Episode 57: Confronting Crisis with Kristine Sickels

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

Today we get to talk to Kristine Sickels, founder of Her Story. Her Story is a marketing agency that is run by women, for women. They help female entrepreneurs succeed through launching new ideas, growing their business, and building their brand. We first heard about Kristine while watching The Bright Side virtual conference. Her segment, ‘What’s The Future Story You Want To Tell?’ was about not letting life happen to us, but instead, deciding how we want to write the story of our own lives. Kristine is no stranger to this. Being a marketing executive for 20 years, she helped save companies from crises, and completely helped them pivot into a new direction, changing the course of conversation.

Kristine started her own marketing  agency about a year ago.  She focused on helping women entrepreneurs, business owners, and people who have their own non-profits.  Before she started Her Story, she worked in corporate america as the senior VP for a division of a large company that represented huge, every day consumer brands.  

Two years ago, Kristine found one of her clients in a PR crisis and while she could have led her team to let it blow over and deal with it, she chose to address it and use it to further market the brand!  You may recognize this well known company as Crockpot, but to some, they thought of it as the accident that killed Jack in the well known show, This Is Us.  In the final episode of the first season, the world was prepared to finally know why America’s dad had passed away.  Due to a faulty Crockpot wire, Jack falls to his demise from a fire.  The next day, social media blew up and made this trusted brand seem like a weapon.  Kristine and her team immediately brainstormed ways to turn the conversation to empathize with the world.  The crisis management team met with cast members, morning shows, and all over social media to make sure the story was showing Crockpot as the trusted brand that the world always knew. 

Kristine loved her years in corporate, but in her final year, she felt a pull to start something new.  Although she didn’t know what that exactly looked like, she knew she needed a break.  During her break, a lot of women were reaching out to her.  She knew there was a need for someone to help monetize a business.  She wanted to create a collective of women who were experts in their field to help other women become successful as well. 

“So many times I think people are trying to find, “How did you do it , what was step one, step two, step three?” and at the end of the day there are no steps, it’s a story.”

It’s no lie that life can be extremely messy, but Kristine’s advice of having a plan set in place and determining how you want to tell their story, is very important. Kristine is a boss at dealing with PR nightmares, she focuses and prepares for what can happen in the future, and works hard to empower other women. As female business owners, we think what she is doing is extremely impactful. Helping other female entrepreneurs launch new ideas and build their brands.

We wanted to leave you with this final quote from Kristine: “There is no one path, it’s the story that you create.”