Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer L Horspool.
Hi Jennifer, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was always a talker. Being the only girl in a family full of brothers and all boy cousins (until I was 15), I was always the cheerleader, entertainer, organizer, communicator of the family. I carried those traits into my career. In college, I studied Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations and a minor in health. I went into my exact field.
I started off in nonprofit at a company that helped people with developmental disabilities get jobs out in the community. I was fortunate in that I had an opportunity to create their entire PR program from scratch together with a business consultant. It was a great experience. I learned so much and got to be so hands-on at a really young age. I was thrilled and excited to get them their first-ever media hits – which were often the front page of the local city paper or TV show. Then, early in my career, I learned my first big OUCH in PR. My first big story in our big county paper got bumped — while I was in the middle of the interview with the reporter — all because some guy was shooting people at the post office — during MY INTERVIEW. It was 1993. I lost my front page story in the big newspaper to the second occurrence of someone going “Going Postal.” The term was coined following this incident.
I loved my job at the nonprofit, but I was ready for something bigger. My then-husband’s business partner’s wife got me an interview at The American Cancer Society. I worked there a total combined 13-1/2 years with a few years of a break in between where I took roles as a job recruiter and as an outside sales executive with Xerox and Pepsi before returning the American Cancer Society for the Director of Marketing Communications role. I loved it! I had the opportunity to launch new campaigns and refresh and turnaround brands that had become old, stodgy and stale, breathing new life into 25 years old programs and fundraisers Then one day, I decided I was ready to spread my wings again and I put out to the universe that I’d like to either work for a PR agency or a corporation who wants to build or turn around their brand… and how cool would it be if it was in oncology. I got recruited to Hill & Knowlton and US Oncology in the same week. Then I discovered H&K had US Oncology as an account. I wanted the US Oncology job, but I felt I would be a stronger candidate for corporate if I got agency experience. I hated it. Within five months, I was hired at US Oncology and packed my bags from Santa Monica, where I had moved only months prior for the agency role, to Houston, Texas. I had no idea what power weather had until I moved there. That was eye-opening.
At US Oncology, I got the opportunity of a lifetime – the one I dreamed about. I got to turnaround a brand from unknown and unliked and I turned it into the Go-To Experts of the industry. The company was unknown because its name was generic, US Oncology. At the time, if you googled it, all you found were United States cancer statistics. The company had gotten bit in the media a few years back and decided never again to talk to those big bad media people. They refused to claim their brand. In doing so, their competitors claimed their brand for them. Guess what? Competitors don’t say the nicest things about you and your brand, so there were a lot of misnomers and incorrectness about who US Oncology was in the industry, how they served their customers, and what the path was to joining them. I got to change all of that. It was awesome.
The first thing we did was get their messaging right. Then we took it to the media. In the first year of working together, I took the company from zero media inclusion to more than 350 stories, followed by 500 and 600 stories every year since. We did such a great job that the company sold in 2.25 years for $2.2 billion. After the merger, as my friends and colleagues were leaving to start businesses of their own, my phone started ringing, “Jennifer, can you do for us over here what you did for us over there?” I had a ready-made business. Engagement PR & Marketing was born.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road was definitely not always smooth. I knew how to do my craft, but I didn’t know much about running a business. The mindset stuff was the most challenging – more because I was in a very tumultuous relationship at the same time as I was launching my business. I did everything wrong, so you don’t have to. When I should have hired employees to start and grow my team, I plugged friends into roles too junior for their skillset. I was seeking what was comfortable and seemed easier and less scary, less threatening. It backfired. Placing people in roles too junior for them places you and them at a disadvantage. These people weren’t used to the blank piece of paper. They were used to redlining. It’s a different skill set and it’s challenging to go back to it. I ended up working 20 and 22-hour days like a hamster on a wheel until I could do it anymore. Finally, I started climbing out of hell. I joined masterminds, hired coaches, started in the speaking world, and met people who would open my mind and elevate my thinking and my skillset tremendously. But the obstacles didn’t stop there. It was a long journey to fix my mindset from employee to entrepreneur and from “I know how to do this” to “I can teach you how to do this and together we will excel.”
The biggest lessons I’ve learned: 1) you can’t and shouldn’t do it all alone. Give people a chance to excel with you and they’ll grow and learn and serve your clients well too because it becomes important to them as well 2) you have what you need. If you’re feeling insecure, learn a new task, review past work, understand the problem from a different perspective, talk it through with another expert in the industry. 3) competition makes you better. Be friends with those in your same field. You can elevate each other’s skills, learn from each other, and differentiate from each other together. 4) your mind is never fixed. Life is full of ups and downs, and it’s supposed to be. Enjoy the ride. When you’re down, find a way to come up. When you’re up, enjoy the ride.
Advice? It’s been said a million times but the riches are in the niches, bitches. For real! Just because you think you can serve everyone doesn’t mean you should. When you speak to everyone you speak to no one because no one knows to listen. Your words don’t land. Just like US Oncology who thought they had their messaging down when you really refine it, greater things can happen. Think about the results you deliver. What are the results of those results? Why do they matter? Who cares? Why do they care? Why do they really care? What’s important about that? Then what are the results of the results of the results? What will your solutions do for people? What’s important about that to them? Who else does it affect? Why is that important? These questions are called going deep. Or going vertical. Keep asking those why and what’s behind it questions until you really get to the bottom of your answers. That’s your meaty messaging. That’s what people care about and why they really want to hire you. And, as soon as you have enough clients to hire a team, do it. Hire a real team – to take all the things off your plate that are not in your sweet spot. It will make all the difference in the world to you. Don’t worry about what you don’t know. Learn it. Little bits every day. Be you. Bring your best. Enjoy your business. It’s a rollercoaster, but it can be the most exciting ride of your life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Engagement PR & Marketing?
I run Engagement PR & Marketing, a public relations, messaging, marketing, and brand experience agency. We build brands from best-kept secrets into the Go-To Experts of their industry. We do this through education, information, entertainment, inspiration, making people and brands seen, known, and revered for their expertise. We specialize in healthcare – the full gamut from wellness to management services organizations, hospitals, revenue cycle, bringing drugs and devices to market, anything that advances the field of quality patient care and quality lifestyles for patients and providers. Over the years, we’ve grown companies from vision ($0) to multimillion-dollar enterprises and one that hit $1 Billion in less than three years. We have many things we’re proud of but helping CEOs and marketing teams get their messaging right and bring their brands to market is what makes us excited about brand-building every day. PR is more than about press releases. It’s about the relationship(s) you and your brand have with the various publics of your company, from clients and would-be customers to vendors, employees, investors, the community, your industry, the full gamut. Marketing focuses on buyers and potential buyers; Public Relations focuses on the full 360-degree view of your brand. When you want to get found easier, be revered for your expertise, build your credibility and make sales easier, you want to public relations to your brand-building strategies. Nothing makes you known, liked, and trusted faster than other people showcasing your expertise.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Connect with me on LinkedIn and other social media. I’m always @JenniferLHorspool. Check us out @engagementpr and at engagementpr.com. If you have specific questions about PR, write to me directly at [email protected].
Contact Info:
- Website: https://engagementpr.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/engagementprmktg/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EngagementPR
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/engagementpr
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/EngagementPr
Image Credits
The Art of Lens, photo credits for my headshot Mega Success Events for the celebrity photos
