Episode 48Jul 20, 2023· 43:56
Getting Media Attention for a Blog with Josh Elledge
About this episode
Let's chat about Getting Media Attention for a Blog. It's easier than you might think!
Josh's Links:
https://upmyinfluence.com/about/
https://twitter.com/joshelledge
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshelledge/
https://www.instagram.com/josh.elledge/
https://www.youtube.com/@UpMyInfluence/videos
More Show Notes From This Episode:
What’s up my bloggy friends! I'm slowly updating the show notes for this and every…
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Full transcript
00:00
Welcome to the Bloggy Friends show!
00:07
Watch up my bloggy friends, famous Ashley Grant here and I just want to welcome you to the Bloggy Friends show.
00:29
We're so excited to have you join us on this journey of sharing our knowledge and experiences with you.
00:34
Whether you're a blogger, a content creator, or just someone who's interested in learning more about the digital world, we've got something for you.
00:40
So grab your notebook and a pen to take some notes or just sit back and take in all the amazing information and ideas we're about to share with you.
00:46
Let's get into it.
00:48
But Josh, I'm so excited you could be here today. Can you do us a favor and tell us what you do?
00:53
Well, first off, I am a famous Ashley Grant fanboy. So that's, I would say, my absolute first love, my first priority in life.
01:05
Aside from that, we have spent many, many, many years, I think we originally connected at a blogging conference.
01:17
Florida blogcon.
01:18
We've seen each other at some podcasting conferences and so forth. But yeah, so what I do is we have a network.
01:28
We've launched over 200 podcasts and we use those podcasts to celebrate other people, to serve audiences, and to provide the absolute best networking on the planet for our clients.
01:44
So where before what they were trying to do for business development or attracting investors or influencers or customers primarily, you know, I think historically maybe they were trying lead gen tactics or marketing and sales funnels and advertising.
02:01
And that stuff is really doesn't work very well.
02:05
And it's especially today, especially if you're reaching out to leaders, lead gen is not appropriate for leaders. It just isn't. If you come sliding into my DMs, I'm going to market as spam, I'm going to complain and it's not it's not anyone's fault.
02:21
It's just that marketers have really ruined that. And so for great consultants, coaches, agency owners, B2B service providers, you're going to have to extend invitations. If you want to connect and network with leaders, you're going to have to extend appropriate invitations.
02:37
And here's, here's a clue.
02:40
If I get cold email and I was mentioning to you actually, like even in preparation for this podcast, you say well I sent you the link I'm like, oh sorry I have a few inboxes. Most of them are watched over by somebody else.
02:54
And I've got one personal one that you know I just use for like, you know, personal subscriptions or whatever you know, but occasionally a marketer will find it I don't know where it's listed. And there's only a few invitations to get through and any inbox, and those are speaking
03:11
to me and I think it's a good idea to get a little bit more in-depth, because I've got a lot of work to do. I'm working with a lot of voiceovers, media invites, interview requests, and that's about it. Anything else that comes in cold, it just goes to the dead letter office. So, and that's just because it's just my mandate. I don't have time to look at stuff.
03:28
But our clients are busy leaders.
03:31
They're running their companies.
03:33
So if you wanna engage with them,
03:35
again, you have to engage in a way that they are open to
03:39
truly provide an active service,
03:41
a la Bob Berg, the GoGiver.
03:43
And then from there, you build an amazing relationship,
03:46
do lots of great work together and grow, scale,
03:50
and enjoy consistent profitability
03:54
month after month after month.
03:56
Which is what we all want.
03:57
Now, so how many podcasts did you say your company runs?
04:01
Well, so we've launched well over 200 at this point.
04:04
And that's really starting to ramp up a little bit too,
04:08
just simply because in the B2B world, it's really tough.
04:12
Sales is tough these days.
04:14
You know, trying to sell into enterprise,
04:16
trying to get founders of SMB and mid-market companies.
04:21
What is currently out there does not work.
04:25
And unfortunately, I think a lot of the advice
04:28
is geared toward marketing to newbie entrepreneurs.
04:33
And that's inappropriate for legacy business leaders.
04:38
They're just, those are two completely different personas.
04:42
So I think we've gotten some good attention,
04:45
some good buzz in the right areas
04:47
and kind of the B2B sales world,
04:50
where we've been able to do some really amazing work.
04:52
I mean, leading to amazing six and seven figure sales
04:57
transactions, just simply because you're leading
05:01
in generosity, leveraging platform
05:03
and a little bit of authority.
05:04
Yeah, and I mean, you kind of hit the nail on the head
05:07
with something that you said.
05:08
You said a lot of the things nowadays,
05:09
the advice they give is to newbie marketers.
05:11
And unfortunately, the sad thing is a lot of it's wrong.
05:15
I was just in a class a couple of days ago
05:17
and I won't name names to protect the guilty.
05:19
But basically they were saying the old adage
05:23
of spray and pray to get sponsorship deals for bloggers.
05:27
And she was doing this whole class
05:29
and it was a lovely presentation.
05:30
She's a lovely woman, but the whole presentation was,
05:33
okay, get yourself a database.
05:35
And then every single day,
05:36
I want you to cold pitch everyone.
05:38
And that's not working anymore.
05:39
If you want sponsorships, real relationships,
05:43
then that kind of thing is gonna get you
05:46
maybe a free blender,
05:49
but you're not gonna get the money,
05:50
which is what we're all looking for.
05:52
And even though we're not supposed to say
05:54
we're looking for the money, come on,
05:55
we all need to get paid.
05:57
So-
05:58
Yeah, and Ashley, there's something to be said
06:01
for our sustainability in our activity.
06:08
Listen, if for whatever reason,
06:10
you were born with a personality
06:13
where you can just cold sell at people for eight hours a day,
06:17
God bless you.
06:19
And have to deal with all the rejection
06:22
and the people being a little bit annoyed
06:24
and you're just gonna close, close, close, baby.
06:27
You're like straight out of the movie,
06:28
Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.
06:29
If that's you, God bless you.
06:31
I don't know too many people like that.
06:33
In fact, I would say that that's a very unique
06:36
kind of persona.
06:37
Most people, Ashley, I think are like you and I,
06:40
we love what we do.
06:41
Sales and marketing is, I think historically,
06:47
I think a lot of us who are very thoughtful
06:49
and about the impact that we wanna have in the world,
06:52
sometimes we look at it as almost like a necessary evil
06:57
or the activity we're doing is not exactly consistent.
07:01
But what we don't wanna do
07:03
is become those hardcore salespeople.
07:05
We wanna build authentic relationships
07:07
with our dream ideal people.
07:09
We wanna serve the world, do good, bring value,
07:12
build relationships,
07:13
and that should be able to grow our business.
07:16
So that's what you can do.
07:19
But again, you're gonna have to relax a little bit
07:21
because you also have to look at the way the psychological,
07:25
I wanna just, you get into psychological better,
07:29
like way of why people buy.
07:31
But again, I just wanna make sure
07:32
that I'm kind of massaging this idea
07:35
of unsustainable activity.
07:39
That's no business that I wanna run.
07:41
I'm okay with doing some uncomfortable activity
07:44
for short periods of time, but not, Ashley,
07:47
not when it violates my values.
07:49
I'm not going to do it.
07:51
And cold pitch spamming people,
07:53
selling it people like I described earlier,
07:56
I'm just not going to do it.
07:57
I would rather go get a job and I don't wanna get a job.
08:00
So that tells you how much I don't wanna do,
08:02
cold selling and be that annoying, hide in the shadows,
08:06
lurk in the shadows, total creeper behavior.
08:10
And unfortunately, I see a lot of good business leaders
08:13
who are being bamboozled by gurus,
08:15
telling them that that's just what it takes
08:17
to build a business.
08:18
No, it's not.
08:19
No, it's not.
08:20
That's not what classy leaders do.
08:21
They don't do that stuff.
08:23
That's so true.
08:24
And one of the things that I like about the fact
08:26
that you've kind of changed how it goes is,
08:30
not only are you getting in touch with the people
08:32
who are the decision makers whenever you're inviting them
08:35
to let's say be on a podcast,
08:37
you also are getting amazing opportunities for media.
08:40
And so that's kind of what I wanted to bring you on for is,
08:43
a lot of the bloggers that I talked to,
08:44
they're all trying to figure out,
08:45
how do I get the word out?
08:46
How do I get people to give a damn about my blog?
08:49
And you have, I mean, your roots are in the blogging business
08:53
and you've got 11 D billion media appearances.
08:55
So let's kind of walk things back to how we got to here,
08:59
to where you were getting on the media
09:01
and then it eventually led to podcast guesting
09:05
out at the game.
09:07
Well, yeah, 11 D billion is about, it's an estimation.
09:11
It's somewhere between 10 D billion and 12 D billion.
09:18
No, I've used that number.
09:20
I use that number because I'm a huge leverage fan.
09:23
Do you remember that show?
09:24
Oh, a huge what?
09:26
Leverage fan, the show Leverage.
09:27
Do you remember that show?
09:28
No, no.
09:29
Okay, Timothy Hutton and,
09:32
oh God, now I'm gonna forget all their names,
09:33
Beth Reisger and Kristen Kane and all those people.
09:38
So, Alan Cartison in episode one says,
09:43
this guy was worth like 11 D billion dollars.
09:45
When he said that, I was like, that's really funny.
09:48
And I'm the girl, I'm obsessed with the pilot episodes
09:51
of every show I like.
09:52
Yeah.
09:53
I was like, get obsessed with, I love the pilot episode.
09:55
So I watched the pilot episode
09:56
more than any of the other episodes of the series.
09:59
So I watched that episode, must've been 200 times.
10:03
Oh my goodness.
10:03
Every time he would say 11 D billion,
10:05
I would crack up, started saying it.
10:07
And now it's like in my DNA, I just, 11 D billion dollars.
10:12
So that's where that little thing is from.
10:15
But anyways, so yeah, you've had a lot of media appearances.
10:18
And, but your original blog that got you all that attention
10:21
was Saving the Angel.
10:22
Saving the Angel, yeah.
10:24
Yeah.
10:24
Yeah, so.
10:25
Let me look at that.
10:26
So background, look, my background was really helpful
10:30
because it gave me the confidence that I could.
10:34
I was a journalist in the United States Navy,
10:37
went to Defense Information School,
10:40
where all of the journalists
10:41
for all of the branches of the service go to.
10:44
One of the guest lecturers who changed my life
10:48
was a man named Adrian Kronauer,
10:51
which if you're familiar with the movie,
10:53
Good Morning Vietnam,
10:55
he was portrayed in that movie,
10:57
and it's kind of loosely based on his story.
11:02
Although he'll tell you he's nowhere
11:04
nearly as funny as Robin Williams is in that movie.
11:07
But he inspired me about the sacred obligation
11:12
we have any time we are serving audiences.
11:16
I don't know that he had any idea at the time
11:19
that in the future, maybe he did,
11:21
in the future, everyone would have access to platform.
11:26
And you have limitless opportunities to serve audiences.
11:32
And in his heart,
11:35
kind of what he would talk about is like,
11:37
you have to be transparent, you have to be authentic,
11:40
you have to be truthful,
11:41
and you have to put audience first in everything that you do.
11:44
And if you'll do that, then audiences will trust you.
11:48
They'll know that you're a safe place
11:50
and they'll rely upon you,
11:51
which again, was kind of part of his story.
11:54
So that was my background.
11:56
And then I was a broadcast journalist
11:58
in the United States Navy.
11:59
It was in Hawaii for three years,
12:02
running TV cameras and doing TV segments for AFARTS,
12:07
Air Force's radio and television service.
12:10
Yeah, and then out of that,
12:12
then I went to school for family science
12:14
because I wanted to be a love doctor on the radio.
12:16
That didn't really pan out
12:17
because I got distracted with internet development.
12:19
Anyway, so launched a bunch of companies.
12:22
Some of them didn't work out real well.
12:24
Some of them really didn't work out real well.
12:26
But my seventh business venture, Savings Angel, did all right.
12:30
And here's what happened,
12:32
is that it was a service
12:35
where I'd help you cut your grocery bill in half.
12:36
Very, very good.
12:38
You can go there and check it out,
12:39
but it's just a blog today.
12:40
And not a very active blog at that.
12:43
I'll tell you the full story later.
12:45
Yeah, so I didn't have money for advertising.
12:48
So I reached out to local radio, TV, newspapers, magazines,
12:53
anywhere that had an audience at the time.
12:57
Really at that time, blogs were,
12:59
I don't even know that that was a word.
13:01
Oh, I think it was,
13:02
but it just was just kind of coming on the scene really.
13:06
But so I went to traditional media.
13:09
I don't have any money,
13:10
but I could produce a really good segment.
13:13
In some cases, we would rev share there.
13:15
But I just focused on providing incredible value.
13:19
I did not sell to that audience.
13:22
My job was to provide so much value
13:24
that people would tune in, lean forward, listen,
13:27
take action on what I shared.
13:29
And that radio,
13:31
I remember my first full-on radio segment,
13:35
I was about ready to have my utilities cut off
13:39
because I didn't have money to pay my heat.
13:41
And this was, I wanna say March, April in Michigan,
13:46
which is still winter.
13:47
So, but yeah, I went into the radio station,
13:51
did my segment and I came back and I earned,
13:56
just in those first,
13:57
we were selling a $20 a month membership.
13:59
And just in those $20 a month memberships,
14:02
I earned enough in that one radio segment
14:05
to pay my heating bill.
14:08
And then that was recurring money.
14:10
So my income just went up by like $400 a month,
14:15
just from that one radio segment.
14:16
I'm like, this is really great.
14:18
I should do this more often.
14:20
And so, yeah, that's, so really it was because almost like,
14:24
Richard Gere, an officer, a gentleman,
14:25
I got nowhere else to go.
14:26
I don't have money for advertising.
14:27
What do I do?
14:28
So, yeah, so from that, that led to a lot of TV,
14:33
syndicated TV, syndicated radio.
14:35
I've been writing a syndicated newspaper column
14:39
for about 14 and a half years.
14:41
I think getting on 15 years now.
14:44
And, again, just kind of focus on that.
14:47
My persona with Savings Angel,
14:49
I'm the guy who can get you a deal,
14:50
hook up or upgrade on anything in life.
14:53
And that resonates.
14:55
It's a great persona to be in the media.
14:58
So I just keep showing up.
15:00
And even today, people lost interest in coupons
15:05
number of years ago, about eight years ago.
15:07
So there was less interest in how we solved that problem,
15:10
but consumer skills have always been wildly popular.
15:13
So I've been able to maintain my media relationships.
15:17
I do a lot of local TV here in Orlando.
15:20
I'm going in on Friday to my local CBS affiliate.
15:24
And I just, I love it.
15:25
Even though I don't even really make money
15:28
on that side of it anymore,
15:29
I do it because I absolutely just love serving audiences
15:32
in that way.
15:32
And I have a lot of compassion
15:33
for someone who absolutely needs to save money.
15:37
Well, and one of the things that struck me with you
15:40
is you're also, you're very good on camera.
15:43
Like you're very good at talking to audiences.
15:45
And I, this wasn't on the, in the plan,
15:48
but like I said, this was gonna be a casual conversation.
15:50
So what do you say to the person who's scared to death
15:52
to even be on camera and talk to the media?
15:55
That's normal.
15:56
You're like everybody.
15:57
So first off, accept that what you were feeling is,
16:01
that's what every single person feels.
16:04
Unless they have like some sort of a psychological disorder,
16:09
I would even call it.
16:10
Most people are nervous
16:13
because they want to do a good job, right?
16:15
And there's a lot of pressure that they put on themselves
16:18
and they're feeling insecure,
16:20
like they might not be good enough.
16:23
So already based on the emotions that you're feeling,
16:27
just know that that audience,
16:29
they want you to do a good job.
16:33
And when you have genuine emotions and feelings,
16:37
that's endearing.
16:39
Like, so I want you to know that everybody's rooting for you
16:42
in a good way.
16:43
Like you're in, I mean, unless you're really like presenting
16:46
in front of a, you know, a very skeptical group or audience
16:50
or something like that,
16:51
or you're gonna hit them with this sales pitch
16:54
or something like that
16:55
and it's gonna make people hate you.
16:56
Generally, if you're there to bring value
16:59
and you keep asking yourself the question,
17:02
how can I increase the value of the time
17:04
that I have with this audience?
17:05
What's the most important stuff that I can share with them?
17:09
And all I have to do is just get that out.
17:11
If it's ugly, okay.
17:13
Okay, so that's really important.
17:16
That's number one.
17:17
Number two, it's not gonna be pretty.
17:22
Listen, your first time on stage, your first time on TV,
17:26
your first time as a guest on a podcast interview,
17:28
it's probably not going to go awesome and that's okay.
17:32
It's not meant to be awesome.
17:33
It's meant for you to get your sea legs.
17:36
I was in the Navy, right?
17:38
And so, you know, it's like if you're out boating,
17:40
like initially like, whoa, but then after a while,
17:43
you just like, you don't even notice the boat moving, right?
17:46
And that's what it's like.
17:48
So if you go back and watch my very first TV segments,
17:52
absolutely, they're awful.
17:53
If you go back and listen to about any very active podcast
17:58
for today, scroll all the way back.
18:01
And if they still have them live and published,
18:04
go back and listen to their first podcast episodes.
18:09
They're pretty bad.
18:11
You and I both know and are friends with Pat Flynn.
18:17
And Pat was the one that really inspired me
18:20
to get into podcasting.
18:22
He came across his content and I met him at a conference.
18:26
It was either FinCon or Social Media Marketing World
18:29
or one of those two.
18:30
But, you know, I told him, I said, Pat, you know,
18:32
one of the biggest things that gave me confidence
18:35
was listening to some of your early podcasts
18:37
because I could tell it was very uncomfortable for you,
18:40
but you did it anyway.
18:41
He goes, that's absolutely the case.
18:42
There's one point I'll never forget.
18:44
I think it's like episode like one, two or three
18:46
of Smart Passive Income.
18:48
I think it's two or three.
18:49
Like, I don't know if he meant to edit it out,
18:52
but there's one point where he's talking
18:54
and he trips up on his words.
18:56
And then he goes.
18:59
And then he kind of starts over and it's in the audio.
19:03
And I'm like, I heard that.
19:04
And I'm like, you know what?
19:05
It's gonna be all right.
19:06
It doesn't have to be perfect.
19:08
Go ahead and unless you say something offensive
19:11
or it's like really bad, just leave it in
19:15
and just let people know that you're doing your best here.
19:18
Right?
19:19
And, but it's endearing when someone can tell
19:21
that you're really trying.
19:23
And here's what will happen.
19:24
Like I did improv comedy at SAC, comedy lab for a year.
19:30
And initially I was so awful because I was so in my head.
19:35
And one thing that I learned,
19:36
and this is another thing too,
19:37
I highly recommend taking some improv classes
19:42
because, and the number one thing you need to do
19:46
is just learn how to get out of your own head.
19:49
Because in improv, one of the biggest skills you'll learn
19:52
is to quiet that inner voice that says,
19:57
oh no, don't say that, that's dumb.
19:59
Right?
19:59
In improv, you just learn to go with it one brick at a time.
20:03
And then you get more comfortable
20:05
in your own skin in doing that.
20:08
Now the upper levels of skill and talent
20:12
in improv blows me away.
20:14
I am not very good at improv comedy,
20:17
but at least I learned the basic building blocks
20:21
of how to trust your partner,
20:24
how to quiet your brain and say,
20:26
listen, whatever I'm gonna say,
20:28
it's not gonna be perfect, it's not gonna be pretty.
20:30
It doesn't have to be.
20:31
It just needs to, I just need to show up.
20:35
I love that so much.
20:36
And you were saying, listen to the first podcast.
20:40
I always say go to the first YouTube video.
20:43
Cause- Oh yeah.
20:44
Cause I could see them.
20:46
Yeah. Oh yeah.
20:47
You can see the discomfort that's all over their face,
20:50
the bad lighting, the mustard stain on their shirt,
20:53
like things.
20:54
And you are probably seeing their third or fourth take.
20:58
Yeah.
20:59
And maybe their 20th.
21:00
Yeah. Oh, easily.
21:02
And I have to say, I'm just really glad
21:04
that the first time I was on the news,
21:06
that that footage has been erased from memory.
21:09
Because-
21:10
I was, because that's how the internet works, Ashley.
21:13
It's gone, never to be seen again, I'm sure.
21:16
Yeah, but now with the internet though,
21:18
now all of our stuff, you can still find it somewhere.
21:21
But-
21:22
It's somewhere, it's out there.
21:23
This is like, you know, way back when I was still
21:27
a baby blogger, before I actually started a full on blog,
21:30
I was talking this t-shirt that I was trying to get out there
21:34
cause I wanted everyone to know about the USF Bulls
21:36
and it was a full of bull shirt.
21:38
Okay.
21:38
And I made this decision that I was going to sell the shirt
21:41
and half of the proceeds were always going to go to charity.
21:44
And so that's how I ended up on the news.
21:45
Had this bright red blush on.
21:48
What the hell was I thinking?
21:50
Like horrible makeup.
21:51
Like it was awful.
21:52
And needless to say, I'm glad that didn't work out
21:55
and that no one knew what the footage is.
21:56
You know, but because you did that,
21:59
you are now at the level of comfort Ashley
22:02
that you are now.
22:03
And I wish there were a, you know,
22:05
it's like learning to swim, right?
22:07
The only, I mean, you can watch YouTube videos about it.
22:10
You can, you know, you can listen to podcasts
22:12
about swimming.
22:14
You can watch TV shows.
22:15
You can read about it.
22:17
But at some point,
22:19
the only way that you're really going to learn to swim
22:21
is you just going to have to jump in the water
22:23
and it's going to be very uncomfortable
22:25
when you're in the deep end for the first time.
22:27
But that's the way to learn.
22:29
We all know that, right?
22:30
Same, just like riding a bike.
22:32
Activity knowledge is 10 times more powerful
22:35
than learned knowledge.
22:37
And so you're just going to have to get it out of the way.
22:39
You know, even something is silly,
22:41
like taking a cruise.
22:44
You're going to make mistakes.
22:45
The first time you take a cruise, that's normal.
22:48
I mean, unless you really,
22:50
I mean, you could really study this out,
22:51
but just give yourself,
22:52
Ashley, I love the term, you know,
22:54
giving ourselves grace to make mistakes.
22:57
And without those mistakes, you don't gain the wisdom.
23:00
The reason that you are who you are today
23:03
is largely the culmination of all of your experiences
23:06
in life and your relationships
23:08
and, you know, things that you've figured out.
23:10
And if you can learn 10 times faster by doing this stuff,
23:13
rather than just learning about this stuff,
23:15
then, you know, that just makes you a more powerful person
23:19
so you can have a greater impact on the world.
23:22
So let's bring that back to how we can use all of that
23:26
in promoting our blogs.
23:27
What would be your first recommendation
23:30
to someone who already has a blog,
23:32
maybe they don't have enough content yet,
23:34
but they're working on it.
23:35
Where should they begin with the, you know,
23:39
getting my name out there into the media?
23:41
Okay, well, let's even just address,
23:44
I think an important question of why.
23:47
Why would I bother with the media?
23:49
That's not a big audience.
23:51
Okay, so here's why you do this, right?
23:54
And I've done media consulting for some really,
23:58
you know, a lot of people in my life,
24:00
a lot of professionals,
24:02
a lot of very, very successful, wealthy individuals,
24:06
you know, and so we've advised on why,
24:09
what they talk about, what they say, how they say it,
24:12
you know, how they show up, their body language, all this.
24:14
Okay, well, why go through all this effort?
24:16
Okay, especially when you consider
24:19
that audiences of a TikTok are a thousand times greater
24:25
in some cases, why would you bother with media?
24:28
Well, it's because there are more benefits
24:32
to traditional media than just eyeballs, right?
24:35
And the primary benefit,
24:37
it's like why when Tony Robbins comes on stage,
24:40
does he show clips of him on CNBC?
24:43
Like his audience in the room is bigger than,
24:47
you know, what's in that CNBC viewing audience.
24:50
So the reason he does it is because it is authority,
24:54
it's an authority indicator, right?
24:56
And so if your goal is to build up your blog,
25:02
to get a lot of eyeballs, to make a big impact in the world,
25:05
your brand associated with, you know,
25:10
being a media brand is going to earn the trust
25:15
of your readers.
25:16
So if you're a food blogger and you've gone in
25:19
and you've got video on your website, on your blog
25:22
of you going in and doing cooking segments
25:25
on your local TV segment or your local TV station,
25:29
as opposed to going to an identical blog
25:32
and there's no authority indicators there,
25:36
how would you rate, you know, the,
25:41
oh, do I follow this person or do I follow this person?
25:43
And generally again, those authority indicators
25:46
are going to earn the respect and attention
25:51
of new audiences.
25:53
So a lot of times, actually, people think about,
25:56
like when they look at media, they think about the main,
25:59
they think about the big prize of being exposed
26:02
to a bunch of new audience and somehow then
26:05
it's going to make them a bunch of riches.
26:07
All right, I'm going to tell you right now
26:09
that TV, radio for sure, but you know, newspaper,
26:14
you know, like news, being quoted in the news,
26:17
like those are pretty fickle audiences.
26:20
Like they're just seeing you for the first time.
26:23
Expect to not be blown away by the response that you get.
26:27
Now, unless, and I've done, you know, national stuff
26:30
and I've certainly done some pretty big major market stuff.
26:34
Like if you get the big, big, big stuff,
26:36
yeah, I can be a game changer for sure.
26:39
But what you, I think the bigger prize is the accumulation
26:43
of you just starting to get seen here and there.
26:46
Use that, but okay, what you do, this is really important.
26:50
If you go and you do a local TV segment
26:53
or you're quoted in the news and you're like,
26:55
ha ha, my work is done.
26:58
Now let the money come rolling in.
27:00
Okay, you've only done about a third of the work
27:02
because if that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:06
The greater value you're gonna get is going to come
27:09
from what you do with that.
27:12
So you have to get a recording, a copy of that TV segment.
27:17
If we're talking about TV, right?
27:19
You need to capture that in every way conceivable.
27:23
Don't rely on somebody else to record it for you.
27:26
You record it, capture it and get it embedded,
27:29
get it on YouTube or get it wherever you can, right?
27:31
Sometimes you have to look at rights and stuff like that,
27:34
but you wanna capture that as best as you can
27:37
and you wanna make that like incredibly visible
27:42
because if I see that you're a regular fixture on TV,
27:45
my opinion of you goes up.
27:49
And actually when people say, oh, I don't trust the media,
27:52
I know everyone says that, it's not true.
27:55
We trust the authority through that association.
27:59
We, you know, you might hate Fox News
28:03
and a lot of people do and a lot of people love it,
28:06
but regardless of your political leanings,
28:08
if you're seen on Fox News, I'm sorry,
28:11
but that is a big feather in your cap
28:14
from an perceived authority perspective.
28:17
So yeah, so that's why we do it.
28:20
So repurposing it and actually with today's AI tools,
28:23
there's no excuse.
28:25
If you are on a podcast, if you are doing a YouTube collab,
28:32
for example, collaboration with someone,
28:34
if you are seen and heard on a TikTok
28:37
that gets in front of a bunch of people,
28:38
like those don't have the authority,
28:42
there's never the authority cache, the traditional media,
28:44
but there's other great visibility,
28:46
but everything you do should always be,
28:48
listen, this is really important
28:50
to my content creator friends out there.
28:51
Everything you do should always be recorded.
28:54
You need to be like the Beatles.
28:55
You need to just record everything you do
28:58
and then use, get great team together.
29:05
Start with one VA who knows how to use
29:08
the AI repurposing tools, right?
29:10
If you don't even have money for that,
29:12
just start using some tools.
29:15
There's so many tools that are popping in.
29:16
I'd hate to recommend, because they change every day,
29:21
but certainly, take that content,
29:25
repurpose it into 20, 30 pieces of content,
29:28
put it in the jukebox and share it,
29:31
and keep sharing it and keep sharing it
29:33
in lots of different places, share it everywhere.
29:35
So like, actually this one conversation
29:38
that you and I are doing, I can easily turn this
29:41
into 25 social media pieces of social media content.
29:45
I hope to get a recording and I hope to promote you
29:47
and let's take this work that we're doing
29:51
and make sure that it's seen everywhere.
29:52
It's so cheap and easy to do today.
29:55
It used to cost thousands of dollars to an agency
29:57
to kind of get, do some great repurposing work.
30:01
Yeah, not anymore.
30:02
Yeah, anyone can repurpose now.
30:05
Which is kind of awesome because you can spend $30
30:07
on an AI thing for a month and it'll take,
30:11
like I was learning yesterday about one,
30:12
I can't remember the name of it right now,
30:13
but I'll put it in the show notes when I find it,
30:16
but it'll take a 45 minute interview
30:17
and it'll chop it up into verticals.
30:20
It'll top it up into like TikToks and Instagrams
30:23
and little shorts and things like that.
30:25
And it's like, this is prime time
30:27
if you're trying to get your name out there,
30:30
just riff on the mic for like 15 minutes
30:33
and who knows what you could create.
30:35
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely.
30:37
So I think another time, here's another advantage
30:40
to being interviewed or being in the media
30:42
is it solves that blinking cursor thing, right?
30:46
And so now here's another hack, right?
30:50
Even if, so it's nice when somebody's asking you
30:54
the questions, because that makes it easy.
30:56
You just have to answer the questions basically.
30:58
If you need to produce original content
31:01
and you don't have anybody else to ask you the questions,
31:04
just go to chat GPT and say, give it plenty of pre-prompts
31:09
so it has the right context and then say,
31:11
give me 10 questions to prompt me for social media content
31:15
and it will and it'll be, and it's awesome.
31:18
And so yeah, if you're not doing that right now,
31:20
I mean, again, you're not competing.
31:23
This was, I think someone from either Google or Facebook,
31:27
I forget who it was.
31:29
So forgive me for my lack of details on this,
31:31
but the quote was basically,
31:33
you're not competing against AI,
31:35
you're competing against all the other marketers
31:38
and business leaders who are already using it.
31:41
And if you're not, you're being left behind.
31:43
So you've got to get on it, not to put any pressure on you,
31:47
but your ability to impact audiences
31:51
is going to directly correlate with your impact
31:55
in the world and your ability to grow and scale revenue.
31:59
Every time you and I talk,
32:00
you remind me of all the things
32:01
that I'm not doing enough of.
32:02
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
32:03
Oh, no, I want, here's the good news, right?
32:06
Here's the good news.
32:07
The good news is you don't have to do everything.
32:11
I would say pick one thing and just do that one.
32:16
And you're gonna hear shiny,
32:18
hey, listen, if you're hearing shiny object stuff from me,
32:20
I'm not telling you need to spend all the time and get on TV.
32:22
There's a lot of other stuff that you could do.
32:24
But my recommendation would be,
32:28
don't try to be a jack of all trades, obsess on one thing
32:32
and be the best in the world at that one thing, right?
32:34
So I've done, as a podcaster now,
32:38
I've been on somewhere between 300 and 400 podcasts
32:43
as a guest, and then I've also recorded
32:46
about 2000 episodes as a host.
32:49
Just a few.
32:51
But that's my, yeah, you're right.
32:52
But I share that in, like, there were people that were like,
32:56
oh, podcaster, you really need to spend all your time
32:59
in clubhouse, and I'm like, maybe, but you know what?
33:02
I'm kind of locked and loaded here.
33:04
Let me know how that goes.
33:05
If I miss an opportunity, okay, I'm okay with that.
33:09
Let me know how it goes two, three months from now.
33:11
And sure enough, those people didn't come back
33:13
to return and report.
33:15
So I don't get shiny.
33:17
Like, if you find something that's working,
33:20
and even if it's not like blowing the doors off
33:23
or whatever, but it's consistently performing and working,
33:27
stick with it.
33:29
Every YouTuber that I've had the opportunity
33:31
to build relationships with
33:33
kind of goes through the very same life cycle.
33:36
They start off, nobody's watching,
33:38
and they keep showing up, and they keep showing up,
33:41
and they keep showing up.
33:42
Their quality gets better, because they keep showing up,
33:46
and then eventually, four months, eight months,
33:49
two years later, if they show up consistently,
33:53
YouTube rewards them.
33:55
Yeah.
33:56
Well, as long as your content is in demand
34:00
from that YouTube audience.
34:03
So that's how to do it today.
34:04
Well, and one of the things that you said
34:07
is every single opportunity you have to get in the media
34:11
that basically you need to make sure you're recording it.
34:13
Now, one of the things I love about you that you have done
34:16
is you have a media page that is phenomenal on your website.
34:20
So I feel like this should kind of wrap it all up.
34:24
All those things that you're doing,
34:26
you need to put them in one place to show your proof,
34:29
your social proof that you can use
34:31
for your audience for authority,
34:33
but then you can also take that to sponsors and say,
34:35
look at all these amazing things I've done.
34:36
This is why you need me.
34:39
Oh, yeah.
34:40
Listen, right now, brands are always
34:43
looking for micro-influencers.
34:46
Serve a unique audience, you know,
34:47
niche into if you only produce content for pregnant moms,
34:54
great.
34:54
Be the best in the world at producing content
34:57
for pregnant moms, because guess what?
35:01
There is a really great business model ahead for you.
35:06
You know, from everyone that wants to market
35:09
to expected mothers, right?
35:12
So build that audience and then start reaching out
35:16
to those brands and saying, I love your product.
35:19
Listen, if you'd ever be interested in doing content
35:21
together, I would love to work with you in some way.
35:25
Now, my recommendation is if you're early stage,
35:29
see if you can't do some stuff on trade initially, just
35:32
to kind of get the momentum going.
35:34
And then just work on that, right?
35:38
Or find ways that you can talk about products and services
35:42
in a way that's honoring of your audience.
35:45
So you don't want to be shilling,
35:46
because people can tell when you're just, yeah,
35:48
you're getting paid for that influencer stuff.
35:50
So you've got to be very authentic and upfront
35:52
and honest with people about how you do that.
35:55
But there's a lot of business to be
35:57
done from brands that want to connect
35:59
with great micro-influencers.
36:01
Ashley, I think you've been to FinCon.
36:04
FinCon.
36:04
No, I haven't been yet.
36:05
I want to go so bad looking for a sponsor.
36:08
Yeah, so I share that.
36:09
FinCon is a great conference.
36:11
It's for money nerds.
36:13
Man, I'll tell you, if you produce,
36:16
and that's my background, right?
36:17
So personal finance content, that sort of thing,
36:19
there are so many brands that want to give you
36:23
money to talk about them.
36:26
You just have to come up with a way that, again,
36:28
honors your audience.
36:29
But there's a lot of opportunities, so many
36:31
verticals.
36:32
But again, my recommendation would
36:36
be to become the best in the world at a very, very
36:38
niche-y thing.
36:39
There's a book, I remember back in the day,
36:41
called Now Discover Your Strengths.
36:43
And again, the premise there is you
36:45
don't want to be a jack of all trades.
36:47
You want to be the best in the world,
36:48
a very particular, very niche-y aspect of the game
36:52
or a particular industry.
36:55
You don't want to be a general life coach.
36:56
You want to be a burnout coach for women
37:00
in their 40s who are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
37:05
And there's no one on the planet that's better than you.
37:09
Ashley, for what we do, leveraging platform and generosity
37:13
for B2B sales, particularly if we're thinking about platform
37:16
like podcasts, there's nobody on the planet who
37:20
is at my level at this very niche-y, nerdy thing.
37:24
I'm pretty unremarkable at 99.9999%
37:29
of the stuff on the planet.
37:30
But this one thing, I feel like I
37:35
don't know that there's anybody who
37:37
has my level of experience and results from this thing
37:41
because we've just obsessed on it for years and years
37:44
and years and years and years.
37:45
Yeah, and you have so many amazing,
37:48
so much amazing content about how to be a podcast guest
37:51
and how to leverage that into so much more.
37:54
So speaking of which, where can people find you online?
37:57
Yeah, so a couple of things.
37:59
I am always looking for great podcast guests.
38:06
I've got Getting on 1,600 episodes
38:08
for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur.
38:10
It's a daily show.
38:13
In particular, any time I can get female business leaders,
38:18
if you've been in business for any length of time,
38:20
you have decent, you've got some success to speak of.
38:23
And you're high authority in what you do.
38:25
I would love to feature you.
38:26
So now, to become a guest on the podcast,
38:29
really easy, you just have a simple application process,
38:33
and then we'll get you into the mix.
38:34
So that website that you wanna go to,
38:37
so you can make sure,
38:38
because again, I have a pretty big,
38:40
we're over 100,000 at this point on social media,
38:43
so I'd love to promote you far and wide.
38:45
But that website is www.upmyinfluence.com.
38:50
So www.upmyinfluence.com.
38:55
When you click on, when you go there,
38:57
you're gonna see a button that's gonna say podcast.
38:59
Click on that button,
39:00
and then you'll see where we've got that,
39:02
hey, we're looking for guests,
39:03
and so you can click on that.
39:04
So that's number one.
39:05
Number two, is I've gone through,
39:07
I would love to teach more about what is working right now,
39:11
but more importantly,
39:12
what are your peers already doing?
39:15
That while you're picking your peers,
39:18
that while you're picking your nose in the DMs,
39:21
you've got true business leaders
39:25
who have unlimited amounts of business to do,
39:28
and that's because they're networking like leaders do.
39:31
Stop with the selling, stop with the creepy,
39:34
lurking in the shadows kind of stuff.
39:36
You don't need to do that anymore.
39:38
You don't need to also, if you're B2B,
39:40
I question how much money you really need to spend
39:43
in advertising unless it's a different model, right?
39:46
So you could end up potentially saving yourself
39:48
a lot of money by again,
39:49
leading with a little bit more generosity.
39:51
So I do a free class with kind of the audio equivalent.
39:54
It's like an audio book,
39:56
kind of put to some slides and stuff,
39:58
and I'll teach you step by step by step,
40:00
exactly how this works.
40:02
And again, exactly what true business leaders,
40:05
collaboratively minded,
40:07
generous in their heart and wildly successful,
40:11
I'll break down and tell you exactly
40:13
what they have already been doing
40:15
while these gurus are just trying to sell you
40:17
into another program that,
40:18
like kind of the stuff you're talking about, Ashley.
40:20
No, thank you.
40:22
I'd rather build my business with class.
40:25
I love that so much.
40:26
And I have to tell you,
40:28
I've still been trying to get to that revenue number
40:30
that I know you want for some of your guests.
40:32
Yeah, and again, that free class is at
40:35
myinfluence.com as well.
40:37
So you can just, and it's right up there.
40:38
I'd love to have you watch it.
40:40
I'm not gonna sell you on anything.
40:41
I mean, if you're an adult, if you like what I do,
40:44
and you can afford what I do,
40:46
then we'll figure it out.
40:47
If it's not that stage yet, it's okay.
40:50
You'll get there.
40:51
We all do, just stay in the game.
40:53
And honestly, and the big thing that's coming through
40:55
for me is I feel like every blogger also needs a podcast.
41:00
Yeah, there's a lot of benefits there.
41:01
I mean, because again, you can record one thing.
41:03
And unlike Ashley, if you wanted to,
41:05
I mean, you've probably have a good four blog articles
41:08
just based on the content.
41:09
I'm thrilled to help produce that with you.
41:14
Yes, and we'll make sure you get a copy.
41:16
Yes, and you take the transcripts,
41:18
feed it into ChatGPT.
41:20
Don't publish what ChatGPT gives you.
41:23
I mean, to work on it, personalize it.
41:26
Massage it, massage it.
41:27
Yeah, put your own stories in there.
41:29
Don't just spit out AI content.
41:32
That's, again, Google knows what you're doing.
41:36
Even people claim, oh no, no, no, yeah, yeah, Google.
41:39
You're not gonna outsmart.
41:40
Don't try to outsmart Google.
41:43
Just work with Google.
41:45
Be Google's best friend and just follow everything
41:49
they tell you to do, best practices.
41:51
And so your AI content though
41:53
will at least get the ball rolling
41:55
and give you something that you can work with
41:58
and become masterful at copy editing
42:00
and working in stories and humanizing and personalizing it.
42:05
You know, pre-prompts are really, really important.
42:10
I mentioned this earlier in tools like ChatGPT
42:15
so that you tell it exactly what the deal is.
42:18
Yeah, because the more information you give it,
42:20
the better product it can give you.
42:22
I love it so much.
42:23
There's been a lot of golden nuggets
42:24
that you've shared in this.
42:25
And I just wanna say thank you so much
42:26
for taking your time to chat with me.
42:28
And I can't wait to see how the end product
42:31
of this episode turns out
42:33
because I know that a lot of the things you've said,
42:35
people need to hear.
42:36
They may not want to, but they need to.
42:38
Yeah, well, listen, we all wanna celebrate you.
42:40
I mean, and if your goal truly is to make an impact
42:43
in the world, then it is just gonna require some,
42:47
you know, challenges to your imposter syndrome.
42:51
Everybody's got it.
42:52
And if you don't, you're not normal.
42:55
And that's okay.
42:56
Like everybody show up scared, do it scared,
43:01
and then keep doing it even when you're doing it bored.
43:04
So do it bored.
43:05
I mean, that's atomic habits right there.
43:07
Do it scared at the beginning,
43:08
then do it bored to become a champion.
43:11
Ah, good stuff.
43:12
Well, thank you again for being here.
43:14
Thank you, Ashley.
43:15
It's so great being here.
43:19
Well, my bloggy friends, I hope you enjoyed
43:21
all the insights our guests had to share with you.
43:23
To get the show notes for this and all episodes,
43:25
go over to famousashleygrant.com backslash podcast.
43:29
And until next time, may your page fees be high
43:31
and your balance rate below.
43:33
And I'll see you next time.
43:34
Bye.
43:34
I'll see you next time.
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The podcast earns from your regular shopping
No payment info needed — ever
Takes 10 seconds · No payment required · Remove anytime