We recently connected with Mackenzie Judge and have shared our conversation below.

Mackenzie, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I think this was the craziest part for me when I look back on it, which is that I truly did not think twice about starting. I had worked for a few PR firms in the past, one was more established and one was a start up and I think through those experiences, I got to see two completely different forms of operation, and I also got to learn a lot about what I liked in those operations vs. what I didn’t like. With my parents owning their own businesses and being entrepreneurs, it was always something I wanted to do, but I just didn’t think I would get there for a long time or at such a young age.

Through working for these agencies, I found myself working on accounts that I wasn’t passionate about, I started to lose interest in the work I was doing and found myself looking elsewhere to work with brands that I actually wanted to represent. I respect all businesses, but if you’re representing brands or categories you’re not interested in, it becomes really hard to push those and perform for those – especially when some of these agencies cap you at a very low pay and limit your opportunities in the industry as a whole, work can become miserable pretty quickly.

I decided to leave the agency world and honestly just freelance for a minute. Who could I represent on my own? Can I attract the kind of companies I really want to work with? I kind of just started dabbling into freelancing and the more I did, the more I wanted to put branding behind it and have a company Instagram and a website to promote my services and all of these different things, and it was then when I realized, I just want my own agency.

I had the idea to open my own firm in April of 2023 and on May 7th, 2023 launched Blonde PR without any clients and without any money in our business account. It was the kind of entrepreneurial risk everyone talks about, but I just felt so strongly about what I was doing and the passion behind it and my drive to make sure it would work.

Within the month of April, I spent that time figuring out how to file an LLC, brought in my mom who was our family business accountant and bookkeeper for ten years, learned everything I could from her on how we could start this up, built my own website, booked a photoshoot to have some launch content for our Instagram and planned a little pink party with my close friends to celebrate the opening. It was seriously the quickest “let’s just try it” decision I’ve ever made and within a week of our launch, I signed my first client and planned a brand trip to “hard launch”, which took 12 creators from Salt Lake City to Scottsdale to create social buzz on what my agency could do.

The first couple of months for me was all about marketing the agency to land clients. I utilized my connections I had from my beauty podcast that I already had relationships with to gift our events, work with our influencers and be a part of our social content. Through this, I think I was able to create captivating and trending social content from our brand trip that really brought interest from other brands to now want work with us.

It was such a crazy two months looking back on it, but I really feel like when you know you’re aligned and you put the work in, you’ll get what you’re going after in return.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I actually got into the industry totally on accident – as I feel a lot of us do. I had an internship in college with a Forbes contributor who also had her own podcast that was represented by the network Dear Media. I worked with her for free for two years because I felt what I was learning and seeing was so extremely valuable. What I thought I was seeing was “business”, but it really was a lot of marketing and PR.

I fell in love with the inner workings of these luxe events, making high caliber connections, the importance of credibility as a brand and of course, the creative side. So after college, I decided to say yes to a PR firm position that kind of fell in my lap and also started my own beauty podcast at the same time.

For me, this timeframe was all about building my network and experience. I interviewed tons of major beauty founders and movers in the industry to learn about their businesses along with taught myself everything I could while working for the firms I did.

Even though I had no intentions of starting my own PR firm at first, I felt like I subconsciously just kept absorbing more and more about how to operate a business from what I was seeing on the inside, interviews on my podcast, and learning from my parents’ business as well.

Blonde PR is a very fast paced, chic boutique firm that specializes in beauty, fashion, wellness, lifestyle, luxury and travel clients in both the brand and talent side. We do everything from traditional to digital PR exposure, modern marketing utilizing social media, events, influencers, partnerships, campaigns, luxury events, talent management and a lot more!

We help brands scale through a series of different services that help them with conversions, exposure, credibility and an overall luxury elevation.

Our talent division works with us on both the press and management side as well and with this, we also help them with exposure, correcting narratives, booking brand deals, appearances, campaigns, and more!

I think I’m most proud of the foundation I’ve built so far. We are still extremely new and under a year old, but if you would’ve asked me last year how far along I thought we’d be by now, I wouldn’t of described anything near what we’re doing already.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

This is so so so important to me because a lot of PR agencies in the industry have a reputation of making clients feel like another “number” to their client roster. I love a boutique firm feel. I always want to be small enough to where we can have that one on one relationship with clients, I am always still their primary contact and we have a small team to execute for them with me. I think some agencies just try to scale so fast without building a proportionate team to follow, and then clients get lost in the shuffle.

For me, I would rather grow slower and scale proportionately than bring on to many clients at once without having a team to suffice.

I offer all of our clients access to me 24/7. Most clients choose a weekly check in call with our team with the freedom to text / call me throughout the week whenever. PR is such a behind the scenes industry. My team may know that we have a lot in the works, but until it comes out in the public, our client has no idea what’s going on, so it’s our job to make sure they feel like they know everything and that we’re super transparent and upfront with them.

Any advice for managing a team?

I think a lot of this comes from watching my dad own his company along with even watching him be the head coach of my softball team for 15 years of my life as well. He is the utmost honest and transparent business person I have ever watched. Of course I got to see a lot of things that his teams never saw, but it was the most ethical and organized operation you’d ever see. This makes me feel like I not only want to live up to his business standards, but will never let my company operate any other way either. Not only was his business morale high, but the way he managed his teams as well was always very professional and strategic to be successful.

For me, transparency, loyalty and pure honesty are the most important to me in business. My clients will always get it and so will my team, and I expect it from them in return as well. My team is small, but I am extremely selective with who I bring in. I always like to make sure that they have the tools they need for success while being there to support them in any way I can while making it as enjoyable and beneficial as possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: blondepr.com
• Instagram: @blondepublicrelations, @mackenzieejudgee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blonde-pr