Decoding Public Relations in Middle America with Jona Ohm

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, peter Wolfolk.

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now just a quick notice I am very pleased to announce that, as of the close of September 20, 2023, we now have documented listeners in 137 countries spread across 2,510 cities around the globe. So thank you so very much for being followers and listeners to our podcast. Now here's the question for you what are all the challenges and successes of managing a public relations firm in smaller cities? My guest today can provide us with an overview of how she successfully manages her wide range of clients and assignments. Middle America Communication Solutions was established in 2021 to meet the digital marketing and public relations needs of business owners in rules to areas and small communities. My guest today earned her bachelor's degree at Northern State University in Aberdeen, south Dakota, and her master's degree at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, australia. In 2003, she and her husband moved back to Central South Dakota, where they remain today. She is burst in digital marketing, social media management and is an outstanding writer, editor and communicator. Now she also makes it very clear that she has no tolerance for bullies and, to put it politely, bs Jonah Ohm, apr joins me today from Oklahoma, south Dakota, and she is our very first guest from the great state of South Dakota. So, jonah, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Peter.

Well, let's talk first. Really, one of the things that I noticed when I looked at your website was that you wrote a letter to the community. Tell us about that, because I thought it was very impressive and it certainly touched me and I don't even live there, so I was very touched why that came about and the results of that.

Well, thanks for taking a look at that. That introduction was written in 2004 when my husband and I first moved to our small South Dakota community that we still live in, and I started in that community in this community working for the newspaper, and my husband worked in law enforcement at the time. He was a conservation officer. He still works for game, fish and parks, and so he was out getting to know people as they're hunting and fishing and recreating on the river, and I wanted people to know me as well and so, working for the paper, I went ahead and took advantage of that medium and got in front of people and shared a little bit about who I was. We like small towns. I grew up in the far southeast corner of North Dakota, and so the town I live in now is actually larger than the town that I grew up in. The town I grew up in has 400 people. There were nine students in my senior class when I graduated in 1998., oh my goodness okay. And so we had our opportunity to live in the big city where I got my master's degree in Wollongong. Australia was kind of a suburb of Sydney and there were 250,000 people in our little corner of that part of the world, and so we definitely made a choice to live in a small town and I wrote that letter to the community to just let them know who I was and what my values were and why I was happy to be where we are.

Well, that sounds great. Now tell us about making that transition, then, from being a reporter to starting your own business. What led to that?

Well, there was a lot of time in between. There I worked for St Joseph's Indian School for 15 years and I worked in their fundraising and marketing department. St Joseph's is interesting because they have a very successful direct mail program and they communicate with individuals all over the United States and all over the world to help them understand what's happening with Lakota few children here in central South Dakota and why they might need a little extra help in certain areas. And so St Joseph's is a great institution and is helping Native American families here, and that mission became really, really important to me as it became, as it was important to donors all over the United States, and so my role there was to understand why our students needed the services offered by St Joseph's Indian School and how donors could then support those needs and how their donations were being used in a good way. So I really still kind of was working as a reporter and I learned a lot about key messages at that time, what people needed to understand in order to connect to an effort and basic marketing. You know how many times the different mediums you can use, how many times someone needs to hear a message before they fully absorb and engage with it, things like that. And it was also at that time at St Joseph's Indian School that I became interested in public relations and became aware of the Public Relations Society of America and began the journey towards earning my APR. And so I learned a lot about fundraising, like I said, and then I got into PR and after 15 years at St Joseph's Indian School, I took an opportunity to work as a communications director for a state government organization. I worked for South Dakota Game, fish and Parks for a year and a half as their statewide communications director, and I learned that government wasn't where it was at for me. I was more. I was better at nonprofit work, I enjoyed a more benevolent agenda than politics, and I wanted to work in mission-oriented organizations and help those folks who were trying to get those kinds of messages out as opposed to state government. So that's when I became an independent practitioner and so I brought all those skills from nonprofit and marketing and journalism and communicating clear messages and executing strategies and all my work in APR, and I've now brought that to my own independent firm. So I'm off and running since 2021, and it was the best decision I ever made.

So who was your very first client once you had put up your shingle?

That's a great story. So my first client was actually a gentleman who is my financial advisor as well. So I had quit my corporate job and we went in. It was time for our annual meeting with him. So my husband and I went in to talk about our finances and our investments and our retirement plans and we sat down at our desk and he said so, what's new? And I said well, I quit my job. And he about fell out of his chair. He said you what? Why didn't you call me? And I said well, it just happened about two weeks ago, but I'm starting my own business and I'm going to work in public relations. And he said well, what does that mean? And I said I'm going to help people with social media. And he said I need to work with you. I need to work with you. Right now. I've been trying to figure out how to get my social media on track and if this is what you're doing, I need to work with you. And I said okay, well, let's plan a meeting. And that was the very first client. I signed as an independent practitioner and it grew from there. I started out doing a lot of social media for businesses in our community Because we're such a small community. There's about 2,300 people where I live and, to give you some perspective, peter, we are 70 miles from the nearest Walmart.

Oh my heavens.

Yes.

I was thinking my nearest Walmart is about 5 blocks away, 70 miles. That's an eye-opener.

And so we have two grocery stores, we have a hardware store, we have a great main street, we have a dollar general, so we have access to all the things that we need. But if a lot of people, walmart is their weekly outing, right, and so I just find it interesting that we are 70 miles from our nearest Walmart, and so that usually gets people and helps them understand what kind of space exists in South Dakota, and that also impacts our new situation. And so we have a once weekly newspaper, and a lot of things happen in six days from the day that paper is published to the day the next paper is ready to come out. There's writing that has to take place, there's editing, there's planning, there's printing that has to take place, and so our news cycle is not what you might call a 24-hour news cycle, like a lot of folks are dealing with in public relations.

So what are some of the other clients that you have? You mentioned your financial advisor, so what are some of the other clients that you have, listening, acquired over you since you have actually launched your own firm? The range of them.

Absolutely so. I've worked with Thrivent Financial. I have worked with our county's state's attorney and managing her social media and helping her get important information out to her constituents. I also have worked with her on some crisis management when big cases have come up and she's needed some media support and things like that. But one of the most surprising and delightful clients that I've started working with and I'm actually working with several right now are authors. So media coverage is great and marketing is great and corporate communication is great. But there are a lot of people who have stories to tell, both fiction and nonfiction and so I've now had the pleasure of walking with three clients through their creation process writing down their story, editing that and walking them through the self-publishing process. So we've got three down. I've got a children's book that will be coming out later this month Well, no, I shouldn't say it's coming out later this month. We are embarking on the publishing process. So after we get that all sorted out and printed, that will be in the new year. And one of the most precious experiences I've had in working with authors is one who is documenting her journey through brain cancer. She is now a four-year survivor from surgery and treatment to address a glioblastoma which does not leave survivors. She is a unicorn in her survival, and so she's writing things down and we're telling her story, with the hope that her journey will be able to offer support and comfort to other patients dealing with similar issues, as well as the family and friends of those folks who are looking for ways to support that person they love.

Now, when you say you're looking for other people to you know for this particular getting this story out, because to me someone talking about a journey like that, with an issue such as, I think you said, brain cancer and how they're moving along and coping with it, could wind up being like maybe even a statewide story. So when you run into those, do you think about pitching the story to a larger, which is maybe the state newspaper, associated press or something like that?

Yes, we will definitely pitch to those larger papers and we will also work with the organizations that are supporting those patients. So, different foundations, maybe even and I don't want to say medical journals, because I don't have a full understanding that's very that's for doctors, right, but people in the medical field, therapists, who are looking to offer support to patients and clients. But yeah, this is a nationwide story and maybe even worldwide because, like I said, gleoblastoma does not leave survivors in its wake, and my client is now on her fourth year. She's just celebrated her fourth anniversary of surgery and this is unprecedented. She has MRIs every three months to continue to monitor that. Glioblastoma is a very aggressive kind of tumor and it's very difficult to remove thoroughly. It's it. It quines around other parts of of the brain and makes it very difficult to get all out. And so she is. She is really a living miracle and that realization has inspired her to share her story with others for its, its comfort and its humor. She said so many things happen that you just can't help but laugh at, because your choices were to laugh or cry and it's. It's very powerful to be trusted with a story like that and to be able to walk her through that process of communicating it to others and to finally see it in print and hold that book in her hands. Following the launch of the book, she hopes to be able to do speaking engagements and fundraising for causes that support brain cancer patients.

Well, you know, as a, as a public relations person, that's the sort of thing a lot of times we look for the story that has legs and that you know. So a lot of folks don't recognize it. But you know, I think of a time when I was called up by as a matter of fact, it happened to be a Medicare related story One of the medical schools here had started a department that no one else in the country had, and by the and I think I asked him about, well, who else, what other schools in the nation have this? He said no, no, we're the first one and the only one. So, wow, I said, oh, that, and my hometown is Washington DC. So, even though I'm in North Carolina now, but the fact is, when I hear that, that makes me think, wow, this is a national story. So what I actually did was I actually called Washington DC to the National Public Radio and tracked down their medical writer and pitched the story there and asking if they would be interested in covering this. And they said, oh, absolutely, we'd like to do that. So I'm hearing this and the same thing applies, as I think maybe you know there's a South Dakota Public Radio Station, associated press or something along those lines, because these are the kinds of stories, a lot of times, that reporters love to get because, like I said, this is very unusual and those kind of things that they normally, you know, salivate over that I can get a story like this because it fits, and it's a big deal, quite honestly.

Yeah, yes, and it's incredibly exciting to have a story, like you said, with that kind of legs that you know will apply to so many other people and is filling a niche that hasn't it's been very difficult to address or no one has put their hand up yet to say, look, I have information about this. So I'm very much looking forward to getting to the end of this book. We're on track to finish all of her content before the end of the year and are looking to get that published and launch next May during Brain Cancer Awareness Month.

You know and I think this would be an ideal time for you too, I'm not sure which area you know the National Cancer Society. I would think that they would join forces with you in getting some national exposure on one of the morning TV shows and some national media New York Times and so forth and so on to cover something like that.

Yes, the prospects are really thrilling and we're just starting to get to that, that strategic planning. Right now my client is a little bit shy and so the idea of the spotlight she's just warming up to. But this writing process has been very cathartic for her and I think she's been being able to articulate some of those things, those stories that she experienced, and put them on paper to have them really become clear to people around her. I think has been really eye-opening and I think that she is getting fully prepared to share her story on a much larger scale than she ever anticipated. So it's really thrilling to see her come along like that and say, yes, we're doing this, we're ready to talk about this.

Well, you know, that's good to hear, because sometimes if you maybe just do local radio or something like that, it helps them become acclimated to what this media is like and hey, wait a minute. And they'll say, wait a while, this is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. So then they're a bit more comfortable than now. You can begin to. I'm thinking I'll listen to you talk about some of the morning talk shows that ladies listen to or watch every morning. That might be a great platform form and you pitch them, because producers are always looking for something to have on those shows, particularly if they're daily shows. So I think that you've got a heck of a launching platform for this particular client.

Yes.

So I mean that one seems to be going particularly well. What are some of the more difficult clients you maybe had to deal with, or humps that you had to get over to convince somebody that perhaps public relations would be in their best interest? Since you said a lot of folks might not have been familiar with the benefits of PR in a small community.

Well, one of the things that I've learned about small businesses, both in operating one and in working with them, is that we, as business owners, we wear a lot of hats. So we're trying to manage our household and raise kids and do a job, but also manage the business in such a way that we continue to have a job. So we need to do whether we do the accounting and book work ourselves or we hire someone to do that it still requires some of our attention. We have to pass on the right paperwork, we have to pay the right taxes, we have to have awareness of so many things, and so I've had clients both who've said this is just too much, I can't add one more thing, and maybe it also didn't fit into their budget. But I've also had clients who've been so grateful to just be able to let this one thing go. So they know that I'm managing their social media thoroughly, that I'm taking the photos, that I'm writing the copy, that I understand the messaging for their business and they're able to just write that monthly check and know that it's handled, and that's been a tremendous support for their business, because then they are able to focus on growth and customer service and planning for the future, but, on the flip side, having a client who didn't have a good understanding. And as public relations professionals, we have a really broad skill set. Right, we can write, we can edit, we can market, we can strategize, we can execute. Tactically, we can do a lot of things, and it's really hard to not slip into trying to be all things to all people and being mindful of our own business values and our personal values and being sure that we're focusing on what we're best at. So I had a client who needed support with her website, and when we got into the thick of the work, it finally became clear that she did not have a good understanding of what needed to happen on her end on the back end, behind the scenes, she only understood the end result that she wanted in building the website. And so I learned a hard lesson with that client, because I skimped on the research and I didn't ask enough questions ahead of time to really understand what we were getting into. And so we muddled through and it was very stressful for everyone answering those questions and our timeline was drug out. It took longer than we anticipated and it was frustrating, and it took a lot of communication and a lot of meetings just to stay on the same page and be sure that she understood what difficulties we were facing as her public relations team and we understood what difficulties she was facing as the business owner who was waiting for this technology to go out to her customers. And it was incredibly challenging and we reached a satisfactory end. Everything is okay. But I still look back on that project and think, if I had another $10,000 and 12 months, how I could have improved that.

One of the other things I noticed when I was looking at your website that you actually wrote several speeches for some senior state officials. And how does that go and how does that come about?

Well, that was during my tenure at Game Fish and Parks, and so, as a statewide communications director, I answered directly to the secretary of the department, and so, as he was going to national conventions, he was often asked to be a keynote speaker or the emcee, and so part of my role in that capacity was to understand the current events that were happening. One speech that I remember in particular was the conference was just on the heels of a devastating helicopter crash where four wildlife officials lost their lives, and so it was important to address that in that speech and take a moment to reflect on that tragedy. But then, of course, that was not the main purpose of that gathering. So to acknowledge, to respectfully give a moment through that, and then to address that we do have another agenda that we need to get to, and also running that agency's social media and all of their publications, it was imperative that both the secretary of the department and the governor's office knew what messages were being communicated, that we were receiving information from them on what the governor's priorities were, and to coordinate all of that. So that was during my tenure at Game Fish and Parks, and I haven't written any official speeches yet in my independent practice, but that's certainly something that I enjoyed doing observing those current events and seeing how they applied to the event at hand.

Well, Jonah, you've certainly given us a very wide view of some of the things that you've been doing there in Oklahoma, South Dakota. Is there anything we missed that you think that our listeners should know about?

I really want to drive home the joy of helping authors see their work in print. It's not something that I anticipated doing and as I started my business, I had a pretty structured idea of what I thought would happen, and 2 and 1 half years down the road, that's no longer what's happening. So I would just remind our listeners, in their practice and in their daily work, to be open to the possibilities. Experience is great and it's awesome to have some projects under your belt and know what you want to happen, but to truly follow the data and to follow the clues that the universe and that your clients are giving you, you might just achieve something better than what you thought was going to happen if you are open to all of those cues and responses and being truly invested in the situation. So I am delighted and frankly surprised at the way my business has evolved over the last 2 and 1 half years, and I just really hope that everyone doing this work finds the thing that they love that makes them the most passionately involved and present for the work that they're doing with their clients.

Well, jonah, let me say thank you so very, very much for joining us today and also for being our very first guest from the great state of South Dakota, who I really, really appreciate it and I'm sure our listeners will appreciate listening to and appreciating the things that you've done and how you go about building your business to reach the pinnacles of success that you've done thus far, and I want to say thank you so much because I've really enjoyed having you.

It has been a pleasure. Great things are happening in my state. You have not heard the last from South Dakota, I promise you, Peter.

Well, keep in touch and if you've got some good things going, because I'm always looking for content for the podcast, no question about that.

All right, well, I've got some ideas for you, so I definitely will be in touch.

OK, well, let me say thank you once again, and to my listeners, let me say thank you for being our listeners. As I mentioned to you that we continually grow and the fact that we've become global now was a surprise. There's nothing that we actually work that, but it must speak highly of the content of the show and that we've been at this for nearly five years now. So thank you so very much for being our listener and also share this with your colleagues and let them know about the Public Relations Review Podcast and also join us for the very next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast. Thanks.

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.