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This is Pete Moore on HALO Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing a fellow New Yorker and lifelong health advocate and evangelist and halo ambassador, Nancy Trent, to the podcast. She is going to give us a crash course on the new age of PR, talk about how the media mixes have changed, but how getting your message across to consumers is the most important and authentic way to build your business. Nancy, welcome to the
show. Thanks for having me, Pete. Awesome. So, you have the same birthday as our, as our blessed, executive producer, Dave Ganolin. So we will, we will hold you in the highest, astrological, form of order. You've been in New York your entire life and been dedicated to helping people build business in the fitness industry, back in the day that people might remember, you know, Reebok and and the Step was probably 1 of the most important
movements, you know, the industry has seen. So give us a quick background on, you know, what brought you to the space, what's kept you in this sector, and and then we're gonna talk about some of the things that you give people guidance on, get them to the next level, and then some of the articles that you're gonna publish for us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I when people ask me how I got into this, I could start when I was a kid. My dad was a very, very early health maniac, and I think
that's what created the passion. And I could go into that for hours and but but probably what people would be more interested in is why we why I started the first wellness PR firm. And trust me, 30 years ago, wellness wasn't a thing. It wasn't even a word. So when I said healthy products, people just assumed I lived on granola, and, I didn't shave under my arms or my legs. You know? Like, that That's true. People thought was health, which is really, really crazy.
And the reason I got into it was, as an incentive for a PR firm that I was working for, they gave me a pharmaceutical account. And, in the first meeting, in the get to know you meeting, the it was revealed that the product really didn't do anything. And even worse than that, it had side effects. And when I said to my boss, like, what what are we doing? He said to me, hey. Listen. We don't get to pick our our clients. And I'm like, are you I can't talk. You know, I'm not gonna represent
something that isn't good for people and has side effects. And, 2 days later, I was I started my own PR firm. Gotcha. So, you know, how did you get involved with Reebok originally? Did they come to you? Did you find them as you were looking for more efficacy in, in in your client selection? It's interesting you asked. The, the day after I started my own PR firm, there was a market crash.
And so, there were 2 gyms that I know of in New York City. 1 of them was Molly Fox Fitness, and the other was Jeff Martin. And, Molly, I I was going to Molly Fox and having plenty of time to work out. And, very early on in the history of our agency, I said to her, wow. You know, this is amazing. I wish we could get more people to exercise. And by noon that, that day I had a signed contract and the rest is history. And,
we worked for, we worked for the Reebok step. And at that time, getting into the women's magazines, getting into the national TV shows was very difficult because they weren't writing about wellness. So what we had to do, which is what you always have to do in PR, is figure out how you can make this message of the benefits of exercising with a Reebok
step fit into what people were talking about. Let me let me ask you a question because, you know, the term PR and, you know, SEO optimization and, you know Yeah. You know, content that you're gonna put on TikTok or, you know, Instagram, you know, what have you. I feel like, you know, there's maybe a loss for understanding, like, we need APRA PR agency to basically, like, drive our brand maybe into traditional and nontraditional or old distribution
channels. So how do you kinda answer the question of, you know, how do I spend my money as as a client, and what am I getting? You know? And what's the difference between advertising and PR, or is there not a difference? Because I think it's a Yeah. You gotta unravel that. Really complex. Well, the difference between advertising and PR, we can answer that with the 3 b's.
So we all think we know what advertising is, and you pay for that. When you see an ad in a magazine or you Pete, a digital ad or you see an ad on television, you know that people pay for it. When you're reading something in an article or you're seeing somebody interviewed on interviewed on Good Morning America or Entertainment Tonight or, you know, you don't you don't know that there are people who are trying to make that happen.
Nobody's getting paid. You're not supposed to be getting paid, and that is 1 of the problems that's going on today with media. So, because you're not paying for advertising, publicity is a lot cheaper. I can try and get the same client who couldn't even afford an ad in on Good Morning America. On Good Morning America, The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, you know, The Women's Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Wall Street Journal. We can get them in lots of different
places. So PR costs a lot less. So the first Pete is budget. The second thing is we know when we see an ad that it is an ad, and people are more skeptical about ads than ever before. So if you see an ad, you know, unless you're a brand that everybody already knows, so the ad is just, you know, increasing awareness, you know, just skip making it getting it into people's heads more. That's 1 thing. But if they don't know what it is, it's very, very hard. Mhmm. So first Pete is
budget. The second is is, is believability, that you believe what you're reading. And the third thing is buzz. Once people start seeing the articles coming out and the celebrities and the athletes and everybody talking about the brand, everybody wants to be involved with you. So there's more opportunities for all kinds of things, you know, all kinds of collaborations. So so, you know, 1 of the things that you know, everybody wants an ROI on everything. Right? What's
what's my return on investment on this, you know, corporate wellness program? What's my return on investment in my, you know, sales engine or what what have you? Yeah. You know, I'm I'm assuming that a lot of what you've combated over the last 30 years is like, look. I can't quantify everything, but I can quantify, you know, that that there's, you know, a certain amount of metrics or, like, the certain amount of sales that that you're generating. I I
can't just point to it, but I guess point at it. Great question, Pete. So what we have to do is when it's not that, oh, look. You know, the article came out. The TV segment came out. It's what you do with it. You know, we use the national publicity to get more local publicity. We use the traditional media to give more credibility to social media. You you use the numbers to get that. So you have to have a very, very clear plan. But, you know, when you think about it, it's not the
article. It's how you use the article and reuse the article. And the truth is you could use them forever. I mean, the fact that I was in vogue, it it you know, I talk about that all the time, and that was, you know, a while ago. So there you have it. Yeah. It's funny. On my, on my LinkedIn feed today, I had a, a 6 minute video of, Steve Jobs talking about the, the think differently or think different, campaign where he had you know, these are all the, the icons that, you know, didn't didn't
have access to an Apple. But if if Apple was around when they were around, they would have been an Apple, you know, user, you know, from Gandhi to Einstein to, you know, some some of the, some of the thing you know, MLK thing things like that. And he said, like, like You know, Steve, if I'm not mistaken, it was Steve Jobs who said that, any brand can get can get well known by people. If if the brand is if the product is really, really good, people are gonna find it, but
it may take 30 years. And who in this day and age has 30 years for anything? This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do 0 down and 1 month
free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.
They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is real.
You know, as as you take a look at brands in the fitness industry, you know, in the in the broader halo sector, you know, there's definitely a call to action. And if you see, like, a Planet Fitness ad that's all about, you know, price, and it's all about, like, you know, this offer expires end of the month. When when you see ads related to, you know, supplements and and and gummy bears, you know, you say, okay. You know,
like, okay. This is gonna, like, package up what you need, as quickly as possible, you know, and maybe in the the most cost effective way. So what what strategies do you help people deploy? Or when you have someone come in and say, look. This is what I think you mean to say and what you should be saying, or maybe, like, change the narrative. Yeah. Well, it isn't really, you have to know what you wanna say, but you more important, you have to understand what people
can hear. Like, you may wanna say a lot of things, but if people can't hear it, forget it. It it doesn't you really have to understand what people can hear and come up with a way that they can say it. And different types of consumers have different ways of of accepting information. So you have to feel you know, you have to know who your target is and be really clear and, and also be able to test things because and that's 1 of the benefits of PR. If you have an ad campaign,
it's very expensive to test things. When you have a PR campaign, you know, you could that's 1 of the great things. You could test it and get a very quick answer to how people are responding and move. And then you have to know you have to have the humility. Like, it isn't working. Well, don't blame it on the other people. Think about what you have to do to change what it is that you're saying. Gotcha. And is there I'm going a little bit off script Pete, but, you know, is there a percentage
of an ad budget that should be devoted towards a PR budget? Know, is there a percentage of an ad budget that should be devoted towards a PR budget? And and do you have to educate people on what mix that is? Yeah. I think a PR budget should proceed an ad budget because PR is far less expensive than advertising. And PR will give you the credibility and reputation that any brand needs. You know, it it's really, really important. And then it depends on what kind of marketing budget you
have because for for lots of different reasons. There's lots of different variables. But in our category specifically, credibility is really important. People have to be able to trust it. You know, this is our health. We use the wrong equipment. We could hurt ourselves. Hurt ourselves. We've gotta make sure that there's credibility. People really care about that, and you don't get that from advertising. You get that
PR. And, I I have to tell you, another little secret that people are not privy to yet is that there's all kinds of research that shows that, if you include a snippet from an article, it increases the engagement to the ad by a 1000%. So you, you know, you may be able to, reevaluate your marketing budget by using more of the publicity in your advertising to to make your business far more profitable. Got it.
Well, 1 of the questions we we wanted to talk to you about is, you know, whether having a PR agency on, you know, retainer for, you know, any kind of crisis management or, you know, damage to their their reputation. We've seen several things happen. You know? Since COVID, there was a there was a big, you know, tweet by the, by the founder of CrossFit that that caused, you know, a significant amount of chaos. There was f 45 that went public, and then now is, you know, trading as a as a
penny stock. Exponential's had some some SEC issues, that have that have just sprung up. Couple groups have gone through bankruptcy. So how do you kinda get ahead of that? And, you know, when people call you and they've already been in the news, is that, like, a day too Pete, or is that, look, you know, I'm here to kinda try and help you put out a fire? We're we're always there to try and put out a fire, and, generally, it is a day too late because look. I'm a Girl Scout. You know? And I
believe in being prepared. You should not be thinking about dealing with crisis management when the crisis happens. You should have some kind of program in place just in case. And the way that you do that is you build up goodwill, and then you, you know, try to utilize that when when you've made a mistake. So, be prepared because it could happen at any time, And it could be your fault, may not be your fault, but you need to be prepared, and that's in every level of
the marketing. Is it just just talk about, like, Fortune 1, 000 companies. Do they have, you know, PR PR firms, like, on the ready for, you know, like, plan b? How does that work? Obviously, we don't in this industry. I'm sure that they do. And if they didn't if they don't, they should. And, there may be examples of why they learned just a moment too late why they should have. You know, mistakes won't
happen. Mistakes happen, but they won't happen as readily, and you may not be as unprepared if you're prepared ahead of time. Gotcha. So what are some maybe without naming names, you know, what are some of the best success stories that that you could, give to us here, you know, whether it's, you know, coming out of COVID or whether it's current Square someone's building a new business, and they
basically said, hey. I'm gonna go your way. I'm not gonna go, you know, with trying to build a brand for, you know, 20 to $40, 000, 000 that's gonna take to, you know, get people to know who I am. It shouldn't it shouldn't take, you know, it shouldn't take 20 to $40, 000, 000 to build a brand. You know? But, we have a you you really you'd be hard pressed to name a mainstream wellness brand wellness trend that we
haven't had our fingers in in some way, shape, or form. I mean, I think about 1 of the first things we, we did PR for the Juice Man juicer. At that time, nobody was juicing. It was creepy. In fact, the way that we got, people to actually talk about juicing was, the doctors on the East Coast would tell their patients, hey. Listen. The the medicine isn't working, but we heard about some really crazy nuts in California that are getting good results with juicing. Maybe you should try it. And we were
hired to do the press. And, what we did was we you know, I I thought to myself, we have to get in the media, and what I was saying to you, you have to talk about what people wanna talk about. So we worked with the, all of the, health editors, and we said, if there is any article you're writing about, any, you know, well, you know, health crisis, you know, with whether people have headaches, they're depressed,
they have stomachache, whatever the problem is, tell me what it is. And as a dumb little sidebar, that's a little call out in the in the article. Tell me about it, and I'll give you a juice recipe. It'll be a really funny joke. Nobody will think it's real. Talks it very seriously. The other strategy we used was, we went to upcoming chefs, and we said, look. Here's a juicer. I will give this to
you, and you can use it. But when I tell you I need a recipe, And so we And so we had food articles coming out. We had, we had health articles coming out, and 1 thing led to the other. And, you know, you you you have to be creative. You have to tie in what you're doing to what people wanna do. So today, a lot of people are talking about wellness in lots of different ways. They're talking about beauty as wellness. They're, you know, wellness is is, staying in shape, getting enough sleep.
We've gotta figure out what the product does for what people wanna hear about. When when you take a look at the current players in the the fitness studio space, yeah, I'm a big SoulCycle advocate and and and participant there. I've done over, you know, 600 Soul Cycles. We've done over 500 podcasts. If I was doing them on a Soul Cycle bike, that would even be better, but I didn't. Those would be done separately.
From a standpoint of that brand as an example, you know, it it kinda caught fire and then didn't really need, you know, traditional advertising. It was more about word-of-mouth and probably their own PR and maybe that PR. PR. Yeah. Yep. You know, to keep a brand like that relevant and alive, you know, during COVID, obviously, all the studios were closed. So, you know, you have to kind of reinvent yourself and have almost like a a grand reopening.
I'd say right now, some of the Pilates concepts, whether it's cup Pilates or solid core, are trending up, and people are getting a great workout. A lot of the workouts with with Soul Cycle, I get it it it it meets a lot of my needs from a musical standpoint, from a fitness standpoint, from, like, a spiritual standpoint. What what are some of the techniques that you kinda use to say, look.
There's a lot that this that this could do for people, but you gotta kinda boil it down to, like, 1 or 2 things, whether it's like this is, like, the most cost effective way to get results. This is, like, the best cult you could become a part of. How do you kind of help people dissect or, like, fine tune? Like, this is what you need to say, and here's, like, a script that Right. Right. Kinda shortens up what what you want them to know. Figuring out what you want them to say is
a combination of you know, I Pete, I break it down. You're a you're a numbers guy, and I break it down to an equation. The equation is this. What the media needs, what influencers wanna talk about, what people wanna talk about, that's kind of a constant. What we wanna say about the brand, that's a constant. So to make a constant plus another constant equal another constant, there's a variable. That variable is what are we gonna say about the brand. So who are your target customers, and how
are we gonna do it? What you know, and and how are we gonna get out to them? There's still a lot of local media out there. People say to me, people don't read magazines anymore. They don't read newspapers. I read, you know, this may be TMI, but I read 8 magazines before I get out of bed in the Moore, And I don't read them, you know, in a magazine form. I'm reading them from my phone. You know? Right. People are reading the same kind of traditional media that they always were, but
in a different way. So if you have a local studio, why aren't you using local media? What's wrong with you? I mean, you know, if you have people there who, you know, are willing to talk about their workout, you should be using them. You should be collaborating with other businesses. You should be collaborating with the local celebrities. You know? And every and every area has them. There's no reason for a local
studio to not be getting lots of press. You know, 1 1 of the things I wanna probe you on here is that people come up with with these marketing messages. People come up with, you know, hey. We got this new PR firm. We're working with them. And and for some reason, it doesn't travel down to the front desk, doesn't travel down to, like, the sales managers. It doesn't travel down to the people on the floor. And and it's almost like a lack of scripting, and and, like,
mandatory. Like, you represent my brand. So what is what's, like, the frontier of saying, like, look. If you're gonna hire me I'm saying this to a Square, company that we're invested in. Like, you if if you're gonna bring us on, you have to let us do certain things or else it's not gonna be effective. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we are very a lot of companies think marketing is over here and sales is over there. No. Are you kidding me? Marketing, it lives so that they could support
sales. That's what it's all about. Right. So if the marketing team doesn't know what the sales team is doing, are you kidding me? And if if, think about it. When people are calling up after they see the article, after they see the TV segment, after they see the TikTok, after they see the YouTube, and they're calling up the, the gym and the front the the receptionist doesn't know what to be talking about. Why do we do all that for? So and and the the front desk people, everyone in the
organization is gonna be excited when they have a PR firm. Hey. We're gonna be in the news. We're gonna be celebrities. Wow. This is so exciting. So you're losing the benefit of having a PR firm if you don't get everybody involved in it. And we say that right from the beginning. I mean, I literally get get on and say, listen. We want to tell your sales team how to develop a nose for news. I know that sounds corny as all heck, but you gotta do that to get people's
attention so they realize, wait a second. If I hear about a if the salesperson hears about a story or the front desk person or a trainer or whatever customers hears about a tell it to the PR firm. There should be no obstacles. This is free. The the it it's alright. It's it's just fine as long as everybody knows what's going on. And we need some accountability so that there should be weekly reports, monthly reports. You know? This is all and every 3 months, look at what you're doing. Yeah. So are
you are you reporting back whether that's like, hey. I've got you in this many articles, you know, this many Yahoo News, alerts? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we do every single 1 of our our clients has celebrity endorsers, and we don't pay any of them. We're very big into getting influencers and helping influencers increase their platform. This is what we do. We have to we have to get if if we are not excited about what we do, how are we gonna get the company excited about what we do? So we've gotta
share that excitement and share our enthusiasm. You know? And I I client after every week, we demand of our clients that we wanna have a meeting with you every week. Prior to the meeting, you get a written update. So no reason for it. Did you call that 1? Did you do the yeah. We did that. That's part of our job. The thing that is really important is we need that time to find out what's going on with other companies, what other things
are you doing, what stories do you have. We have to, you know, create more vision, create more substance to to the story and keep it relevant, which is, you know, you were saying earlier. How do you keep I mean, to tell you the truth, I I worked for some of the first companies I ever worked for, but they they sold their company. They bought other ones. They hired us. They bought other ones. They hired us. I mean, that's what you have to keep relevant.
You gotta keep your eyes open and constantly be thinking, how can I say this in a way that people are getting it? I'm willing to change my story. I'm going to cultivate my humility and realize, hey. You know what? That totally didn't work, but let's try this. You gotta be the 1 who keeps getting back up. This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose. Higherdose.com.
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1 comment you made before we got on to the mic here that I think was super interesting and important is you say, you know, every 6 months, 1 of our clients gets acquired. So talk about, you know, whether you wanna use names or not. Use names to say, like like, that's the ultimate success story for being able to, 1, have a brand that's resonated to the point where somebody else wants to buy it, which we're in the m and a business, and there's way more people that wanna sell their
companies than wanna actually buy a company. There's a lot of window shopping that always goes on, and only the best brands that have real foundational value given that most of what we do is in a commodity business in in the non Pete health and fitness industry or wellness industry. It's not it's not like the brand has somebody said to me 1 time as an aside, like, all this company has is a brand. I'm like, yeah. Well, that's probably the most important thing they do have.
So you're not a good investor for this if you don't get that. So maybe you could say maybe you could just give AAA couple of, you know, bullet points on, like, how how much you feel good about knowing that, like, somebody actually paid for that brand that we helped build. Oh my gosh. I I feel really, you know, I I'm thinking of a lot of different companies right
now. Very often, what happened the minute we start because of our track record, because we're getting so much traction in this, we are on a lot of investor watch lists. And often, people will start working with us. And in the first couple of months, people that they approached in the past, please buy my company, they had no interest, and now they're begging. When you think about it, I've heard all kinds of research about this too, that people go to look for a brand. What's a
brand? It's being talked about in the media. It's being talked about by other influencers. It's it's it's what people are talking about. It's what's making the news. People are be are proud to be affiliated with that. So you've got to get media publicity, and you have to be, you know, sending it to investors, potential investors. And what investors tell us is, the thing there are many things that they look for. And Pete go and they say, I've got a really great
idea. But the, the retailers are saying, well, you know, that may be a great idea, but what are you doing to get people in the store asking for your product? If you are not doing something that when somebody goes into a gym and says, wait, you don't have that equipment? Oh, darn. I gotta go. I wanna go next door because they do. You you gotta get people to want the
brand, and that's publicity. And that's publicity that you're not only getting the press, but you're using it to amplifying it by giving it, you know, national to local, traditional to social, using social media to get more traditional media. Recycle. Reuse. Just keep moving forward. I think I hope I'm answering your question. No. I think it's I think that's great. And and it yeah. It's great. And and, look, Square and
it yeah. It's great. And and, look, we could probably talk for I know we could talk for hours, but, you know, in in closing here, we're gonna have 5 articles that you're gonna publish for us that's gonna drip off after this podcast so people understand what value you bring to the table and how you kinda see through a lot of the noise on the PR
and marketing side. Another thing that I just wanna mention, as as companies grow and you get this flywheel right between your PR, your stats, your momentum, you know, people come to us and say, like, I
wanna get a growth equity multiple. And the only way to get a growth equity multiple is if you have these trends that are starting to grow exponentially to the point where people are willing to pay you for what that growth trajectory actually looks like on a on a bar chart or on a line chart, and they're willing to pay up because they could see where the future is versus going into a market and trying to sell your business on any kind of slippery slope. You know,
someone's gonna say, when does this end? And it usually ends up in no deal because the bid ask is always gonna be different between what you're willing to accept and what somebody thinks they can potentially pay. So anytime you want AAA multiple expansion, you better have all these things in place so that the flywheel and the people and the machine is kinda engineered, you know, to to manufacture those results.
So, Nancy, it was great having you give some high levels. And and, Pete, I I just I love what you say, and I love all the brands that you're helping and the people you're helping. A lot of friends of mine. And it's not only figuring out what the trends are. You've gotta as a marketer, you've gotta create the trends. So, you know, you're you're doing what the mainstream wants, and you're thinking of what the people ahead of the curve are doing. So you
gotta be in all places. Yeah. So thank And and as you said, I think, you know, the the the main thing is, like, there's gotta be an authenticity, and there's gotta be a benefit to to your product and service. And you gotta figure out how you're gonna tell that story. So get in touch with Nancy. Thanks for coming on. I think these are great, you know, little, you know, tidbits of, like, here's how you get to the success story that you want,
and you need people like you with the experience to help you get Yeah. Yeah. You know, we have we have offices in New York. We have offices in California. We're all about healthy lifestyle. And, what healthy lifestyle is means is expanding all the time. So there's a lots of different ways to grow your business. Go halo or go home. Thanks for being on. Talk to you soon. Thank you. You got it.