After building a highly acclaimed wedding business, Larissa Banting returned to her first entrepreneurial love — PR. Her ability to craft a successful message has given her the ability to work from wherever she wants, which is her definition of making it.

Welcome to Making It! This weekly show explores the lives and stories of entrepreneurs as they share their unique perspectives on their success and the path to making it.

Larissa Banting is a publicist, journalist, and conversion copywriter with more than 25 years of experience.

“My daughter is… a horse jumper. She’s competing in Guatemala next month [and] I’m going to be taking the week off to go with her.”

— Larissa Banting

Larissa Banting is a publicist, journalist, and conversion copywriter with more than 25 years of experience. Her job? To get you featured and famous!

Words have always been her passion and her playmates from an early age, when she would create stories and a complete guidebook to the culture of Pookinland, a made-up land suspiciously similar to a mashup of various East European countries and Baltic States (her parents worked with ethnic groups). After winning a poetry contest in Grade 4, she knew writing was going to be a “thing” for her.

Fast forward to university, where she was the only undergraduate to have her research papers published in academic journals. A few twists and turns of fate down the road and she found herself penning a weekly dance column in the arts magazines SEE and Vue. One jeté later and she was working with Alberta Ballet in marketing and public relations, followed by the Arden Theatre, City of St. Albert, Northern Alberta International Children’s Festival, and a slew of television and film productions as a unit publicist — as well as one-off stints for Bombay Sapphire Gin.

In 2002, she left the wintry abyss of Edmonton for the sunnier climes of Costa Rica, where she opened the destination wedding planning firm Weddings Costa Rica, which quickly grew to be the largest such company in Central America. Putting her publicity skills into high gear, her clients’ weddings were the first south of Mexico to be featured in international wedding magazines, and she had segments on various media outlets, such as Martha Stewart Living Radio. All this media attention soon had her named to the A-List Top 30 Destination Wedding Planners in the World as well as one of the 25 Most Influential Wedding Planners in the World. All these features helped grow her firm to cross the seven-figure threshold in only four short years. She knows firsthand the power of PR and how quickly it can grow your brand (and your bank account).

Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:
Mirasee
Larissa’s website: LarissaBanting.com
Free gift (365 Days to Power Up Your Publicity): https://famousinfive.net/365days

Credits:
Co-producers: Cassandra Topperwein and Geoff Govertsen
Assembled by: Michi Lantz 
Supervising Producer: Cynthia Lamb
Executive Producer: Danny Iny
Audio Post Supervisors: Evan Miles and Christopher Martin
Audio Post Production: Post Office Sound
Music Soundscape: Chad Michael Snavely
Making our hosts sound great: Home Brew Audio

Music credits:
Track Title: The Sunniest Kids
Artist Name: Rhythm Scott
Writer Name: Scott Roush
Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

Track Title: Love and Circumstance
Artist Name: Shimmer
Writer Name: Matthew Wigton
Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

Track Title: City Sunrise
Artist Name: PALA
Writer Name: Dean Palya
Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

Special effects credits:
24990513_birds-chirping_by_promission used with permission of the author and under license by AudioJungle/Envato Market.

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