How This PR & Marketing Mogul is Expanding Her Impact and Achieving Her Wildest Dreams ft. Shafonne Myers
May 16, 2023“The world needs your brilliance, even if you think there are a million other people out there doing the same thing as you.”
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live a life you love running a PR agency and working with your dream clients? Our PR Pro Spotlight Series interviews our students and community members who have made the leap into PR and found huge success!
We’ll be covering all the juicy insider details, from their biggest challenges and favorite parts of the job to their best advice for aspiring PR pros.
Today, we’re sitting down with the amazing Shafonne Myers, Founder of Shafonne Myers Consulting! Shafonne is a media mogul who has mastered the wedding business…but adding PR services to her digital agency sent her on a major learning curve that seriously transformed her confidence!
Tell us a little about your business and niche!
I’m about all things weddings, events, coaching, and consulting! I founded the world’s only site for plus-size brides, Pretty Pear Bride, and am the CEO of Aisle Society, a network of over 25 wedding publications dedicated to creating an inspired new way to plan your wedding and showing the wedding industry that everyBODY is beautiful on their big day. (And of those 25 publications, I own eight and have a software, Matchology, that matches vendors with publications to increase their publicity and digital presence.)
On top of all that, I run Shafonne Myers Consulting! My mission is to help female entrepreneurs create their personal brands, curate authentic online content, and cultivate high-level relationships that take them from best-kept-secret entrepreneurs to sought-after empowered boss b*tch CEOs.
Lots of my clients are in the weddings & events industry, but I work with people from tons of niches. My PR services are all about personal representation: honing in on magnetic messaging, an iconic personal brand, stellar online content, and a killer offer ecosystem. From there, we amplify through media placements, brand deals, speaking engagements, and public appearances to generate more income, impact, and influence.
What were you doing before you became a PR pro?
Before becoming a PR pro, I was a wedding blogger and ran my media and digital marketing agency. It’s funny, though — I’ve kind of always done PR. We’ve had campaigns, we’ve executed strategies for other businesses, the whole nine yards. It just wasn’t officially PR!
Can you share some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a PR pro?
Honestly, my biggest challenge was just trying to figure it all out. Adding PR to my digital marketing agency has been a major learning curve. Even though I’ve been doing a version of PR with my media company, it’s a big shift to start doing PR the “real” way!
How did you find the Profitable PR Pros Community, and how long have you been a member?
I actually know Jen through a fellow mentor — I found her and all that she offers through the mentor’s group. I knew I wanted to work with someone who was a part of the PR world because we’ve been trained similarly. When I discovered Jen and her community, I knew I had to go all in!
I’ve been a member of The Pitch Lab, The Agency Accelerator, and Elevate for a little under a year and have loved it!
What’s your favorite part about being a member of the Profitable PR Pros community?
The people, for sure. There’s nothing like being around people who just get it. They know how it is and are working toward a common goal. Entrepreneurship can be so lonely sometimes, especially since so many of us work on our own, but finding a community of your people is invaluable.
When you have those down days where the placement fell through or the proposal didn’t go the way you’d hoped, you need a community to pull you out. And if you’re by yourself, flailing on your own, there’s no one around to help you. The people in this community are not afraid to do the work and improve their skills, but still lift up their peers along the way.
What inspired you to join our programs?
It was Jen herself! I knew that she would be the one to help me harness the true value of what I offer to my community. Plus, I wanted to make sure I was learning from the best, and Jen is definitely that!
Have our programs helped you experience positive transformations?
The Agency Accelerator in particular has really helped me grow over the past year. I came from a background of doing PR without knowing that that was what I was doing! Getting more formal training was a no-brainer once I added PR to my digital agency, and this community has been transformational for me.
I’ve gotten much more confident in my pitching and leadership skills since joining The Agency Accelerator. The program gave me the confidence to know that I have legit skills that move the needle for my clients. Before this, I felt like I was lacking the true PR skills that would help me build a successful agency and put my best foot forward in all things. I always say that competency builds confidence: when you feel knowledgeable and skilled, your confidence level will go through the roof because you actually know what you’re talking about!
Now that I’ve gone through The Agency Accelerator, new clients have started to come to me because they see the genuine PR skills I have and want me to help them in specific areas. I’m more in tune with what my clients want and what I’m best at — and I’m so confident about it because I’ve learned so much. The Agency Accelerator has helped me delegate, streamline, and fully step into my zone of genius.
What do you love MOST about the work you do and the clients you work with?
I love being able to expand the reach of my clients so they can have a bigger impact and get seen and heard in a noisy and oftentimes saturated market. That is my superpower: empowering people to show up as themselves (regardless of what anyone says or thinks), be seen, and sell the sh*t out of what they love to do! My clients all have the potential to be celebrity CEOs in their industries — it’s just about unlocking that and cultivating a brand that supports them.
With my media company, though, my true zone of genius is helping brides all over the world see the importance of feeling comfortable in their bodies and having the confidence to step into their true selves on their wedding day and beyond. We feature couples of all shapes and sizes, sexual orientations, genders, and ethnicities in our publications to inspire other brides. EveryBODY is beautiful!
What are some outlets you’ve secured features in for yourself and your clients?
I’ve landed features for myself and my clients in The New York Times, Brides, Business Insider, Medium, Popsugar, The NY Post, Thrive Global, and more!
What advice would you give to aspiring PR pros?
I have two pieces of advice. First: the world needs you! The world needs your brilliance, even if you think there are a million other people out there doing the same thing as you. They’re not doing it like you, so take the leap and just do it!
And secondly, you cannot be afraid to put yourself out there and forge relationships in your niche. When I built my agency, I was scared to build relationships with other media players and entrepreneurs. I just didn’t think I was worthy enough or skilled enough to form connections with people who were bigger than me or had more notoriety than I did. But I had to realize that, hey, these people are just people.
Relationships are the bread and butter of your business. Your media contacts will always go with someone they have a relationship with over someone who sent them a cold pitch! My business comes from my network: that’s where we find collaborators and trade information within our niche. Being scared of forming new connections will only hold you back from success.
We’re so grateful that Shafonne decided to share her story with us! We can all learn a lot from her confidence journey as she took her PR education into her own hands and expanded her business.
Check out Shafonne’s agency Shafonne Myers Consulting, and be sure to join the Profitable PR Pros community over on Facebook so that you can take advantage of all that this amazing community has to offer!