Episode 17: Demystifying PR For Small Business Owners With Pippa Goulden

Hello and welcome to the Mum Means Business podcast, where we shine a light on inspiring women who have one thing in common. When they’re not managing tantrums, homework, P.E. kits and play dates, they are busting their gut to create something from nothing, to turn their passion into a thriving business and build a better life for themselves and their families. We dig into what motivates devoted mothers to pursue entrepreneurship and how they integrate their work and family life.

I’m Victoria Phipps, your host, and if you’re an ambitious mum in need of some solidarity whilst navigating the messy middle of making your big dream a reality, then stick around. This is for you.

NOTE: This is the transcript from the original recording, rather than the edited episode so timings may vary.

Victoria (00:01)
My guest today is a PR expert helping founders, entrepreneurs and startups to get known for what they do. This mum of two is on a mission to demystify public relations. After 15 years working in the field, she founded the PR set to help small business owners harness PR to build their brand, drive sales and grow their business without the need for big agency fees or a little black book of contacts.

From this morning to Stylist, from major podcasts to industry stages, from brand collabs to talks and panels, Pippa Gordon’s DIY PR members and one-to-one clients are using PR to reach new audiences and get known for what they do. Pippa was also a few years ahead of me at big school. And when I started seeing her face pop up on social media, I reached out to say a very awkward hello.

Then following along with the PR set, I became so impressed by what she was doing. I knew she was the only lady I wanted on this podcast to talk about the power of PR. So Pippa, it’s time for me to put a cork it and invite you to share your story in your own words. Welcome to the Mummy’s Business Podcast.

Pippa Goulden (01:07)
thanks for having me, what a lovely introduction.

Victoria (01:10)
That’s all right, it’s a pleasure. I don’t think I’ve seen you since 1990 something.

Pippa Goulden (01:17)
don’t don’t really long time ago it’s really hard because I still am 24 so I don’t understand how that’s all happened yeah quite a few years ahead of you as the wrinkles show but yes ⁓

Victoria (01:23)
Yeah, me too. We’re the same age, even though you were ahead of me in school. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ gosh, as if,

No, well, we’ve both done quite a bit in between. So this is a really good opportunity to dig into some of that. Tell me about your leap. We’ll dive straight in. Your leap from a career in media and PR to the PR set. So investing in yourself,

Pippa Goulden (01:39)
Yeah.

Victoria (01:53)
making that jump into entrepreneurship, what made you do it?

Pippa Goulden (01:56)
good question. So yeah, so my career was very linear, as in I got a job when I left uni, I worked in PR, I had like a career plan. I worked my way up through the agency kind of hierarchy and thought I loved it. I did love it when, you know, whilst it was serving me, but very typical story had my two boys. ⁓

husband’s job was at the time incredibly inflexible, just something had to give and do you know what I remember going back to work after my first maternity leave feeling really annoyed that I’d not come up with this idea. I knew that I wanted to do something else and I tried a few things I like sold some like scarf breastfeeding scarf things like god it was awful and I tried a few things and I remember going back to work after my first maternity leave really crossed that this thing hadn’t

happened and I didn’t have this really successful business like you saw people on Instagram from my maternity leave and it basically I had my second son Jack was still doing the agency world my best friend had her own smaller boutique PR agency and she got a pitch

in to do something that was a bit more aligned with what I’d done previously so she said come and pitch it with me and if we win it we’ll figure it out and anyway we won this massive piece of work I still had a job I was like god okay so I’ve got to leave my kind of job I knew I was probably going to do that anyway because it didn’t really work having my second after my second and so I went and worked with her for a few years and that opened my eyes to the fact that you know she had this really successful PR agency she was doing it in her

Victoria (03:24)
Amazing.

Pippa Goulden (03:43)
own way, she was working with clients that she really loved working with and it showed me that there was a kind of different way to do it than this kind of path that I was on and I was treading and then

Basically we moved out of London so I didn’t want to be commuting which sounds really old fashioned but I ⁓ actually started a publication that a friend of a friend had launched up in the North West, in fact very near you, and I brought it down to the South East and that really opened my eyes to how wrong lots of PRs who are getting paid lots of money get pitching. So that started Sow the Seeds and then we had lockdown as we all remember.

and I basically got a beauty pie delivery as a treat to myself and I remember when it when it arrived I was like my god this is it this is how I can do PR but in a way that works for me in a way that allows me to work with the people that I love working with because I kind of realized that it was the small businesses and the entrepreneurs and the innovators and the people doing things a bit differently that I absolutely loved working with but I hadn’t been able to work out a way to kind of make it work financially

Victoria (04:25)
Nice.

Pippa Goulden (04:50)
for everybody and then the so the beauty pie delivery dropped and I was like ⁓ this is it so that’s kind of sowed the seeds for the PR set basically and I launched it five nearly five years ago with a view to making PR accessible to small business owners so I’ve taken everything that I know and my skills which are PR they’re not selling scarves and but I’ve turned it into

something that works for me but also allows me to work with the people that I absolutely love working with.

Victoria (05:23)
It’s really infectious, enthusiasm for it. And I hear it, I mean, you have a podcast that talks all about PR and so I’ve listened to that and just all your content and every time you crop up anywhere, because we’re in, I think, a few of the same online communities, you’re just always so full of enthusiasm and it feels like you found your thing. And it’s interesting what you say about maternity because I had the same kind of mindset that somehow I was going to use this time.

when I had a brand new baby to care for, and I had no idea how to do that, and it didn’t come with instructions. I’d have all this spare time during that year or however long it was to like make a business from nothing and decide what that was and then establish it and launch it. And I was equally frustrated with myself that I hadn’t found this thing that was gonna suit this new chapter of life. Where do you think that comes from? Because maternity is actually a really busy time. Like you don’t have any time.

Pippa Goulden (06:01)
I don’t.

Yeah, I mean I literally had

no time to launch a business never mind, you know to do anything else. I think that…

Instagram at the time played a real part in that for me so my eldest is 12 years old so it was probably kind of that real infancy of social media and we literally saw businesses come from nowhere and boom this person started this nursery brand and the yes you know there was so many different stories success stories and they did an amazing job but I think for the majority of us we were like in the trenches on maternity leave you know and I think also

Victoria (06:38)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (06:55)
guess for me I hadn’t, I thought that the business that I should set up would be something totally different. I hadn’t really looked at what was right in front of me and I hadn’t probably thought about leaning into what I was good at as well. I’d just seen everyone else doing it on Instagram or so I thought and and that’s what kind of made me think that I should be doing that too.

Victoria (07:15)
Isn’t it funny the impact? mean, even in those early days of Instagram, the impact that it has. so tell me about, you’d followed quite a traditional path. You know, we both have almost identical experience of school. So there are certain references we could draw there, but it was very much for the listener, you know, are you going to be a doctor, a lawyer? What are you going to be, you which profession are you going to choose?

Pippa Goulden (07:43)
Yeah.

Victoria (07:43)
And

PR doesn’t fit very neatly into those boxes. So how did you get into PR in the first place and how did you know that that was the thing for you? Because you have retained it in the end. So what was it about PR?

Pippa Goulden (07:48)
No.

Yeah it’s,

I think there’s a couple of things there. So firstly I didn’t believe, and I don’t know where I got this belief from but I’ve done a lot of work on this,

I didn’t believe that people like me had their own business and I think that was really important. So I think the vision that I grew up with, even though my dad had his own business and actually my mum launched her own business when she was about 65, but the vision that I grew up with was entrepreneurs are people like Richard Branson and you have to be incredibly rich and have, you know, billions of pounds to have your own business, even though my dad had his own business. I don’t know. I don’t know what was going on there. But I think it was partly because the

school that we went to very much fed that idea of you need to get a proper job, you should be a doctor or a lawyer and if you’re not they literally didn’t know what to do with you. I mean I remember going to see…

Victoria (08:48)
Yeah, it was like that,

Pippa Goulden (08:50)
Mrs. Cracknell, our careers advisor, and telling her that I wanted to do PR. It sounds crazy, but I actually knew that I did want to do PR. I’d done a lot of research. I’d done some work experience in marketing, and I knew that magazines were my thing. I loved the media. I loved all of that side of things. I probably watched too many AbFabs as well. But I was drawn to the fun side of it as well, but I liked the fact that you could marry the media and the business and the strategy.

Victoria (08:53)
my god! ⁓

Pippa Goulden (09:20)
and the brand building and I was really interested in what encouraged people to buy all that kind of stuff. Culture, like it was a real like it brought together all the things that I was interested in. So yeah I kind of knew quite early on that I did want to work in PR and I remember going to see the careers advisor and she literally looked at me like I was mad like it wasn’t something yeah.

Victoria (09:42)
But she was economics. Like, she should

have known that that was a thing. Surely.

Pippa Goulden (09:47)
Yeah, no.

I think probably marketing was maybe a bit more sensible, wasn’t it? But ⁓ yeah, I just think it wasn’t really. And also this is like 20 something years ago, you know, it was it basically wasn’t the doctor or the lawyer. And

Victoria (09:52)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (10:02)
I think that probably set me off on to a path from a career perspective knowing that you have to like work up the hierarchy and you have to get a job and all of that kind of stuff. That was the path that I was on and you know I am so grateful for my maternity leaves because they gave me that pause, they gave me that ⁓ time to step away and step off that treadmill and I honestly think I would still be on that treadmill now if I hadn’t had the kids. Like I think I would have not ever got off it because I didn’t really ever

know that there was an alternative and I think at that time as well we were living in London and there was this real…

movement of women in business. There was this thing called Mother’s Meetings that you could go to and meet other women who were kind of quite aligned with you and some of them had their own businesses, some of them didn’t, some of them I’m still in touch with now. But I think I was open to new communities of people doing things in a different way and I think that that really encouraged me to have a longer term vision about the fact that I could have my own business and that it was a possibility for me and that people like me actually were running

their own businesses because until then the image that I’d have of an entrepreneur was either this like Richard Branson figure or women that I just didn’t really identify with and weren’t you know couldn’t see myself living in those kind of footsteps.

Victoria (11:24)
think at that time, idea of, mean, same, my dad was always self-employed. And so I had that modeling, but he was a man. And I know this makes me sound like a dinosaur, but that was still a distinction in those days. And I think actually even in his mind, I haven’t asked him about this, so don’t even necessarily want to say it, but I think he probably would have been.

Pippa Goulden (11:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (11:50)
more ready to sort of impart all that wisdom to his son than his daughter. And like, he loves me dearly and he’d probably hate that I said that, you were still living in that. mean, my family, you my dad went to work and my mum was a homemaker. And so it’s still, we were living in a very gender stereotyped environment. And like you say, it was Richard Branson or it was…

Pippa Goulden (12:09)
Yeah.

Victoria (12:15)
women who were kind of emulating a Margaret Thatcher approach where they were kind of in the shoulder pads and the tailored suits going around shouting at everybody. There was no kind of feminine nuance in business that there was no example at that stage I don’t think. So I probably came out, I definitely didn’t come out thinking that I would start a business and that didn’t come till later but I again I was funneled towards a profession and I chose architecture because it was acceptable.

Pippa Goulden (12:18)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

though.

Yeah.

Victoria (12:45)
And

I’d always, to be fair, I’d always been interested in my dad was a builder. So it made sense, but it fitted the school line. They were okay. They just told me a lot that I’d be poor my whole life, which might have been the case. I don’t know, cause I didn’t fully pursue it. But yeah, there was definitely a funneling there. And so did you kind of go into a marketing role straight out of, did you go to uni? What did you do? Okay. Nice.

Pippa Goulden (13:08)
Yeah, I went to uni and I did history. I went to Edinburgh for four years and then had to get my own as well.

So it took me quite a long time to actually get a job. But I basically, just, my ex-boyfriend’s boss’s wife had a PR agency and I got some work experience and I got job. Like it was just, I mean, unfortunately it was and it probably still is a lot, which, know, is not.

Victoria (13:14)
I got PR. Yeah.

It’s all about who you know, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Pippa Goulden (13:35)
is not ideal, but that’s how it worked for me and especially, you know, however many years ago it was. God, I can’t even think that long, that far back. ⁓ yeah, that’s kind of what happened. And I was in, you know, I was in a really privileged position where I could make my way down to London and do a few weeks work experience. And I had people to stay with and all of that kind of stuff, which I know is not, you know, ⁓ there’s lots and lots of kids out there who definitely cannot have that luxury.

but yeah that’s how I kind of I got into it and I worked at I had the most lovely job my first job was at a PR agency called Strawberry PR there were about

eight of us in this lovely kind of office. It was really, was a really lovely introduction into the world of work. It was very gentle. They were all really lovely people, but it was in fashion and beauty. And I realized quite quickly that fashion and beauty is very cyclical and I didn’t want to talk about spray tan every, you know, every 12 months. yeah, whatever, whatever the cycles were, I found it quite repetitive and I wasn’t that passionate about it. So I then

Victoria (14:36)
Spring. Yeah. ⁓

Pippa Goulden (14:45)
moved to an agency that was a bit more of a broader consumer agency and that had a horrendous year with this agency where the bosses were just horrible. It taught me a lot about how to not work with people and how to be a good boss.

But yeah, that kind of then set me on the path of kind of doing broad consumer PR and I loved it. I had a really good time in the agency world. did, you know, I was very good at it. I think there’s a lot of people that go into PR because it’s a backup for them and it’s like something else hasn’t worked out and you can tell those people and I just really loved it mostly. I love the client side of it. I love the creativity of it. I love the, you know, the fact that every day is different and you don’t quite know what you’re going to be doing for

minute to the next that kind of works well with my personality type so yeah I did really enjoy it but I did also want to do it like it was it was definitely a career path that I went down. I’m not sure whether I would make the same decisions again I don’t know I kind of it’s quite interesting my goddaughter’s 21 and she’s looking at kind of what she would she would do and it’s obviously the world is so different now I don’t know if I would recommend that as a

Victoria (15:40)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (15:57)
beginning of a career path now for people. think the landscapes change so much, but you know.

Victoria (16:03)
It really has. It’s probably just a very different decision. I think it must be really hard generally going into the world of work now, because there are so many unknowns, particularly with AI, all this stuff. It seemed at least stable when we were kind of going into it. Whereas now there’s so much that you kind of can’t, you can’t quite fathom what’s a safe bet. Really interesting what you said about the maternities. ⁓

Pippa Goulden (16:08)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

what’s coming. Yeah.

Victoria (16:33)
When you went on to maternity with your first child, did you have a sense then that you wanted an escape, or wanted an exit from your current job?

Pippa Goulden (16:44)
⁓ Yeah, think so, partly because I just could see that, I mean the way the agency world worked then, it’s probably a bit different now, but we would, you know, be there really late.

you know, doing pictures and working on new business and all that kind of stuff. And it was a very like, you know, play, work hard, play hard, very like the agency was amazing that I was at for like 12 years, but it was very like, you know, everyone lived and breathed the agency. They all went out together. You know, it just wasn’t very

productive for family life really and my husband’s job at the time was quite inflexible and that he had to be in London five days a week so something had to give and I think you know it just was all partly because it’s what we want we both wanted was you know I wanted to be more flexible and be at home a bit more he earned more money so it made more sense like you know there were there were lots of layers to the decision but partly going back to my own upbringing my mum was the flexible one my dad went to work like I you know basically

modeled what I grew up with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (17:49)
Yeah, you almost don’t need to have the conversation about it because it’s just what you saw.

And that’s something that is probably shifting at the moment with the way that couples work and navigate that career versus family life. It was the same for me. I just assumed that, and I still do to a certain extent, I have to catch myself, just assume that if there’s any issue that the flexibility, like I’m the one that has to have the bouncy job.

Pippa Goulden (18:00)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (18:18)
and it’s definitely interesting, but you do, just sort of subliminally, you absorb all that stuff growing up and then you just replay it. Even if it doesn’t quite fit, it’s just the natural thing. But it seemed like that really did work for you.

Pippa Goulden (18:29)
Yeah, and I’m really…

Yeah, but I’m also really conscious that I’m not remodeling that back to my boys and I think I probably there is there are ways that you know it’s very hard to get around but now I have the business and I am doing my own thing and I am successful. I’m very conscious that it doesn’t seem that I’m doing what I do because it was an easy half job if that makes sense. Like I really want to show them that you can be your

own boss you can make it work for you and that daddy has a career and he’s done it this way but I have a career too but it’s done in my own way and it and it’s as valuable as his job is.

Victoria (19:13)
Yeah, and I’m sure they’ll have seen you work really hard because, I mean, how old were they when you launched the PR set?

Pippa Goulden (19:21)
So it was five years ago, so about seven and five. Yeah, seven and five. Yeah.

Victoria (19:26)
Okay, launching

a business is bloody hard work ⁓ and getting established. Those first two, three years, when you go from nothing to something, they’ll have seen that and they’ll see that you still work very hard now. it’s so often I think, I tell my kids certain things, but they’re actually just gonna watch me, not listen to a damn thing I say.

Pippa Goulden (19:39)
Yeah.

Yeah and I think

that the modelling and the watching is so, yeah, it’s so important isn’t it? And you know for them, they won’t really ever remember me having an ⁓ employed job. This is what they’ve known me do for most of their lifetime. And so yeah, it’s really important to me that they don’t see it as a, like, mummy’s got this little thing that she does.

Victoria (20:16)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but that’s so often the assumption when you relate the role of mother to the role of work in general. seems to, unfortunately, it seems to kind of diminish the role of work to add motherhood into it. Like it’s a compromise on work. And I get really cross about that because…

Because I just think mothers are the most time efficient people you could find and their productivity levels are through the roof. And actually they’re getting done in four hours what someone else in the office is getting done in nine sometimes, you know.

Pippa Goulden (20:49)
Yeah, absolutely. I know.

Bye.

I remember distinctly going back after I had Freddie, eldest, and back to the office and sitting there going, A, realising that everyone spoke this really weird language that people outside an office don’t speak, and B, just seeing how much time was wasted. And I remember saying to the MD, I was like, I cannot believe how much time we waste. And she said, you you have to let them do it. This is there for most people who don’t have, you know,

Victoria (21:12)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (21:28)
the deadlines that you have as a mum. This is where they come to, they make their friends, they spend most of their life at.

this place, they need to enjoy being here and it was a real lesson for me because I was like, I really wanted to like be like, come on everyone just be more efficient but yeah they weren’t, they weren’t in the same space as me and that was really important for me to respect that at the same time having those conversations of why you have to leave at five o’clock when everyone’s going to be there till 10 o’clock or you know whatever is really difficult. Yeah.

Victoria (21:47)
the whip. Yeah.

Well, exactly, that’s what, yeah. Yeah, but it’s also really annoying because you

can say in your more corporate role, you could say, right, I’m leaving and say it’s four and you have to leave earlier, but you might’ve been in earlier, but no one else was in earlier so they didn’t see that. And then you feel like you have to justify this flexibility at the end of the day because you have this responsibility to your children. But you know for a fact that you’ve done two days work where they’ve done half a day.

and yet they’re all watching you leave the office and put your coat on. I just think, ⁓ so frustrating, so frustrating.

Pippa Goulden (22:31)
yeah it is frustrating

and that’s why I just that agency world for me I grew out I grew out of it I don’t know if that’s even the right way to say it just it stopped aligning with how I wanted to live my life and where I where I was at and that’s why I’m really lucky I like I’m so grateful to beauty pie for that delivery because I tried so many iterations of how I can make it work and I remember talking to Katie who my best friend who’s got her own agency and I said maybe we could do it this way or we could do it this way and I just couldn’t make it stick

and then it was like the subscription model and that’s how I developed the first bit of the PR set which was the DOIPR membership and it kind of then grew in all sorts of different shapes from there but yeah it was having that it was having that pause as well in lockdown and you know lockdown nobody would want to repeat that but having that moment to step back where I wasn’t you know

with a newborn baby who I didn’t know how to, what to do. It was actually a pause from just the, the kind of the treadmill that we were all on. That was for me, the most important thing is being able to take a step back and really think and have some time to play around with some stuff. think also actually at the same time, one of my school friends, Caroline had become a coach.

and I was doing a lot of the stuff that she was doing. She was doing free webinars and free training and she really helped me. And actually my mum bought me a session for her with her and like goodness me at the beginning of Caroline’s coaching career I think it was like 90 quid for whatever session and now she is definitely not charging 90 quid anymore. But you know that was really great as well because I think what I had actually needed was the mindset work.

Victoria (23:56)
No.

Hahaha

Pippa Goulden (24:14)
And it wasn’t until I’d done that mindset stuff that I really could step into being, you know, this entrepreneur, business owner. I couldn’t do that until I’d figured out the mindset stuff.

Victoria (24:26)
So much of it is a need to gain perspective and to have that pause. Like you say, whether it’s maternity or whether it’s COVID, I mean, hopefully it’s not COVID again, just something that, yeah, something that breaks the cycle. Because, I mean, if you’re a working parent, there is just no let up. It’s absolutely relentless. And you can barely, if you have a moment to yourself, you want to use it for something like, you know,

Pippa Goulden (24:38)
Yeah, fingers crossed.

Yeah.

Victoria (24:56)
sleep or rest. Fun. Yeah, exactly. Go out and see your friends. Exactly. Yeah, you need to like just let your hair down or go to bed one or the other. And actually you don’t always feel inclined like, I’ve got an hour. I’m really going to sit quietly and think about my future business plans because, because you just feel like it’s this enormous thing as well that you need to work out and there’s too much pressure in an hour to get anywhere with that. But sometimes just a long period where you

Pippa Goulden (24:56)
Yeah, sleep or fun, you know, it’s really important to like, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (25:25)
have a bit of headspace in that perspective just gives you the clarity that you’ve been searching for. And it can be so frustrating trying to force that. I’ve definitely experienced that where you’re like, I just need to find the thing. I just need to find the thing and the thing doesn’t come. And that’s really hard. what you talked about mindset shifts. What do you think were the key shifts that you needed to make in your mindset in order to feel

Pippa Goulden (25:44)
Yeah.

Victoria (25:52)
I mean, what was it? Feel ready to do it? Feel equipped to do it? Feel confident to do it?

Pippa Goulden (25:56)
Yeah I think it was like allowing myself the permission to do it and allowing myself believing in my ability to do it I really doubted myself so I have worked with a coach since as well and I have this little character called Mrs Doubtfire and she comes and she appears every so often it sounds a bit bonkers but I basically put her…

Victoria (26:18)
No, I love that. Is she Robin

Williams in drag?

Pippa Goulden (26:20)
she is is Ron Williams, Mrs Doubtfire and she’ll be the

one that’s sitting there going you can’t do that, who do you think you are to do that and I basically send her back to the kitchen and she bakes her shortbread and she leaves me alone and I do have a conversation with her, I did this ⁓ amazing work with an amazing coach called Rebecca Hayden who had she kind of calls it part work and all these negative doubty things that come up

usually a part of you they’re not actually you and it’s amazing when you actually separate those things off.

how you can then, you know, get them to go away and realise that they’re not actually the things that should be driving you forward. So I think doing a lot of that work initially with Caroline, doing some of the stuff that she was doing, and also like she would talk about, you know, where do you want to be in five, 10, 15 years time? Like if you could do anything and look back and tell yourself now that it will be okay, what would you do? And that was really

important for me so like okay well if everything is going to be okay would you launch your own business? Yeah of course I would. If you knew that you could replace your corporate job salary

maybe even more than that, would you do it? Yeah, of course I would. So then it’s shifting that mindset from I can’t do it because to well, I can do it and this is what could be the impact of it. And that’s like all of that mindset stuff for me has been so important and I have to keep doing that. think it’s, you know, if I’m sure that most people listening to this will have some mindset stuff going on because I don’t think I’ve ever met a female founder that doesn’t. But I think doing that work and realizing what

the things are that holding you back.

is really important and that’s something that I did again I did it 18 months ago I realized that fear was kind of running my business and I was getting really annoyed with it and I again that’s when I invested in the work that I did with Rebecca Hayden Beck and that again has like catapulted my business forward because so the key points in in the business where I’ve stopped letting the doubt or the fear or whatever bit of the negative it is

making the decisions and gone the other way have always been the things that have propelled me forward and made me like the most excited and the most happy and the most joyous that I can be in my business.

Victoria (28:45)
This is interesting because I think, I suspect, I might be taking a bit of a leap, but I suspect mindset is a key, I’m gonna say inhibitor when it comes to small business owners, entrepreneurs, female founders, whatever you want to call them, engaging with PR. Because again, a bit like entrepreneurship, you we had this idea that it was Richard Branson. I think with PR, you assume,

Pippa Goulden (29:06)
Yeah.

Victoria (29:15)
that you absolutely don’t deserve to be anywhere near a magazine because that’s for the Richard Branson’s of this world or whoever it may be. If you’re not in that world and this assumption again that it’s all about who you know, then it’s not for you, the end. And so it’s not really part of our tool belt. And a lot of small business owners are like flogging away on Instagram. I’m gonna say slogging away. I don’t think flogging is the right word. Slogging away on Instagram.

Pippa Goulden (29:22)
Yeah.

All of it, all the oggings.

Victoria (29:45)
vlogging themselves to death on Instagram, just trying to, because that is accessible at least, you know, it’s open to everybody. There’s no exclusivity, there’s no barriers to entry. Whereas PR feels a bit terrifying, do you think? And also like, explain what it is, first and foremost, let’s start at the beginning. What is PR?

Pippa Goulden (29:58)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, yes, that’s a really

good point. So I think, well, I think the PR industry has done a very good job of making it feel confusing. So if you do feel confused about what PR is, please know you’re not alone. When I’m talking about PR…

I’m talking about using a third party to get endorsement for your business and in the loosest kind of broader sense, but that is using somebody else’s platform. So it might be a journalist writing about you in a magazine or interviewing you for a newspaper, but it might be a podcaster inviting you onto their podcast to talk about your business. might be you standing on an industry stage. It might be a collaboration that you do with another small business, a Q and a or an instant live. It’s somebody else saying, Hey, check out this business.

this entrepreneur because I believe in what they’re doing and it’s that third party endorsement that is so powerful for your business and if you think about the fact that you know on Instagram you’re generally saying hey look at my business this is what I do or you take out an ad you’re saying hey look at my business this is what I do that’s great to a certain point but it’s that other person saying yes check them out that is so powerful for your business and you’re absolutely right because the biggest blocker I believe

to people doing their own PR is themselves. It’s this mindset thing. So actually, when I first launched the PR set, I didn’t realise how much we would do around confidence, around mindset, around putting on your big girl pants, getting yourself ready to put yourself out there. Because until you’ve done that work, I think it’s really difficult for you to do it properly and successfully, because you just won’t do it. You’ll be holding yourself back.

Victoria (31:40)
Okay, so is it about who you know? What is it about?

Pippa Goulden (31:47)
So it’s not about who you know. So this is a really interesting thing. People think you need to have a little black book of contacts. You need to have a big budget for a PR agency has to do it for you because you couldn’t possibly do it yourself. That it’s something that only big brands or big businesses can do. And I promise you, I have got.

evidence, countless evidence from my DIY PR members, from my one-to-one, as my get-knowers who are all doing it themselves, that you can do it for yourself. It’s absolutely possible to do it. It’s about knowing what you’re PRing.

it’s knowing that it’s not getting an advert for your business. It’s about pitching yourself for opportunities where you can offer your expertise or your insight or your products, you know, whatever that might be. But knowing that it’s not just about an advert for your business. So for example, if I was going to pitch to your podcast, I wouldn’t say, hey, the Puyall Set does these five things. It’s really interesting. That is, no one wants to listen to that. But if I said to you, I can help

female founding mums to do their own PR to help them grow their business would you be interested in me talking about xyz you know that for you is what your listeners would want to hear it’s not about what i want them to know about the PR set if that does that make sense so

Victoria (33:07)
Yeah,

so it’s about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, essentially.

Pippa Goulden (33:10)
Yeah.

Exactly,

yeah, exactly. It’s about storytelling and by storytelling I don’t mean like saying something that happened to you when you were 15 that you don’t want to talk about. It’s about telling the stories that happen within your business, the experiences that you have as a business owner. You know, there’s so many ways that you can tell stories and keep your boundaries intact, but it’s about basically bringing human elements to your business. It’s also often for female founders, I talk about this a lot about you

putting yourself at the front of your business and I know that makes a lot of people go ⁓ but actually building your profile and getting known for what you do is really powerful and there are lots of ways you can do that in ways that kind of I always recommend starting your comfort zone and then we’ll push you out of that comfort zone but in ways that you feel comfortable doing that might be writing that might be speaking on podcasts it might be you know doing collaborations that kind of thing but yeah putting yourself out there

getting those big girl pants on and starting to look at ways that you can.

get known for what you do is really important. The other thing is often people are doing this kind of thing already they just haven’t really realised that it’s PR and I think that’s often when the penny drops and they’re like I’m actually really good at talking on people’s podcasts why don’t I do more of it you know that kind of thing I often get those like those kind of penny drop moments when I’m working with people and they’re like yeah I do really enjoy doing that or yeah I do want to do those stage speakings that whatever it is so often you are doing things

Victoria (34:29)
You

Pippa Goulden (34:45)
within your business that actually constitute PR but you haven’t really thought about it.

Victoria (34:50)
feel like there’s a, it’s this sort of mystical aspect that you were saying before that PR has done quite a good job of keeping itself to itself. And presumably that’s to preserve the traditional role of the agency. And what you’re saying is quite revolutionary in that respect is like, actually don’t need an agency. You can perfectly well do this yourself. It will take some time and some effort. But there are so many things like that that I feel, you know, I think about it, it’s a bit of random.

parallel, but I think about it in terms of architecture. Like architecture is quite a closed art form when you think about it in comparison to music or even art itself, all sorts of other things. Actually, it’s not very accessible. They make you go through like a 10-year training course to get there and call yourself one. And it’s just not something where the general public is invited to express their opinion. And there are so many

niches like this that actually I feel like the modern age is starting to open up. ⁓ And there will be an awful lot of people who think that they just don’t, you know, just writing a press release, for example, even knowing what a press release is. The only reason that I know what one is, is because I was randomly ⁓ LPL, lifeboat press officer for the RNLI for a while.

Pippa Goulden (36:16)
Yeah.

Victoria (36:17)
in my like what I call my wilderness years when I was like ⁓ lonely and single in my early thirties. So I learned on the job and I actually went down to the RNLI and did some training on what a press release is, but otherwise I would not have known and just sort of the psychology of crafting something like that. And it feels very alien and actually uncomfortable, especially if it’s kind of, if it’s a personal business and that there are so many business owners that it’s actually just them and their

At the moment, they’re wearing all the hats. They’ve not got a team. They’re doing all the things and they’re providing a service that to them feels quite personal. And they’re already being told that they have to go and like talk to camera and put that out on Instagram, shoot reels, sell themselves, market themselves, which if you’ve come from a kind of more corporate institutionalized world, just feels absolutely terrifying.

But then to submit something like that to a serious publication, is that something that you, I mean presumably that’s something you help people with, but there must be a lot of blocks there.

Pippa Goulden (37:26)
Absolutely, yeah.

yeah, there’s, I mean, there’s so many blocks in PR and there’s so many blocks when you’re doing it yourself and we remove those. There’s a few things though that you’ve said. So firstly, you don’t have to start with submitting pictures to serious publications. I mean, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t, but you know, that might actually not be the right route for you anyway. If you’re a coach looking at getting new clients, for example, you’re probably more likely to do that by

going on podcasts and having chats within communities and networks where your audience actually is so

Firstly, I would take a step back and look at what actually you want to achieve with your business. Why are you doing PR in the first place? The second thing I think comes back to time. Like, yes, you do have to wear lots of hats, but how many of us pick our phones up as a default and go on Instagram and spend hours making a reel that 22 people see or whatever the numbers are? Like, you know, no, exactly. But, you know, there is a default, isn’t there, that we often go to, whether it’s LinkedIn as your platform of choice

Victoria (38:25)
Definitely not me, I’ve never done that.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (38:35)
or you know whatever it is like time

in this sense I believe is a bit of a construct and saying that you don’t have enough time to do it I think is a bit of a cop-out because actually you can make the time in your business absolutely it doesn’t once you’ve up skilled yourself and that’s the that’s the third point really but once you’ve up skilled yourself it is really doable you know I try and spend 15 minutes a day sending an email or pitching myself for something and it doesn’t always happen but that’s kind of my that’s my like litmus test of knowing if I’m kind of on it with my PR or not is that whether I’ve managed

to kind of pitch myself for something that day but it doesn’t always happen obviously but yeah the third thing is upskilling yourself because once you know how to do this stuff the things like the writing the press release the pitching all of that stuff it’s not as intimidating as it sounds and PR is not rocket science I promise you I could not teach you to be an architect but I promise you I can teach you how to do PR yeah exactly we don’t have time for that like I promise you it is honestly not that difficult and actually

Victoria (39:29)
It takes 10 years, we don’t have time for that.

Pippa Goulden (39:38)
The best way to learn from a PR perspective is by taking action. Like everything that I do in the PR set is focused on the action taking rather than like, I don’t want to sell you a dusty course that sits in your inbox for years and you never get round to it. I’ve got plenty of those. The key thing is taking the action. So doing it and learning as you go. you know, I’ll work with clients and I’ll go back and look at a pitch that I’ve sent and I’ll be like, actually, that’s not quite right. I’ll tweak it and I’ll change it. But if I don’t start doing the do, I’m never going to be pushing myself

Victoria (39:53)
Same.

Pippa Goulden (40:08)
or doing it for my clients or whatever so you actually just have to get on and send the fucking email sorry that’s my that’s my phrase sorry if I’m allowed to swear but you know ⁓ there’s no children present but I think we overthink like this goes back to the mindset thing we think don’t we all the time

Victoria (40:16)
That’s your catchphrase. It’s all right. was, no you are. Yeah, no you are. It’s absolutely fine. I was waiting for it.

Pippa Goulden (40:28)
that that you you know when you reached out to me and you were like did you go to the school because I think I recognize you you’d probably been thinking about doing that for ages hadn’t you like we over thinks but yeah we overthink this stuff don’t we like we overthink it all the time she won’t want to hear from me because this journalist won’t be interested in me because xyz how do you know how do we know that we do so much thinking this is a female founder issue I think and probably

Victoria (40:33)
haha

Don’t flatter yourself. Yeah, I had ya.

Pippa Goulden (40:58)
maybe maybe maybe it’s females in general but I think it is you know whether it’s a mum thing or not it’s a British it’s definitely a British thing we overthink we put words in other people’s mouths and actually just send the fucking email if they don’t want it it’s actually not because of you it’s because of whatever else is going on in their world something I learnt quite early on in my business thank god I did was that nobody cares about your business as much as you do and it sounds a bit harsh to begin with but if you think about it it is so freeing because it means

Victoria (41:02)
British females.

Pippa Goulden (41:28)
that you can make the mistakes, it means that you can send the emails, it means you can try things and they can go wrong without people knowing that nobody’s actually out there judging you in the way that maybe your brain might make you think and it’s really powerful. Yeah.

Victoria (41:42)
Yeah, it is very liberating to

think that. And I think I’m getting there. But that certainly was something, I mean, in my 20s, I’d have been mortified to do anything, send anything to anybody. I think that’s something that comes with age and perhaps with motherhood as well. Your priorities have just shifted. You just give less to quote, like just give less fucks about what other people think generally. You just have very limited time and you’re trying to get on. And so you do the thing. But I think also,

Pippa Goulden (41:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (42:12)
for people who are at the beginning of that journey, there must be like a rejection muscle that you have to kind of build a bit of resilience there.

Pippa Goulden (42:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely, you’re totally right. And I think also it’s important to know that I don’t think that goes away. I don’t know if you know Liz Mosley, she does her rejection. Oh, you do know her, yes, of course you do. You’ve got her chart. We had a really good chat about this on my podcast. I think you’ve spoken to her too, haven’t you? Like she’s a really, have you spoken to her? No, okay, not yet. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly, well, she’ll.

Victoria (42:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve got her chart.

No, not yet. I’m gonna pitch to her. I’m gonna send the fucking email. I just wanna get

yours out first, Pippa. It’s been like, look, I’m so good to Pippa.

Pippa Goulden (42:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she,

like she, she talked about it a lot actually in saying, and I think she’s quite right, is that that rejection, that feeling doesn’t ever really go away, but you just learn for it not to hold you back. So it’s like, God, yeah, that has actually upset me that they didn’t want me for that. But do know what?

Victoria (43:04)
Hmm.

Pippa Goulden (43:09)
going to keep going, whereas maybe at the beginning you’re like my god that’s it, everything’s done, I’m never going to send another email again, you know, and the rejection isn’t always a no that’s it, sometimes it’s a no not right now.

Victoria (43:14)
Yeah

Yeah.

For now,

Pippa Goulden (43:24)
you know and I think

Victoria (43:24)
yeah.

Pippa Goulden (43:25)
it’s really important to know that the no’s aren’t actually about you they’re about whatever else is going on in that journalist’s life they might be doing something else they might be working on a different feature they might have missed your email you know they haven’t got back to you because they hate you and they think your business is shit it’s because they are doing some other stuff that probably you’re not quite aligned where

where they are in their work at that moment. I think quite often we just catastrophize things so much and we make it all about us when actually it’s usually got nothing to do with us at all.

Victoria (43:55)
Yeah, and I suppose it’s about improving on the bounce back rate. know, when you get your first few rejections, you’re like, God, you’re gonna climb into a hole, you know, and everything, you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And actually then the more you practice, firstly, I mean, I have got Liz’s rejection chart and I’ve only got one sticker and I’m trying quite hard.

Pippa Goulden (44:04)
Yeah

See?

Victoria (44:21)
And it’s an amazing thing. And I have talked about it on social media and I recommend everybody goes and buys this chart or at least does the challenge, but the chart helps because you get your little sticker. But it’s amazing when you put yourself out there how many yeses you will get that you may not have even put yourself forward because of that insecurity that we all have, we all have it. We all carry it around with us all the time. But then if you get that rejection, at least you get to put the sticker on the chart.

Pippa Goulden (44:36)
Yeah.

Victoria (44:51)
and also the more rejections that you get. Because I’ve had quite a few that are, and it’s awful, I have a few that are like not right now. And I can’t even put the sticker on the chart because I haven’t, it’s not concluded, I need a closure. I almost want them to just say no, go away. And then I get my sticker. So I’ve got a few stickers pending, but it is about improving on that bounce back rate. So you want to get to a point where you have the rejection. And of course you’re…

Pippa Goulden (45:06)
Say no. Yeah.

Victoria (45:18)
deflated. Of course you are. No one wants to start their day with that email in their inbox saying no, thank you very much, or just be completely ignored. I’d say if you’re completely ignored, would you always recommend going back?

Pippa Goulden (45:29)
Yeah, I generally recommend following up once, maybe twice. I think, you know, third time probably gets a bit too much. I think also have a look at your pitch and maybe see where it can be tweaked or changed or, you know, maybe try somebody else at the publication or, you know, obviously if it’s a podcast, it’s a bit different, but just try and think a bit differently as well. But yeah, follow up. Sometimes that works. Most often than not, it doesn’t, to be honest, but it’s worth a try. But yeah, I think the other thing as well,

Victoria (45:33)
Mm, yeah.

Pippa Goulden (45:59)
back to this whole thing about putting yourself out there and you know sending sending the emails is quite a good way to get over that.

is to make it not about you and think about the people that benefit from your work and the people who you are servicing with your business and whatever way, whatever you do, there will be people that benefit from what you do and if you can make it about them and the fact that they want to hear from you, they want to hear about you, they want to hear what you’ve got to say, they’re interested in your thoughts around topics, make it about them and not about you and then it becomes much easier to try and pitch yourself because you know that the end

reader is somebody who’s going to be receptive to what you’ve got to say and actually you’re helping them in whatever way it is to you know improve their lives in whatever way but yeah I think making it about somebody else rather than you is is a good way to get through that initial ick.

Victoria (46:57)
Yeah, and going through that exercise, just thinking about it from your prospective client’s point of view or whoever your target audience is, is helpful in itself as far as your general business strategy goes. Because if you’re not doing that, then maybe that’s partly why your Instagram reels are flopping or partly, because I mean, and it’s so easy. I feel like that’s something you have to do all the time. Because it’s so easy to go off piste in your messaging and just having that

Pippa Goulden (47:23)
Yeah.

Victoria (47:27)
sort of focus to come back to center almost and be like, what do I do? Who do I do it for? And it’s always gotta be like a mantra that you say to yourself every day so that you keep that focus and you’re talking to the right people. So tell me in what ways specifically you help female founders, small business owners, moms, trying to build businesses. Yeah, like how can people work with you? Like what do you?

Pippa Goulden (47:39)
Yeah.

in what ways, as in, how do they benefit? how can they,

how can they work with me? ⁓

Victoria (47:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what

are the different kind of levels of PR support that you can offer?

Pippa Goulden (48:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I have a DIY PR membership which is where you can basically learn how to do it, it gives you all the knowledge and the confidence to take the action to get the results. So that’s a monthly membership or an annual membership. We’ve got an amazing community of small business owners. I work with B2B, B2C, product and service businesses because I kind of believe that the principles of PR are the same. You just need to apply the right bits to your business. And also I love

the fact that we get ideas from different industries and the way that people do things differently and that kind of thing I think if we’re just stuck in our own little bubble it life gets a bit boring.

Victoria (48:44)
Gets a bit stagnant.

Pippa Goulden (48:44)
Yeah does. So

Victoria (48:45)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pippa Goulden (48:45)
I’ve got my DIYP membership, I have my one-to-one accelerator which is where we work together for six weeks or three months basically you’ve got me in your pocket helping you to do it and I have Get Known which is my group cohort program which the next one will be in the new year there’s one starting in October but the next cohort will be at some point in the new year and that is a six week group sprint ⁓ where we basically get you taking the action quickly to get the results so yeah it’s all about

action-taking. I also have a done for you service as well but tend to kind of talk more about the DIY stuff because I just really want people to know that you don’t have to pay somebody else to do it. I’m not anti-agency absolutely it’s the right thing for some businesses and some you know brands but for the majority of people in my world obviously the DIY stuff is what they’re looking for and they get amazing results they get on this morning they get an array and they get on stylists

writing an article for Grazia at the moment you know there’s all sorts of opportunities that they are using to grow their businesses and get known for what they do and I just love it.

Victoria (49:54)
Well, tell me, give me some, couple of like specific examples of like the transformation that you’ve seen. Because I presume, you you get, you get a female founder, a small business owner into your world. And they’re almost starting from scratch. They’re probably, they maybe they’ve been on a couple of podcasts, maybe they’ve done some Instagram lives, but they didn’t even, like you say, they didn’t necessarily realize that was PR and there’s no strategy.

And I feel like that’s the thing, isn’t it? Like you can, I’m guilty of it. I just like pitch for stuff as and when I see it. ⁓ But there’s no real clear path or direction that is particular to me that I’ve given any thought or consideration to. So tell me about some of the transformations that you’ve seen in working with your clients.

Pippa Goulden (50:25)
Yeah.

I think the general transformation, the thing that I see the most is people come in and they think, ⁓ you you can kind of see by their shoulders drooping, nobody wants to hear about my little business. Why would they feature me? And then they start doing it. They take the action and they start generating the PR opportunities for their business. And I call it like the peacock feathers. They start coming out and the, can see that how the energy shifts in how they talk about their business. You see how they present it to other people and

the belief that they then have and it’s like the momentum builds it’s like this I talk about the snowball you’re like pushing up the hill and it’s like it’s a real slog and then you get to the top of the hill and it starts kind of moving down slowly and then it builds up speed and it’s that momentum you know they then start people asking them to do things you know they get known for what they’re doing their reputation kind of precedes them they get talked about when they’re not in the room all of that stuff is amazing to watch and I’ve had

people in the membership since I launched it for like five years. There’s Priya for example who’s got a business called Pri Pri. You know the PR that she’s got for herself is unbelievable. You will see her Christmas wreath everywhere this Christmas in all the magazines I guarantee I’ve already seen about three at it about three times. She’s also yeah exactly she’s also really good at telling her story so she’s got a product business but she’s got this lovely story her granny taught her to sew that inspired her business. She works with a

Victoria (52:00)
and it’s only September.

Pippa Goulden (52:11)
women’s initiative in India who kind of make her product so she’s got lots of layers to her story but she’s really good at doing the different PR things whether it’s the press coverage, the podcast interviews, the awards all of that stuff and you know she does it in her own way in a way that’s aligned with how she wants to run her business but she does it and she takes the action and she gets the results and that’s been amazing like she got stopped in John Lewis last year she stopped in the National Trust she featured in the John Lewis advert

Victoria (52:42)
Amazing. Wow.

Pippa Goulden (52:42)
Her products were in the John Lewis advert and

that is all from her PR. That’s because she’s spent time, know, unfortunately it’s not like a silver bullet or a magic bullet that just happens overnight. It does take time, but you know, she’s been with me for the last five years or so and watching people like her, she’s not the only one, you know, go through that journey and keep doing it, keep getting the amazing results. It’s just, it’s a joy to watch.

Victoria (53:10)
I bet it’s really, really rewarding. Go on.

Pippa Goulden (53:12)
It is rewarding.

I was gonna say it can be really frustrating and often people give up too soon because it doesn’t happen for them absolutely but yeah.

Victoria (53:20)
Yeah, yeah. But it’s like anything,

there’s no, like you say, there’s no quick win. You know, it is steady and it is just tapping away at it, I presume. But I think there is also this myth that like the phone will ring, you know, that it will just come to you. And actually what you’re saying is that’s not how it works. But I think the other thing that I think you’ve talked about, you’ve mentioned on the podcast is like, you know, journalists.

Pippa Goulden (53:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (53:51)
podcasters, all these people who they have a need, their job is to find the story, find the content. And so they need to hear from you. It’s not like they would be terribly put out to hear from you because they have to find a story from somewhere. And if you can craft your story and hand it to them on a plate, you’re actually making their job a lot easier because that’s one story they don’t have to go and seek out.

Pippa Goulden (53:57)
Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly, we

100 % we do meet the media sessions in the membership and in my get-knowing program where journalists will come in and we’ll kind of do a Q &A and we’ll ask them you know what they’re looking for we are you know find out what they’re looking for in pictures and that kind of thing

Apart from everyone always saying my god. She was so nice because they generally are normal people like you and me They always say we want to hear from small business owners because you are the ones innovating you’re doing things differently you know look at Big brands actually are quite boring like they have to have big budgets to do interesting Creatives to bring celebrities on to be spokespeople. You know they have big budgets in for PR for a reason because they need them actually as small business owners

you are the

the conduit for your stories. Like you don’t have to have all of those layers that the big brands have to have because you have you. So actually, you you’re innovating, you’re doing things differently. You really, we have to believe in ourselves as small business owners. We have to do this because we need to rise up together. And you know, those opportunities are there for the taking for you. And if you don’t do it, then someone else is going to do it instead. So you may as well give it a go and see if it works for you.

Victoria (55:31)
Ugh, I can see why so many people want to work with you, Pippa. I’m going to sign up.

Pippa Goulden (55:34)
⁓ Do it! Yay! Yeah, no, it’s

funny isn’t it? Like I do, I just, I see the benefits that it brings to people’s business and the impact that that then has on them and that’s why I’m so passionate about it. You know, I was not this passionate about Hot Points washing machines, let me tell you.

Victoria (55:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Why not?

Pippa Goulden (55:58)
Although actually if

you were a nice client and I enjoyed working with you I was quite passionate about your business it was generally like that but yeah I can see the impact that this has on people and I genuinely know that it works when it’s done properly so that’s why yeah I could talk about it forever but…

Victoria (56:17)
And I imagine once that snowball, I mean, I appreciate that there is an effort to push the snowball up the hill and you’re starting small. But once it starts to tumble over the peak and down the other side, what validation, you know, for all that effort. And it’s like anything, you know, you can say the same in business. People often give up right before the big break. And it’s actually that tenacity that separates the people.

Pippa Goulden (56:29)
Yeah.

Victoria (56:46)
who reach the success, whatever that goal is for them that they’re looking for from the people that don’t really. It’s just that resilience and that determination to keep going because there are times when it is hard and it’s the same, same with everything, same with social media, same with PR and PR is just a tool, like social media is a tool that can really help you grow. And it’s actually a tool that most people are just petrified of, it seems.

Pippa Goulden (56:52)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah and actually

you can have so much fun with it like when you do the podcast chats and you do the talks and the things that actually often scare you the most end up being the things that you have the most fun with and actually sitting behind a screen on your phone doing Instagram reels is you know there’s only so much joy that that can bring.

Victoria (57:29)
Exactly. And that’s

quite actually quite a lonely pursuit, creating content sometimes. And the thing that’s brilliant about podcasting, for example, is you’re just making friends basically every time you do it. And the same with PR, you know, you’re building, if you’re fortunate enough to get to that stage, you’re building relationships with people, with journalists, with people in magazines, with awards people, whatever it might be in your particular niche. And it’s people at the end of the day, if you are

Pippa Goulden (57:39)
Yeah, totally.

Yeah, go ahead, yeah.

Victoria (57:58)
engaging with people and you feel like you have a community around you that likes your business and likes you and is willing to shout from the rooftops about it, that’s going to make your job so much more rewarding all around, isn’t it? And then in turn yours because you help them get there.

Pippa Goulden (58:13)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah.

Victoria (58:19)
Brilliant.

I have one last question for you before I let you go. looking back now, you’ve gone through, I mean, you’ve been very steady in your chosen subject matter in PR and marketing, but you’ve gone through your corporate path. You’ve become a mum. You’re now a business owner. You’re a female founder. just, all these phrases, I never know which one to pick. Looking back now to yourself at eight years old.

Pippa Goulden (58:22)
yeah.

Victoria (58:47)
What would you tell that little girl?

Pippa Goulden (58:51)
I think I would tell her that she can do it in her own way and that so I one of my reports from school was ⁓ Philippa is virtually unsquashable and they didn’t mean it in a nice way they meant it in she won’t shut the fuck up and she just jumps up and down all the time and puts her hand up and that is my superpower

Victoria (59:08)
hahaha

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (59:16)
And that’s what I would tell

her. I mean, she was a bit older than eight, but you the thing, your enthusiasm for what you do will take you as far as you want it to. And yeah, that’s, I love what I do and I’m not gonna say sorry for that anymore.

Victoria (59:32)
No, and I’m so pleased for you that you have found this because it really radiates and I think it’s hard to find your thing, especially if you know that you’re not in the right thing right now, but you don’t know where the thing is. It’s a struggle, but I think when you do find it, it just shines through and those attributes that you had, the fact that you were unsquashable, I mean, it’s not something, it’s not a trait that’s valued by certain

private schools in the 90s and noughties, but that’s not to say that it’s not valuable. You’re just not in the right place. So yeah, you found it. You found your thing and it’s infectious.

Pippa Goulden (1:00:13)
I did. I did and I…

Yeah and I really hope that people know that they can find their thing too, you just have to, it’s not going to find you so go out there and do the work and look for it because it’s actually inside, it’s there isn’t it you know and if I hadn’t done that work I would still be on that treadmill so thank you to Caroline for becoming a coach and making me see that there was a different way and you know I always remember her saying to me like she put her two hands together she was like it will end up all coming together all the sum of everything you’ve done and I was like you’re

Victoria (1:00:20)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (1:00:45)
that’s so weird what you know and now she was totally right like all those elements of me doing the magazine having the corporate career all the bits and bobs that I’ve done have led me to here and I am really grateful for it.

Victoria (1:00:46)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah. And it’s trusting that process that, you know, that convergence will happen and everything, you know, taking your maternities, having your children, having that space to breathe and really reflect on what it is that you wanted. You know, it’s, it can feel difficult when you, when you’re not there, but when you reach that point and you feel like you’ve got momentum and traction and it feels good to you and you enjoy it it feels easy in a sense. know all…

Pippa Goulden (1:01:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Victoria (1:01:23)
business is to a certain extent there’s always chores and it’s hard work, but it feels right.

Pippa Goulden (1:01:25)
Yeah, yeah don’t get me wrong there

are days when I’m like what am I doing let’s burn the whole thing down. I don’t want anyone listening to this thinking it’s all right for her I promise you there are definitely those days but on the whole yeah it brings me joy.

Victoria (1:01:30)
Yeah, of course. Yeah.

But you

know, you will have all of the kind of responsibility of a kind of, I mean, what you’re building is a community of people and you’re trying to get them from A to B and you will have all the resistance that you have to build up all your energy all the time to help those people get past all their own blocks. And there will be frustrations because some people might take a while to get there and that’s okay. You you just need to make sure that they get there in the end because everyone’s on their own path. But I’m really pleased for you. It’s just…

Pippa Goulden (1:02:10)
⁓

thanks.

Victoria (1:02:10)
You seem

really happy. I mean, we’re only doing a one hour podcast, but generally speaking, and I think it’s awesome. So tell me where people can track you down online if they want to get involved or learn more about the PR site, where should they go?

Pippa Goulden (1:02:24)
theprset.com or you can find me on Instagram if you just put in Pippa the PR set or Pippa Goulden on LinkedIn but yeah slide into my DMs or ping me an email and yeah we can get chatting.

Victoria (1:02:37)
amazing. Thank you so much Pippa, it’s been really fun!

Pippa Goulden (1:02:39)
Thanks for having me. nice to see you.