Q&A with Big Idea PR Company founder Lou Pierce
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Lou Pierce started Big Idea PR Company at the age of 39. With a career spanning over two decades in the public relations and communications industry, Pierce has established his company as a brand storytelling and strategic communication leader.
Prior to launching the company with his wife, Melinda, Pierce worked at local television station WNDU, honing his skills in public relations and audience development.
Pierce spoke with Inside INdiana Business about launching his business, changes in the PR industry and his biggest PR tips for a lean budget.
This article has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you get into public relations?
I was in college at Notre Dame and I started working at the television station. It was the early 80s, so a long time ago. The university no longer owns the station but by the time I left, I was in charge of four departments, doing the public relations for the company and its various holdings.
I started this company in 2002, so we’re 22 years old this year and doing pretty well. We have clients all over the country, from Idaho to Omaha and of course local clients in Indiana more than anything else.
What was the process like leading up to starting the business?
It was scary. If you ask anyone who starts a company, it’s kind of frightening. I had a mortgage to pay, car payments, just like everybody else. But one of the things I feel comfortable with was the ebbs and flows of business because I was used to that in the corporate environment. So I knew what to do and what not to do. We established financial rules for our company in the beginning. Because I had witnessed companies like the one that we have today that would seemingly be doing really well for decades and then just abruptly go out of business.
Well, because of the position I was in at the broadcast station, I knew why that was happening. A lot of times people use money that was meant for media purchasing to pay other bills. We’ve never done that, never will. We’ve never had any kind of significant debt and I think that’s part of our longevity.
During the 2008 recession, there was a period of time where my wife and I didn’t get paid for almost a year. But we were determined to make sure that we kept our staff.
How did you go about getting your first client?
Once I gave my three months notice, I worked really hard to identify someone who could take my place and also made sure people in the community knew that I was starting my own company. I honestly thought it was going to be rough going for a while but I hit the ground running and I haven’t stopped in 22 years. You never get a break owning a business; it’s a little bit like having a tiger by the tail. You can’t afford to let go or it’ll gobble you up. I guess I was just lucky. I had a good reputation. I did a pretty good job and the rest is history.
How do you get out-of-state clients?
It’s usually through word of mouth. We had a former mayor here in northern Indiana, who recommended us to a statewide organization called RIPEA, Retired Indiana Public Employees Association. We represent that organization across the state and pretty much every other business that we represent, even out of state, is through a connection here.
How have you been able to stay relevant in your industry?
Well, the first thing we tell people is, there’s no such thing as a 24 hour news cycle anymore. It’s a 60-second news cycle now. The other thing is honesty. We can prove over and over again that honesty works in terms of public relations. Maybe that’s part of my Midwest upbringing but being honest is, in my opinion, the first law of good public relations. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to divulge all your ugly secrets. It’s just when something’s out there, you can’t hide it anymore. It’s impossible to hide anything, whether you’re in the government, there’s FOIA requests, so it is going to come out. So it’s better that you get out in front of it. If you create a problem, take your hit, move on and people will think more highly of you. So if you meet, I call them charlatans, who tell you you can split hairs or even try to blame someone else for something you’ve done, fire them immediately. Because they’re just not doing you any favors.
What was the experience like managing employees when you started the business after being employed yourself for many years?
It’s definitely different. It’s a responsibility that we don’t take lightly, to keep good people. Our average employee has been here over eight years and that’s a pretty good track record. We’re not real corporate, we’re just corporate enough. We’d like to think of ourselves as a handshake company. During the pandemic, we offered everyone the opportunity and set them up so that they could work from home. But we had a particular employee who said she was going crazy at home and she needed to come back to work. So we said, “Well, come back.” She said, “Well, what do I do with the kids?” We said, “Bring them as well.” The kids spent the next year with us and that’s something that we’ve continued to do.
So when our families have issues, or need to bring their kids here, we get excited about it. We’ll have pizza for lunch. We celebrate having these kids here. That makes us feel good, Melinda and I, as owners, but we know that’s important to the families here too.
What’s your number one tip for managing money as a business owner?
The number one tip is to have financial guardrails. Our accountant doesn’t like it, but we overpay our taxes. We’re an LLC, so we pay estimated taxes and we always pay more than we have to. It’s true that it’s not the smartest thing to do financially, because you’re giving the government money that you’re gonna get back and they’re making interest on it, and you’re not. But for us, we’re very conservative financially and we just don’t like the idea of debt. We did take a mortgage out for the building when we bought it but we put down a lot of money before we did that, and we paid it off early. That might be a Midwestern thing. I know plenty of very successful people who have a lot of debt, who are not reluctant to take out debt.
Keeping your expenses low is always smart. Our number one expense isn’t payroll in our business; our number one expense is software. Because you can’t own software anymore, you have to rent it and it’s a drag.
What’s the biggest change in the industry since you started your company?
For all its faults, social media. I can reach a very particular audience and even geo-fence them. So I could reach one person through social media or half a million in a few days. Whereas we could never have afforded to do that before. So social media, for all its faults, is a big change. We’ve been able to affect legislation, affect opinions. I always say to our staff, we’re in the persuasion business. The tools change. Social media for us was the big one because it changed how we could reach people.
Do you have any mentors in the industry?
Lots of people. I used to read books by David Ogilvy from Ogilvy and Mather. That guy was a genius. There’s some other people who I’ve read over the years, who’ve done some unusual things. I read Al Ries and Jack Trout on positioning and I’ve had many opportunities to use their concepts. Laura Ries has picked up where her father left off. I give every new staff member Oglivy’s book on advertising and the Ries & Trout book on positioning because I think there are fundamentals in our business. Whether it’s public relations or advertising, positioning is a very effective tool.
What’s your best low-budget advertising tip for a young business that may only have a lean advertising budget?
We find ourselves consulting for new businesses all the time. The best thing they can do is what we call stunting. It effectively gets the business out there to the masses. For example, there was a gentleman who wanted to raise money for a local organization called LOGAN. It’s a not-for-profit for children and adults with disabilities. His way of fundraising was playing golf from sunrise to sunset and trying to set a world record. We put together shoe boxes and cut a piece of sod to perfectly fit in each shoe box and then we created little mounts. So we could mount a golf ball that was glued to the tee, right on the grass and we hand delivered those with a press release to the media. That’s a stunt to generate awareness for this event. And it worked because every media company in the region was there for this guy. He didn’t end up breaking the world record but he came awfully close.
About nine years ago, we had a local dry cleaner who was going completely green. And they wanted to know what we would do to help promote them going green and we came up with the concept of painting everything green. And actually throwing paint cans of green paint on a guy in a white suit, and demonstrating how clean they could get that white suit using their green methodology. It worked like a charm and got them tons of media exposure.
What’s your advice to new business owners?
Specialize! A lot of people don’t know that Starbucks started as a diner; they served everything. They started doing the math and they realized they made the most money from coffee. Today, that’s all they do. They’ll serve you breakfast too but they established themselves as a boutique coffee entity that has grown by leaps and bounds. That’s the law of specialization in action.
The other classic example is Sears. Sears invented the internet before the internet with their catalog. They were selling homes that would arrive on a train and you would build as a kit. But in the early 80s, they decided to branch out into selling what’s considered soft goods. They opened the door wide for Home Depot and Lowe’s and Menards. These companies are now multi-billion dollar international organizations and Sears is non-existent. The seeds of their destruction were sown in the early 80s when they abandoned what made them number one: their specialization in hardware.