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    Episode 181: How To Get Media Attention And Establish Yourself As An Expert – with April Beach

    SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast April Beach

    This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?

     

    Episode Bonuses:

    Download April’s sample 1-pager when you join the NEW (FREE) SweetLife Community Online App

    Who This Episode is Great For:

    Those who are experts in your space, excel in your chosen area of specialty, and you need more eyes on your business, service, or product.

    Summary:

    You’re really good at what you do, but oftentimes you feel like the best-kept secret. A handful of people know your worth, but not enough to get the credibility you need to reach the profit and business growth you want. 
     
    In this show, you’ll learn 4 simple steps to start the process of establishing your expertise that every entrepreneur should have completed regardless of business phase or growth level. 

    Highlights:

    1. Know how to create your media PR plan
    2. Know what you need to have on your website to look like an expert
    3. Know the 4 simple steps you can complete this week to bring your message to the masses

    Resources Mentioned:


    SweetLife Podcast™ Love:

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    Full Show Transcript:

    <inaudible> You’re listening to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate. Are you guys, and welcome to episode number 181 of the sweet life entrepreneur and business podcast, really H and I’m super glad that you’re here, especially if you were in the place in your business where you’re really good at what you do,
    but very few people know it, and we need to get you more exposure in front of the right audiences to make sure everybody knows how great you are, so that you can increase clients, increase profit and establish yourself as a leader. So that’s what we’re going to dive into in today’s show. If you’ve never listened to this podcast, before we deliver a business trainings and strategies that are proven and tested from my over 24 years of business development coaching and the expertise of our guests that come here on the show.
    So everything that we give you is trusted and you can take it to the bank. And I’m so glad that you are here. All of the show notes that we have. So I’ll give you a bunch of different resources to help you implement today’s business trainings. All of the show notes can be found by visiting and Sweetlife podcast.com forward slash one 81. And if you stick to the end of this show,
    I’m going to actually share a story with you about a technology nightmare that happened so that I can help you avoid that. I was actually thinking about doing a whole separate show regarding kind of a tech nightmare, but instead, I’m just going to do it as a little bonus. At the end of this episode, this tech nightmare actually occurred with Facebook. And it’s just a little bit of a warning that if you do business on Facebook,
    even though it’s not necessarily related to the topic we’re talking about, I want to, I want to make sure I’m sharing some mornings with you from business owner to business owner regarding that platform that has been coming up recently. So that’ll be the end of this episode after the training, but let’s go ahead and dive into what we’re talking about here today. So today’s show is for those of you guys who are experts in your space,
    or you super Excel at whatever your chosen area is, whatever your skill is, whether you’re a consultant or a coach or a service provider, you Excel at what you do, but you need more eyes on your business. And very few people or not enough people know how great you are because you know, if they did, then your sales would be increasing.
    So I’m going to give you four steps to actually establish yourself as an expert on today’s show. So this is for those of you guys. So you’re really good at what you do, but oftentimes you feel like you’re that best kept secret. And you want to know what you can do this week. So action steps you can take right now this week to get your voice established as a leader in your space so that more people can about your company.
    That’s what I’m going to go ahead and teach you on today’s show. I’m so glad that you’re here. Let’s go ahead and dive in together.<inaudible> Okay. You guys. So there are a couple of different ways we can establish you as an expert. Certainly there’s like a pay to play way. We aren’t diving into that. Everything I’m teaching you on today’s show is a business strategy that is totally free.
    All right, I’m not going to say, Hey, do this and then go spend a thousand dollars. No everything I’m delivering are strategies. You can do yourself. You can delegate to a team member. You can hire a VA to do. And they’re really important things. And regardless of your business development phase. So regardless of you’re in the launch phase,
    or if you’re in the growth or scale phase, all of you guys should have these things in place. So let’s go ahead and get started. And I can tell you what to do. First of all, step number one, I want you to create what is called a media kit. Now a media kit is something that really shows off how amazing you are.
    A media kit is usually a PDF that’s designed with multiple pages that introduces media outlets, writers, journalists, and other people to who you are and why you’re amazing in one of the most important things you need to remember when you are creating this media kit, is that nobody is looking for you. I mean, I’m just going to keep it really real.
    No media outlet is out there going, Oh my gosh, I need to find April beach. You know, no they’re looking for anybody who can create or share or speak to content that their listeners or their viewers or their readers want. So as you’re creating your media kit, this is a mistake that a lot of businesses make a lot of businesses, make it all about them.
    Like I am this and I’m that. And I do all these things. And although your media kit does establish you as an expert, the most important thing to talk about in the beginning of your media kit is what does your expertise or your area of wisdom or skill do for the media outlets, users, or viewers, or listeners or readers. So what do you have that they want to share with their audience?
    What are they lacking? What could they use more of? What does our audience want? So on the very first page of your media kit, you might want to include some imagery and some photography, especially if you’re like an interior designer or you’re an organizing expert, or you’re a coach of some kind, maybe some pictures that really tell a story about what you do.
    And then the introductory paragraph on that first page of your media kit should be, Hey, this is what I speak to. And this is the end result that people will have when hearing my area of expertise. So I just want to really clarify that here, when I’m talking about how to go ahead through this process so that, you know, and I am going to give you some samples of some of the assets I’m telling you to create here on the show.
    I’ll go ahead and make sure I’m putting those in the show notes for you. So you can see samples. So this media kit, the first page should be an introduction about who you are, what you believe a little bit of why you do what you do, cause why you do what you do sells way more than what you actually do. And of course,
    speak to the end result that somebody would receive from experiencing you. And then your second page on your media kit can be something a little bit more specific, maybe a personal message about you. It might tell your story a little bit about your background and really what qualifies you to be an expert in your space. But as you’re sharing this second part of your media kit,
    I also want you to make sure that you’re relatable. We want to make sure you’re extraordinary and ordinary. If you’re only extraordinary, sometimes it puts you on such a pedestal where you’re untouchable and you can’t relate to somebody’s audience. So you want to be extraordinary as you’re telling your specific story and who you are, what makes you tick maybe a little bit behind the scenes of your business and what you do.
    You might want to share some pictures of getting married or your kids, or your ranch, or maybe riding horses, whatever it may be. So you are relatable and not just yeah, amazing expert in your space. And then as you go on and you create more pages in your media kit, your, some of the things that you can include, I’m going to kind of give you the gold standard here.
    But I understand if you’re a new business that you might not have all of this data yet. So on the next page of your media kit, you might want to share your audience and who you currently reach. So if you have a big social media following, if you have a big Instagram following, maybe if you have great active conversations on Twitter, or if you lead a LinkedIn group,
    these are all things that you want to share. So media outlets are also looking to reach a greater audience themselves. And so when you have an audience that you can share, so you have, you know, a thousand Facebook fans and two or three or 20,000 Instagram followers, make sure you include that in the numbers and the stats on an audience and reach page.
    So they know the size of your audience. If you have an audience or an email list that is under 1000, I don’t recommend that you include it, but don’t be shy about sharing the fact that you host maybe smaller community groups. That’s absolutely fine. And the other thing you should include on this page three of your media kit is really who do you serve?
    Who do you speak to? What percentage of men and women do you speak to? What is the age range of your ideal audience? So that media outlet understands who you serve. And then moving on down in your media kit, any other press that you’ve received, I’d like you to create a press page. So any other press that you’ve received on this page four should be logos of different outlets.
    Maybe you’ve written an article that’s been published in a local magazine or a national magazine. Maybe you’ve been featured in Newsweek. Maybe you’ve been in the wall street journal include these press links here on this page, and maybe some photography or some examples of other press you’ve received. If you have them, if you don’t have them, don’t stress out about it.
    That’s why you’re listening to this podcast because I’m teaching you what to do to get this kind of press. So stay tuned with me here. I know I’m giving a lot of details. The beauty of this is you can replay this as many times as you need. So page number five, you also want to dive into sharing any partnerships. You have any affiliate partnerships with any brands you’ve worked with in the past,
    in any other ways that you work with different companies. So you could use this media kit. For example, if you are a maternity coach, you could use this media kit to send it to your favorite stroller brand because you want to represent them, or you want to do reviews on their products to help your audience. This is a great place in your media kit to talk about partnerships and how you partner with brands,
    whether it’s, you know, Instagram, takeovers or giveaways or brand ambassador ships, you know, some of our clients also do affiliate advertising. They host events with brands and they do other great fun things. If any of that is in your business model, then you’d want to include that in the media kit because it gets that outlet or that brand’s wheels turning.
    And they see you as a greater asset. Therefore they want to work with you more. And then any sort of contributions that you’ve done, expert contributions, really high level like the today show, or if you’ve, you know, partnered with, you know, Nordstrom, any of those things. We want to go ahead and enlist. These is accolades in places where people can say,
    Hey, you know what? You are really a great expert at what you do. If you don’t have these, no worries. Just leave them out. Also some extra bonus pages you can include in your media kit is speaking. If you do any sort of public speaking, if you’ve spoken on any podcasts before, if you do any expert writing or any insertions or contributions to any online outlets,
    then you’d want to include those in your media kit as well. And the next thing we’re going to talk about here is I’m actually going to give you a step to create. What’s called a speaker one pager, and I’m going to give you a sample of that, but here, I just want to show you that you can also include all of that in your main media kit.
    And then of course your media kit needs to have your contact information, your website information, and do include a phone number. Whereas you might not include your phone number on your website. You need to make sure that media has an opportunity to email you directly or somebody who’s managing your PR and call you directly. We don’t want them hunting for information on how to communicate with you,
    because if it’s takes any work for them to connect with you, they’re frankly not going to do it. Cause there are a lot of experts out there. So what we’ve just spoken about and I’ve given you numerous steps is how to actually create a media kit. Again, to summarize. This should be a PDF with a few pages, anywhere from three to eight pages that establishes your expertise,
    who you serve, the audience that you serve and the things in the areas that you speak to as well as establishing why you’d be a great partner for that media outlet or that brand. Every single one of you guys. It doesn’t matter what place in business you are should have a media kit in. They’re very easy to create. You can either do it on your own in Canva,
    or you can use a different sort of online template, but people are creating beautiful media kits all the time in Canva. And so that’s where we direct you to. And I’ll go ahead and make sure that there is a link to create this in Canva for you here within the show notes. And like I said, I’m going to include a template for you as well.
    So that’s actually step number one. I’m giving you a lot of information on today’s show, create your whole media pack. Step number two is creating an actual what we call a speaker one pager. And I’m going to share with you my speaker one pager so that you can look at this as a template. Take it. Obviously you can’t copy it word for word,
    because it’s about me and not about you, but I want you to see how they’re laid out. So the second thing you’re going to do is you’re going to create your speaker one, pager. This should be a short summarized bio, and it should include the core topics that you speak to and establish your expertise. Now, your speaker one pager is the perfect thing to send to podcast hosts like me.
    When you’re pitching yourself for a show, it’s a perfect thing to include. When you’re applying to be a guest speaker, you don’t have to include your whole entire media kit. You can just have a speaker, one pager sometimes for very specific calls for speakers. They don’t want your entire media kit. They just want to know the core topics you speak to.
    And that’s why I also recommend that you just have this speaker one pager it’s super simple and I will put a resource and a link. So you can see mine in the show notes for this episode. So you can cruise over to sweet life podcast.com forward slash one 81. And you are welcome to download my speaker one pager, to get a sample of that.
    So it can save you time. The next thing that you are going to do after you’ve created this beautiful digital media kit and this simple but powerful speaker, one pager, the next thing you’re going to is you are going to build a speaking page on your website. This can be called speaking. It can be called media. It can be called media resources.
    It can be called PR and media. I don’t care what you call it, but on this page is a place where people who host events or who have a platform where they’re looking for experts. Like you can go and find all of your resources, your speaking page, or your media page should include summaries of where you’ve been seen a summary of your bio and who you speak to,
    and it should include your core speaking topics. So any media outlet can immediately go and say, Hey, cool. Look at April speaks to online business development. Great. We want that on our show, or we need her to write an article on whatever this is, we’re in our podcast. So you have to be very clear. You want to outline your core speaking topics.
    The short bio establishing you as an expert share any work that you’ve already done. So any social proof that you’ve spoken on stages before you can share a short video clips or photography, you can share links to podcast episodes that you might’ve been on before. And, or you can share links to articles you’ve written for media outlets or any other media exposure that you might have had.
    If you haven’t done any of those things yet, don’t worry. You still need to build this speaker page so that we can start growing your list of all of these outlets and amazing places that you have been seen. So we have to start somewhere, right? We don’t want to make perfect the enemy. We have to start with what we have and go from there.
    So don’t stress. If you don’t have any of that, still want you to build this page. Also on your speaking page, you are going to include your speaker one pager and make it available so people can download it right there. When they download your speaker one pager, we don’t want to have an opt in. You’re not trying to grow your list with media outlets,
    make it easy for them. Give them the ability to swipe it right off your site and send it to their producer or send it to their content manager so that they can connect with you faster. And there isn’t so much red tape. And then the last thing you should have on your speaker page are headshots. Headshots of people can just download them and take them and go.
    You may also include a logo to your company or any other imagery that you have a license to give that can help. That outlet actually establish you as an expert, whether they want to put your picture as an expert contributor or, you know, put your face on TV, whatever it is, you need to establish all of those in a really easy grab and go spot for them on this speaking and media page on your website.
    Wow. I like me to take a deep breath cause I’ve given you guys so much information and I understand sometimes we deliver stuff. So many good things on this podcast. It’s like other podcasts would take 20 podcasts to tell you all this, but I’m giving it to you all at once. You can replay this, do replay, this, take the steps I’m giving you.
    I promise you, this is how we’ve built multiple companies. And this is the exact process that I went through over 14 years ago to be featured in international media and grow my company internationally. This stuff works. It’s free, it’s sweat equity, and I want you to take it and run with it. All right. So we have talked about creating your media kit.
    We’ve talked about creating a speaker one pager, and we’ve talked about building a speaking and press page on your website. The very last step I’m going to give you. I’m not going to go into super depth about it because we actually talk about it all the time. If you are an avid Sweetlife podcast listener, but this blast step is making sure that you have signed up to become a resource through help a reporter out,
    help a reporter out as an online forum, where you can create a free membership where you can become a source for reporters. So anytime a reporter is looking for an expert to speak to a story they might be doing, or an article that they’re writing. They can tap into this resource and you receive an email journal every single day of all of the experts that these reporters are looking for.
    You can respond, you can submit your comments. You can submit your wisdom and be seen across national and sometimes international media. So I will go ahead and include a couple of links for you in the show notes for today’s show so that you are good to go. You have everything you need, and then I’m going to actually give you even more support.
    So to summarize today, we talked about how to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. And this is through PR and media, and really becoming a leader in your space. So for those of you guys had have an established business and you’re ready to scale, this is a must do on your list. If you have a new business and you’re trying to get your foot in the door,
    just add this to the list of other things you need to do. This is not a must do for brand new businesses. This is a must do for those you guys who are established and you’re ready to grow and scale today, we talked about creating a full media kit and I give you samples of pages that should be included in your media kit. Today.
    We talked about creating a speaker one pager, which is literally one page download PDF of who you are, why you’re awesome, and the topics you speak to. And today we also talked about creating a press and media page on your website. Now, one of the things I’m just going to answer some questions I’m guessing some of you might be having, um,
    number one, if you have a company and you personally are not the brand, do you need to do this? So the answer is yes. So the leader or the CEO, or one of the business leaders of your should be visible in media should be contributing expert content. That’s only going to drive traffic back to your company and establish your company as a leader.
    So if your business isn’t April beach.com, it is the corner store.com. You still need to be doing this. You still should have a press and an immediate link on your website. You still should have a media kit and you still should have a speaker. One pager. If you have multiple leaders in your company, you should have a separate media kit for each of you.
    And you should have a separate speaker, one pager, as well as separate speaking topics for each one of the leaders of your company, any person that you want representing your company, every person is going to speak to a different area of expertise. And when you actually are building a speaking team, I know this is kind of next level, but we want you to actually build a speaking team,
    many people that can speak to different areas of expertise within your company umbrella. So just kind of dreaming big there. If you weren’t there yet. No worries. We’re going to start here and all of the resources and show notes, the download that I’m going to give you, I’m going to give you my speaker one pagers. You can take a look at that as well as other templates can be found by visiting the show notes for today’s show@sweetlifepodcast.com
    forward slash one 81. And if you love this show, please share it with your friends. We work really hard to deliver you guys, expert business trainings that other companies and coaches charge thousands for. So we appreciate, and we rely on you sharing this podcast across Facebook or Instagram. You can share it on Spotify. There’s so many different places you can share it.
    And we just really appreciate you guys helping us get this show in the hands of other business owners, just like you, who appreciate trusted business trainings. So that’s the conclusion of that. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast today. I know we talked about a lot of things and I’ll make sure the resources and links for help reporter and in Canva and everything that I mentioned is in the show notes for you today.
    Okay. Now I promised those of you guys that stuck around to the end that I’m going to share a little bit of a nightmare story with you about building communities and Facebook and what has happened to us just to give you a little bit of a warning. Again, I didn’t want to do a total downer podcast on this though. I probably will in the future to help other companies avoid the problems that have happened with us when we have more clarity on the situation.
    But we’ve talked about this on the show before in the past, this podcast has been around for three years. We’ve talked a lot about creating community, Facebook communities, mighty host communities, LinkedIn communities. And we have always hosted Facebook communities, even though it wasn’t our favorite place. And in the last six months, my account and our, even our Facebook ads account has gotten hacked multiple times,
    following all the instructions, doing everything Facebook said to do our account totally ended up getting crashed and hacked. And it was on June the 12th, that it was the most recent and Facebook completely deactivated all of our access. What this means is that they won’t speak to us. They won’t communicate with us. They’ve actually shut off the ability for us to chat with them.
    They are just done with the fact that hackers have hacked in different capacities, this particular account and these particular business communities. And so I share all this with you. First of all, because since this has happened in the last couple of weeks, I’ve received a lot of messages from other business owners that have had similar problems with Facebook security. I’m not sharing this with you to say you should not have your communities and Facebook.
    I am going to tell you, but again, we’ve talked about on the show before, you need to make sure please that you have a database of all of your groups, members in all of your clients backed up someplace. That is not in Facebook. You do not want Facebook to own those relationships because at any point in time, for whatever reason,
    like what happened to us, they can simply shut it down without giving you any explanation. That is exactly what happened to us. Now, of course, we have all those databases. We have CRMs and email lists, and we know who’s in our community. We’ve always built relationships with our community members outside of the platform as well. But I know,
    and I’ve spoken to a lot of businesses that haven’t. So I just wanted to give you a little bit of a warning that even, you know, going into election season, Facebook security is going to be ramping up, but then they’re also going to be more strict about just shutting down accounts that might have certain issues because they don’t have the capacity to deal with you.
    And I want to give you a little bit of a warning that you need to make sure that you have the contact information. You have relationships someplace else on another platform, in an email marketing manager or in another capacity that is not owned by Facebook, because I don’t want you to lose the relationships in the community that you’ve worked so hard to build. So that is our nightmare story.
    It’s not a new nightmare, it’s an ongoing nightmare, but it is a new development as far as complete in accessibility, not even account reviving whatsoever. It will tell you the exciting news is sometimes when we run into issues like this as business owners, it forces us to grow in other areas. And we are so excited as a company, we have invested in the building of a custom mighty host network,
    which we have launched, and it’s actually launched the week before show airs. I’m super excited about it. It is an amazing community with an app that just gives you everything you need from a business standpoint, where we can deliver all of our business trainings, all of our free trains, all of our live coaching. And it’s a great place to network with other businesses,
    aside from all the distractions that you would get in Facebook business and Facebook personal groups. So we’re super excited to announce that our new online community is launched and we would love for you to join it. You can cruise to sweet life, community.com. You can join it for free. All of the first members in there are foundational members and founding members, and I’m so excited to invite you guys in there free for a limited period of time to access all of our business trainings.
    And you’ll be able to create a whole profile for your company in their network and actually grow your business through this community as well. So if you’re interested in checking out what we’ve done over on mighty networks and being part of our online business and entrepreneur forum, to grow your company, then cruise to sweet life, community.com and for whatever it’s worth. I just want to remind you that if you have built companies in Facebook groups and communities in those platforms,
    please make sure you’re protecting your relationships. So you own them aside from those platforms. Okay. That was our nightmare story. And I hope you can learn from it. So you don’t have to go through what we have gone through the last couple weeks and months. Anyway, it’s so great to talk to you again on the show. I love that you’re here.
    Thanks for sticking around to the end. I’m April beach, and I’m pleased to help you grow your business online. All of the resources for this show can be found@sweetlifepodcast.com forward slash one 81 and business development coaching in my high level, masterminds can be found by visiting sweet life. coach.com. Bye for now.