By Mark Macias
Remember the age of 9? It was so much fun to celebrate your birthday. You wanted the world to know that you were on the cusp of reaching greatness.
Next month, MACIAS PR will be celebrating 9 years of being in business. Personally, I’m so excited about this anniversary that I can’t even wait until June to announce it. I have to write about it today – a full two weeks and 3 days before the official anniversary.
It’s never fun getting a year older after the age of 30. I don’t even like celebrating my birthday anymore. But for my PR firm, I want to bring out the blow horns and balloons that announce we hit 9 years of being in business. It’s a long way from that lonely, small cubicle on 38th Street and Broadway where I launched this PR firm.
The Great Recession of 2009
Do you remember the Great Recession? The struggles were big for any new startup in 2009. I’ll never forget it because I launched this firm in the midst of that financial crisis. No one wanted PR and even fewer businesses wanted to speak with an unknown former TV guy who had never worked at a PR firm.
I wasn’t good at selling new business, but I had an advantage over every other publicist; I knew how to sell stories to the media.
At NBC and CBS, I pitched stories every day as both an Executive Producer and Senior Producer. Those NYC newsrooms were tough jungles to navigate, full of jaded journalists who wanted to find weakness in your story. They were eager to prove you wrong. I look back now and see how those newsrooms were a training ground for the founding of this PR firm.
Where MACIAS PR is Today
Today, journalists and media peers have recognized MACIAS PR for our media deliverables, expertise and strategy. Finance Monthly and ACQ5 Global Awards have named MACIAS PR the 2015, 2016 and 2017 PR Firm of the Year based on our media placements, expertise and innovation in PR.
Over the years, we’ve run media campaigns for clients in technology, healthcare, financial, tech, politics and the nonprofit sector. Despite the diversity of those industries, MACIAS PR has continually secured media stories with the biggest names in the media.
In this month alone, MACIAS PR got our digital health client in People Magazine and Men’s Health Magazine. We secured a TV segment for our nonprofit client in Houston. The Houston Chronicle is scheduled to run another article on that nonprofit client this week. ABC-TV in Philadelphia and Channel 7 in Boston are scheduled to run a TV segment on our consumer tech client. Channel 2 in Baltimore shot a TV segment on a different nonprofit client last week and says it will run this week. Channel 11 in NYC is scheduled to run a TV segment on that same nonprofit client any day now. Did I mention those media placements are only for the month of May?
I don’t say this to brag. Our clients are personal to me because I’ve struggled to build this PR firm from scratch. I know this business doesn’t exist unless we continually raise the profile of our clients via the media. I’m also grateful that our clients trust my judgment and strategy. It’s humbling when they say to me over the phone, “I trust you.”
MACIAS PR in the Future
MACIAS PR is not quite a teenager, and that’s a good thing. We’re not lazy or worried about how we look, like most teens. We just want to make our parents (and clients) proud.
If you want to hear what we can do for you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. (Hit the green button at the bottom of this screen). We’ll schedule a call and discuss how our team and my strategy will get your business on the news.
Finance Monthly and ACQ5 5 – an international industry award – named Macias PR the 2017 Strategic PR Firm of the Year, and PR Firm of the Year – USA. This was the third year in a row that Finance Monthly recognized our firm. The founder – Mark Macias – is a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. He is also a PR contributor with CNBC, providing media analysis, insight and crisis advice on timely business topics.