Growing up in Los Angeles, Nicole Myden had big dreams of being involved in the entertainment industry and went to the University of Arizona to study journalism. She was on a trajectory to become a magazine writer or entertainment red-carpet reporter when she saw an ad for a film student internship to intern at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2000.
“I wasn’t a film student so my first thought was, ‘there’s no chance they will ever take me, I’m a journalism student.’ But I applied anyways, told them about me, and what my passions were, and sent it off and let the Universe do its thing,” explained Nicole about the start of this life-changing opportunity.
A few months later, Nicole received a letter in the mail saying she had been given an internship to shadow a film publicist at the festival. While she didn’t quite understand what that job would entail, she joined hundreds of film students from across the country to embark on a two-week internship program in Cannes, France. During her time shadowing the film publicist, Nicole realized that she had found something that combined her love of connecting people and sharing their stories with a larger audience through media relations.
After the internship was over, the mentor Nicole shadowed helped her land her first job in Los Angeles as a publicity coordinator for Disney. Since then, Nicole has been connecting people and brands with the media for 23 years.
“I’ve had the great fortune to experience working for big entertainment companies like Disney, FOX and American Idol, and Sony Pictures Classics, and have held upper management roles at some top and award-winning public relations agencies in the industry working with celebrities on red carpets, press tours, campaign launches for very notable consumer products and brands in fashion, hospitality, food, fitness, health/wellness, tech and more,” Nicole shared.
Then six years ago, on a “gut instinct and soulful intuitive pull,” Nicole left her entire life, network, and world behind as she knew it in Los Angeles to move out to Scottsdale.
“Hands down, one of the scariest and best decisions of my life,” Nicole shares about the decision to move to Scottsdale. “I appreciate the energy and calming environment here and love the ease of day-to-day life. I traded two hours a day in gridlock traffic for gorgeous hiking trails and 20 minutes across town drives and free, ample parking wherever I go. There’s a special energy here that’s hard to explain to people that don’t live here and I’m grateful every day to call this magical place home.”
Nicole continued to share how much she appreciates the creative and entrepreneurial community in Arizona with a culture of people coming from all over ready to collaborate and create together. Since relocating, Nicole has become a mentor for small and medium business owners and enjoys helping them discover they are worthy of press opportunities and teach them step-by-step systems and principles to garner those opportunities on their own.
“When I moved here, I threw myself in every room possible. I traveled the state and explored every square inch while going to every networking and business professionals’ event I could to start meeting people,” Nicole shared. “As soon as I told people what I did for a living, I would get asked how they can get themselves on television, how they could get themselves or their companies featured in magazines and a light bulb went off to start The PR Concierge.”
The PR Concierge was a business built to help small business owners get the press coverage they deserved. After spending her entire career helping big national and global brands get publicity, Nicole found a way to take the work she was doing and niche it down to give small business owners out in the public eye to share their incredible stories, reach more people and create a larger impact with their products and solutions that improve people’s daily lives. Nicole worked on retainer for several clients as a PR consultant and additionally began teaching workshops to help take entrepreneurs through a step-by-step process of how they could garner their own publicity.
“Not every business owner can afford an ongoing retainer, so I felt I had a great opportunity to mentor and teach and reach more people through this side of my business. I loved getting in rooms with small business owners and seeing their eyes light up when they could see how tangible this was for them once they applied the action-steps I presented them with,” shared Nicole. “The greatest gift is to see those small business owners, who never thought they could be on TV or be in a magazine, not only land TV segments but become regular guest experts or get featured on the cover of a local magazine in their market. There’s great power in publicity, and I’ve seen it continuously change the trajectory of people’s businesses when done right.”
Nicole’s business grew organically, and The PR Concierge became a go-to place for local entrepreneurs to get the help they needed to grow their public presence and grow their businesses. Then, like many businesses, the COVID pandemic had Nicole losing clients overnight as business owners began to panic about where they were putting their money. Nicole quickly pivoted and began teaching digital workshops and offering virtual sessions to coach people about how to get their own press opportunities.
“The business I started working in 23 years ago was so focused on traditional forms of media, and here I was in the midst of the world being shut down, and still getting to help people be seen in a different way for their businesses,” said Nicole.
Nicole launched a new company at the start of 2022, Nicole Myden, LLC, which allows her to continue to build her own personal brand and all the things she has set out for herself to continue to experience and accomplish. Her business is solely referrals at this point, which she shares she has a “deep gratitude for.” The business is a combination of working with local brands in Scottsdale and Phoenix in a variety of industries and a monthly workshop series to help coach thousands of small business owners to get them results for their businesses.
You can hear directly from Nicole and learn some of her tools on building a personal and professional brand at the upcoming Business & Professionals program on March 2, 2023. Click here to find out more about that event and find Nicole on Instagram @nicolemyden.
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