hire me for? What are the things that are my unique skill sets in terms of the places I’ve worked, the people I know, my kind of perspective on communications and public relations. And, you know, working through those things to figure out, is this soloist life going to be a good fit for me. So for me, it’s like I’ve worked in a number of different industries. I’ve worked with a lot of people. So even when I first started, and I didn’t realize this at the time,
18:26 – 18:51
Jacqui Miller: but I had a really large network of people who actually had a really deep knowledge of my work. So I think it’s easy to have a long career and have done a lot of things very successfully, but not have that many people who have actually worked with you closely. But because of the nature of what I do, I just, there’s so many people who I’ve worked with in the past who were then eager to say like, great, this is amazing. I’d love to work with you again. So that was an advantage that I had. Thinking about
18:51 – 19:18
Jacqui Miller: if you enjoy kind of the full spectrum of the work, like, some people I think are very energized by seeing the end product, and they’re really good managers of people and really good at bringing a team together to help them get to that end goal. And some people are really energized by actually doing the work piece by piece. And I think I have a hunch, maybe you know, I don’t know, but being a soloist, you sort of have to find both the process and the end result to be rewarding and enjoyable, because you are doing quite
19:18 – 19:31
Jacqui Miller: a bit of all of that work. And you want to make sure that you can maintain the energy over the course of projects and engagements. So that turns out that was a really big advantage that I had that I would have perhaps asked me at the beginning if it was true.
19:33 – 19:51
Rochelle Moulton: It’s kind of like, how do you get your jollies, right? Do you get them from seeing the completed project? Do you get it from the process? And even if it’s from the process, is it from the things that you’re adding to it, or is it how you choose and assemble and run the team? Those are very different things when you’re consulting.
19:52 – 20:12
Jacqui Miller: Yes, totally. The former is definitely me, and I’ve talked to lots of folks since I started this who, I can’t imagine doing that. I’m like, Of course not, because your skill set is just in this other kind of way of working, where this wouldn’t be a good fit for you at all. So I think, yeah, those are kind of some of the things that I, in retrospect, might have asked myself before jumping into this adventure.
20:12 – 20:35
Rochelle Moulton: Well, although if you were the kind of person who likes to put everything together, you might start an agency, right? You probably wouldn’t do a solo, but you could, you know, you might still say, yeah, I want to do this, but I just want to do it in a different way. And I resonate with that because that’s how I made my first job. Yep. Cause I like to do all of the pieces and have a bunch of people working together. So I, you know, I built a firm. Yup. Yeah. It’s, it’s figuring out if you’re ready
20:35 – 20:37
Rochelle Moulton: for the entrepreneurial life.
20:37 – 21:01
Jacqui Miller: Yup. The last thing I think we touched on this earlier, but I think having an opinion about the work that you do and the way that it’s best done is very helpful in terms of just selling and differentiating yourself. Like people don’t have to agree with you, but if you have an opinion and something you can get kind of worked up about when you’re talking about why you approach things the way you do, I think it helps people remember who you are. It helps them decide if it’s going to be a good fit. And it just
21:01 – 21:03
Jacqui Miller: makes those conversations more fun.
21:03 – 21:15
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, absolutely. And if you’ve got that and it’s different from what everybody else is saying, even if it’s just different in 1 or 2 smaller ways, it makes a difference. It makes an impact, and it’s more memorable.
21:15 – 21:19
Jacqui Miller: Yep, it surprises people, and people remember when they’re surprised.
21:19 – 21:52
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Well, the other point you raised I thought was really interesting. And you said that you thought some of us, and especially women, perhaps people of color, may hit certain inflection points in our careers, whether it’s due to bias or caregiving responsibilities, where we’re just not practicing. I love the expression you used, at the top of our license. And so what do you see as the solution to that? I mean, I know what yours was, right? You left and started your own firm and said that you can practice at the top of your game. But what
21:52 – 21:55
Rochelle Moulton: do you see as people’s options and solutions for this?
21:55 – 22:27
Jacqui Miller: Yeah, my experience in healthcare is showing that’s a phrase that often gets used for healthcare practitioners when they’re not able to practice at the top of their license because they have too much admin work or other things to do. I love it. I think it resonates with a lot of people, as you mentioned, where you kind of got to create your own opportunities. It can be really difficult, I think, even if you’re in a great workplace, to be able to get the work that you really want to be doing. And 1 of my favorite things I
22:27 – 22:54
Jacqui Miller: do as part of kind of 1 of my niches is I work with whoever is the most senior communications or public relations or marketing leader in a business. And as kind of a thought partner and a coach, and we do a lot of conversations in those engagements talking about how do you kind of go to your executive team or the management team, whoever it might be, and help them understand what you can do if you’re given the space to do it. And how do you talk them through that and get them to kind of look at
22:54 – 23:13
Jacqui Miller: your role in a different way? And I think a lot of roles, especially communications and PR, that are kind of more seen as more softer skills. There is both a challenge and an opportunity to help kind of traditional executive types understand exactly what those functions can do for the business if given the space.
23:13 – 23:17
Rochelle Moulton: And you know, it’s interesting when you said that is I never think of PR as a soft skill.
23:17 – 23:18
Jacqui Miller: Thank you.
23:18 – 23:29
Rochelle Moulton: It’s just the opposite. Thank you. When you’ve worked with a really top-notch PR person, you will never, ever think of it as a soft skill again.
23:30 – 23:41
Jacqui Miller: I think that’s true. And I certainly have a number of folks who, you know, I’ve worked with in the past and are good friends who text me when they’re in a sticky situation. And I think they would agree that it is not a soft skill at all.
23:41 – 24:00
Rochelle Moulton: No. So Jackie, I would just be remiss if I didn’t try to pick your brain a little bit for our listeners. So you’re a communications and PR expert, obviously operating at the top of your game. What kinds of advice do you have for soloists in the B2B expertise space?
24:01 – 24:31
Jacqui Miller: You know, I have been shocked, and this is not a plug for the platform, but I have been shocked by how effective LinkedIn is these days in terms of finding people and connecting with people. And so I really do encourage people to take the time to think through what kinds of opinions do they have? Are there basics about what you do that other folks might not understand that you can go and share? Occasionally, are there funny things that you could share? But I do think being kind of active in that space, which is really functioning these
24:31 – 24:51
Jacqui Miller: days as the water cooler for business at large. Who knows what platform will take its place in the future, but right now I do find that that is just very effective to be on there and just engaging and being authentic and figuring out what you care about. I don’t think there are a lot of shortcuts to that. I think people sometimes are looking for, is there a way I can automate this? Can I outsource this?
24:51 – 24:52
Rochelle Moulton: What’s the hack?
24:52 – 25:15
Jacqui Miller: Yeah. What’s the hack to doing this? It seems hard. And I don’t know if there is 1, other than putting some real thought into kind of, you know, what are, sometimes I tell people, you know, what are 3 opinions that you hold strongly? And can we write about those in 15 different ways? And I think that as you start to figure out those strongly held opinions, it gets a lot easier to participate in the conversations.
25:16 – 25:27
Rochelle Moulton: That’s kind of how I think of it as the point of view, right? Those opinions are buried inside that view. I love that approach. And I assume you’re going to tell us we don’t need press releases.
25:30 – 25:56
Jacqui Miller: There is a purpose for press releases. If you have a new business and you need the name to pop up in Google when people search for it, a press release is a great way to make sure that that’s gonna happen. If there are things that journalists are searching for, like if you’re gonna present at a conference or I work in the healthcare space, if you’ve gotten An FDA approval or some other kind of approval that people are looking for that kind of information press releases can be really useful So I wouldn’t say like never do a
25:56 – 26:27
Jacqui Miller: press release But I do think in general the way that people use media and should use media in terms of publicity is changing in no small part because I’m terrible but media rooms are shrinking like the staff on publications has just been decimated in the last year. It’s not great for society And it does make public relations more challenging because there just aren’t as many reporters covering the spaces Soon you need to send them really good pitches because they’re getting a whole lot of them And I think if you do want to be kind of a
26:27 – 26:47
Jacqui Miller: person who shows up in press and shows up in media It’s just like building any other kind of relationship. It’s about figuring out who is covering the space that you’re interested in, really reading the things that they’re writing, buy a subscription to the outlet, pay for it, if you wanna be featured in it. I think that’s a big 1, like people will be like.
26:47 – 26:51
Rochelle Moulton: I know this is so basic, and it just doesn’t occur to everybody.
26:51 – 27:19
Jacqui Miller: No, it doesn’t. So, you know, really reading the publications where you hope to be featured and then again, it gets back to your point of view and figuring out ways to share that and opportunities that make sense. You know, when you’re being, you know, someone who’s writing an article and you have a strong reaction to it, either positive or negative, like, let them know, reporters are people too. So I do, I encourage people to not look at the media as necessarily being gate-kept by public relations agencies and things like that, and that they are people with
27:19 – 27:22
Jacqui Miller: whom you can form a relationship just like anybody else.
27:22 – 27:29
Rochelle Moulton: Yes. I’ve had so much success with relationships with media. I just think people think they’re not real people.
27:29 – 27:39
Jacqui Miller: No. They’re people who are trying to learn about the world. And if you can offer them useful information that’s not self-serving, that helps them see the world in a new way, they’re going to be really grateful.
27:39 – 27:55
Rochelle Moulton: Well, it’s the nature of a journalist, right? Is they’re nosing around trying to find something that nobody else has figured out yet. And I think part of the key too, in addition to treating them like real people, is that they are very, very busy real people. Probably the busiest people in your circle.
27:56 – 28:23
Jacqui Miller: Extremely busy. So really respecting that. And I think there is a meta point there about kind of information and disinformation. And if you’re going to try to engage with press, really respecting the job that they’re doing and the role that they have kind of in society to try to be arbiters of what is true and figuring out what’s true and what’s not true and presenting facts to people. And I think having a deep respect for that role and how difficult it is, is really critical to building those relationships.
28:24 – 28:52
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. I’m just going to throw this in there. So when I started my first business, we hired a PR person after about the first year and she said, you know, what would you like to have happen? And I said, well, I’d like to be in the Wall Street Journal. And she managed to get it. And I prepped for that interview for 2 days. I have never been grilled like that up to that point. And I’ve done a lot of media never been grilled like that. This woman was amazing. She was so smart. She did all of
28:52 – 29:04
Rochelle Moulton: her homework. She had all the non-obvious questions. And I remembered thinking, yes, I will never not prepare like a fiend for an interview with big media.
29:05 – 29:31
Jacqui Miller: I have so much, obviously, it’s why I do this job, but I do, I have so much respect for journalism and especially the big publications, the folks who work there and do that reporting are so smart about so many different industries. But I think also they have so much to know that they are quite grateful and open to somebody coming to them with a niche area of expertise who can help explain something that might be complicated or not obvious to somebody outside the space looking
29:31 – 29:48
Rochelle Moulton: in. Totally. So you know, because I know you listen to these episodes, that there is a question I like to ask everybody, which is if you could go back to who you were when you first started your business, which this time is not very long ago, right? What’s the 1 thing you’d advise her to do?
29:49 – 30:19
Jacqui Miller: Yes, I have thought about this. I think it is probably, and people have said this before, but it’s just so true, like trusting my gut on decisions. You know, the couple of engagements and client engagements I’ve had that have been less successful, I knew from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be a good fit. And I didn’t quite listen to myself, or I was looking at the numbers for the month, and I said, you know, okay, let’s do this. And definitely those were learning experiences, and looking back, it’s like, Nope, when you have a gut
30:19 – 30:27
Jacqui Miller: feeling that this isn’t going to be a great engagement, just pass it on along. The good ones will be coming and they’ll come faster if you are making space for them.
30:28 – 30:40
Rochelle Moulton: Love that mindset, that point of view. So, Jackie, we’re going to be putting all sorts of links to you and your content in the show notes, but where’s the best place for people to learn more about you and your work? They can
30:40 – 30:49
Jacqui Miller: come find me on LinkedIn. I am Jackie Miller or Jacqueline Miller. You can link it in the show notes, but that is probably the place I am most most active these days.
30:49 – 31:08
Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. Jackie, thank you so much. I just love the story of your freshman year and going into a sophomore year that sounds like it’s going to be every bit as successful as the first year. So thank you for sharing your story and your advice. I so appreciate you.
31:08 – 31:16
Jacqui Miller: Thank you. Thanks so much for inviting me on. And true thank you to all your previous guests, who have really been inspiring on my journey through this first year.
31:17 – 31:24
Rochelle Moulton: Love that. Okay, that’s it for this episode. I hope you’ll join us next time for the Soloist Life. Bye bye.
