Why Smart Solopreneurs Are Using PR in 2026

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PR isn’t just for big brands with big budgets, and this episode proves it. In this conversation, PR experts Lydia Bagarozza & Bridget Sicsko, of Visibility on Purpose, break down exactly how solopreneurs can get featured in podcasts, publications, and major media without paying thousands or hiring an agency. 

They walk through a simple, repeatable PR framework that focuses on positioning, pitching, and consistency, plus why most solopreneurs are closer to press than they think.

You’ll also hear why authenticity beats polish, how PR compounds over time (even when social media doesn’t), and how earned media helps you show up in Google results, AI search tools, and real buying decisions. If you’ve ever thought “PR isn’t for me,” this episode will change your mind.

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Connect with Lydia Bagarozza & Bridget Sicsko

• Go to visibilityonpurpose.com
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Favorite Quote About Success:

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

"Dream big. Start small."

Episode FAQs

Is PR actually worth it for solopreneurs without big budgets?

Yes. PR is one of the most cost-effective long-term strategies for solopreneurs because it relies on earned media, not paid ads. You don’t need a publicist or a massive following, just clear positioning, a strong pitch, and consistent outreach. One good feature can keep working for your business for years. 

What do solopreneurs need before pitching themselves to media or podcasts?

Before pitching, solopreneurs should have their digital foundations in place: a professional website, clear messaging, up-to-date social profiles, and strong positioning that explains what makes them different. Media isn’t looking for perfection. They’re looking for clarity and relevance. 

Does PR help with SEO, AI search, or discoverability?

Yes. Earned media creates high-quality backlinks, credibility signals, and keyword relevance that help your business show up in Google and AI tools like ChatGPT. PR tells search engines (and AI) that you’re a trusted source, not just another website publishing content. 

Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. 

So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, click here to check out LifeStarr Intro!  

About Visibility On Purpose, Lydia Bagarozza & Bridget Sicsko

Visibility on Purpose is the go-to PR and media training school for product-based brands ready to be seen, featured, and remembered.

Founded in 2023 by publicist Lydia Bagarozza and speaker and brand strategist Bridget Aileen Sicsko, Visibility on Purpose specializes in helping emerging CPG, food, beverage, and lifestyle brands earn the media attention they deserve—without hiring a $5K-per-month agency.

Their signature DIY PR programs teach founders how to land press features in top-tier outlets such as Forbes, Fortune, mindbodygreen, Bustle, AskMen, Medium, and major podcasts, while building brand awareness that drives retail partnerships, organic growth, and consumer trust.

Students of Visibility on Purpose have been featured in major media outlets including Time Magazine, Yahoo, Fortune, mindbodygreen, Bustle, SheFinds, AskMen, Medium, and top podcasts.

Individually, Lydia Bagarozza is responsible for more than 4,000 pieces of press and has spearheaded campaigns for some of the world’s leading brands sold at major retailers such as Ulta, Target, Amazon, and Whole Foods.

Bridget Aileen Sicsko is a dynamic speaker and former publisher who has inspired audiences across the U.S. and Europe on the power of brand voice, founder-led visibility, and human-first storytelling. She is known for turning product founders into standout spokespeople for their brands.

Visibility on Purpose exists to revolutionize how small-but-mighty brands get seen in the media—because PR shouldn’t be reserved for corporations and legacy brands.

Whether launching a new SKU, entering retail, or preparing for the next round of funding, these brands deserve to show up like names people recognize, trust, and talk about.

EpisodeTranscript

Carly Ries: If you've ever thought PR is one for celebrities, giant brands, or people with a bottomless budget, well, think again. In this week's episode, we sit down with Lidia Bagarozza and Bridget Sicsko, two PR pros who've proved that solopreneurs not only can get featured in major media, but can do it without a team, without a huge spend, and without pretending to be anyone other than themselves. From TJ Maxx commercials to authenticity that actually drives visibility, they break down the mental blocks, the misconceptions, and the exact steps solopreneurs can take to start landing coverage, plus how PR boosts SEO, AI search, and long term credibility in ways social media simply can't. So if you're ready to stop waiting to be big enough for PR and start shooting your shot, this is the episode that will finally make it feel doable. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving.

I'm Carly Ries, and along with my cohost Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one. As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things solopreneurship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work. If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you. But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone.

No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back. Lydia, Bridget, I don't know if you're like me, but you know when you're writing emails to strangers and immediately you're like, I don't like these people or we'll see how this goes. With you two, I was like, oh, I feel like we speak the same language. This is gonna be a really fun interview, because I wanna be friends with them. So Welcome

Bridget Sicsko: Thank You. Good energy.

Carly Ries: Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, which Joe, get your notepad ready for this one. We wanna ask you our icebreaker questions, and you guys are gonna answer both of them, which I'm so excited about. And Bridget, let's start with you. What is the wildest thing that's happened to you as an entrepreneur?

Bridget Sicsko: Okay. This is like a dream come true for me. So I'm a big Marshall's TJ Maxx girl. You can catch me hitting up those aisles quite frequently every season. And I actually saw a call out for a commercial for TJ Maxx.

And said, you know what? I'm gonna shoot my shot. And at this point, I have been in the publicity and PR space and publishing space for last five plus years. And I was like, I know how to write a pitch and I know how to present myself. So I did a video interview, presented myself as why I love TJ Maxx and how that's how I spend a good Friday night and they picked me for the commercial.

So I got in my first TJ Maxx commercial. It was a dream come true and I would say that that is one of the coolest things I've done as an entrepreneur.

Carly Ries: You get discounts for life.

Bridget Sicsko: I wish. I was paid though, which was very cool.

Carly Ries: And then did you use that paycheck to go shopping at TJ Maxx?

Bridget Sicsko: Exactly.

Joe Rando: To work for free.

Lydia Bagarozza: For mkonths, that commercial was getting fed to me on Instagram and TikTok, and I kept recording it and sending to her or forwarding it. I'm like, Bridget, there you are. She's like, wow, I had no idea it was still on there. They were still promoting it. So yeah, you might see Bridget on the internet.

Carly Ries: Well, I'll definitely be YouTubing or searching for that. okay. So now on to the next question. Lydia, you are going to take what you wish you'd known before becoming an entrepreneur.

Lydia Bagarozza: Yeah. I think both of our answers for these kind of set the stage for this conversation. But, I wish that I understood the value of being yourself and authenticity. I think once I allowed myself to fully just be who I am and allow that to bleed through, I guess for lack of a better term, my brand, our brand, visibility on purpose, things started really falling into place. The right clients started coming to me, to us.

And so I think authenticity is something that, I think a lot of us, we see other people being famous or doing it big and we think, I need to be like them, but really we just need to be ourselves.

Carly Ries: I love it. You guys are a great way to kick off the show.

It's like you're PR experts or something. So in case the audience didn't pick up on what we're talking about today, it is PR and PR specifically for solopreneurs. So I wanna ask you, a lot of solopreneurs think the PR, like you were saying, is only for big brands with deep pockets, which solopreneurs don't always have. What are some other misconceptions you'd love to clear up about what it actually takes to get featured in these major media outlets like TJ Maxx?

Bridget Sicsko: Yeah. You don't need to be a celebrity. You don't need to be famous. You do need to have value and bring that to the table. And we can like talk about how we can unpack that in the episode.

But so many small business owners, especially if you're a solopreneur, it's really a mental reason that you haven't got impressed yet because you've never reached out. And that's all it takes. It takes a reach out. It takes an ask just like everything in business. And you're likely, if you're a business owner, you've had to make some asks before.

You just haven't really thought about it in terms of public relations. But we really do like to demystify it and really open the access to a solopreneur or a small business owner because you do not need to be famous. You don't need to have deep pockets. I'm a testament to this myself, Lydia as well. And there are just so many ways that you can get featured and you don't need to have representation.

It can just be you.

Carly Ries: You guys, we were just talking about a quote about success and you basically just said you miss a 100% of the shots you don't take.

Bridget Sicsko: There you go. Just have it. We have it. We don't even need to ask that question at the end, but I still will just in case you have another one. Well, so you were saying let's talk about how people do this. So what's a simple four step process, let's say, to get featured on Media Giants? is there a framework that you can walk us through?

Lydia Bagarozza: Yeah. We do have a framework and we can dive into each piece if you want. But just really simple. Number one is you wanna have your foundations on lock. So we want to make sure that our brand website is up.

It's professional. We wanna make sure we have headshots. I always recommend some lifestyle shots because they're fun. So maybe it's you working on a computer or something like that versus the traditional headshot. We wanna make sure that our social pages are also professional.

So if you, want to be this big solopreneur and your social page just looks like you with your dog or your family or your friends, it might be confusing to others of what you do. so it's really just creating what Bridget likes to call digital real estate. It's owning your own digital real estate, making sure that online everything is professional. Now, number two is you want to really think about your brand differentiators. This is positioning.

I don't know if positioning is familiar to everybody, but basically brand positioning is where does your business live in the market, for example. So if I am a dietitian nutritionist, why am I different from other dietitian nutritionist? What do I do that is different? It might be lots of things. It might be, you have an association with a celebrity.

It might be that you have a very unique process that people don't use. It might be that you, have a really fun personality that's really different from other dietitian nutritionists. And so there are a lot of different factors that we wanna look at. It's what makes you unique, authentic, and different because that's what's gonna set you apart. Then step three is actually writing your pitch.

Your pitch is how you reach out to the media to get featured. Now to define the media, really it could be editorial, so digital magazines. It could be a podcast like this. It could be radio. It could be, what else is media?

Really, that's kind of it. I would focus on those. So it's reaching out with your pitch that ask of, hey, this is how I provide value. I would like to get featured here. And so what Bridget was talking about, it's shooting her shot.

I think it's so funny that she was talking about shooting her shot with Marshalls because that's kind of what you do when you start pitching yourself to the media. It's providing value and shooting your shot and you miss a 100% of the what is it? The shots that you don't take?

Bridget Sicsko: Shots you don't take.

Lydia Bagarozza: The shots you don't take. So putting yourself out there. And I think when a lot of people put themselves out there get they get very shocked by the results. And of course, because we all started businesses for a reason and we all have value to share. And then the last one is consistency.

Carly Ries: What do you think about, before we move on to number four? So in terms of crafting your pitch, I'm assuming a lot of people are using ChatGPT for this now to help them really figure out how to do that. So do you have any recommendations on I mean, if everybody's using that same ChatGPT kind of format, how can you get your pitch? I mean, I know you didn't shoot yourself, but you know what I'm saying? Like, if you're using that in a templated format.

Lydia Bagarozza: So with ChatGPT, it only outputs what you put in. So I will say that. If you say, we can keep using this example as a dietitian nutritionist because it's just easy to use. So say I wanna get featured on Oprah and I'm a dietitian nutritionist. I help people eat healthier.

Write me a media pitch. It's gonna come up with something really boring most likely. And so that's what ends up happening. And it's like, what do we want to add into our pitches?

It's really what makes you timely, newsworthy, relevant. We can talk about that. Bridget loves to say like timely, newsworthy, relevant and interesting. And then also those differentiation pieces. I will say you can use chatGPT to help you with grammatical things or maybe to streamline a point.

But I wouldn't heavily rely on it because I don't think it understands the importance of connecting to a brand and, that relatability. That's a human thing. It's like if I am connecting with a dietitian nutritionist, why do I like them? Maybe I'm gonna list out a lot of different things like their process.

Maybe I really like their personality. those are the things that we want to articulate in a pitch. And so we like to, we do have a DIY course that like goes into that if you're interested. We also can help you write pitches. We have, offers and things for that.

But if you're doing this yourself, I would highly recommend using ChatGPT. it's almost like an editing tool and talking with it. That could be very helpful versus having it just write something for you because nine out of 10 it's not gonna be good.

Carly Ries: Thank you for clarifying. Because I just feel like a lot people are going in that direction. Okay. Number four, I cut you off.

Lydia Bagarozza: Oh, no problem. And then number four is consistency. We were just talking about this earlier actually, but a lot of business owners, especially solo entrepreneurs, will put a lot of weight into social media and we get it. I mean, everyone should start somewhere. Social media is your warm audience.

It's where you should definitely be. we like to think a bit about it as more of your like digital business card because if I'm gonna vet a company, I'm gonna go check out their Instagram, their social media, and I wanna see what's on there. But in terms of battling the algorithm, even like top social media people don't know how to go viral. It's kind of random.

There are a lot of different reasons for it. And so I say all of this to say, we spend a lot of time in social media and I think some of that time for solo entrepreneurs specifically can be allocated one to two hours a week and just being consistent with reaching out and doing that PR strategy that's really gonna help get results and get, help with searchability, earn links for our businesses, and all of those fun things.

Carly Ries: Love the framework. I wanna circle back a little bit about the positioning piece of all of this. are there other best practices or concrete best practices that would attract media to you from a positioning standpoint?

Bridget Sicsko: I think at that point, well, you know, let's step back. Press compounds. So when you begin to secure press coverage for your brand, say you're a dietitian nutritionist, and say you start getting on some podcasts. Okay. So you're building some momentum.

You're starting to build a name for yourself. You are featured in PopSugar or you're featured in Mind Body Green. You're providing some commentary on you know, the latest favorite matcha. We'll say that that's what the article is about. And now you're starting to get some highly traffic links that you can link to your website from Mindbody Green.

And all this is gonna continue to compound. And we like to say that it really needs to start with you doing the outreach first, especially if you're a small business owner or solopreneur who doesn't have the big name yet. But once you start to generate the press, once you start to do that outreach, then you might start to get those inbound inquiries. And, you know, we're a testament of that ourselves. We've pitched many many shows, podcasts.

We've also pitched ourselves in the media and have secured placements for our own business. And we also have most recently started getting pitched by, big PR platforms to be on our show. So that's how it can kind of work. But I do recommend you have to start the outreach first to then have the media come to you, if that makes sense.

Lydia Bagarozza: Yeah. And then as far as positioning, what we would recommend, it's going back to those differentiation pieces, those authenticity pieces. There are lots of different things that set you apart from other businesses. So I think what a lot of entrepreneurs fall into is the very boring, you know, I help statement or that elevator pitch where if you can take your name out and put another business in and it makes sense, it's not a good positioning. So what we really wanna do is think about how do we articulate positioning is kinda like the elevator pitch. it's like how do we articulate our business in the best way where if I were to swap it with yours Carly, and we were in the same industry, somebody would say, wait, that's Lydia's business, not Carly's. And so that's kind of how we want to think about positioning. It's putting ourselves in a niche of our own.

Joe Rando: Do you think it's okay for people to do that by defining who they serve? You were talking about a nutritionist. So, if I said, I'm a nutritionist. I help men 60 eat healthy diets that make sense for older people. That would be weird if that was switched over to one of you two.

Or you, Carly.

Lydia Bagarozza: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you were already perfectly defining some of those areas. You said 60, so that's a specific, specific oh my god. I can't say it.

Bridget Sicsko: Specificity maybe?

Lydia Bagarozza: Thank you. Thank you. That's it. Little wink here and there. But yes, over 60, you are already defining what it is that you do.

And I think a lot of entrepreneurs can also get nervous about this and say, well, I don't wanna put myself in a box. But everybody's so unique. And so it's not about putting yourself in a box. It's actually just about highlighting what it is that you do in the best way possible.

And then those differentiators about yourself. So you're not putting yourself in a box, you're actually just highlighting what it is that already makes you unique, and then you naturally put yourself in that box.

Joe Rando: you know, I've never thought about it that way before with the box. I like the analogy because you're not putting yourself in a box, you're putting your customers in a box so you can get access to them.

Carly Ries: Oh, I love that. I'm gonna use that. So you guys are obviously very knowledgeable on all these topics. And we might have listeners listening and being like, oh, I wish I could hire Lydia and Bridget. I don't know what my budget looks like.

I feel like I need to try in house first. I know you guys have like a DIY package, but for solopreneurs who do wanna test it out themselves first, how can they realistically do that? Save money while still making an impact. And also knowing that they're solopreneurs, so they're wearing all the hats and can't spend all their time on PR.

Lydia Bagarozza: Yeah. So our mission is making this so accessible. my background is I've been in PR for over ten years. Bridget also has been in many different industries, but all related to marketing and PR where we've been working with businesses that, come with big budgets. But one of the things that used to get us frustrated is we don't think that this should be gate kept.

This information should not be gate kept. Anybody can be in the media. So, how do we do that? So it's teaching them how to do it themselves. We have offers that are super low cost. we have one that is a, strategy session that you can get with us for $2.97, where we can talk.

Sometimes you just wanna talk to an expert, tell you what you need to work on, what it looks like for you. I think a lot of PR campaigns, for lack of a better term, or PR strategies are really personalized. So do we want to be in podcasts? Do we want to be in a digital magazine?

Digital magazines? Do we want to, you know, shoot for the stars and maybe get our own like TV show? I've heard it all. And I think what we really wanna think about is, let's think about the top goals for our business and reverse engineer the strategy backwards.

And with PR, it's about doing the little things that compound over time. We never tell somebody, you know, you get a big feature and you're gonna go viral tomorrow. That's just not how PR works. Sometimes it does, but for the most part, it's about earning press coverage here, press coverage there. Maybe for us, it's about getting on this podcast, getting on another podcast, and allowing those pieces to compound over time where we can then go to the bigger shows and say like, hey, we've been on x y and z.

We'd love to be on your show. There's FOMO. There's real FOMO that comes into that. Right? And so thinking about this as a long term strategy. And when I mean long term, I don't mean it's gonna take a hundred years. I just mean it's not going to be maybe tomorrow.

Carly Ries: So PR builds credibility. It boosts visibility. How exactly does it work for these placements? How does it impact SEO, backlinks, and even AEO or AI search now?

Did say wrong again, Joe? Did I say wrong again?

Joe Rando: No. No. I just thought you were gonna start singing Old MacDonald.

Carly Ries: I can do that too.

Joe Rando: AI e I o.

Lydia Bagarozza: I Know, everything is like an acronym now. It's like the LLM, the this, the that, the AI. So with PR, I wanna switch the mindset of social media. And I don't mean to be like, oh my god, social media sucks because I love social media. I'm on it every single day.

But I think when it comes to building a brand, that's not the only place we should be. So when it comes to business growth and thinking about what's going to help propel our business or brand awareness, we wanna start thinking about things like SEO. That's search engine optimization. So that helps inform Google that we are a credible business, a source, we exist, and then it puts our business up on the search, right, so people can find us naturally and organically. If I'm typing in, the best lip glosses, I bet you MAC Cosmetics will come up.

Why? Because they're in the media everywhere. And so that will come up naturally right away. That's the goal that we want for all of our businesses.

So, when we're starting to think about business growth, I really want us to think about what's going to move the needle in terms of SEO friendly. So getting on podcasts, you're creating links for the internet. There are keywords. Those things inform Google. They inform chat GBTs. Same thing with getting featured in the media. If I'm a dietitian nutritionist and Oprah Daily is writing a story about, the best, healthy options for Thanksgiving and I get featured on that, that name, that link is going to now inform Google, hey, this person is a viable source and you're going to start showing up more on Google. So if I type in like, best dietitian nutritionist, eventually we want your business to show up.

And so thinking about what is SEO friendly, building those links and having those links compound over time, that's going to help us be searchable. Now when we think about chat gbt, it populates a little bit differently. Google populates where it's looking for credible links. Actually any paid to play, we're talking about organic press meaning that you're, getting featured for free. When paid to play is when you for an advertisement, maybe in a magazine or something like that.

Those links do not inform Google like an organic link. There are actually some things on the back end. And so we're thinking about organic links. ChatGPT operates more through what is the perfect answer.

So when we're thinking about the perfect answer, it's going to populate from these links from earned media, which is the number one place that ChatGPT pulls from, and also answering a question. So if you have a website and you don't have anything on your blog section or you're not owning your own narrative on your website, we highly recommend doing that too because it's just going to help.

Carly Ries: Yeah. These are so helpful. I feel like everything is just constantly changing and you seem to really be on top of these trends. Well, PR should not be in a vacuum. Like, it can be, but ideally be a part of an overall brand strategy.

So how would you recommend a solopreneur incorporate PR into all of their marketing efforts?

Bridget Sicsko: Yeah. It really should be part of everything they do. Just like you're writing your copy for your emails, just like you're posting on socials, just like you're engaging with clients, PR is another avenue for you to reach the people that you're meant to reach. So it's really part of that overall brand strategy.

And like we've mentioned, one to two hours a week is really all that you need to put toward this. Thinking about, okay, where should I be featured? Do I wanna be on podcasts? Like what makes the most sense for your brand and your business? And then doing that outreach or using platforms like Quoted or Featured, there's a lot out there that actually connects the media to you, which is a great avenue for solopreneurs as well because it makes it a little bit easier.

So it's not a vacuum. It's not the only thing that you do for your brand. But I will say, I wouldn't say this is exciting for most business owners. This is a long term strategy. Like we're not talking about overnight success here.

We're not talking about overnight virality. And this is almost like the anti virality culture, which is PR. Which is something that you do just for the long term to start to build those wins for your brand to to get those links, the backlinks so that your website is more found and and more searched and to build the credibility and build the trust for your brand. So it's not a vacuum. It's really part of the ecosystem of how you interact with your customers and, the public at large.

Joe Rando: Is it fair to say that going viral doesn't usually do a lot of good for a business? Would you say that that's the case?

Bridget Sicsko: I mean, we can definitely get into that.

Joe Rando: Well, I don't wanna go into detail, but I mean, just it seems like a lot of people said, oh, I went viral, but then crickets.

Lydia Bagarozza: I have a lot of mixed feelings about virality. Because if your business has the foundations in place and say you go viral later, it could really be helpful. But if you go viral, in your niche, I think a lot of virality too doesn't really matter. Sometimes people are just doing trends that aren't related to their business and then it's just like, okay, you have these people following you that aren't going to convert. Or sometimes you, go viral and then you don't have the infrastructure to support it.

So I think it can really depend on the situation. if the business foundations are in place and they go viral later and they have infrastructure to, support it, this can be very helpful for them. But if they're going viral for, I don't know, let's say the dietitian nutritionist, we're gonna just stay on this. Say they go viral for something about, I don't know,

Joe Rando: Their dog.

Carly Ries: Thank you.

Lydia Bagarozza: That's perfect. Not related. They go viral for their dog being cute and then they have all these dog people that are coming to their page and following them for more things on their dog, but it's not actually supporting the dietitian nutritionist. This is where the audience gets confused. So I think there's a lot of mixed feelings about this.

I think if it's aligned, it can be a good thing. But if it's not perfectly aligned, it can potentially be harmful.

Joe Rando: Awesome. Thank you.

Carly Ries: Well, speaking of the long term play that we were talking about, that's also a good thing from like an exposure standpoint. So if you were to get featured in like Forbes or Entrepreneur, that can continue to open doors for years to come. Right? Like it's just the gift that keeps on giving.

Lydia Bagarozza: I love this question or statement because it really is the gift that keeps on giving. We joke around all the time PR is the gift. So PR compounds over time. Meaning that say we get on Forbes, for example, then we, go to a networking event and we tell people, oh yeah, I'm Forbes featured x y and z. Number one, people's ears are going to perk up.

Right? Because they're hearing that association. So they're immediately going to trust you because they trust Forbes. And number two, they are probably likely going to want to follow-up with you.

And it kind of gives you access to a new high profile network. That's what we like to call it. So I think PR is great in earning those logos, for example. you can say you're featured on Forbes. You can say you're featured on entrepreneur, but also it's giving you access to potentially people that, wouldn't give you the time of day, but maybe they just wouldn't see the value yet, but it's that association piece that's going to help unlock something.

I think also podcasts, even if we say for example, we get on a big podcast and we're talking to that host, that host is most likely a business owner. And probably in our niche or something that is complimentary to our business. So a lot of the times what'll end up happening with our clients is they'll get on a podcast and then afterwards, they'll send us a voice note or something and say like, wow, this is so amazing. We ended up connecting with them and now I'm gonna be in their event that they're hosting in a few weeks and we're doing this together and we're doing that. so it's kind of those connection pieces that happen on the back end too that are going to be really supportive in helping our business for the long term.

Joe Rando: I gotta ask a question on this. So talking about Forbes, I don't know about entrepreneur, but doesn't Forbes have a pay to play angle? And I've heard it's bad news to get involved with that. That then you become kind of persona non grata to more traditional press.

Lydia Bagarozza: Yeah. I'm not sure about bad news, but what I will say is you do not need to pay to be on Forbes. Every single magazine has a paid option. They have an advertising team and they have a sales team.

Joe Rando: the one where you pay to be on a council or

Bridget Sicsko: It's counsel. Forbes council.

Joe Rando: Yeah. it looks like it's legit, but it's not. And then I hear that once you're there, other publications kinda look askance at you.

Lydia Bagarozza: Bridget, do you know anything about this?

Bridget Sicsko: I actually don't, but I think this just goes to the overall organic is the best. And what we always say is, paying for press is fine if that's part of your strategy, but that's an advertisement. That's not earned press. So just knowing that and going in with, that understanding I think is important, but I'm actually not entirely sure if you're excommunicated if you're on Forbes Council.

Carly Ries: Well, guys, thank you so much for making PR so approachable. We ask every guest this question. You guys, you know what's coming. Are we gonna use the, you miss a 100% of the shots you don't take or do you have another quote about success that you want to share?

Lydia Bagarozza: I have one.

Bridget Sicsko: I know what it is. It's dream big, start small. You know, I think this goes for everything in, my life, Lydia's personal life too. It's shoot for the stars but break it down into small little pieces and really celebrate all of those small successes because that is what's gonna get you to where you wanna go.

Carly Ries: Love it. Lydia, do wanna add one or are you good with where we are?

Lydia Bagarozza: I am so good with that. I'm like, okay, Bridget.

Carly Ries: Mic drop. We're good. Well, ladies, where could people find you if they wanna learn more about your business?

Bridget Sicsko: Sure. We're Everything Visibility on Purpose all over the internet. So you can type that in and find us. Do we have anything special, Lydia?

Lydia Bagarozza: I would say our YouTube is a great place to start in terms of connection. We love our community over there. And every single week we show up sharing tips. We do podcast interviews and things. So it's a fun place to connect with us.

Carly Ries: Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, please share this episode with a friend. Leave us a five star review. It helps us spread the word to other solopreneurs.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube, and we'll see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs.

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