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Skye Guest - Shannon Rose

This is michael albany so michael albany was in corporate america working at microsoft for twenty years and he's had it with corporate america so he finally said that he had always dreamt about being creative and being in a professional photographer and that's when he came to me and michael came to me and you know the unemployment rate was me this was a couple years ago was out of control and he said, you know, my sincere desire is I want to help people to find jobs because it's really bad out there I think I'm going to offer portrait's for the unemployed and I'm like oh, but a brilliant publicity idea I said so here's what you're gonna do michael I said you're going to go and write a press release and in the press release you say local philadelphia photographer helping unemployment by offering free portrait's for the unemployed so he writes slope press release he's on fox news multiple times he's on a radio show like he's he's the segment in the news that plays all day that they keep ...

bringing in on the next news and the next news and the next news the radio radio was there different television stations were there and then he said I think I'm going to do this again I said wonderful I said call them and tell them that you're planning to do this again and see if they want to co sponsor the event fox news philadelphia and photographer michael albany in his initiative about beating unemployment probably presenting free portrait photographs for the unemployed guess who was there again fox news guess how many time its way you think that's good pr so did he make any money on the foot? Of course not but did he get his name out there on television? Of course he did. So this was like one of the most phenomenal examples off three publicity I actually had wanted to show this video but copyright does not allow us to show it but if you search for fox news and michael albany he should be able to find it and watch it what would be what would your guess on how that translates into dollars of what you would have to pay for that sort of publicity spoken like a true logical engineer how does this translate into dollars in the bunker so I'm sorry I had to do that how do you measure authorities that was a good retort so here's here's the way it works imagine publicity and pr as being sort of you shouting out one way and it's like going out and then it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes it goes it goes goes goes girls girls girls, girls, girls girls that comes back to you from I guarantee you a completely different source than you ever expected in my first creative life course turn your talent into business I was here in that was action san francisco for three days and I had fantastic feedback on the course since all about how to take this idea and how to build a business around the idea and you know and jane was there you know, obviously star student did it and did it and doing phenomenal and picking up work right afterward so she got pr because she was talking about her business that at the time was in development so her willingness to pursue the pr opportunity off being in the creative life audience by the way, if you've never been in the creative life audience that's why exposure? So she picked up a publisher for her calendar as every salt because somebody saw her leichter so it was pr she was doing personal pr and if you watch jin you know, pulling the curtain away you see how well she placed this throughout this thing every time I call on you know she has something to say and she always brings in her business and she always says well in my you know, genuine creations in my intentional living online she keeps saying it over and over and over again do you think that's good pr could the publicity's good good promotion that's true to form so that's one way the pr works the other pr works so I'm out there I'm talking it that create life for three days and then all of a sudden you know, like I get an email you know from from kathleen who says you should be speaking at this conference in boston so what's the doll of value of that I don't know yet it might know I might not know what happens on that until next year somebody else might be listening right now oh oh she's I could make a connection for her to speak and send me another email I might pick up ten connections I might pick up twenty connections somebody says that pipe today sounds awfully good I should really apply for that I I think I want to book her for that because clearly transformations are very powerful so you have to walk away from saying that the publicity of the pr is giving you a predetermined dollar value but you have to say that there's no such thing as bad p r and that's what we're going to be talking about now with shannon rose shannon how are you? I'm doing great all right and true to form you're there with the awesome microphone and set up all right so welcome welcome to creative life shannon pleased to tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do sure, I'm iona national pr firm eclectic media pr I've actually been working in public relations since I was the age of fourteen years old I started out sports entertainment, boxing and wrestling act and it was just a little and it wasn't even known that time but don't pr for sports and whatnot and let itself to radio when I'm just a radio show morning radio show and led to my own company and I've also on a video game I've done everything and anything in between you can think of but everything always in in the entertainment world but what that did that led me to many connections within four my pr later on in life which I have about one hundred clients down what's important when you when you're a publicist and you create your connection do you think of who you've ran into her networking we're going toe event and always picking up business cards are you know this person introducing this person that's important to the whole world of pr? Very good. So will you please share with who can get publicity? But I tell you the person that could get publicity could be, uh a man, a woman, a child, anyone out there and get publicity in fact here's a story for you, someone that I signed the other day if you've seen the viral video of the camaro car pulling the child's tooth uh they were trying to do like the tooth fairy and they were pulling the tooth they went everywhere it get it was viral connection I knew the person that did this and we spoke and I got him as a client and talent his fifteen minutes of fame is gone on even even more and of course that the star of it is the child so you know we're pitching it out that you know, this new and new dentist you age dentists is where we're doing it so what you do is anyone could get publicity on and you there's many dimensions servers there's never you know a lot of you know people out there are firms always want to stop at one dimension no you've got to think out of the box that's what I want if I'm leaving here today with one thing you guys are thinking about it's the words thinking out of the box and that's so important for any client and so how does one go about publicity so let's say most of our audience here they sort of know about publicity's they might even be in the photography business on they work with with journalists but they don't really know how to get themselves publicity so what can you tell them? Well the first thing is you can go in and google and find out how to write you know, be a sponge, soak up all the information a lot of sources out there on the internet are good and some are bad, but a lot of more good up there and how to write a press release or pitch I myself I like writing pitches, pitches are short foreign press releases on and we'll get to that in a moment, but you learn how to write that you gained the connections there are sources out their databases that have media outlets that you can call vocus and other things that you can buy into or simply you can contact or look online and see if contact person is for said radio station or television or newspaper. You know a lot of newspapers you want to get to their local beat, which I mean by that if there are certain markets, if they're certain town or you're contacting via sport don't ever send, you know, a press release about, you know, maybe you're talking about the local bar, but don't send it to somebody talking about sports, you know? So you want to make sure you send it to the right person? Is that annoys them greatly? Okay, good. So the first tip you giving is is that to do your research and to find out about the free information on how to write a press release and how to write a pitch and send it to the right person if you're not going to go if you go through a firm you can have the like myself have us do for you, but if you're doing it on your own, that would be the first stage of doing it what's the difference between a press release in a pitch the demonstrate a press release in a pitch a press release is a long form almost an announcement of a said news event maybe hiring somebody new, introducing new products, introducing a new book a pitch is taking and we're going to go into this also in a little bit but taking a news item it could be uh you know god forbid a disaster or it could be, you know, maybe there's a cure for diabetes fact, there was something out that came out about that and what you know you would put actually a pitch the headline you know, a nice headline that would catch the attention of said news source media source and you would send that out and ah pitch also is going to have s so basically you at the top of your going to headline then you could have a paragraph with stats and whatnot and in the middle you're going to have a q and a so you're doing the job pretty much for the media source or whoever you hired is doing the job for them and at the bottom or at the top? You want to always make sure that you have the contact information always be aware to most people these days? Uh, what they say were rubber neck we like things quick, we like to look at things we like him at the top fold. We got always think the the lowest common denominator as far as what people get in their email, you always want to think of the low the quickest thing that you can send them. So you want to have everything at the top fold of the email or top four to the page on a website that's ah that's really, really excellent advice. Um, so how do you suggest to put a pitch together? Well, you want to make sure that this pitches concise, it has a current topical news item, it catches their attention and also the headline of anything I'm going to teach you today, it's about the headline if the headline does not catch the attention of said new source, then there's something wrong? So if you're not getting any kind of results, then you've got to rearrange the headline there's been times when we sent out similar pitches to with people, all we do is we changed the headline because all you're trying to do is you're trying to grab the attention and have the new source open up that pitch yes, and you have done this actually quite a few times in my with me, we've taken literally the same topic and have been spinning the topic. So what does it mean to spin a topic? What that means is you got in you rearrange it so it looks new it's actually pretty much the same information, but you're spinning it and also your paraphrasing it. So it catches their attention so for instance, will go back to the thing that came out today about that there may be a cure for diabetes. Well, you know, here for diabetes that could be a you know you're you're just simply cure for diabetes. That would be the only thing I would bet on there. And I tell you, that would catch the attention of a lot of media sources. Okay, very good. So if I was to spend that, what? What? I would give me an example. I would I spend it well, another way to spend it would be the cure. Another thing, I would do it it's a little bit of stretch, but I cure for, uh, you know, just something to the effect of hearing us you want, you know, long, we live longer, so maybe longer living life or something to that effect, you know, have it have it you know just go right into it and at the same time you know have it's moved across the tongue so it's when they're looking because a lot of these things too they're saying it to themselves or like what is this all about their reading it back to themselves so it has to be something that's fluid so maybe a longer lasting life would be good oh, that was nice. You see how I did that on the spot that was pretty good right? So so that means that if we have a particular topic or an idea for be going out and we talk a lot about our wise in our reason why we're in business in this in this segment about authority building and we can sort of take this idea and now spin it in a number of different ways but it's really the same information right? For instance, if you want to do business you could do something to the effect of horrible bosses or ah one of the one could be uh how to keep your job okay or how to make your boss happy or how to make a million dollars oh how to make it but who wouldn't like that? You would hope you would open the pitch okay, so what do ah journalists respond to generally journalists reasonably responded pitches that are eye catching so those are the ones that are current topical ones that are appealing and almost if you think about it if you ever watch the news and news is a great source for headline ideas because they're teasers when they tease they go to a break they use that information also another great place and you're gonna laugh about this reader's digest that's a great place to get headlines I don't know why but I was just catching the other damn like wow these great headline ideas but they use teases her hat headers that are incredible pitching pitches so a lot of those things are definitely and I apologize I didn't shut the ringer off but it's ringing stuff but it was a big guy so as far as uh those air the the ideas that would work best okay very good and then let's say now a journalist is contacting me they got my pitch so what do I what do I do now? Well, I tell you if the journalists get your pitch and and they like it, they'll send you they'll send you an email back and they'll generally say that they apologize again for the phone there generally what they'll do is they'll say that they like the pitch the like the confirmation and they want a book you as a guest and you know it's out of my own personal experience I want to share that usually when that happens they have already a slot for you so it is like it was. They tell you what we tell him. You know, give me this information. This is what we need. And they will then provide that for you. What time they want you on their exactly? And what can you say to people on the west coast? Yeah, and everything. We try to keep it to our time zone. I'm not great with time zones, but, uh, we see today, but generally we try to keep it a one time zone, and then they try to work around the time zone. Tau. What? You you know what your time zone is. Yes, exactly. Time zones can get a little tricky sometimes. Yes, exactly. Now, on the social network state, I had a interview that shannon's team had prepared for me on sunrise america, and it was at five. Forty our time here in the morning. So you you have to be prepared to do what it takes to get and I think getting up adm is early for me. I used to produce a radio show. A nice thing. You have to get up three o'clock in the morning. So and now that I've been doing so many interviews, thanks to you and your wonderful team, I really get to appreciate when I drive in the radio when when I turn on the radio and it's like seven o'clock in the morning and there's a whole bunch of really happy people talking going like how do they do that? How could they get up this early in the morning images dropped like this is eleven o'clock and they had left well when you do you've done the daily buzz yourself and I've done the daily buzz too and you have to get up super early for that and then you're on there for a few minutes and you have to it's rapid fire a lot of these two and we'll get into this a little bit but when you do these interviews the main important thing is you sometimes have five minutes whether it be tv because we do tv, radio and print and whatever media that you're going on uh you gotta be able to go on there and and get your word across get your message across plus like I've done and I do interviews myself being a hollywood reporter and sometimes they don't include even though we tell him all in the confirmation and the media receipt that we send them that you're going to be on said media source we put on there what to plug sometimes they don't do it so it's important you as the client or as yourself trying to get yourself out there make sure to mention in and there's ways of doing it as you doom or interviews what you've done a bunch, but there's ways to kind of slide it in without sounding like your because they don't want to hear where you're forcing it and that's nothing when you do interviews, uh, people listening out there that do there in her own interviews make sure not to sell yourself the whole time because media sources do not like that. Yes, so it's more the subtle seating approach and, you know, I thought we just were talking about how to create a gift, a bonus gift, a white paper, something to give away and how that is a really good way to engage the audience, to say, as a gift to to your listeners, I have created something that you can pick up on the website you want to provide them. Yeah, or another thing is you you get on the media source and you're giving them something that they can come up and sign up on your website and you can create an email list that's another way for business owners out there to create a big email us and then, but at the same time you're just not having him sign up, they're going to get something out of it to you're going to give them some kind of gift yes, exactly that's exactly but so how important is it like what makes somebody interesting enough to get publicity like do you have a book? Do you have to have a product of services like are there any pre requisites requirements you can share with us? I personally if I were working with anyone I can take anything anyone and do pr around them but if you're personally doing it I would just again go into that dimension realm see what other dimensions there are to you what you really want to promote so if for instance you have a book great slammed on that's that's great so if you have a book you want to promote it you're the author of nationally recognized you know there's some titles that you can put in there but you want to go ahead and uh just you know they'll promote your book, promote your website and if for some reason you don't have a website you don't have but maybe we're just a business starting up a you know, a small business then you go ahead and, you know, have your you're just by domain would you get for a few dollars is a few out there called one and one web sites to do for very little and you can actually point that to your facebook and use your facebook as ah your website if you don't have a website bill but I think if you're going on any media to have something there, you know, and I think you can either have your facebook or just a domain that point, stephen a landing page, a landing page is dissipated with maybe the book on their own image, and it points to your amazon, and then they could buy it off amazon or just your phone number, they can call you maybe they'll give you a credit card or pay it somehow it by the book over the phone that they trust through through that source. So and you also use that big word trust. You gotta make sure that whenever they go to the site, that it looks trusting and looks comfortable it's something that they want to buy these things, that they're comfortable with you, because remember, you're on these sources so quick that they have to in order to, you know, give you business, be able to be comfortable with you also wonderful that's, great information. Thank you. So you mentioned a couple times now tie in current events. What does that mean? What I mean by tying and current events is you would taken event of, you know, whether you know military disaster happens that god from it, and you go ahead and you say, you know, such spokesperson, ok, for instance, ah, if we had a gentleman that can talk about, um let's see here thinking one of her clients maybe is a former fbi agent and he can discuss uh, how they're investigating the whole story of why the disaster happened so we would be able to send a pitch out, you know, in the headline would be, uh what really happened that that's it what really happened or disaster explained, ok? And then you would put the gentleman's name the client as the person that we're pitching out and then of course our contact information and any time or that's if they hire us but in your case is somebody's doing it, which we're talking about today if somebody's doing it on their own, they would put their contact information I would even advise to set up of google, which I think is still free these days a google voice number because you really don't want them calling at home, we're having a third party maybe a friend or somebody that they can call them that can help you out with taken those fielding those calls so that they can book you for the set interview ok that's very good so I would like to open it up to our life and streaming audience to see if there are any questions he is the publicist this is showtime, all right so the chat the chandra miss stunt by your by your information they don't even know what to say right now okay so he's darryl it seems more obvious to tie into bigger stories but if you have smaller projects a little smaller human interest stories or something to that effect how do you break through the noise then of all these bigger stories or is it about who you're targeting with your pr well it all has to do with that headline in getting the attention of the news source the media source there actually sometimes media sources are looking for that uh what's the what's the term that know that gold in the lining I mean that that story that's different from everything else because they're tired of hearing about maybe about our president or about the disaster or about the economy or this or that they want to hear about the bow ties that are being sold or the woman's code or you know any of these things out there that are different than and then these other things that they're talking about the news so you're saying the there's a human interest the human touch that particular story about an individual that's trying to make a difference is a topic journalists journalists a look there's a good pitch title right there human touch thank you have to write that down way we're just talking about you want to test your headline for your paper stepford it was something with carrying the cultural carrying, evaluating culture of carrying. Okay, what do you say? That again? I'm kind of know what the headline was. It was. I have a part of it. I would just say the culture of caring that's him yet not just the culture of care. Yes. Do you like it? Yeah, I mean that. Just those three words. Culture, a culture of caring. Yes. You know, we came up with that over lunch, and I thought it was it was really good. And this was the best effort is sort of in the technical field, and he is working with company with at a company called citizen, and they are going in, especially after merges and acquisitions, when there is technical problems, because two systems are coming together to cultures are coming together, and two sets of clients are coming together. And usually they throw, you know, three different problems. All of us at thes, three different, three different items. So his companies specialized to sort of go in way. We came up with deploying the citizen brigade and really establishing a culture off, caring to make sure that the systems, that sort of reporting the people and the people now then can take care of the customers, so it's better than wanting to got anything to with pitches is you want it to be understood and clear, you know you don't have to have the media source think too much about it, you know, it sounds kind of bad, but you know, it's got to be something words clean it's, concise, it's in and out, you know, because you're the one that's going to be talking about so when you when you do the paragraph at the start at the front of the pitch, what are two sentences is fine any more than that you're you're going too much into it it's so condensing it down to fourth grade language, right? Ok, just just a headline in a couple of sentences and he's one of the things that you don't use, that many big words either in the in the pitch either so you know, it's just it's very it's that you know, they love stats is something easy to the eye, easy eyes, the best wayto put it. Okay, terrific. Ok, so darryl has another question for you from you toss out the pitch again like if if you don't get any bites to reload, you re loan yet the week after I mean a lot of pr firms, they do it once a month, I do it every week, but I would recommend just, uh here's a nothing too is we have a list of people that we work I mean everybody way we're familiar with we work with we don't send anything we have one list that we sent out just to see what kind of comes back but generally when you out there where they're listening when you have your list I also have a list of people that always book with you and then you could hit him up and say, hey, can you book this so if for some reason that other list it work or your other listed work you can have this one that's a hot list and that always books whatever you send out that good stations to, of course, but because you always want the best for their clients but at the same time you know you you send this out to the to the media sources say can you please book this generally if you do a call to action you say can you please zach book this instead of just a blind pitch? The book it okay great it's that advantage to having a company pitch versus you pitching individually assisted if a stigma on it it's better to have a company not just because I own it but it's better to have a company doing it because it sounds better than you doing yourself it's almost self indulgent at times or at least they think that way in some cases I mean and I had known also some people that do it on their own and they do find so it all depends upon what you're pitching and how you're trying to get out but I would if I were to recommend I would recommend going with some kind of company and there's firms of white people and there's also bots that do it and as in companies are you know you pay and then you just posted on their thing okay, very good so I think we have a question from our streaming audience I think it's just thank you and high I q I think it was just following up on what you're talking about earlier and somebody had said so thank you for taking the time with us first of all where you let everybody what if you miss the call therefore the opportunity could you address any salvage tactics? We'll give you a couple of scenarios here the uh if you miss the generally I mean I have with my company somewhere that's kind of station they're by the computer all day and it's an email that comes in or a phone call you know, and sometimes they want somebody that day like cnn we've had an instance where my client couldn't get over to tampa and he lives in another part of florida and it was just too quick I mean too quick of time and no go to the next person, and it does kind of it says to them, well, they're not, you know, it's always good to be available because then they'll look at it while you're not always available, so we're not gonna go teen accent, but, you know, again, if you're good enough, they're going to come back to you. Ah, and also there's a high, high rotation of people that are bookers for, like the national news outlets, they come in, they go, eh? So it's always going to refresh your email list or find out who the who, you know who's working there? Or if you're not getting responses to check out, you know, a database or just call over to cnn to their booking office and see if that a person is, you know, still there, if you're not getting responses, you just made an awesome point. Shin and you were talking about they call you back again and again. So any tips on how to build relationships? And on a personal note, I know that you know, I've been very lucky happy, fortunate privilege to actually have several regulars that I come on the shows on a regular basis, which is always great because, you know, it's, an old giving coming back, yes. On the daily buzz people they called you back a number of times and they're not like that I mean the generally they get somebody on that I mean you were on there there and there sister show a bunch of times so very happy but yeah it's good to perform relationships and never make the media source angry of course never burn a bridge with your client that's obvious but I'm speaking of on the front of being published but if you're working directly and you're the person working directly with said newt news source never ever burn a bridge with them because they know other people you know what I always try to make yourself available you know so you know even if the host angers you on the air always give the counterpoint but don't become angry back with him because I've known some people that kind of you know I've been some clients that one to you know come back at them and on the air and I tell him I'm like you've got a listen to what they're saying but also understand we want to get you back on exactly and that's I think one of the best tips you gave me because when I started working with you you did do some training with me do you just want to share just maybe one or two tips about what sort of this media training type of thing looks like what you told me sure. Well, one of the things that is always you know, have yourself sit back like that always, you know, be confident if you're on television, I'm speaking and radio sense you want to always never go uh oh, you always want to keep talking even if there's a yes or no answer and be lively, you don't have that energetic feeling because in smile always smile because they hear that smile they hear that coming across through the radio waves, if you will and print wise always ah, watch out what you say to them because the fact that they grab what we call him and radio actualities, but they're going little news bites and sometimes they'll take it and take it to the next level we don't we want them to kind of, you know, take it to what the role you want it to be said so you know, because newspapers have intensity do that sometimes where you'll say one thing and of course something else is printed, so you gotta be careful what you say and then the news print stuff yeah, what we do in the media training we tryto way try to train individuals and how to be ready for print, radio and television a lot of media training only does television but there's training for voiceover work, radio and also a print wonderful. Well, shannon, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you are very busy I as we speak it working hard for me so thank you. I really appreciate the time for you being here and what great wonderful and powerful information is shared with us. Well, thank you, thank you, great, great, good. And so these are some examples off some off the tv segments that I've I've been on in one of my headlines, you know, this is the women's code. We talking about one of the headlines shanon came up with was men versus women, and we spun it even further. We said, who is the better gender men or women? And so because a lot of radio show hosts and tv show hosts are men, so we were just egging them on a little bit to, you know, to get a ruse out of them and, you know, and that probably was one of my most successful segments or pitches or the spin that we send out there was about this controversy, who's, better men or women and we actually, you know, took a break from this and we're going to be running another set off these sort of pitches shortly because, you know, if it's worked once it might be working again and somebody else might be seeing people very busy this might be a different time now hillary clinton is running for presidency so men versus women you know, nowhere this other thing might be a really good pitch for me to you know, to push back out we'd be spinning it slightly on we'd be saying you know, our women qualified to run for presidencies or you know, we might be even a picking a much more controversial topic and then the other one was a and a show out of out of florida and I have I've gone back I've done I think four or five segments for them so now you know now to go back to it's definite had earlier said or or made a remark on so how do you how do you measure this? You measure this because it is how many eyes are are you getting on your stuff and your work and your message because remember it's the message and then you have the opportunity to do what I do does this look incredible? Yeah exactly. You know, this looks like incredible I've been on tv you know I do a ton I must have done probably over one hundred radio interviews now and it just you know, it just it just comes and comes and comes in comes and you just get better you pick up people that bring you on I have a show in florida that I go on every three weeks so when I flew to florida unfortunate for thie unhappy occasion because of a close friend of mine had passed away in key west. I stopped at that radio station in another part of florida and co hosted the whole show with that radios that brings me on every three weeks as a shot as a sign of good faith and because I actually really have a great time on the show with him and he you know he knows other radio show hosts so he always promotes me he tweets about me you know, so it just it just mean this's thie amplification model this is the part from building model this is you know it just starts to get bigger and bigger and the more people you you reach because everyone in our world amplifies and amplifies and amplifies and amplifies and it just amplifies much further and father and it becomes so much more fun. So we covered the slide of the journalists want we talked about michael albany here's another really great a story about door adored the's is a beauty photographer and I have said to, you know, always said winning an entering and winning contests is also a really great way to get publicity so she entered her she entered a layout of and won the best layout award for nalin magazine and she says winning the best layout award for nail it magazine is the best free advertising for my business that I could wish for. Thanks for suggesting this clever marketing trick as it's, really helping me to get my work seen and recognized throughout all social networks. Because then what you do is you put it on your website with a tear sheet or with e, I think and you say as featured on and when you look in your workbooks on page number seventy four and I'm just going to show this to everybody here who's on the live stream. So on my website, I have now, eh, picture with all the low goes off, you know, off some of the best of the stations that I've been on, and this lying includes cbs and includes american express, so in the glass hammer. So there are some really high, high volume, high recognizable high prestige sources on there. And so that's, how you use that you take that back on, you've been featured, and you tell everybody that you featured on that which built further your credibility.