Meet Liz H. Kelly | Goody PR CEO/Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Liz H. Kelly and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Liz H., is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
As Goody PR approaches the 15-year anniversary of our public relations agency, the top 3 most important factors behind our success have been being resilient, creative and consistent with follow-through. Our brand is “Goody PR…Let us Magnify Your Good”, but it’s been the ability to keep going with a positive attitude despite push backs that’s helped us build a solid Portfolio of client media interviews and results.

Even though we get told “no, I am not interested” or “not now” by reporters every day, we keep looking for the unique “Wow Story” with a timely media hook to attract more positive press for clients. Examples of our client media interviews include national press (TODAY Show, CNN, TIME, WebMD, The Washington Post, CBS News Radio) and local coverage (many TV interviews across the U.S., business journals, bloggers, talk radio, top podcasts, videos and more).

As an example of not giving up, we were relentless in pitching a client’s story to Pioneer PBS in Minnesota. After almost two years, a 20-minute story aired that honored our client’s work and WWII book. And then six months later, the producers won an Upper Midwest Emmy(R) Award for the piece. We were fortunate to attend this Regional Emmy(R) Awards ceremony in Minneapolis, thank the producers in person, and celebrate with the co-authors. For every step of this PR journey, our mantra was “be patient, persistent and never desperate” with everyone involved.

And as an extension of our Goody PR brand that “magnifies good”, we started the Annual Goody Business Book Awards to “Uplift Author Voices”. The program recognizes authors who are making a difference with words in 50 categories. Authors, Publicists, Agents and Fans can nominate books published within five years. Fortunately, it was recognized as a Top 8 Business Book Awards program by Write Business Results last year. And we’re fortunate to have our Honorary Board of Advisors who are marketing, public relations and media professionals.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We got into PR after writing our own book, hiring two Publicists, going to a lot of book marketing workshops, meeting great mentors, and getting 500+ media interviews over five years. When we got laid off from myspace in 2008, we decided to use our PR skills and made the bold move to start our own agency. One of the things that sets Goody PR apart is that we only take 5 VIP Clients at a time, so we are laser-focused versus a big agency where representatives tend to have too many clients.

Our clients are primarily successful small business owners, CEOs, CMOs, authors, and thought leader experts in the finance, health, entrepreneur, entertainment and lifestyle industries. And while our primary service is Public Relations, we also offer Digital Marketing, Website Development and Branding Services. If you have a brand or business to promote, we’re happy to schedule a free introductory call to talk about how we may be able to help you get positive publicity.

What we’re most proud of today is our recent American Paper Optics / Eclipse Glasses Public Relations Campaign that produced off-the-charts results for the client in a very short timeframe of 8.5 months – which included 54 TV interviews on ALL major networks and top shows (TODAY Show, ABC World News, CBS Saturday Morning, NewsNation, FOX Weather), 39 Print stories (People Magazine, Forbes), 8 Radio/Podcast interviews (NPR) and 82 Videos. As a result, the positive press contributed to the client meeting their overall business goal to sell 75 million eclipse glasses for two eclipses (October 2023 and April 2024).

To ensure success, we regularly collaborated with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and digital marketing team, developed ten unique media hooks, pitched national media and local reporters, and provided Media Coaching for five key spokespeople. We spent hours researching reporters who would be most be interested in sharing eclipse stories. And similar to all client engagements, we embraced the topic, learned as much as possible, developed innovative story ideas, and used our PR skills and tools to make this campaign timely, relevant – and go viral.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If our best friend was visiting Los Angeles for a week, we’d take them on a tour with an entertainment theme from Hollywood to Malibu. We’d definitely visit the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard to see the historic handprints/footprints of celebrities, and then walk over to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel where they held the first Academy Awards in 1929. A concert at The Hollywood Bowl and/or The Hollywood Forever Cemetery movie nights with a picnic would be other fun options. On another day, we’d drive up the Pacific Coast Highway for brunch at Malibu Farms on the Malibu Pier or enjoy lunch outside at Tra di Noi (Italian restaurant at Cross Creek). For dinner, we’d drive through the Santa Monica Mountains to The Old Place on Mulholland Drive in Cornell (don’t tell anyone about this hidden gem). And then we’d stop to take sunset photos on the way back to our home base in Santa Monica.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Success is a team sport. We’d like to send a special shoutout to the 8 Rich Dad Advisors, who are all small business CEOs who gave us guidance about how to build business when we first got started. They gave us high-fives, invaluable resources, and hired us for different PR projects…over the past 15 years.

We’d also like to give shoutouts to the many mentors and public relations professionals who continue to offer their insights, help us brainstorm ideas, and give us honest feedback, including Wendy Guarisco, Tara Coomans, Susan Bejeckian, Ann Flower, Grayce McCormick, Diana Daniele, Liz Dubelman, Vanessa Colosio-Brennan, Mary Russo Rau, Beth Okeon, Winston Bromley, P.K. Daniel and more.

Website: https://goodypr.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lizhkelly

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizhkelly/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lizhkelly

Facebook: https://facebook.com/goodypr

Youtube: https://youtube.com/goodypr

Other: https://goodybusinessbookawards.com

Image Credits
We own/ took all of these images – You can say -> Image provided by Goody PR