Telling Climate with Eric Fischgrund, Founder & CEO @ FischTank PR

Oh yeah. Today on the show we have Eric Fish Grund. He is uh also local to Philly just like I am and uh a part of uh the clean tech community here. He runs a PR firm. Well, I shouldn't say that. I learned during the episode PR is actually separate from media relations.

Uh but anyway, he runs an agency that helps uh com uh companies in the clean tech sector uh tell their stories. uh he's been doing it um for around 15 years and uh we talk a lot about uh you like I just mentioned PR versus media relations versus marketing very uh tactical um business things to be able

to understand uh and then what it means to the clean tech sector this particular uh arm of business and um his perspective on how the space has developed over uh the last 10 or 15 years in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey um and New York areas. So, very interesting uh informative conversation. Thank you

as always to the Thank you as always to the sponsors, Clean Techch Growth Lab. If you're looking to grow in clean tech, they are the people to find and work with. and the producers of this podcast, Craze and Friends. They're also amazing people.

And with that, I give you Eric. Oh, here we are. Thank you to the sponsors mentioned just before we hit record. Without them, would not be possible to interview awesome people doing awesome things like Eric. Welcome. Thanks, Blake. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me today.

Oh, yeah. I know this is misleading. We're digital, blah blah blah. But me and Eric are actually located very close to each other uh in the Philadelphia area. So, you'll be seeing us in person chatting it up. But I couldn't wait. I really want I have some questions. I want to learn more about Eric's story.

So, I'm excited for all of us to do this. Eric, for people that don't know yet, uh if you could tell a bit about who you are and what you're building. Absolutely. Um and yeah, thanks again for having me, Blake. And so we can plug it. Of course, real quick, Blake and I

met at uh uh founders, funders, and fans, uh Philly, uh Philly Climate Networking Group. Um that is steadily picking up momentum and has had some really nice turnouts uh lately. And our next event, I believe, is March uh March 10th. So hopefully we'll uh circulate a link uh when this publishes.

Thank you. Thank you. Um my name is Eric Fishbrun. I'm the founder and CEO of Fishtank PR. Uh we're a media relations and corporate communications firm that specializes in the climate tech, renewables, sustainability, decarbonization, uh energy technology, uh you know, really whatever um category or name I should say, uh you want to give it uh

makes up about 80% of Fish Tank's business. Uh we just celebrated our 12th anniversary, so we are in year number 13. Um personally uh I got started in the uh climate techch renewables sector of course when we were calling it green tech and alternative uh alternative energy. This was in 2008. I was with a

small firm in Hackinack and they had a couple of uh solar clients and hydrogen clients. This is of course very you know very early days of the category. Um, you know, while I uh I'm no, you know, uh Davy Crockett or uh uh Daniel Boone out style outdoorsman, I am certainly someone who loves to be outside. I love

hiking, uh fishing, camping, um really anything that's outside. And so when I saw the opportunity to work on something that at least at the time was being positioned as environmental, uh I I took the opport I said yes. Um and uh you know without knowing of course that it would become a uh rapidly

growing industry category. Uh so in ' 0809 2010 in the first half of 2011 I was uh you know sort of immersing myself in all things uh climate tech and renewable energy. Um uh I loved the subject matter so I just kept taking on more of it. I went in-house uh for a

couple of years. Uh for anyone who's not in the PR or the agency world, that just means uh leaving an agency and then going to work inhouse. So for a company, I went in-house for a couple of years.

Um loved that job very much. Uh but uh started putting together a little bit of a side hustle and in late 2013 saw the opportunity to um to start a at the time a freelance practice. Um, you know, that was the early days of Fish Tank PR. No, um, you know, no no

business plan, no real vision besides, uh, continuing to put food on the table. Did you did you always see yourself as a founder? Was it always something you ended up wanting to do? Start a company? Absolutely. Um, absolutely. I um I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I'll be the first to

admit that. Um, but I am very entrepreneurial. Uh, I had my first job when I was 10 years old. Uh, walking down to a local farmers market and taking trash out for the vendors and carrying um groceries for out to the car for the for the elderly or for those that are that were unable to do so for

themselves. Uh, I would work six, seven, eight hour days and make 20 or 25 bucks. But in 1994 and 1995, that was a lot of money because after two or three Saturdays, I could buy my own video games. And I was the, you know, really the only 10-year-old uh who could say that. So, um, yes, I did want to, I've

always wanted to start a company. Um, I've had a number of side hustles over the years. fish tank just turned into um you know the most uh feasible I should say uh from a uh from a lifestyle standpoint.

So when you first started you you described it as a a freelance gig. So uh what first of all what what makes it what is the definition to you of a freelance gig versus transitioning into the next phase of what fish fish tank became? Sure. So, well, you know, I was a W2 employee still of the uh position I

where I was in-house. Um, so, you know, I don't think you can truly have your own thing if you're employed by someone else or or truly have your own, you know, full-time thing. Certainly, if you're working full-time for somebody else. Um, I had three uh three side hustles again, so to speak. Um, one was a solar company in

New Jersey. Another was a uh hydrogen technology company. So, two, you know, clean climate tech or energy tech uh companies right out of the gate. And then the third was more of a warehousing and fulfillment um tech platform. Uh so um I would say that the when I put in my notice at the in-house position

uh you know the first first or 15th that comes and goes and you don't get a regular paycheck that is when you're really on your own. Um you know that was the hardest part for me to get used to.

I had was used to a steady paycheck. Uh very fortunate um you know from when I graduated college in in '06 uh until that day in early 2014. Sure. Um I was used to a steady paycheck and then it's gone. Uh so that to me was the you know at that point I was all in.

Um and so I really doubled down on expanding my network and finding new clients. At what point at what point did it turn uh from just you to uh you and one other person or you and two other people? I don't know. You know what what was what was the first milestone um

where you navigated doing it outside of just yourself? That's a great question. Um I would say two things happened. One, I posted on LinkedIn in probably January or February of 2014. I had just actually named the agency Fish Tank or the my practice Fish Tank and I posted on LinkedIn about it which um and Facebook. Uh Facebook at

the time uh at least for me who no longer has it but at the time was a much more uh common tool uh business tool. Um, I posted on both and um, someone in my network from my first agency stint randomly reached out and made an introduction to uh, I believe his father

who was with an angel investing firm and um, that either LinkedIn or Facebook post. I think it added two or three clients in about two or three weeks. Wow. Um, yes, very fortunate and it's one of the reasons why I tell a lot of uh young professionals and certainly my own employees, always be adding on LinkedIn. Um, I'm

not saying necessarily use it aggressively, but it is a networking tool. It's okay to cold connect with somebody, you know, send them a message. We can talk about, you know, LinkedIn best practices later, but um I really did have a strong network uh on LinkedIn um around the time of uh starting Fish

Tank and uh a former uh contact of mine from uh from the first agency also introduced to me my first like if I had to say truly legitimate client um the American Armed Forces and Mutual Aid Association uh the country's oldest military nonprofit uh and I'm very proud to say that they're actually still a

client today. Uh yeah, uh very cool. Um now, of course, they're uh rebranded as Armed Forces Mutual, but they're an amazing group and I think so highly of all of them. Um but they hired uh Fish Tank in February of 2014 off that LinkedIn post, as did the angel investor, the two companies that he'd invested in. not

large retainers as you'd expect. But between those and my uh other, you know, side hustles, all of a sudden I had a stable of six clients. So that was milestone one and precipitated milestone two, which was um also on LinkedIn. A guy named Matt Bretzius, who's now my business partner, reached out to me,

said, "Hey, I saw you know what you're doing with fish tank. Um you know, if you if you add people, if it grows, I'd love to discuss." I said, "Okay, let you know, let me see if I can get enough business and and get back to you." And um, you know, a few months after that,

somewhere in the early summer, we reconnected. And, you know, fast forward uh 12 years uh later and, uh, Matt's the president um, and has equity in Fish Tank. I love that. So, um, those were the two, you know, everything that has occurred since really stems from from those two things.

Well, I got I got a lot more specific questions about that journey because uh you know sustaining any business for that long I think is uh really special. But for the sake of this this episode you know maybe we could do that you know in a future one in person is really get

uh specific about it. But you know I want to talk to you about your expertise your um your experience in PR especially in clean tech stuff like that. So last question about this is just how relative to what fish tank was at that time that you were speaking to, how has it changed?

Oh jeez. I mean it's, you know, when I say bigger, I don't I bigger isn't always necessarily better, you know. Uh we have, you know, 20, I think 26 or 27 employees now, which is wonderful. Of course, with that comes uh more lawyers and and more account and accountants and um you know insurance and benefits and

and payroll and you know becomes a very serious undertaking. You're essentially responsible not just for yourself but um you know I have 26 or 27 other people could count on Matt and I to continue driving the business and making sure that uh that they get paid which is what they deserve and what they're earning.

Um so you know I could answer that part of the question you know a million different ways. Um and talk about you know even the the little things that we have to maintain. Uh you I talked about insurance and all the benefits and all those things but also a website and an IT team. Um so you

know for me it was a journalism major from Shippensburg University. Um, you know, I've had to learn much of this on on the fly. I don't have a I don't have a business background. Um, you know, Matt and I have had to establish really establish all of the um all of the processes and there's a

number of challenges and and and headaches of course that um that uh accompany that. However, it's been a, you know, incredible incredibly exper enriching uh experience. Is is the is the core offering the same? Uh yes, actually that and and you know that's probably the reason that we've been successful. Yes, we have expanded

certain things uh certain services, but companies come to Fish Tank for the same reason they came to Fish Tank 12 and a half years ago. And that's for um uh meaningful press coverage. Um you know, I'm not bad mouthing other agencies or but media relations is certainly a bit of a lost art. Um when I started in

media uh relations in 2008, I had, you know, I had to cold call 60 or 70 journalists a day. Um I was working insane hours emailing and pitching journalists. Um, now there's also, of course, fewer journalists. There's all sorts of new media, podcasts, um, digital TV, uh, newsletters, things of that nature that

just weren't, you know, quite frankly weren't a thing in, uh, in in 2008. Um, but also there's a lot of platforms out there, you know, some of them are AI, some are just old classic mail merge where media relations is something that some firms now automate. Um, and I think that that's why they're not as

successful as FishTank. We still uh manually pitch journalists. We have deep uh reporter relationships. You name it. Um, in the past month alone, we've had clients on Fox News, uh, Bloomberg TV, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, TechCrunch, Axios, Wired. I, you know, I could go on and on. And it's,

it's really based off the strength of our media approach. So, while we are certainly a more polished firm now, at least I hope so. Um, you know, when I sold people on 12 and a half years ago, my ability to generate media coverage, now we're telling companies the same thing, only it's obviously about an

agency and um, but media relations is absolutely our differentiator and it is the core service of Fish Tank. Cool. Well, great transition. Let's level set then. You know, you you already spoke a lot to it. If you could define PR, if you could define media relations, just so if someone's coming into this and they're saying, "Sure,

it's cool. I don't really know what it is." Maybe it's marketing, maybe it's sales, branding, you know, these different things. What, you know, what is it? Great question. Sometimes I have to ask myself what public relations is uh awesome. I think there's so many different aspects to it. Um, you know, I think when people hear PR or public

relations, they often think about celebrities and politics, right? um you know more consumerry stuff. Uh those are none of the areas that Fish Tank works in. Um you know talked a little bit about our practice already, the focus on climate tech and renewables and sustainability. We also do some some finance, some health tech, uh some B2B

tech. So I would say that public relations broadly is um uh to some extent it's brand reputation. to some extent it's also uh a a tool for lead generation um for you know media visibility on a podcast or in a newspaper that results in someone reading it or hearing it and taking an

actionable next step visiting the website um placing an order uh soliciting more information um PR can do all of these things can also be used to uh you know reputation management agement of course for people who uh are for brands who might be going through some issues. Um you could make the case

that email marketing is part of public relations. You can make the case that there's PR reasons why companies run Super Bowl ads. Um PR is so broad just like the word marketing and I'm afraid that a lot of folks use it as a catchall. Media relations is much more specific. Um and that's why when you

asked me what Fish Tank is, I told you we're a media relations and corporate communications firm. Um, media relations is uh an individual such as myself or someone who works at Fishtank reaching out to a reporter and saying, "You should take a look at company A who I represent or you should take a look at

this story and here's why." Um, and or you should be aware of this upcoming news from a company because I think it's something that you might want to might want to report on. Uh, Blake, I don't think many folks realize that when they turn on the TV or when they read the newspaper or they read an online

article, I would guess 90% plus of the time, the journalist didn't come up with that story idea themsel. They got pitched by somebody that looks like me, somebody who talks like me and does what I do for a living. Um, most of the time the story idea comes externally uh and through a media relations person. So my

firm goes out there and says, "Hey journalist, you know, Jane or John Doe, you should be aware of this company, this technology, this story. Would you like to interview them? Would you like to visit their site? Would you like to demo their technology?" Um, and you know, like baseball, you succeed a certain percentage of the

time, and I bet if you're doing it 25% of the time, you're doing a fine job as a PR firm. So, so then, so then if there's if there's a founder, if there's someone building something that's listening to this and they say, "That sounds cool, but why do I need it, you know, relative to other things that I

spend money and energy on?" Or, you know, is it uh like do I need to be of a certain size to really care about media relations? Either one of those. No, a great question. Um, I would I would say that it's objective driven. I think that a mistake founders do make is they solicit, you know, or they hire a

public relations firm or a public relations person, someone to do media relations because they think we need to be out there. Uh or they see, oh, my competitors are out there, so I need to be out there. Um I think any founder, especially at a startup, should be very careful about how they deploy capital.

you know, if you don't have a customer, if you don't have a product, like let's say you're in prototype mode, you don't have any initial data, even the best PR firm isn't going to be able to maintain consistent media coverage. Like you need to have something that's also newsworthy. An idea helps, but you know,

the execution is what separates um you know, the companies that are commercially viable and and who are. So, I would say to any founder that they should identify what are their objectives as a business. Um, let's say hiring is an objective, but you Blake uh started uh Blake Solar. And if someone Googles Blake Solar and they see, you

know, just a website and no other mentions anywhere, they might think like, "Oh, this is a little bit too startupy for me." Um, or let's say you need to raise capital at Blake Solar. Um, you might want to hire a PR firm to get you some visibility prior to going out into the market to raise capital.

That's another objective. Um, business development is arguably the largest objective. Um, you're looking for solar customers in the Philadelphia or Eastern Pennsylvania area. What better way to do that than to be featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer talking about the benefits of rooftop solar or um, you know, the various podcasts, patch.coms, radio programs. uh PR firms are a good

firm um media relations firm can get you visibility in those uh in front of those audiences and can help drive your business forward. Cool. So in in um this is a question I come back to in different subjects and have not been able to ask it about media relations. So this is very exciting. Is

there anything uh and and it's cool that you work with um companies across different spaces. Is there anything specific about the role that media relations plays in clean tech, green tech, you know, whatever, what whatever you want to call the space. Is there a specific role that it plays uh in that industry uh that that

is different than other industries or does it does it play pretty much the same? I would say that there's a lot of you know parallels with other technology uh industries. um you know right now AI and data centers are like the two you know hottest sort of technologies and and then technology you know

conversations with respect to data centers that are happening out there. Um I do think that plenty of technology companies especially in climate sustainability do hire uh firms like fishtank um because they need to get you know they need to get noticed and and uh to move their brand forward whether that's recruiting, business development

and sales uh or capital raising um is certainly different than if you owned uh you know uh Blake's Diner. uh like the food and beverage PR world is much different. There's only so much I would imagine. Again, I don't you know I work in it daytoday by any means. I have limited experience mostly helping

some you know helping some friends and then the early part of my career uh doing a little food and beverage in restaurants. But um yeah, what do you have a restaurant opening and then you might want to get a few people to come for reviews, but there's not necessarily a consistent story for most small

business restaurants. Um, of course, if you're a chain and you're opening up a sure, you know, a new restaurant every, you know, every month, that's those are more news opportunities. But, um, I think in the climate and energy space, there's also a energy tech space. There's also a deep need to inform um you know people

know about restaurants, they know about re you know reviews, they know about um consumer and fashion. But the truth is a lot of people don't know how solar works or how an EV charges uh or how their tax dollars are being, you know, deployed um uh to strengthen the grid, right? like we just had 3 weeks worth of ice and

snow storms in America and we've had some uh you know significant grid outages and I think people are only now starting to understand oh well we have the same grid infrastructure that we've had for 70 years. So maybe that's part of the, you know, maybe that's part of the reason why we're, you know, we're

having these issues. And then hopefully that would inform, you know, maybe they're they're voting or they're um, you know, how they understand where their tax dollars go. Um, so, you know, it's a new industry, new even though it's been around for 15 years or 17 years now, more that's still early days. You know, people are still

trying to go grasp what clean technology or what renewable energy what it can do for them and um and we have a lot of work to do. So that's so that that that goes into my next question about uh since you've been in this space and you know you can answer this also specifically between

New Jersey and and PA. Uh, but I'm curious since since you started, how have you seen uh media relations work or anything that we talked about like what it means to a company or who's using it or why? How has this stuff changed over the, you know, the 10-15 years that you've been

uh doing it? Well, I mean, you know, without making myself seem too old, I guess, you know, the biggest difference is the the role that the internet and more specifically social media plays. Okay. Public when I my first year in public relations, I worked with people that were still fax and pitches to

journalists. Um, you know, Facebook was universities only and Twitter had just started, uh, had just been formed and LinkedIn was, you know, still, you know, just a general business networking tool. So, in terms of change, um, and I think this is part of the reason we're seeing newsrooms get decimated is media is getting published

in many different ways now. Um, less people are reading the newspaper. I don't know if you saw, but the, uh, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, uh, daily newspaper for Pittsburgh, which is no small city, they're shutting down. Did not. Um, no, it's I mean, it's terrible news.

The Washington Post just cut 300 reporter jobs um last week which was very significant in our space including um uh including I believe some climate tech journalists uh not all of them but certainly some of them. So um you know the approach with media relations I think very much stays the same. The

difference now is the is the platform. I mean, look at what we're discussing, you know, right now. Um, or what we're discussing on right now or on your podcast. Um, people are paying more attention to long form journalists, journalism, excuse me, which I think is a good thing. Um, you know, if anything,

I think online articles are probably often to the detriment um of uh of journalism as a whole, just because they're they're by nature the way that those sites are compensated comes from needing clicks. And that's why we get clickbait.

Um, which a lot of newspaper daily newspapers now adhere to. Uh, they'll even have a different uh they'll have a more salacious headline online and then they'll have a normal headline in print. Um, so that's the biggest change is really where media is consumed. People are still consuming it. It's just, you know, they're on Facebook, they're on

Twitter, they're listening to podcasts, they're relying on newsletters, uh, trade publications, they're on Reddit certainly. Um, so yeah, it is it's evolved um significantly and and quite frankly that's part of the reason I I hate to call myself successful, but I think that's part of the reason why my career at least has worked thus far and why

Fish Tank Works is, you know, I was 22 years old and or 23 years old in 2008. So I had a major head start against people who had worked in PR for 15 years. I already knew how to use Facebook. I figured out how to use Twitter very quickly. I actually started the social media program at the firm I

was at in uh 2008 that then has gotten acquired and merged since then and is much larger. I bet you their blog is still built on my work. Uh or the initial blog posts on there I'd have to check are still uh um you know still things that I put together in late ' 08 and early 2009. Well, so since

as as as far as the uh uh the the work in clean techch or with solar or things that you've done since, is there to to to kind of pull the the overarching um conversation into something tangible? Is there a good case study that you have of uh of a company that has deployed these

strategies that you're speaking to and has you know improved to some you know tangible metric of like here is where we were and here's the application of the concepts and here's where we got to. Yeah. I mean absolutely. Um, I mean there's there's a there's so many. Um, we launched a hot water heat pump uh

company about a year and a half ago. They got significant uh significant media coverage right out of the gate and it you know resulted in hundreds of uh reservations for their uh and down payments for their uh for their product.

Do you do you do you also work with them to to to set up the infrastructure so that you can ensure that the traffic from those the the work that you're doing the publicity work that you're doing turn turn into uh the those those customers?

Not often enough Blake um and no we don't actually build the infrastructure. I do ask clients to to tell like to tell me uh or to or to at least involve uh fish tank so that we can call out if right you know if if if something is missing um like there are certain things are so

easy you know make sure you have an information capture on your page make sure your metad description is working right right um you know make sure your site's ready when you launch you'd be surprised how many uh companies have launched and their site hasn't been ready and yeah that's where the question comes

I just feel like, you know, no matter how how uh, you know, great the work that you guys are doing or how quality the communication is, if there's not the infrastructure to receive the traffic or process the orders or stuff like that, I feel like people would get in their own way.

Oh, it I mean it happens all the time. Not not all the time. Happens less certainly less now than in the early days when Fish Tank was working with with uh, you know, more early stage companies. Um, for the most part, our clients now are are fairly buttoned up. Like they are, you know, they're ready for heavy

bandwidth user traffic. Um, they have a sales and marketing team in place. Um, but I mean that part is is critical. I mean, we've had activations um you know, at local levels like in daily newspapers that drive a lot of people to pick up their phone and to call and place orders or to you know

request uh more information. Yeah. So, so, so then so then back to the pump company. So, the way that you approached that was was that also did they need to do heavy education of their consumers or was it mostly that people were familiar with what this product was and just what differentiated them? They

had done a fair amount of research on who their target who their target customer was and then fish so we already knew going into it and then fish tank had a put the media relations program in place to reach those people. So we were targeting websites even some that you know only 30 40,000 which I shouldn't

say only that's significant 30 40,000 unique monthly visitors but if it's 30 or 40,000 unique monthly visitors who are also like the right market for you then that's a home run. That's a great question about ROI and media relations in general is like a lot of brands Blake they still want uh you know they still

like oh our goal is to be in on Forbes or Yahoo Finance. Forbes has certainly some weight. I'm not trying to badmouth Forbes at all, but that's a very general audience, right? Um, and very and very financied. People are uh just know the Forbes logo and the Forbes name and the Forbes branding.

Whereas, you know, there are some podcasts out there where you we get a client on there and their site traffic, you know, spikes 8x. Um, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but uh the Voltz podcast with David Roberts. I mean he's one of the you know smartest guys when our clients are uh when our clients

are on there a lot of meaningful uh business outcomes uh come from that. Um he just has the he has an audience of highly engaged very smart people who just also happen to be uh often the same target audience that our customers or our clients excuse me are looking for.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So keep that in mind. We don't always want forbs. We want the right audience. the right channels that reach I'll give you a quick example of one of the ways I learned that um as fish tank our very first year in business we had this company um it's an it was an

atmosph at atmospheric water generation technology company so it makes you know uses more or less humidity or I think their line was producing water out of thin air portable drinking water out of thin air they are no longer around uh this is 2014 So they on the same day were featured on the front page of the

uh USA Today's um business section or money section and were also featured in a little publication called Rigzone. They had they received no market feedback about the USA Today uh piece. Um, Rigzone, by contrast, uh, two Fortune 100 companies reached out to them because someone read the article.

Um, and I think that speaks to the the the importance of going where your audiences or where people um, you know, re quality or real decision makers spend quality amount of time. Damn, that sounds like a cool concept. I wish they were still around.

Yeah, it was. I mean, their videos were very cool. We did some really fun um really fun uh you know they had a working prototype so we did some uh very visual displays but you know that was forever ago. A lot of you know a lot of lot of capital I think I think they just

couldn't raise its scale. Yeah. Yeah. Or couldn't develop at scale. I don't know what the technology is, but it sounds crazy. Like if I had a And I'm sure this is not what it was, but if I had like a water bottle and all I had and like I kept drinking it and all I

had to do is like leave it out and it would like make it it fill itself. Yeah. Well, you know that much more consumer uh oriented. This this looked like a it was like a giant dumpster looking. Um but uh it was very cool technology.

Of course, I wish they they'd made it. I see a lot of really cool technologies. Some of them make it, some of them don't. Right. Um, cool. Well, uh, I this is this has been really informative, uh, you know, at least for me and I know for a lot of other people walking through

the specifics of how to think about media relations, why, uh, when to, uh, what it actually is, which is not marketing or it can it is it is it plays very closely with it, but it is different. It's important to think about it that way. Um I I got two more questions for you and the first one is

for you right now with where fish tank is at. What is the biggest hurdle and how is it also an opportunity? This is not a politically charged answer but the greatest the biggest hurdle right now certainly I mean anytime I think of a hurdle for fish tank it means a hurdle for my clients.

The biggest hurdle for my clients right now is a department of energy and um you know the current administration uh which doesn't like renewables. Yeah. Um you know broadly um certainly solar and wind as well as uh EVs. Um you know that has created a number of headaches from a you know operationally from a

press perspective. Um but then also I've had a number of companies who have had to you know pause their engagement or scale it down with fish tank because um you know in an unfavorable policy environment capital also dries up makes it harder for companies to raise capital and when they do they're not necessarily

deploying it to communications and media relations which I completely understand. Um so I would say that that really now policy is the biggest hurdle but I also think it's created some opportunity certainly for fish tank. Um I don't want to get too into numbers but there are PR firms that charge you know two and threefold what fish

tank charges and whether I think they do a good job or not do a good job is irrelevant. However, um you know, they're charging company A $25,000 a month and company A looks at fish tank and says I can get the same but I think better results there for, you know, 10 to 12 a month.

Um then that's good for my business. Yeah. So, I think some of the larger agencies out there are losing clients because they, you know, they charge an arm and a leg for um average work. Let's call it that. Um and I think that you have to be results driven in a difficult policy environment

and fish tank is very results driven. What are what are some This is a bonus. I guess this I wasn't planning on this, but what what is some uh argu misconceptions about media relations or um that that you run into or uh you know what's an argument that people often give you that's uh you know not in favor

of of media um well one is for some brands it can be difficult to track the ROI. Sure. if they're not paying attention to site traffic um or to their inbox for business inquiries. I think there could be a misconception that um ROI is difficult to uh determine. Um I think that's tied to sort of the second

challenge for PR is that it's often not objective driven. As I gave you, as I told you before, some people hire PR firms just, you know, because our competitors are out there or we need to be seen, we need to get more brand visibility. Those are outcomes, not not true objectives. Um, you know, I

shared a few with you before, but we want to raise capital, we want to uh acquire new customers, we want to acquire more talent. These are clear objectives. And I think that if a good PR firm like Fish Tank understands those objectives and it's our job to ask um then they can deliver media results that

capitalize on them. Cool. Um so I think sometimes media or public relations and media relations just fall into sort of a like a very gray a gray area. Um difficult to analyze, difficult to determine ROI, difficult to understand if it's working or not. And I would properly usually right right or yeah done without clear

objective. Right. Right. Um that helps big time. Cool. Super super cool. Helpful. My last one for you is uh with you know with all this work that you're doing where you guys want to go what inspires you? Great question. Um people and ideas. I'm still an entrepreneur at art. I love disruptive thinking. Um

I would say that helping companies who then can you know and forget when I say make a difference I mean create jobs uh supplant larger more archaic uh organizations. Um I love watching companies succeed especially when they're relatively new.

I think also just from uh you know without trying to be too preachy, I mentioned I'm I'm an outdoors guy. I love the I love I love being outside. Um the environment you know means a lot to me. I'm an animal lover. Um, you know, I want to help protect I want to help

project uh, you know, America or the the, you know, the the the world's beauty to, you know, whatever limited impact I can make. Um, you know, I lived in Asheville for two and a half years before moving to Pennsylvania and and I think that's one of the best part prettiest parts of the

country. um some of the mountains uh and and certainly some of the the the forests around there. Um you know, in Eastern Pennsylvania, we have some beautiful farmland and also some forest and mountains um in different parts of the state. You know, beaches everywhere.

Um you know, I like trying to make those things better or try to do my part uh to make them better. So nice. Yeah. Yes. Yes, nature. I feel the same way. It's it's I mean, it's nice to be able to like uh you know, sometimes people answer that question. They say nature

and they feel like it's, you know, cliche or whatever, but I I I I don't agree because I think it's it's it's a powerful thing to be able to uh look outside a window or walk outside and be inspired by something. You know, people feel like inspiration needs to come from a specific place or be huge. You know,

like little pieces of inspiration from everything, they add up and they become this big driving force. So, so I appreciate that answer. I think that's cool. No, absolutely. I mean though and those, you know, you hit the nail on the head.

Um, you know, I feel sometimes most comfortable uh especially with my own thinking and you know, go you go for a walk in the woods, you come out a you know, different person and um you know, I want uh I want everyone to to have those things. Uh certainly and and I know that you know my certainly like my

work alone is not going to is not going to you know necessarily you know we're not going to sea levels are not going to drop because fish tank PR is doing it is doing its thing. Um but I mean I fully believe that 20 or 30 years from now most of this country is

going to run on solar plus batteries or most of this world excuse me. I mean look at China is deploying more solar than anybody right um you know five or six years ago the argument against solar was well China emits so much you know so many emissions and coal and what you know what's the point and now

it's like well okay because it's the you know economic way forward byproducts of of our efforts also job creation um healthier communities uh better quality of life life cost of living look at people's energy bills are just skyrocketing um so a lot of good other than just the you know protecting nature can come

along. Yeah, true. No, you're right. You're right. Well, if anyone else was inspired by the conversation to follow along or get in touch, what's the best way to do so? Connect with me on LinkedIn uh or go to uh fishtankpr.com.

That's ft npr.com. Um I'm the only Eric Fishground that I'm aware of. So, if you look me up on LinkedIn, you know, connect with me, send me a message. Um, but yeah, I really appreciate you having me on, Blake. This was fun.

Absolutely, Erica. Yeah, this is great and I'm looking forward to the next one. Cool. Yeah, absolutely. In person like you said. Yes, that's right. Awesome. Thank you.