In this episode, Abbie Fink talks with Leeza Hoyt and James Mowdy about the client perspective on building a communications team and working with an external public relations agency.

James shares his experience transitioning from being a consultant to working in-house at CHOC and assembling a team of external communications professionals. They discuss the organizational structure of CHOC’s communications department, the importance of managing expectations, budgeting for communications, and the value of having quality assets for media coverage.

Key Takeaways

• CHOC has built a team of consultants to support their communications efforts, ensuring they have access to top-notch professionals in various areas.
• James Mowdy’s previous experience as a consultant gives him a unique perspective on hiring and working with communications agencies, allowing him to understand the challenges and needs of both sides.
• The partnership between CHOC and the Hoyt Organization has been successful due to a shared passion for the organization’s mission and a strong understanding of each other’s roles and expertise.
• Having quality assets, such as photos and videos, is crucial for media coverage and can make the job of the communications agency much easier.
• Budgeting for communications is an important aspect of planning, and CHOC has been able to predict their costs by working closely with their consultants and setting clear expectations.

About the Guests

Leeza Hoyt, APR, is president of The Hoyt Organization, Inc., the Los Angeles area partner agency of PRGN. As a 25+ year veteran of the communications industry, she is passionate about helping clients navigate the new world of today's communications landscape. Her team has developed awarding winning campaigns for regional companies and national organizations in a wide variety of industries. She has been recognized by many organizations including being named as a "woman to watch" by Globest.com, and named as one of the top Marketing & Communications CRE Influencers by Real Estate Forum. In addition, she is a member of the Forbes Council, and the agency was named one of the top 200 PR firms in the country in 2021.

James Mowdy, MBA, is the Director, Corporate Communications for the Community Housing Opportunities Corporation (CHOC), a non-profit, affordable housing developer based in Fairfield, California. He is known for transforming stories into bold tactics and a winning, goal-focused strategy. Prior to joining CHOC, he had his own consulting practice that delivered communications solutions to small businesses, startups and the C-suite across multiple sectors. His background also includes working with Discovery Communications, MC Saatchi Advertising and British Airways prior to founding his own practice.

About the Host

Abbie Fink is president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN. Her marketing communications background includes skills in media relations, digital communications, social media strategies, special event management, crisis communications, community relations, issues management, and marketing promotions for both the private and public sectors, including such industries as healthcare, financial services, professional services, government affairs and tribal affairs, as well as not-for-profit organizations.

PRGN Presents is brought to you by Public Relations Global Network, the world’s local public relations agency. Our executive producer is Adrian McIntyre.

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From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I'm Adrian McIntyre.

And I'm Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN. With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise, and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Our guests on this biweekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They discuss such topics as the importance of sustainability and Environmental, Social, and Governance programs, crisis communications, content marketing, reputation management, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now, let's meet our guest for this episode.

Hi, I'm Leeza Hoyt. I'm the CEO of the Hoyt Organization. We're an integrated communications agency based in Los Angeles, California.

So Leeza, we're switching things up a little bit on this episode. Thank you for coming back on with us. But we're going to do a little bit of a different twist on our conversation. And we've invited a client to join us. I think it's going to be a great conversation to sort of take a peek behind the curtain and see what things are like from the client side. You and our knowledge and expertise, and it's going to be interesting to hear from the other side what that's like. So, James, thank you for coming on. If you could just quickly introduce yourself as well.

Yes, hi. My name is James Mowdy. I'm the corporate communications director for CHOC, Community Housing Opportunities Corporation, and we're a nonprofit affordable housing developer in Fairfield, California.

So one of the things that PR professionals or agency professionals in particular are always wondering about is what is the mindset of the clients that we're talking to? And as we put our proposals together and we think about how we want to offer solutions and really get in and be a good, solid partner and advisor with our clients, there's so many things that we need to know and we need to understand. But it's not all that unlikely that internally you're going through similar circumstances about getting a real good grasp on your organization and how to put together the team and what's it going to look like. So tell a little bit about the organizational structure of your communications department how you think about who you have internally and what decisions enter into your mind when you're thinking about maybe taking some of that project work outside and hiring in external help.

Well, it's interesting you should say that. Thank you for the question, Abbie. I will start with, I founded my own brand consultancy 10 years ago, or actually 20 11, so that's more than 10 years. I'm over 50, sorry. And I worked with various clients in the arts, education, nonprofits, and tech. I ran various elements of their communications programs for these clients. clients. So one of my clients was CHOC. And in 20 18, our CEO asked me to help manage communications in Southern California. We were going to expand in the Coachella Valley.

So what I did is I found a great partner on the ground in Palm Springs, PR consultant. And she helped us connect with neighbors’ associations and communities in Palm Springs, which created brand recognition for us and so forth. So during the pandemic, that role continued as I was a consultant. And in February, actually it was summer of ‘21, our CEO asked me to become the corporate communications director, which was a really lovely offer. And I walked through that door happily.

Around the same time, we met the Hoyt Organization. And that process was, one, we needed to move to a larger agency. We needed a full-service agency. I already had a digital consultant I worked with, Margaret R. Thompson. And so what this became was basically meeting my team, which are a team, mostly a team of consultants, with the exception of obviously our PR partner, the Hoyt Organization, building a team of incredible consultants across video, across photography, across content creation and digital. And so, it's been essentially a very organic experience.

I have a lot of connections to the opera world, and so I found Johann and Ted, who are Conduit Studios based in Southern California, Noé Montes, who is our photographer in Southern California, and he works a lot with Lift to Rise, a really important housing advocacy organization in Southern California in Coachella Valley. And he was referred to me. And then our social media person, who's new to the role but she's incredible on Instagram and other platforms. She works for our CHOC Impact, which is our resident services area. And so she works for us part time. And so it essentially has been a beautiful, organic experience, augmented by having a really solid PR partner. Sorry, tooting Leeza's horn. But they've been amazing. And there is sort of a story behind how we found Hoyt, but I'll let you continue.

And I do want to hear that. But Leeza, one of the things that we often talk about when we are meeting with clients who have either an internal team or, as James has mentioned, has assembled a team of other consultants or agencies is that we really pride ourselves in our ability to work well and play well in the sandbox with others, right? That we all are coming together with the end result of supporting our shared client, and that there is opportunity for all of us to be good counselors and good advisors where we enter into the mix. So as a partner with the organization and then recognizing that there are others supporting the communications effort as well, how do you structure your relationship with James and his team? And how do all of you come together for the benefit of the organization itself?

Well, one of the things that was just awesome about working with James when they brought us on is he's been in my shoes because he was an outside consultant running his own company before they took him in-house. And one of the things that we often fight is having someone on the client side actually understand what it's like to walk in our shoes. He knows. So, I mean, we kind of have this internal banter going on because we can joke about things that happen. And he gets the jokes because he knows what I'm talking about, only he's internal. So it's like having a partner who understands our world. So if we come to him with a challenge, we actually solve it before we even get to the end of the sentence because he understands what we're doing. We work with all of those people. And what's been amazing about this particular team is he's hired some really top-notch professionals that turn over quality videos to us because they're top-notch photographers and videographers. And how many times have we worked with clients who say, oh, they want to save budget. They're going to hire their, well, I shouldn't say this on the air. But they're going to hire someone that they know who just graduated from college or their son's friend. And then we're expected to figure out what to do with that asset and make it sing. So we end up spending more time getting it where it should be, whereas we already have a partner who understands the value of bringing a team together that really, truly knows what they're doing.

And James, that was a very intentional move on your part to assemble a team of external communications professionals versus perhaps building internally. So, as that process develops and from a management perspective, a time management, a project management perspective, what is your process of making sure that all of your partners are together understand the mission, understand the key messages, know their role, work well together so that it's all moving the mission forward versus maybe operating in a cycle. Which is, I think, how we used to work. And I think we're much more integrated now. But talk a little bit about that kind of internally, how you're managing the deliverables across all those various agencies.

Yeah, absolutely. Their roles are fairly static. There is not a lot of crossover in terms of two different people will do the same thing. They're very specific. So I would say that, just to give you an understanding, Margaret is probably the person I work with closest. She the digital person. She builds the blogs. She builds collateral. She builds digital “save the dates” and hard invitations. She does so many different things, and she has her own consulting work as well, and she's a working artist. So she's the person I work with on a more daily basis.

Jen is our writer, so she's our in-house writer. I met her through a Palm Springs Life piece that she wrote about our development in Southern California, Monarch, which is opening soon. And I just loved her style—concise, beautifully written. And she's an incredible, very intuitive, ahead of the curve creative.

But in terms of how do we move together as one, which is probably more where your question is. We do. We move together as one. For instance, I had a bit of a comms summit at our office in Palm Springs in October, and we all came together, including Noe, the guys, Jen, and Margaret, and Ami found out later about all these things. But basically, we created a plan, and this is your part of the plan. This is your piece of the pie. And this is how we work together over the course of the next four quarters, which was really what it's about 20 24. And what we're doing our plans. So it is like treating my consultants like FTEs, as part of the team. And thus far, it's worked beautifully.

Coming from it from your past experience, right, being the consultant and looking in and what were some of the challenges or things that sort of enticed you? You said it was an invitation, you walked openly through the door to do it. But there must have been something about it, maybe it was the mission of the organization or the work that you were about to do that said, I'm okay with stepping away from my entrepreneurial spirit and my own business and going in-house. We hear about it the other direction oftentimes, right? The in-house communications professional that leaves to start their own firm. It is not as common in the other direction. But what intrigued you about the idea of taking the knowledge and expertise you had as a consultant and then bringing it in? And it really sounds like, to me, almost like building your own in-house agency by pulling together the expertise that you have.

Thank you. Yeah, I don't think I left my entrepreneurial spirit at the door. I really think that CHOC and my CEO and my executive team, we have the ability to, how shall I say, I think I'll use the example my CEO sometimes uses, Manuela Silva. It's a blank canvas. You create your job. And so, for me, I think the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in terms of creating the team. And I'm going to be 55 this year. All my consultants are in their 20s and 30s. And they're just brilliant people. They're old souls. They're like the most responsible, incredible people. It's just amazing. So I never have to manage them per se. I mean, they know their brief. They know how to talk to each other, how to work together. And I'm never counting paperclips on anyone's desk, figuratively or literally. But in terms of coming into CHOC, I think that this has been a beautiful canvas. And I think most importantly, based on my previous work, I always worked ... I'm not the guy that's going to sell a widget. I'm not the marketer, like, we're going to push this mascara, or we're going to sell this thing. That's just not me. The theme, I guess, of all my work has always been working with people who are bringing something good into the world, whatever that might be.

All right. Now I want you to kind of step out of the what you do very specifically for this organization. And I'm going to ask you some of the pain points that agencies often go through.

We never did that. I'm just saying.

Good, good. Well, and maybe again, this comes from your perspective when you were on the consulting side. But what's your thoughts around RFPs and the cattle call environment that we're sometimes asked to do? Either again, from your own personal perspective that you've done it, or how you might see the future for some of the work that you're doing there. And this is a no holds barred conversation. So we tell it like it is.

Okay. I would say, well, I would say in terms of our own process, in terms of finding Hoyt, can I go there?

Sure.

Okay.

But you have to lie about it.

No, I don't. This is wonderful, actually. Okay, so I'm really, really good friends since 20 09 with David Landis and Sean Dowdall of Landis Communications.

We love them.

And there was a point, as I've already mentioned, where we wanted to move to a full-service agency. So David was the guy. So I called him up. I mean, he's quite well known and much beloved in San Francisco, where I'm from originally. And so we talked, we met. And they said we think you might be better with the Hoyt Organization since they are in your general locality. They're in Southern California, construction, architecture, nonprofit, they understand your sector. And I will be honest, David said, and we're friends. And I don't know, maybe this isn't the right thing for us. And I totally understood that. And so we went with that. And I have to say, it's been brilliant and fantastic. So that's how we found Hoyt, and it was very easy, and we had a high-level meeting with all the executives, our CEO, and Leeza, and her second-in-command at that time, and it's just been go ever since.

But in terms of ... I kind of feel that if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. It's not just about your area of expertise, the things you know, the clients you've had. There has to be a simpatico, a one-to-one, a connection between client and PR partner or anyone that you work with. and it works and if it doesn't work you're going to know and it's going to be painful and you're not going to like each other and there will be issues. And I have to say, you know, my time with Leeza there have been some ups and downs in terms of just learning about each other at the very beginning of course. And a lot of it was over distance but I would say for the last, I don't know, two to three years it's just been strength to strength. And I would say Leeza has been very responsive and the relationship works. She understands our executives. She understands what we're doing. So there's passion there as well. I think if you don't care about your client or what they do, if there's no shared passion, there can be no shared success.

I love that. And I think, Leeza, from our perspective, the referral is always the preferred way of being introduced to potential clients is that it comes with a warm introduction and someone that speaks highly of both the agency as well as the potential client so that we don't have to go through all of the dog and pony show as much as it's a connection and a relationship building versus the what we put down on paper. So I very much appreciate that.

The other topic I want to address, which is also one that can be somewhat challenging, but is so important. And I think in particular, when you're talking about a nonprofit organization, and one that's using a variety of different sources, is really the budgeting around communications. Our industry has changed so dramatically over the last few years. And the earned media market has changed, of course. It's even more difficult to secure story coverage, there's less media outlets available to us to help tell the stories. Budgets are not just for communications, but overall organizations have to evaluate that. And that's such an important part. And one of the more difficult parts of the conversation is about managing expectations in terms of the deliverables, you know, what we want to do, what we can do, and then what the organization needs to invest. And we really think of it as an investment when we talk about what that looks like.

So again, from your perspective, both sides, thinking about the importance of that, developing that budget, you mentioned having a planning program with your organization a few months before the end of the year so you could prep for the new year. I'm certain budgeting must have been part of that conversation as well. So where does that lead you? And at what point do you work together with your partners to help establish what investments you're making in your communications and help have them help you guide those discussions?

The best part from my side is that because James has built out this team, he understands the value of creating quality assets, quality video, quality photography, which is sometimes something we have to go to the mat with some of our other clients. We don’t have to even think about it. It’s there, and he sees the investment, which makes our earned media much, much easier to get when we go on broadcast, when we go to any of the publications, because we have quality photos and great B-roll. It's already there. We went down when the video crew went down to do drone photography. The broadcast stations love, love, love having that drone photography of the projects, the complexes that we're opening up in the desert. So our job becomes easy, which has been an incredible asset. And James, because he comes from the outside, understands the need for quality assets. And in terms of budgeting, he sets that out at the beginning of the year. So I don't have to be the gatekeeper on interviewing 17 million different photographers. It's all wrapped up in the planning that he's already taking care of. So from an agency perspective, it's like heaven.

Well, that's a beautiful thing. It's like heaven.

I'm taking it. I'm going to run with it.

I would just echo what Leeza is saying. In terms of everyone's given brief, we have, of course, our fixed costs with our PR partner, but our fixed costs with our consultants. So it's easy to predict the expenses for a coming year, a coming quarter. Of course there are those special projects and unforeseen things. You know, there was a brief, fortunately “nothing burger” crisis comms moment last year. And Leeza was there and she covered all the bases. I was calling her at four, I don't know, it was five in the morning or something.

The fire. Yes, the fire.

Yeah, the fire, yes. Yes. And it was fine. No one was injured. It was completely one of these things that happened. This is life. There was no issue per se. The media, it was a story. And these things happen. But I would say the predictability of our costs on this front is great, and we are able to create what Hoyt needs to fulfill their brief.

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

We publish new episodes every other week, so follow PRGN Presents in your favorite podcast app. Episodes are also available on our website—along with more information about PRGN and our members—at prgn.com.