Lessons

Lesson Info

Successful PR Case Study with Tara Gentile

Well, I want to bring up that. My very special friend, my special friend on my best friend's Terra Gentilly. Um, we actually, uh, not we She has this program quiet power strategy. And now the book Quiet Paris urge you to come that I teach the media with. But Terra is an absolute genius at taking a topic that a lot of people, you know, think about right about talk about which is, frankly, like, how do you How do you build a better business, right? How do you make more money of their business? How to have a better business model? There's 1000 articles on that and tear it takes it. It has this really fresh approach and is able to get this amazing coverage for her on blog's on podcasts in the mainstream press. And so I wanted her to come up and share with us how she does that, how she creates a fresh twist on some of these topics. So, terror, come on up and join us. Thank you so much. You wanna have a seat? Yes. Okay. I'm gonna take off my jacket. We're gonna get down to business, right? O...

kay, Terra. Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited that we're gonna be talking to you. Let me actually pull up your slides so that people can find where to find, see where to find you. So it's era like like I said, You know, you talk about this topic that feels like it could be covered by a bunch of people. You have a ton of competitors out there, but you have such a fresh spin on it. So just to get started, can you share a little bit like, what is it that people are kind of coming to you for and like the You know how everybody would talk about it? And where's your Where's your uniqueness? In it? Sure. So people come to me mostly to find out how to make more more money on their ideas. They always say that I worked with idea driven businesses so predominantly that's like coaches and writers and therapists and doctors and all sorts of fun people who have great ideas. But it's also makers who are really idea driven, or designers who are really idea driven, and we work together to build better business models, Teoh and better services and better products to help them make more money on those ideas on. So it's it's a lot about getting the word out about what they're doing. It's about really positioning themselves in the market. And it's about helping them find peace and ease in their business at the same time that there may be moving at breakneck speed. That's very cool. And one of things I love about your work is you have actual tools for doing this. But you also model that so well in your own business. Yeah. So what are some of your favorite ways to kind of take that and figure out what might people be interested in hearing? What are those cool angles you could go out with? Yeah. Um, so you know, one thing that I talk a lot about is doing business your own way. Like I like to say, there's a better way to run your business, and that's your way, because I think a lot of us, you know, we go. We naturally go looking for other people's ways of running our business. It's like that kind of that imposter complex thing. Uh, and most other business coaches most other business strategists working in my space are out there kind of selling a roadmap for selling. You know, the formula selling a certain set of tactics that will work for you and my thing. My angle is that the only thing that's going to work for you is the thing that you create. So you know, you can search and search and certain search for that right road, a road map for that right set of tactics. But if you don't ground that in a personal approach of personal strategy, that's your quiet power strategy, then those things aren't gonna be effective and you're not going to know which to choose, and you're gonna get really overwhelmed. And so that's That's my main angle. And so it's very much that kind of oppositional angle well in school, because it's like on one level, it almost sounds kind of risky, like everybody's out here doing it this way. Senate selling a roadmap and they're probably pretty financially successful doing that, Absolutely so you're taking a risk and saying like now let's like, let's do it your way. Let me show you how to do it your way, but you're also coming out there with something that's a little unconventional, but it's not confrontational. In fact, it's the opposite support. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something that a lot of people ask me about is how they can cause I You know, I recommend the same thing, obviously, because we work together and on. So you know, when I tell people, okay, think about how you're different from the market. A lot of people get worried about being confrontational or, you know, because there's another way to say it, which is like, Who's the villain in your marketplace? Like Howard, Who are you setting yourself up against? What are the ideas that you're setting yourself up against? And I can sound really confrontational. But it absolutely doesn't have to be because the beautiful thing is, you know well, that works for them or, you know, whatever it is in your market people you know other ideas can work. Other messages can work, and that's fine. But what's gonna work for me, what's gonna work for my clients? And so you can You can have both and instead of either or and you can have a really you could have a support of market a supportive conversation and still really position yourself as completely different than what else is going on. I love that. And you're really successfully thinking doing that. And like interviews, I love hearing you on a podcast interview, and in the second segment, we're gonna talk a lot about how you go out and do that. And it could be a great way to test your messages to which is something I like about it. So can you give a little example of, like, how are you able to go on to, you know, personally doing a podcast and say like, I'm gonna talk to you about this? Maybe you've had 20 guests talk about business models already. So how are you positioning that in your own way? Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of, like, the how of how I'm positioning and it goes into every little detail of my business. So, you know, we can talk about create crafting a message, but that message also has to go through everything that you do. So my products are positioned the same way as my message. My website is positioned the same way. All of my block posts so if someone asked me to do an interview, I know that they're coming to me for that different opinion takes a lot of the pressure off. You know, when I think that in an interview situation, I'm also thinking about that, you know? How can I create a much more compelling interview by offering an opinion or a perspective that the interview hasn't heard before? Or that, ideally, that the audience member hasn't heard before? And so you know with that, then I've been able Teoh Tele summits all the time on podcast all the time on I'm up against, like you said, people who are largely saying the same things or in the same space as I am and there A I'm able to really make something that's much more memorable because it's different. You know, I love Sally Hogshead and Sally, Hogshead says. Better isn't better. Different is better. And so I don't have to be better than the other people in my industry. Um, I just have to be different, and so I focus on different and I also focus on unexpected Teoh. I think when an interviewer asked me a question, I want to offer something that feels unexpected of the fields. Knew that feels fresh and I might say the same thing 100 different times I don't want I don't want to overwhelm anyone thinking that you have to come up with a different message every time. But you know this. I get asked the same questions over and over and over again. And so to have those talking points that are fresh and unexpected and have that as kind of a goal that I come to every conversation with, I think that really helps to position me and my message into you recommend, or do you do something for yourself? It helps you keep up with what other people are saying. Do you concern yourself with that at all or is a really good question? I think that I used to a lot more sure, um, the main way I keep up with what people are saying now is through the same tip that I always offer, which is on Twitter lists. I watch particular groups of people on Hoot suite with different Twitter lists and so I can see people you know, I can see their main messaging over and over and over again many times a day. And so if I start seeing a theme that comes up over and over again and this happens at least four times a year that I disagree with or that I have a different perspective on that I know that's something you know I need to write a block post about or I need to pitch somebody about this, Or who knows, Maybe that's where my new book idea comes from. So I want to open it up to questions If that's okay with you before we do that. I just want to know are there are a couple of things in this process because you've been doing this for a while that you really learned that were, like, made it really effective for you to figure out. You know, what were those messages you wanted to go out like? Are they resonating with people? I'm gonna stick with them. Like, how did you suss that stuff out in the beginning? Oh, man, I think that I learned by trial and error that, um, you know, experimenting with messaging is really important, you know? So posting on Facebook, you know, if I've got an idea for something different or unexpected that I want to say, I'm gonna share it with my Twitter audience or my Facebook audience or on my blogged and kind of test the waters that way, take the temperature of the audience, see what sticks on, then move forward with that. I think another thing that I do a lot is intentionally practice a lot. Now I'm not a practice er, as in locked myself in my bedroom and go over my creativelive script like 20 times. Also, that would be impossible. But instead I invite opportunities to practice. So in other words, I'm going to say yes to every podcast interview that comes across because even if you have 20 people listening to your podcast, that's an opportunity for me to experiment and play with my messaging and the MAWR interviews, I do the more block post I write, whatever the message, and gets clearer and clearer and clearer until I have something that can be distilled into, you know, a really strong sales page or a really strong pitch to major media or a book. Yeah, I love that idea to cause, even with our own clients, like well say like, Okay, we're gonna put this package of pitches together. We do a two hour discovery session with them to figure out their angles. And there's follow ups, and sometimes you just don't know what's gonna hit in a moment. You know, you could do all the research in the world, and then you send something out to an editor or a blogger or podcaster, and they're going to give you feedback. And one of things will get to is that I always recommend when you're doing an introduction that you've sent a couple of different ideas. So they have different things to respond to. And so maybe what you think is strongest isn't necessarily what they're looking for in that moment, that was that awesome. Well, let's open it up to some questions for Terra, about how she's crafted her message or else it's her. I know you've amazing tools on how people confined their loneliness, right? And what's you there, quiet power and what they should be bringing forth. So there's anything we want to mind here with her amazing knowledge. I'd love to do that. Can you expand a little bit on the Twitter list? and the types of people that you choose and why. Yeah, absolutely so the three Twitter list that I recommend that everyone has in the source really well for figuring out your message or looking for angles for your messages. Well, is one list of people that are ideal customers essentially on DSO. You can kind of You can figure that out lots of different ways. You might have a database of customers, and you can find them on Twitter. And also this applies so lots of different social media as well. So you know you can follow people on Pinterest. You can follow people on Facebook and do the exact same things, but on Twitter, it's It's really compact. So customers another one is a industry influencers. And media, because media is inherently influential on the 3rd 1 is colleagues or other other voices in your particular conversation. So those three Twitter lists give me a real window into what people are saying, what questions they're asking and what the trends are right now. And all three of those things can be used really easily to craft a message. Teoh, you know, figure out where you can pitch your message and and then just you know what kinds of things you could be responding to because the beautiful thing about markets being conversations is that like you use the word dialogue and that's exactly what it is. I think we feel, especially with PR, that we need to be supplying the message or that the conversation starts with us. Conversation doesn't start with us. We're responding, Um, and so Twitter is such a great place to see how you can respond in the moment with a message in response to a link to a question. Teoh a query and that response really can help jump start your your pitch ideas. I want to give a quick resource and will come to you the muck rack dot com So it's much crack all one word dot com. They actually have a free database, so you consent for a free account. They offer a paid one. You don't need it. And when you go in there, you can search by media outlet and you confined journalists. Twitter handles. So if you know, for instance, that there is a particular media outlets and we're gonna talk about you know what are some of the media. How do you find the meat outlets? You might want to be pitching. But is your building that? And if you want to do this technique of building the Twitter list, you can actually populate a Twitter list by finding people on Mark Racket shares. Journalists, Twitter handles. It's amazing. Okay, let's say you have a question. You said, Ah, second list is industry influencers and media expand. Eso like thought leaders, um, and journalists specifically so not what you're talking like not specifically in your industry are you know, I'm putting the very broad conversation. So and this is an interesting thing about the idea of markets are conversations is that we're taught to niche down, niche down, niche down each down in terms of what our market is. I think in terms of conversation, though, it's much more helpful to go broad because the broader you go, the more opportunities you see for different angles, which is essentially mission down, that does that make sense. OK, so when I talk about in my industry or my field business influence service, I'm thinking everyone who's writing books on business from Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley to Main Street and then in the digital space is well, Modi would consider most of the digital space people. My more my colleagues, um and then, like the Silicon Valley people on Main Street people to b'more industry influencers. And that's really just semantic. It's only because I'm friends with a lot of people in the digital space, right? So, yeah, so you know, Pete, following people like for Merchant for me, who I'm a huge fan of her book is hugely influential to me. And by following her on that Twitter list of mine, that's influencers and media. I've been able to actually have conversations with her to the point where you know, now she knows my name. She really respects my work like this and that and this and that. That's a really amazing and empowering thing, and it's also a huge, a huge opportunity in terms of media or potential collaborations. You know, another example is, you know, when you connect more with influencers or colleagues, you might get referrals for media, so someone might not be able to do an interview. Or maybe it's a speaking gig and they cant do the speaking gig. But they think you would be a good fit. So that happened to me recently with Pam Slim, where Pam Slim recommended me to keynote and event. And, you know, obviously I'm hugely thankful for that. But that's also just through networking. I don't know Pam that well, I mean, I've met her several times. I've spoken to her a couple times, but we're not friends. E no on DSO. It's the power of social media. In that case, that can lead Thio more traditional media and new media opportunities. Yeah, and on the media side, in the simple PR course that we have also in the Creative Life catalogue, we have an interview with an Emmy Award winning journalist, Katherine Jenna Sack, and she's worked with NBC. And we ask her, You know, should we network with journalists on Twitter? And some journals will say different things here. But she said yes, absolutely. And there's a journalist or constantly sourcing story ideas on Twitter, exactly what Terra does to figure out what she should be talking about. Journalists do that, too. They want to see what's trending. They want to see what topics air coming up. They're coming up with their ideas that same way. So a lot of these techniques that we're sharing with you for coming up your ideas I've actually stolen from journalists and how they're sourcing ideas, right? Because the more we can think the way that they think, the more that we can build and give them what they need. And it makes it really easy for them than to spread her message for us. We make it easier for them to do that job. So this is exactly the same kind of things that people working in the media are doing to find out what are the trends where the influencers and they also want to find sources on Twitter. So this is another great way to network with journalists to Yeah, it just one more thing about that two that I thought of Well, you were talking is that you know, we're all doing the same things. We're all trying to get our businesses and our messages into the media. And so it's not just networking with journalists that will help get you in the media. It's not working with your colleagues and other influencers in in your industry that will help get you in because you know that all of that I think all of the pieces that you placed for me last year we referenced other business owners. We referenced friends of mine. I mean, why am I here? Because Bridget and I are friends, right? Like this. Eso developing those relationships can get you media without you having to even pitch media. Yeah, which is great. And it says it is this, like, long turn gain. You know, when things I like to say is that public relations is really about setting up your business for the next six years and not the next six months. So we're looking at creating sustainable businesses that have a lot of buzz that have a lot of momentum and that looking over the long term, and of course, you could get short term gains. But this is a strategy, an approach that you really use when you were trying to build a business that is gonna grow and have a lot of momentum and a lot of buzz around it. Absolutely awesome. Any other questions for terror? Well, here we go. So you talked briefly about that? You test your messaging on social media you obviously have a much larger audience than most of us do. So how strategies to maybe test that out when you've got a much smaller pool of people to start with? Yes, so I've been doing this for six years. So there was a time when I did this when I didn't have a large audience. So I didn't want to make that clear that it has always worked. It might be faster. I mean, I might get more responses now, but the process is pretty much still the same 11 tool that I used with clients is thinking in terms of a virtual focus group, which is sort of like your to 5 people that really personify your ideal client. So one problem that I have with the idea of the ideal client profile is that it's ah, profile. It's, uh, we make generalizations, and I think it's much more effective to personalize instead of generalized. So the virtual focus group is a personalization, literally different people that you want to be talking Teoh. Now I call it Virtual Focus Group because most of the time we only really need to reference them in our heads But when it comes to testing messages on social media, it could be really effective to actually reach out to those people. So maybe you invite them into a conversation. Or maybe you look at certain people that are following you. Maybe you only have 20 followers, but five of them were. Three of them are exactly who you want to be talking. Teoh. And so you really need to pay attention to those people's responses instead of kind of the general thing, because again, those generalizations can really lead us astray. So focus on the people who are actually right for you, because I'm sure in your audience there are a lot of people who you know their interest in what you have to say, that they're not really the right client. You want to figure out who those right clients are, even if you only know three or five of them and focus on their responses to what you have to say and invite them into the conversation as well. Okay, yes, eso twitter could be a rabbit hole. Yes, And so how do you balance your time between like having these conversations and networking and testing your ideas and like doing the work of having the ideas and writing. And, um, I think it's to set aggressive goals, OK, so that you can't spend too much time on her. I mean, I spend way more time than average on Twitter, and so I'll just say that right now I don't necessarily recommend that. In fact, I don't recommend ever spending as much time on Twitter as I do or have over the years really backed off great events, but yeah, but I think aggressive goals have always been what's kept me on track despite the amount of time I spend on social media. So you know, picking, making sure you have a release date for your next launch or making sure you have ah, publishing date for your book. Or you know that you want to have three new clients by this date, as long as you have those kind of really specific, ambitious goals, Um, and you lead yourself to those goals, I think you'll find your balance of time. I think we're remarkably good at prioritising. The problem is that we don't that we don't have goals and expectations for ourselves, toe actually allow us to prioritize. And so that's That's where I would draw the line there. That's a great point. You know, one of the things that I do with Twitter is all say, like Monday morning and Thursday morning I'll spend 20 minutes and that's both, You know, feeding, scheduling up content, but also checking in with those lists. And those lists really help you spend the time because you're not looking at a whole feed, just kind of browsing. You're looking into a feed with a very clear reason, right? These are people you want to be paying attention to. You know what you're there for. You can scan it and and then move on. So I think that that can also be where the list coming and become really effective. Because you have a purpose. Yeah, pro tip. I don't ever look at the mainstream. I only look at my lists and I'm constantly updating my list. Um, and so that's another good reason Teoh at reply. People on Twitter specifically, um and same goes with journalists and influencers like the people that you want to be connecting with the people. You want to be pitching to a great relationship can start with an at mention on Twitter and that gets you on their radar, and you might need to do it three or 4 10 times over six months. But that's going to make that first impression for you to then make everything that that Bridget has to offer you in terms of pitching much more effective. Yeah, so to sum this up, it sounds like terror you're using, you know, Twitter and social Media to keep up with what people are saying, what is the conversation around your industry? And also to test out some of your messages there that then you can bring into other, bigger outlets? Absolutely awesome. Well, thank you so much, Theo. Okay, awesome. Well, does that feel doable? It's everyone. Does that feel like OK, great. It's a much easier way to think about coming up with your media angles. You know, when you're looking at what the conversations are when it feels really organic. And this is one of the beautiful things about pitching yourself as an expert is is you're really pitching your ideas. You know what your ideas are? You know what you want to stand for? Everybody came out of that first lesson knowing it. And so what this is about is really looking at what's trending with people so that when you enter that conversation you're coming with an awareness of what's happening all around you. So that's what I want you to do now is to go back to what it is that you want to be known for and work on your specific media angles. So if you if you had a little bit of trouble in the first lesson figuring out exactly what your messaging might want to be, this is the place to kind of go back to that and refine it a little bit. You know, what are the inspiration? What are your customers asking for you? What are those trending stories? Shot some of those down in notebook and then write down, you know, a couple of different story ideas or messaging ideas that you have that you think you'd really like to start working with. OK, do we wanna have it? Does anybody haven't elaboration on like I want to be known for? And three different angles I could come at this are that we could fill in here to get some ideas rolling? No, Stand it a little bit on mine. Okay, Great. Sort of clicked a little bit after a said I am, but I guess what I was trying to say the first time is married getting away from mass consumption and connecting with small businesses and artists but that my other angle is also I'm into stones and the geology and kind of the meaning behind that. And so going into that aspect, too. I love that. So you're just developing with a couple of different, you know, elaborations and a couple of different angles. You can go out of that same story. Great, great. One other one. You want another supporting ideas? You look like you have been doing a lot of meal planning just for clients And, um, the whole idea that, you know, there's there's meal planning, service like subscription services out there. But the the angle for this would be like meal planning is not a big box service. It's more of a personalized, um, interaction with a shaft. And can I tell you I've actually been looking for that service? I think are like crazy. Yeah, nutritious. But what your kids will eat fashion allergy like that? Yeah, s so that is a great way where you could come and look at There's, you know, the solution that is always being offered on my customer. And I am able to come in and offer them a different message. And then where you can go for there is, you know, write a whole article or do a whole interview on How do you find some of you does meal plans? Things like that. So we'll get more into that nitty gritty of what that form that takes. But coming up with those ideas on what are people getting now and what makes years your angle different is a great way to skit started with your PR for yourself.