Women Of The C-Suite: Nicole Castillo of WordHampton Public Relations On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
Patience is key! I tend to be an impatient person as I prefer to finish tasks and move on to the next task. However in my business not all of my clients are responding in a timely fashion or deliver the elements I need immediately. This used to cause me angst, however once I realized that as long as I executed the task within the deadline I could still be successful.
As a part of our interview series called “Women Of The C-Suite”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole Castillo.
Nicole Castillo, Executive Vice President and partner of WordHampton Public Relations, has been an integral part of the company over the last 25 years. An expert in both media and client relations, she continues to garner positive publicity for major events, food and beverage products, and lifestyle and hospitality services. Castillo has a roster of several award winning campaigns which includes two Public Relations Society of America’s New York Chapter Big Apple Awards. Since her first day at WordHampton she has been stimulating company growth through new initiatives and business development.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! 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?
While in college I chose to pursue Communications as a major. At that time public relations was a fairly new industry, at least when it came to a course of study in college. When I began to take classes in the public relations field I was very interested in the idea behind working with brands to promote them and creating strategies to gain editorial exposure for them. For a senior project I was assigned to interview someone in the public relations field and I chose to interview a PR firm owner in my hometown of The Hamptons, NY. Upon conducting the interview of WordHampton owner Steve Haweeli I indicated my interest in a job or internship with the company upon my graduation. Upon graduation I contacted Haweeli and was hired. From that day on I continued to grow with the company into the owner that I am today.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Several years ago we had a client who was celebrating a milestone anniversary and was looking for a creative way to gain publicity. Ben’s Kosher Deli launched the first matzoh ball eating contest and our firm was tapped to organize and run the entire event. It was a smashing success garnering publicity on every major network television station, newspaper and magazine. It became an annual event and began to attract the serious competitive food eaters, a very unique culture. We began to learn the ins and outs of competitive food eating and it became such a highly successful event that after a few years Ben’s ceased having the event. It was a great learning experience for our firm and myself in thinking outside the box and learning the amount of work that goes into running an event. Everything from the legal side of it to the necessity of having an EMT on site, it was a true experience!
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. 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?
At our company we work with several restaurant clients and are often writing about menu items. We had a client that was featuring a special dessert for the holidays “baked Alaska.” However when I was writing the press release the “b” and the “n” are right next to each other on the key board and I inadvertently typed Naked Alaska in the press release. Since it was not an incorrectly spelled word, spellcheck missed it and the press release went out with “Naked Alaska.” Although it was embarrassing it solicited a chuckle from most of the writers we sent it to. The lesson is to ALWAYS have someone proof your press releases before sending them out!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My day one mentor has been Steve Haweeli, the founder of WordHampton Public Relations. The day I walked into Steve’s basement office to interview him for a PR class project, I was immediately taken by his charisma and dedication to grow his small PR firm. Twenty five years later I am honored to be carrying on Steve’s legacy of WordHampton. He built the company from the ground up 30 years ago and was an incredible mentor to me and always believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. I am the publicist and business owner I am today because of all his years of wisdom and guidance. He taught me one of the most valuable lessons: “Work Hard, Laugh Hard.”
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?
All businesses have moments of prosper and struggles. At a time when our company was prospering, we expanded to open a second office and employ a second set of staff. However as the economy took a turn, we had to make the difficult decision of closing down the second office, and laying off staff to focus on maintaining the company’s headquarter office. It was difficult to let those team members go, but at the time it was the right decision for the company.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?
Although our company is small and we do not have many layers of management, leadership and levels of leadership have their place amongst our team. Since stepping into the role as an executive of the company my leadership role has developed into focusing on the growth of the company both internally and externally. Internally as an executive I have developed systems and platforms for our team that allow them to grow and develop into leaders themselves. I feel that it is incredibly important that each and every member of our team have a voice in things we can do to better our company. In order to foster that collaboration I developed our annual company retreat where we go off site and focus on improving our company internally from new systems to our own marketing and staying current with trends in our industry. As well, as an executive my role focuses on new business development. Sourcing new clients, networking with potential clients and developing strategies for reaching new clients.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive? Can you explain what you mean?
In today’s day and age many CEO executives are portrayed in the mainstream media as ruthless and asserting power over the staff. I believe the contrary, as being a leader of a company it is important to be collaborative with your team and also be receptive to feedback from them as well. Those who work for executives will have much more respect for an executive who is approachable and open-minded when it comes to feedback. Again a company is strongest with a strong and dedicated team, therefore the role of the executive is to create an environment that fosters that behavior.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women executives that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
I feel that women in executive positions and a position of power may be viewed negatively as opposed to men in executive or powerful positions. Men have been associated with power since the early days, so when a woman is in a position of power it can often have a negative connotation. Women may be seen as standoffish or unapproachable as they assert their power whereas men are expected to be powerful and bold and it more acceptable.
What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?
When I began in the public relations industry social media was not in existence so I always believed my focus would be working with journalists at newspapers and magazines primarily. However due to the onset and prevalence of social media, my work has shifted quite a bit to incorporate managing social media. Developing content on social media for clients is allowing me a direct line of communication to the customers of my clients as opposed to working with writers and editors. For this reason I need to adjust my messaging when working on social media versus working with writers on editorial.
Is everyone cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?
Not everyone is cut out to be an executive. As a leader not only must you employ the skills to lead a company, but you also must have compassion for each and every member of your team as you are responsible for fostering your team to succeed. All companies are built on the foundation of their staff and it is imperative that the team is dedicated and motivated to produce for the company. If one does not have the patience and compassion to work with team members on developing that dedication and drive to deliver results for your company, than they will likely struggle as an executive.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Love. It is so important to love who you are, what you do and who you work with to be successful. From being confident about who you have become and how you find success to loving the people on your team, it truly makes you a better leader. I feel it is so important to share successes of your team members and develop an environment where everyone is celebrated. It creates a much better work environment for all. We like to share wins of great placements for our clients amongst our staff and on our social media platforms.
- Dedication is a quality to seek in your team members. In order for your company to be successful you must have dedicated staff. They are the ones who are producing for you on a daily basis and in order for them to be dedicated they need to be appreciated. The more you appreciate them the more dedicated to deliver for your company they will be. For example we often hand out gift cards to our team members after a busy season as an extra added bonus.
- Patience is key! I tend to be an impatient person as I prefer to finish tasks and move on to the next task. However in my business not all of my clients are responding in a timely fashion or deliver the elements I need immediately. This used to cause me angst, however once I realized that as long as I executed the task within the deadline I could still be successful.
- Confidence generates success! The more confidence you have as a leader the more success you are bound to have. You must strike a balance between being overconfident and under confident, but once you assert confidence with a client you are often given more respect and therefore win more clients. I recall in a meeting a client asking if we could execute a task that we did not have a skill level in, however being that I wanted to win the account I asserted that we absolutely could execute the task and I knew that we could be resourceful to make it happen as it was not so far beyond our abilities.
- Balance in your life will lead to success. I always thought that the most successful business owners were the ones who dedicated all of their time to their work. However I have realized that it is important to balance work and life and the more you take time out for yourself the more productive you are when you are at work. I know there is always something I could be doing for work, but I also know it can wait. I prioritize making time for myself, my family and my friends to maintain that healthy balance.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Free college education for all. Many people are unable to attend college due to the exorbitant cost, thus less and less young people are able to further their education. If our country is able to foster more educated youths, the next generation will be afforded more opportunities for success in their lives.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them
I would love to sit down to a one on one conversation with Oprah. I believe that she is so inspiring coming from a very challenging background and becoming so incredibly successful in so many ways. She maintains integrity and humility in her role as a powerful woman and I would love to hear about all of her secrets to success.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Women Of The C-Suite: Nicole Castillo of WordHampton Public Relations On The Five Things You Need… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.