More Than Attention.
Build Credibility.

Transcript from the episode recording, with speaker names added and paragraphs formatted for readability. Automated transcription may contain errors; the audio is the original record.

Brad Hauck 00:14

Ever wonder how some people seem to be everywhere? Their names pop up in magazines, their guests on podcasts, they're featured on radio shows, and they're even spotted sometimes on TV. Is it luck or strategy? Today we're going to be talking about publicity. There are real ways to get your name out there and be seen as the go-to expert from writing blogs and articles to building authority to using interviews and appearances to boost credibility to even inventing something that puts you on the map. And yes, we'll talk about fame, what it really takes to hit the big time and the hidden battles that come with it.

If you ever wanted to know and you want to be known, remembered, and respected for what you do, this episode's for you. Good morning, Dixie.

Dixie Carlton 00:57

Good morning, Brad. How are you today?

Brad Hauck 00:59

I am good, thanks. Excellent. Today's topic, pretty interesting, one you've brought up actually. So obviously, you're living the famous lifestyle and traveling the world, living in foreign countries. Subject to one for you being so famous.

Dixie Carlton 01:14

Oh, no, so much. It's so much more glamorous than it really is. And it's a bit of a stretch to say that I'm living a famous lifestyle. But it was interesting, what got me thinking about this today, was that I woke up this morning and I had been invited to be on the cover of a magazine. And I am. Oh wow, that's really cool. So of course I did the typical thing. I deep dived into who the magazine was and who else was on covers in the past and what they were all about. And then of course I realized, as I read the rest of the email invitation, is that it is a pay-to-play.

Brad Hauck 01:51

Oh yes.

Dixie Carlton 01:52

And that's why I wanted to talk about this today, is that we've done a couple of things recently where we've had books launched and we've engaged either PR people or for our clients, or our clients have engaged PR people. Or we've tried to do it ourselves, which in the past was really relatively easy to get people onto TV shows and radio shows, etc. Back in the days before podcasts were so popular, in fact. It was relatively easy to get your press release picked up and someone run with. But now it has become increasingly a pay-to-play.

Whether you want to just have an article written about your book or something that is you've done something and it's newsworthy, it is something where, unless you know the right people, it is increasingly hard to get the attention of the medium. And I think it's important for us to talk about this because in the business that we're all in, as indust industrial experts or professional experts and speakers, you can't go a long way without at least some form of publicity and marketing. And I don't know whether you've tried this recently, Brad, but what has been your experience with trying to get the attention of media for anything?

Brad Hauck 03:05

Uh look, I really haven't had a lot to do with media, I must admit. And when I have, it's not been within my speaking field. So it's been fire-related or something like that. It's just, yeah, just not an area that I've really run into. Online marketing, online media, yes, but actual mainstream media, no. But I do know people who are actively engaged and they're quite honestly often on television because they're seen as the experts or they get called up regularly. And so every time there's a question about a particular topic or about a particular couple of people or whatever, they're always on there.

Dixie Carlton 03:40

And that's the holy grail, right? That's what we're aiming for is to write the book or to be the presenter or to become the regular spokesperson for the TV channels or the radio channels, because that has such wide reach. And we all know that you don't have to be anything more than on big brother, for example, to become a semi-celebrity or a minor league celebrity who more easily gets on those interview sofas or couches. That is what we're aiming for when we are putting ourselves out there. But the reality of that it is so much harder.

And so I wanted to talk about what our options are if we want to get better known for what we do, because it is something that is part of my work every day, is to talk to authors and manage expectations around this, and speakers, of course. And there are ways to do it well, and there are ways where you have to pay. And yes, I am seriously considering this opportunity, because hey, it is a good magazine and it is potentially the cover, and it may also lead very well to speaking engagements. But I also want to talk about timing.

And for me, in this particular instance, while it's a great opportunity, the timing is not quite right for me, but it will be in about three months' time. So timing when you're wanting to do anything with the media has to be planned well in advance. If it's a feature story or something that is going to position you in a way that is not about current news, but that is where people want to obviously make a point of getting to know more about what you do and what you say.

Brad Hauck 05:17

Yeah. It's definitely one of those areas that you've got to be set up for it, but don't bring something else to mind, which we'll discuss in a minute. But keep going.

Dixie Carlton 05:26

So you know you have to know how to manage the PR strategy. So you've got to know where people are listening that you're wanting to reach. Often it helps significantly to have an introduction into the people who actually make those decisions. Now, I'll give you an example. About a dozen years ago, I was a regular or semi-regular contributor to a major business magazine, not only on behalf of my own business, but on behalf of some of my authors that I was working with. And it was easy to get opportunities with the editor who I got to know quite well to get stories picked up and to get articles published.

That was fantastic. Now, a dozen years later, I've gone back into the same space and tried to reach out to the new editor, and it has fallen completely flat. In fact, all they managed to do was add me to their database to send me the newsletters and still completely ignore all of the media releases or the inquiries I had about what they were doing or whether they would pick up on a particular story or two. So I finally reached out to the retired in LinkedIn, wonderful as it is, I reached out to the now retired former editor and said, Hey, it's me.

I'm back. I'd really quite like to reestablish myself in this writing space. Can you help? And he delightfully came back and said, Yes, this is who you need to talk to. Here's the email address. Go for it and keep me copied in if you'd like to. And I thought, fantastic. Now, Lindsay Adams, as we know, is always talking about the power of relationships. The power of relationships in media is absolutely undisputable. You have to have a good reputation and you have to have good quality work and know someone. And in this instance, that was exactly how it worked out.

But if you don't know someone and if you are just writing media releases and hoping to send them out, or if you've written the book and you just want to send the book unsolicited out to everybody, there's a really good chance that you're just going to be completely ignored. And that's a very frustrating situation to find yourself in. And it can be expensive too.

Brad Hauck 07:41

So what is it? Yeah, sorry. Look, I totally agree with you. It's about those relationships you build and also understanding the reach of what you're sending to. For example, if you want to put yourself on the one of the big TV channels, then yeah, you're going to need an inn, you're going to need some way to talk to someone that you know or get to know someone or whatever. But one of the things that I discovered really early on was there's a lot of business magazines that go out locally, so like just in the city and places like that.

And they're always looking for articles, but they don't lead to anything. So where you get the publicity and you get the tear-out sheet that shows you put an article in a magazine, which looks really good, makes a nice story and all those sorts of things. So I have no problem with doing it, writing articles and that. But I found that there was zero return on effort. And that's the other side to this is that you, if you're going to put your effort into it, it's got to be worthwhile. And picking your battles, but learning which battle to pick is the hard part.

You know, you need to talk to your friends, as you said, relationships, understanding, talk to people you know that are involved in the industry, because they can then either connect you if they're able to, maybe, or tell you this is how I got in there. It was random. It was just pure chance, which is what happens sometimes.

Dixie Carlton 09:00

And it often is. And picking your battles is right. But if you have regularly written for small publications, then when you want to go and hit something harder, like a bigger publication or a national magazine, it is a lot easier if you've got that history of having being able to say, I have regularly being published in these other five or six publications. If you've only one thing that you've done in the past, or one or two, it doesn't have strike the same chord with the editors of the bigger publications. And it's the same with media in terms of electronic media, so radio, TV, podcasting.

If you've only ever done one, then the chances are you're not going to be able to say, I'm already there, I know what I'm doing, and have them all believe you. So you have to have that experience. You have to build up to that.

Brad Hauck 09:48

Yeah, and you never know where things are going to lead. I was listening to a podcast the other this week talking to someone about being guests on podcasts, and they went on big podcasts, like the biggest podcasts in the world for business, and it absolutely left, led to nowhere.

Unidentified speaker 10:07

Yeah.

Brad Hauck 10:07

So it didn't matter. It just didn't go anywhere. And then other times they linked up with podcast producers in an area of interest that's similar to their own. So maybe like mine producing online courses, online training courses. If I was to go on someone else's show about online training courses and talk about it, their audience is more closely aligned. And they actually found even though it's a much smaller audience, they actually had a much bigger uptake and interest about what they were talking about. So just because it's Channel 9 News or big company doesn't actually mean it's going to make any difference to you because you may not even be talking to people who have any interest or knowledge of what you're talking about.

Dixie Carlton 10:46

That's right. But if you want to, for example, end up in, let's say, Business Inc. or Forbes magazine, for example, it does help to have already been positioned or profiled at some point, even if you've had to pay for it along the way on a lesser quality magazine. And so coming back to, for example, being on the cover of this particular magazine, which is what they've offered me, plus a 10-page spread, and I'm thinking, wow, that actually sounds really cool. Now, obviously, they have done their homework and they've realized that their business model is that they still have to reach out to people who have achieved something and are worth writing a 10-page spread about.

So there is some flattery in that, and I do get that. The reality is that if I'm having to pay a couple of thousand dollars US to be on the cover, that is a good marketing investment for me if I'm wanting to take what I'm doing in other parts of my business to a global level. Because even just having that positioning gives you an entry into other things. So sometimes it is worth paying to play. Sometimes it is worth saying, yes, I will I will do an adventorial opportunity, and that will hopefully lead to a more genuine editorial opportunity down the line.

And again, this comes back to being strategic. What are you wanting to achieve over the next 12 months? How do you get the big ball rolling forward so that you can start to make some more inroads there? So there's ways to do it. Now you've also got podcasting. Podcasting is now the number one way to get your yourself out there. And people are looking for guests on podcasts all the time. And I've been talking to a particular media company here in Australia who specialize in promoting people onto podcasts. And is another one in America that I'm talking to who just do that.

Now, as a professional speaker, the more times you are appearing on someone's podcast or on a series of podcasts around the topic that you're wanting to be known for, the better chances you have of being very good at presenting on a podcast, very refined in the way you speak and the and what you do and how you answer questions. And the more valuable you become as a guest for someone who is higher and higher up the food chain of the whole process. And that's where the value is.

Brad Hauck 13:22

Yeah, look, yeah, I think it's really hard to find people who can deliver on that stuff. That's probably the biggest thing is if you're going to hire a company in to promote you, more often than not, in my experience, they deliver nothing. And that's the issue because they want to start at $10,000 and that's a good chunk of budget. Don't get me wrong. It's all very well to say it's just $10,000. But $10,000, it's a lot of cash. And then they go up from there. But the point is they've got no proof of concept up front.

They haven't delivered anything to you. And at the end of the time, if it's one year, more often than not, you walk away with absolutely no new contacts, no new publications, no interviews. And it seems to me, in a lot of cases, that what they want is they want someone who already has a profile, who already is famous online or wherever, and is creating their own publicity. All they want to do is basically ride that publicity and take their percentage. Now, that might be a bit cynical, but that's my experience both with publicity companies and even some speaker bureaus.

Dixie Carlton 14:33

Absolutely. And I'm delighted to have found someone who is changing that model, which I'll talk more about on another occasion, because I think that there has now come a point where most of us are recognizing that it is a very big investment for very low return. So there are, as in with the publishing industry, there are changes afoot with the entire promotional industry. And that's good to see. But I think what you have to do is become very discerning, very careful about where you put your trust in your money, and know first what it is that you want to achieve.

Now I'm lucky that I've come from this background of marketing and publicity and promotion. So I can do my own strategy. But when it comes to the relationships, if you don't have the relationships in place with regards to who the editors are and who the producers are, then you are still on the back foot. And so publicity agents do have a place and they can be incredibly valuable. And also working with a publicity agent when things are not good and you need to actually do recovery stories. Well, that's a whole other topic. But that's something that some specialise in, which is always a good thing too.

But if you are wanting to put your name out there further and higher, then you need to have some strategy around what you're doing. You need to know who you're wanting to market to, what your results are, how you're going to measure the success of that, and then start looking at all of the ways you can do it, both at a small scale and then build up to a bigger level of publicity.

Brad Hauck 16:14

Yeah, absolutely. Where do we start? The question on everyone's lips. It's all very we'll talk about this stuff, but where do we start?

Dixie Carlton 16:24

Okay. My my experience is such that I always look to where you can produce articles, obviously on your own blog posts and your own podcasts, for example, is useful. But if you've written a book or if you're a good content creator, then start putting yourself out there with trade and industry publications. Get known within your own inner circle. Start building out from there. Then obviously LinkedIn can be really useful. Again, LinkedIn is one of those things you have to work it well to really make inroads with LinkedIn. But if you can crack that with articles and good things that you've got to say that spread, then yes, definitely LinkedIn.

Then you can move into doing things like adding into someone else's book, either as a foreword, part of an anthology. You could be quoted in someone else's book for a specific area of expertise you have. So you can do all sorts of things in that space without even going down the path of writing a whole book yourself. Then writing a good book obviously is going to help because you need something to talk about and you've got more content to share. And again, you can then do derivatives of your book into podcasts or workshops and things like that.

And then, of course, when you've got something to say, if you want to be a little contentious as well about something that's currently happening within your industry, then don't be afraid to push the envelope a little bit and be a little controversial, not too much, but a little. Be out there as loud and proud about what your particular perspective is on something that may be happening or may not be happening in your industry that you feel is important. And start to get attention that way of people who do write publications or who produce publications that you want to be part of.

If you've already written a dozen articles and they've got hundreds of people respond to them on LinkedIn, and you've got great content and comments on that, that gives you a better opportunity to submit something to a small publication. So it is a very slow build-up to get the wheel moving forward. And then once it does, you keep building on that. And it's a build on it and build on it and build on it until you get to the point where, hey, you wake up one morning and someone wants to put you on the cover of a magazine.

That's exciting.

Brad Hauck 18:48

It's interesting because you just brought up something that is of interest to me. And that was that many years ago I was given a piece of advice, and it's really good advice, but I don't like it. And that is that if you want to be noticed, you must take a side. You cannot sit on the fence. And it was very frustrating because my personality naturally is that I like to be fair. I am naturally fair. I want to look at both sides of an argument. But it was made very clear to me that unless you choose one side of an argument, the audience will find you wishy-washy.

So you've got all the people that are for the thing, they will love you if you're for the thing. Then you've got all the people that are against the thing, they will hate you, but will disgust you because they hate the fact that you're for the thing. And of course, the reverse, we get that swing going. But if you sit on the fence, both sides won't care about you. Then it actually is a really powerful statement and very true in my experience. That if you look at what's on the news, what's happening, you'll see it falls really for or really against.

And sometimes you'll see that bias in media as well, where one station falls one way all the time, or whatever. So while it's really hard to do, it's something that is important. What do you think of that one?

Dixie Carlton 20:06

Yes, I think there's a lot of commentary going on in the world at the moment about legacy media and the left versus the right and all that sort of thing. I personally choose to stay well out of anything political.

Brad Hauck 20:19

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dixie Carlton 20:20

And if I'm going to make a stand about something, I want to feel that I'm really competent to stand up and have an argument in the space that I'm an expert in. And so I think this comes down to knowing your own stuff. So if you are wanting to be perceived as an expert, you have to 100% know everything there is to know about what you do. So even if you don't necessarily think you want to be controversial, you at least have to be able to wade into the argument and say, but this is what I know.

And in Oprah's famous words, I know this for you. Because even if it's not a controversial subject, you could make it that you own a tensy tiny piece of that, and that's what you're known for.

Brad Hauck 21:11

Yeah. But that said doesn't mean you're going to be right. So just remember that. We all know Oprah brought certain people into this world who are rather controversial these days. There's always multiple sides to things. But it also, earlier on, you mentioned something that brought up a book in my mind. And it was a book called News Jacking. And it was a really good book. And I really enjoyed it. In fact, I own it. It's one I bought on Kindle. And it's all about hijacking current stories and taking your spin on them. And so one of the areas we see this a lot now actually is in video.

So you see it on YouTube where someone's watching someone else's video and they're commentating on it. And this is really just newsjacking in its essence. And it's something that anyone can do. You can take a current story or a current video and you can actually comment on it. And people make very good businesses out of this online. And I know that, you know, from a traditional perspective, you might talk about a story in the media where one paper's talking about what another paper's doing, or you might say, Well, Prime Minister today said this. He doesn't understand this.

If you In the politics side of things, but it doesn't happen to be politics, of course. Newsjacking is a really interesting one.

Dixie Carlton 22:20

Yeah. And I think it comes down to as well, what do you want to be known for? Do you want to be known for someone who just has an opinion on what everybody else is talking about? Or do you want to be, in the case of a professional speaker or an author, do you want to be known for something that is valuable? Like I had this conversation with someone recently where they said, but I can Google up anything I want to know about that particular topic. For instance, it was about having children, pregnancy. And she said, I can Google anything about that.

And I said, Yes, but if you're reading a book, then you know that the book, if it's a good quality book, has been checked, verified, edited well, that it's not just full of someone's opinion, it's actually a good process of collected information that has been curated into a certain way. And that the reference points have been checked. So there's another level of authority in picking up the book versus just saying, oh, I can just find all that stuff out online. If you want to find out something online, sure, you can Google a subject and you may find a dozen or a hundred or a thousand speakers or authors who have all talked about that particular thing.

But if you want to actually understand a topic properly, then you need to be talking to or looking at what someone who has genuine authority has to say or has written. And you don't get there overnight. There's no such thing as overnight success. It takes a long time and a lot of development to actually get to the point where you even write a book that is of that level of quality that people can say, this is an authoritative text. This has been well written. This is worth interviewing the author for. This is worth hearing what that speaker has to say about that particular topic.

So there is a difference.

Brad Hauck 24:13

And look, it really also depends on your audience. What you might be a specialist in might be a very small audience, in which case the mainstream media or the large organizations really don't care because it's so specific. So it might be a particular type of surgery or something. It's very specific. So understand that, yes, as you were saying, it's not overnight, it's years and years of learning to get you to this point. But it doesn't mean the whole world wants to know about it, too. So you really got to look at what it is that you're producing and say, is this good for a wider audience or is this a really tight niche audience?

In which case you've really got to look at where you're publishing it as well.

Dixie Carlton 24:51

Absolutely. And I think this is where you come into the concept of owning the keywords. When you have the keywords where someone is looking for something so specifically that they will write the long version of the keyword. And that's where you get that when it's a small, specifically niche situation, that's when you'll find that people can find you. But if it's a broader thing, let's say for example, the quality of education in Australian schools, that's wider. Whereas the quality of education in science departments in high schools in Australia, that's a much more niche series of keywords, right?

So depending on where you want your expertise to be, landing is partly down to that as well. And that's part of your strategy, part of your thinking about who wants to know this stuff? How do I make sure that I'm out there and get their attention if this is my tight niche or my wider niche?

Brad Hauck 26:00

Yeah. And it's hard work. It's that simple. Like everything in life, you're gonna have to work at it. You've got to find out what they are. Nishing down, for example, sounds relatively easy, but it also is really hard mentally because you're letting go of a wider audience to niche down. But if you niche wrong, you're in strife. I was looking at the other day, we were discussing with someone about niches and the fact that yes, you can niche down that audience. You've got that audience, you've got thousands of people following you, but they've got no money.

They're high school students, for example, and they don't spend money on that sort of thing. Or they're university students, or whatever. But the point is that you can have a big audience, but it doesn't mean you can convert that audience into a business. When you're niching down, it is really key you think about that. Who would this appeal to? Is there a market out there for this? When I, if I get, can I get publicity for this? Is this going to interest people? And so on and so forth.

Dixie Carlton 26:57

And that's exactly where you need to be thinking in your strategy around what sort of publicity you can get, whether or not an editor or a producer of a show will be interested in whether or not you're too niche. So again, it comes back to strategy. You've got to have some knowledge about what it is you're trying to achieve. You've got to have something that's not just going to be a one-week hit at something. You've got to actually think, right, over the next three to four, maybe even six months, these are the parts that I'm going to drop into a combination of print media, online, offline, voice interviews, articles, all those sorts of things.

Yeah, it's a matter of how to become famous within your own space and the battle to get there. And it is a battle.

Brad Hauck 27:44

Yeah. And look, there's a big difference between fame and credibility. So remember, you can become famous very easily. It doesn't mean you're going to be credible.

Dixie Carlton 27:56

Absolutely. So I think that's where we need to leave it for today. But that was a great opportunity this morning to have this conversation about how do you get your name out there as a speaker, as an author, and really hone into what it is that you want to be best known for.

Brad Hauck 28:14

Exactly. Thanks for tuning into the experts' journey. If you picked up some useful tips today, take a moment to subscribe and share this episode with a fellow speaker or expert in your network. It really helps us reach more people and help them. And don't forget to check out our books on Amazon, Dixie's Start with a Draft How to Easily Plan and Write a Nonfiction Book and Authority Island and my book, Microcourse Profits Build a Seven Figure Income with Bite Size Courses. Both are packed with practical tools and tips to help you grow your business faster.

We'll catch you in the next episode.

Dixie Carlton 28:45

Thanks, Brad.