Ginny Seyferth is the founder of SeyferthPR, one of the Midwest’s largest privately held public relations firms. Recognized for brand reputation management including issues and crisis communication, new product launches, major events as well as all social and media relations programs. SeyferthPR now practices throughout Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Full Transcript:
Jennifer Moss: Hello and welcome to Powerful Women Let's Talk. I'm Jennifer Moss, host and reporter here at WGVU. And joining me today is Ginny Seyferth of Seyferth PR. Thanks so much for joining us today, Ginny.
Ginny Seyferth: Thank you, so fun to be here.
JM: So it's funny because, so I've known you for many, many, many years and we ran into each other and I'm like, oh my goodness, I need to talk to you for Powerful Women.
GS: We've just, our careers have crossed so many times over the decades.
JM: Over the decades, absolutely. So you continue to do incredible work in the PR field. As a backdrop, your community has handled work for numerous companies such as McDonald's, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Cascade Engineering, your alma mater, GVSU, and the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel Group, just to name a few. I kind of want to start from the beginning though. I mentioned you attended Grand Valley State University. Let's start with the fact that we were just chatting. You actually did some radio and news and whatnot before you got into the PR world.
GS: You know, Grand Valley was really progressive in the late 70s and early 80s in technology, which is so fun because they are now too. And they invested in WGVU at that time WSRX. And so I had been accepted in going to college elsewhere, but saw the opportunity for hands-on experience at Grand Valley. So I came here and really a lot of talent came out of Grand Valley at that late 70s, early 80s time, and we all really kind of birthed the idea of radio being more inclusive in the greater Grand Rapids community.
JM: Okay, so some of the people that you went to school with, we know. Oh my gosh, Kevin Matthews, I used to have to get up in the morning and put a long song on, because he'd be late, and I was doing news. Tony Gates and John Keating, who now is with the Red Wings and the Tigers or Fox Sports, Tim Steele, they were all part, Tony Gates, they were all part of that genre at Grand Valley. And really Grand Valley pushed for this really high-end quality, attracting listeners at that time. And it was really fun, really, I learned a lot.
JM: I was going to say you had a lot of fun with that. So as you got started as it related to working in PR. You worked for other firms before you basically landed back here in Grand Rapids, right?
GS: I actually went into corporate PR. I had a double major at Grand Valley, also into political science, and intended on going to law school in Chicago, which is why I took a job at Amoco Oil Company and worked in their, really their jobber area where I worked with on the ground when there were drilling situations, a lot of issues that were happening. I actually was very involved in the drilling of the Pigeon River here in Michigan, but I was a staunch environmentalist with a business background, and so I fit perfectly into that space of how do we coexist in community. And then from there, I came to Amway, who was looking at opening a cosmetics plant. This would have been in the early 80s, and it was pretty hard to build at that time in Michigan because of some of the environmental laws that we had put in place, really good ones, by the way. And I was very fortunate to be recruited by somebody who had been from Chicago. He had moved here, recruited me here. And then together we helped Amway open one of the first cogeneration plants. So they were a manufacturing leader in using the energy that the company was doing to then reheat the plant. And that was really my first start into PR. And then I moved in, did a lot of work. I was honored to do media relations for Mr. DeVos for quite a few years. And then I left, we opened the Amway Grand Plaza during that time. We opened the Ford Museum during that time.
JM: You were very busy.
GS: You know, it was, well, it was, you know, Amway was, and still is, a model for community engagement. And at that time, you had the powerhouses, Mr. DeVos, Mr. Meijer and Mr. Pew and Mr. Gillette, they were all kind of land planning visions, sort of before Grand Action came alive. They were doing things, and they called themselves the “New Grand Rapids Committee.” And those of us who worked for them really had the honor of really knowing and learning community firsthand. And then in 1984, I had the opportunity to open my own firm and did so because much of the work that we were all doing in the company world was going out of market. There wasn't a firm here. And it kind of bothered me that Grand Rapids didn't have its own PR firm. So I opened and did a small amount of work here and then it just blossomed.
JM: It blossomed big. And I want to jump back into all that you got a chance to be a part of and to witness as you have seen firsthand, up close and personal, the city grow. How does that feel to have witnessed and be a part of some of the bigger plans before they actually cam about?
GS: If you had told me that the Tootsie Van Kelly would be a superstar in our town and that the Amway would be such an incredible anchor, I would never believe it. But standing, looking back to the early days of the Ford Museum and to see now what the Presidential Museum has become such an important part of the vibrance of the region and now its relationship with University of Michigan. Grand Rapids has always been this phenomenal, kind of small city that fought above its weight class and it collaborated. It did that through collaboration. It didn't do that from government funding. It was philanthropy and government working together. And so, I mean, fast forward, I was able to do the dedication of the Frederick Meijer Gardens. And, you know, I have pictures of my kids when they were lowering the horse. And, you know, so there's a lot of chapters in Grand Rapids history, and it's done really well. And we still have a lot of work to do. But it's done really well as a healthy, inclusive city looking into the future.
JM: So you started in 1984. Back then, if I'm correct, Seyferth and Associates, and now you are Seyferth PR.
GS: Right. We still have a lot of associates. Just like any business, it evolved over the years. I had some really great partners, some who retired, one who passed away, Dan Spalding.
JM: My first news director.
GS: Was your first boss. Yeah. Your first news director.
JM: Brought me here to Grand Rapids.
GS: Yeah. And so I just have been so blessed with great people. And if you look around the city today, I know I'll forget people, but Andrea Clark now heads Crisis Communications at Kellogg and Jen Van Schuyver runs the Special Olympics and Brooke Vining has a practice in town. Jeff Lambert was an intern for me. I mean, so, the idea that Grand Rapids had a base of public relations allowed us, Julie Smith at Hayworth, I'm thinking of many of them, that Lauren is over at Wolverine Worldwide, they all started at Seyferth. And so we cut our teeth together. And then now John Helmhold is the CEO, I hired, I brought John in and he is he, along with Kieran Kirchenbauer and Tyler, are buying the rest of the firm and will take over in the next couple of years.
JM: Okay, I was gonna get to that and ask you what are the plans for the future for you. So I read that you have a passion for understanding how and why people think the way they do and how has that helped you grow in your business and perhaps in your personal life, and wondering and having that passion for understanding people.
GS: I think it's, I learned really early on that the more that you understand where people are coming from, the more that you can work together. I guess that collaboration or convening factor. I'll give you a great example. Early on in downtown Grand Rapids, which it's funny because we still have some of those same, what I would call, homeless challenges. And early on, it was really all about women. There were no women shelters in the market. And so we had wonderful facilities for men, but we just never accepted that women would be homeless. And I really saw that because I always worked downtown, being downtown for 40 some years. You see, and once you look and see the people around you, whether they're on the street or walking by you and you learn where they're from, you begin to realize the pieces that are missing as the community is growing. And I leaned on some of that knowledge to bring and get to know other people in town, find their interests, see if we could share together interests together. We actually opened the first Liz's House in town and that was an effort with Pam DeVos and Deb Meijer and Sally Gleason and I and Suzy Geha. It was kind of crazy because people thought, why do they need that? Within six months, we had 40 women in Liz's House. Dwelling Place was a great partner. But I love to understand why you're doing something. If you do that, as a journalist does, you can learn more.
JM: I remember Liz's House when it began. We used to have a fashion show there.
GS: You probably modeled in the fashion show, if I remember.
JM: Yeah, absolutely I did. So when you look at public relations and public image, it's huge, especially today I would imagine, as you continue on with that social media age, this social media age, how has it changed and how do you balance that? Because it's a lot, keeping those images intact. You represent a lot of people, a lot of companies.
GS: So think of it as, I always really get down to thinking of it as the people we represent and the companies, it's all about their reputation. And even as an individual, it's about your reputation. I'm old enough to have remembered CNN coming on and we went to 24-hour news cycles. You probably remember that. All of a sudden, first, you know, all of a sudden you're getting up at four in the morning or three, you probably got up at two. And so social media is just more channels to me. You know, we used to just have three channels, then we went to a hundred with, with, you know, cable and those things. And now we just have, everybody has a channel. So the question that I always have to look at is how do you keep consistent in your reputation, whether you're talking on social, whether you're talking in traditional media, whether you're just talking with others, how do you keep that authenticity and make sure that it's honest and that you don't really kind of package yourself in a way that you can't deliver. And so whether it's McDonald's or Amway or Blue Cross, I'm really blessed to represent organizations that are very committed to the authenticity of their reputation.
JM: How difficult can it be sometimes though to manage or to help fix various issues that people, businesses...that they hire you to do. You know, what's the approach? Because a lot of times you're hired to fix something, or something is awry, or something is going on, or they're about to have something big happen, and they want to keep that image intact. How do you come in and kind of resolve that?
GS: Well, I mean, first of all, it's honesty. What happened? Why did it happen? And how are we going to fix it? And as long as you stay focused on that, it really, the public and your relationships with your employees and your shareholders can stay intact as long as you stay honest and you have to stay ahead of it. You can't let others and especially in the social world tell your story for you. You have to stay and it's very hard for organizations to respond quickly. So that is probably the thing that we are most known for in the PR world is with as many issues as we handle. We are super-fast on who, what, where, when, and why did it happen and how we're fixing it. And you don't have to, along the way, you don't have to admit how it happened if you don't know. But you do have to say we don't know how it happened.
JM: That's part of that honesty. It's part of that honesty.
GS: Whether you're a school district or a major corporation, you have to accept responsibility for who you are and what you owe to the public. And of course, The best thing in the world is that you have a good reputation going into an issue because then people trust you quicker.
JM: Any tough issues stand out in your head as to what you had to do for a client that really was like earth shattering kind of thing?
GS: I have many. I'm sure you have a lot of stories. I handled the Alpine Manor situation in Grand Rapids, if you remember. You probably covered it. I worked with...with the diocese, with several dioceses, in some of the priest issues years ago. And again, the authenticity, I handled, you know, environmental spills that affected neighborhoods and, and everything from, you know, people acting out in parking lots, you know, shootings in parking lots and schools that had to be closed down because of issues. But in each case, it's really the same process. What happened? How did it happen? How can we prevent it from happening again? And what's our responsibility based on what happened? So, um, you know, there's another, but it, it all goes back to that authenticity of can we tell everybody what happened and how do we make it really clear? And in social, it has to be a 14 second soundbite.
JM: Absolutely. That's very true. So you've been doing again this for a while. What are your goals today? I mean, I know you're getting ready to transition out or ownership there, but how do what are your goals today and how do they perhaps differ from when you started out or once you had reached that point of success?
GS: I think if I if I have something that I want people to know is I had a tremendous amount of phenomenal women that worked for me over the years. I mean, I still as we're talking Molly Klimus and Eileen McNeil and I think each of them saw that you could be really successful in business and also be dedicated to growing your family and also make sure you leave the community better than when you got here. And I think that would be my biggest goal, especially for women. There weren't a lot of women in business when I started out. And so, you know, I worked for some Japanese companies that I couldn't present at the meetings because I was pregnant. I mean, that was the early 80s. And I never really looked at that and said, oh my gosh. I really looked at it and said, I just gotta quietly change this. I gotta prove that I need to be in the boardroom. And once I showed other women that they could be the leaders that they should be, and they didn't have to give it up, they didn't have to give everything else up. You could find that balance. And I think that is a really important thing for young women today to see. You can have it all. I don't have the cleanest house in America. I probably never did. Can't do it all. But you can have it all. I have a great marriage of 37 years and two kids and grandchildren. So, yeah.
JM: So, your firm is one of the largest in the Midwest. Are you happy that you have done and are doing your work here in Grand Rapids, as we talked about your beginnings.
GS: Very happy. Probably, you know, over the years, as succession planning began to need to happen, I didn't want to sell out of market. I really thought it was important. I mean, I am just as proud of opening the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel as I was launching ArtPrize. And that was a grandchild, you know, a third generation of the incredible DeVos family. And...I think that Grand Rapids deserves to have a really strong communication team in town. Even though Seyferth PR does work in Louisville and West Virginia and Chicago and Pittsburgh and everywhere in between, we're based here. And every single time we walk into a market, people are like, oh, I've heard of Grand Rapids. And we get to tell the story. So being based here I think is critically important and we've also brought a lot of talent here because we're based here.
JM: What's the best part of your journey, Ginny?
GS: Probably being able to see it continue. I mean, there's a legacy, there's an opportunity, and to see the many men and women that worked for us from interns all the way up now contributing into society.
JM: Wonderful. sharing your story, and of course, for all that you do here in our Grand Rapids community. And thank you all for joining us for this edition of Powerful Women Let's Talk.
