EP. 27 / We Didn’t Want to be Weekend Parents: The “Guncles” on Working for Yourself to Maximize Time with Your Kids & PR Tips | Bill Horn & Scout Masterson
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Ever have the feeling that you’re a full time employee but only a part time parent? You’re not alone! Scout Masterson and Bill Horn, AKA Tori & Dean’s “The Guncles,” felt that way. After they adopted their daughter, they realized just how little time they would be spending with her—so they quit their high-stress Hollywood jobs and went to work for themselves. Running their company hasn’t always been easy, but they wouldn’t trade that time with their kids for the world.
The Guncles are also giving their top 3 pieces of expert PR advice and the dos and don’ts of growing and scaling your business through publicity. HINT: We want to hear about your fabulous product, not your son’s track meet!
And former TV anchor turned on-camera coach Lynn Smith has a very embarrassing potty training story.
LISTEN BELOW! And don’t forget to ‘follow’ and leave a rating & review!
In this conversation with The Guncles, you’ll learn:
The final straw when it came to quitting their former careers and launching their own business
The unique way they came up with the idea for their company
How much the adoption process evolved in the four years between their kids
The way they’re using the skills they built in their past jobs for their business
Show Takeaways:
The Guncles’ Top 3 PR tips for small business owners:
Separate your business socials from your personal socials
Get your product into gift guides by using affiliates
Come up with a launch calendar—and stick to it!
Scott & Bill on their son’s adoption:
“Why did we go through this adoption process? Why did emotionally financially, why do we do this if I'm only gonna see my kids on the weekend?”
“It was very difficult and very expensive and very emotionally draining but everything worked out.”
“It took many years to dig out… I always said at the end of the day, though, would we not have done it had we known it was going to be such a problem? Yes, of course we would have done it again.”
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EPISODE LINKS:
Bill Horn | Marque Communications | Marque on IG
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Kim Rittberg (00:01):
Meet a couple who started their own business to avoid being weekend parents.
Bill Horn (00:06):
Why did we go through this adoption process? Why did emotionally financially, why do we do this if I'm only gonna see my kids on the weekend?
Kim Rittberg (00:14):
You'll hear more from Phil and Scout known as the Gunks, and you'll get tips on how you can get publicity for your company and some dos and don'ts.
Leave your lanyard and swipe card at the door. Welcome to Mom's Exit Interview, a podcast for moms seeking fulfillment and contentment outside the traditional nine to five. Whether you're considering taking the leap or of your already midair, this podcast is for you. You'll meet moms who are consultants, entrepreneurs, stay at home moms and side hustles and part-time workers across various industries and levels. Plus every episode will have experts with tips so you can turn your inspiration into action. I'm Kim Rittberg. I was a Netflix executive and former head of video at US Weekly and I'm a mom of two. I quit the corporate world and I've never looked back, but I'm still on this journey. So join me. We don't need a boss to give us permission or a promotion to lead the lives we want. Today's episode is a particularly special one. Our guests are Scout Masterson and Bill Horn, aka the Guncles from Tori's Spellings Reality Show Home Sweet Hollywood. Let's call Bill and Scout and we'll do
It. The couple quit their high stress Hollywood jobs once they've realized they were only getting to be dads on the weekends. Plus they had a very tough adoption process. I was really excited to talk to them because that concept is so relatable and they're total PR experts. I had worked with them at a few jobs and they are so good, so I wanted to get some tips from them too. However, since I interviewed them, scout passed away. Scout was so beloved. If you look on Instagram, 15,000 people poured their loving comments onto their Instagram feed. It's clear he meant so much to so many people. I obviously was unsure what to do about the podcast episode. I loved talking to them, but I wanted to be thoughtful and considerate and deliberate. So to be totally candid, I asked Bill if he wanted to run this episode and he said Absolutely Scout would've wanted it.
So because of Bill's request, I'm running the episode, I still love their story of how they decided to start their own PR business to not be weekend parents and how a challenging adoption process really clarified their lives. Bill and Scout talk about what their adoption process was like, what brought them to their breaking point with their regular jobs and the risk and major payoffs of running their own PR company, which by the way meant they're both taking a risk on the same company. The company is called Marque Communications and they develop, manage and implement publicity campaigns and marketing initiatives for clients. They're best known for being a go-to agency for all things baby and kids, especially in the celebrity realm. So we also get a little insight into the celebrity baby product world too. It involves midnight doom scrolling and frantically screenshotting Instagram stories. We started with how they realized they wanted to work for themselves.
Scout (03:20):
We always worked in offices and for somebody, whether it be a large company or just a smaller group of people, but when we had kids, actually when we had our daughter, Simone, we thought to ourselves we would rather build something on our own to have more control. We didn't wanna miss those moments not only as a baby, but we didn't wanna be the parent that wasn't there at school for the function because we had to work for somebody. For me especially, I very much so had no control over my schedule, so it wasn't like I could say, look, there's a parent group today at school for our kids. I have to leave. So I had a hard enough time. Where
Kim Rittberg (04:18):
Were you working? What was
Scout (04:19):
Your job? I was a casting director. So when I was working on a film, it was 10 to 12 weeks of nonstop. And when I was doing TV work, it was from right after July 4th until April, mid-April. And between those times, I mean it was hard enough to get away for a doctor's appointment, not alone, getting away to do things at school or take our own kid to the doctor, which obviously is very important. So for me especially, that's why I wanted to build something for ourselves.
Kim Rittberg (04:59):
And Bill, what about you? What were you doing before you decided to take the leap and work for yourself?
Bill Horn (05:04):
I worked at entertainment PR companies in la. I wasn't on the corporate side. I was usually on the brand side and really enjoyed it. But I was heading up a department at a great company. When we had Simone, I took my paternity leave and came back. And the schedule, I had two amazing bosses who I loved were very smart people. Neither one were parents. And there was a comment made one time when I came in at 10 o'clock in the morning that I really needed to be there at nine cause I needed to supervise my staff. And I was like, if I need to supervise my staff that closely at 9:00 AM then we have a bigger problem <laugh> than me coming in at 10. And the commute was a total, it could be as much as an hour, hour and a half, just one way. And I thought to myself, why did we go through this adoption process? Emotionally financially, why did we do this if I'm only gonna see my kids on the weekend? Our daughter was not sleeping through the night yet <laugh> when I went back to school. So I was getting to see her at night and early in the morning, but not getting but I knew that was gonna change and that I would only see her on weekends and it just didn't feel right. I just knew there had to be a better way.
Scout (06:29):
I think it also made a huge difference though, that he worked for people that didn't have kids. So to them it wasn't in their routine that you would go and do these things because their whole life was being in the office.
Kim Rittberg (06:46):
Agreed. I mean, I think a lot of the decisions people make, it depends on your experiences and what people who don't have kids, they don't understand that something that seems frivolous to them. Like going to school for cupcake day, it's a huge deal to your kids. It's a huge deal to you, but it could seem frivolous, but I think in some ways that's changing in other ways that's not. And then how old was daughter when you decided to start your business? Tell me about your company.
Scout (07:10):
She was born in June and Bill to get three months off and then he went back and almost made it to the third month before leaving. I actually was out of work because being a casting director is being an actor, you're either working a lot or it's kind of that wave. So at that time I wasn't working a lot. So for me it was a little bit of an easier decision to leave.
Kim Rittberg (07:46):
So it seems like you both at least had clarity. How did you say, okay, I'm gonna start this company? We
Bill Horn (07:51):
Had many friends who were having babies. We'd actually very good friends with a celebrity and would would bring us along to these gifting suites with baby products. And actually I'd actually with the help of Scout signed a couple of these clients and brought them to my old agency and they don't pay the biggest fees in pr, but they were enough that I knew that if I left and I knew that they would follow me I knew that it could at least cover our bases in terms of rent and gas and all those things.
Kim Rittberg (08:32):
You brought on some baby brand clients and you would do the PR for them as you started your business, the baby brands?
Bill Horn (08:38):
Yeah. So when I left my old agency, I said in our final meeting or one of our final meetings, I said to them, I know these two clients are small for you in terms of their fees, <laugh>, and I was the primary person working on them. I signed them and brought them in. Would you mind if I took these two clients with me? And they said, feel free. So I ended up, at least we knew we had a client.
Kim Rittberg (09:06):
What were the hardest parts of starting your own business or now that it's been 11 years running your own business, what's been the hardest part?
Scout (09:14):
I think the hardest part is just in the back of your mind, always knowing that while you do have a lot of clients right now, as you mentioned, you may not in the future. So there's no piece of mind in the way. I mean with any job that possibly you could be let go or they would downsize or whatever. But truly the fact that we both work in the company is great and also very scary because if there's
Bill Horn (09:52):
No safety net,
Scout (09:53):
If we do lose a significant amount of business, it's not like I'm going to a different company to work and Bill is, it's not like we have one income that's different. So that's one of the things that is a little tough just mentally is just knowing that all of the income for our family comes from one place.
Kim Rittberg (10:20):
What does a typical work week look like? Would you say you're working less or more than when you were working for other companies?
Bill Horn (10:26):
More?
Scout (10:27):
Yeah, much more. And actually anybody, that friend of ours that we speak to that has their own company, I also would say the same thing. They work a lot more. We work harder because if we fail then there is no ladder. It's not like when you're working for a large corporation and you could say, I'm gonna take a week off and disappear and not answer my phone because we are the person that answers the phone. So we definitely work a lot harder and we work longer hours. Also
Bill Horn (11:09):
Things like, I mean obviously cell phones and email on the cell phones has changed things for everyone. We also do a lot of work with celebrities and influencers and social media. So if we don't capture that person using that product on their stories, it's gonna be gone in 24 hours. So we literally divide up <laugh>. We have a secret Instagram account that just follows the people that we've gifted or that we've worked with and we sit there and we all divide it up and it has to be checked and cleared out every 24 hours. Otherwise we could lose. They won't know that Christy Teagan's kids were wearing the pajamas, we wrap or because those photos will disappear. So it's constant. Oh, it's 11, about to go to bed. Let me spend 20 minutes going through our account.
Scout (12:00):
We're very hands on.
Bill Horn (12:02):
<laugh>.
Kim Rittberg (12:05):
One of the things we talked about on this podcast is about delegating and growing your business. Is that not the sort of task you would outsource?
Bill Horn (12:11):
We've kept our company small on purpose and it's actually worked out really well for us during Covid because if we had had a larger staff, we probably would've had to let some of them go. And also we don't want people coming and going from our office, so we know that Holly's really careful. So yeah, it's something we probably should delegate, but it's hard too because our hands are touching the products as they go out the door. So we know what to look for.
Kim Rittberg (12:40):
I ask them what's something they wish they'd known earlier about going into business for themselves?
Bill Horn (12:46):
That is a good question. I think, here's a silly little thing. We, when we first started our business and we worked from our home office, we opened up a PO box in Los Angeles because we wanted to make sure that we had an address that looked more legitimate. We were so worried that people were gonna be turned off by the fact that we worked from a home office and that home office wasn't in Beverly Hills, that we opened up this mailbox which was really far away from our house <affirmative>. And I think, I just wish I had
Scout (13:23):
All that time back driving back and forth and it just said, picking up stuff at the PO box. Yeah, also, we don't really live in a world of regrets. We look forward, we're more forward facing as far as looking at our business.
Kim Rittberg (13:39):
What are some of the other things that you learned along the way and you're like, oh, I'm glad we learned that even if it was so many
Scout (13:43):
Years now? Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm the person that deals with the finances and the contracts and such. So yes, if you're gonna cancel, it must be a full 30 day notice. There's no partial months. You know, have to decide a reasonable date that your invoices do. In other words, if you say it's due in 30 days, then you need to find a penalty. So if it's not paid in 40 days, then you need to come up with a reasonable thing. So for us, if it's not paid in that extra 10 days, then there's a five or 10% penalty, which of 10% of the invoice or 5% of the invoice if it's a larger client. So that kind of just takes away that awkwardness
Kim Rittberg (14:37):
Scout. And Bill mentioned earlier that they didn't wanna be weekend parents and how going through a challenging adoption process, colored how they adjusted their life. They told me more about that process.
Scout (14:48):
Our first adoption was very typical, very easygoing,
Bill Horn (14:54):
Which we did not realize at the time.
Scout (14:56):
We didn't realize. And then with our son who is turning eight, it was a little more difficult. It's just a whole different situation.
Bill Horn (15:08):
They were both open at adoption, so we basically had to market ourselves to birth mothers or birth parents. And it was like online dating. People could scroll through the pictures of the prospective families and you had to write up all this information and then match with the person and conversations and home inspections and paperwork. You wouldn't believe they had to fingerprint you to make sure you weren't a sex offender. Send the fingerprints to Washington DC It was nuts. I mean knives on top of your refrigerator and then they still come and inspect your house when the baby, I mean, you understand why, but it's kind of crazy. We had a bit of our custody fight on the paternal side for our son. It's public knowledge, so I'm not telling tales outta school. And it was very difficult and very expensive and very emotionally draining. But everything worked out. But it was tough. Yeah,
Kim Rittberg (16:08):
I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah,
Scout (16:09):
It took many years to dig out of.
Bill Horn (16:12):
We're still digging outta that
Scout (16:13):
Hole. Yeah, no, we're outta that hole. We're into the private school hole. <laugh>. Yeah,
Bill Horn (16:19):
We're in that
Scout (16:20):
Hole. But yeah, I mean I always said at the end of the day though, would we not have done it? Had we known it was going to be such a problem? No. Yes, of course we would've done it again. And we've helped some friends who also have gone through the adoption process and kind of stood by their side as they went through the ups and downs because we had been there and we had done it. So yeah, that was a lot of fun as well, just to be able to know that we can be that person that also helps our friends go through it as well.
Kim Rittberg (17:09):
You run your own business, you have two kids, you've running your own business for now over 10 years, right? Are you happy?
Bill Horn (17:16):
Yes. Stressed at all times. Yes, but happy. Yeah.
Scout (17:23):
It's not that I don't dream that we could lock our phone in a box and go to Mexico or whatever, but we really enjoyed the work and the lifestyle of being able to parent be hands on and to also be our own bosses.
Kim Rittberg (17:48):
As you just heard, Bill and Scout founded Marque Communication, so I made sure to get some tips from them about how to get publicity for your business.
Kim Rittberg (17:56):
Tips that you would have for people with their own business. Top three tips to get publicity.
Scout (18:01):
I have it. Well, I have a top three tip that's just has to do with publicity but also has to do with social media is please make your business profile and please just make it about your business. If your company is successful and you gain a nice amount of followers and they happen to be more than your personal Instagram, do not think that people following your business Instagram that's gaining followers and being successful all of a sudden wanna go to your son's baseball game or your daughter's gymnastics meet or swim meet or what have you. So keep those separate. Keep your business social media, use that as a PR tool and keep it business. Also keep your personal one personal.
Bill Horn (18:56):
I was just gonna say a perfect example of somebody who I think is doing it right is free to baby, free to mom. Frida baby is a very big company, makes nasal, they make the sucky thing that comes outta you, blow in the book,
Scout (19:10):
Come out, makes a cringe like,
Bill Horn (19:12):
Oh supposedly your mouth never touches it, whatever. So they make a lot of those practical products. They recently launched another company called Freedom Mom, which is all about products that women can use right after they've had a baby. Kind of those things that women tend to steal from the hospital to take care of themselves after having what happens down there is traumatic. Let's be honest. <laugh> I'll let you know. It's wild.
Kim Rittberg (19:39):
It is. It really
Bill Horn (19:40):
Is. It's wild. So that's what their company thing is.
Kim Rittberg (19:44):
What's an important thing for product oriented businesses to know about getting featured?
Bill Horn (19:49):
Oh yes. So this is our new turn into a mantra at this point. A lot of product PR is gift guides, being on lists, whatever that might be. Whether it doesn't matter what product you're selling, there's always gonna be someone who's putting together some type of list. And a lot of these lists are being put together fast and furious. I mean, I think buzzfeed puts out about 47 lists a day. That might be an exaggeration, but there's just a lot of these lists going out there and a lot of opportunities for brands and their products to be on these lists. But if they are not part of an affiliate network, if they have not signed up with Rakuten Share sales, skim links, one of those or have they're not available on Amazon, it's going to be virtually impossible to get you on those lists. Because what's happening now is that the ad model that a lot of online publications used to use in order to pay their staffs and keep the lights on that isn't working anymore.
So they're making their money off of percentages that they're getting by having people click through. So they're getting a percentage of when you click through and you buy whatever this pen on a website, they're gonna take a piece of commission off of this because they have set themselves up with an affiliate networking company. Or you have to be on Amazon. Amazon does something that's in incredible, I find it insane, but they have all the money in the world so they're doing something right. Actually, if I saw this on a list the best pens in the world and I click through the link to Amazon, I don't even have to buy this pen, but if I buy seven other things while I'm on that company, that publication that had the click through, they will still get the percentage.
Kim Rittberg (21:54):
And any one last tip for people trying to do smaller medium businesses trying to do PR on their own. Any one last tip?
Bill Horn (22:02):
Let me see. I think that don't bug the media. Come up with a pitch angle and with a plan and give yourself plenty of time. Make sure that you have the product or the services to back that up. Then don't just say, oh well this is coming out in four, you don't know me. My product is coming out in four months. Will you please include me in your magazine? They don't wanna include you in the magazine cause they don't know if it's actually gonna come out. So it really thinking through, coming up with a calendar what's coming out, when is it coming out? Not inundating press with a ton of emails that bother the hell out of them. Just being thoughtful and really thinking out your pitching and seeing what people cover and what they don't cover. I think a little research before you sort try to do pr.
Scout (22:53):
And just one quick thing, I think that while as a person you are very careful about online scams, a lot of us just keeping your eyes on everything because you get emails personally about click here, your bank account has been, your card has been suspended. They also go after businesses too. So keeping that in mind is that when you're going through your business emails and such that there are a lot of different kinds of scams out there and just, you have to be very diligent about reading everything in your email before clicking on a link. We get all kinds of stuff every day in our work email because of our clients, because our emails are on different client websites and those are taken and put onto whatever lists there are. And a lot of them can look very real. So we just have to be very careful. And Bill is another one. Maybe we could do this. So we could just remember that bridesmaid scene where they keep singing on top of each other. That's
Bill Horn (24:07):
What this is. I have one more. Do you want it though?
Kim Rittberg (24:09):
Yes. I would love it
Bill Horn (24:13):
If it seems too good to be true. If they wanna charge you $500 a month for three months and they're gonna get you on Oprah. I'm just kidding. There is no more Oprah. But they're gonna get you all of this coverage and it's gonna cost you $500 a month. It's too good to be true. Yeah, how much things cost? Absolutely get different. Do research, do research, have go to a few different PR companies and get quotes, but if somebody comes in so low, there's a reason they're coming in that low, they're probably taking 45, 45 clients. They be very careful that the PR company does not have conflicting clients and that they are willing to say to you that you are exclusive. We only have one baby bottle company because it doesn't make sense for us to have more than one. But sometimes people will just sign people, they don't care. They'll just have conflicting clients and they'll pitch you in the same pitch with a brand that's similar because you're paying them $500 a month
Kim Rittberg (25:19):
<laugh>. You get what you pay for, you get what you pay for.
Kim Rittberg (25:23):
I'm sending our deepest thoughts and condolences to Bill and his family. And if you're interested in learning more about Marque Communications, their company, marquecommunications.com is the website. And on Instagram, it's Marque. I love sharing funny stories from real parents. This one is from Lynn Smith. She's an on camera coach helping you crush zooms virtual events and interviews. She's a former anchor and reporter on cnn, nbc, and msnbc. And she's bringing you this hilarious and totally embarrassing parenting story.
Lynn Smith (25:59):
Can I tell you the worst parenting story? And this is a warning for all boy moms. When my son was potty training, we did not have slow closed toilet seats and he slams down the toilet seat onto the webi. We go to the emergency room. So this isn't called action. Yes. Wait.
So he is potty training. He's learning to pee in the potty. Not number two. Number one. So your son's learning to pee in the potty and he closes the thing, he closes it and he closes it on
His. Yes. And the parent and I tell this story because I took him to the emergency room absolutely panicked. He's fine and everything was fine. But the ER said this happens once a day. So while we were in the er, my husband is at Home Depot buying every slow closed toilet seat you could possibly buy because we didn't know this with boys. If you have potty trading, get a slow closed toilet seat. He's fine though. He's everything's okay. But I want this to be a call to action for fellow boy moms.
Kim Rittberg (27:11):
And if you wanna submit your own parenting story, make sure to sign up for our newsletter or visit moms exit interview.com.
Thank you so much for listening. We wanna hear from you. Tell us what topics you want us to cover and what questions you have for upcoming shows and experts. We will read everyone and we will use them. You can find us everywhere. Go to www.kimrittberg.com, scroll down to find the contact button, or you can DM me on Instagram at Kim Rittberg. Or you can leave your feedback right inside your review in the podcast app. Please follow the show in Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen and leave review in a five star rating. And don't forget to share it with people who will find it valuable. It's truly meant to be a resource. And this is Mom's Exit interview. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg. The show is produced by Henry Street Media. John Horowitz is our editor, and Aliza Friedlander is our producer and publicist.