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MCM Inc. featured on Hearpreneur

HearPreneur published my little story about how I came up with the name “Middle Child Marketing” when I started my business.

Full excerpt:

Being the middle child

When I was in university finishing my degree in Film Studies, I always thought “Middle Child Films” would be a great name for a film production company since I am the middle child of 3 siblings in my family. Subsequent jobs led me toward a career path in Public Relations, so when I started my company five years ago, Middle Child Marketing ended up working out. It’s a great conversation starter, and being the middle child has interesting parallels with companies trying to get noticed through marketing. Also, it turns out that there is a Middle Child Films already!

Thanks to Sandra Garcia, Middle Child Marketing Inc.

To read the rest of the blog post, visit Hearpreneur here!

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Conscious PR profile on The Story Exchange

The Story Exchange was asking for company stories awhile back and I totally forgot I had submitted one. I’m super grateful to be one of the chosen folks they profiled on their site. I do want to point out that, while the reason I started my own company was because I was “disillusioned about the corporate world” and thought that the PR firms in town might offer me a similar experience to what I went through, not all corporations are evil. I myself have created a corporation, and know that everyone’s values differ, so it’s just a matter of working for or running a business that is reflective of those values.

Click here to read the profile of Conscious PR on The Story Exchange along with other amazing stories!

Full article follows below.

Your Name: Sandra Garcia

Business Name: Conscious PR

Type of Business: Marketing & PR

Business Location: Canada

Website ConsciousPR.com
Twitter @SandraGarcia_PR
Facebook www.facebook.com/middlechildmarketing

Reason for starting
I started Middle Child Marketing Inc. six months after leaving my first job outside of University. Being thrown in the deep end of the Public Relations and Event Planning world, I evolved quickly from an intern to an Executive Assistant to managing the office. When I left a year and a half later, five interns were hired to replace me. I was very disillusioned about the corporate world and did not desire to hand my resume onto similar companies, so after helping a friend launch her first art exhibit, I thought about freelancing. A few months later, I registered a business name. Four years later, I started another brand called Conscious PR that was more reflective of the inspiring, change-making Publicity campaigns I wanted to run with companies.

How do you define success?
Success to me is being the bridge between what a client needs and helping them get to where they need by solving a problem, most commonly the need for media exposure. Success is seeing my clients profiled in traditional and online media and knowing that my work has helped them reach their goals.

Biggest Success
One of my biggest successes was helping to land a cover story for a documentary filmmaker I was working with on the premiere of her film at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival. I was able to participate in the photo shoot by being one of the models in the shot (though my face is concealed). It was a very rewarding experience to be a part of her success. Also, being able to work for EAT! Vancouver, Vancouver’s longest-running consumer food show.

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
My top challenge continues to be finding lucrative industries to work with. I like to work with a select number of clients and know that big corporations are not a fit for me. However, it can be a struggle to convince smaller businesses or solopreneurs in the food, social enterprise, and green industries about the value of my services, especially when marketing budgets are tight. While I have had success finding clients through referrals and working with some big annual events in the city, I started Conscious PR and am also offering Social Media Management services in addition to Publicity in hopes that companies who are doing good in society and who need help with their Communications will recognize the value of my services and be inclined to work with me.

Who is your most important role model?
Business owners who are doing making money doing great things for the community are who inspire me to be in business.

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  • January 15, 2013
  • In Business
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Happy fifth birthday to my company!

Photo credit: 4.bp.blogspot.com

I may only have incorporated last year, but my brand today is five years old. It hasn’t seemed that long, and I still feel like an owner with a young business, which it is. I’ve learned so much, worked with amazing people and companies, and feel lucky to be one of those 98% of small businesses in BC working to keep our local economy going.

Here’s to another successful five, we hope!

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Sandra Garcia & MCM in an E-Book!

Over a year ago I answered a HARO (Help a Reporter Out) query that made it onto Tom Corson-Knowles’s blog, which he eventually turned into an e-book and launched a few days ago: 101 Ways To Start a Business for Less Than $1000: How To Start A Business Without Breaking the Bank. You can actually download it for free on Amazon.com here (for iPads, download the Kindle app).

Building a business is easier than ever with so many tools and resources, and much less capital needed to start-up… depending on what your business is, of course.

MiddleChildMarketing_in_e-book

My tip: #66. Turn Your Hobby Into a Business

“I started my PR consultancy business in 2008 with under $1000 of my own money. I did not get a business loan to start, rather started with some business cards, a website that I made myself (under $100 for two years of domain & hosting), and office equipment that I already possessed such as my computer and printer.

In my opinion it is much easier to start as service-based, B2B business than product-based or B2C business because your ‘product’ is your own skill set and knowledge. I have since offered marketing consulting, copywriting, and editing to my roster in addition to Publicity campaigns because of the education and skills that I already possessed during the years prior to starting my business, and gained along the way.”

A friend of mine is starting a new business with her partner and it’s very exciting to observe… I’ve already started to give her all the startup tips I wish I’d gotten before I launched MCM Inc.!

Two other great resources for starting a new business include Lean Startup and Running Lean.

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MCM Inc. Goes Social!

I have become that which I vowed not to become.

SOCIAL MEDIA. I have mixed feelings about this phrase. I love connecting with others online, sharing what’s going on in my work and life, and get most of my daily news through social media. On the other, it’s something I have to be ON on a daily basis, lest I miss big news in business or from someone close to me.

I have been on Facebook since 2007 and Twitter since 2009. In 2010 I began Facebooking and Tweeting for some client events and the Vancouver Short Film Festival on a mostly volunteer basis. This experience made me realize how connected you really have to be to your client or event in order to be the voice. I vowed never to handle one’s account on a daily basis again unless I was being paid to do it.

SaraCanningI snapped a shot of The Vampire Diaries’ Sara Canning at the VWIFF Spotlight Awards Gala in 2011. It was the only photo of her posted on social media that night.

Fast forward two years later, and everyone in business – whether internal, Advertising agencies, Marketing agencies, PR agencies, consultants – is on social or trying to be on it. I’ve seen more and more folks struggling to keep up with the constant Facebook timeline updates and algorithms, and find out how exactly you calculate return on investment. Even though I vowed never to handle someone else’s account, I started thinking that I could do it BETTER than some people themselves. Of course, I cannot be at a client’s business 8 hours a day, but I can be that voice they wanted to be online; a better one than the one they are putting out there. So I started thinking about how to make money out of it, and I have come up with a few packages I’m going to start offering as of this year.

THE BASICS

Set-up of two to eight accounts including Hootsuite integration, and 1 hour of training.

THE BASICS + HELLO BLOG!

Includes the above plus installation of a WordPress blog into your website, or a new website and blog. A new website is always exciting to make, provided you’ve done the branding homework.

SOCIAL MEDIA STAR – 3-month campaign

Includes The Basics, 11 weekly blog posts, any promotional contests, sponsored Facebook ads (budget not included), and an analytics report at the six and 12-week marks. Access to Google Analytics is highly encouraged.

SOCIAL MEDIA CELEBRITY - 3-month campaign

Includes The Basics, installation of a WordPress blog into your website or a new website and blog, 11 weekly blog posts, any promotional contests, sponsored Facebook ads (budget not included), and an analytics report at the six and 12-week marks. Access to Google Analytics is highly encouraged.

I will also charge by the hour for consulting sessions.

Depending on how I feel about the first few campaigns I do, if I feel this is something I can sustain long term, I will have to start calling myself a “PR + Social Media Manager” rather than a Publicist to better define what I do for businesses.

They say you should do what you’re good at, and what you love. I know social media is one thing I am good at, but whether I will love doing it for others is something to be discovered.

For rates, please contact me.

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