THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep 23 Jeff Crilley and Sarah Crilley

On this episode of THE CRUDE TRUTH we talk with the CEO of Real News Public Relations Jeff Crilley and his daughter Vice President Sarah Crilley.

We discuss #entrepreneurship, #podcasting, #thoughtleadership, #publicrelations, and why being on TV is a good thing. . . . . . THE CRUDE TRUTH is out and even bad PR is good.

Please reach out to Jeff Crilley on his LinkedIn HERE

Please reach out to Sarah Crilley on his LinkedIn HERE

Check out StatusJet HERE

THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep 23 Jeff Crilley and Sarah Crilley

Rey Trevino [00:00:00] They say no news is good news, they also say even bad PR is good PR we’ll talk about that and much more on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Rey Trevino [00:01:11] Well. Thank you so much for coming back to another episode of The Crude Truth. Please like and subscribe and also leave only five star great comments on there. Today I am coming from the newest studio and The Crude Truth Collection of Awesome studios.

Rey Trevino [00:01:29] We are here in Southlake, Texas, at our what we would call our official podcast studio. For our listeners out there what we have is basically an awesome room here in this part of the studio where we’ve got several chairs, Everybody sitting up straight. Everybody’s got just the microphone.

Rey Trevino [00:01:49] So it’s that more traditional look of what these days you’re seeing probably on YouTube. Like when you watch The Crude Truth of people talking, they have their microphones, everybody has a microphone right in front of them.

Rey Trevino [00:02:02] And by everybody, let me introduce my guests today, they are probably DFW, U.S. premiere team of public relations here in Dallas, Fort Worth, spanning Austin, here in Southlake, all the way, even getting into the Houston areas, possibly. I want to introduce Jeff Crilley and Sara Crilley. How are you guys doing?

Jeff Crilley [00:02:25] Thrilled! And I’m thrilled that when you got me over to our South Lake studio, we’ve had this for about six weeks. And Sarah says, When are you coming? Yeah, when are you coming? And so we’re here and this is beautiful.

Sarah Crilley [00:02:34] So thank you. Rey well, thank you, Dad. I don’t remember the last time you and I were interviewed together, so it’s a little surreal to have one of our podcast interview as we don’t get this every day.

Jeff Crilley [00:02:44] I get nervous because her energy is so much higher than mine. So I actually have to like, like, bump it up.

Rey Trevino [00:02:49] You say that and I cannot disagree because first of all, your energy, when you walk into your office here at the Dallas studio and it is, boom, hey, how are you? But when you see Sara, it’s like, oh my gosh, how is this possible? So, I mean, whatever it is, you have transferred to just that positive energy that you have. Yeah and to Sara and it just even has come out even more.

Jeff Crilley [00:03:11] I always say I’m the original, she’s the copy, but the copy is much brighter than the original.

Rey Trevino [00:03:16] So it is true. Sometimes they do say, Hey, man, you know, can the copy could be better than the original?

Jeff Crilley [00:03:22] That’s right.

Rey Trevino [00:03:22] And that’s.

Jeff Crilley [00:03:23] Right.

Rey Trevino [00:03:23] But no, I wanted to get you guys on. First of all, I want to say thank you guys so much. I’ve been doing this now for a little over a year because of you. Jeff, thank you. And I guess thank you I don’t know I thanking you more than anything else and it’s just exciting that you guys are continuing to expand the studio space.

Rey Trevino [00:03:45] And over the last year in Fort Worth and in Dallas, I get nothing but compliments about the studio. It is oh my gosh, what a great studio. And I call my podcast the TV show, which I have from the beginning because, hey, we’re on camera everybody has a camera we spend a few minutes dialing in, making sure that I at least half as good as you get the day here on TV, you know,.

Rey Trevino [00:04:15] But they just always talk about, wow, this is a great studio they’re expecting me to show up with barely a camera and, you know, maybe a little laptop and. No, no. You know, when you come on the crude truth, you’ve got the whole nine experience, you know, to the nines, I would say, or to the Ritz, if you will. And it’s because of you guys at Real News. PR Well, thank you.

Jeff Crilley [00:04:37] And I want to give Sarah the glory. I’ll tell you how this whole division started. Yes. Sarah comes to me maybe four years ago and says, Daddy, we need to start a podcast division. And I remember laughing at her because, you know, we do news. We get people on Fox and CNN and the Wall Street Journal. I said, Sarah, who listens to podcasts? And she says, My generation does, Dad, all those kids jogging on the Katy Trail. It’s not music you got to trust me.

Jeff Crilley [00:05:01] So I give her my credit card. I said, Don’t go crazy. She spent about $3,000 on a little GoPros and board and microphones, and pretty soon this division started to take off. My memory is first month, five shows, second month, ten shows, third month, 15 shows. Now it got my attention and I said, What would happen if we spent a little money?

Jeff Crilley [00:05:21] And so to date, we’ve spent about a million and a half dollars on television studios. And I would put our studios up against commercial television, though. And that’s all because I believed in my daughter. I didn’t dismiss her idea and I think there’s a there’s a probable lesson for all entrepreneurs is some entrepreneurs are quick to say no, and it’s okay to say yes if you’re going to make mistakes, make small mistakes.

Jeff Crilley [00:05:46] And so, you know, I guarantee you, Mark Cuban, every company he’s ever invested in has not been successful. He takes care of his core business, but he’s invested in stuff that doesn’t work out. So if you’re going to make a mistake, make a small mistake.

Rey Trevino [00:06:00] Well, you know, before that, that’s exactly the basically same thing. My father says, like, hey, you’ve got to invest as an entrepreneur. And he goes, If I had. All the money that I invested in bad projects, I wouldn’t even have half the money that I have in everything that I’ve done over time in the good projects.

Rey Trevino [00:06:16] But, you know, moving. Sara, first of all, this new studio looks awesome. I mean, we are here in a much more casual setting where we can just sit here, kind of shoot the breeze, if you will. South Lake is your baby, Fort Worth is your baby. As as my listeners know, I am a Fort Worth guy through and through born and raised right here, born and raised in Fort Worth. And you know, our Pecos country operating. We’re out of here. And but I do go to Dallas.

Rey Trevino [00:06:46] But you know that Fort Worth studio is where most of mine are shot and now the South Lake one where I’ve already got three more lined up. You know, let’s talk about that and what you’re trying to bring over to the Fort Worth area.

Sarah Crilley [00:06:57] Sure. Well, we kind of dream where we’re at today, but I think we need to have bigger dreams here we are. I’m so excited that we’ve expanded to Tarrant County. And we were a frustrated publicist. We didn’t have the creative control over the set design.

Sarah Crilley [00:07:11] And we were constantly trying to, you know, get our clients on the news and figure out, all right, you know, if we get them in the news, are they going to be happy? What do we have going on? There’s only so much creative control a publicist has, and now we have all these studios that we can play. And Dad’s a former journalist and we hire a former journalist. And so to be able to see them in the sea of just there are no rules. You got to look great, and sound great on camera. And here we are.

Rey Trevino [00:07:34] That’s it. I mean, and and I definitely you know, as we’ve joked for the last year, I definitely have a face for radio. And I’m not somebody that that did this job lightly. I took on this role. Jeff told me, you know, when I had an opportunity to be on the Jeff Curley Show and he goes, Dude, you should do one and I was like, Nah, Jeff, I’m good this was like in late July, August.

Rey Trevino [00:07:58] And then I have some good friends. Like Ryan Rae showed up because that’s how we met. And, and my father, who are both critics, their friends, they will tell me no on something. And they both said, you did a good job. I like it.

Jeff Crilley [00:08:12] And if I can’t just I’ve watched you grow in, you know, that I remember having a little pep talk with you before your first interview. And then you interviewed George Bush and you were so excited and now you just kind of role in and just talk. And so I think you would have to agree that your skills as a communicator in general have increased where you could go into meetings now with swagger because you’ve done live TV.

Rey Trevino [00:08:37] I have, and it’s because of you. And those are two things that I do want to dive into more about with you guys. And Real News is let’s talk a little bit more about podcasting in general and then also about real news, because you’ve already mentioned it twice. Wall Street Journal, Fox News. So with the podcasting, you said it.

Rey Trevino [00:08:56] Sarah It has become a huge thing. I know in the oil and gas industry there are now companies that are making that are trying to do what you guys do on the podcast level at their own level, and they’re making a dollar doing it.

Rey Trevino [00:09:13] So you have these other companies out there that have five or six different podcasts all in the oil and gas industry, or hey, you might even have now companies that are in the medical world that are doing podcasts and advertising dollars are getting huge in that world. And so, you know, what are you seeing as far as podcasting goes right now to where it is continuing to grow? Where do you think it’s going to go, Sarah?

Sarah Crilley [00:09:35] So I think it’s hard to even imagine where we’ll be in five years ten years with para podcasting. Yeah, it’s the audio platform, right? It’s where you can hear it. So with companies bringing this to their maybe their own home studio or out of their office, I think that the creative control that they have over having, hey, we’re going to have anybody we want on our show and we’re going to make up the rules and we’re going to give you the inside, behind the scenes, anything that we want to talk about in that way they also have it archived in their library of content forever, which I think is very powerful.

Sarah Crilley [00:10:09] I’m going through some of dad’s old VHS tapes of when he was a TV reporter, and I’m getting choked up and emotional and it’s cool to be able to document your company’s history as it’s happening. As it’s happening. I wish that, you know, you could often the camera and say, all right, here’s what I’m thinking as a TV reporter from, I guess, an outside lens of where you’re at today. Right. Looking, you know, the outside looking in, so to speak.

Sarah Crilley [00:10:33] But I think that it’s just you can be conversational, unrehearsed, and where the world’s going is we don’t want that filter anymore. We just want to be each other. You know, we want to sit down and hang out and have a conversation.

Sarah Crilley [00:10:44] We’ve taken it to the next level from the video side and investing quite a bit of money to make them look like glamorous TV studios to be able to double down on the content because that’s important.

Sarah Crilley [00:10:54] So we love the podcast aspect. I love that companies are jumping on board and that we have an amazing library of content that people will be able to see for years of well here for years to come. But also the I would encourage all of your listeners and viewers to start their own show, whether that’s a Zoom recording, just to get in practice, just document the history and go all in and then come check out a video studio like ours to make it that much easier. So you don’t have to do the editing, you don’t have to do the uploading. We do all that for you.

Rey Trevino [00:11:22] Well, let’s talk about that for a second you know, I don’t do this full time this is not my full time gig. I am in the oil and gas industry just like a lot of other people are. But I’m out there. I am boots on the ground. You know, we drill oil wells for a living. I got to go out there. I meet with pumpers, I meet with the drilling companies, I meet with landowner, the mineral owners.

Rey Trevino [00:11:43] And so you just said something like this is not a full time job I enjoy it I have been blessed Jeff you know, I’m having a great time with this, but I’ve had to cancel going, Hey, I’ve got an issue out in the oil field. I’ve got to get out there or, Hey, you know what? I’ve got to move it back, have an important meeting with somebody.

Rey Trevino [00:12:02] And so there’s a lot that I don’t do that are behind the scenes. So let’s let’s talk about that for listeners out there that may not be computer savvy because I got to do a shout out to Andrew Wine and it’s why I can’t I’m not even going to say his last name and I apologize. But that is that is that he’s been my producer since day one on most of my shows and Chris is here today, if I’m correct. Yes. Yes. And this he’s going to be doing the studio producing here at this location.

Sarah Crilley [00:12:30] Shout out. Chris.

Rey Trevino [00:12:31] So Chris and but but he does all that work and you guys have helped out. You all even helped me out with my intro. Yeah. And I love the voiceover. Yeah. So this is the face of the great narration for the Crude Truth. But let’s talk about all the things that you can help people that are a little skeptical, but it’s like, Hey, they want to come to a podcast with Real News communication.

Jeff Crilley [00:12:55] Let me jump in on that one. So I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a year ago, and it was basically saying that podcasting is the new blog, it’s the new hot thing that all corporations of any size are having to do.

Jeff Crilley [00:13:08] So you got these CEOs waking up every morning, hearing it from their marketing teams like, Hey, boss, when are we going to start the podcasts? And they’re thinking, well, gosh, what kind of ring light do I buy? Or what kind of who’s going to edit the thing.

Jeff Crilley [00:13:22] And what we want to do is just make it simple for CEOs that instead of hiring somebody to edit, upload, tag, buying the right lights, worrying about somebody’s Wi-Fi, that they have locations. You know, right now there’s four locations in Dallas-Fort Worth, one location about to open up in Austin. And as you mentioned, Houston is on my radar screen and so in San Antonio.

Jeff Crilley [00:13:44] But in my dream world, in all 50 states, there will be locations like this one where you can just walk in, sit down, interview people, leave, we edit, upload, tag for just a few hundred bucks.

Rey Trevino [00:13:56] Yeah, yeah. No, that is what I’ll do and you can’t go wrong. I mean, it is is way for a somebody that’s actually working in the industry they’re talking about to come in, do a great show and then that’s it you know and so I really I can’t complain. I cannot thank you guys enough for the opportunity to do this.

Jeff Crilley [00:14:17] It’s our pleasure.

Sarah Crilley [00:14:18] Absolutely.

Jeff Crilley [00:14:19] And I think what’s happening is, you know, you have broadcasting, which is the world I came from. Yeah. And now we’re moving into what I call narrowcasting. So if you went to Apple or Spotify or any of the places to listen to podcasts, you can put in very narrow words like oil and gas and find just your subject.

Rey Trevino [00:14:37] Yes.

Jeff Crilley [00:14:37] And I think that’s interesting because, you know, when I grew up, there were actually like four television stations, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS.

Rey Trevino [00:14:47] Yes.

Jeff Crilley [00:14:47] And then I remember in high school, we got cable and we had 30 channels. And I’m like, oh, my goodness, how will I ever watch 30 channels? Yeah. And then along came satellite TV, and then came YouTube and now there’s a bazillion channels there’s a channel for everything. If you want to learn how to, you know, play Stairway to Heaven on the guitar, you just go to YouTube and put in how to play Stairway to Heaven on guitar, and there’s 15 tutorials.

Jeff Crilley [00:15:13] So I see this being, you know, the future of broadcasting is tell your own story, tell it in a professional setting rather than worrying about all the, you know, the hassle of the editing piece. I mean, think about that. I do a show as many as three generally shows a day you know this. And it’s beautiful for me to just sit down, know that my producer is going to take care of everything if the guest ended up saying something that they regret or we showed a picture of somebody’s ex-husband and stuff by accident, we can kind of like go back in and fix that.

Rey Trevino [00:15:47] Yeah.

Jeff Crilley [00:15:48] So I love it that, you know, we have the ability to go live, live or look live and look live is just basically, you know, you do it, you know, raw and then clean it up a little bit and then send it out.

Sarah Crilley [00:16:01] And as PR people, it’s we don’t have to pray that the news editors are going to like it. You get to. Your own producer. I mean, you’re not running the buttons or. But you get to be your executive producer and the creative control and everything, which has been such a game changer for us because we get our clients on the news and we love the credibility and our clients love it.

Sarah Crilley [00:16:21] But there’s so much more to be said on their own show they can grab a sound bite that they had on a national news station and then expand on that and we get a lot of questions. Hey, everybody’s jumping into podcasting, so why should I do a podcast? I would say exactly. Everybody’s doing a podcast.

Sarah Crilley [00:16:38] And you want everybody to be doing a podcast because just like, are you getting tired of watching movies? Well, do you like thrillers? Do you like the rom coms, romantic comedies? You’re just going to keep loving watching the new thing that’s out.

Sarah Crilley [00:16:52] So I would say it’s not too late to get into video podcasting. I think it’s still very early in the content creation days and to have that open mindset of, Hey, I got a perspective, my show’s going to constantly be evolving, I’m going to have fun with it and not hear that head crash of, Oh, everybody’s doing this. We’re still writing books, We’re still making amazing movies, right? I mean, is that going out of style now? We have audio books. I mean, it’s just a new platform in a way to evolve.

Sarah Crilley [00:17:18] And in the early days and Dad was a TV journalist and I would say still a TV journalist in the new digital era. And my stepmom, Victoria, former reporters, they started this company with the idea of, okay, let’s get our clients in the news. And this is how this is in 2008. And that was amazing. And then we started to add along the way some additional assets like websites and social media, and the company was growing and evolving over time.

Sarah Crilley [00:17:46] So now we say, you know when we started Real News PR, how exciting it was that clients didn’t have websites and we were building websites for them to show off those amazing PR appearances, just, you know, showing the amazing soundbites that they had in the news and what that looked like.

Sarah Crilley [00:18:01] And so I feel like we’re in that next phase of it. Okay, Now get our clients in the news. Now the clients make their own news, and then we showcase that online. But again, we’re just scratching the surface and we get really excited because we don’t know what the future looks like, but we’re definitely eating, sleeping, breathing every day and thinking about how can we showcase our clients and make them feel even better about telling their story.

Rey Trevino [00:18:21] No, you’re absolutely right. And that’s what I’ll do. Your showcase and I want to transition to talking about real news. PR But first you mentioned it, Jeff. Let’s if you can, give for the listeners out there that have not heard your story.

Jeff Crilley [00:18:36] Sure.

Rey Trevino [00:18:37] If you want to kind of tell that before we talk about the PR part, too, just to really show why it is that you’re so darn good at the PR part, if you can tell us from from changing I’m sorry, but I love your story about Fox, about how you all were bought by Fox. So if you could start on that, I don’t.

Sarah Crilley [00:18:54] I dont know if I’ve heard this story.

Jeff Crilley [00:18:55] Well. So I spent 25 years in TV news. So Lansing, Omaha, Minneapolis, in the last 15 years on the streets of Dallas, you know, doing everything from murders and fires to corny dogs at the state fair.

Jeff Crilley [00:19:07] So I had a wonderful career, freed an innocent man from prison, won some Emmy Awards, did some really cool things. A life changing event for me was I wrote a book in 2002 while still a TV reporter. The book was called Free Publicity a TV reporter shares the secrets for getting covered on the news.

Jeff Crilley [00:19:24] I ran around like a crazy man giving 300 speeches a year for six straight years in addition to my TV job, breakfast speech, lunch speech, Go to work at Fox for breakfast, lunch meets, go to work at Fox four. I end up selling 70,000 copies of a little $10 book. And this is how the business is born.

Jeff Crilley [00:19:40] Because as I’m signing people’s books, they’re either complaining about their current PR firm and how little they’re getting and how much they’re spending, or they’re saying, Jeff, it’s a do it yourself book. I’m never going to call the Dallas Morning News. I’ll never call ABC News New York. Can I just hire you? And they kept turning away the money, turning away the money. And then at the ripe old age of 45, I said, You know what? I think I have a second act. So I asked for Victoria’s permission to quit. It’s important ask the wife.

Rey Trevino [00:20:08] Was the wife and.

Jeff Crilley [00:20:09] She said, go for it, go for it. And I quit. And I started this company in my home. In fact, Chris, our producer today, is employee number one. I mean, Sarah technically.

Sarah Crilley [00:20:21] Started when I was 12 importing business cards contacting me says.

Jeff Crilley [00:20:27] How about first W to.

Rey Trevino [00:20:29] The to do okay so.

Jeff Crilley [00:20:34] Anyway now you know 20 full-time employees 165 different clients on retainer. I just got the best life ever. I always you know, people say, how happy are you? 1 to 10? I say 12. I mean, what could make me happier? I’ve got you know, I work with my son and daughter.

Rey Trevino [00:20:49] Yes.

Jeff Crilley [00:20:49] I get to help people tell their story through multiple different platforms. And I mean, think about what’s happening right now. The gift that you just gave me is that I’m doing an interview with my daughter. And I don’t remember the last time that you and I sat down.

Sarah Crilley [00:21:03] And, you know, I think it was on the Rotary show talking about Rotary Club and getting the next generation involved in Rotary. And I remember sitting on set with you in Real News on the Communications, a video broadcasting had just started and I was like, Wait you and I are like, This is weird. We’re like, Well, you’re used to being on on camera. I’m not as used to being on camera. So I was like, Wow! So this is what it was like for our clients.

Rey Trevino [00:21:26] Would you say that? But you have to podcast yourself.

Sarah Crilley [00:21:29] I do, yeah. Well, thanks to my dad, just kind of kicking me in button saying, Sarah, you need to do the Sarah Curly show. You got to do this, you’re going to do this. And I grew up wanting to be my dad when I grew up, and I still want to be when I grow up.

Sarah Crilley [00:21:40] And so I went to school taking radio and television classes. And you don’t know this, but I couldn’t read Teleprompter. And so I would actually take my tapes back then and edit them and edit them and then send them to Dad to see look how great I am on Teleprompter. But I would get so nervous.

Jeff Crilley [00:21:55] Oh wow.

Sarah Crilley [00:21:55] And I fell in love with the editing and all the behind-the-scenes and making myself look great on camera, but I really wasn’t and I really am not. But I have that perspective with our clients of like, Hey, if I can do it, you can do it truly. Now I’ve got my kids, Carly, Jay and I put in a little podcast. She’s not even talking yet. She’s my baby. Our babies are about the same.

Rey Trevino [00:22:13] Yes, they are.

Sarah Crilley [00:22:14] Yes. And so you got to bring your son in. Please don’t have.

Rey Trevino [00:22:17] To do it.

Sarah Crilley [00:22:17] The pint-sized podcast or the adorable.

Jeff Crilley [00:22:20] Oh, they could just stare at each other.

Rey Trevino [00:22:22] And they.

Sarah Crilley [00:22:22] Could. They’re saying little words now, but she was making little shoes and little.

Rey Trevino [00:22:27] Sister.

Sarah Crilley [00:22:28] Little little giggles and stuff. And those are like special moments for me to be able to say to my prospective clients, Hey, you know, my daughter’s podcasting and she can’t even talk yet, so why are you holding off like that?

Rey Trevino [00:22:40] That’s a good idea.

Jeff Crilley [00:22:41] That’s it! The show’s called Babble.

Rey Trevino [00:22:45] Baby. Well, you were talking about all the different channels. You’re like, there’s like a hundred different channels. There’s now Babies First channel we switched over to direct. Yeah. You stream like a baby’s first channel now.

Jeff Crilley [00:22:56] Really?

Rey Trevino [00:22:56] And then also you were mentioning, you know, podcasts, you know, CEOs are listening to these on their way to work, right? Individuals that want to get better in some niche market are listening to my I guess I’ll call it my brother show Energy News Beat they do a daily show every day. You know it’s about a 30-minute show and people are listening to them every day on their way to work.

Jeff Crilley [00:23:19] Wow.

Rey Trevino [00:23:19] And it’s like, so podcasts are really getting big. But okay, let’s get to the PR real quick and okay, You were at Fox News here in Dallas, Fort Worth for 15 years.

Jeff Crilley [00:23:31] Yes.

Rey Trevino [00:23:32] And you’ve mentioned both the getting your customers on Fox News about, hey, let me be the one. Let’s talk about that for a second and what you do there for your companies and what you’ve done for me as well.

Jeff Crilley [00:23:42] Thank you. So I’ve always been good and gifted with the public relations stuff. Even when I was at Channel four, I was giving people free advice and then they would call me up and say, Man, you’re a genius. I met you in a Rotary speech. You told me who to call with The Dallas Morning News. I called Cheryl Hall. I’m in the Sunday paper go pick up the Sunday paper and see whose face is on the front page.

Jeff Crilley [00:24:02] So I was I was good at it even in year one, but a turning point for me was I started to write a daily email. It now goes out to 28,000 journalists all over North America into London, England, and the open rate is something like 26, 27%, which is insanely high for a daily email.

Rey Trevino [00:24:24] Yes.

Jeff Crilley [00:24:25] And so journalists trust me. And so the times that I’ve put you in there, I know that every time I press send and it goes out, Ray, you’re going to end up doing, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six interviews. What’s your record? What’s the most number of.

Rey Trevino [00:24:39] Most I’ve done in a day is 13 and.

Jeff Crilley [00:24:41] 13. And you were probably exhausted.

Rey Trevino [00:24:43] It was a full day. It was a full day it was one of those clear my schedule just has to be done. And of course, it’s when oil goes up, you know, nobody ever wants to talk to you when all goes down. If I can’t figure that one out, you know, But everyone wants to know about gas prices and when they go up and nobody calls me and goes, hey, let’s talk about why are the prices going down?

Jeff Crilley [00:25:02] And you’re so talented at that. I mean, you’re you’ve learned to in TV, we call it tap dance. Tap dance is you don’t know what they’re going to ask you. It really doesn’t matter what they ask you. You’re able to rock and roll with whatever they ask.

Rey Trevino [00:25:13] You know, they’ll ask you some tough, some crazy questions I know you’ve given me the opportunity to be on like Newsmax the spectrum. I know I missed one one time because I was out in the field for Fox Business.

Jeff Crilley [00:25:26] Oh Cool

Rey Trevino [00:25:26] But those are those are the guys and those are the companies. And you do CNN as well. Or, you know, you mentioned the Washington Journal, but that is where you’re getting your clients to be seen. And that’s what part of your PR firm? Yes. Actually, that’s a big part of what the PR firm does.

Jeff Crilley [00:25:41] Yes. And which the reason you want to do that is credibility. So if they come to your website and they see Fox, CNN, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, it’s just presumed, okay, he’s a national thought leader. So, you know, it’s implied that you’re you’re a man of integrity. It’s implied that you’re smarter than the average oil man. And so it’s almost like a badge of honor. It’s good to have media clips.

Rey Trevino [00:26:10] And then the other thing y’all will do is that if one of your clients has a big up a live interview, you can host them at the Dallas studio. So if you get like, you know, if somebody wanted to be on, well, I don’t know who would want a, you know, Don Lemon or Sean HANNITY. I’m just trying to be politically correct, you know? Ah, I guess I’m Channel Eight News, but they can’t be in that studio. But they can be in your studio they can be there. And you can have your team ready to go to shoot live at the studio.

Jeff Crilley [00:26:41] Yes. In fact, we’ve told that to all our clients that, you know, if it’s convenient for you, come to one of our studios and do the live talkback with local news, with perfect lighting, perfect audio, rather than having to do it at home.

Sarah Crilley [00:26:53] And the peace of mind because there’s nothing like attack not working. And then the news stations on deadline and then you may get bombed and just come in the studio. Rocka do your interview and you don’t have to worry about all the tech and the behind the scenes at home, dogs barking, Amazon packages being delivered, babies crying, all the things.

Rey Trevino [00:27:10] No, you don’t have to. And I mean, I, I mean, you know, because sometimes I did one one time and it was, okay, we’re going to put your phone and you’re going to do like this with your phone, then you’re going to go, excuse me, then you’re going to hit the mic there and then, okay, but we’re going to have you on screen, but we’re not going to listen to you on screen just in case your screen freezes up. And you don’t got to worry again. You don’t worry about any of that when you’re there at The Real News studio.

Rey Trevino [00:27:34] And Dallas is in such a great location. You’ve hosted, you know, DFW sports legends there. Yes. You’ve hosted political giants there. And you know, you’ve got the studio has changing rooms, makeup. You’ve got makeup artists there you’ve got a welcoming team.

Rey Trevino [00:27:56] So you know what y’all have there? Definitely when a guest comes in, they feel right at home, they feel comfortable. And I think they almost forget that they’re about to be interviewed on The Crude Truth, you know, and you’ll see my show. It’s not like I’m, you know, trying to hit somebody hard.

Jeff Crilley [00:28:12] Well, I’ll give a shout-out to one of our star employees her name is Lauren Hanna, and she is our director of First Impressions. We found her at the Gleneagles Country Club where she was a server and then later a bartender and then an assistant manager and we just liked her spark she had a glow about her.

Jeff Crilley [00:28:30] So she was kind enough to accept our offer to come over and she has a list of all the shows that are coming in that day. So 15 minutes before you come in, she changes all the monitors in the lobby, too. Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray. So when you walk in, it feels like you’re coming into your television network instead of hours. And your guests are like, Oh, my goodness, Ray, you look. You’re all over the place. Yeah.

Rey Trevino [00:28:52] No. And you have you have like four listeners out there you have studios that look like the national studios and you know that your clients and their guests come in and feel great. And Lauren makes a mean old fashioned.

Jeff Crilley [00:29:07] She does She can do a smoked old fashioned in the glass.

Rey Trevino [00:29:10] In the glass.

Jeff Crilley [00:29:11] Mixologist and barista in the morning she can do Starbucks quality coffee and lattes.

Rey Trevino [00:29:16] And you can’t go wrong.

Sarah Crilley [00:29:17] that’s by design, right?

Jeff Crilley [00:29:18] Yeah, it is.

Sarah Crilley [00:29:19] You and your guests want to come in and you’re like, Oh man, I’m tired. We’ve got the espresso. And that’s going to give you that jolt of energy for the show. You need to relax a little bit. And you know, I’m a little nervous.

Jeff Crilley [00:29:28] Champagne before the show.

Rey Trevino [00:29:30] Yeah, know, and it helps because what you guys are doing, y’all have a that experience is second to none. And again, it’s not any of yours. The studios that that experience with everything that y’all got going on and so.

Jeff Crilley [00:29:45] Yeah so I think everybody has the same t shirt we’re all wearing the same t shirt. It says Make me feel special. And this goes for anybody in any industry when you’re I call it extreme customer service.

Jeff Crilley [00:29:58] When they come in to the real news space, How do they feel about themselves? Are they greeted with a smile? Are they, you know, respected and loved? And for many of our clients, I think this is their happy place.

Jeff Crilley [00:30:11] So, you know, they they could have stuff going on at work, they can have stuff going on at home, but they know Friday at two, I’m going to come into the Real News studios and I’m going to feel special. This will be my cheers this will be the place where everybody knows my name.

Sarah Crilley [00:30:26] And that’s by design, isn’t it, Dad? Because you were I mean, I guess kind of a stressed out journalist, you coming into the newsroom and what was that environment like? Because now as the boss, you get to create whatever environment you want.

Jeff Crilley [00:30:37] The newsroom was kind of I’m going to call it highly caffeinated, a lot of adrenaline, right? It wasn’t necessarily a happy place because everybody was under tremendous stress. You know, the 5:00 news doesn’t start at 501. It starts at five.

Rey Trevino [00:30:51] Yeah

Jeff Crilley [00:30:52] We had we call it a bat phone in the editing rooms there was a bat phone it would ring in there, a light would flash. And that meant it was the booth and usually it was Crilley we are 30 seconds away.

Jeff Crilley [00:31:05] I remember one time Clarice Tinsley, who’s still there is reading my lead in and we’re still putting finishing touches on it and the bat phone is ringing off the hook. Crilley where is the tape? And it was almost like broadcast news where we get we came running, we and, and Clarissa’s and Jeff Crilley has this report, and then we’re like, 1 in 1000. Boom.

Rey Trevino [00:31:25] Wow!

Jeff Crilley [00:31:27] We just made it!

Rey Trevino [00:31:32] I think you could do a whole podcast on the newsroom, like the news war Room or something like that, or, you know, just talking about war stories or just.

Jeff Crilley [00:31:39] Call it babble. Sometimes you felt like that.

Rey Trevino [00:31:46] Sometimes I believe well, guys, you know, first of all, I cannot thank you guys enough. Sarah, Jeff. You know, I definitely don’t want to say that the pupil has become, you know, because you two are just in a level but just think you guys are even coming on to The Crude Truth.

Rey Trevino [00:32:05] We talk about everything that’s going on because what you guys are doing is is amazing and y’all are y’all you’re bringing out, you know, without even knowing y’all are bringing up more important issues, allowing people’s people voice to be heard.

Jeff Crilley [00:32:20] Yes.

Rey Trevino [00:32:20] So just guys, very, very.

Jeff Crilley [00:32:22] And thank you for the honor of allowing us to be here together and interview as a father daughter team.

Sarah Crilley [00:32:27] Yeah, this is a lof of fun Rey Thank You!

Rey Trevino [00:32:29] Thank you, guys. Sarah, you know, I always like to ask people, you know, if they want to contact you or to ask about Fort Worth, the South Lake locations, you know, how can they get a hold of you?

Sarah Crilley [00:32:40] Absolutely! So our tagline is Real News PR publicity at the speed of news and video, podcasting at the speed of news all journalist, PR and video podcasting studio. Check us out at Real News, PR, XCOM. And also you can check out launch a show dot com to find out a little bit more about how you can work with Real News on launching your very own show.

Rey Trevino [00:32:59] You know, and Jeff, I mean, you can how do people find you and you can say the same thing which she said. She said.

Sarah Crilley [00:33:05] No, he has his own website, The Jeff Kerley Show, and also Jeff Curley Akam. That’s the hour. I’ll tell you why I say all the time when I go to networking events, I say, So my last name rhymes with silly because we love to have fun. It’s Crilley. And then they say anything with that really silly, Crilley girl.

Rey Trevino [00:33:22] You did my intro right there. Hey, we’re going to be silly today. Ridiculous.

Sarah Crilley [00:33:26] I say we’re professional with positivity.

Jeff Crilley [00:33:29] That’s another show. Silly with Crilley. Let’s go.

Sarah Crilley [00:33:31] Hey, let’s have a bit called Really Crilley.

Jeff Crilley [00:33:34] I had it be a bit cold. Really Crilley this was too much fun

Rey Trevino [00:33:38] No, no, this is a blast and in the other place, I can find you guys. Y’all are a sponsor of The Crude Truth. Yes. Just. Just thank you for that. But also, y’all’s y’all’s info is at the end of every show, so people can definitely get the info there on how to get in contact with you guys as well.

Rey Trevino [00:33:57] Sarah Jeff. Thank you guys so much. I mean, it’s awesome and congrats on the new studio. This place is awesome for my listeners out there. Definitely want to check this one out on the Crew News.com or on YouTube and check out the new podcast studio. Thank you. And we’ll see you next time on another Episode of The Crude Truth.