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Today, we have a native of Richmond, California. She is the co-founder of the B firm PR. She is an entrepreneur, public speaker, author, and wardrobe stylist. She will be telling us how she landed opportunities with Comcast, Doritos,
[00:00:52] Tebeau, Macy's, VH1, BET, and became Amazon's number one [00:01:00] best seller. She will also give insight to the biggest mistakes people can make with branding. Please welcome Ms. Erica Dias.
[00:01:14] Hello, Ms. Erica Dias. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to have you as the first black woman entrepreneur and author. Well, thank you so much. I'm definitely honored. Yeah. And I know you have the business and you started that with your sister, Ashley Jernigan. Yeah, my sister and I started the B firm PR about, um, April, 2010.
[00:01:46] What made you go into business with your sister? I know some people shy away from going into business with family, but I think that's a great idea. Yeah. So the good thing about my sister and [00:02:00] I is we are the opposite. However, we are alike in many ways. Um, my sister is very, very cross your T's, dot your
[00:02:11] I's. I'm more of the visionary. Um, you know, step out on faith with $500 or less and make things happen. Uh, but my sister is very like, you know, plan it out a through Z. And so with that being my sister's personality and my personality. . Um, it actually built me well in business because even though, um, I brought the idea to my sister, she understood business, and she was definitely supportive of, um, this idea that I had.
[00:02:45] Uh, so she handled the business aspect of it that I wasn't too familiar with. My sister also was already a seasoned publicist, um, and working. And the industry as a publicist, I was actually working [00:03:00] in the industry as a wardrobe stylist for television and film and commercials. And when I decided to step out on faith and create
[00:03:10] this new business venture, which is a family business, my sister was definitely the first one that I made the call too. And like I said, with her, believing in the idea and understanding business, she set the business up and I, you know, stepped out and got the clients. Yes, that is awesome. That is very awesome.
[00:03:31] So can you tell the audience exactly what you do in PR. Okay. So what my sister and I do is we basically create the narrative being told to the public, um, that can be whether it's in a magazine, whether it's on television, whether it's on a blog, um, you know, Speaking engagements. I basically take a client and I help them build their brand behind the [00:04:00] scene.
[00:04:00] Um, you know, making sure that their brand is highlighted for the best of their ability. Um, we create, uh, opportunities for our clients as well, too, whether it comes to, you know, endorsement deals, um, strategic brand partnership. Um, I also make sure that. The narrative being told to the media is the story that we tell, you know, um, it's, it's always true story.
[00:04:31] However, what you guys see our read about when it comes to clients that, um, my firm posts or that my firm represents, that's the story that we've told. That's the pitch that we gave and that's what helped. We too, that a client being maybe featured in Forbes or Huffington post or black enterprise, um, it's, it's the story that we create that makes, you know, the media buy into it.
[00:05:00] [00:05:00] I say you always work with huge companies and huge people. So. Even when you were doing the fashion and things like that. So how do you land great opportunities with those huge people? Cause I know with the fashion you did, you just told us what you did with PR. So with fashion, you did Comcast Doritos Macy's VH1 and the list goes on.
[00:05:26] So how do you gain those huge opportunities? So, um, I honestly want to credit that, that those opportunities to, um, really just my hard work and determination and, and just assertiveness when it came to not waiting on anybody that can mean anything, but I was one of those, you know, those young. Women in high school who was very ambitious, very driven.
[00:05:56] And I knew what I wanted at a young age. So I was [00:06:00] a big, uh, vision board person and I still am. But back in the day I would, I would, uh, put vision boards all around my room and it would have pictures, magazine, cutouts, words of, um, people that I aspire to. To the life or people that were doing the things that I aspire to do or wanted to do.
[00:06:21] And people that I admired and June Ambrose, um, who is a wardrobe stylist to miss me, Alia JZ, she's created ample amount of work as a costume designer for movies like belly and, uh, you know, different artists. And I was blown away by her, um, her, her work, her work ethic, um, just her being a woman of color who looked like me and who was killing it.
[00:06:48] And so at a young age, uh, Brown, 15, 16, I reached out to June Ambrose. You know, there was no Instagram back then there was no Twitter. Uh, I believe there was my [00:07:00] face and there was, uh, You know, just a phone book, you know, and I ended up getting her company's, uh, business information and I actually called on my lunch break.
[00:07:13] I'll never forget. I caught on my lunch break at high school and I was using one of my friend's phone and. She had a flip phone and I called, um, her office, an ambulance to his office. And, um, I guess I sounded professional enough to where her assistant at the time put her on the phone, you know? And I said to myself, a little prayer, which was something real short and sweet, like, okay, you have five minutes to basically give her, you know, your elevator pitch.
[00:07:45] God, please give me the right words to say. And. You know, I told her that I had been admiring her from afar and who I was, and I asked her, I said, if you give me a telephone internship, because mind you, I was still in high [00:08:00] school. So I said, if you give me a telephone internship, I said, I will come and work for you for free when I graduated high school, no matter where I am, where you are, if you give me this opportunity, you know, like I will promise to show you that I can, you know, Be enacted, you know, and thankfully active time in mind you.
[00:08:21] But like I said, there was no Instagram, there was no Twitter. This woman knows me, not from a, you know, like a can of paint. She literally was receptive at that time. She couldn't even believe that I was in high school calling her. Cause I even ended up telling her like, you know, she was like, you're in high school.
[00:08:37] And I say, yes, I'm on my lunch break. So we gotta make this quick, like I'm sneaking on the phone. And she was receptive. Gave me an opportunity. Uh, I speak to her maybe like. I don't know once every couple of months. Um, and she would just kind of, you know, give me advice. I would tell her what I was doing.
[00:08:58] Um, we kept in contact all [00:09:00] the way until, you know, I had the opportunity to meet her in person and I'll never forget, I never had been starstruck, but when. I met her and she walked up the elevator. I thought I saw like that cousin. I was like, Oh my God, I've arrived. Like, this is the woman who I've been admiring since I was in high school.
[00:09:18] You know, I finally get my opportunity to work with her. And by this time I'm at least 21, you know? So imagine being a 16 year old girl, 15 year old girl who has been admiring somebody for that many years, and then you finally meet them, um, And with the advice that you had given me throughout high school and my college years, um, I had done it, you know, like, like it was Bible and I even went a step further and, you know, went to cosmetology school while I was in high school.
[00:09:50] I didn't want to limit my skillset, um, in the industry of Baxton and beauty and. I went to [00:10:00] cosmetology school. I was very much so into speaking things into existence. If there was somebody that I wanted to intern with, I wanted to work with. I was the first one, you know, applying, putting my application in interning.
[00:10:15] You know, mom, my parents honestly were, were very supportive with my endeavor. So I can honestly say that even though I had to fit dreams in these goals, if it wasn't for them supporting the essence of those business goals and dreams. You know, financially and even just, you know, uh, just supported me and emotionally, like I wouldn't have been able to do it, you know, because a lot of people have dreams and, and, and don't have the news to, uh, to though, you know, and, and my family was very supportive of the goals that I had for myself.
[00:10:51] And along with, like I said, women like June Ambrose, who gave me an opportunity, I wouldn't have been able to have that opportunity. If my mom, [00:11:00] wasn't there to support, you know, my dream. So that's honestly where I have gotten those opportunities. Have it started with my foundation, you know, my, my mom, my grandmother, my dad believing in me and helping me and, and honestly telling me at a young age that I can do anything that I want it to be.
[00:11:21] And, um, you know, I knew just continuing to knock down doors. That's where I got. That those opportunities from, you know, just putting myself out there, um, you know, being the one who would raise her hand when guest speakers would come in, if they will work in that Nordstrom's or Dior, or, you know, wherever in the facts and departments are on these six facts and shows, I was...

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