#awinewith Danica Bunch
MEET Danica Bunch, Founder of Danica B PR Aligned Health & Lifestyle
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
So good. Danika, welcome to Spark tv.
Danica Bunch (00:09):
Thank you for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:11):
I am so excited you have swooped in and saved the day and helping me get ahead for my 2025 programming. So I love you already
Danica Bunch (00:21):
See besties. It's instant.
Danielle Lewis (00:24):
So good. Isn't it crazy how the world of social media, you've got a problem, throw up a story and there's like a billion people who are ready to help you. It's awesome.
Danica Bunch (00:33):
Yeah, absolutely. And I really resonated with what you were saying where people do cancel at the last minute and I think I'm someone who's very respectful of people's time and particularly when you have something locked in, you really want to commit to it. But likewise, I know what it's like to be left in the lurch like that. So happy to help.
Danielle Lewis (00:51):
You are amazing. So let's start out by telling everybody who you are and what you do.
Danica Bunch (01:18):
Oh, I have no idea what happened to there. Did that
Danielle Lewis (01:21):
Just, yeah, that froze for me too. I was like, oh no, that's okay. That's okay.
Danica Bunch (01:29):
I've just switched over. I'm on full wifi, so
Danielle Lewis (01:33):
Yeah, how weird. I was just checking mine too. Okay, well our fabulous podcast editor, Dan will edit that out anyway, so that's all good. I'll just re-ask you the question. Keep going. Cool. Amazing. So let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Danica Bunch (01:50):
Yeah, so my name's Danika Bunch. I run Danica b PR Collective, which is a collective organization of strategic PR marketing and coaching programs. And my specialty has been in PR but mainly around strategic PR and crisis communications. And I'm also, I'll throw in there, I'm an international bestselling author as well of a book called She has Breast Cancer.
Danielle Lewis (02:16):
Oh my God. Wow. Okay, so we've got to get into that. But first before we do, what is strategic pr? So I just thought PR was pr, so tell me what strategic PR is.
Danica Bunch (02:30):
Yeah, so look, I think there's a lot of people even in the industry who don't always understand the difference between marketing and PR and even strategic pr. So strategic PR is very much about the plan and blueprint. It's about positioning, it's about reputation. So what we are looking at is having a plan and strategy that we execute to get you the best PR results. Where we really specialize is we also really understand business and business planning. So we make sure that all your PR is actually matched with your business objectives that you're wanting to achieve because we find a lot of people are getting a lot of messages out to the world via marketing channels, but they're not doing it in a very strategic planned way. It's more like a machine approach. And we hope that through the way we approach things, you get better bang for your buck.
Danielle Lewis (03:28):
I love that because sometimes I think especially if you are not from marketing and you don't have a marketing or comms or PR or anything background, you just go, if I just yell loud and everybody knows about me and there's more content and more stuff out there, it's got to work. It doesn't quite work like
Danica Bunch (03:45):
That. It doesn't. It doesn't. And there's a lot of theory behind this as well. So I've studied obviously through degrees and those sorts of things, but then I've also continued to study the theory behind communications and PR and communications. It's a very messy space a lot of the time. Breakdowns in communications can cause problems in all different aspects and facets of the world. So the way that we actually organize our communications in certain situations, like crisis PR for example, is a really good place to start because when someone is in a crisis cognitively, they can only understand about three pieces of information at any one time. If you apply some of those theories to everyday PR and marketing, it means that your messaging is going to cut through in a much better way to the audience. But then we also take the next step of who is your audience, who are you talking to, what do they want to hear, what are they interested in? And so you can already see the strategy behind the communication. The messaging is so important
Danielle Lewis (05:01):
And I also feel like so much less wastage if you're actually doing the pre-work of understanding those factors, then you aren't just investing time, energy, money into throwing things at a wall and seeing if they stick.
Danica Bunch (05:19):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think social media has been, I guess an evolving change in the communications marketing and PR world, but it has in society in general as well. So in one of the courses that we run, we explain to people that every day the average adult consumes about two feature films worth of length of social. So how do you cut through that if you're not being smart about it, how can you cut through that? And so there's certain techniques that we use about the number of messages we have out there, the way we repurpose them, the way we then repeat them or get a frequency or cadence of messaging out there that helps us cut through those algorithms.
Danielle Lewis (06:14):
I love that as well. That note on frequency, I was just talking to someone and they're like, I've already explained how my product works. I'm like, yeah, but people have so much going on, you've got to keep showing up. And it's like when you hear a politician speak and they repeat the same thing three times in the messages, yeah, they're doing that for a reason, we've got to do that. But even more so keep showing up and saying, this is me, this is me, this is what I'm about. This is a problem I solve hammering in so that it does cut through. I think that's so valuable.
Danica Bunch (06:47):
Absolutely. And I've worked in government for 20 years, that's a part of where I learned this craft from as well. And you're quite right, politicians and the way they actually speak, there is a system and theory and framework behind why that occurs. And we use that a lot in government to communicate messaging because a lot of the messaging and government is about essential things that people need to know is what might be around emergencies or it might be around essential services. Covid is a beautiful example of where we had to get messaging access and it had to be understood, it was so important. So there are some very basic things that we can actually pick up from those lessons and apply to business as well. I also like to let people know that there's only a very small portion of your following that's actually getting your content any day. So you are not going to annoy anyone with that content because other than probably your mother and your best friend or someone who's obsessed with you, they're the only people that are going to get every message that you're putting out there on your socials. So yeah, there's no harm in more just as long as it's done in a smart way.
Danielle Lewis (08:00):
I love that. You are right. My mom is my number one fan. Likes it. All comments at all of my posts. Oh my God, so good. So how have you seen the landscape change maybe in 2024 specifically? So this will go live if anyone's listening live in 2025 in January. So kind of a good time to reflect on the year that was. How's the PR landscape changed this year?
Danica Bunch (08:29):
Yeah, look, I would say for a while now the PR industry, other professional services have had their own PR problem. So when I opened my business in, it was around Covid time. There was a dissatisfaction with the agency model and the retainers and churning hours and I dunno what my PR agency or marketing agency doing, I can't measure it, all those sorts of things. We came with a very disruptive model where we really give people the strategy and the plan upfront and then we work with them to decide how that is executed. Now that's really successful because it puts the control in the business person's hands. It explains to them the why behind what we are doing. The theory, it puts us under a level of transparency that what we are executing is very measurable and then it's up to them how they want to manage that within their business.
(09:32):
And I think that's really, really important because you don't always need an agency to do everything for you. There are other ways to do that and we've been very, very successful with that model. And what we've actually found is we are growing businesses and clients by doing that and that's the ultimate goal. And so what you find is you actually have more longevity with clients or you'll get them to achieve their goals and that's the best outcome you can hope for. We have also noticed that it is changing economic times. So we are doing a lot of analysis and work both on our business and how I guess our customer journey works and how that's worked well over the last few years. But then we're also really looking at what does the demographic of client look like as well? What's their world and their economic microclimate looking like?
(10:34):
And there's a lot of uncertainty out there at the moment. And so we've really honed it in that there's going to be two types of people for us. So there's going to be a group of people that have probably been financially sailing pretty close to the wind, so it's forcing them to be conservative. They're probably cutting back, they're probably searching for certainty in other ways. So they're getting control of things, maybe cutting professional services from their monthly costings. But then we're identifying that there's a different clientele that's probably been somewhat more conservative economically or financially within their businesses. And they're looking at seizing opportunity in downturn. So they're looking at investing and they are looking at doubling down and getting ahead of the pack, getting strategy, getting it together, and they're the people that we are now adjusting outcomes to talk to.
Danielle Lewis (11:32):
Wow, that's really interesting. I just spoke to a vc, a venture capitalist this week and they were talking about something really similar that we are going through this downturn, but I think a lot of people think, oh, well I can't make money, I can't raise capital, I can't exit, I can't like actually, if you're really smart about it, this could be the time to do all of those things because then the upside can be so much greater if you do have the longevity and you can stick it out. Exactly.
Danica Bunch (12:03):
Exactly. So it's also about backing ourselves in business. And I've done some work recently in the startup space and I wrote an article about this, about people are going to be investing in people not flashy pitch decks, not these pie in the sky concepts that look really good on LinkedIn and social media. They're actually going to be very much looking at business' investments similarly to employing a new employee. So they're looking at resumes, they're going to be looking for credibility. So I think rather than pitch decks, we're going to have cred decks, we might move back. Ooh, I like
Danielle Lewis (12:43):
That.
Danica Bunch (12:44):
I know we have changed in our business in the last six weeks. We have changed our pitch deck to be a cred deck because already I can see people asking more questions about my team, my people, the expertise, the case studies, the testimonials. So we've really changed face and I've spoken to a few startups in the sector and encourage them to think differently about their pitches in 2025. And we do a lot of pitch training and that's going to be a big change for us. It's not going to be so much about selling the concept, the problem solution, which we led I think since 2020 we've been leading that in the pitch space. I think pitching your business, no matter what it is, is going about be about credibility and runs on the ball.
Danielle Lewis (13:36):
I love that and it makes so much sense. I think that, and I think this is across any industry, if somebody is going to put their money to something, whether it's investing, whether it's buying a product, buying a service, bringing on an agency, whatever it might be, I feel like we are so much more concerned about where our money goes and what the likely return will be. And that idea that it is, can I trust this person and do they have a proven track record? You are right, that outweighs the features and benefits of said product. Absolutely,
Danica Bunch (14:16):
Absolutely. And we also need to look economically post covid, we had almost free money so people were willing to put money into quite risky concepts because let's face it, the interest rates were pretty terrible. So if you were an investor, it was probably a space that you were willing to take some more risks with. That's changed as we all know that enormously. So what I think we need to do is we need to look behaviorally, well, what does that mean? What is going to be the, and I think in professional services it's going to also become about collaborating. I think collaborative work is going to be what sees us through in 2025. I think we get too caught up in the competitive market and the competition cycle and we actually need to look at how can we do things better. And we have a lot of PR partners that we work with because we know, I describe it all the time, we all play in the same sandpit, but we play in different areas and we play with different toys, different tactics and toys. And if you're quite smart about it, you can be offering full service options to clients in a collaborative way and then everybody gets a piece of that pie.
Danielle Lewis (15:39):
I love that. And such an efficient way to do business as well. How can you shortcut your success by leveraging other people's experience, expertise, audiences? And similarly, this is a win-win. So them leveraging yours as well, but such an interesting approach rather than I have to be be all and end all more. How can I actually serve more people by collaborating?
Danica Bunch (16:08):
Yeah, absolutely. And giving people the solution that they need. I don't believe that anyone is a jack of all trades. You can't in these creative industries, we all have our strengths. Now I'm very lucky to have a team of incredibly strong people in lots of different areas, but I also know there are incredible specialists out there who might just do one niche area. And if I have a good relationship with that person, that's something my client needs out there and get that solution for that client. And again, it's coming back to that credibility. You're building so much trust in the clients that are coming to you because they know that I even have situations where I'll say to a prospective client, I'm not actually the solution for you. You are not ready for this. I think you should go and see X, Y, and Z, or I think you should do this. And again, there's no risk because you hope that that client will then grow to be someone that you need, but then also they're going to refer people to you as
Danielle Lewis (17:10):
Well. And I just think even from a lead generation point of view, referring business to other people is a great way to have them refer business back to you and so much more powerful when it is that warm lead or that warm introduction and how amazing that happens just by being a good human and by seem like rocket science. I know sometimes we like to make business rocket science, but it doesn't always have to be that way.
Danica Bunch (17:46):
There is a simplicity that you can find. And also I want to be working with clients that I can be effective with. I think I see agencies or I see people in different businesses that are really hustling and selling and that's not a place I've worked very hard to be in a place where I attract clients. I very rarely have to look for a client. I've got the pathways I'm known in a space. I think being that thought leadership and reputation piece is really important for people in business. Again, it's coming back to that credibility space, but if you can position yourself well, you get to a point where you're attracting your client, your ideal person.
Danielle Lewis (18:34):
I love that. So for women in business who are listening, is there a point in your business, so you mentioned that you don't take on everybody and that people are at different stages of business. Is there a point in your business where you should be thinking about pr?
Danica Bunch (18:49):
Oh, absolutely. Look, I can't emphasize it enough for any business. You can be doing what you're doing well, but if people don't know that you're doing it well, then where are your client? Where are your customers coming from? I also think we're getting into very stacked markets and I think you have to show what your point of difference is. And that's why we've actually developed a coaching program that we built out in October this year and is rolling forward into 2025. And it's designed very much around building a community for female entrepreneurs or female business people, but it could be any business, you could be an employee as well, but it's about looking at your visibility, your profile, your reputation and that because as we say, your business can't go and do a podcast. Your business can't write an article, be featured, but you can.
(19:53):
So we built this out because we wanted to provide a cost-effective way of people accessing it. We've started with female entrepreneurs, we're building into the male world. We are inclusive. So it's called She will and we will have one called he Will. And it's a community of people that come to coaching every fortnight and we work through those profile building stages. So it's a way of actually building yourself your own PR strategy without having to come and get it from a PR agency because PR agencies are not available. They're not readily available for everyone economically. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (20:32):
I love that because I feel like probably in the last two or three years, personal brands driving business brands has just exploded and more and more want to purchase from people. People buy from people. I mean, we've been saying that in sales forever, doing this for 20 years and it's always people buy from people, but I don't think we associated that when it comes to business building. But it's exactly the same thing. And you see these influencer brands and young CEO founder types who are building businesses around their personal brand and they're just going crazy. So I think for anyone investing in your reputation, investing in understanding you as the founder or the CEO or the business owner, however you would like to characterize yourself will do your business so many favors. Absolutely.
Danica Bunch (21:30):
And then there's an art to it. I've actually had quite a few meetings in 2024 with influencers. So people wanting advice because they're really, they're putting themselves out there as a sales tool, but then they come into those areas of how much do I actually want to share? And there's after that, you don't want to be leaking too much of yourself and your own energy. You want to be very careful and make sure you are curating that profile and that image not taking on every influencer job because you've got to understand the business behind what you're doing and what do you stand for, what are you okay with, what are you not okay with? AI is even caused some issues because you can actually do a influencer role where you are going to an appearance or something like you don't know how those images are necessarily going to be shared.
(22:35):
You need to understand who's behind all of that, the businesses that might be sponsors, et cetera, et cetera. So I've had a few people reach out to me from more of a crisis perspective where they felt like perhaps gotten into a situation that wasn't so good. And so through those discussions, we've actually mapped out that they probably need to take a little bit of a step back and do some planning over how much we want to share. I wrote a book, I have breast cancer, and I wrote a book just over a year ago, which was sharing my story behind breast cancer, but had news crisis frameworks that I use in business every day to manage your personal crisis. Now I get letters and messages from women all the time saying, oh my gosh, you were so open and vulnerable. And yes, I shared an enormous amount of my journey, but it was very carefully planned how much I shared and how much I also didn't share because there were a lot of people close to me that it was not my story to tell how they went through that story to tell. So I think by being involved in crisis management, it teaches you, I guess in reverse order how to manage reputations well and how to manage how much you share as well.
Danielle Lewis (24:01):
I just love this because I think a lot of women avoid it and avoid showing up as the person behind the brand because they are worried about where that line is. And so taking that moment to actually plan strategically before you go into it, I think just makes so much sense.
Danica Bunch (24:23):
Absolutely. Look, I see a lot of women in business that their business accounts on their phones are showing far too much of their personal life, and I have those moments where I cringe, cringe. I wouldn't have put that there. And I think it's a simple, if I can give people a tip, you have a personal account and you keep that account tight and you keep that account locked, do you choose who comes into that space and then you share appropriately on that? But with your business account, yes, share aspects of who you are, but just be careful that it's not encroaching on something that you can't then take back.
Danielle Lewis (25:07):
I love that. That is the best advice. Now, talk to me about the book. I know you mentioned briefly what it was all about. What was the process of writing that like for you?
Danica Bunch (25:19):
Yeah, look, it was probably a lifesaving moment, to be honest. I was diagnosed just before Christmas two years ago, and I was delivered some of the worst crisis communications I think I've ever experienced even in my career where I was given a inaccurate diagnosis. And it was a flippant throwaway comment really from a nurse where she got me mixed up with another patient. So she
Danielle Lewis (25:44):
Sent, oh my God, you're kidding me,
Danica Bunch (25:46):
Sorry. She sent me away two days before Christmas thinking I had less than two years to live and that this was probably my last Christmas. And again, it was a procedural thing where she thought I was a different patient. She thought I'd been given the information already and I hadn't,
Danielle Lewis (26:02):
Oh my God,
Danica Bunch (26:03):
I went into Christmas with the worst of the worst news, and I don't remember a lot of that Christmas. I think it was very much just trying to make it through. But when I came through all of this, it came evident in January that, no, we had mixed it up. It wasn't that bad, but it was still pretty bad. And then it took me a long time to advocate, to get to a new treatment center, to be confident in my treatment, to get accurate diagnosis, all of these things. So it was around January that year, I was also seeing a psychologist, an amazing psychologist who specializes in women going through medical crisis. And any PR person is probably the worst at showing up for any kind of therapy because the first thing we do is when someone says, so how are you? We go, we're fine. Fantastic. Yeah, good. Because what we do. And so she actually suggested me being a writer, she said, could you actually start to write some of these moments down and these so that we can then, almost like homework, you can then show up and we can work through them and process them.
(27:16):
But I also instinctively found that my coping mechanism was to go to my crisis frameworks, and I was working through the same crisis framework that I would work through in any kind of crisis. So the two of these things melded together and I realized there was a book somewhere there, but at the bottom of my heart, I didn't want any woman to have to go through a Christmas like I went through because
(27:42):
It's very hard to get a psychologist over that period. Social workers aren't working, doctors are not available till mid-January. Even the nurses are hard to come by and get in contact with. So I just thought by writing the book, it meant I could put something in a woman's hands that was a comfort to her that she could work through that without necessarily having those people around her at any time. And it's taken off incredibly well, so necessary. Absolutely, absolutely. And this was a book I was never looking to make any money out of it. It falls into more women's hands that just need it. And I have a lot of people that buy the book to pay it forward as well, knowing that it gets into the hands of the right women. But weve built a really strong community around this. So I get overwhelmed with messages every week and month from women wanting to chat. So we've actually formed monthly Zoom meetings where we can just chat and they can have time with me, but it's also building these incredible communities of women for each other as well. Wow.
Danielle Lewis (28:52):
I it's
Danica Bunch (28:53):
Really important. And the one mandate is we don't sit there with doom and gloom. Those are very much about finding strategies, finding mechanisms, getting a little bit of a nudge in the right direction for support and really trying to empower women because if we stay on track in Australia, we will have zero deaths to breast cancer by 2030.
Danielle Lewis (29:17):
Wow. Really?
Danica Bunch (29:18):
Yes.
Danielle Lewis (29:18):
Oh my God, that's incredible.
Danica Bunch (29:20):
Yes. In most cases it's one of the most treatable cancers that exists. So I was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer, and I was so, so lucky that I was put on an immunotherapy treatment, which has basically wound my cancer back to nothing.
Danielle Lewis (29:39):
Wow. That is incredible.
Danica Bunch (29:41):
It's incredible. And if we can continue to make incredible breakthroughs through the discoveries around breast cancer, it will also impact other cancer journeys and other cancer discoveries because it's quite well known that it's hard to research some other advanced cancers because the numbers don't equate because of the fatality rates. However, if you can be researching and trialing in a very survivable cancer space, stats and numbers up, which means funding can be easier for people to get. So it is an area that I think it's worth people putting some money towards and trying to grow because it's just going to grow our cancer industry overall.
Danielle Lewis (30:28):
Wow. That is absolutely mind blowing, the whole story. And I will make sure that we link up the book as well. So if there's anyone listening who is going through this journey, knows anybody or wants to support, then they can get access to that and
Danica Bunch (30:46):
Really book for any situation. I've had people pick it up and go, I wish I had this through my divorce, or I wish I had this. I am. I do have another book in the works, which I hope at least probably late 25, which is more around just helping women manage crisis in their personal lives. Because as a woman, we know we're going to go through four or five of them easily, have a few relationship breakdowns or have a child. I'm sure you'll have some crisis there. True, yes. Even in career and business, a crisis doesn't have to be huge. It can be something small. So I want to release this because the frameworks we use in crisis PR are bloody amazing, and they can be applied to any crisis.
Danielle Lewis (31:31):
Well, I think that that is going to be so valuable, so useful to any woman. So make sure you keep us updated because I'll absolutely share that with our network because I think that's just, as I said, incredible. Now, I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her journey?
Danica Bunch (31:59):
Yeah, I think the biggest piece of advice I was given and is, it's probably twofold. The first one is to use your networks and to build networks. Networks and communities are just so important, but it's also about knowing how to use those networks as well. So I'm a person that chats to people at the buffet table at a conference. I am not afraid to sit on a table of people that I don't know and to ask them their name, where they're from, what was the best thing you learned today? What are you taking away? That connection, that power is just so powerful. And I know when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my networks just came to the fore like you wouldn't believe and helped me keep my business open and running. But it also builds a beautiful community around you, and it's not just about getting through the hard times. It's about who are you going to celebrate the good times with as well. So I'd really encourage people to build them, use them, and they're in places that you just don't always expect to find them as well.
Danielle Lewis (33:13):
I love that so much. You are absolutely wonderful. Thank you Danika, for spending your time with the Spark community for sharing your story and your insights. You are absolutely incredible. Lovely, and look forward to doing some more of these in 2025.
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