We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Steve Turner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Steve, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry.

Public Relations is continually evolving from the art of developing a strategy to build awareness and branding through media exposure, to new techniques involving influencers to help with brand growth. The growth of podcasts has also become a major vehicle. SEO, and changes in how search engines categorize businesses, is also a vital factor that must be a top priority. Paid placement to supplement the goal of the campaign should be considered where necessary. PR firms and their clients need to adjust to the growing variety of platforms available in order to be successful.

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 started out as a news and sports reporter after graduating from the University of Missouri and its Journalism school. Eventually, I transitioned to ad sales and station management. After several years in the radio business, I had the opportunity to work for an advertising agency. I appreciated the idea of offering a client a variety of marketing and advertising services that went beyond just selling ads on one radio station. I moved back to my hometown, St. Louis, and started a public relations firm, The Turner Group, over 30 years ago. A few years later I merged my firm with my new wife, Shelly Solomon, and her firm, S. Solomon and Associates, an ad agency. We changed the name to Solomon Turner, expanded our service offerings, and have never looked back. Our firm has provided PR, event planning, and marketing services to clients locally and nationwide for over three decades.

Solomon Turner offers a variety of services to help clients position their business, organization, and/or their personal brand for growth. Our firm creates a strategic action plan and then implements it on behalf of the client. Solomon Turner PR helps a business overcome any awareness or branding issue. We specialize in media relations. This includes helping to place positive stories about clients in national and local media depending on their needs and target audiences. This can include business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer type companies. Clients have appeared in major print publications such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, and more. Many have also been featured on major news networks such as NBC Nightly News, ABC World News, CNN, etc. Our work includes successfully growing the brand for startups, established businesses, major corporations, authors, and speakers.

Our secret sauce is understanding the science of public relations from both a client and a media perspective. We understand how to work with editors, reporters, and producers. Our firm knows what makes a good story and what doesn’t. We gain the trust of the journalistby helping them achieve their goal of developing a great article or TV feature while, at the same time, meeting the objectives of the client. Solomon Turner is also well skilled in leveraging any article or news feature to connect with targeted audiences on social media and digital platforms.

I am proud that over the years Solomon Turner has worked with dozens of well-known corporations, businesses, and personalities. These range from Anthony Robbins Seminars to Coldwell Banker to Northwestern Mutual and many more. Our firm is humbled and honored to be recognized as one of the top PR firms in St. Louis for 14 years in a row by Small Business Monthly. On the personal side, I have had many articles on public relations published in several journals and have appeared on radio and TV discussing trending PR and marketing issues. I have been quoted or featured in Forbes, Parade, and The Wall Street Journal to mention a few.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for growing our client base includes three things. Doing great work for our clients is number one. Networking with business owners and referral sources is number two. Publicizing major successes is number three.

In a service-type business, such as public relations, you must provide high-quality services. You must dig down to the macro level to understand the needs of the client and their objectives. Once you understand their true goal you must create a sound plan and then execute it. This includes providing those services in a timely manner and staying on budget. The more satisfied clients you have, several may become what we call raving fans. They are the ones who will chat you up and your business to many of their colleagues. Some of those colleagues will contact you to ask what you can do for them. This process only works if you and your company are very good at what you do and have a strong reputation for excellent work.

Networking has also been paramount to our success. It is vital to growing your firm. The more people who know about your firm, and the good work you provide, the more referrals you will receive. Someone once said it’s not who you know that is important in business, but who knows you. That is why it is important to stay highly visible among targeted business groups and referral sources. You need to use your connections to help them out and, in reciprocity, they will help you out.

Thirdly, it’s important to let people know about your success. Apply for awards then promote the fact you received special recognition. Let other business owners know your firm is successful and growing by publicizing new hires and staff promotions. Build on your reputation as a thought leader in your industry by writing articles and securing media coverage. We preach this not only for our clients but for our own agency as well.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Any entrepreneur or business owner will face various challenges over time where they are not sure they will be able to handle adverse conditions and survive them. This happened for us during the last great recession in 2008-2009. It was as though someone flipped the light switch to off. We were doing fine at the time and then, all of a sudden, companies began cutting back on any and all non-essential personnel and services. Marketing and PR always seem to be the first to go. We lost nearly every client we had. A few stuck with their plans and, despite many sleepless nights, we were able to make it through. I had many self-doubts at that point about finding a path that would get us out of that mess. It took a lot of hoping and praying. We were fortunate to survive that period, many other companies did not, and here we are some 14 years later, still able to help many clients achieve their marketing goals.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://solomonturner.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STurnerPR
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveturnerpr/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/StLouisPR

Image Credits
Photos credit-Solomon Turner PR