Media Maven Christina Nicholson has a lot to say about public relations. More than anything, she has valuable advice for entrepreneurs – on how to promote themselves authentically, confidently and effectively.
Christina Nicholson is an award-winning television journalist, course creator, public speaker, podcaster and Founder of the PR agency Media Maven. Christina and her Media Maven team work intimately and exclusively with a select number of high-ticket clients, bringing their public relations goals to fruition through hard work and strategic ad placement. Besides her agency’s work with clients, Christina has used her decades of experience in media to create a suite of products for business owners, with various budgets and goals. Entrepreneurs can take a mini bootcamp on her website to improve their PR skills or invest in the Media Mentoring Program course for a full education on how, when, where, and why to use PR strategies to their full advantage.
Christina has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, the Huffington Post, Time, Yahoo!, PR Daily, All Business Experts, on CNN, WTVJ in Miami, WPTV in West Palm Beach, News 12 in New York City, and in many other media outlets.
Now on The Business of You, Christina shares her industry’s best-kept secrets to help us all get recognized by the right people, at the right time.
Treat your business like a business
When Christina decided to go out on her own, she thought it would be easy.
She started an Upwork account, jumped on LinkedIn and worked around the clock. But for two years, she made herself miserable – until she invested in herself! After exhausting her energy, Christina hired a business coach, who told her to treat her business like an actual…business.
Christina had been wearing all the hats – sales person, service provider, marketer and beyond. For the first time, Christina took a step back and considered the future of her company like a CEO. Her coach advised her to hire a team, thinking big-picture and take on more seasoned clients.
So many entrepreneurs are guilty of this. In your own business, are you thinking like a CEO? What actionable goals could you set for your business and who could you hire to help you achieve them?
Stop getting in your own way
When asked for her biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs, Christina responded immediately with this: Stop getting in your own way.
Founders, particularly women, think that they need to wait for perfect conditions to market their businesses. They make excuses and put off PR and media until they think they’ve achieved success – when their website is perfect, they have a team and they’re making “enough” money. But Christina advises: This is backwards!
When it comes to PR, she reminds us that it’s all about generating new opportunities for growth. Get in front of people before you’re “ready,” and big things will happen in your business!
Share your wins, everywhere
Christina has noticed a bizarre trend in the world of PR, and she’s here to encourage you to avoid this popular mistake.
After getting PR coverage, she notices that a lot of businesses don’t share it. They forget to send out an email about it, make a social media post about it, post it on their website, or even mention it beyond their personal circle of friends. Nobody knows they were on TV, and they don’t help get the word out.
Avoid this popular PR mistake. If someone promotes you – on their channel, podcast, in their newsletter or magazine, etc – share it far and wide. This is a great opportunity to ask yourself – where was I featured recently, and who have I told about it? Who could I tell about it? Who needs to know about this? Make sure you’re celebrating your wins, because it will ultimately catapult you to business success.
Quotes

“I said, you know what? This is a service-based industry, so I don’t need a lot of money to get started. I’ll just go on LinkedIn and Upwork and get my own clients! I did that for two years, by myself…and I was freaking miserable.”
“It was tough because I was wearing all of the hats. I was doing it all myself – I was doing the marketing, servicing the clients, I was the salesperson. It wasn’t until I hired my first business coach that I actually learned about business!”
“Everything I do is under the PR umbrella. But there are different products and services depending on where you are in your business, and how much time or money you want to spend making this a part of your marketing strategy.”
“I’m the kind of manager I would have wanted. I don’t check up on them. As long as you’re hitting those goals, I don’t care. I don’t care what you wear, when you work, where you went to college, how many hours you worked. Is the client happy, and are you happy? Perfect! We just do our jobs. We’re all adults. We don’t need to be babysat. We just get things done.”
“With our clients, we don’t have a whole onboarding thing for weeks. We have one call – what are your goals? What do you want to see? What do you want? What is the short term goal and end goal? Then we go and execute that day. All this talking, planning and researching – it has a place! But in PR when we’re trying to get you coverage, we don’t waste time.”
“We give our clients updates every week. It’s so important to send them an email every week – this is what we did, this is what worked, this is what didn’t work. We think we’re gonna go this way next week and we need your help with XYZ.”
“Stop telling yourself you’re not ready for it. A lot of women do this. They make all kinds of excuses. You’re putting the cart before the horse. The way you get more money, a bigger brand, more leads and a bigger email list – you get this by being in front of people. You get the attention first, then the leads come in. So many people get this backwards.”
“After you get coverage, please – share it, and share it everywhere! It blows my mind how many people get media coverage and don’t put it on their website, don’t post it to social media, don’t send it to their email list.”
Links mentioned in this episode:

Podcast Resources
Are you ready to finally see your name in popular media outlets like Forbes, Inc., and Fast Company? Download your free guide, 16 Places to Pitch to Be a Contributor at https://www.mediamavenandmore.com/contributor
Visit Christina’s Website at https://www.mediamavenandmore.com/
Listen to the Become a Media Maven Podcast at https://www.mediamavenandmore.com/podcast/
Connect with Christina Nicholson on LinkedIn at https://LinkedIn.com/in/ChristinaAllDay
Follow Christina on Facebook at https://Facebook.com/MediaMavenAndMore
Follow Christina on Twitter at https://Twitter.com/ChristinaAllDay
Email Christina personally at Christina@MediaMavenAndMore.com

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