Ellen Parker has a proven track record of strong leadership and helping businesses thrive

Transcript

Full transcript page · Interactive episode

============================================================
TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
============================================================

[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Calgary's podcast with Mario Tonoguzzi on Canada's podcast network.
[00:11] SPEAKER_00: Joining me today is Ellen Parker of CEO of Parker PR in Calgary.
[00:17] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today Ellen.
[00:19] SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.
[00:22] SPEAKER_00: Okay, great. Let me just start by asking you Ellen just if you could describe what Parker PR is and what you guys do.
[00:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, great. So we are a full service communication company based in Calgary, like you mentioned.
[00:36] SPEAKER_02: We do everything from event planning and implementation. We do websites, graphic design.
[00:42] SPEAKER_02: We recently launched Parker Media, so we do video and photography as well.
[00:47] SPEAKER_02: So virtual tours of spaces, for example, photography of neighborhoods.
[00:52] SPEAKER_02: We do sponsorship engagement and partnership development for a lot of not-for-profit organizations here in Calgary.
[00:59] SPEAKER_02: And essentially we help businesses come up with really good meaningful plans to tell their story, elevate their brand, attract their target audiences through well-crafted communication plans.
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: So how did you get started in this area and maybe give me a little history of how Parker PR came to be?
[01:22] SPEAKER_02: Great. Well, as a young child in through schooling, I was always involved on student council and event planning.
[01:29] SPEAKER_02: And I naturally went into a degree in communications. So I have a four-year degree in communications with a focus in public relations.
[01:37] SPEAKER_02: And I've been working in PR for 20 years now. So I found something I loved very early on.
[01:44] SPEAKER_02: I'm one of those fortunate people. And I worked for a number of organizations like the Calgary Food Bank.
[01:51] SPEAKER_02: I worked for the Alberta government doing PR, worked fast, and then I worked in New York City for a few years for a PR company and for a giant not-for-profit organization.
[02:01] SPEAKER_02: And then I returned to Calgary and worked as a manager in development for the orchestra. And then I started my business.
[02:09] SPEAKER_02: And my career prior to starting my business was intentional because I knew that one day I wanted to open up my own PR company.
[02:19] SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool. So tell me just a little bit about PR in this day and age.
[02:26] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we've been hit with really challenging times, especially here in Calgary, right in Alberta.
[02:34] SPEAKER_00: Not only did we have to deal with the pandemic right now, but dating back to 2014, late 2014, with oil prices collapsing.
[02:44] SPEAKER_00: The economy went into a downward spiral for a while and still really hasn't recovered.
[02:52] SPEAKER_00: What is it like right now for PR communications agency to get clients?
[03:01] SPEAKER_00: Because most people tend to drop marketing and communications costs when they're hit hard by the economy.
[03:11] SPEAKER_00: So what has it been like for you guys throughout this?
[03:16] SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, with this pandemic of not being able to see people and have events and have people in your stores and in your restaurants,
[03:23] SPEAKER_02: it's actually welcome to huge opportunity for PR in communication firms like ours.
[03:28] SPEAKER_02: So what we're seeing is we're seeing businesses really onboarding every kind of social media platform.
[03:33] SPEAKER_02: So things like TikTok and Facebook and Instagram, they're setting up e-commerce sites.
[03:40] SPEAKER_02: So website and all sorts of digital marketing components are being really explored right now.
[03:46] SPEAKER_02: So now more than ever, we actually need to find new creative ways to tell our story in order to sell our products to survive as businesses.
[03:56] SPEAKER_02: So it's definitely shifted communication companies and PR firms have shifted their service offering.
[04:02] SPEAKER_02: An example is like I mentioned earlier, we completely launched a new arm of our business.
[04:07] SPEAKER_02: I hired a fantastic videographer and photographer who actually shot Ghostbusters and Jumanji.
[04:14] SPEAKER_02: I brought her onto my team full-time salary benefits and I have her as my co-director spearheading parker media.
[04:23] SPEAKER_02: So I've now hired people that have completely different skills than I have.
[04:27] SPEAKER_02: I didn't go to film school to respond to this new need in the community that we're seeing.
[04:35] SPEAKER_02: One other thing that's been really interesting is the whole notion of diversity and inclusion and these issues that have always been very important
[04:43] SPEAKER_02: and are becoming increasingly more prioritized in different business cultures.
[04:49] SPEAKER_02: So our company has been supporting and helping with new messaging and new visual components companies are onboarding to respond to these different trends that we're seeing.
[05:01] SPEAKER_02: You know, we've seen so many things this last year and a bit now as you know from just not being able to connect with each other and different issues that have come up in the community.
[05:11] SPEAKER_02: So it's really a new, we're sort of in a new landscape and it's really interesting to be a part of it.
[05:18] SPEAKER_00: So you think especially in challenging times the key isn't to turtle as I call it, right?
[05:28] SPEAKER_00: And go into your shell in the corner hope that the storm passes by you and then you emerge from your shell and get back to business again.
[05:39] SPEAKER_00: But isn't it important to be out of your shell and navigating and weathering that storm?
[05:49] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely. It's so tremendously important and it's almost kind of like survival of the fittest right now.
[05:56] SPEAKER_02: Like I'm looking at this as this is a chance for people to take out their competitors.
[06:01] SPEAKER_02: Like I hate to say it, but if people want to turtle in the shell, some days I would like to turtle in the shell.
[06:07] SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to lie, but I've decided to take this on as we're in a storm and we need to rally and we have been working.
[06:17] SPEAKER_02: I'm going to tell you three times harder to get the kind of client work and accomplish the tasks we were able to do prior to the pandemic.
[06:26] SPEAKER_02: It's been very long hours. It's been very onerous in terms of commitment to staying positive, but that's been our priority and our goal here at Parker PR and I'm so proud of my team and I just, yeah, exactly.
[06:41] SPEAKER_02: It's such a mindset at this point and it's a decision. It's a decision that we have to make.
[06:46] SPEAKER_02: Do we want to be positive? Do we want to go for it? I had a conversation with someone the other day and I said it's almost like we're in hunger games, but it's a mental hunger games.
[06:55] SPEAKER_02: We're not out physically with weapons, battling on the street.
[07:01] SPEAKER_02: We are with our minds. We have to be so agile and innovative and creative and in order for a creative and an innovator to come up with great ideas and be accomplished.
[07:14] SPEAKER_02: It requires heart and it requires hustle.
[07:17] SPEAKER_02: Now is a great time to be able to carve out new ideas and really show up for people in your community and businesses.
[07:25] SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at it as a positive, but I definitely get the turtle thing. I think I'll turtle when everything gets back to normal. I'll turtle for a while.
[07:35] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[07:37] SPEAKER_00: What is, when you look forward into the future in the near future, I guess, what's your vision for Parker PR and what do you want to accomplish or what do you want Parker PR to be in say five years from now?
[07:54] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would love to work with more international clients. I love the arts. I love fashion. I love philanthropy. That's where my heart is.
[08:04] SPEAKER_02: So we're working on doing possibly some art openings in New York City in the fall. I have a creative director who's based there who we work closely together on idea generation and she supports from behind the scenes here.
[08:18] SPEAKER_02: But I hope to work with more luxury brands. I hope to do some really creative innovative things and work with more national international brands.
[08:27] SPEAKER_02: I genuinely love PR and communications and I love my team and growing teams. I'm not sure if we'll become a giant company numbers wise with people, but I would love to continue to do really rich work and help people and help the organizations that matter to me that brings so much joy and culture and progress.
[08:47] SPEAKER_02: And enrichment to cities and communities.
[08:53] SPEAKER_00: Okay. When you look at your career and being an entrepreneur as CEO, what is it that you like about being an entrepreneur?
[09:05] SPEAKER_02: I love the fact that success is just on my shoulders. My hard work yields results and I can see that. I love that I get to build my own team and I can really determine the kind of people and quality that I want to work in this environment every day.
[09:26] SPEAKER_02: I love making decisions around how we're going to help bring businesses out of the darkness and into the light.
[09:34] SPEAKER_02: I love watching the Brenda Strapford Center. You know, I've worked with them. They've been a problem of client of mine for several years now because my children go to school with some of the kids that live there.
[09:45] SPEAKER_02: It's a shelter for women and children fleeing domestic violence. So I've gotten to know some of the mothers through the school.
[09:51] SPEAKER_02: That inspired me to join Parent Council and then become the chair of Parent Council and take that whole organization on as a pro bono client.
[09:59] SPEAKER_02: And now they are the organization that the media just turned to around any questions as it relates to domestic violence because we've helped establish a recognition of what they do in the good work that they do in the community.
[10:13] SPEAKER_02: And now they're the go to so that's the kind of thought leadership I want them to have within our community.
[10:20] SPEAKER_02: So that's what inspires me to be an entrepreneur is to see how my platform that I created can be so beneficial to the people and the organizations that need it the most to make our community stronger and richer.
[10:33] SPEAKER_02: And also so my children have a role model. That's also a huge piece of why I do what I do.
[10:41] SPEAKER_00: So along your entrepreneurial journey when you look back or throughout those years, is there anybody that's inspired you and helped you along in the process or any books that you read that helped you in this journey.
[10:59] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely. So people of course my parents are incredibly loving and kind and have always believed in me fundamentally truly believe in me from as long as I can remember.
[11:12] SPEAKER_02: So I think just having that kind of internal foundation established has been instrumental that they have confidence in me.
[11:20] SPEAKER_02: And I remember as a child when we would discuss and say an issue that happened on the playground and my parents would always say, well, Ellen, we know that you're going to make the right decision because that's a kind of person you are you're going to go and be kind to the child that's getting bullied because that's who you are.
[11:37] SPEAKER_02: And it was like no question. They just trusted that I would make good decisions. And I think that is a big part of it. And that's translated into my business acumen my ability to work hard. It's just because you kind of know that you can do you can do it.
[11:55] SPEAKER_02: But you know, if I didn't know I could do it, I may have turned on with regards to books, the majority of books I read are about leadership and managing teams because that has been the biggest learning curve for me.
[12:10] SPEAKER_02: I started this business because I genuinely love to PR. But as you grow a business now you're managing people. And so radical candors, a fantastic book that helps identify different personalities and how to how to work with them.
[12:25] SPEAKER_02: And how to be very direct in your communication style and clarity is king. These sorts of concepts.
[12:33] SPEAKER_02: Renee Brown is great. I was into podcasts.
[12:38] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's lots of different different books. Eckhart Toley is a fantastic. I don't know if you've read anything by Eckhart Toley, the new earth.
[12:46] SPEAKER_02: It's all about living in the present and not letting your thoughts dictate your actions. And but one thing that's important to me and I have a poster on the wall in the office is the four agreements.
[12:59] SPEAKER_02: Always do your best, be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions.
[13:07] SPEAKER_02: So if you can live by those four principles, I think as it relates to interacting with human beings and people and running teams, that's been effective for me.
[13:17] SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, you mentioned your parents are going to ask you about your parents and for those people who don't know Ellen's parents are accomplished musicians.
[13:27] SPEAKER_00: And I've seen them at the ship and anchor many times. Can you talk a little bit about your parents and what it was like growing up in the musician kind of family?
[13:41] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely. So my mother, when I was about one and a half, my mother and my biological father actually separated and he moved to Toronto and became a chef.
[13:52] SPEAKER_02: And that had been for the first time when I was 10 and he passed away when I was 17. But my mother, when I was three, she met Mark, who I very quickly started to call dad. We bonded immediately.
[14:05] SPEAKER_02: And then six months later, they were married and we moved from Nova Scotia to Calgary. And he worked for air Canada and he worked on the ramp. And he also had a band called the Alien Rebels back in the day.
[14:18] SPEAKER_02: And so we grew up in sunny side and in the apartment building until I was 11 when we moved into a house kind of behind the apartment building.
[14:27] SPEAKER_02: And a lot of their musician friends also lived in sunny side. And so weekends were spent at house concerts and jam sessions.
[14:35] SPEAKER_02: The Delhi Cafe was a music venue on Kensington Road in the 80s. And many, many evenings we would be at the Delhi Cafe, the via jam and my dad would be running.
[14:46] SPEAKER_02: And I remember just being so comfortable and it was kind of a magical experience. I would, they would put the jackets under the table at the Delhi Cafe and I would go to sleep underneath the table.
[14:59] SPEAKER_02: It into the evening, listening to fantastic musicians. As I got a little older, my dad started sneaking me into bars a few different times just to hear a different talent.
[15:13] SPEAKER_02: So I remember he snuck me into bar downtown to hear Billy Castle from the code pendants if you met, if you remember Billy Castle. And he was an incredible musician.
[15:23] SPEAKER_02: And my dad would do things like that. He snuck me in, I think, to the King Eddie to hear Amos Garrett. And then later on, Amos Garrett actually covered one of his songs and it was on much music.
[15:37] SPEAKER_02: One of the alien rebel songs that my dad had written. So it was a very rich, wonderful upbringing.
[15:44] SPEAKER_02: We didn't have a lot of money. We went to the flea market every Sunday. That was our sort of ritual that's the Hill, her sony side community association flea market.
[15:53] SPEAKER_02: And we would have Lebanese food because there was a fantastic woman named say who had a Lebanese stand there every Sunday. So that was our Sunday ritual. And we would go camping a lot. That's kind of what we did.
[16:04] SPEAKER_02: We got to do some traveling because my dad worked for air Canada. So we had the free travel. So my parents would take us on a trip once a year. And it was always around music. We would go to Jamaica.
[16:15] SPEAKER_02: My dad would always bring an extra guitar and give it to someone when we were in Jamaica. So we always I watched my parents doing so many kind deeds. So often growing up that that was a big inspiration for sort of the purpose behind.
[16:34] SPEAKER_00: What I want to do with my business. Yeah. And speaking of purpose and doing kind of you're involved in a lot of volunteer stuff.
[16:44] SPEAKER_00: Tell me why you think that's important. And why is it important for any business say or business person to be involved in the community.
[16:55] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just you know, it's such a tremendous opportunity for for everyone involved for me because I'm doing this every day in my job. It's it's simple and things that are somewhat easy for me to do that can make such a large impact on someone else.
[17:13] SPEAKER_02: So I sit on the board for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Board of Trustees. And then I'm also one of the famous five foundation board. And then like I mentioned that the chair of the Hilver School Board and then I'm on the Mountwell University PR advisory committee.
[17:29] SPEAKER_02: So with respect to these different organizations, you know, with the school, I have a tremendous opportunity to really be hands on with my kids and make decisions around what programs we on board, what art is to the residency programs, what kind of equipment we're getting to enrich the kids lives at school.
[17:46] SPEAKER_02: So I feel like as a business, just the contacts and the connections that one makes. I mean, for example, with the board, the famous five foundation, we have board member board members across the country, we have a chapter in Ottawa. It's a national board.
[18:02] SPEAKER_02: Our chair is Francis Wright, who was appointed to the Order of Canada. So now I have this incredible mentor through Francis. And I'm working alongside other women who are just absolutely incredible in such huge inspirations to me.
[18:17] SPEAKER_02: So the benefit I'm getting from being involved is so tremendous not to mention the work that we get to do as a board. So we help continue to move equality and women's opportunities in the workforce.
[18:31] SPEAKER_02: And we've launched a mentorship program. We have a virtual to paint tea series once a month where you can log on for only five dollars and listen to people like King Campbell, our former Prime Minister of Canada.
[18:43] SPEAKER_02: We have a lot of people who are really doing this. We have a lot of people who are really, really trying to speak about what it's like to be a prime minister. We have a lot of people who are really challenging questions and queries and real life experiences that we work through.
[18:59] SPEAKER_02: So I think that it's tremendously mutually beneficial for any person to have an opportunity to volunteer on a board or at the school or in a homeless shelter, for example. It's very eye opening.
[19:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, you're running a business full time. You've got all this other volunteer stuff that you've got going on. You've got two small kids, right?
[19:23] SPEAKER_00: Where do you find that that work like balance that everybody talks about these days?
[19:28] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've done a few smart things. My office is on the same street as my house. So I have like a two minute commute with early. My children go to school in the neighborhood.
[19:36] SPEAKER_02: So I can walk them to school every day and easily go and pick them up. I invested lots of time and energy and to ensuring I have a really strong relationship with my parents.
[19:46] SPEAKER_02: You know, it's not always been like that as I'm sure it's the same with every parent child relationship, right? These are decisions that we have to make actions. We have to be mindful to take.
[19:57] SPEAKER_02: So just creating little lifestyle choices that alleviate travel time has been huge for me. My kids are part of their very much welcome in my office.
[20:08] SPEAKER_02: They come up. I mean, it's COVID now. So things are different, but my family is really involved in my business. I hire them to play shows for clients of mine. It gets appropriate.
[20:17] SPEAKER_02: And it's really also about being mindful with your time. You know, our time is our biggest asset. So making sure that we surround ourselves with people who we feel inspired to be around and who genuinely are kind and and it feels like a warm space.
[20:36] SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's also a big piece. If we're investing time in toxic relationships and working with toxic clients that are draining us, not paying us, I mean, things like that are not worth it at the end of the day.
[20:50] SPEAKER_02: So being mindful of our time is really important. And I don't think anybody ever achieves, you know, perfect. Some day feel, some days feel like we're running a race that we're never going to finish other days. You have more time. It's just it's going back to that frame of mind and mindset and just yeah, it's mind over matter with so many different things.
[21:14] SPEAKER_00: All right. So, well, thanks very much, Ellen, for joining us today.
[21:19] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Mario. Always great talking to you.
[21:22] SPEAKER_00: Great. That was Ellen Parker CEO of Parker PR in Calgary. This has been Calgary's podcast with Mario Toneguzi on Canada's podcast network. Thanks for joining us today.