Q&A with Account Supervisor Gracie Lissick

We’re thrilled to wel­come Gra­cie Lis­sick as Bell­mont Part­ners’ newest team mem­ber! This isn’t Gracie’s first expe­ri­ence at Bell­mont Part­ners – she com­plet­ed a sum­mer intern­ship with us as a col­lege stu­dent sev­er­al years ago – and we’re excit­ed to have her back at this stage in her career as she brings even more enthu­si­asm and exper­tise to our team and clients. Gracie’s back­ground in pub­lic rela­tions and con­tent devel­op­ment with a focus in medtech is serv­ing her well in her role as an account super­vi­sor in the Health Prac­tice Group. I chat­ted with Gra­cie recent­ly to dig into why she loves pub­lic rela­tions and work­ing with clients in the health space.

What drew you to pub­lic relations? 

My mom! My mom, Shel­li Lis­sick, has been work­ing in PR for 30+ years and has been a part­ner at Bell­mont Part­ners for 18 years. Ever since I was lit­tle, I watched her write press releas­es, trav­el to indus­try con­fer­ences and meet with media. We both shared pas­sion for writ­ing and she encour­aged me from ear­ly on to pur­sue it.

For my 13th birth­day, she brought me along to a client con­fer­ence in New York City — and that’s where my inter­est sparked. It was excit­ing to see her in action, doing some­thing she tru­ly loved, and it made me want to do the same exact thing one day.

What drew me in then, and what still makes me excit­ed today, is hav­ing a career where you can con­nect with peo­ple of all dif­fer­ent jobs, areas and walks of life and find ways to tell their sto­ries. PR is tru­ly a field that brings togeth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, rela­tion­ships, and sto­ry­telling in a way that makes you feel ener­gized and impacted.

What is it about PR agency life that you love?

The evo­lu­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Our indus­try changes fast and with that, you need to be able to change and learn just as quick­ly. What I love about agency life is that you’re not doing that alone, you’re sur­round­ed by a team of peo­ple who are con­stant­ly evolv­ing right beside you. Work­ing at an agency makes it eas­i­er to share learn­ings, test new ideas and learn from one anoth­er com­pared to if you were work­ing as a solo prac­ti­tion­er or on a small­er inter­nal team.

Not to men­tion, I love how all of our dif­fer­ent back­grounds blend togeth­er to shape a unique per­spec­tive on how we approach client work. Whether a team mem­ber has a back­ground in jour­nal­ism, inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions or social media, every­one has a unique, impact­ful per­spec­tive on client work.

What drew you to Bell­mont Partners?

One thing that is spe­cial about Bell­mont Part­ners is the empha­sis on con­nec­tions. The team is inten­tion­al on build­ing rela­tion­ships with­in all aspects of the busi­ness – with com­pa­nies, media, orga­ni­za­tions, influ­encers and oth­er agen­cies part­ners. Even if it doesn’t result in imme­di­ate busi­ness or an imme­di­ate sto­ry, the team is extreme­ly open to sim­ply con­nect­ing, which isn’t always the norm.

Bell­mont Part­ners takes a long-term approach to doing busi­ness. The team pri­or­i­tizes work­ing with com­pa­nies that want to build a true part­ner­ship where we act as an exten­sion of their team. Ulti­mate­ly, Bell­mont Part­ners does busi­ness with good peo­ple, good com­pa­nies and good prod­ucts – which is exact­ly the kind of busi­ness I want to work for and am proud to represent.

What are your ini­tial impres­sions now that you’re dig­ging in?

My first impres­sions are main­ly just feel­ing inspired by our clients and see­ing why they do what they do. Every com­pa­ny, every prod­uct and every aspect of the health­care and medtech busi­ness is so dif­fer­ent, and it’s inspir­ing to hear the sto­ries behind them.

For exam­ple, one of our clients, Fran­cis Med­ical, a medtech com­pa­ny that devel­ops tech­nol­o­gy for patients diag­nosed with local­ized prostate can­cer, was found­ed by Michael Hoey, whose father passed away from prostate can­cer. Michael saw first­hand how harsh tra­di­tion­al treat­ments were and want­ed to cre­ate a more humane alter­na­tive. He then cre­at­ed Fran­cis Med­ical, which is named after his father, Francis.

Sto­ries from clients like this give real mean­ing to the work we’re doing. They help me bet­ter under­stand the pur­pose behind each prod­uct and allow me to tell those sto­ries more effec­tive­ly so they get the love they deserve in the media.

As part of our Health prac­tice group, what appeals to you about work­ing with clients in this space?

Hands down, it’s the impact. Every day, peo­ple live with seri­ous health con­di­tions, whether it’s endometrio­sis, BPH, leukemia or depres­sion. And those chal­lenges cre­ate real oppor­tu­ni­ties for tech­nol­o­gy that can gen­uine­ly change lives. Our Health prac­tice group has the priv­i­lege of sup­port­ing com­pa­nies devel­op­ing solu­tions that make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence, some­times even a life‑or‑death one.

It’s equal­ly reward­ing to help tell their sto­ries to the media. Some­times, a sin­gle local news sto­ry can reach some­one who has been strug­gling with a health con­di­tion for years and help them find a solu­tion that could mean­ing­ful­ly improve their qual­i­ty of life.

What can clients and col­leagues expect when they work with you?

Clients and col­leagues can expect some­one who is ful­ly invest­ed. I take the time to con­duct deep research on every client and their prod­ucts, busi­ness and cus­tomers. One of my favorite say­ings is that by being an agency part­ner, we are an exten­sion of our clients’ teams, and if we are an exten­sion of their team, we should know enough about the com­pa­ny and busi­ness that we should be able to work in their trade show booth.

I gen­uine­ly love what I do, and because of that, I pour my heart and soul into every project. When I meet with a client on a project, I am not just there to exe­cute, I am there with you as a strate­gic, long-term part­ner that is think­ing beyond the imme­di­ate task and always look­ing for a way to sup­port your larg­er busi­ness goals. I approach client work with a “yes, and…” mind­set since we are tru­ly invest­ed in clients as an exten­sion of their team.

 

Wel­come, Gra­cie, we are hap­py you’re on the team (again)!