201 – Why Wait? Put Yourself in the Spotlight with Amanda Berlin

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.

around the time that we're recording this,

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.