An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
When you show your true self, you will attract the right customers and community. When I first started building my online presence, I was trying to keep up with everyone else and “be on all the platforms” and post just to post. I quickly realized this was causing me to spread myself too thin and didn’t give people a way to truly connect with my message. When I focused on doing what feels most aligned with me and focusing on the one or two platforms to share my message, my community and impact grew.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gloria Chou.
Gloria Chou is a U.S.-diplomat turned small business PR coach that’s never worked in a PR agency or had any “industry contacts”. She cold-called her way to get unknown companies into top tier outlets like the New York Times and Fast Company, and now teaches her CPR pitching method to founders around the world who want to hack their own PR without breaking the bank. Her original pitching method has now helped thousands of small businesses around the world gain over 1 billion organic views to skyrocket their visibility and credibility.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Nothing makes me happier than seeing people feel seen, heard, and valued, and I always knew I wanted to help others do that. Growing up in an immigrant family, however, meant that I was told to take the “safer career path” and value stability over my true callings, and that’s how I became a U.S. Diplomat. I loved working overseas and studied international relations but after a short stint as a bureaucrat, I knew that I was meant to be an entrepreneur helping other women go BIGGER with their message. I applied for over 1000+ jobs in PR but no agency would hire me because I lacked “agency experience”, so I started to do PR my way-by working with tiny startups and cold calling newsrooms to pitch these unknown clients to the biggest publications. Without industry contacts, it meant that I was rejected hundreds of times — but this is what built my business as it allowed me to crack the code on PR, come up with a proprietary pitching method that is now proven to work, and I teach this method to small businesses around the world who are looking to get exposure without breaking the bank.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
From what I’ve seen, no one is doing PR this way. Traditionally, we are told that we must lean on publicists’ networks if we want to get interviewed. This might work well for companies with deep pockets, but for the early stage, bootstrapping small business owners, paying an agency thousands of dollars per month without a guarantee isn’t feasible. From cold calling hundreds of newsrooms and perfecting my elevator pitch to get the editors to respond, I’ve come up with a pitching framework that no one else has, and it’s helped thousands of founders get responses from top outlets — even if they aren’t launched or have a fancy website. Journalism is NOT dead — everyone, not just big companies with big budgets — deserves to share their message and get featured. The trick is understanding how to pitch in a way that will resonate with journalists.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I have pitched to the wrong person, misspelled their name, dialed the wrong newsroom, and made so many faux pas starting out. I never had any industry contacts or journalist friends, so I literally cold-called every single time to get to where I am. One time I even dialed the Wall Street Journal newsroom asking for a tech reporter that actually worked at the New York Times — talk about embarrassing. Lucky, the pitch was a good one, so the journalist on the other end of the phone was intrigued and asked me to follow up via email. That’s why it’s critical to have a powerful pitch!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Honestly, I get so much inspiration from my community of female founders who “do it scared” and put themselves out there even when they don’t feel ready. Everyday I hear from founders in my Facebook group who beat the odds and pitched themselves even when they weren’t launched or are facing tough competition — and they end up getting featured. Their tenacity, willpower, and intent to make an impact inspire me every day. I also have to give credit to my coach Rick Mulready who has taught me that doing MORE isn’t always better and that it’s about optimizing your time, mindset, and actions that ultimately translate to powerful results.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
In this digitally saturated world, it is so easy to copy someone else’s content and regurgitate it as your own. But there are also others who want to go against the grain just to get attention. The key here is intention. If the person’s intention is to serve and help others by sharing what they’ve learned from their own experiences, then I think that is a positive adjective. If the person just wants to disrupt to get attention and likes, then that is ego-driven and not coming from a place of service.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
1. People who truly believe they are worth it will act from that place of abundance. I see this in my clients and people who are ready to join my PR Starter Pack program. Those who achieve success are those who believe they deserve to be seen as an industry leader — and it has nothing to do with their business revenue, how many followers they have, or how long they’ve been in business. It has EVERYTHING to do with how strongly they believe they are here to spread their message and make an impact by putting themselves out there.
2. When you show your true self, you will attract the right customers and community. When I first started building my online presence, I was trying to keep up with everyone else and “be on all the platforms” and post just to post. I quickly realized this was causing me to spread myself too thin and didn’t give people a way to truly connect with my message. When I focused on doing what feels most aligned with me and focusing on the one or two platforms to share my message, my community and impact grew.
3. Rejection and failure are the KEYS to success. I’ve built my entire business from getting rejected by agencies, newsrooms, and editors, and it’s led me to deeply understand what WORKS. This process of testing, refining, and using rejection/failures to inform your next iteration is critical to doing it right the next time. I owe everything to the fact that I never came into PR with “industry contacts” or a playbook. It’s allowed me to build my winning frameworks from a truly original place while listening to my audience’s feedback.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
I am so excited to launch my podcast so small businesses and early-stage founders have a go-to place to feel seen, heard, and valued. My mission is to advocate for the underdog, and I am excited to build out this podcast to further provide a space for small but mighty businesses to go to.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
That they have to compromise their “likeability” in order to change the status quo and disrupt.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
Yes! I love anything by Brene Brown as well as Jay Shetty, and love listening to my coach Rick Mulready’s weekly podcast: “The Art of Online Business”.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
A movement to celebrate our failures! Our failures make us relatable, create connections, draw people into our world, and allows us to learn and grow.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“How a person acts is a reflection of THEM, not you.” So many small business owners I work with are afraid of pitching or coming off a certain way, but they should know that often times the person they are pitching to is busy or just didn’t see their pitch. If we all just took rejection with a grain of salt and understood that it’s not always about US, we would be more daring and courageous in going after opportunities that seem out of reach.
How can our readers follow you online?
I’ve created a Facebook group for small businesses looking to become more seen and heard through advocating for themselves, and you can join us here. I go live in it every Friday with a guest expert or founder that’s overcome limiting beliefs to land major interviews and opportunities.
You can also watch my signature PR Masterclass that’s helped thousands of founders learn the CPR pitching method that’s proven to get editors to say YES to an interview here.
Lastly, you can DM me the word PITCH on Instagram and I will gift you my podcast pitching template that helps me get onto 4+ podcasts per month.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Gloria Chou On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.