We recently connected with Brandi Sims and have shared our conversation below.

Brandi , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

I think the biggest thing that Corporate America gets wrong about the public relations and communications industry is that it’s too expensive and there’s no way to measure results. There are so many agencies out and each specializes in very specific categories. There are agencies that specialize in key industries such as Finance, sustainability, Non-Profits, and others. Then, there can be further specialization with regard to the size of the company, such as small business to global and corporate size. With this in mind, the pricing for services can vary along with the experience to support as well as the resources needed to complete project needs. PR isn’t “expensive” but rather an investment into your business and should be treated as such. Finding the right PR agency for your budget and company is crucial.

For our team at Branding PR, we specialize in small to mid-size business that ranges from Non-Profits, Beauty, & Technology to Entertainment and Lifestyle. Because of this experience, we’re able to tap into a greater network and audience of businesses seeking to improve their public relations. Because we are a boutique agency, we have more competitive rates for public relations work and it makes us stand out compared to the larger communications agencies.

The other common misconception is that there’s no way to measure the results of PR. There are many ways to measure the performance and results, but it all comes down to the objective and goals. During our onboarding process, we require businesses to outline for our team their specific objectives and goals for PR. It takes ways the guess work and ensures that we properly align our tactics with their goals. From there, we measure the performance based upon how we were able to achieve them. I’ve applied this to the business based on my background as a Business Consultant with my MBA and PMP certification. Many of our practices are based upon the traditional business approaches which are highly effective in measuring results, ROI and more.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

About You & Your Practice / Brand For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself, how you got into your industry / business / discipline / craft etc, what type of products/services/creative works you provide, what problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others. What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.
Please provide as much detail as you feel relevant as this is one of the core questions where the reader will get to know about you and your brand/organization/etc

Of course. My name is Brandi Sims and I am the Founder of & CEO of Branding PR. I’ve worked in the public relations and marketing industry for 14 years and have supported brand campaigns for client ranging in Entertainment & Lifestyle as well as Government sector, Non-Profit and Technology. I started Branding PR back in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and have grown a small team of professionals helping to boost brand warners towards our clientele throughout the U.S. When I decided to pursue a career in public relations; I started volunteering and interning with local nonprofits in Oklahoma to gain more experience. From creating social media campaigns to develop fundraising activities, I continued to apply what I was learning through these experiences along with what I was learning in the classroom with my undergraduate degree. As life happens, I got married to my college sweetheart, who immediately joined the Navy, and we were shipped off to our next destination — sunny San Diego. At that point, I really started to hone in on my discipline of public relations and marketing through freelance work.

After several years, I started to tap into a new market in the bigger cities we were stationed in and got more experience working with Entertainment and Lifestyle brands. Throughout the traveling and managing of a small family as well as the military lifestyle, I developed deep connections with other business owners, public figures, and media contacts which helped to set the stage for starting my own PR agency. The types of services offer are publicity and media outreach, crisis communications, publicity event planning and press kit development. We also support social media management services, content marketing and overall brand strategy.

The problem that we solve for clients is the need to improve their image as it relates to the public and their target audience. There are so many brands out there and the various digital platforms have made it possible for many to exist, market and promote themselves from anymore. The leads to over saturation and can be challenging for new brands to stand out amongst the rest. We help to shape their messages on behalf of our clientele by developing strategic communications and marketing campaigns to not only attract the ideal customer but also elevate the brand awareness.

What I am most proud of is my team. We work really hard to ensure that our clients are happy and successful with their PR goals. This means that we have real conversations about their image, how it is presented and how it can be improved with our support. Often brands get caught in the hamster wheel of social media and assume that it’s enough to promote themselves — it’s not. Advertising, PR and marketing each have a specific role and each is incredibly important in successful overall campaigns. We help clients to realize that and they use our services to successfully achieve this. That is ultimately what sets us a part — we understand the importance of each and rely on these to reach goals with a proper budget. And in turn, we do expect clients to respect and understand this as well if they are serious about elevating their brands to the next level.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe what’s helped me build the reputation I have within public relations has been the quality of my work, passion for the field and consistent results. There are many public relations consultants, publicists and communications professionals but I can guarantee they do not have the drive, the passion and the go-getter attitude that I do. I don’t see others as competition because we each have our unique experiences that have shaped our perspective to get us to the point that we’re at today. With that being said, my experiences helping to support businesses, brands and public figure no matter how small or how big has always been elevated because I put forth a different type of effort and approach that stands out. It’s funny, I actually had this conversation with a colleague of mine who was following a campaign I recently ran for a political figure. They mentioned how they saw a post shared on the political figures platform and immediately knew it was “my work.” The style, the content, design etc. has a presence that connects with people — and apparently stands out in a good way.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I first decided to start my business, it was a completely out of nowhere. I had been working in a corporate position, the typical 9-5 and some and recently been promoted to executive level leadership when I learned I was being under compensated. After pushing for a fair and competitive wage, one day I decided to leave. This was in the midst of the pandemic and very uncertain times, but I decided to leave because I didn’t believe I was being treated fairly and I was over the corporate culture. From there, I started Brandinc PR purely off of passion and savings to achieve a goal set in my teens to own my own business. Within weeks, I had secured my first clients and landed them placements in major publications such as Forbes, AP News, The New Yorker and Cosmopolitan. Many of them were familiar with my work, some were referrals, but it gave me the start to really push my PR agency forward. If I had not made the decision to leave a toxic work environment, I wouldn’t have made the necessary pivot in my career. Sometimes we need those uncertain times and experiences to shake up our beliefs and change the trajectory of our lives. Now, I’m in a thriving career with a successful business, staff of professionals, and continuing to educate small business owners on public relations through major universities, professional networks and programming.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brandincpr.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/brandincpr
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/brandincpr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brandincpr/
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/brandincpr
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/brandinc-pr-austin

Image Credits
Brandinc PR (The image standing by myself) Kyli Gabrielle of OK Women’s Journal