Press Releases to Build an Audience! with Mickie Kennedy, eReleases

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is The Mesh. I'm going to share with Mickie Kennedy with eReleases who will share some low-cost ideas for how you can get your message out by working the media. Plus, we'll share a small business

[00:00:42] of the month with you that you should be checking out. My name is Jeff Nouvell. I'm your host. I'm Director of the Manufacturing Solutions Center in Connover, North Carolina, where we work with startup manufacturers and small businesses to help them grow, add jobs to our US manufacturing base.

[00:00:59] I'm flying solar today. My usual guest host Gary is not with us today, but I'm fortunate that we do have with us, Mickie Kennedy, with eReleases, Mickie, how are you doing today? I'm doing fine.

[00:01:12] Well, we appreciate you joining the Entrepreneur Exchange and, you know, my extensive internet research shows me that you're in Baltimore County. You have the Futeing Cats, you enjoy British science fiction and you have an unhealthy addiction to diet soda. It's all this accurate.

[00:01:35] It is. I'm sitting here with my diet soda as we speak. Okay. Well, tell us a little bit about eRelease. What is it? Sure. Get started and why did you start it?

[00:01:50] Okay. So I started eReleases about, it'll be 25 years October of this year and I had been working at a telecom research startup as employee number three. And I had a creative writing background but that was good enough for them to say you figure out press releases.

[00:02:11] And so I did and I got really good at it. We published a lot of numbers and data that wasn't very sexy, but there was strange little anomalies throughout it.

[00:02:21] And like there was a Caribbean island that accounted for more telecom traffic between the United States back and forth. Then like all other Caribbean countries combined it was because it was the center for 900 numbers back in the 80s and early 90s.

[00:02:38] So I would you know bring out those little stories and nuggets and send them out as press releases to the media. And the media really responded well. We were getting financial times, the economists, Washington Post and it just seemed like so easy.

[00:02:53] And so I just thought to myself why aren't other small businesses doing this? I talked to some small businesses and they just said that there was you know, it's a roadblock.

[00:03:04] They had one national award and wanted to get someone to help them send out a press release but they couldn't get any help because PR firms work on a long-term contract.

[00:03:14] And so that gave me the idea for ear leases and I spent about a year collecting email addresses and talking to journalists and asking if I could send them press releases and launch with about 10,000 journalists to my database.

[00:03:28] And today we've partnered with PR Newswire and you know we use their database as well and it's got like over 1.7 million journalists and they're all together internationally.

[00:03:38] So it's definitely changed a little bit but I've definitely feel like I'm providing more and more value to my customers over time. So now it sounds like you probably started as a solo operation. You have some other folks working with you at this point in time.

[00:03:54] I do. I have about 10 employees right now but when we started it was just me and I agonized over hiring my first employee because now you're responsible for someone else.

[00:04:05] And if you have a bad month, you know, he faced the facts of do you have to let him go and I really agonized by the time I hired my first employee I probably should have been hiring my third.

[00:04:16] But I was spread very thin and eventually I just brought people on board and it's worked out really well.

[00:04:24] I can say that it did not come without some kicking and screaming because I am not a good manager of people and it took a while for me to recognize that and in April of 2015 after having an HR consultant that I was friends with and a marketing mastermind that belong to.

[00:04:42] She analyzed my business to figure out why my staffing issues were so bad and she came back and said it was me that I'm a micro manager.

[00:04:50] And I'm the problem. So I stepped away from the day-to-day operations in April of 2015 and the employees, mostly the employees that were there at the time are still there.

[00:05:02] I previously been dealing with turnover of one year on average and so all my problems went away when I stepped away from the business.

[00:05:11] And I think it's because as an entrepreneur you want everything to be perfect and so you just agonize over every little detail and it really is, you know, picking apart your employees and making them feel not confident in their job and not feeling truly valued.

[00:05:26] I, you know, and we're going to talk about marketing and getting your message up. I think that's a pretty important point and important lesson from someone starting their own business and that often people start their businesses.

[00:05:41] They have the technical expertise but they might not have the management experience background and working with people and being able to take a step back and recognize your strengths and your weaknesses.

[00:05:55] It's pretty significant not everybody probably wants to hear the message that you're the problem or you might not have the right skill set for actually scaling and growing the business but, you know, bringing in folks that can help with that management is really going to be critical for you to be able to continue to grow.

[00:06:20] Absolutely. So, well let's, you know, let's talk a little bit about e-releases, you know, when I think about, and I think about pressure leases, I mean, I'm of an age where I enjoy reading newspapers although a few and far between now or the paper kind or more the online kind at this point in time.

[00:06:41] I worry that my kids and younger people might not be always getting their news from newspapers, but getting their news from other areas. So, when, when, tell us about who, who's just small business be sending press releases out to and in, hey, does that still work?

[00:07:02] People still, I still get the right message out. Sure. It does still work. During the pandemic we did a press release for a non-profit initiative called Dining Bond Initiative that was meant to help restaurants that were closed during the early stages of the pandemic.

[00:07:19] And it basically unominated your favorite local restaurant if they were able to get in touch with them and they accepted. You could basically give money that would sort of be backed by a Dining Bond gift certificate.

[00:07:32] So, money would go directly to the restaurant to help them help pay their staff to, you know, they were all stuck at home at the time. And it, you know, is one press release generated over 150 articles.

[00:07:45] We stopped counting because there was just so many daily newspapers, smaller ones across the country that picked it up. And it generated an excessive $10 million in revenue all from one press release.

[00:07:57] And so, it's really hard from a marketing standpoint to say, hey, you do $400 press release and you get $10 million plus. It's definitely an extreme example, but it shows the opportunity of leverage if you have something that's really newsworthy or really just hits the media at the right moment.

[00:08:13] And it's really hard to get into extremely well. And I think that that one did well because we were stuck at home. We didn't have a lot of positive news and there was a lot of uncertainty, and we didn't feel like we had any control.

[00:08:24] But here was something you could control and do. You could, you know, give, you know, 30 bucks to your favorite local pizza place down the road or something like that.

[00:08:32] And so it did really well. And I think it's a really great example of, you know, the opportunities that are there with the media because if you, you know,

[00:08:41] sending out something that really resonates with the media, it can go really far. And it's not unusual for clients to come to me and say, hey, you know, we, we got a, you know, influx of orders as a result of a, a, some media exposure or, you know, one case, you know, someone gets a couple hundred visitors from one article.

[00:09:03] And they're just like, but we got like 60 orders. It's like a, you know, 60% conversion rate is that unusual. And it really isn't because when someone reads an article about someone and then clicks through to you, they're invested, you know, that that article is like third party corroboration or social proof is not like an ad.

[00:09:23] And so there's, there's all this credibility that's created and this warm feeling of wanting to do business with this company they just read about.

[00:09:32] So often they'll just click through and buy. So they're really great customers and one of the things that you can also do is when that happens, you can share those articles with your existing customers as well as your leads.

[00:09:45] There's always people they're going to be on the fence about using you. And if this tips over other people that, you know, that implied endorsement of getting an article written about you a journalist, you know, picking you up.

[00:09:56] It could do the same thing with the lead and also, you know, don't forget the customers are always routinely shopping around to see if they can get a better price or the grass is greener on the other side.

[00:10:08] And this could be a big indicator to them that they've got this right company that they're working with and they don't need to do that. So that's one of the really benefits of building credibility through PR getting this earned media.

[00:10:22] Yeah, you said credibility a couple times and yeah I would think that one of you know, if if I'm starting a small business in in Hickory North Carolina, which is where I live and starting a service business that has a limited geographic reach.

[00:10:42] And I want to send something to my local papers. I would think that one of the challenges that you probably are good at addressing is how do you put a press release together that doesn't sound like an ad.

[00:10:55] Yeah, and and creates that credibility. I mean, how sort of distinguish between not overselling and providing the facts versus falling into that trap.

[00:11:09] So you don't want to like come across as saying best company in the world without some metrics to define that is better to stick to the metrics.

[00:11:19] Like, you know, 80% of our customers feel like we're the best solution they've ever tried. That's that's a much better lead because it's backed by real data.

[00:11:28] So you know, journalists love numbers in data. It doesn't have to be your numbers or data. You can actually take public data that's out there. If you if you have a product or solution for a problem in your industry, that's what you solve.

[00:11:43] Talking about those problems like, you know, 60% of people in this industry experience this and this is how our product does it.

[00:11:51] It makes it a lot easier for journalists to build a story. And at the end of the day, you have to recognize that journalists or story builders and the press release has to have the building blocks for them to build out a story.

[00:12:03] One of the common press releases that we get it, you release this as a product lunch press release. And this is a product in this just here's a new product and here's a list of features.

[00:12:13] And what they could be doing to flesh it out and give more building blocks for a story would be to include a case study. Someone who used the product tested it out, what their experience was, what was the goals that they achieved the results.

[00:12:28] And so, you just have to keep in mind that it's not always about what you want. You want to sell more product but you also have to fulfill the needs of the journalists who is trying to be a gatekeeper and deciding what's worth sharing with my audience.

[00:12:46] Here she is very protective of them and they want to make sure that what they're releasing is something that would be of interest to them. So you have to make sure you give them those building blocks so they can sort of develop a story.

[00:13:01] So I would we see stories and you know we can see in our local communities that the newspaper businesses is struggling and you know it with reduced advertising and because of that there's there are fewer journalists out there.

[00:13:19] There is there at least in the newspaper land or fewer staff out there. So do you find that you're providing the building blocks and foundation for

[00:13:30] Press releases and articles or or their situations where if you do it right they're just going to take what you wrote and put it in their publication. So most of the time they will write an article based off the press release.

[00:13:44] Exceptions include a lot of local daily newspapers or more app to use what you've written largely because they're busy and it's easier for them to copy and paste especially if you've written that very third person almost like a feature article.

[00:14:00] But all of your larger publications and most of your trade publications are pretty much going to write an article that being said because they are doing more and expected to do more articles with less resources.

[00:14:16] A lot of them are leaning on press releases as a good in you know a good place to find the next story. And in the US there's really three major news wires we work with peer and news wire which is the oldest and largest.

[00:14:30] And so they generally check those places and you know look for stories in their industry.

[00:14:36] And that being said you know it is changing you know that used to be that you know the journalist access to these wires was very guarded and it was only a member of traditional print media. But now online media bloggers even influencers there's many.

[00:14:54] Instagram influencers that have journalists access to the peer and news wire for example in the fashion arena because you know some of these influencers have more sway and influence than you know a trade publication.

[00:15:12] And so it is changing. I watch TikToks with a guy that does a snack update every week about new snacks coming out and he'll often say according to this press release I picked up.

[00:15:24] This is a new product that will be hitting the shelves in the mid Atlantic area before it rolls out nationally.

[00:15:29] And so people are using it that you wouldn't necessarily expect there the traditional media but they are valuable resource because they communicate something that's new and exciting or different. And it's a tool that anybody in all different types of media including social media can utilize.

[00:15:49] So so you know if a small business is saying hey we want to get the word out we want to communicate with the trade publications. And communicate with our local newspapers and whatnot.

[00:16:03] Any any advice for them and how they should assemble press release or articles you know which what should they be thinking about is they put that information together.

[00:16:13] I think that the most important part of a press release is what you're announcing and a lot of people get sort of bent out of shape trying to make it perfectly well written.

[00:16:25] And to be honest a mediocre written press release if it's very newsworthy will do extremely well. I see a lot of well written press releases fall flat because they really don't solve that problem of the journalist of how do I develop a story around this.

[00:16:42] And so you know lots of things that you can utilize or do to you know bolster a press release would be you know having amazing quote in the press release that is so well written and concise and strongly worded that a journalist would be like I could build the article around that quote that's such a fantastic quote most quotes and press releases are safe the written as an afterthought.

[00:17:11] They really can save you from a mediocre press release other things that you can utilize are you know sometimes being a contrary on issue. Gotta remember journalists or fair imbalance so if there's something trending in your industry like everybody talks about.

[00:17:27] Electric cars being good for the environment and you know this is the way forward, but if you're the one person who raises her hand and says not so fast you know the the mining operations are an environmental quagmire.

[00:17:40] Getting these minerals to make batteries out of the ground is it's just terrible from a human standpoint of labor as well as the environmental cost.

[00:17:50] Plus we haven't really saw what we're going to do with these batteries at the end of their life or you know maybe we should hold on a little bit longer before embracing electric cars so broadly.

[00:17:59] You know it's a rational argument, but it is a counter argument and so anytime a journalist covers electric cars they you have the opportunity for them to plug you in because being fair imbalance.

[00:18:09] They want to portray both sides and often there's hundreds if not thousands of people raising their hands that have the same viewpoint but very few people raising their hands and saying here's the contrarian viewpoint.

[00:18:21] You just have to be careful that you don't take a side that would alienate you from your customer base. This podcast is sponsored by Jackson Creative, a custom communication agency located in downtown Hickory, North Carolina specializing in online content creation.

[00:18:37] To learn more visit thejacksoncreative.com. Jackson Creative we tell your story.

[00:18:45] I had one person who took it as a mission to take every contrarian issue in his industry and he did routinely get picked up but he also said that the love his customers were sort of wrinkled by the fact that he was taking all these controversial issues.

[00:19:00] So I told him you just have to have a balance, you know the goal is to pick every contrarian viewpoint but contrarian viewpoints that you can honestly defend and aren't going to alienate you from your customer base. But there's also other opportunities.

[00:19:15] I have clients who try PR and it doesn't work and I always tell them that if you want to try one type of press release that will always work. Do a survey or study within your industry.

[00:19:27] It's not as difficult as it sounds, a lot of people there eyes, glaze over when you tell them this and I tell them it's as simple as going to survey monkey creating a 16 questions survey.

[00:19:40] So if someone stops halfway you still have eight responses to eight of the questions and then take that link and share it with either your audience and a lot of people don't have a large enough audience to do a survey. Independent or small trade association.

[00:19:59] They don't get a lot of love or attention and so if you approach it by saying hey we send this survey link to your members in exchange.

[00:20:08] I will include you and a press release I'll be issuing over the wire shortly after the survey has been conducted most of them will say yes. They really don't get a lot of media attention themselves so they will see this as a win-win opportunity in most cases.

[00:20:24] I have had a couple come back and say could we co-brand the survey with us and I don't see that as a downside it probably gives you a little boost to credibility as well for doing the survey.

[00:20:35] Probably does take a little bit more of approval because they probably would want to have approval of the press release before it goes out.

[00:20:42] But I find this works extremely well if you ask really captivating questions that are timely like what's going on right now in your industry and you know what are the little things that if you were to a conference or a trade show that you would talk to other colleagues like.

[00:20:58] And you notice that everybody instead of being net 30 is taking 16 90 days to pay and they're like yeah I have noticed that you know that's a big indicator that money could be drawing up in your industry and you know those are the types of questions that would probably do well on the survey.

[00:21:14] And once you think surveys done you look at it and you figure out what were the big surprising moments in it not every question is going to lend itself to being included in the press release you probably may want to focus on just three or four.

[00:21:27] And provide the analysis with you quotes by you as to why you felt the survey probably skewed a particular way like you know. I think it's surprisingly found that 75% of people in our industry don't feel good about the future growth and of the industry.

[00:21:45] And here's the reasons that may be and then you send that out and on average customers my customers who do this often get between six and 14 articles and these are unique articles written by journalists.

[00:21:59] And you get a great way to sort of leverage yourself as an expert and the owner of this data. You mentioned the number of articles that published I mean is there a way that you track ROI return on investment on.

[00:22:20] The work that you do or just how much activity a single release my generator is that just more anecdotal or is there a good way to track that.

[00:22:33] There is not a good way to track that there are ways to track it but unfortunately a good clipping service will cost you two to three thousand dollars a month and it's not unusual to write an article and have a monthly magazine pick it up and month four.

[00:22:49] So to spend you know twenty fifteen twenty thousand dollars for tracking of a four hundred dollar press releases and very effective but that being said.

[00:22:58] I recommend doing a Google News search using the date field the date of when the press release was issued to today so that will define Google news that specific to when the press release came out.

[00:23:11] So do Google web because a lot of media and newspapers and publications have opted out of Google news but they can't opt out of Google web.

[00:23:20] So they'll show up there same same same hack searched by the date that the release went out to now and all of these searches are websites or pages that came into existence after that press release and those are pretty good indicators of places that potentially came from your press release.

[00:23:39] One of the things that customers do is they will ask people how they found out about them.

[00:23:46] Some of them are really smart about saying that they got traffic from certain pages and can associate conversions from that using like Google analytics or other types of tracking and stuff like that.

[00:23:58] But it is a little more difficult to track with PR because you don't get to use a tracking URL because journalists don't generally recognize that they'll just.

[00:24:06] These are easier to name or a product page or something like that when they do link to you and it's also not unusual for the media to not link to you at all.

[00:24:15] I think the New York Times rarely links to anybody the same with Wall Street Journal and these other places but that being said if someone reads an article about you and they do a search for you they're likely going to find you and if they're not because you know that your company is one of those has a generic sounding name.

[00:24:31] It's probably a good idea to advertise on your brand name around the time that you issue the press release that people will find you what they do a search for you.

[00:24:42] You're talking about linking back to websites and whatnot I mean how does the how do you work with people to connect the press releases to their digital sites or social media how how should that work together.

[00:24:59] Right so I feel like anytime you issue a press release you should share that with your audience.

[00:25:07] You know, your on social media put it on your website I always encourage customers to have their own newsroom on their website but I recognize that a lot of small businesses it's a two big of an ask to redesign their website.

[00:25:20] So if you have a blog that's a good place you could just add your press releases to as well rather than not having it on your website I mean it's content rich keyword rich.

[00:25:30] pages and you're the author of it because it's originating from you so you won't be ding for it being duplicate content on the internet for that reason.

[00:25:40] But it's really a good good thing to share and as you get articles or media pick up you want to share that on your social media you want to share that with your customers and your leads.

[00:25:51] You want to get it out there too as many people as possible and it works you know synergistically you know what the same.

[00:25:59] Access that you got to new customers and new audiences through those articles you can also use that to create that same good will with your existing leads and customers. I know one of the things that.

[00:26:14] You've mentioned is honing your unique selling proposition to focus on coverage which yeah again trying to find ways to distinguish your business from your competitors I mean how do you when when you work with clients when you work with customers how do you help them with that and recommend that they they focus themselves a bit.

[00:26:39] So it's funny when I have the conversation with some of my clients some of them come back and say I don't we don't really have a unique selling proposition.

[00:26:47] We sell product X and there's lots of resellers is sell product X but we just happen to do it and I just like well that's a terrible situation for you.

[00:26:58] And so you know and some of these people it turns out aren't commodities they just don't take into account like well unlike the other resellers we provide you know online training and we have a video library of how to use these products and best practices and stuff like that and I'm like well that gives you an edge that can be a unique selling proposition if someone was looking at just buying it from company A and you.

[00:27:27] That would definitely make them more likely to use you and so you really want to create a something that you do this a little bit different than everybody else and own that and put a mode around it protected and and make sure that you communicate that to your customers and to your leads as well.

[00:27:46] I do think that you know as far as also owning your story the media responds very well to.

[00:27:55] You know founder stories how company came into being how a product came into being if you ever watch shark tank you'll know that one of the things they talk about is here's my story here's how my business came to be here's how this product came to life.

[00:28:10] And it's because people really like that journey personal journey of people and so that's another opportunity to incorporate into your company story. Your personal story and be authentic while sharing something that people resonate with.

[00:28:27] I had one client that had an embarrassing story where they got caught off guard by a promotion that they did and they had to cancel Thanksgiving and have the whole family.

[00:28:37] You know putting packages together to go out Monday morning when mail reopened and it was something that I had encouraged them to put in their press release and they did and it became the lead story or anecdote in a story about them in eq magazine.

[00:28:55] And I don't think it would have happened without that and if you notice reading ink magazines alive these entrepreneurial publications. You'll see a lot of them will talk about the journey, the story, the obstacles, the vulnerability, the things that someone overcame or had to deal with.

[00:29:11] And I think it's because we you know as readers or an audience, we like those. We respond to those. It's the human interest thing that sort of you know creates this this feeling within us and I think that that's really powerful and a lot of people just take it for granted.

[00:29:28] Yeah, I hear what you're saying and that it really can humanize a company a story and take it out of a little bit of that third person generic. You know here's the news we're just going to read it did really personalizes it so I think that sounds good.

[00:29:45] You're I guess I'm going to call you a small business owner sounds like obviously you've grown since your inception, but.

[00:29:55] You know what as you had to work through some some challenging times for our country just with the pandemic and everything you know just from a small business owner perspective.

[00:30:06] What's sort of challenges of you faced in you know what sort of advice can you give to to our listeners and managing a small business.

[00:30:14] I think for me, I was not from a business background. I came from a creative writing background and so everything about business was sort of new to me.

[00:30:24] I found out I did Google ads and I would put up an ad and after like seven clicks, I'd be like, it's not working and I just changed it.

[00:30:35] And I was just loose and goose and using my gut instinct and I was all over the place and I found a marketing group that I joined and I started learning stuff like you know statistical relevance that you know you can't judge and add until you've had a certain number of click throughs and a certain number of conversions.

[00:30:56] Before you can really understand if it is a winner or not and so I started. You know being more I guess mathematically inclined and looking at the data.

[00:31:07] I discovered the concept of A, B split testing where you have two landing pages when there's like one minor difference between the two and then you pick the winner and then you keep refining it and getting it better.

[00:31:19] I started doing that with other aspects of my business that had nothing to do with marketing.

[00:31:24] You know we we we were sending a shop and off package to new customers and it was like all this crazy stuff Baltimore, you know, crab flavor chips at Garal and Po action figure just a lot of fun in a box is how I describe it.

[00:31:40] It was like $60 worth of stuff and I felt like it was going to make a great impression but someone told me that they found it a little not unprofessional.

[00:31:49] And rather than get angry or offended by it, I spent six months sending new customers that or just a book and a welcome letter and then we measured the the value of these two populations.

[00:32:02] And what we found out is after a year it looked like the people who received the book were the value of them was much higher and at the two year and three year mark it was like two to three times the amount of value as the other one.

[00:32:18] So it was true and rather than be offended, I was just like I don't know let's test it and so try to test a lot of the things in your business work flows if you feel like this is the way to onboard a customer.

[00:32:31] Maybe there's you know a couple of suggestions of alternate ways and you could just test those two populations and see if it does make a difference to one does one population become a better customer as a result of their journey.

[00:32:44] So if you feel like hey I feel like if we hold their hand and call them and do a lot of follow up and provide a lot of training and stuff with one population and the other one we just sort of let them loose and maybe send them to a video resource if they have questions or looking for things.

[00:33:00] But is it that most people can be disciplined enough to do it themselves and the spend is you know the revenue is the same or is there a difference. And I try to do little things like that throughout my business where, you know I don't get offended.

[00:33:15] I just you know learn and move on and I think that's why when I found out I was a micromanager it couldn't help myself that I just took it as. As it came and and just adjusted accordingly and put myself out of the equation.

[00:33:30] I think you know not taking offense to some of the results that you you put ideas in place you think they're going to work sometimes they do sometimes they don't and not getting upset about it when they don't and actually learning from it.

[00:33:45] And that's that's a great lesson. Great lesson there and I'll say if you if you do have any of the Edgar Allen put a action dollars left over you know I'd be interested in securing one we can we can talk about that later.

[00:33:58] Yeah, so well look making we really I really appreciate you joining us today we we like to do a little lightning around with our our guests what you be up for some quick questions quick answers that might not be as business oriented.

[00:34:13] Yes, I would okay well this this must lightning round is sponsored by Ned Ryerson insurance whole life auto flood you can have enough insurance. Check out Ned Ryerson insurance on the internet so I'm going to have some quick questions that you don't overthink it here we go.

[00:34:32] Mickey what is your biggest pet peeve. I think people who don't value your time people who are late or just no show. That can be pretty rude I'm with you on that what topics do you put on your pizza. I am a. Pepperoni and onion guy.

[00:34:55] Where do you stand on pineapple? I'm neutral I've had I've had you know Hawaiian pizza that's good but it's not something that I would seek out often. Beatles rolling stones or Taylor Swift. I'm going to say Beatles. It's hard to go wrong there.

[00:35:18] Do you have a go to adult beverage? Gin and Tonic. Harry Potter Star Wars or godfather movies Star Wars. Last question for you if you can have one superpower what would it be? Read People's Minds. Okay that you could be a dangerous man.

[00:35:46] Mickey thank you so much for joining us with people want to find E release where should they be looking. So the websites ereleases.com all of our social media is on the lower right.

[00:35:57] And do you have a free master class that's an hour long video tutorial about doing an audit and determining what kind of strategic types of press releases you could be doing as opposed to the normal releases that don't work.

[00:36:10] And it's at ereleases.com slash plan PLA and again it's completely free. Also for five hope people will be checking that out and you know some some really good thoughts there not only on press releases marketing but just some some good.

[00:36:26] Thoughts on running your own business there so Mickey appreciate you joining us today. Before we wrap up I want to give a shout out to a small business that I came across recently had a chance to tour their facility.

[00:36:41] Something that we don't think about that often or at least I don't think about that often issue leses and I went to a company that's here in my hometown called Hickory Brands Incorporated which recently celebrated their 100th anniversary. They started in 1923.

[00:36:58] They are an innovative manufacture of all sorts of shoelaces and they're getting into different types of a parallel but they do everything from fashion accessories do athletic places military laces other technical type things.

[00:37:13] They proudly manufacture in the United States and they partnered with numerous global brands including new balance and de-disc. They just put them under armor they also do their own brand that they sell it retail.

[00:37:28] As mentioned they started in 1923 manufacturer product called the old Hickory Shoelays and they are one of the very few remaining domestic cord webbing shoelays manufacturers. You can check them out at www.hickorybrands.com so give it a look when you have a chance.

[00:37:48] If you have a suggestion for our small business in the month please email them to us at exchangeatthemesh.tv if we use your small business in the month.

[00:38:00] We'll give you one of our prize packs. Can't promise the Edgar Allen O. Poe action figure that would be at be over the top man. Anyway, Mickey thank you again. Appreciate you joining us with what I think the mesh podcast network for hosting us.

[00:38:16] You should go to the mesh.tv you'll see the whole network of brands of shows that we've got out there so please check that out and we look forward to talking to you again next month. Take care.

[00:38:39] You've been listening to the mesh and online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts sports to entertainment music to community. Our programs are available on the website as well as through iTunes and YouTube. Check us out online at the mesh.tv.

[00:39:03] Just go to our other network shows and give us feedback on what you just heard.