Steve Turner, Co-Founder, and Principal at Solomon Turner PR, an award-winning St. Louis Public Relations/Marketing Agency dedicated to helping companies build their businesses with breakthrough creative ideas and strategies using traditional and social media. As an entrepreneur, he helped build the firm into an agency known as one of the Best PR Firms in St. Louis as named by Small Business Monthly for 13 consecutive years. Also named a Best St. Louis PR Firm by Expertise, UpCity, and more. Work includes local and national PR campaigns, campaign strategy, and media relations.
A recognized storyteller and writer, Steve personally has over 40 years of experience providing branding and marketing communications to businesses and organizations on a local, regional and national basis. Expertise in marketing strategy, market development, social media, blogging, writing, public relations, and advertising with entertainment, financial, healthcare, high-tech, and various business sectors. He has worked with many nationally known clients from speakers such as Anthony Robbins and Brian Tracy to Northwestern Mutual and many more.
The Interview
Host: Thank you so much for giving us your time! Before we begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers and take us through what exactly your company does and what your vision is for its future?
Steve Turner: Solomon Turner PR is an award-winning public relations and marketing firm located in St. Louis, MO. Now in our 31st year, we are storytellers, providing a variety of communications services to clients on a national and local basis. These include strategic public relations strategies, media relations, publicity, content building, social media, video marketing, graphic design, and other communications initiatives. The future includes helping clients maintain strategic messaging with their customers as print media continues to shift away from a paper product to a digital one. The future also involves helping clients negotiate the nuances of social media and working with new platforms to drive more potential customers to their businesses.
Host: NO child ever says I want to be a CEO/entrepreneur when I grow up. What did you want to be and how did you get where you are today?
Steve Turner: I started in journalism and began my career as a radio news anchor and sports reporter. I did all types of sports play-by-play announcing and wanted to broadcast Major League Baseball but the big opportunity never occurred. My career then shifted into radio station management and advertising sales. After several years in the business, I decided to be my own boss and launched my own public relations firm, The Turner Group, in the late 1980s. A few years later we merged with S. Solomon and Associates, an advertising agency, and I have operated as an owner/operator ever since. Since that merger, we have grown and evolved to meet the needs of the marketplace.
Host: Tell us something about yourself that others in your organization might be surprised to know.
Steve Turner: I was in the US Coast Guard Reserves and, while in boot camp as an 18-year-old kid, wrote a fascinating bunch of letters to my parents and even grandparents about the experience. I recently received those letters back from my late parents’ home and someday hope to publish those as a book.
Host: Many readers may wonder how to become an entrepreneur but what is an entrepreneur? How would you define it?
Steve Turner: An entrepreneur is someone who envisions a need in the marketplace and has the courage and discipline to start their own company to fulfill that need. Most entrepreneurs are self-motivated. They understand the responsibility of growing a company that not only includes generating and increasing sales and revenue but also involves continuous education so the best resources in HR, management, accounting, etc. are utilized to achieve top-level growth and success.
Host: What is the importance of having a supportive and inclusive culture?
Steve Turner: A successful company should have part of both, a top-down and inclusive management style. It should be clear who the final decision-makers are in the organization and they should take the responsibility to make the key decisions necessary for continuous growth. At the same time, lower-level management and appropriate personnel should be given the opportunity to voice opinions regarding current and future company direction. The culture should provide numerous opportunities for the team to interact with upper-end management. Team members needing extra support should be able to connect with superiors to discuss their needs without fear of reprisal.
Host: How can a leader be disruptive in the post covid world?
Steve Turner: Leadership needs to continually look for ways to grow and expand their businesses in the post-Covid environment. This could include exploring new needs in the marketplace as we move into 2022, developing new tools for remote workers, enhancing the remote working experience, building top-of-the-mind awareness to attract new employees, and developing and promoting new products and services to reach new segments of customers.
Host: If a 5-year-old asked you to describe your job, what would you tell them?
Steve Turner: Do you like to read books and be told about certain stories? That’s what I do. I represent businesses who want their stories told to their customers. I help them write and tell their stories in newspapers, magazines, and on radio and TV. And, as a business owner, I also share the responsibility to help grow our business so the people on our team who work for us can keep buying all sorts of good things for themselves and their children.
Host: Leaders are usually asked about their most useful qualities but let’s change things up a bit. What is your most useless talent?
Steve Turner: This question is a bit of a reach but I am a “foodie” and can recommend restaurants for business meetings or social gatherings. Unfortunately, those ideas often get overridden by others and we end up going somewhere other than what I suggest.
Host: Thank you so much for your time but before we finish things off, we do have one more question. If you wrote a book about your life until today, what would the title be?
Steve Turner: “Newsworthy”
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