Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom Jackobs: 0:36

Get ready dear listeners because today we're diving deep into the dazzling world of brand strategy with the remarkable, Heather Adams as the CEO of Choice Media and Communication. Heather leads her powerhouse all female team with a heart full of passion and a mind brimming with brilliance. We'll explore her journey in cultivating soul stirring stories and launching over 100 New York Times bestsellers. So get ready for a conversation about leading a heart-led business that truly makes a difference. Heather, welcome to the show.

Heather Adams: 1:10

Thank you, Tom. I'm so delighted to be here.

Tom Jackobs: 1:13

I'm really excited for you to be on the show as well because I think my listeners really want to hear your story, especially about how to get a hundred New York Times bestsellers out there. That is, that's amazing. But of course, before we get into all of that. My first question to all the guests is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Heather Adams: 1:35

Thank you Tom. I'm so honored to be here and thrilled to be with your community. When I think about this question, what does it mean to have a heart-led business? I really feel when we lead with humanity and soul as our north star.

Tom Jackobs: 1:51

Now, what does that mean in terms of our humanity and soul to you?

Heather Adams: 1:55

When we were developing our core values as a business and we were trying to think of, why are we here, what's the mission of choice and the core values, what do we believe? What is that foundational DNA that everyone that we interact with, whether it's internally as a team or externally with our clients and industry peers. What do we want people to know about us? I kept going back to the experience I wanted them to have as a human being first. And I think that leading with kindness, considering offering grace and extending grace regularly asking how people are first before we jump into brass tacks, right? Like even the way we lead our meetings, like where just every foundational element of the business points to that, it's like our compass, if you will. And so I think leading with heart to me means going back to how do we treat each other as human beings first and foremost.

Tom Jackobs: 2:55

I love that. It covers all aspects of client relationships, employee relationships, and even shareholder or stakeholder relationships as well. Because those are the three only relationships that you have as a business owner.

Heather Adams: 3:08

Yeah. At the end of the day, when someone works with choice whether they work for me in the business or we serve them in some capacity as a client our reputation and the way we make them feel is interwoven. How the perception about our business has so much to do with how we made them feel during their experience interacting with us and some that of course is performance and KPIs and all of those, business strategies and execution and all of that. But down to the relationship that you formed and the way that you connected with them and how they are leaving feeling.

Tom Jackobs: 3:50

Yeah and that whole idea of how people feel in reacting and inter I should say interacting with a company in your company specifically. I think that's a really great concept that most people, most business owners don't really tap into in terms of thinking about their business. I think most people, and I'm guilty of this too, when I first started in business is like I am worried about my product and this is what my product is, and I want my product to be the best and I love my product.

Heather Adams: 4:24

I'll give you an example. When we were in the pandemic, okay?

Tom Jackobs: 4:28

Yeah.

Heather Adams: 4:29

I think February, 2020. I'm in New York City, with one of our clients who has a book releasing in April and meeting to meeting with Time Magazine and the Today Show and the New York Time, I mean, we are going from one meeting to the next, the View all these places, and they're calling and saying, Hey, can we meet at a coffee shop? Because we're not sure that you're gonna be led in the building. The NBA end their season. Broadway shuts down all while I'm in New York City, okay? And I'm with a client. I'm like, what's going on? This is crazy. I get home and fast forward, a couple of weeks, we're all locked down in our houses. This pandemic has absolutely taken over our lives, right? And on a global scale. It is the first time in my entire career where every single one of my clients is in crisis simultaneously. I have this client that I had been in New York with, whose book is coming out April 20th, 2020. I have Profits who have fundraising events that all of a sudden are canceled now because nobody's gathering in person. I have clients that are speakers that now every single in-person speaking event has been canceled and they haven't pivoted yet to virtual speaking, and so they've lost all of their revenue. This is just, that's just three examples, but every single one of my clients is in crisis simultaneously. First time in my entire career.

Tom Jackobs: 6:02

Wow.

Heather Adams: 6:03

I sat down with our team to determine how we were going to serve during that pandemic. And I remember looking at them and we were all on Zoom'cause we're all locked down in our houses. And I remember saying to them, I don't care if we make one dime. I want on the other side of this, for our reputation to be that we cared for people. During this situation when they were hurting, than abandoning them or panicking, as my therapist says, anxiety travels down the leash. And so when you're the publicist, when you're the one in charge of crisis communications, if you're anxious, the client's gonna be anxious, right? And so what I was doing was I was putting the human beings that we were serving over whether I was gonna make any profit or not. I doubled my revenue that year. And I look back at how we pivoted and how we addressed and how we served, and I think so much of it points back to that conversation where we were like, we are gonna treat them human beings first, and figure out how to serve them and care for them well in this season.

Tom Jackobs: 7:15

Yeah. Wow. What a great turnaround story too. Boy, that everything that I was traveling back to the US for meetings and I had a couple speaking engagements as well, and that all got canceled before I even got on my, I had a two day layover in, in Taipei, and basically I just stayed here and I've been here ever since. And just never got on that return flight. So yeah, what a crazy time, be able to recognize what your clients need and all that. And then to also, stay true to the heart because I think crisis like that, people start to panic and a lot of, if you don't have that firm solid foundation of the heart-led business, then you're gonna go, you're gonna, you're gonna look at the profit and I need to make profit soon and probably gonna make some bad decisions.

Heather Adams: 8:07

And you have that scarcity mentality and you're in panic mode and you're not operating from a thoughtful, intentional frame of mind, right? You're operating from adrenaline and fear. And that's not the mindset that we want when we're in a crisis, right? But I will just say, Tom, in my, almost 30 year career leading from my heart has never ever served me wrong. It's never led me astray. You know. It's never been something that backfired because I treated someone like a human being and cared for them well, and and prioritized that first.

Tom Jackobs: 8:49

That's a really great lesson too, to just and I wanna solidify that too on a previous comment that you made about how you make people feel. I just, I pulled up this quote, which I quote quite a bit, and it's Maya Angelou I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Heather Adams: 9:09

That's right. That's exactly right. I own a PR and marketing firm, so I'm responsible for people's reputation. About them, their business, their brand. And so that can get really wonky at times, and and so when you lead with that, Hey, let's sit down across this table. Let's be thoughtful about your brand identity as we're building the strategy for how to scale and grow your business. What is true to you? What is at the heart of your business? And that's gonna be different depending on the client, but it just is absolutely like the North Star that directs choice and has has really served me so well as a business owner and CEO.

Tom Jackobs: 9:55

Yeah, absolutely. When you put people first, that will always come back to you in multiples for sure.

Heather Adams: 10:02

That's exactly right.

Tom Jackobs: 10:03

So I apologize to you and to my listeners here. We didn't even introduce your business. Tell us a little bit about Choice Media and what you do and what makes it a heart-led business.

Heather Adams: 10:17

Sure. So Choice is, like you said, at the top of our conversation, an all female team where we serve predominantly females, although every now and then we let a male in here.

Tom Jackobs: 10:30

Thank you.

Heather Adams: 10:31

And we take care of them as clients too. But predominantly our job is to, build, launch, and amplify female voices. We do that from a handful of different vantage points. One and what put my name on the map and our hallmark is PR. I have been a publicist for nearly 30 years. I've seen a lot in that 30 years as you can imagine, Tom.

Tom Jackobs: 10:57

Yeah.

Heather Adams: 10:58

But so public relations, and that's everything from media relations, pitching and landing someone in People magazine or on ESPN to crisis communications, to brand strategy. That all of that is, is encompassed there. We do marketing. And that might be email sequences or lead generators or social media or ads or website development, but overall digital marketing and then we do a ton of brand identity development and scaling and strategy for businesses and brands. The vast majority of our clients at Choice are personality driven brands. So the face of the company is usually who you're doing business with, and they might be selling a product, a service, or a message, but you're doing business with that personality at the end of the day. Though we do have a handful of more product driven businesses. We have a whiskey distillery in Nashville, for example. But, people come come to us for three reasons. They wanna build a platform and identify the right audience that they're going after and sell to that ideal customer. They wanna launch something. They're launching a book, they're opening a restaurant, they're launching an online course, whatever that launch season might be, or they're amplifying their message. They've built their business up to a certain level. They need it to be introduced to a wider audience or a new consumer, or they need it to be elevated on a national scale. And so those are the really, the three reasons that people come to us.

Tom Jackobs: 12:41

Yeah. And I love that cycle too,'cause that mimics every business cycle as well. That's great. Great branding.

Heather Adams: 12:50

Thank.

Tom Jackobs: 12:50

Clearly you're a really good PR person.

Heather Adams: 12:52

I'm a wordsmith at the end of the day, right?

Tom Jackobs: 12:55

Right. That's awesome. So I always like to ask as well, how did you get into PR and owning your own business and what that translate transition was like for you?

Heather Adams: 13:10

PR came really like when I was in college, I was studying magazine journalism. I thought I would be in New York City laying out and writing magazines after graduation. But I did an internship and I grew up in Atlanta. I went to the University of Georgia and my internship was at the Capitol downtown Atlanta for the Secretary of State in his press office.

Tom Jackobs: 13:34

Oh wow.

Heather Adams: 13:35

I worked for the press secretary and the deputy press secretary, and it was the first time I saw like really. Physically saw the person in the middle between the client and the media. And so this was the press secretary and he was serving in between his client, the Secretary of State, and the media that was covering, news in the state of Georgia. And it was that juxtaposition and I realized, oh my gosh. I love that. I wanna be in that seat. I wanna be,'cause so much of it is so relationally driven and then there's so much communication, whether it's written or verbal communication. And I was like, those are things that I'm really good at. And I loved like seeing that position that he was in between the client and the media. So it was, if you think of Olivia Pope from Scandal, this was long before Olivia Pope even was a thought never exist as a show yet, but it was, that was what I was watching. And so when I graduated, that's why I went into PRS because of that internship and what I saw you know, as something that I could do for a living that put things that I loved and were good at, combined those things together. So that's how I got into PR.

Tom Jackobs: 14:55

Nice.

Heather Adams: 14:55

But how I became an entrepreneur and a CEO is, if you remember, 2008, 9, 10. A lot people listening, probably remember that season and it was a very tumultuous season, and I had been at one of the big five publishing houses for nearly a decade. I was running the publicity department. I was working with marquee. Thought leaders and change agents who were releasing books that, that was my, job. And my job was to get them on Good Morning America, to get them in the New York Times to to get that media coverage for them and their book when their book was releasing. And I was really good at it Tom and I had made a name for myself and in 08, 09, 10. Our CEO started having to lay off people, and it was like a little at a time, like you'd go in and 25 people would be laid off and then you go in six months later and 125 people would be laid off. The CEO, who is a dear mentor and friend of mine, Michael Hyatt. He, at the time, he has since told me during that season, he laid off more than 25% of the workforce at Thomas Nelson, where I was the head of publicity. And so I got laid off as one of those things. I was in one of those rounds. It was like a sharpshooter, taking people out a little bit at a time. And so it was really hard, but. I remember thinking that. It was gonna be hard for them to lay me off because of my job and what I did for them and how visible it was and how much it contributed to the bottom line. But what I learned was at the end of the day, it was a business decision. It really hurt my feelings. I had been New York City that whole week pitching our newest catalog and I had landed a people cover story and a six week appearance on the Today Show. It was like COVID did gets. I came home on a Thursday. I walked in on the office on Friday morning and I was let go. That's what started this entrepreneurial journey, Tom was, I got laid off. It was not something I chose for myself. And on Sunday I got laid off on a Friday. On Sunday, our number one competitor's, CEO called me and she said, we've heard what's happened. We need someone to come in and overhaul our publicity department, and we think you're the woman for the job and we wanna fly you to Michigan and we wanna get to know you and we wanna see if you're interested. And so before I got on the plane. To go to Michigan, my husband said to me, don't take your next step out of fear. Fear, we can't pay our mortgage fear, we can't feed our children. And our boys at that time, were one and three years old

Tom Jackobs: 17:41

Oh my gosh.

Heather Adams: 17:42

And were very much a two income household. Like we needed me to work and I wanted to work. It wasn't a question, but. Matt saying that to me, Tom gave me permission to really advocate for myself my worth. I was very seasoned at that point. I had built a really beautiful career and a name for myself in the industry. And so what I did was I went and I met with them and I said. I love these authors that you represent. I really am impressed by your team. I will come in and overhaul this department. I will build you a world class publicity team. I will help, you transform this aspect of the business, but I'm not gonna move from Nashville. I wanna stay in Nashville and I don't wanna work for you full time. And it was the first time in my career where I really advocated for what I wanted and all of a sudden I had a new job on my own terms, making twice as much money as what I was making before I got laid off. And not working full time. That is what started this whole entrepreneurial journey that led to choice later. I did that kind of as a contractor consultant for a few years, just by myself to figure out, Am I gonna keep doing this? Am I gonna go back in house somewhere? And I missed leading a team, particularly of women I missed like pouring into and handing the baton backwards to the women coming behind me. And so in 2014 is when I launched Choice.

Tom Jackobs: 19:16

Oh that's what a great story. And I wanna

Heather Adams: 19:18

Thank you

Tom Jackobs: 19:19

just unpack one thing for the listeners and what a great advice your husband gave you about don't do this out of fear. And this comes up quite a bit, and especially when I'm coaching clients. That they make choices out of fear, not out of just confidence because of time and situation, but if we look back and look open, then it's, oh wait, I could have done something different. So why didn't we do it in the moment? Why do you think people make choices that don't serve them well when they're, when it's under fear?

Heather Adams: 19:57

I think it's a narrative we're sold. It's this mindset of that scarcity mentality. Instead of having an abundance mentality, it's that, oh, this opportunity's not gonna come again. So you better take it while you have it. It much like when I started my business, Tom and a girlfriend of mine who was in the industry who owned her own business, took me to lunch and she said, don't be cheap. Don't be the one that your reputation is, oh, we'll just call Heather because I can afford Heather, and Heather is cheap. And she was like, there's enough business to go around. And she was like, don't take a client that you know you're not gonna serve well. You don't get along with, you don't believe in just because you think you need the revenue. And that's scary when you start a business and you don't have any income coming in. It's scary to turn down and say no to someone. But again, going back to that heart-led business, if I'm listening to my heart and I'm saying, you know what? I don't share the same values with this client, or I'm not really enthusiastic about this client, so how good am I gonna be at pitching this client and convincing Tom to have him on his podcast if I don't believe it? I think that has always served me so well, but I think it's a mindset shift that we have to make because that's a bill of goods we've been sold.

Tom Jackobs: 21:18

Yeah, definitely a big mindset. And I think because I think as humans we automatically go to the negative anyway, that we just have negative bias, right? Because a saber tooth tiger might come up at behind us at any moment, right?

Heather Adams: 21:33

You have 10 really positive complimentary things and there's one negative thing, and what do you focus on? You focus on the one negative comment instead of the 10 really kind, wonderful, gracious things that people have said.

Tom Jackobs: 21:45

Exactly. But when we take it out of here and bring it down in, for those listening, I was pointing to my head. But you bring it down into your heart. So you take it outta your head, bring it into your heart. It gets so much easier in terms of not sacrificing your soul, but just feeding your heart with goodness and abundance that's gonna come around. But when those times happen, where that fear pops in, you really have to go back into the heart.

Heather Adams: 22:16

Yeah. And what I have learned over the years, and of course I have not done this perfectly in the 11 years I've had my business, but what I have learned is, we have to notice the, notice it first, right? Notice the behavior, notice the fear, notice the anxiousness. And then we have to say to ourself in that moment, okay, what do I know to be true in this situation? And then, it through with someone else as opposed to really making an isolating decision on your own. But at the end of the day, whether you call it your heart, your gut, the Holy Spirit, whatever it is for you particularly, it doesn't steer you wrong. Your body knows, and and whenever I have gone against it, it has proven itself out.

Tom Jackobs: 23:08

Yeah. Absolutely. And it's so funny because you get that. I dunno about you, but I get that feeling like where that anxious comes up and you're like, oh, something's going on. And then the brain takes over and I'm like,

Heather Adams: 23:23

That's exactly right.

Tom Jackobs: 23:24

I need to stop that. Stop that right now. And then you can actually feel that, like if you're in tune with your body. And I think that's what we're saying here is you need to be in tune with your body, in tune with your brain and realize when that's happening and go, wait, why is this happening? Why am I feeling this way right now? There's no tigers or dinosaurs around me. What?

Heather Adams: 23:44

Why is adrenaline rising? What's going on getting into fight or flight? Why is that happening?

Tom Jackobs: 23:49

I was like, darn it, somebody gave me a bad review on YouTube. Ah. I was like, oh, I'm just gonna stop posting videos now.

Heather Adams: 23:58

Yeah, I'm gonna quit. I'm gonna quit producing my podcast.'cause one person said, they gave me a one star.

Tom Jackobs: 24:04

Right. Yeah. So we have to divorce ourselves from the brain sometimes and from that fear. Go back into the heart. Do you feel like what techniques do you use to combat that, getting into that fear mode?

Heather Adams: 24:21

I have a couple of things that I do personally. One is I have an executive coach and a therapist that I meet with every single month, multiple times.

Tom Jackobs: 24:36

Same person or two different people.

Heather Adams: 24:38

Two different people.

Tom Jackobs: 24:39

Okay.

Heather Adams: 24:39

I have an executive coach for the business, and I have a therapist and spiritual mentor for Heather, holistically.

Tom Jackobs: 24:46

Okay, awesome.

Heather Adams: 24:47

And I think for me, for Heather, it is so helpful to verbally process what I am dealing with across my whole life, not just within my business with those people to help me remember what my priorities, my values, goals, all of those things are, so I don't lose focus. I don't get into a fear-based mindset. I don't make decisions, out of that, narrative, right?

Tom Jackobs: 25:19

Yep.

Heather Adams: 25:20

So to me, having somebody who is an ally in partnership with me, and I pay those people, so it's not like you know it, it's not like I'm doing this for free with someone, but I pay those people. It has proven to be so beneficial to my business and bottom line as well as to my own mental health and wellness. That's the first thing. I think the second thing is just system structure, scaffolding, if you will, that I have built into choice to keep the culture that I intend for the business and the environment that I intend for the business as a part of the business with the entire team. So it's not just lip service that you see on our website or on our social media. It's actually lived out in practice. One of core values is choice accountability, sustains partnerships like we believe holding each other accountable is going to sustain a really holistic, healthy partnership. When you tell people in the team on the team, Hey, this is what we want for the environment here. This is what we want in the culture here, this is what we want to live out in practice when we're executing in the day to day. You don't just say it, but you have everybody live it out. Those systems and structures really help hold accountable to that so that we don't lose sight of it.

Tom Jackobs: 26:57

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, it's so true. And what a great way of coping with all that

Heather Adams: 27:03

Yeah.

Tom Jackobs: 27:03

As well. Yeah. Heather, this has been just a great conversation, and I hate to cut it short here, but we are at that time. How can people learn more about you and Choice Media?

Heather Adams: 27:15

Thank you for even asking that question, Tom. So you can find us, our website is choicemediacommunications.com. There's lots of information on our website. Also, that is our, handle on all of the socials. So if you go to Facebook or if you go to TikTok, or if you go to Instagram, it's Choice Media Communications, and my personal is Heather Dixon Adams, and it's D-I-X-O-N, Heather Dixon Adams. And it's that at all of our all of my handles, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all the things. I'd love to connect with people there. We have a really beautiful community that we have built around the business and around, my own personal social media. But one thing I'd love Tom, if it's okay to offer. If somebody is in business or in that build, launch, amplify stage of their business and brand, I'd love to offer a free brand strategy consult with one of our team members. We'll give you a link that you can offer to your listeners and that's something we normally charge for, but we can offer it to your listeners as something where if they are trying to figure out how to elevate scale, grow their visibility, their brand they're building their brand identity, or they wanna amplify it to a new audience, we'd love to be a part of that. So we can offer a link for that consult.

Tom Jackobs: 28:43

Oh that's very generous. Thank you so much for doing that, Heather. That's amazing. Awesome. Thank you again for spending your time with us and sharing your stories and your knowledge with the audience here and with me. And I certainly appreciate you.

Heather Adams: 28:56

It's my pleasure, Tom. What a delight to with you, and thank you so much for having me with your community.

Tom Jackobs: 29:02

You're very welcome and thank you listeners for watching the show or listening to the show today, depending on what platform you're on. Make sure you're checking out everything that Heather is doing, and we're gonna post all of those links down in the show notes and make sure you take advantage of that offer of getting a strategy call. I think that's, that would be very valuable for anybody that's feeling like they're at the cusp, but not quite sure where to take it and how to get there. I'm sure Heather and her team would be able to give you some really great advice on that, especially with over a hundred bestselling authors. So if you're an author especially, I think you should be talking to Heather. So until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 29:43

You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.