Gift biz unwrapped episode 201 intuition and our gut feelings and
reactions, pure wisdom,
Attention, gifters,
bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Whether you have an established business or looking to start one
now you are in the right place.
This is give to biz unwrapped,
helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,
resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.
Here is your host gift biz gal,
Sue moon Heights.
Hi there,
it's Sue and thank you So much for joining me here
today. I want to start off by doing something a little
bit differently.
I've talked to some other hosts of podcasts and they're sharing
with me how much their listeners enjoy when they get some
of their reviews read.
I think it's just fun to have your name highlighted online
and it also means then that you get a little bit
of exposure for your business.
I don't know.
I kind of felt like it was a little self serving,
but in talking with some other people,
maybe I should be thinking of this differently.
So I'm going to do this for a while.
I'm going to pull up some reviews and share them with
you. Today's review comes from Annie of natural Annie essentials.
She says,
love listening while pouring my candles.
Thank you for your amazing show,
Sue. I've been a long time listener and I love the
show. It just keeps getting better and better always tuned in.
Thank you so much Annie.
I so appreciate it.
It's so helpful for me too to get feedback that you
guys are enjoying the show.
Plus, as I've mentioned before,
that helps us get more visibility.
So if you're interested in doing a rating and review,
your name too might be highlighted at the start of the
podcast. Now let's dive into what we're going to be talking
about today.
The biggest thing when I ask about challenges in a business
that's already established is how do I get more customers?
How do I get eyes on my business?
And towards that end I have Amanda here who's talking about
something different than the obvious thing that everyone goes to today.
It's always now social media,
Facebook, Instagram stories,
all of that.
A lot of us were forgetting that some of the traditional
PR methods still can be very powerful for your business.
So I've brought on the expert.
Amanda's going to talk to us about whether your business is
in a position and is ready for media placement,
how you proactively pursue opportunities,
who you approach and what you should put in your pitch
when you are representing yourself to all different outlets,
whether it's a magazine,
radio or,
and finally at the end she has a lot of free
resources that you'll be able to access that will bring you
deeper over and above what she's going to talk about today.
So without any more delay,
let's get on to the interview.
Thrilled to introduce you to Amanda Berlin.
After more than a decade in the New York city public
relations world,
Amanda now uses her pitch powers for good.
She helps entrepreneurs step into their presence.
Create a story that inspires others and spread their message in
the media.
Amanda and her clients have been featured in all types of
media, from business insider to entrepreneur on fire and from w
N Y w Fox five to bustle.com.
She's also the host of the empowered publicity podcast and loves
army and soul powered business owners with the ideas and skillset
they need to go from hidden industry gem to recognized trusted
expert. Amanda,
welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.
Hi Sue.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am so excited to have this conversation for our listeners,
but also a little secret also for me.
I'm excited to be with you and this is a twist
on the work that I do and those kind of twists,
keep things interesting and definitely helped me get super creative,
so I'm excited to dive in.
Wonderful. Well,
we start this off in a little bit of a different
way because as I was describing to you,
we have an audience of creators and makers here,
so I'm going to make you do like the inner Amanda
creator right now and that is to define what a motivational
candle would look like if it speaks all about you.
So what color would it be and what would be a
quote on your candle?
Thank you.
Yeah, so my motivational candle casts a pure white glowing light.
And the reason why I chose that was because I really
think of like intuition and our gut feelings and reactions as
like pure wisdom.
And I think of that motivational candle as being a reflection
of that true wisdom.
And if we cultivate the ability to listen to our gut
instincts and to trust ourselves,
even when it comes to like an idea that we might
have before we discounted and say,
Oh, that could never happen for me or I'm not big
enough to pitch myself there or that person would never want
to collaborate with me or whatever.
If we pay attention to those kinds of gut base reactions
and go with it and trust it,
then I think it really can't steer us wrong.
And there's,
even if it doesn't end up working out the way that
we thought it might,
there's something comes out of pursuing that idea.
So my candle is this pure white to represent this kind
of, I don't really,
I'm not a religious person,
but I was prompted to use the word divine.
This like kind of like guided intuitive process that we could
learn to trust.
Well I think it's a deep message here anyway because with
us being makers so often we think that because it's something
that comes easily to us,
number one and that we've made ourselves,
it's less than what other people could possibly do.
So you talking about an inner glow and listening to the
message of yourself and also the creative powers within ourselves is
really powerful for us here.
So I love that.
Great start.
Thank you.
Loving the candle so far.
And what's the quote?
So the quote that I would put on my candle is
by Maya Angelou and I've actually seen it attributed to a
couple of different people,
but I believe that it is hers.
People will forget what you said.
People will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.
And that is so meaningful to me on so many levels,
not the least of which being that I had it tacked
up in my cubicle when I worked in the corporate world
and it really served as a reminder to me that even
in this corporate environment where the morale was low and people
could be rude and the culture didn't resonate with me,
that it really mattered how I showed up for myself because
I wanted to be proud of myself.
At the end of the day,
I wanted to be proud of how I acted and I
also realized that I could have a positive impact in the
midst of all of the negativity and sometimes vitriol in the
corporate world.
I could actually have a positive impact simply by showing up
as a pleasant person.
Yeah, like a real life person who has emotions and let's
face it,
relationships really in the end when you strip away everything else,
it's all about relationships.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, so let's spin off this.
This is perfect because what I'd like to do is start
by talking a little bit about your corporate world and how
you got to where you are here today.
Absolutely. So I started out as a publicity strategist and really
a publicist in the very beginning of my career,
I worked in celebrity publicity and I wasn't that challenging most
of the time to get our client's attention because they were
doing creative projects that were super fun and they were famous.
Yeah. So everyone wanted them probably Exactly.
Most of the time.
Sometimes we had authors or B or C or D level
celebrities that were more of a sell,
and that was where the work came in.
But that was where I started and it was really fun.
But eventually I moved over to a more traditional agency role
where my job was getting our clients electronic publicity.
So the team that I worked on didn't specialize in print
publicity as much as we specialized in television and radio at
the time.
And then I worked my way up to become the editorial
director at a small firm that specialized exclusively in radio and
television and it was incumbent upon me to meet with our
clients and gather all of their messages for the new product
that they were launching or the new pharmaceutical that they just
got approved or the new initiative that their nonprofit was launching
and take those messages and pair them with a spokesperson who
would deliver those messages in an interview and then create a
story that was going to be interesting to the media.
And that was what I did day in and day out.
I wrote pitches and conferred with our clients on what they
would think is an acceptable delivery of their message while also
balancing the needs of our media contact out there in the
world. Because the media,
and we'll probably dive more into this,
the media is not going to just talk about your product.
You need to create a story around your product so that
the media has a reason to give you the platform to
deliver your message to their audience.
So that was what my job was,
was helping my clients understand the story that we needed to
tell about their product or about their new initiative or whatever
it was.
So at that point,
I had been editorial director for about six years,
and the last three years of that time I really knew
that I needed to do something else.
I was saying before that the culture was not aligned for
me. The work didn't feel like it was making the world
a better place.
I felt a real pull to do something that had more
of a positive impact and I really was burning out.
I was burning out on all the writing that I had
to do.
I remember my boss at the time when I started that
job, she said,
you're going to burn out because it's a writing job and
writers burnout.
And I didn't really know what a burnout was even at
that point,
but I definitely was getting there further into those years.
So I was burning out and really looking back on it
in hindsight,
it was the culture that was killing me.
It was killing my soul.
So for three years I really felt like I needed to
move on and do something.
I just didn't know what that was and I wasn't about
to leave my well paying corporate job to go like figure
it out.
I lived in Manhattan,
I owned an apartment,
I had responsibilities.
It was never my style to just be like,
Oh well figure it out.
But ultimately that did become what I did because I got
let go from that job.
They downsized and eventually went out of business during the tail
end of the great recession.
I got downsized And got let go in early 2012 actually
around the time that we're recording this,
it's early 2019 or coming up on next week is my
seven year anniversary of being let go from that job and
for the first year I really kind of dabbled and that
was like my,
I'll figure it out kind of moment because I allowed myself
the time to sort of not in a,
I wasn't that generous with myself,
not in a like,
Oh you'll figure it out kind of way.
It was more like,
why haven't you figured this out yet?
Well it has to be stressful.
I mean I'm with you.
I agree with you that having to do it that way,
if it was your own choice wouldn't be the way to
go. And I'm an advocate because we have a lot of
people listening here who are working a nine to five job
and starting to build their business on the side and maybe
it's only going to be on the side.
Maybe that's what they want.
But I do hear a lot of people who had the
inner rumblings like you did that you're stain,
but there could be something better for you and then you
kind of get pushed into doing it.
So probably the best thing ever.
Absolutely, and it is really hard I think because I did
want to start my own business for so many years and
I didn't,
not that I didn't do it,
I tried,
I actually did a lot of freelancing on the side and
a lot of different things on the side,
but really it's my belief and it really is just my
belief. I haven't sorted this out via science in any sense
of the word,
but I believe that we kind of need to not have
that safety net if we're going to make it an actual
full time business.
I feel like it's hard to have that plan be sort
of like lingering there if you really want to go all
in in your business.
It's a good point because you're not as tempted then to
go outside of what feels comfortable and safe for you.
But if you need to,
if you almost don't have a choice,
then you take those more.
What I would say risky actions,
even though they're not really risky,
it's probably more risky just to stay doing what you're doing
cause you're not making any progress.
Yeah. Actually I love that point when you said it's not
really that risky.
It does feel very risky.
Everything feels like it's risky.
But I think that it's important for us to remember to
your point that the stakes are really very low in all
of this.
Like the worst.
I actually remember thinking that in my first year or two
of business when things were really tight and I was just
getting things off the ground.
It took me a year to go back to the timeline.
It took me a year to find my footing and to
really find what my business was going to be.
And I remembered thinking in that first year or two you're
not going to die.
Like that would be the worst case scenario.
And so if that's not going to happen,
then the stakes are low.
It will be okay.
Right. Well,
and there's also the point that you're not going to land
it necessarily.
The very first thing that you try,
you get out there,
you take action,
then you tweak a little bit and eventually you get to
a path that you know you start to get traction and
it feels solid and then you can start really taking off.
I do have a question for you,
and this is more just curiosity so we don't have to
spend a lot of time on this,
but back in your editorial director days was what you did
successful if you got placements for your client or did they
need to then also sell or do something that was more
tangible and monetized within their business?
Our success was reflected in the placements that we got.
They knew coming to us that they were going to get
placed on local television across the country and local radio.
That was the goal and it really is a publicity effort
and I think that you and I will dive maybe more
deeply into the benefits of television and radio specifically,
but for most businesses,
television and radio is really a visibility effort.
It definitely could be defined by an assessment of return on
investment because you can quantify a television placement,
a three to five minute interview with what it would cost
to buy ad time there.
And so that would be like the return on investment.
But it's actually really hard to quantify sales from television and
radio in particular unless you're going to ask your customers where
they heard from you.
And on the large scale,
like our clients were pharmaceutical companies and consumer products like Johnson
and Johnson and Brawny and things like that,
they're not asking their customers where they heard of them,
so they weren't going to necessarily be able to track sales.
When we're talking to gifters bakers,
crafters makers though,
it's much smaller scale.
So we would be able to track return on investment in
quantifiable sales probably.
Right. But it's,
I don't want to say a secondary result of placement.
Maybe you could say it that way,
but it's part of a whole marketing strategy.
One element of the mix I guess.
Yup. And you can really see that very much so when
you're looking at those massive companies that are doing many different
things in order to get the word out and get their
product into the hands of their consumer.
We just need to do it on a much pared down
level, but we still need to be doing a lot of
different things.
Right. While you were doing that,
at the same time,
I was doing very highly targeted,
direct mail marketing campaigns to similar clients you just talked about,
so that's really interesting.
So Proctor and gamble,
you know all of that.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah. Let's start talking a little bit about what we really
came here to talk about,
which was getting visibility in that manner and you do know
visibility is my word this year.
Amanda, I know.
So And give biz listeners,
we've been starting to talk about what your word is if
you're following me on social media.
So a lot of you are acquainted with what we're talking
about here,
but I want to start by saying that I think a
lot of us who are following the trends,
listening to everything that's going on,
have gotten sucked into the all powerful social media edge,
Facebook live and posting and all of that,
which I'm not discounting.
It definitely has its place,
but I think what has happened is we've forgotten about traditional
media a little bit.
So I'd like to start with why is traditional media still
important with all the other options that are available now?
It is so,
so, so,
so, so important because social media allows you to talk to
your existing audience.
A traditional media or even new media like podcasts and online
media allows you to leverage audiences that other people have cultivated
so you can bust out of that word of mouth bubble
of the audience that you've already created.
You're getting out of the echo chamber of your audience and
reaching new people by utilizing the media.
That's one contrast between social media and regular media.
The other thing is that media,
when your customer sees like you have the initial exposure and
the initial woo lightning strike of being featured,
of being interviewed,
being written up somewhere,
there's an immediate result or catalyst that mobilizes customers based off
of that,
but then when people see that you've been featured in media
that they trust,
whether it's a podcast or a magazine or a local news
station or something,
when they go to your website because they've heard of you
somewhere or they saw your social media posts,
they go to your website and they see you've been featured
on all of these places.
It really establishes trust and it inspires credibility and inspires them
to really believe that you've got the goods that you're endorsed
and the media is really the only way that the consumer
is going to come to that place of trusting you because
they trust that media outlet.
The trust is transferred.
Got it.
Would you suggest then that it shortens the sale?
That was the other part that I was going to say.
It's a really is a fast track to that trust factor
because again,
they trust the media outlet.
They trust the podcast or that has introduced them to you,
especially with podcasts.
I'll just like do a tiny tangent about podcasts for a
second. The audiences that listen to podcasts,
obviously you're listening to this podcast.
The audiences that listen to podcasts are really loyal and they
trust their podcast or to introduce them to people and ideas
that are relevant to them and that are high quality.
So that trust transfer is really evident when you're talking about
podcasts, but shortening the sale?
Absolutely, because we've really believe in the media.
We really believe if a product is featured in the media,
if a person is featured in the media,
we trust that we trust that they have earned that opportunity
and that they are worth that feature or that interview.
So some of our listeners are just starting out.
They might have a product,
they're just going to craft shows and some of course are
more established.
Maybe they have multi location,
brick and mortar shops,
or very solid online presence.
Is there a certain point in your business development where you
could start engaging traditional PR for visibility?
Yeah, I think you can start as soon as you have
an established business,
so I don't think you need to have a certain level
of revenue or a certain number of locations or a certain
number of sales or anything.
I think you can start as soon as you have your
idea and infrastructure in place and I would say one of
the great places to start for your audience in particular,
gifters bakers,
crafters makers,
whether they are just starting out or they have multiple brick
and mortar locations would be with local media.
And I would say there's a scale in terms of where
you are in this journey.
If you're just starting out,
I would say that maybe a feature in your local community
magazine might be something that would be a good showcase for
you if you have a product or a multiple brick and
mortar locations.
I would say you are an established business and you were
making an impact in the community and you could be on
your local television station doing a quick segment about something relevant
to your business.
So I think that,
I don't know.
Those are the two ideas that come to mind for me
in terms of where this community can begin.
Okay. And I'm almost thinking too,
and I know I'm an old,
let you really talk about this in detail,
but a grand opening,
someone who's a local business owner or has been a local
residents of a community and now starting a business of their
own could be a great story also for local.
So even just getting started could be good.
Absolutely. And also I'll just note that that's news.
When you say grand opening or something,
that's time sensitive like that,
that is news.
But we don't think of it that way.
You know,
you're so busy with everything else that's going on with that
event. All right.
So there's lots of businesses out there,
there's lots of people doing great things and I think we've
always kind of felt like the media should come to us.
So let's talk through that fallacy,
that thinking.
What would you say to all of that?
Absolutely. That is a common,
I don't want to say misconception.
I think it's a common road we go down that really
keeps us safe from putting ourselves out there and being vulnerable
because this whole effort of being visible is very vulnerable.
And just to reiterate,
I want to remind you the stakes are very low.
I love that no one is going to and like yell
at you or embarrass you or anything.
But the fact is it is vulnerable.
So believing that the media has to come to you is,
it would be nice,
right? It would be so nice.
And it happens sometimes,
right? Of course,
of course,
yeah. That's wonderful.
And that's called reactive PR where you respond to inquiries and
you take advantage of opportunities that are offered to you and
that's absolutely a valid way and should be a part of
your always part of your effort.
You should have a wave,
a method for fielding those kinds of inquiries when it comes
to the reality is that that could and very well may
happen to many of us,
but the fact is you want to,
I think that we really want to take control of this
effort. We want to be featured in the places that are
going to cast us in the best possible light that are
going to put us in front of the correct audience and
that are going to make the biggest impact on our business.
And the only way for us to really target that media
and be strategic about it is to be proactive and to
actually get out there and make the ask Ourselves.
Okay. That makes total sense because we know best the type
of customer we already have and where we're feeling,
especially within our local communities,
what the placements should be that will best serve us.
So then the big question,
it's just one,
three letter word.
How Right.
Well, so for someone starting out,
I think the biggest thing to remember is that you have
to create a story.
Like I was saying before with my journey and the work
that I did in the corporate world and the work that
I still do with my clients is that we create a
story that's going to ignite the imagination of the decision maker
on the other end of that email or that phone call
and really show them that you have something that's really interesting,
unique and insightful to offer to their audience and it may
be centered around a product,
but the idea is that you really want to showcase your
product in a way that is showing that it's something innovative.
It's going to help the audience do something more easily or
more quickly or for less money or something like that.
The other kind of story is the story of you and
your journey to create this which Sue,
I know that you talk to some really inspiring entrepreneurs and
gifters bakers,
crafters and makers in your community and every one of these
stories is so amazing.
They're fascinating.
Yeah, absolutely.
I want to see them in print.
I want to hear them interviewed.
I want to see them showcased in their local media market,
doing a kind of like,
here's a business owner from our community who's doing something new
and innovative or interesting or and supporting the community,
supporting their family.
This is a valid story idea,
particularly for local media and for podcasts as your journey story.
So the first thing to do is figure out what your
stories are.
Okay, so that's perfect because a story is not,
I have a new product and it's on sale for this
price. That may be a story for you,
but it's not a story for media for sure.
Right. So you are saying,
if I can summarize again just to make sure we're driving
it down.
The point is if you're focusing on a product,
there has to be a deeper interest level for why people
who are watching that show reading the paper or whatever it
is, how it could integrate in and be useful to whoever
the audience is.
Yeah, absolutely.
So that would be one way or how would unique or
different, or maybe there's a super fun story about the product
and a customer who used it or something,
but there has to be some story.
Exactly. And then also one of the stories could be you.
Yup, absolutely.
And I'll also add in there the story of the product
could also be about a trend and how your product is
at the forefront of a trend that they haven't reported on
yet or something like that.
Got it.
Okay. Wonderful.
Perfect. Or it's something useful that could apply to a certain
time of the year,
for example.
Yup, exactly.
Like maybe you have a tax filing system or your product
can be used for that type of thing as you're coming
into taxes,
something like that.
But there's gotta be an angle.
Right? That's a big word in the Indus PR industry.
Right angle.
Yup. Exactly.
You're very savvy,
Sue. Well,
I don't know.
I'm trying hard.
Okay, so first thing we have to do is figure out
that what the story or the angle is.
Right? Exactly.
So then what do we do Then?
I would suggest that you start to make your list of
media where you want to be featured.
And this is another huge question that often comes up with
my clients is like,
okay, where like I have no idea where to begin and
it's actually much easier than you might think.
There's a couple of key ways to start researching your media
opportunities. And the first I would say would be,
especially for this community,
it would be to look at your local media opportunities.
So what local television stations do segments with local business owners,
what local magazines do features on local business owners?
What local radio stations have some kind of a segment that
you could contribute to?
So look at your local media.
Then I would also suggest looking at your own media habits.
What do you love to listen to?
Where do you get your information and write down all of
those outlets and then finally look at people who are a
little bit further down the road then you and see where
they've been featured,
where have they been able to place a story or tell
their story or offer their and write down those media outlets.
And I offer templates and materials to do all of this
with my clients,
but I have a lot of free resources on my website
too, including templates and things like that.
Oh, perfect.
So tell us your website since we're talking about it right
this minute.
It's Amanda berlin.com
and if anyone listening,
I actually don't have a free download of the media list
template. That is something that I give to my clients when
they start working with me.
But I will give you one,
I'll give you a link to it.
If you want it,
email me and ask me for it.
amanda@amandaberlin.com Oh,
that's so nice.
Thank you Amanda.
I appreciate that.
Sure. I think what I've gotten out of what you just
talked about is that once you're researching who's even there,
like who's available for you even as potential,
then you want to see how they run their shows and
see if what you would be offering slips into the natural
themes of their show.
Exactly. If they don't do local interviews or product highlights or
something like that,
it's all straight 100% news.
You probably want to look for something else.
Yup. That's a really good point.
You want to look for formats that will be conducive to
you offering your story idea,
but the other way to go about it too is let's
say you find a media outlet that seems like it would
be a great fit for you,
but your story idea maybe isn't exactly right.
Try to figure out how you could contribute.
I often tell my clients,
ask yourself,
what does this audience need to hear from me?
What can I teach to this audience?
Something like that.
That makes sense.
Yeah. You don't have to PEM yourself in by those two
story ideas or story angles.
You can always create new story angles as long as it
feels like it's serving your goal,
Right? Your goal.
But really it's your goal and what you have that you
can provide.
But in the end it's all the value to their audience,
right? So that's the wave.
You got to circle it back,
I guess to look at that.
Okay, so guess what?
We have three places that we think could be really good
opportunities. We know the story,
we know the fit,
but now we're stuck now.
So what I suggest is kind of warming up the contact,
warming up the lead.
So I would reach out to the decision maker.
That may be the podcaster,
it may be the editor of a particular section of a
magazine, it may be a TV news producer,
it may be a radio producer.
Reach out to the contact and just give them a Pat
on the back or high five virtual high five for the
work that they're doing that resonates with you.
So in a very genuine,
honest way,
I would love to see my clients reaching out and saying,
thank you so much for your segment.
On XYZ.
I thought it was really helpful.
It resonated with me because of ABC and keep up the
good work.
Something like that.
Very simple,
straightforward. I call it the unasked ask where you're just kind
of putting something out there that is good will but also
may start a conversation and may also eventually lead to some
name recognition if you reach out again with an actual pitch.
So that would be the first thing that I would suggest
and I really think that the most personal media is podcasts,
and I know that as a podcast or,
and I'm sure Sue,
you would agree,
when you get an email from a listener,
it's like,
thank you.
That's all awesome.
It never gets old,
but you don't think that media people have been pitched so
much that they'll see this for what it is?
No, I don't think so because I really do want it
to be genuine.
I really want anyone who adopt this strategy to reach out
in a real genuine way because you actually really do have
to be a fan of the media that you're pitching because
you need to have consumed it first of all,
in order to know what kind of idea you can offer
that will be resonant with their audience.
So you've already been a consumer of that media and I
want you to get really excited about it,
get excited about the opportunity or the possibility that you could
contribute there.
So I just really do want that to feel super genuine
and not like smarmy in any way.
Right. And I think there's something else that you and I
have talked about a little bit too,
and that is,
it's really a two way street because they also need to
find things to feature.
Exactly. So if you can slip in and make it easier
for them,
that would be great.
Absolutely. Okay,
so we're warming them up.
Well, obviously that means we've found their email or somehow to
reach out to them,
which gift biz listeners could also be a lot of the
local newspapers.
And even television,
somewhat cable,
but mostly other TV too might be part of your chamber
of commerce or other networking groups that you're in.
So that's another place to source and find the right contact.
Good point.
Yep. So we found out how to reach out to them
and we've warmed them up and then now we're ready to
present an idea,
which is what you call the pitch,
right? Exactly.
Yes. So there's a couple of different ways to go about
it. For the bold among us,
sometimes a phone call is really valuable,
but more so to traditional media.
If you were to say,
can we hop on the phone?
I have some ways I think I could contribute to the
show. Maybe we could talk about it and have some ideas
in your back pocket,
but then also just listen to what they might be looking
for. That's a possibility.
And you also can always call the assignment desk of any
television station and ask for the right person to talk to
once you've identified the show,
that might be the right fit for you.
So you can call and say,
who's the producer?
For good morning Austin or whatever it may be and they
will connect you because again,
like Sue said,
they need you.
They need the to be offering ideas and tips.
They are meant to be talking to you.
That's why there is a phone number.
That's why they sit at the assignment desk because they field
tips and then they assign them to reporters or producers.
So for television station that might be a way to go
about it.
A more traditional way to go about it would be to
write your pitch.
And again,
on my website at the bottom of the homepage,
I have a template download for writing a pitch and really
it's very straightforward.
You want to keep it as simple as possible and a
lot of it also has to do with the subject line.
So I would put interview idea or segment idea or guest
idea or something like that right there in the subject line
with then a headline.
So guest idea how gifters makers,
crafters and makers can publicize their businesses.
That could be potentially,
if I was pitching Sue,
that might be what I would,
maybe a version of what I might put in the subject
line. So start with the great subject line that actually indicates
what it is that they're going to find within the email.
So an idea they're going to find a guest idea or
a segment idea or whatever and then the headline that you
imagine maybe they would even use on the air or in
their podcast episode or something like that.
The idea being that you just want to make it as
easy for them as possible to use your idea and if
they could see it immediately working in the context of their
show, then that's plus one in your column.
So from there you want to again make the connection like
thank you so much for your work on XYZ.
I loved this and this and this.
Thanks for the work that you're doing.
I wanted to see if you would be interested in an
idea on and then you can put your headline and then
you want to distill your segment idea into three T's bullet
points that speak to what you imagine talking about in that
interview. If we're talking about an interview here,
so you would tease the points that you would make save
to come up with your talking points.
It does require some by advanced either research or just jotting
down of ideas so that you have a really fully fleshed
out story ideas because you're going to want to include the
points that you will make in that interview in the pitch.
And then following those bullet points you will put a short
version of your bio.
So again,
writing your media bio is something you can get on my
website in the free resources.
So it's like a three to five line bio that speaks
to why you are perfect to be delivering this segment idea
or this interview idea.
And if you have any other media clips,
be sure to include those in that bio.
Like I've been featured here,
here, and here.
I've talked on this topic here,
here and here.
If you don't have any media clips,
I always say do not worry about it.
I don't want that to be a deterrent to actually doing
outreach. So it's only a must include if you have them
And someone started,
someone who has references now and has been seen places at
one point didn't cause that's why they now have that.
Right. So it's okay.
Exactly. Yup.
So the last thing is just issue a call to action.
So it could be as simple as,
please respond to this email and let me know if you
like this idea or if we can book a time for
an interview or something like that.
And that's it.
What I was thinking as you were going through all of
this is two things.
Number one,
it's pretty concise because if you make an email that's way
super long,
it'll probably get tossed.
No one has time for that.
Yeah. And then also you're doing a lot of the work
early on.
So as things progressed,
it's been established and most likely,
unless they switch it up,
but a lot of the work,
so I'm thinking you're putting in the work early so it's
not time wasted because then it's already done once you get
the booking and you're going for the interview.
Yup, exactly.
We are in a positive mode here,
so we're assuming that everything has gone well.
They get a call back and they're interested,
they're completely interested.
They want to do the interview.
And I'm sure there's steps that have to be taken and
every organization's different in terms of what the procedure is.
But how does someone,
once they're actually going to do the interview,
how do they set themselves up to present themselves in the
best light possible?
Absolutely. So I would make sure that,
so we call this media training,
right? You want to be prepared with what your talking points
are, what your key messages are,
and really how you're going to present your story and your
idea. You really need to prepare.
You can't go in and wing it.
Plus you don't have a lot of time.
Right. Especially for local television segment,
right? It's three to five minutes And will they tell you
how much time you get?
Yeah. Okay.
They would tell you.
But yeah,
so you want to determine what your key messages are and
what your talking points are.
But then I also would suggest letting all of that go
at the last second you've prepared and then it's time.
I know.
So you did an episode recently about affirmations.
Then it's time to bring in your affirmation,
your media mantra,
which mine is,
I know my stuff and remind yourself that you were made
to do this.
You have been working on your craft for as long as
you have.
You know your story,
you know your stuff,
you've prepared and it's just time to take a breath and
walk in there with confidence because the camera picks up all
the little ticks and twitches that we might have.
It's really important to sort of be composed and confident when
you walk onto that set.
The other thing about it though,
another piece of media training that I offer my clients is
that it's okay to name what's happening.
So like if you do feel nervous,
sometimes it really lightens the nerves.
It lightens the mood.
If you say like,
Oh, I'm sorry,
I'm just so excited to be here.
I'm a little nervous.
Something like that.
If you were to name it,
you obviously cannot take up a lot of time,
but even if you say it before you go live,
sometimes it lessens the burden of carrying that in silence.
I think also to the point of just you give up
all of what you were thinking,
all of your prepping because you want to come out and
represent your personality because that's again how you're different from other
people. So you've already got the knowledge,
you've already made the pitch,
you've already perfected your bullet points as you're saying now,
just walk out and be you.
Yep, exactly.
Way easier said than done though,
right? Yeah.
It's not a bad thing to be running on adrenaline in
those moments.
It's okay and you want to be present and you want
to be genuine and you want to be in the moment.
So that's another reason to set aside those notes and just
go in and stake your ground.
Perfect. All right,
so guess what?
We did it.
It was great.
We're so proud and family thought friends saw it,
customer saw it,
et cetera.
How do you capture the clips then that you could use
and can you just use them?
How does the backend work?
Yes, absolutely.
Yes, you can.
They've aired on the television show or they've aired on the
podcast. You absolutely can.
I don't think there's a way to like download the video
and put it on your own site,
but even so it will be,
you know,
it'll have what they call the bug from the television station,
so it will be identified as having come from that station.
The little thing in the corner that says like news seven
or whatever,
so it'll have their logo so you could post it if
it's on YouTube or something like that.
You could absolutely post it on your website because they've made
it public.
You should absolutely have links to your media placements on your
website, on a press page or some best practices in web
design actually indicate that you should have some of your best
press clips right under the header on your homepage.
So you can do like an as seen in kind of
montage or collage or whatever it might be called.
And are those be clickable links or just the logos or
Those could be just the logos.
But on your press page you want to include links.
Got it.
Will a television station give you a file?
I don't know.
You could ask.
There's no harm in asking.
That's the kind of thing that actually you do want to
keep the conversation going.
You want to create a relationship with that television producer or
whomever it is.
So you should not feel weird about asking any question you
might have or offering a new idea or anything like that.
So remember that they are not up there on some pedestal
with looking down on you.
They do have a lot to do and you don't want
to make their job any more difficult,
which is actually my only reservation in asking them for a
file is that it may just be annoying for them so
you could ask for a link to the show or something
like that or you could look for it yourself,
but you want to honor their time and honor any extra
effort that they put in getting you the opportunity or helping
you capitalize on the opportunity.
But I would say for anything that you're going to do,
like on your own site,
I would try to do as much of that on your
own as you can.
Got it.
And as you're talking,
it also brings to mind that this shouldn't be,
I guess in our minds a one and done thing like
you're on a show and then that's it.
Now you go onto the next one.
If you can continue the relationship,
you may put yourself in a position to be the trusted
advisor about chocolate and then maybe they're going to reach out
to you when they need a segment because Valentine's day is
coming up.
Absolutely. So it's,
it's just the start of a relationship.
It's not just for one,
a one time thing.
Potentially. If you're lucky.
Exactly. Well,
it's also up to you to nurture that relationship as well.
Offer them a new idea.
If they don't come to you with that Valentine's idea,
then you can offer it to them.
There you go.
And obviously we didn't say this,
but I think we all know to do this.
A follow up a thank you when something's gone well,
so that's something.
Yeah, and that could be looking forward to featuring this on
my website.
Really appreciate it.
Enjoyed it so much.
No know whatever it is.
Whatever you say.
Yeah, just normal,
regular cordial wording I guess I'd say.
So gift biz listeners.
Isn't this exciting?
Amanda's talking about something that I don't think we think about
often. As I was saying in the beginning,
it's always social media.
How do I post more?
How do I get more followers?
All of this type of thing,
the followers and everything,
and this is something that now sounds so doable,
even though it sounds a little bit scary and risky,
it's really much more low risk than we think.
That was great,
Amanda, that you talked about that because I think we get
so fearful because we think that,
Oh, if they aren't interested,
the whole world's going to know in reality only we know.
Right? Or whoever you choose to tell.
Exactly, and it has been fabulous how you've listed all of
the things to do because any of us could get started
right now,
like as soon as we're done with this show,
you could start taking some of these steps and working yourself
toward having a spot on your local TV show become a
reality for you.
Absolutely. I want you to start right now.
Yes. Empower them.
Amanda, what do you say to somebody who's thinking,
okay, this all sounds good,
but I'm not sure We said this throughout the course of
this interview.
They need you.
They need your ideas.
It's not like you're going out there and begging in vain
for some exposure because of vanity.
I mean I don't mean in vain.
I mean for your own vanity,
you are putting yourself out there because you think you have
something valuable to offer to this audience and even if your
motivation really is to grow your business and support your family
and do this thing that you love,
I think that is a positive enough intention to this ball
rolling and someone out there is going to be inspired by
what you are putting out there so you owe it to
them as well.
If you don't find the intrinsic motivation within yourself to start
doing this,
then think about the people out there who are waiting to
hear from someone like you.
The people out there who are going to experience the positive
ripple effect of your courage and putting yourself out there.
I love that because I want to learn how to chocolate
dipped strawberries properly.
I want to learn how to make a gift basket that
I can give to my mother for her birthday.
Or I've always thought about knitting a scarf but don't know
how or the right colors.
Like there are so many ways we can take our creative
works and spin them to be a value to an audience.
Yep, absolutely.
So just you have to think a little differently than what
we normally think of as business owners.
Love this.
Thank you so,
so much Amanda.
These have been just a whole package of great gifts for
us to take with and move forward and take action.
It's my pleasure.
And now Amanda,
I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.
I'd like to invite you to dare to dream.
So this virtual gift is a magical box containing unlimited possibilities
for your future.
So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable
Heights that you would wish to obtain except this gift.
On behalf of myself and my listeners and we'd like to
know what's inside your box.
Oh Sue,
thank you.
And everyone out there.
Thank you so much for the gift.
This was so thoughtful.
Inside. This box for me is really a business that is
filled with integrity,
with positive intentions and really massive abundance,
but built on the intention that I'm helping other women in
particular raise their voices and be heard and seen for the
powerful creative forces that we are,
and I do this in really an honor of my own
daughter. I have a five-year-old,
I'm a single mom,
and I really want her to see all of us out
there doing this work and being seen and being creative and
creating something that no one else could possibly have created simply
because it has emanated from our unique being.
So that's my wild though.
I think attainable dream.
I love it.
Taking responsibility and driving our future,
not letting things happen to us.
Yes, I loved your gift because it goes both ways.
You give to us and then we give back to you,
so. Okay,
one more time.
How can our listeners get in touch with you?
Please come find me@amandaberlin.com
I was going to give my email address again,
which I can also do.
amanda@amandaberlin.com if you have any questions about this whole process,
I know that it's overwhelming and you're probably super motivated to
get, but inevitably it's like,
I ha what am I supposed to do now?
So please feel free to reach out to me and if
you go to the resources page on my website,
you'll find lots of free downloads that can help you with
this effort.
Beautiful. Thank you so much.
I am thrilled that you had time to come on the
show, share all of this information with us and I think
gift biz listeners,
you're going to have to report back to us when you
start getting media placements.
We want to know.
That would be great.
Thanks again,
Amanda. Thank you so much.
So. So I'm usually pretty good at keeping secrets,
but I'm spilling the beans.
I can't help it.
I'm so excited.
I just want to tell you guys what I've been working
on over the last few months.
It's been a little bit of a secret project because I
wasn't sure exactly what the timing was going to look like
on it,
but I can't,
wait. I have to share with you my secret.
Many of you have been following me for a while.
Know that I wrote a book that came out last may.
It's called maker to master,
but that's not what this is about.
Although it spins off a similar concept.
When I was getting serious about writing that book,
there were actually two books that I had in my mind.
One was maker to master and that truth be told was
the harder one to do,
but I also was really interested in writing a book that
was an inspirational book kind of inspiration a day.
I know you've seen those out there where it's 365 inspiring
thoughts for your year or something like that.
I think very often we get defeated by our own self-talk
and we also sway away from core solid business growth values
because there's a new social media site that it's available or
other things come up that take our mind off of the
really important things that we need to grow our business.
As things happen.
My idea continued to evolve and I came up with the
idea of instead of doing a 365 inspiring tips type book,
it would be way more helpful for you if it was
included in some type of a planner so that every day
when you're planning out your day,
you'd also then see a tip.
If I look at how I work with things,
I don't know if I would have a book on the
side of my desk and every day look at one day's
inspiration and then other days,
inspiration, way better to have everything in one place.
Consequently, I have created a planner.
It's called inspired a daily planner specifically for you,
our wonderful community of gifters,
bakers, crafters and makers.
I'll be sharing more in the upcoming days,
but let me give you a few highlights here.
One of the cool things about this planner is you can
start any month of the year.
Have you ever been like me?
Where all of a sudden in may you decide I want
to start doing things different.
I want to get myself really organized,
but then you go to find a planner and they either
start in September going into the next year or you have
to buy a year and all the prior months of the
year are useless for you because you're already in may with
this planner.
You can start any time.
If you're listening to this announcement in January,
you can start it right away.
If you're hearing this in may,
you can use this planner starting in may.
It has monthly and daily layout,
so you'll be able to keep yourself really organized and special
life enhancing sections.
More on that later also includes what I've been talking about
earlier and the reason I changed this from a book to
a planner and that is daily inspiration.
Things that you need to be telling yourself,
affirmations to get in the right mindset as the owner of
your business.
Also, business tips and ideas.
Some of them you're going to read and you're like,
yep, got it,
it's covered and then others might give you some pause ideas
of things you might want to implement into your business to
further either solidify or grow what you already have going.
That's all I'm going to share with you right now,
but I will tell you that we are just weeks away
from getting this out to you.
I'm going to do a limited first run and if you
want to be one of the first ones to know when
it's available,
jump over to give biz unwrapped.com
forward slash add me and you'll get an email when the
planner is ready.
That link again is gift biz unwrapped.com
forward slash add me there is no time like the present
to take the next step on solidifying the dream you have
for your business.
The new inspired planner could be just the ticket to making
sure that that actually happens for you this year.
Thanks again for joining me today and I want to make
sure that you subscribe to the show because you do not
want to miss what I have coming in your way next
week to little bit of Self reflection for you.
You might walk away learning a little bit more about yourself,
feeling really good about some of the things that you're doing
for your business and understanding why some other things you do
are just so uncomfortable,
they don't feel like a really good fit and then what
to do about that.
Have I peaked your curiosity?
I found this really,
really helpful to me and interesting just to understand myself better
and why react to things in business that I do and
that's all coming your way next week on gift biz unwrapped.
I'll see you then.