Why Investor Relations Matters…..
Louis Fernandez:
All right. So, talk to us about starting your own business, and that initial leap from… Because it’s a mental shift just as much as it is a financial and everything else shift, too, going from I’m going to be an employee and look for a job to I’m going to make a job.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. Well, the one company I mentioned that I stayed at for almost 16 years and I wanted to go on to the other company. So, it was a good thing that they forced me to work remotely because I was doing that anyway. Now I got the sense of, okay, you don’t even know what it is I do, the only difference is the companies that our clients pay you, but you don’t even know what it is I do. So that was fine. But after six years of working for them, they were going to be selling their company to somebody else.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So now that company would have been in New Jersey, which meant that I would have had to commute every single day, would have been another hour and a half every day for a company that I don’t even have anything to do with. So it got to a point where I was like, you know what, I need to make a decision. Do I this commute and blah, blah, blah for a company that I have nothing to do with or do I look for another job, which I’ll probably have to commute again or do I just start my own company, because I’ve been doing this for how many years all by myself.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So I reached out to every client and I said, “If I branch out on my own, would you guys follow me?” Now the tricky part was the one company I was at when I moved to the one stayed 16 years and moved to this company, every company followed me. So that show that they valued what I did. When I mentioned that I would branch out on my own, they all agreed to follow me again. So I thought that was pretty cool.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
I even offered, I said, “Listen, you don’t even have to pay me the first month. Let me prove to you that nothing changes.” So all they paid me anyway and they were like, “We got it, Patti. It’s all good.” So I wound up just started my own company. And again, the only thing at that point that had changed was who the check got made out to, but nothing else changed. So, the tricky part to that was you learn a lot right off the bat that you wouldn’t have really had to deal with if you were an employee.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
You have all sorts of things, medical and government rules, and blah, blah, blah. And we had one company tried to sue me for unfair competition, which was a total BS lawsuit. They didn’t win but still cost me stress and cost me money for legal fees for something that really if this happened to another company and you’re just an employee, you’re not involved in any of that.
Louis Fernandez:
Right.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So I was like, “Okay. Well, this is bad.” And then we were representing several companies. And we had one company come in and take over three of the companies that we represented. So it’s like a three client loss right off the bat. We just started the company. And again, if you’re an employee and a company loses clients, it doesn’t affect your job right off the bat. But I’m like, oh my god, this is three client lost. We have bills to pa. I’m like, this is not good.
Louis Fernandez:
So what did you do?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Nothing we can do. I mean, the tricky part with that, too, is that when we’re involved with a company and we work very closely with the CEOs, CFOs, and whatnot, we know a lot of what’s going on and we probably would have seen that coming and could have made steps to prevent it. But a lot of times we get outsourced work from the internal IR, PR, or marketing teams because they don’t want to do the day to day work, which is fine.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
But that being said, in those cases we’re not really involved with the day-to-day communications that the company has. So we had no clue that this was even something that was ever going to happen. So right when we started the company, apparently this is something that was being planned for a while. But by the time it’s surfaced, we’re now two months of opening my own company and I’m like, okay, this is bad. So, I mean, nothing you can do. It’s just upward and onward and keep moving and try to recoup the loss.
Louis Fernandez:
Wow. Now, at this time, your family situation, because I seem to remember you did a lot of this on your own at the same time.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had two other people working with me at that time. One was just like me, she had 30 something years experience. She was very involved. The other person had about 15 years experience. But now, again, I have payroll to come up with, where before, the company is paying for it, not me. Now I have to pay for it. I’m like you just took money away that I was going to use to pay people. So it isn’t good. But these are all things that we learned right off the bat like, all right, we need to really focus on not letting this happen. It was bad because we never saw that coming because we were on the other side.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to make it sound bad, but you poached, your clients, they followed you. And I mean, it’s not necessarily poaching because they also just for anyone that’s an employee to build relationships with your clients, so that if you do want to peace out. That’s pretty cool they followed you twice.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. Well, the only thing with that just to separate, it’s not like I took them from the company. They were totally different company anyway.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
I did invest, they did proxy solicitation.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So even if I left basically, if they didn’t come with me, they would have to find another company. They couldn’t have stayed where they were at either way.
Louis Fernandez:
Right. Okay.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
There’s a lot of reasons.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah. So, you start off this way and then you get hit with this three client loss. So I know that there are people that have experienced this exact thing just now. And especially anybody in a B2B world, we have all lost clients in the last year and for differing reasons. Some got out of business. Some just couldn’t afford the service anymore. Some unfortunately passed away.
Louis Fernandez:
We’re all experiencing this. So, hitting the grindstone, again, talk us through, because, like you said, you still have payroll. And that’s like a new stress, too, of it’s not just me that’s going to suffer from this. I mean, there’s at least two other families in this particular case that are paying for it. So, talk to us about how you get back to let’s making up that revenue and going after new clients. What was that like?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Well, initially, it gets to a point we’re like, okay, X amount of dollars is coming in. I have to pay out X amount of dollars for A, B, C, D, E. I could either fire somebody or take a loss myself. So I wounded up taking a loss myself thinking, okay, not quite what I was looking to do right out the gate but I value the people I have and I’m like, okay, I think together we can really push through this. So, we started branching out thinking to try to get new business. And one thing with me is I can market the heck out of any client but I never had time to market myself, which is always an issue.
Louis Fernandez:
I hear that from marketing agencies all the time.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
That is the number one most common. If you were a marketing agency for marketing agencies, you’d probably be okay.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
For sure. Well, the one thing with this was that I always say we always were good about if that if we found that there was a need for something, we fill that void. So we were doing that right out the gate. And especially since I bought on that other person who was coming, the other girl followed me from the other company as well. So this person I bought from the outside but who had run in the same space as me.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So, it was like an outsider giving her take on things. So it was actually good. But right off the bat, we were focusing on the financial company. So, financial companies being closed on funds, ETFs, BDCs, MLPs, and REITs. So, she worked at a company at one point who hosted an annual conference, and we found that there really was a need for that sort of thing. So we started developing an annual conference for financial companies.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Because when we had financial clients that wanted to present themselves to the investment community, there really wasn’t any other venue. So we went to other conferences but there were such a mix of presenters that you have financial, tobacco. At the end of the day, you might have 200 people attend your booth. But when we did follow up, we found that they were only interested in a giveaway on the table.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So we’re like, okay, so there’s a need for this. So we were very strict on putting together financial conference. We would only have investors, analysts, brokers, media come. It’s a networking sit-down lunch, a cocktail reception, and we became very well known in the industry for hosting this event. People were coming from around the world for it. So that put us on the map, which is really good. We didn’t make any money on the event, which was fine. We weren’t looking to.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
If the event say cost 50,000 for the networking lunch, cocktail reception, the whole venue, recordings for the interviews and whatnot, and we had 10 presenters, each presenter paid 5,000 and that covered the cost of the venue. So like I said, we did that for a long time. That was putting us on the map. So we started getting people saying, okay, these guys really know what they’re doing. They have valuable people attend these events. Then we’re hosting webinars, basically, educating the investment community on industry topics.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So say, for example, in the financial world, we had clients. There’s something called Reg FD regulation, federal disclosure, which had come up years ago, decades ago about social media. And SEC basically said for insider trading sort of thing, every information has to be told at the exact same time to the whole world. So we put together webinars, basically, educating people. We had activists on the webinars saying, okay, what puts you on my radar so that you knew what not to do?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So these were becoming very well received and people were saying, okay, these guys really know what they’re doing. We were putting together a quarterly newsletter about an interesting topic. So, for the financial space, just doing these little activities which were coming out of our pocket, really, for most of that, it was really just putting us as experts in that field. So even though we didn’t have time to fully market ourselves, it was becoming more or less word of mouth who these guys are.
Louis Fernandez:
So, I’m going to dissect your strategy here a little bit from somebody who looks at things on a strategic point of view. So the first thing I noticed it did was establishing a deep customer understanding. So you took a moment to understand what are the problems that our customers are actually facing? And then providing a new product offering for that solution, which is really interesting because it’s important to know that you were solving for a need, not necessarily what the clients were asking for.
Louis Fernandez:
Because I don’t know that if you went to ask any of your clients what they needed, they probably wouldn’t have said that. Like the Henry Ford who said if I asked my clients what they wanted, they would have said give me a faster horse, instead of providing a real solution. So then you provided that solution. And what’s also interesting is that you essentially made an investment on the business. When you were down, you took another risk. So that’s like an all in gutsy move right there because, $50,000 conference, when you’re already down on revenue, I mean, you literally pushed it out there.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. I always said, that was one thing about me, I said, quitting is never an option. And always said I’m a perfectionist. So it’s always what could you do to do this better? But it was like even with the activist investors, it’s like I can give the best advice but I can’t force somebody to listen to me. So say, for example, when I was dealing with this, some of the financial companies.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
I’ll give you one example. Not even with the activists. One example. When we had mutual funds, we were representing them. And they were heavily invested in the financials. So the financials, this is years ago, started to tank. And this portfolio manager wasn’t reshuffling the portfolio. So I’m like, okay, well, this is odd. So now I’m showing my competitors and whatnot and saying, okay, this is what your competitors doing and the 800 numbers for these companies were ringing on my desk.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So now I’m getting my phone is blowing up and I’m trying to tell the management, the investment management company like, oh, just so you know, shareholders are really concerned, they need a little update, and blah, blah, blah. And here’s what your competition is doing. Look at their portfolio. And we basically got told it’s not your job to tell the portfolio manager how to run their fund.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Okay. You have to trust me that I have experience. And I’m not involved with your company. I’m the outside. I’m here to help you but I can tell you what the outside world is looking for. So needless to say, that company didn’t want to take my advice, they wound up being shut down. Again, another client lost. But again, we tried to help. So when it came time for the activist, basically, we have companies that… Say for example, one company was from my old company, they were approached by an activist investor.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
And basically what that is, if you have a company that’s doing A, B, C, D, and your investors are trying to reach out to you saying, “I don’t agree with this. What do you think about that? Why are you doing this,” and you don’t communicate with them, they’re going to basically join forces and try to take over your company. And they’re very successful at doing that in many cases. So when we try to guide a company, again, I can’t force you to listen to me, I can only give you my best advice.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So it got time where we were giving advice to so many people but not everybody would listen. So we basically had an activist investor webinar. And it was a little off because people were like, what, is she signing with the activists? See it as you want but that’s not what we’re doing. We basically gave them a floor and said, okay, tell us what it is that put somebody on your radar. That webinar was so well received, because people were like, okay, we need to know what’s going on.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
I’m like, if you don’t want to listen to me, listen to them. And then we had another issue where were shareholders were trying to reach out to them and they just didn’t acknowledge it. Because sometimes companies, maybe management owns 52% of the portfolio. So they don’t care what you think because they own the majority, and it is what it is. And that’s all great.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
But again, don’t you want to have your shareholders keep them involved in what’s going on? I mean, if a stock is going down, well, that’s a good opportunity to buy more shares. If you look at the history of the stock market, it’s like a roller coaster, up and down, up and down. So just because it’s down, doesn’t mean panic and sell it, it means is a great buying opportunity.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So we had one company who they were running into an issue and one of the shareholders was joining an activist investor campaign. And the company was like, oh my god, we need to reach out to them and the person said, “I’ve been trying to reach out to you for four years and you’ve completely ignored me. Now you want to talk to me? No. Thank you.” So, this is all my 33 years experience. So when we came on board with Pristine, we’re like, okay, one, let’s have a quarterly webinar. And you reach out to all your investors and have them on board.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Just to give an update on what’s going on, what’s new with the company, what are you changing, anything, have Q&A and let them feel involved. And then every quarter, we would reach out to the institutional investors. These are people who own large plots to share. And I’d say probably 85 to 90% of the time, they don’t need a call but we give them an option to say, do you want to have a one-on-one conference call with the portfolio manager?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
They’re not going to talk about anything nonpublic but they’ll give you an update or answer any questions. And I’d say 85 to 90%, they don’t need a call but they appreciate being asked. So I’m like, these are things that, again, we feel that there’s a need for it, we fill the void, and people who do know us and respect our 33 years will follow suit. And those that don’t, sorry.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah. There’s a lot there, especially with this quarterly call and doing that I’m going to call it a client check-in. When we’re establishing a relationship with somebody that’s going to be a long-term client relationship, not just a B2C buy a product, never see you again, but some service based we’re going to be engaging regularly, I think it’s important to have a conversation about what their expectations are, in the beginning. If this was a great relationship, what would it look like for you? What are your top things? And then checking in with them.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. Well, we found two with the shareholders. You have retail shareholders which is you and me. And then you have your institutional shareholders. And 99% of the time, everything was geared towards the institutional shareholders. Well, we kept saying, okay, well, does your mom and pop have the same news or the same access to information or even the same questions that your institutional shareholders, probably not. But 9 out of 10 times you don’t know who your retail shareholders are. So we came up with an idea to purchase a NOBO list, which is called a non-objecting beneficial ownership list. This is a very tricky thing. It’s not something you can just go by, you don’t have emails. It’s just mailing address.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So we came up with a solution to get access to the NOBO list, and basically give them an option to opt in. Because what happens is as the shareholders are calling my phone, I would hear information about, “Oh, I didn’t even know that the funds issued a dividend until I opened up my bank account and saw that. That was so cool.” And I’m like, “You didn’t know?” The law is that these are people who the brokers own shares, represent these companies, these people. So they’re supposed to, by law, keep them informed of any news and anything that’s going on with the companies. Are they? Obviously not.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
They’re supposed to but they’re not. So we give people an opt-in to say, “Would you like to get information available as it becomes available?” So we have hundreds and thousands of people opting in for this. So now, you have exposure to your institutional and your retail investors. So the one time we did a webinar, we’re like, okay, let’s have both on. And you could just see the difference between night and day of what they knew, what they didn’t know, what their questions were.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So then we would do perception studies and say, okay, give questions that will help you to know are you doing everything right? Should you do something different? Are you giving the information that both sides want? Any type of questions like that. And it was like night and day between the retail and institutional, but these are things that this company would never have known otherwise. So we always try to think of what else can we do to help you be the best that you can be.
Louis Fernandez:
Well, that same mentality and approach applies everywhere. The thing is if you’re calling all the time and you’re soliciting feedback, one is most of the time you’re going to get positive feedback. And what you’re doing is your clients are basically giving you praises. So that’s also we hear what we thin, we say out loud. So you’re getting your clients to admit you’re doing a great job.
Louis Fernandez:
And so, every three months, they’re telling you you’re doing a great job, they’re hearing that too. Or they say I have this problem, and now you have an opportunity to fix a problem and maintain a relationship. Because what happens? We’re all customers. What happens when something ticks you off? You don’t immediately call, usually. It’s not until you’re done with the relationship.
Louis Fernandez:
And then at that point, you’re like, I’m done. I want my money back. This problem has been festering for months and the other person is first time you hear about it, like I don’t have a chance to change anything or fix anything or anything like that. So, those quarterly check-ins are absolutely critical. And then understanding that when you say let’s get all these other investors involved, a lot of companies are learning that lesson the hard way right now with, look at these, the Wall Street bets thing that’s going on. And now these little guys are banding together.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
That’s what happens. Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Power of numbers.
Louis Fernandez:
And they can do it via the internet. And this is important for those folks in the senior leadership and director in the C suite is that they grew up, they’ve been in a company for 20 years. So let me just tell you that your experience 20 years ago is not the same as it is today. The world is much different. The world of marketing, the world of engaging with these people, and those non-institutional investors’ ability to band together today is infinitely stronger than it ever was before.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. And while people might not have known who you were before, I mean, now with the internet, I mean, there’s like trading chat rooms and blah, blah, blah. I mean, they all connect somehow. And you could sit here and say, well, I have retail shareholders. But we could have five billion of them but they don’t know each other. Well, now we have the internet, and they can know each other really quick.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah. And I’ve got this app on my phone that I can trade with.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
Like I don’t need to call anybody to make those trades anymore. I could do it myself and have the same capabilities as these large trading companies. So the world is different and it’s changed. And this is just a matter of the last few years.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. That’s the same when you say we’re trading is that, nowadays, like Seeking Alpha, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, it’s an online portal where news and things like that, but they have trading rooms and stuff like that. And I can go into their post under any old name. I can call myself, I don’t know, IR Pro. You don’t know who I am, I mean, but I can set up this whole profile.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
And so if I want to sit here and promote Pristine, I could write these stories really high stories. So people are doing that for companies. So, it’s like your competitor, if you have a company that you’re trying to promote and somebody else is posting these crazy stories about them, whether they’re right or wrong, investors don’t know. And they’re like, “Oh my god, this reporter said this. I need to go buy more.” Yeah, but that’s also your competitor. So the whole Internet’s changed the whole landscape.
Louis Fernandez:
It absolutely has. And the other thing is that folks are much more educated and have more access to information about you and your company, and the younger generations are getting better at sniffing out the BS. And they take review. They can tell when a review is fake, when it’s real, or watching how companies respond to reviews.
Louis Fernandez:
If you’re only responding to the five-star reviews and you’re not responding to the one-star reviews, they know, okay, those five stars are probably… The sophistication, that’s the word I was looking for. The sophistication of the customer today, they’re much more sophisticated than they were 15, 20 years ago. And that is due to our ability to access information, in my opinion.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah, I mean, there’s nothing sacred anymore. I mean, you can’t hide anything. It’s just all out there in one way or another. And if you don’t know, I mean, like Google, if I just sit here and say I need to know, where do I uncover this? Google search it and you’re going to get 100 answers.
Louis Fernandez:
Right. Yeah, I have in my pocket a supercomputer capable of accessing all the knowledge mankind has ever acquired in our entire history. So, your bullshit is only going to get so far.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Exactly.
Louis Fernandez:
And that goes across the board. That goes across the board for absolutely everyone that you’re engaging with. And you can maybe get away with it a little bit. But eventually, everyone is going to find out and then it all comes crashing down. And I’ve seen a lot of this like with these Bitcoin guys that they’re doing these pump and dumps.
Louis Fernandez:
So they get everybody fired up, these influencers, and they get all these people and they pump up the price and then the influencers sell their shares. And the FTC hasn’t caught up to this yet. There’s no Bitcoin regulation. So it’s not yet but it’s also one of those like gray areas where they can still catch it.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
But the thing is people got wise to it now. So, congratulations, you made some money, now you’re going to jail and nobody else is ever going to do it again. The marketplace capabilities and intelligence is something that I think you cannot underestimate anymore.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. Well, it’s crazy because these scammers, they’re everywhere now. Like I said, they’re on LinkedIn, they’re on Facebook, they’re on everywhere. And so many people have fallen for these scams or know somebody who has that even now I’m getting these text messages from Venmo that basically I can win a chance… I literally just got one again today. I get them at least once a day.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Notice, Venmo customer, you’ve been selected to receive a free gift of $200 for three minutes survey with this link. And, of course, I’m like, it’s weird. But the minute you mentioned something it’s like, “Oh my god, don’t click on that. So and so clicked on that they fell for a scam.” So there’s so many people involved that the scams are left and right but I almost want to say they’re not as productive because so many people know now but they’re everywhere.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
I mean, the best is LinkedIn. LinkedIn actually had scammers on that that set up an entire profile and have connections on all part of this whole scam. So when you see the person, they have a profile picture and this and that, and they have all these connections and employees, and you’re thinking, okay, this must be legit, all part of a scam, I’m like, wow. Become high tech now.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah, right. And so, it’s up to us to protect ourselves. And the thing is, by doing that, like I get an email message and I’m looking at where did that originate from. What’s after the at sign, and looking at that information. Does that match with the subject line? And is it a link to download a file? I’m going to check the source of this link and then say, why don’t you just send me the file? Why did you send me the link?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
But we’ve kind of been forced into it to protect ourselves but it also helps people sniff out. We all do the same thing. You’re going to go buy a product in Amazon, what do you do? You look at the reviews and say, okay, what percentage is the one-star reviews? Well, let me look at the one-star reviews, because that’s where we all start.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
And we look at the one star and we’re looking for is it the same problem over and over? Are there a series of different issues? And if there are series of these like one-offs, this is what the buying process looks like for customers. You just can’t get away with being disingenuous. Your best bet is to get out there with the information. Stop trying to hide stuff. Just get out there tell people what it is. That’s how you’re going to build trust in those long-term relationships.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
Which is obviously what you did for your clients.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
No, but I agree with that, building a trust. I’ll never forget we were representing one fund and the portfolio manager he was so upfront and honest. He would have annual meeting. He would invite shareholders and whatnot where a lot of people, they invite them kind of but they don’t. So anyway, this guy had a lot of retail shareholders. And he was downright honest. He was like, yeah, I thought we can invest in this. I took a chance it didn’t work out. But I was on top of it. I switched the portfolio, we reinvested into this, and now the stock is up, blah, blah, blah. But people appreciate the fact that you were honest. I took a chance, it didn’t work. But I wasn’t asleep at the wheel. I saw it and I changed it and they’re okay with that because you’re honest. And that goes a long way.
Louis Fernandez:
Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
And so the first time somebody finds out that you’ve been dishonest, if you have a chance to repair that relationship, it’s going to be a long time.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Long time, yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
Before it happens again. And you’re just better off being honest. They’ll forgive a mistake. They’ll forgive many mistakes before they’ll forgive a lie.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah, rightfully so.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I think that’s awesome that you guys have done that and pulled in folks. And I think as an application status for anyone else is just to understand that be open and honest about your product, about the business, about whatever it is, you’re going to get a lot further. You’re going to hear no more often but you’re going to hear it faster and you’re going to be able to move on to the next person quicker by doing that. And what is it, the salesman hopeful, the let me think about it. You’re not going to hear as many of those, you know what I mean? But the think about it is just a nice way of saying no, right?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:39:20].
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah, exactly. We’ve all been there, every one of us. And then you go and research for a while or you make a proposal and it never comes out to anything. But the point is that you can’t get away with hiding anything anymore. And the person that is the most open is the most honest, that’s up there and out front and that’s real. I know there’s a lot of LinkedIn influencers that tell the same story, because apparently everyone has interviewed and hired somebody that didn’t shake their hand or showed up late or whatever it is.
Louis Fernandez:
But that doesn’t build trust. So it’s like let’s be honest and open. And that trust building, maybe sometimes a slow ride but that’s the one that’s going to be the most solid foundation that you can build a 30-year business on, not a three-year little rocket ship or a firework like explodes. I want a house. I don’t want a fireworks show.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. I mean, the thing with us is that even though you have hiccups, I am who I am, I mean, I’m honest, it’s what we do. I can help you if you are receptive to getting the help. And if you’re not, well, then good luck. I mean, like I said, people acknowledge what I do and they obviously like the work that I do. Because I’ve had three companies within the past year or two put together a marketing plan. Let me see if we’re on the same page. So I go, I put together this whole in-depth marketing plan, website audit, competitor analysis, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they take it and said, “Okay, thank you. Bye.”
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
And I’m like, well, obviously, they know that I know what I’m doing. That’s why they wanted it. But the funny part was I’ve never heard you after that. Well, if you knew how to do what I told you to do and that thing, your name would be everywhere. So, all I could say at that point is good luck to you. I mean, obviously, you’d have to understand I have 33 years experience, I know what I’m doing. If you’re willing to, let me help you. And again, I’m on the outside. I’m here to help you. I’m not in your company trying to get brownie points. I’m here to help you because I’m in the middle of both sides of your audience.
Louis Fernandez:
Right.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So it’s frustrating because you get used a lot. But at the same token, it’s like I get somebody, now we get a lot of people who are looking to start their company. But I get told like, well, pay for performance. No, I mean, even say for media, the whole world has changed. Years ago you have reporters writing about a company. Now, probably 75% of those are contributors, which are probably your competitor who’s writing about them and not you anyway.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
As the 25% that’s left, 15% of them are paid reporters. So yeah, I can get you a Forbes or Fortune article tomorrow for $10,000. It doesn’t work that way. So out of all 100% reporters, you have 10% that are writing stories, now you have to sit down and say, okay, who are they? What are they writing about? They’re probably not going to do a feature story on you but I can probably get you quoted here and there as an expert in certain things to build that relationship, blah, blah, blah. It’s a lot of work, and they want to pay me for performance. I’m not right out of high school. You got to give me a little credit here. You need to pay me for my job or good luck. I mean, I don’t know what else to say.
Louis Fernandez:
Right. I have a friend or a contact who charges for proposals.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah.
Louis Fernandez:
So if somebody wants a proposal, he has a fee for it. That’s a technique, I guess, like you’re going to weed out the people that are serious. And I’ve heard of stories of this guy that I follow. And he says he’s got a client where they’ve got two different proposal types. One is I’ll put whatever you want so you can go to your current vendor and get a reduction in prices, like I’ll put whatever price you want for it. And he charges, I don’t know, 100 bucks for that one or 1,000 bucks.
Louis Fernandez:
I don’t remember what it is. And then there’s another one that it’s like or you can ask me for a real proposal about what I can actually do. And then there’s a different price for that one. Because I know I’m not going to do the work so you can go to your current provider and get a price reduction. So, you’re going to get $5,000 price reduction it will cost you 1,000 bucks for me to get it.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Even with our connections, through all the years, we have 800,000 people in our database, investors, institutional retail analysts, brokers, media, but we also have investors, angel investors, VCs, LPs, hedge funds, people who are investing in seed or growth companies just starting out or whatnot, so people always want access to that. And then we’ll get, well, if you introduce me to somebody and they help us raise our capital, then we’ll pay you. Well, I’m not a licensed broker so we can’t do to the extent that they want. But even if I did do that, I can pitch your story to anybody. But once they have that first conversation, I’m out of the picture anyway. Because who’s to say I was even involved in that?
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
So again, it’s like these are valuable contacts. We’ve had clients and potential clients that just want to buy our databases.
Louis Fernandez:
I was going to tell you, you could probably sell that.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
I know, but I’m like that’s my whole business. If I give you that, then who needs me? So that was one of the cool things, even with our newsletter when we were putting together a newsletter. We had clients but then we also had other people just to kind of give it both. We had everything industry specific news. But people who weren’t clients we’re like, “okay, do you have any news, any information that we can include in our newsletter?”
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
But then people got to the point where they’re like, well, they’re going to distribute it to their database, we don’t need to hire them. So we were doing a lot and then it got to the point where like, okay, it’s helping them more than it’s helping us. So then we’re like, all right, let’s just take a break from it for a little while.
Louis Fernandez:
Sure. So if somebody wanted to listen to you talk and they’re like, “Hey, we could probably use this,” who might that be and how are they going to get hold on you?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Well, they could always find out more about us on our website, which is www.pristineadvisers.com, and that’s advisers…ers. My email is pbaronowski@pristineadvisers.com. On there, we have all about us on our website. We also have our blogs, our videos, our webinars and all that good stuff. And who? Like I said, any company that’s listed on the stock exchange is somebody who’s receptive for investor relations. The tricky part is getting them to understand why they need this. Because like I say, investor relations is something that many people don’t realize they need. And by the time they do, it’s already too late.
Louis Fernandez:
Right.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Public relations is anybody who’s looking to be marketed to the public. I know some people just feel like we put out something once a month. It’s a matter of really who’s the client? Who’s your competitors? Where are they? Do they even know about you? Where is your competitor? We do a whole analysis. Where’s your competitor? Where are they posting stuff? Who’s following them? Where are they even finding out about this company? Are you involved in that?
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
There’s a whole lot of work involved in marketing a company and we put together this whole plan. But, again, most companies, if they have an internal person, a lot of times they’re dealing with the annual things and there’s a lot of day to day functionality. So we’ll get outsource stuff for that, which is totally fine. We’re happy to do whatever. But yeah, that’s kind of who we work towards and what they need this for.
Louis Fernandez:
Awesome. So if you have somebody internally, you probably don’t have somebody internal with 30 years experience in this particular category and a list like you guys do. And while they’re back and forth from the legal office, making sure they’re hitting all those legal requirements, you guys can be helping them out with the day to day at improving those overall relationships.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. I mean, believe it or not, companies starting out, we help them with their IPO. We help them with their bell ringing, once they go to market. I mean, we do everything from soup to nuts. So it really is just a matter of getting a company to understand who we are and what we do. The tricky part was we started Pristine Advisers. And I remember meeting somebody at a meeting one time who actually wound up being a client but they were like, “Oh my god, you’re Patricia. Everybody told me I needed to talk to Patricia. I didn’t know who you were.” Technically, if you Googled me, you would have found me, but whatever. So then we changed the name to Patricia Baronowski to Pristine Advisers but it’s a lot of mouthful.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Yeah. It’s not like, here’s who I am. You know what I mean? A lot of it is through word of mouth, just trying to get people to see who you are and what you do. And the biggest trick is if they don’t know, getting them to understand why they need this.
Louis Fernandez:
Love that.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Because even if they say we’re doing great, we do all this already, if your competitor is doing A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, and you’re doing A B, C, look at how much you’re losing. You might think that you’re doing enough, but you could be doing more and think of the revenue in the end. Whether you’re selling a shirt or having a company, your whole revenue stream could double, triple, quadruple if you did it the right way, or if you did anything at all.
Louis Fernandez:
Yeah.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
But again, what do I know?
Louis Fernandez:
So, we’re going to drop your contact information there at the bottom so folks can get in touch with you. This is really outstanding. You gave us a whole bunch of good stuff. And then those are also really great general habits for anyone in any service-based industry, which I think is absolutely critical.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
We have case studies for every type of company, every type of thing. And it’s not just me talking out my butt. I definitely have proof of case studies that we’ve done this before.
Louis Fernandez:
That’s awesome. Well, thank you for coming. And I look forward to getting all the feedback that we get from these great tidbits of advice.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Me too. This is marketing for me. I love it.
Louis Fernandez:
All right, there we go. Awesome.
Patricia Baronowski-Schneider:
Thank you.