How Coaches Can Get Featured in the Media With Lisa Simone Richards
Episode Transcript:
Lindsay (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. We have Lisa Simone Richard's with us today, and we're chatting all about PR and your coaching business. You do not want to miss this. So grab something to write with. You're going to take a lot of notes and sit back, relax and enjoy Lisa. Thank you so much for being on the book, your dream clients podcast. I'm so excited. You're with us today.
Lisa (00:54):
It is going to be so much fun to have a conversation with you that other people get to hear. Oh my God,
Lindsay(00:59):
I've been looking forward to this all morning all week since you've booked this, because I love her energy and you just have so much, you have so much to offer and to give. So I'm excited to share you with everybody else. So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, tell everyone about what you do and who you are.
Lisa (01:18):
Sure. I make sure that online coaches are known. So, you know, I really feel like the biggest threat facing a number of online coaches is obscurity because it's such a big market. So what I really shine at is helping my clients leverage other people's audiences. So what does that mean? Getting on television, getting on stages, getting on magazines, getting on podcast, somebody else out there already has thousands of your dream cost clients coordinated together. Now, how can you find a way to get in there and offer them value so you can bring the right people into your world. And I think the really cool thing about the way that we do it, we're not paying for these opportunities. We're often getting paid for these opportunities and we're getting that all important third party endorsement, because it's one thing to say, Hey, look at me. I'm awesome. It's totally different when Forbes says that. You're great.
Lindsay (02:04):
Okay. How did you get started with this?
Lisa (02:07):
Oh my gosh. Okay. I love telling this story. So I'm going to really try and condense it as much as I can. So go back to like the 1980s with me, I'm about seven years old and I was reading my team people subscription that came in the mail and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world that you could submit a letter to the editor in theater name and print. So literally without even asking my parents, I grabbed it, wrote a letter to the editor, mailed it off three months later, it comes in the mailbox. Jonathan Taylor, Thomas from home improvement is on the cover. And I see my name is my letter to the editor in print. And that was the beginning of me being interested in the media. So fast forward to now when I'm in university, this is when sex and the city is in its heyday. Samantha Jones makes PR looks super cool. And I knew that I didn't want to be like an editor or a writer or really in the media. But as I learned about PR and public relations and how to actually get your clients featured in there, that's what I became interested in. So I started off in and beauty. I moved into an agency where I worked on consumer packaged goods brands like staples, Virgin, mobile, and Crayola moved into fitness for about 10 years. And now this year I'm shifting all of that knowledge to the online coaching industry.
Lindsay (03:14):
Okay. So I love your, I love how your story starts with Jonathan Taylor, Thomas right away. I thought that's not fair that she got a subscription to the magazine because I always wanted that. And I never, my parents would never let me get that dang magazine.
Lisa (03:28):
Oh my God. But isn't it funny, like how our personality and the way that we're meant to shed served the world shows enough that shows up in a story from the time that we're children. Like that was just something I like doing. And like, I always think even going through my parents' photo albums, there's a picture of me sitting in the snow, holding a little red phone and who knew I would become a communicator.
Lindsay (03:48):
I love that. And I was always the teacher all the time. I always wanted to teach everybody everything. And I, my brother said not too long ago, he said, every time we'd go back to school in the fall, everyone would talk about their really cool stories of traveling and doing all these fun things. And I was, well, we just spend time on the farm and my teacher made me or my, my sister made me play school.
Lisa (04:14):
And here we are today. I love it.
Lindsay (04:18):
Okay. So you work with coaches and I think this is such a scary thing as a coach, I've been doing this for 10 years and the thought of publicity and getting out there, PR writing for other things besides yourself was such a scary thing to jump into because it felt like not everyone was doing it. And so it made me doubt the power of it. Why is this so powerful to hop off of your own website and your platforms to go onto other things?
Lisa (04:49):
Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing as an online coach. My guess is that what you're offering is higher ticket, a few hundred dollars, $3,000, tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even a hundred thousands of dollars. So if I'm going to make an investment in you, you better believe I'm going to Google you. Like, I don't know if you watch masters of none with Aziz and sorry. I always loved the episode where they were just going for tacos. And they spent so long looking up the right taco place, that by the time they left, everything was closed. So remember your ideal clients are going to Google you before they work with you. And if the only place you're showing up is on your own site, that doesn't instill a whole ton of confidence. So you want to make sure that you're being seen as an expert.
Lisa (05:28):
You're being seen as a thought leader on other platforms that are celebrating your knowledge, because think about it. If you want it to hire a life coach, for example, and you have the choice of, you know, life coach, a who's hung up attention goal or Tony Robbins. And let's say they were around the same price. Like you're probably going to want to go with and Tony Robbins, because he's a New York times, best seller. He speaks at events. He's, you know, he's proving himself. And he has all these athletes behind him. Even if he costs just a little bit more than the no-name person, you're willing to pay premium to work with that individual because how they have positioned themselves. And that influences how you as a consumer perceive them. So you need to put on your consumer thinking hat, not necessarily just look at it from a coach's perspective.
Lisa (06:08):
What is the consumer thinking before they work with you? And if they can see that you have a status above everybody else in your industry, that you've been sought out as an expert, that's going to give them confidence to take their credit card out and sign up to work with you. There's one thing I'd like to think if I can just dig into this, like anybody can do a post on social media. That's open to everyone. Anybody can do an ad on Facebook. Not just anybody gets featured in ink, not just anybody gets featured on like cosmopolitan.com. If that's where your ideal client is hanging out. So you really want to get those exclusive features that say, Hey, yeah, she's special.
Lindsay (06:43):
Makes total sense. So when you're just starting, you have that huge doubt of why in the world of what I want to be, what would ink take me or Forbes feature me or all of those things like it takes, it takes work to get onto all of those things. So how can you start small to kind of get yourself up there to build that confidence?
Lisa (07:04):
Yeah. And okay. That's interesting because the first thing I work with any of my clients on is the mindset and the confidence piece. Like if you don't feel worthy of being seen and putting yourself out there, I can give you all the strategies and tactics in the world and they're not going to work. So really dialing in on that mindset, that confidence that worthiness of putting yourself out there is step number one. Uso a way that I like to do, if my client is creating a, not so humble brag sheet, how write out, grab a pen and paper, how long have you been doing this? How much money have you invested? What results have you gotten yourself? And what results have you gotten your client? And hopefully by the end of that exercise, you have a full page about how freaking awesome you are.
Lisa (07:40):
And you can always look at that as your pump up. So I think that's a great way to get the confidence to put yourself out there, especially when you realize the skillset that you have. Like for me, I take this media stuff for granted. I'm just like, Oh, you're just email. This person say thinks this way. And boom, you're on Forbes, but I take it for granted, but most people actually don't know how that works. So it's just really helpful to remind yourself of your skillset. So that's number one in terms of, let's say, you're just getting started. How do you, you know, how do you even get started? I like to have my clients climb what I call the ladder of publicity. So this helps you build confidence with every run you climb on the ladder. So typically we start off with contributing content in a written form.
Lisa (08:20):
So that could be writing an article for a website like the Huffington post for thrive, which yes, you as a consumer can do that. You don't have to be immediate personality to do it. So we start off by writing for places because I think that gives you a sense of control. You can go back, you can edit it, the perfectionist, and you can be really happy before you hit send. So that's step number one, just start. You know, all you have to do is go on Google type in, write for us in quotations, w R I T E for us in quotes and your industry, write for us fitness, write for us health. You're going to come up with all of these websites, looking for contributed content. That's a great start to getting name out there. So now that we're comfortable, like creating content, we're getting Google-able cause we're writing for other websites.
Lisa (09:01):
We're getting those back links to our own website. Now let's move up to being heard. So you're confident writing, start getting some podcast interviews, start getting some radio interviews, if that makes sense, based on your offer. So for example, you and I were talking right now, we're not on camera. So it's easy for me to have a conversation and develop my voice and develop my message. So you're growing confidence now being heard now that you're writing now that you're being heard, my hope is that your confidence is growing and the way you see yourself is like, Oh my God, I'm really good. I got featured in all these places. So now let's aim for being seen. Does that mean getting featured in someone else's Facebook group on a live, does that mean getting traditional television coverage or even speaking from a stage because now you have the confidence to put yourself out there and be seen. So that's typically the path I have my clients climb so that they can hit those top levels of getting onto like good morning America and other shows like that.
Lindsay (09:55):
Okay. Those are amazing tips. And I had to write down the right for us and quotes and then coaching because I work with coaches and they often want to get onto other websites with writing because writing is so much more comfortable for all of us because we can do it. And it's, and it's, you know, to be honest, it's a lot more convenient, especially like for me, kids running around and all of the things I can sit on, I usually write my articles in a notebook first sitting on the couch and then I go and put them on the computer. It's so much easier. So when coaches want to get into this, they want to start writing, how do they know, should they be typing in right. For us coaching or what kind of ideas could you give them to help them get started?
Lisa (10:37):
Yeah. So here's the thing I, and I love that you asked this question, so I believe in finding a way to stand out. So if let's say for example, I work in PR and publicity, if I Googled right, for us PR and publicity or right. For us PR right. For us publicity, I'm going to end up in a seat with other publicists. So why don't I think outside my own box, let's say I want to work with coaches, for example, right. For us coaches. And then I could do a whole article on how to book your first podcast, how to get featured in forums. And now I'm in a category of one, there are all these coaches who are like, Oh, that publicist can help us as opposed to writing for PR in publication. And it's like, Oh, well, she's one of 20 publicists featured in here
Lindsay (11:17):
That makes so much sense. And then it really helps you become the expert in that field. Do you agree?
Lisa (11:22):
Oh, for sure. That's why I actually specialized in fitness for 10 years because now I'm in a position where I don't have to apply for the conferences anymore. Like everybody knows who I am and opportunities come to me. So it's kind of fun that I'm shifting out of that and I'm going to have to do the legwork all over again, which I welcome. But yeah, it was really easy to start in one space because I built a name for myself there. And I know
Lindsay (11:44):
That's so important to build your name because we do feel like we're in this sea of coaches, it feels like you're never going to be able to stand out when you're just starting. I, that feeling seeing felt like everyone was ahead of me or doing something different or better. And I know that all comes into to mindset and I love that you work on that. And it's probably the, when you're just starting the most boring thing to work on in quotes because it's not action. It doesn't involve a lot of action. Like we literally just wanted you to tell us what to do so we can do it and get results. And I think the mistakes so many coaches make at the beginning is not as neglecting the mindset. Do you believe that?
Lisa (12:23):
Oh, for sure. Like I, if I think about some relationships I have in friendships, like there's always like were taken notes, pages and pages of notes and we feel good doing that, but when it comes to actually doing it, that's the part where people stall. So the action is literally the most important part.
Lindsay (12:39):
Okay. So we write some articles, we have them on, you know, thrive global, all of those things. Is it important to stay consistent with those con contributions? Or do you recommend just continuously working your way up the ladder? How long should we stay in each of those zones?
Lisa (12:55):
Yeah, that's a really good question. So I kind of have two points of view on this. On one hand, I really believe in having what I call a healthy media mix. So we all like to learn in different ways. I love watching YouTube videos in the car and listening to podcasts while I really like to read. I find that I'm not spending as much time sitting and doing that. So think about how do my clients consume information and how can I kind of create a healthy mix of those. So whether they're watching, listening, or reading, I can make sure I'm giving them that sensory experience and catering to how they like to consume content. So I believe in having a nice little healthy niche, that being said, there's also the power of developing a relationship and just making it easy to get featured over and over again. So for example, something I'm really good at is helping my clients become regularly featured guest experts on their local morning show. So two of my clients have now done probably at least 15 segments under local morning show. So the first one, they had to go out of their way and like come up with the pitch and find the right person and get the email address. 15 segments later, they're just texting Pam behind a desk and saying, Hey, you know, would this work for Tuesday's show?
Lindsay (13:57):
Hmm. Okay. So I'm not laughing at that suggestion. I'm laughing at my I'm laughing at my, my local show. We live in, I live in the middle of North Dakota. And so that would really be weird and awkward for some, somebody like me to be on ours, like where we talk about farming and, you know, recipes. So like how, what's another, what's another option for somebody let's say we don't live in this, this area where we have that local network where it wouldn't really be something that didn't feel aligned with your business. What's another option.
Lisa (14:37):
Yeah. And it's really important to really get centered on what your goals are first off, because if you have a local bricks and mortar business. So for example, I worked with chiropractors here in Toronto and they have an office at young and Bayview. So when they get featured a national television show, that's pretty cool. But someone from BC, isn't coming to Ontario to go to their practice. And when we get on the hyper-local TV show, that does not have the same accolades of the big national one. That's when they see a ton of patients coming in. So really think about, okay, what makes sense based on my business, if I'm online, the world's my oyster. If I'm hyper-local, maybe hyper-local makes the most sense in terms of bringing clients into the door. So think about what are your personal gifts? How do you shine? Because if you're someone who's really scared of speaking in front of people, you don't want to be on TV when that red light goes on, like you're going to freak out.
Lisa (15:26):
And that could be why. So really thinking about what's the meeting that your clients are paying attention to and what's the best way to get featured. So another example is for a few years, I was writing for Jonathan Taylor, Johnson, Taylor Jonathan, goodness, backtrack. I know, right? Where is he these days? And I was writing for Jonathan Goodman and he runs the personal trainer development center. So he would have fitness marketing monthly, which was a monthly newsletter that went out to his audience. That made sense for me to write, to, to write for, because it was my audience and they were getting this delivered to them monthly. So really thinking about how can I actually pull people from here into my programs so that you're not actually getting PR that makes zero sense for you. It absolutely has to have an ROI. So really being clear on, Hey, if I get featured on TV, what is the outcome that I want for this? Cause I'm pretty sure, like when you think about, okay, I want to pull more clients into my coaching business, getting on your local TV show may not make that big, a difference where they're talking about farming. Probably not, probably not.
Lindsay (16:27):
So, okay. So, you know, let's, let's talk about coaches getting onto different websites, writing articles. I feel like the next big step for them besides speaking would be on in an, in a magazine. How does one even make that happen? That sounds like so out of reach for me.
Lisa (16:45):
Okay. I'm going to see how, how could I dial this in really easily? So let's think about, I want to give away some little secrets that people may not know. So if you want to get into a print magazine, for example, one of the first things you're going to want to look up is something called the masthead. And this is a listing of all the editors who write for this publication. So if you're a coach, you're probably looking for a lifestyle editor of sorts. So on, you know, when you open a magazine, the first few pages is a bunch of ads. And then there's a list full of names. Who's the editor that you need to know. So that would be step one, finding the right person, mhow that you actually really understand the publication. So like, let's talk about real simple magazine may not be ideal for coaches, but just write with it, right?
Lisa (17:25):
Like there's a beauty section. There's a wellness section. There's an organizing section. Like, do you know which one of these you actually fit into? Because you can't just send a generic pitch. You need to show that you understand how it works, how they give value to their readers. So find the right person, find the right section and pitch an idea that really works for them. Here's how you can figure out what that can look like. Grab a copy of the magazine and read through the titles, each article, do they, is it something like the five best ways to dub biggest mistake, 10, some sort of listicle because then you understand, okay, this is how they talk to their clients. And I like to think, grab a headline and then just plug and play with your own words, take some out and put your own content in.
Lisa (18:07):
And then that's the way that you've found the republication. You show that, you know it and you show that you understand how they're talking to their people. That in itself is going to put you worlds ahead. Of most people who send a generic picture, they're like, hi, my name is Lisa and I ran a publicity business. Do you want to write an article about me? Imagine I just positioned it instead of, Hey, I know your audience is full of coaches and they want to figure out how to get in front of more people. I would love to share an article about how they can get publicity. Would that be a value?
Lindsay (18:33):
So you're literally going to the store, buying a magazine, looking at the list of editors, coming up with title ideas. And you're probably getting really excited because it feels like, okay, I can do this. What do you do with those ideas? Do you like, is there someplace in a magazine where you pitched to? I, I have no idea. Tell me.
Lisa (18:49):
Yeah. So, okay. Let me give it kind of like a step-by-step process. So we found the person. The next thing you need to do is find their email address. So, you know, figure out what the formula is for that publication. First name dot last name, you know, first letter, last name, whatever it might be. And then you're going to send them something called a pitch. And this is the same for television. It's the same for podcast. And really, you know, I think a lot of us have heard the term press release before that's, by the way, Pennell margin dead for a lot of people in our industry. So you just sent an email, positioning yourself as value. This is what I'd like to offer. Do not make it all about you. This is who I am. This is what I do. This is the course that I'm launching do not do that, make it all about the value that you can offer. And then towards the bottom of that email share why you are the right person to speak about this. I helped my clients pull in multiple six figures. I've helped my clients lose over a thousand pounds in total. You know, like what makes you special about, and the person who should be contributing this content rather than anybody else
Lindsay (19:47):
I'm assuming you help your clients do all of this, correct?
Lisa (19:50):
Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. This is just kind of like the 30,000 foot view, but it's so fun to get on calls with my clients. I was just talking to my client, Megan yesterday, and we were doing something that I called slew thing which is really probably a more professional way of saying being an online creep. Like how do we find people's email addresses, ex-boyfriends being where I can find your email address. No problem. So we have different like plugins that we're using on our browsers. We're searching different parts of the website to really figure out how to find these people and that it was so fun to go through that process with her. So yeah, we definitely go into the details of figuring out how you can take advantage of what's going on in the current news cycle and inject yourself into it, how to find the right people.
Lisa (20:29):
And what's really fun for me is at the end of our work together, they now have a skill that they can lather, rinse and repeat and use for years to come. Like when I first got started in 2015, I remember my first client was Jessie Lanely. She was a holistic nutritionist. She was the first person that I was going to be like, okay, let me see if I can teach people how to do this PR thing. I've been doing it for people for years, but can I show them how to do it? So I showed her everything about here's how you find the right shows. Here's how you find a producer. Here's how you pitch a TV segment and really think about it from the producer's point of view. Like what's going to appear on camera. How is this going to be in pacing to the viewers? How should we lay out the set? And when she does a really good pitch like that, she ended up booking every single morning show in Toronto and five years later, she is still on them probably once or twice a month.
Lindsay (21:15):
Wow. That's amazing.
Lisa (21:17):
How cool is it to be able to teach someone how to do that? And I noticed a huge difference in her business attracting more leads in, she always grows her Instagram following after a segment, people are buying for books sliding up in her DNS, and she's showing up in a way that positions her as an expert and she's not paying for that TV segment.
Lindsay (21:35):
Wow. Yeah. It's like, you're just passing on this amazing information and, and the ripple effect continues.
Lisa (21:43):
Exactly. And what's really cool is I find that my experience has been the first media hit is always the hardest you're going to be going uphill with that one. But once you get it, then there's almost a snowball effect that happens because remember media is paying attention to other media. So again, going back to those chiropractors, I was speaking about earlier here in Toronto, they did a segment on the morning news on selfie elbow. Kim Kardashians went to the UK, she took over 1500 selfies in a week. How did we make that a news story? Hey, think about what happens to risk versus Snellville when you take all those selfies. So they actually got a segment on what would otherwise be incredibly boring topic, quite frankly. So at the end of doing that morning show interview with Eric nationally, that day in their office, they got a call from a local radio producer saying, Hey, I watched it this morning. That would be interesting. As one of the doctors available for an interview to air on the radio today, a magazine publisher, or a magazine editor, sorry, saw the segment and was like, Hey, we would love to have the doctors write an article about this five years later, they still have a monthly column in that magazine. And we haven't worked together for years.
Lindsay (22:46):
Wow. I love that. That is so cool. That's such a cool story.
Lisa (22:51):
Yeah. I really feel like this level of visibility is for people who are playing a long game. Like if you're one of those like six weeks old, six figure, sit on a beach kind of person, this isn't what you want to do. But if you're in, if you have plans of really being taken seriously as an expert in your industry and you want to play the long game, this is a way to get the kind of recognition and the credibility and the status of the coaches you look up to already have.
Lindsay (23:14):
I love that. And that is such a great way to kind of almost wrap this up in such a powerful way. Like this is not about dollar signs in the eyes and like the laptop on the beach lifestyle. This is about helping people and making sure that this is a long-term thing, not a short-term thing, because I think that I can't speak for everybody, but I'm in this for the longterm and I want to serve people. So how can I find a high level way to do that? And you just shared so many gold nuggets on how to do that.
Lisa (23:42):
And can I add in one more thing, please, once you get featured, it's never taken away from you. So I remember in 2017, I helped my business coach land a full feature in Forbes for image with under links to our website, everything three years later, her Instagram bio, it still says as featured on forums. So no one's ever taking that status away from her and think about like, I always compare it to like, imagine I listen to clarification. Facebook ads are amazing. How cool is it that we can target our ideal clients? And when your ad spend goes off, your content goes away. When you get featured as the content, when you're valuable that doesn't go away. That article on Fords is still there three years later and she's not paying for that real estate.
Lindsay (24:28):
Mm. So important. And it just keeps building and building and building and building is that snowball effect. So that's yeah,
Lisa (24:35):
They featured her next because, well, she's been on forums, so she must have something special or she must have something at least above every other coach who we've never seen anywhere before.
Lindsay (24:45):
Awesome. I love that Lisa, this episode is so good. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. How can everyone find you and find out all of your media secrets? How can they work with you? Share all the links please.
Lisa (24:58):
Yeah. I think the first thing for anyone to do is figure out where does it make the most sense for me to get featured? And you were speaking to that perfectly how your local TV station just doesn't make the most sense for you. So I recently developed a quiz that helps you figure out, okay, what are number one, my personal gifts. What am I really good at? Is it speaking, writing, being seen? So we figured out what your gifts are. And then number two, the quiz helps you establish, what are your goals? Do you want to sell more programs? Do you want to get seen? Do you just want a really big logo that, you know, you can say for years I've been featured here, so we figure out what your gifts are and what your goals are. And at the end of the quiz, I'm going to tell you exactly the best way for you to start putting yourself out there. So that quiz is available at www dot Lisa Simone Richard's dot com slash quiz.
Lindsay (25:44):
We will put that link in the show notes because it sounds so good. And it, and it sounds like exactly what everyone wants to know. So genius.
Lisa (25:53):
Yeah. And once you get your quiz results, I'll actually send you a video to get you started with your next steps.
Lindsay (25:59):
Oh goodness. It's just the whole package. Awesome.
Lisa (26:03):
How to do this.
Lindsay (26:06):
You can tell, and we can tell that you're just in this to serve others and help others. And I love that about you. So thank you so much for being on the podcast. I appreciate you so much, and I'm so grateful that we have met and I can share your wisdom with our
Lisa (26:20):
Thank you, Lindsay. And I hope guys use this as not just awesome information, like create transformation from it. Is it like looking at that right. Resting right now? Like what can we put into practice from this? So you can actually get a result from listening to the show today.
Lindsay (26:34):
Love it. Thank you so much for being here
Lisa (26:40)
Lisa, thanks, Lindsay.
Lisa Simone Richards is a publicist for online coaches who want to get seen as experts and go from invisible to influencer. She’s here to show you how to build your brand, business & influence. Lisa Simone helps her clients get free visibility and get in front of their ideal client, but also build the credibility that gets clients to take the next step and invest in working with you. When she’s not shooting national TV segments or working with editors on magazine features, you can find her swinging a kettlebell, getting her zen on at hot yoga, or shopping at her local farmer’s market.
Links
www.lisasimonerichards.com/quiz
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