Episode 162 – Tracy Lamourie

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Automated Transcription

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Tracy Lamourie  0:00  

Across borders and across industries, with everybody from creatives to small business owners, to hollywood projects, but my favourite is creatives and entrepreneurs are becoming super exciting too, because I’m doing a lot of podcasts and panels TV with an entrepreneur audience. And I’m learning that 80 to 90% of entrepreneurs don’t have an idea of how to get into media, not advertising, but being quoted in the media being the expert source and so that’s what I do. Basically, I elevate and celebrate by amazing people what they’re doing, and bring them to the next level.

 

Richard Matthews  0:42  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

 

 

Richard Matthews  1:37  

Hello, and welcome back to the real show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I am live on the line with Tracy Lamourie. Tracy, are you there?

 

Tracy Lamourie  1:44  

I am here, hello!

 

Richard Matthews  1:46  

Awesome. So glad to have you here, Tracy. So I know you’re coming in from Toronto. For those of you who have been following along with our podcast, my family is up in Maine right now, for our travels. And getting to see the Maine coast which was cool. We got to have our first bit of lobster, Maine lobster, which to me I didn’t really like but my wife said it was really good. So anyways, Tracy, what I want to do real quick is do a quick introduction of who you are for our audience who doesn’t know you and then we’ll dive into your story.

 

Tracy Lamourie  2:12  

Absolutely.

 

Richard Matthews  2:14  

Tracy Lamourie is a high profile international award-winning publicist and the Founder and Managing Director of Lamourie media, a universal Women’s Network 2020, woman of inspiration winner for the women in Media Award, and author of the upcoming book, Get Repped! Build Your Brand with Effective Public & Media Relations. So with that sort of brief introduction, Tracy, why don’t you tell us what it is you’re known for? What’s your business like? Who do you serve? What do you do for them?

 

Tracy Lamourie  2:42  

So yeah, as you said, international award-winning publicists, which means I work across borders and across industries, with everybody from creatives to small business owners, to Hollywood projects, but my favorite is creatives and actually entrepreneurs are becoming super exciting too, we’re doing a lot of podcasts and panels and TV with an entrepreneur audience. And I’m learning that 80 to 90% of entrepreneurs don’t have an idea of how to get into media, not advertising, but be quoted in the media being the expert source. And so that’s what I do is make people stars or make people experts. Basically one example three months ago, I was hired by a personal chef in Colorado who had no media attention, did great work, works one well, but she had no media attention. I’m like, why are you getting quoted as an expert? The next day, literally the day after she hired me, I found her an audition for a television show that was looking for dynamic chefs, and they’re doing a new series around a new chef. Anyway, we just found out today after a month of negotiation that it’s 90% sure, she’s gonna be a TV star chef all of a sudden. So I take her expertise introduced to the right people, and then all of a sudden boom, so radio, television, newspapers, award shows, basically, I elevate and celebrate by amazing people in what they’re doing, and bring them to the next level.

 

Richard Matthews  4:11  

Awesome. That sounds like a lot of fun. My first question for you is I know the modern entrepreneur has been told by so many marketing specialists that traditional media is dying and get into online marketing and stuff like that. As someone who’s on the other side, working on getting people into traditional media, what do you have to say about that?

 

Tracy Lamourie  4:30  

Well, I definitely do both. I mean, for me, like podcasts are radio, it’s television and newspaper. And they’re right in one way, for example, a lot of people are stuck on print like if you could say I’m gonna get you in Rolling Stone magazine, a story about Rolling Stone, a cover of the Rolling Stone. So we got a client in the Rolling Stone magazine. And when we asked, well, they get to be in the print. They said, well, actually, it’s not going to be in the print edition. They’re going to be in the Online Edition. But don’t be upset. Because of the print edition, I don’t remember the exact numbers. But they were saying something like, the print edition is under a million like you’re talking about 700,000 or something. And the Online Edition, you get 7 million views. So in that sense, they’re right, a lot of us older people, I want to be in the magazine, I wanna hold it with my hands, or be on television, and in a lot of ways the old school thinks that’s the highest level and then I get them on a podcast, and they’re like, oh, what about TV, and I’m like, hold on. Yeah, we’re doing that too. But a podcast that has 20 viewers today could have 10,000 viewers next week because people go back to the original ones, where television, even if a million viewers it’s on then it’s over. And unless you know how to use that to build on that media that you got, it’s just sort of flashed on him. But a lot of the online stuff continues. So I utilize both television, radio, everything, and that is never going to be gone. Because as long as it exists, it has that cachet. And it has television being harder to get into than your blog it has that extra cachet. So as long as they exist, they’re never gonna be gone. But absolutely, we use all new media sources as well. And I use podcasts as aggressively as I do, television and radio, in service to my clients, and also myself, I built my own brand in the age of COVID, there are no breaks. But as I’ve been sitting here, instead of traveling, I’ve been sending my voice internationally. And in eight months, I’ve done probably 180 plus podcasts around the world, from Dubai to India, Toronto to Los Angeles, just speaking all about entrepreneurs and all this stuff. So I’m seeing the huge value in the marketing and the connecting in the networking with the new media. But absolutely, traditional media still retains its cachet. And especially, if you’re quoted in Rolling Stone, if you’re quoted on NBC, if you’re on the New York Times, as long as they exist there’s going to be cachet.

 

Richard Matthews  7:12  

Yeah, and the same kind of thing with writing a book, right? Anyone can write a book and self-publish it nowadays. But when you come into the office with a book that you’ve got written and published and printed, you still get that same like, wow, he’s an author kind of feel. So you know, there’s still a lot of respect for getting on TV getting on the radio getting into the print media.

 

Tracy Lamourie  7:35  

I think in some ways, now, it’s all just become a platform, TV is just another platform now. So there are both ways, it’s certainly the mainstream media. It absolutely as a cache, you cannot buy your way into those things. So let’s walk through this again, it’s not like online, you can’t buy your way into the New York Times other than the New York Times ad, you can’t buy your way as a source, you can’t buy come and interview me as a doctor in your news story. So that’s that credibility of being that expert source that third-party credibility that elevates you above your peers and attracts customers to you. And also, people need to understand about PR too, I hate the term PR because  I like elevating and celebrating PR almost sounds like trying to correct reputation, we’re talking more about just shining light and celebrating thing, look at what’s going on over here. And 89% of businesses aren’t thinking that, they’re thinking of branding, advertising, but they don’t really understand that there’s a huge difference. The editorial aspect versus the advertorial is everything in terms of getting the attention of the newsroom, or the way that you think when you’re talking about advertising is the opposite of the way you have to approach a newsroom or podcaster or media that’s still the same, you have to understand your message, understand their audience, what value you bring to their audience, whether we’re talking about Oprah, The New York Times, NBC, your show, when you pitch it, it’s about their audience, it’s not about hey, I’m awesome. I’m talking about my brand, is that when I pitch myself to a podcast, I don’t say international award-winning publicist. And I say, International award-winning publicist, and she can speak to people across industries and how they can elevate their brand or how they can catapult to the top of any industry using media attention. So you’re talking about what value you can give their audience. And that’s how you get heard when it comes to breaking media and it sounds obvious, but from an entrepreneur point of my work, we’re forever training entrepreneurs, and even ourselves as publicist it looks like a great message, and oh no, wait a minute, pulls it all back, wait a minute. And It’s really a company saying something awesome about themselves. Do you know what I mean? Even with this situation and I teach this stuff. But I had a situation where I wrote a press release for a company that was doing a charitable thing. Where they were giving something out to like 1000s of schools across the UK, it was a really good COVID story, it actually was a newsworthy story. But when it didn’t get any play, when even though I teach this stuff, when I re-read it and kind of broke it all down on myself again, I was like, yeah, at heart, that’s literally just a press release, about a company saying, Look at us doing good day. Which is what? Not a new story.

 

Richard Matthews  10:41  

It’s funny because we talk about that all the time in copywriting, it’s all about what’s in it for the person who’s reading what’s in it for the person who’s listening. And it’s an important aspect of anything that you’re doing. And it’s interesting to see how important that is to get into traditional media. So I want to talk a little bit about how you got into doing this work. So we talked on the show all the time about the origin story. Every good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. So I want to hear that story where you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into media or did you start a job.

 

Tracy Lamourie  11:23  

So I never planned to get into PR, I would just have been normal, the trajectory of middle management and sales for somebody else’s company or something. But no, this all started because when I was in my 20s, my husband and I, Dave Parkinson, were activists, we had a radio show, college radio, just CIUG, it was no longer after a couple of years. And it was the early days of the internet, we were still wanting to make a difference. So we were just learning how to make a web page in the early days when it was just kind of Netscape and you didn’t have to be an HTML genius to do it. And so we’re just kind of collecting links and looking for interesting information and stuff that deserve sharing with our little activist hearts. And we’re not looking for anything like this. Absolutely not, we found this little corner on the internet, where we found some information about a guy named Jimmy Dennis, who was saying that he was innocent, factually innocent. on death row in Pennsylvania. Again, that was nothing we’ve been activists, but nothing to do with criminal justice certainly the death penalty or anything like that. So now they’re like, what made us respond to that? And I think partly because we were activists and we’ve been radio house. So we still had that in our mind. But information gathering, let’s see what the story is here. So for some reason, and we weren’t publicists, we literally wrote a letter. And he’s saying, I’m not looking for a pen, pal. I’m innocent, I need help, this is the only way. I paid 20 bucks for these letters. So hopefully, somebody could hear me and help me. And for some reason, my husband and I thought, Oh, well, how innocent can this guy be? I have no idea what drew us to do it. But we wrote a letter like physically wrote a letter and mailed it to death row, say, what’s the story here? And this guy named Jimmy Dennis got it in his cell, this is in 1998. When we were 28 and he was 27. And he wrote us back. I said 18 the other day with Jimmy correct me was 28 days letter, he wrote back like a 28-page letter written on both sides with all the details and sent some court documents that he had missed out. Anyway, long story short, it was galvanizing enough, even just what he said was enough press to go. wait a minute. It actually doesn’t sound right at all. There’s really disturbing, look deeper into it. Long story short, somebody ended up going into the courthouse spending hundreds of dollars, which most prisoners can’t access to get the actual court records, so we could look through it all without a doubt and know what we’re dealing with. That ended up leading to my husband and myself getting 28-year-old activists working in sales, just to begin what we now call a campaign, but in those days, we weren’t thinking like publicist wasn’t a campaign it was just activists making noise. It ended up being a 20-year campaign lasting he was there since 1982. We met him in 98. The campaign ended up lasting for 19 years, he was released on evidence of factual innocence. Finally in 2017, when the courts finally just agreed with us, so that was a 19-year journey. And in that nine years, I literally learned to write a press release in 1998. On AltaVista, the precursor to Google to let the world know about this way has been made the web page and I thought, Okay, how do we let people know? Literally, we have the internet. It’s like, go from the very beginning, go to all the newspaper’s websites, find just their main news, real email. I had no idea how to do this. But I learned how to write a press release on the AltaVista for immediate release, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so it didn’t get much attention stateside, because when someone was convicted in those days was pre all these wrongful conviction shows and there was no real avenue for that the door was shut that was that we did get some international attention. And amnesty and eventually a small group was formed that ended up being the core support for eight or nine of us for this man on death row whose last two execution days, who had 150-minute phone calls a week. So he used to call us because his family didn’t have a long-distance that we could take care of. Whenever the family needed it, we could call and say, your daughter this, whatever. So it was a long, long journey during which we became family. We ended up starting in Oregon, it was so disturbed by that case, that we ended up starting an organization called the Canadian Coalition against death penalties, a 28-year-old activist weighed before PR. And this is not how you would start a PR company. Normally jumping into like

 

Tracy Lamourie  15:42  

this kind of an issue. But the funniest part of it was, that story was progressing, a law firm got involved that was looking for a case of factual innocence two years in, they were looking across the country like a unicorn from Washington DC they decided to do a pro bono case. And they were looking for one that was actually factually innocent and deserving of it. Because of the noise we’d made. People kept saying, Look at the Jimmy Dennis case. So finally, then the law firm had it and it started to go through the courts and for 17 years, and ultimately, they freed him. But while that was going on, we were so disturbed by that, that we looked into it further, the death penalty, in general, became an issue for us. And here’s where we go back to the business story. My messaging that I learned to do writing that press release, ended up getting us like 28, 29 year old activists with no legal history on CNN, MSNBC, Court TV, a&e, we were in dare, Spiegel and the National Enquirer, and People Magazine, and all these major TV’s where we were interviewed Abrams report, Nancy Grace, we were taken seriously on panels with lawyers, here again, 29 year old activists, with no legal history, we were well spoken, we knew our stuff. But then it took me many years before I realized that was when I was 28, 29, 30. It wasn’t till I was 41. Because all that time I was still doing sales my day job was just stuff we didn’t care about. Then we were doing all these heroic, amazing things, literally, after work. Leading to it as we’re on CNN cover of this cover that okay, now one of my little sales jobs, it was like 11 years later, when I was 41, that a couple of years before Jimmy was ultimately released. And by the way, he’s an r&b artist now if you Google Jimmy Dennis, he’s doing really well being acclaimed r&b artists, Rolling Stone, beachy. So that’s an amazing story. That’s a heroic story in itself. Two years before he was released, or a couple of years before he was released, it suddenly hit me wait a minute, I don’t want to do, another 20 calls an hour right now for something I really don’t care about. And at that same moment, it hit me, you know, what I could probably monetize. Like, all those skills that I just built up. I would never want to be paid for that death row work or anything. But those skills that I built, using your press release, dealing with the media, knowing how to access media. I had literally in the interim, I’d gotten involved with your little political campaign here, or social justice, this or that. And every time there was anything that needed to go to media, I’d be like, hey, I’ll do a press release. In other words, like what now? But I knew how to do that and get media attention. So all of a sudden, I had a light bulb moment going, Hey, I could probably monetize this. Isn’t that a publicist? And that was literally 13 years after had been getting CNN, MSNBC into our TV. So now I’m like, Oh, my gosh, why didn’t I think of that earlier? Here’s a second thought of it. I’m smart. I’m strategic. I have probably been in a New York minute. I never made another phone call for sales. And right away, like literally that hour. I was like, yeah, I’m done with that. And because it’s the wonderful age of the internet, we have this box in front of us, we can figure it all out. I was able to literally got my first client as a freelancer and then got another couple of clients and rocked it did really well. And all of a sudden, I’m hired by Angela Sadler Williamson, who’s Rosa Parks cousin like Rosa Parks, legendary civil rights. So I’m still like stunned that she hires me in Ghana for her book and her movie and about Rosa Parks her cousin. And that went really well. So then all of a sudden, I’m in the game, and I have the confidence, I’m a publicist now. So I opened a general partnership for five years, and then just during COVID, things have been going increasingly well, because in 2019, before COVID, I was on literally nine business trips to eight projects, five countries, four continents. This is a telesales girl, but a few years ago and I couldn’t be doing better. I literally won awards for what I do now. I never went to school for this. I just figured it out.

 

Richard Matthews  19:55  

That’s an amazing story to go from pro bono. Saving someone from death row like legitimate hero work into leveraging that into a business where now you’re helping entrepreneurs get their story out there.

 

Tracy Lamourie  20:14  

And also if again, if you were gonna go into publicity which you think oh, you should be doing this and that.

 

Richard Matthews  20:22  

Who’s gonna start with death row.

 

Tracy Lamourie  20:25  

And also start with death row and building. Now if you Google my name you literally 9000 things about PR literally right? Because I’ve been very successful in building my brand. But if you Google my name 10 years ago, you know what you would have found? 5000 links to Tracy Lamourie, all about the death penalty, and some of it is still there. And some of them are gone. Because over 20 years, I guess some things drop off the internet. I realized the other day, literally in 20 years, twice, I have built a global reputation for myself my name on two different things, completely different things. And I’m not magic, I’m just starting strategic. That’s why I do this for a living. Now, I know how to do that.

 

Richard Matthews  21:17  

So I think that’s a really good transition to just talking about your superpower. So every iconic hero has a superpower. Whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by genius intellect has the ability to call down Thunder or super strength. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, but it sounds like you’ve really found which is a skill or a set of skills that they either were born with, or they developed over time. And it’s the superpower that allows you to help your people slay their villains and come out on top in their own journeys. And if you look through all the skills that you’ve developed over your career, there’s probably a common thread that ties all of your skills together. And that common thread is where your superpower is. So knowing what you’ve done over the past 20 years. What do you think your superpower is?

 

Tracy Lamourie  22:01  

I know this sounds obvious being a publicist, I guess. But I think it’s communication. I’m a reader, I read everything cover to cover, that’s a superpower too actually, like, literally the knowledge that you accumulate what just random things like this. But I read in Psychology Today because I read everything cover to cover that the number one key to success is the ability to communicate well in life more than math. And that’s the key to success in everything in business, in relationships. It’s truly literally everything. To make yourself understood. What do people like? Like honestly, if you can communicate your intent, your thoughts, your feelings, that is literally magic. So I think words are my superpower, I guess. And also, you just can’t discourage me.

 

Richard Matthews  23:11  

I know, communication skill is such an important thing. My kids are really good communicators at this point. My wife and I are almost anal retentive, about making sure they pronounce words correctly and use good grammar, and those kinds of things, we’ve had people like, why are you so insistent that they use their language correctly? and I’m like, it’s because the language it’s the great superpower of this world. Like, if you can learn to communicate and learn to communicate well and be understood. You can do anything. And you want to run a business, you want to have a high-paying job, you want to be an accurate matter what you want to do communication is a foundational skill.

 

Tracy Lamourie  23:55  

And then obviously, the part of that is the confidence to be able to do it well to like, it’s all part and parcel, you have to be able to just feel completely comfortable walking up to a table of whoever and understand there’s no reason you should. I’m not saying going to bother everybody’s every table. That’s not good. But here what I mean, it doesn’t matter who it is. I don’t care who it is, there’s nobody that should intimidate you. There’s nobody that should scare you. Hi, I’m Tracy, this what do you know what I mean? And if you have that attitude, people like that people are crinkled up from the celebrity to the whatever, everybody is comfortable when you have that attitude because people want to be comfortable. And everyone’s uncomfortable walking into your room. And usually, not everyone but a lot of people are, and once you realize that, then you go in there and you become the comfort zone. You can be like, Hi everybody. if you feel less confident, walk into a room, take comfort that almost everything has that feeling. 80% of people, if they walk into a room, they don’t know, feel a little nervous. And so what really makes the vibe of the room work and what makes everybody comfortable and you want to make people comfortable, is if you feel comfortable and you look the way okay, guys, hey, thanks for coming, like a little thing like that, that it is a focal point people are like, okay, what do I do? So when you realize that everybody has that, or many people have that. It really changes your perspective, because a lot of people 16 years old, go their entire life, feeling nervous, walk in the room, second-guessing yourself, whatever. And that really holds you back, which realize most people that we’re feeling that way, You’re no different. They’re not looking at you. Unless you go, hey, come on unless you want to be that focal point to help people feel comfortable. So just have confidence in yourself and stop second-guessing yourself so much. It’s the big thing in life.

 

Richard Matthews  25:52  

Absolutely. And I know one of the tricks that I have for that is just understanding that everyone wants to trade stories. We’re a story born people. And if you get good at both learning to tell your story, and then listening to other people’s stories, all the uncomfortableness goes away. Because that’s all we ever do, is we just share stories with each other. So my next question for you then is the flip side of your superpower, which is your fatal flaw, just like every Superman has his kryptonite, or Wonder Woman can’t remove her brace, it’s a victory without going mad, you probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business, something you struggled with. For me, it was a couple of things early in my career was like perfectionism, that kept me from shipping products, or my lack of self-care early in my career, I didn’t have good boundaries. So I let my clients walk all over me. So I think more important than what the flaw is how have you worked to overcome it? So people who are listening to us can maybe learn a little bit from your experience?

 

Tracy Lamourie  26:52  

I still struggle with the last part that you said, letting clients walk over you. And maybe they don’t necessarily mean to. But I come from advocacy and activist. I didn’t come from like, I am going to business school. And I’m trained to do this, and I’m going to make a million dollars this year. And doing the writing, I’m trying to get to the point where I’m more business-minded than not profit-minded, you know what I mean? Like my heart is someone almost didn’t have to eat, I’d be willing to drop out zero. I was working for really low pay for some people or they stopped paying because they can’t afford it anymore. And I still go on for another two months working for them and getting media and all that, because I like the project, or because they’re a nice person, and I see a media opportunity, and it’s good for them. And then I had to realize no if I’m undercutting myself all the time. Like it pays to help people. But if I’m doing that constantly, how much time am I taking out of my day? How much is my own family suffering? So my business consultant, a friend of mine who became my business consultant, saw how amazing I am in my work, and how much I’m doing with the back end was initially telling me forever to add zeros and give me advice like, you know, what you need to start acting like it’s a couple of years ago, the leader, the leader of a company that exists to make money for its, you know, employees and for you and for your family and for whenever and not some hybrid of a charity, because you’re not a charity, you want to open a charity, open the charity, to help people do business. But you are providing a business service that literally creates careers, you get someone in good housekeeping that builds their career for a year. Don’t stop doing that, because you’re nice. And it’s true.

 

Richard Matthews  28:34  

One of the reasons we run this show is because there’s this cultural misconception that entrepreneurship and profit are villainous activities. Right?

 

Tracy Lamourie  28:47  

I hear that, being activists and advocacy I’d literally be that, even though headspace.

 

Richard Matthews  28:54  

It’s a headspace face thing.

 

Tracy Lamourie  28:58  

It’s funny now, because now that I’m doing all these podcasts and speaking to like 180 podcasts over the last year, mostly business themed entrepreneur, so the audience’s and the marketing, even the people that I’m talking to and everything, often the people that 25 year old activists me would’ve thought I had no connection with, would think they’re just like you said money minded, just there to make a dollar, that’s your motivator. And that was never my motivator. If that was my motivator. I would have been a millionaire at 30. The stuff that I was to create was insane. It just wasn’t money stuff. My dad said to me when I was 28, if you spent as much time on building a business when that wasn’t even on my mind, thought a billion business. My dad said to me, if you spend as much time building a business, as you do with all this, Death Row stuff. You’d be a millionaire at 30. And I remember thinking, he’s absolutely right. And I would have been, I’ll be a millionaire in a year, because now I’m on that track, but I’m good at what I do, like seriously, but that wasn’t my motivator. And it’s still not my motivator now, but I’m learning that it’s not like you said, not a bad thing. And that young activist me has got that my head around that at 30 instead of at 41 to 50, then I would, I would have had more platforms and money to do those things with instead of the amazing things that I did without any money, like, literally, I think about now Oh, my God, how are we doing that? When we barely had stamps. But obviously now, no, it’s a lot different now. But if I had got my head around, hey, business isn’t bad. You don’t have to, like why is it good to struggle your whole day for somebody else’s profit? Instead of thinking, Oh, wait a minute, gather some profit.

 

Richard Matthews  30:48  

And I think a lot of that comes from the cultural stories we tell ourselves, particularly in the US. You can flip on any of your kid’s TV shows, every one of them the bad guy is, some variation of the business owner pouring oil on the duck’ for profit, and that’s the story we are told. And so we grew up with this thought that profit is negative.

 

Tracy Lamourie  31:16  

It’s true and I literally noticed that I’m telling people that I’m having that change of thoughts. Over the few years and I’ve noticed, I used to think that that’s so crazy, and now I tell people from that were like, No, you guys, you don’t get it I am in a whole different world the last 10 years, I’m in a different world now. And you should meet the people in it. They’re not the people you thought they were because I tell this story, my origin story, but the death penalty to your high profile, big business people the big money, people we thought didn’t care about that stuff. They weren’t listening to the channels, we were listening to a winner. But now I tell that same story to those audiences. And there’s a huge reaction, they galvanize they’re upset about Jimmy Dennis. They’ll share it when they interview me they put the links to him as well under the business podcast. So I’m seeing that people care, with the way people look at each other and the way business people don’t get that yet to is also wrong. We all look at each other through these different lenses and we really don’t see it, it’s the same thing. I  was interviewed on a business podcast, by a woman whose show is called power at work. And so business lady power lady, kind of podcast, I knew before we recorded it, but her day job as a police officer, can’t remember what the exact title is in LA. And she saw my profile with the advocacy and the anti-death penalty stuff. And especially with this year of the activist versus police and the galvanizing, she thought, what this conversation will be like? And so did I kinda, and we had a really great conversation about the perceptions of different people and the different positions have, because of our personal experiences, when she wakes up every day and felt judged by people, judging police in there. With all the stuff that happens this year. I said, no, I get it. Cuz you wake up every day you put on your uniform, you and your friend, the two of you are going out there, you don’t have any bad intent, so when people are attacking you, you’re like, what that’s not fair. Just the same way. From an activist perspective, people going out there feeling like, oh, I didn’t have any bad intent. And then the police chase me down the thing, because we had a demo, or whenever we had a great conversation, we’re all in our own boxes, with our own perception, based on the people that are directly around us. But we really need to listen to each other. And that’s we’re back to the communication thing.

 

Richard Matthews  33:45  

We can solve so many problems if we would do that one thing.

 

Tracy Lamourie  33:49  

It’s every no everything, all this stuff, politics to every problem, like two people across each other. And now I find that most people with all galvanizing this year, and this issue and everybody whatever else, where we see each other now, like most people before you even open your mouth know that I’m Tracy, or that you’re Richard, you’re looking at me like, oh, gee, what is she wearing? Does that mean she might disagree with me? I’m looking at the background where you have there, does that mean he’s? We’re looking for points of disagreement before we even communicate? We’re trying to put each other in a box, we can throw bricks at each other. Do I need to throw a brick at him? When in reality, even if you take the person you’re most opposed to deeply opposed to, for ethical reasons even, the person that you can’t consider you have anything in common with, but you put that human being decided for one second, you stopped talking about, even those galvanizing, I mean even bad things. Because you could be judging him like, horribly racist person or whatever. You’re thinking one thing that’s because they’re just evil and mean and hateful and want to, well maybe they’re just really scared of something or they have misinformation, and when you start listening and break down those things we can reach whatever the problem is and talk to each other. Because it turns out when humans do that, we all have 90% more in common with each other than we do apart everybody. I don’t care who you are, take the two most opposite people. Again, when you bring it down and stop shouting, talking about stupid stuff, what do you care, but you kept waking up that day, you went to the bathroom, you cared about your mom, so we talked about those things, find the commonalities. And then don’t ignore the differences in the problems, we need to work out a lot of things, I’m still an activist that things we have a lot of problems that need to be solved together, by listening and talking and getting away from this lake. People should start with listening for real and caring about the answer.

 

Richard Matthews  35:51  

Absolutely. So I’m gonna shift gears a little bit and talk about your clients. So the people that you work with nowadays, in your career as a publicist, you said, you elevate and celebrate. I want to talk about your common enemy, and the common enemy, every superhero has an arch-nemesis, it’s the thing they have to fight against constantly. And in the world of business, it takes a lot of forms. But generally, when we’re talking about your clients when they hire you, it’s a mindset or a flaw that you’re constantly having to fight to overcome, with their understanding of what it is that you do so that you can actually get them the results they hired you for. So if you had your magic wand, and you could just bop all your new clients on the head, and not have to deal with that common enemy anymore. What is that arch-nemesis that you’re constantly going to fight against in your world?

 

Tracy Lamourie  36:36  

I would say that daily conversation about no, that’s really not something we can send to the news. This comes back to the editorial versus advertorial. Because as entrepreneurs we’re trained to talking about our product much better than the other and what or, I’ll get an opportunity for clients to be quoted, for example, I’ve got a client in groundbreaking, innovative kind of company in home renovations field kinda like air BnB disrupter kind of thing. And so we’re looking for media opportunities in construction. And so I saw one, media was looking for somebody expert to quote in whatever kind of renovation people are doing this year. And so I asked my client to give me a quote that I can catch and send it in. And basically, the answer was, oh, no, well, this kind of renovation is really hard. This company solves that problem. We can’t do it for you. And I’m like, okay, no, again, this is like a reader’s digest or something article where they’re doing an article about home renovation. So they’re quoting experts about home renovations, it is not an opportunity for you to say, oh, don’t do that call my company. You’re thinking hugely advertorial there? No, this is an opportunity for you to say, oh, no, when people are doing renovations, like bathroom renovations, they should think about where they placed the sink, says, Bob’s renovations, that’s what it should be not like, oh, no, Bob’s renovation company was saying, No. So that’s a constant misunderstanding. Because clients understand marketing. And they understand advertising, they want to talk about their product, but they don’t understand that. This is a completely different game, we’re talking about building you, it’s not about your product. It’s building your credibility.

 

Richard Matthews  38:32  

If you ever watch that TV show, Food Network Star, it was a number of years ago, but the Food Network did a competition where they brought people in, and they taught them how to be TV hosts. And like everything that you’re saying right now is like, what they taught people how to talk that way. And it struck me I was like, hey, you’re teaching people how to be. stars.

 

Tracy Lamourie  39:02  

Exactly. And like I said, with that story with the chef that hired me, and literally, a week later, I said, oh, check this out. I just happened to see this. I’m not sure what they are. But this TV production company is looking for chefs, and now literally, we got the note yesterday that, oh, the Board of Directors loves you and the New York distributor wants to see a half an hour mock-up of the show that we’re describing. So the TV company is gonna come out, she has no media experience. Now, all of a sudden, the TV companies coming putting her up now all of a sudden, literally, like she has a new job. It’s like 99% sure, television hose job. That’s a star, so whatever your expertise is, and it’s funny because people think well, why would I be on TV? How can I be a star? Think about this, one of the podcasters that were I made this point, one of the biggest stars in the world right now in terms of the media, she gets money she makes. I can’t remember her name, but it’s that woman, you know what her job is, organizing in closets. I can’t remember her name. But you know what I’m talking about. 

 

Richard Matthews  40:05  

Marie Kondo.

 

Tracy Lamourie  40:06  

Yeah, there you go. You don’t love it, get rid of it. Literally, she’s an expert in what she does, you never think that be a media thing. She’s just really good at what she does. She has a philosophy, she wrote about. Now, again, one of the biggest stars in the world is talking about organizing closets. So no matter what your expertise is, I don’t care if you clean toilets for a living at the hotel, if you mow the lawn, seriously, you are an expert in something, with a wise publicist who knows where and when and who and how, where your message will be heard. And who cares about it, you could be making $10 million next year as a closet organizer, she’s no longer a closet organizer, it’s like me, I’ve segwayed now, I’m always going to be doing PR and keep doing some projects. What I’ve realized now is suddenly, what I’ve done for myself is build a new income stream and a new brand when I wasn’t even trying to. Now I built the third thing after the CCDP and Lamourie Media because now this has no name, it’s just me, Tracy speaking. But like I said, over 200 podcast appearances to a panel, television appearances, not doing PR now talking to entrepreneurs, about how to get PR, why they shouldn’t get PR and media, how they can use publicity, to build their thought leadership. So now if I went to on the other end of COVID now, I could probably stop doing PR 100% and literally just start teaching people how to get into media, teaching entrepreneurs, why they should be thinking about this teaching about the difference between editorial. So I can literally just start doing stages at a thousand dollars a speech and not do the PR, now take on the contracts. So you know what I mean? And what I’m saying that for us because we can do that with an expert. Whatever you do, my job is to build you as a thought leader, as a star as a whatever. If you are an entrepreneur, that’s so whatever comes out of your mouth later. So it’s not up to me to sell your product, I really don’t care in terms of my job, how many widgets you sell, that’s a long-term goal for my client. But my job is to get them the media that gets them the credibility that builds that whatever, so that when they open their mouth, they sell widgets. So whatever they do, whether it’s the widget selling they’re doing today, or the job they may want tomorrow whenever I build their credibility so that they’re a superstar. Awesome.

 

Richard Matthews  42:42  

Awesome. So I want to talk about the flip side of your common enemy. So if you’re common enemy, it’s the thing you fight against. And you’re fighting against that mentality that people want to talk about their widget and not talk about how to be a star and not talk about the stories. The driving force is what do you fight for, so just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. You have something to fight for, a mission so to speak, what is your mission with Lamourie Media?

 

Tracy Lamourie  43:15  

I would say, if you had to put it into one word, I was admissions to a business, I gotta remember my business consultant said obviously the business is a business, not a charity. My common mission, when I was a  little kid, I’ve always been anti-racist, fairness, equality, all those things, because it’s not there. So not just racism, but gender equality. Like the kid in kindergarten, why both should have the same half cookie. I just think fairness, equality, justice, as much as possible, I think what it comes down to is whatever words you want to use for that people fit people. People caring, I think the bottom line is human beings, not profit it’s people, not profit. And at the end of the day, you can’t profit without people, you can’t run a business without people, you can’t do anything without people. So to me, people are the bottom line. And that comes from the activist thing that got me into all this in the first place.

 

Richard Matthews  44:24  

Awesome. So the mission is essentially to help people get their message out and to get their value out to the world. And really to elevate that.

 

Tracy Lamourie  44:36  

Yeah, to elevate and celebrate to give people a voice to let them be heard.

 

Richard Matthews  44:40  

Yeah, that’s a good mission too right? Cuz it’s got a huge ripple effect. Right? When you help someone, they get to help a lot more people. And even if it’s selling widgets, those widgets are selling because they’re helping someone do something.

 

Tracy Lamourie  44:53  

I mean, exactly even the widget. like my passion now, but the entrepreneurs, you know what I mean? As much as I am, but the people with the message because it comes down to, for me, it doesn’t have to be a great cause. It comes down to the person who’s my perfect client? It’s what job they’re in. It’s not whether they’re creative, or whatever. It’s literally that person, like are they a good person? My epic book and I stand beside them. am I excited about getting the media? Do I feel good about giving them another platform? And I always want to,  I say no to as many clients as they say yes to, or maybe not quite as many because most people have come to me pretty much within, it’s rare that someone comes to me where I’m like, ah, I don’t know why you came to me. But they do sometimes. Once in a while, I’ll get a point where I’m like, that is so far off, as my whole everything. Like I can’t understand why I know I’m a killer publicist. But I really don’t understand why you were thought like I was a publicist for that one. I’m way too good to help you get that messaging out. How’s that?

 

Richard Matthews  46:00  

So I want to talk about some practical things about how you actually do what you do. Right. I talked about this, the hero’s tool belt. And it’s the practical portion of our show. And just like every superhero has their awesome gadgets, like batarangs, or web slingers or magical hammers, I want to talk about the top one or two tools you couldn’t live without in your business, it could be anything from your notepad to your calendar, to something you use for your actual marketing, or something you use for your product delivery, anything that you think is absolutely essential to actually elevate and celebrate your clients.

 

Tracy Lamourie  46:32  

Yeah, so there’s a couple of tools that, some of these people can go and look at themselves without a publicist, a couple of these things that are online that are free tools that I literally couldn’t do without, a great starting point, what I call the opposite of a press release. Press releases when you have a message and you write it out, you think you’re gonna send it and you send it widely and you want to see who’s going to come back with it. Well, the opposite of that is you may know some of them, things like Source Spot in Australia or Help Reporter Out, Haro. Some entrepreneurs know it, most of them don’t. But if you’ve never seen them, go check out help reporter in a caveat, if you don’t understand the art of the pitch, and you don’t understand the difference between editorial versus advertorial, you may not get the huge successes that we see with those. But for me, honestly, every single day, I’ve gotten clients, the good housekeeping, The New Yorker, New York Times, Oprah.com, the list goes on with major media, I’ve gotten clients using those resources. what those are listener is anybody can go three times a day, it’s actually right in front of me right now you’ll see reporters from everything you can think of from Reader’s Digest insider to those things I mentioned, things like, with a deadline and 7 pm, at the 13th of May, in front of me here, I’m looking for a registered dietitian, well versed in sports nutrition to interview for an article. That’s what I’m looking for an entrepreneur who can talk about their action and COVID. So anyway, there’s literally all around the world, there are major media, looking every day, using these free things for sources. And they may get five answers, they get 500 that’s where it’s about the pitch and all that stuff. But these are basically opportunities that you can be inserted into articles that are going to already come out, giving them the idea. This is not going to be a big article about you or your company. It’s an article about something else where they quote you as the expert. And that’s gold. I mean, I’ve gotten my client like I said, on Oprah.com one hairstylist client, one client 26 years old, an old life coach who had zero media day after she hired me, I got her in Good Housekeeping magazine article didn’t come out for a few months, but the print issue of good housekeeping magazine 150 year old magazine classic magazine, she had literally no media, that was the first thing out of the gate. And for the last year and a half, we built her career on that she’s got a million other media, she’s got all kinds of based on the fact that she was interviewed in this major Good Housekeeping article about her expertise. So it can be just that quick, one thing, but then you’re gonna know how to build on it and elevated put it on your site and add it to your bio, and otherwise, it’s just gone that day. But yeah, it’s hugely valuable.

 

Richard Matthews  49:06  

I know, I get stuff from Haro and the other one all the time. And I always do with them. I’m like, they’re super cool. But I don’t really know how to like what I’m supposed to respond with.

 

Tracy Lamourie  49:21  

What they want is to know what your angle is. So in Haro sometimes they’re taking what you actually send inserting it actually in the article, other times, they just want to know what you would be saying if they interviewed you. So don’t overthink them. Just literally give a paragraph or two. So it will ask you more questions, whatever. And then it’s all about the way you frame it. So the way I do it, I’m always like, Hey, here’s a compelling response from my client or insightful response from my client, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I have the quote and I say, please let me know if you use this so that we can share widely, and then a little bio, which is like a little paragraph, why you’re a good source. And then any other media you’ve got, if you haven’t got any media, don’t worry about it, you’re gonna get it from doing this stuff enough. And so just your best little pitch about why Richard is compelling, Richard speaks daily to entrepreneurs across North America, so he has a really good insight into what the entrepreneur today is thinking, you know what I mean? Like something like that? And then your answer. So your answer and then framed by why you’re the guy. And you just do it widely. Do it quick. And people overthink the Haro a lot. The thing is, you gotta realize they’re not going to go back and rewrite their article because you send them a good answer. So even though the deadline says two days from now, do it quick, do it now, because they’re trying to write an article. And if they get everything they need to write the article, they’re gonna go ahead and write it. And they’re not going to go back and say, Oh, well, I did say midnight. I want to make sure everybody gets an answer to reply. They don’t care. They’re just trying to get their answers, you know, so you got to get it. You see it, answer it. Next, forget about it. Next.

 

Richard Matthews  50:56  

No, the head of my podcast, Mark, who’s going to be listening to this episode, make sure you pay attention to everything she just said, cuz he gets all of my source on Haro requests, we need a script, all the things she just said and have those responses ready for it, maybe you can start using them.

 

Tracy Lamourie  51:13  

It takes time, I spent a good hour and a half every day going to the Haro, cuz I got to make sure for all my clients, but it’s worth it. You get one of those really good ones, boom.

 

Richard Matthews  51:24  

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Richard Matthews  52:55  

So what I want to talk about next then is your own personal heroes. So every hero has their mentors, just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi Wan Kenobi or Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad, or Spider Man had his Uncle Ben, who were some of your heroes were they real life mentors, speakers, authors, maybe peers who were a couple of years ahead of you. And how important have they been to what you’ve accomplished so far in growing Lamourie media?

 

Tracy Lamourie  53:18  

Yeah, so other than the obvious, which are my parents, which instilled in me that you can’t kick ass, my parents number one. But you know what, John Lennon. In 1980, I was 10 years old. So I’m not a 60’s girl. I was like, 10 when he died, but he was probably the biggest single influence on my life, in terms of activism and advocacy. If you’re going to have a hero, you know, when you’re a kid and you listen to what your heroes say, you’re going to have a hero. He was a pretty good one because his message was, do it yourself. He gathers the peace and the activism and all that stuff. So that advocacy, speak out part. But he also said, don’t follow heroes don’t just follow us blindly. If you like what we’re doing. Awesome, do it. But if you have an idea, do it and maybe we’ll follow you. I think honestly, it gets that internalized. That’s a powerful message. And when you’re a kid again, you listen, when you actually care, I remember like, you’re an idiot kid. I remember buying the kind of cigarettes John Lennon smoked, Luckily, I got rid of that. But I think the other message I internalized is Doucet, do things.

 

Richard Matthews  54:28  

Absolutely. It’s a good message to take from heroes too is to get out and actually do work. So to finish off the interview, I want to talk about your guiding principles. So one of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum so as we wrap up. I want to talk about the top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life and help grow your business maybe something you wish you had known when you first started out on your own hero’s journey.

 

Tracy Lamourie  54:59  

Things I wish I’d known, say that again when I grew my business?

 

Richard Matthews  55:03  

No, your guiding principles, things that you run your business by?

 

Tracy Lamourie  55:10  

I guess, it always comes down to that message, what are we putting out in the world? Cuz I started this, I literally learned how to write a press release to help save someone’s life. I would not have learned how to write a press release other than that, so I feel like this whole journey that I belong on, I feel like I never should have been able to live this life. I didn’t go to school for this. Like seriously internet 10 VIP trips around the world, these parties, this is not the world that I would ever have expected to build a career in. Do you know what I’m saying? It’s like infinity land. And when you think it literally happened because I was helping somebody that nobody cared about anymore. A lot of people cared about I don’t mean that person. But I mean, the world was saying we can kill this person, he’s garbage doesn’t matter. Nobody cares, give two execution dates, actual execution dates. It wasn’t a joke. 25 years, in the worst of human circumstances we can do to each other. And I don’t even know that person. And somehow something drew me to that, obviously, we were meant to do that, for whatever reason. And the result is crazy. It’s Hollywood, you know what I mean? You would never believe it,

 

Richard Matthews  56:41  

I tell people all the time if you read the Bible at all, there’s the whole sermon on the mount, where Jesus talks about, what you do is first you give, and then you receive, and people think that that’s like a demolishment, that this is what you should do. And people don’t realize that that’s not what that was, is a Hey, this is how the universe operates. That what you put into the world comes back to you. It’s the law of the land, so to speak. Whether or not you believe Jesus or the Bible or whatever. It’s a truism.

 

Tracy Lamourie  57:18  

Five years ago, and I said, why would you do this for me about getting us into this house that we own and everything is a circumstance. And the person literally said, sometimes when you do good things, good things happen. And I was like because it was a crazy good thing. But maybe that is what it is. And you think about it too, I was never a particular believer. But listen, do you know how many people weren’t just Jimmy Dennis. There was a lot of other people that we ended up helping that were on death row, some of them were a couple of innocent end up being released, but other people that we’re human beings, and but when people who may or may not have done things or whatever, but you know, they found their way and they’re living and they’re praying and whatever. Someone said to me once do you know, in 20 years, how many people prayed for you guys? And thank God for you guys. I never thought about that. Like, honestly, you know what I mean? Like, whether it was I’m not to judge whether it was a death row prisoner, or their mom or their whatever, do you know how many people that have literally prayed for you that prayed for you to be blessed and prayed for you. Maybe we were? So when people said God bless you, God bless you. God bless you. Maybe he did. I think about that now like, Whoa,

 

Richard Matthews  58:38  

I think that is a great place to put a wrap on the interview. So thank you so much for coming on. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge that I call the hero’s challenge. And really, this is just a selfish little thing I do to help me find stories I might not find otherwise. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? first names are fine, and why do you think they should come to share their story on our show, first person comes to mind for you.

 

Tracy Lamourie  59:08  

I have someone like that? Oh, my publicist, I deal with all types of them.

 

Richard Matthews  59:14  

The first one that comes to your mind.

 

Tracy Lamourie  59:16  

The first one that came to mind. I’ll tell you is Kristina and friends listeners, not because all your stories aren’t. I’ve done a million of them. But just when you said that Kristina came to my mind. Maybe because I’ve written about her recently or what, but Kristina Shea and she have twice widowed, burnt out in corporate life, she’s hugely successful in corporate life burned out to the point where she like, passed out in a financial district, brain tumor overwhelmed. Anyway, now the long story short, she’s built up a new company now called BlueSkys Life, which is about finding your blue skies life. So it’s a holistic health and wellness company that she speaks got products on. But mostly it’s her story, and oh my god her story. Part of it is actually her story trademark is in her story and she wants women to share their stories share their success stories and life stories. So Kristina Shea in BlueSkys Life, when you said that was literally the first word that came to my mind. But I’ve got a ton of others too.

 

Richard Matthews  1:00:20  

Well see reach out to you afterward and maybe get Kristina to come on to the show. Maybe she’ll do it. Maybe she won’t. But we always try to get people to come to the show. In comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who are cheering on the acts of heroism of the comic book heroes so as we wrap up our analogous to that, I want to know where can people find you if they’re looking to hire a publicist in their business, and the second who are the right types of people to reach out and actually hire a publicist for their business?

 

Tracy Lamourie  1:00:52  

I work internationally, anybody in an English speaking world who wants media in the English speaking world can reach out to me and they can find me at Lamouriemedia.com at Tracy Lamourie on Facebook on Instagram tracylamouriePR media, and LinkedIn is also a great place to connect, in terms of who literally as long as you’re an ethical person, with good intent and doing good things and good things can be you’re a great entrepreneur, business idea and entrepreneur idea you’re a creative doing amazing things your author, speaker, so really, there’s no particular person or anybody, everyone has a voice. If you want to raise that voice, you have a message, whether it’s a business message, or inspiring personal message, or a story of the job, whatever it is, there’s a lot of opportunities to tell it so you can reach me in all those places. And I’m happy to do a 30-minute free concert with no obligation of course, where we can just talk about what you might expect.

 

Richard Matthews  1:01:50  

Yeah, so as long as you’re not like literally pouring oil on ducks for money, you’ll probably a good fit.

 

Tracy Lamourie  1:02:01  

If I feel like, Oh, yeah, okay, generally I don’t take it on. Because I think it’s ethically you want to have a passionate publicist who really feels your thing and really cares and understands what the audience is. So if it’s like, oh, I don’t really get it, I might just refer you to someone else. But chances are, if you’re enthusiastic about it, and it’s a good thing, you’re going to get me excited about it. And we’re going to find ways to do it.

 

Richard Matthews  1:02:23  

So awesome. So thank you so much for coming on today. Tracy, it’s been a pleasure hearing your story. And just hearing your enthusiasm for what you do. So again, thank you for coming on. Do you have any final words of wisdom for the audience before I hit this stop record button,

 

Tracy Lamourie  1:02:36  

I always end with two things I quote Jimmy Dennis which is never never give up. Because when the man in 25 years on death row tells you that like honestly never never give up whatever you’re facing you can beat it, you really can because if he could do that we could get him out when everyone said it was crazy, you know, you can and then even he gets a little depressed sometimes or whatever it’s up. And it’s like, quote, something I saw on the interwebs, which was we didn’t get this far to only get this far. So for him, I say your story’s not over till he gets the Grammy. And because he’s an r&b artist, for us whether you’re doing really well and you know, just keep on going because there’s more to it, you’ve got a goal you can keep on hitting those goals, no matter how high they are. But also more importantly to that person who wanted to jump off a bridge or like to end this way, who is depressed or overwhelmed right now, it’s been a rough year, if things aren’t going your way and you feel like you’re not winning, you really are you’re a winner because you’ve made it this far. Everybody has challenges and all those assholes excuse my language that beat you down or whatever it is in life. You got through it and you kept on standing and you’re still here so you won. So don’t wait, you can’t fall today. You can’t drop today because you never know what’s gonna happen tomorrow and you want to be here for it.

 

Richard Matthews  1:03:48  

Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on today. Tracy really appreciate it.

 

Tracy Lamourie  1:03:51  

Thank you, it was really really fun and really worthwhile.