749: How To Become Your Own Publicist Overnight

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1:13Offer available for a limited time. So happy shopping. Check out an episode. Spend five minutes on a publication, seeing like what articles are recommended, seeing what gets a lot of engagement, seeing what they're sharing. You can then say, you know, I really enjoyed your piece on, I have something that back a compliment there. So I have a different point of view. Yes. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher and I am obsessed with all things, business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven figure online business.

1:52I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here. Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Do you want your life to make a bigger impact, but you don't know where to begin? Or maybe you are tired of the screaming match of social media and you want to stand out, but you just don't know how.

2:25Well, here is the one thing that you need to smash your competition. It is major media exposure. And I know just the gal to help you. Susie Moore is a former Silicon Valley sales director turned life coach and advice columnist. She's been featured on the Today Show, Oprah, Business Insider, CNN, Forbes, Time Inc., Marie Claire, and she's the resident life coach columnist for Greatest. Her work and insights have also been shared by celebrities and thought leaders, including Ariana Huffington, Chris Jenner, Sarah Blakely, just to name a few. And here is a really fun fact. She has never, ever hired a publicist, paid for any of these features, and had no inside connections when she first started out.

3:10And the best news is, is that you don't need any of those things either. She's written several books, including What If It Does Work Out? Stop Checking Your Likes and Let It Be Easy. The recurring theme amongst these bestsellers is they all help you cultivate confidence and amplify your voice, which is exactly what Susie is going to teach us to do today. In this conversation, we're going to chat about how to leverage media outlets to tell your story and grow your business in the process. If you want to dive even deeper on this topic, head to getrockstarpr.com slash Jenna to save your seat for her free class, Overnight Rockstar.

3:50In it, you're going to learn how to get noticed, how to skyrocket your reputation, and become your own publicist. That's getrockstarpr.com slash Jenna, which will be linked in the show notes too. I cannot think of anyone better to help us get our voices and our messages out into the world. So Susie Moore, welcome to the Gold Digger podcast. best. Sales super teams aren't built overnight. They require unicorn level talent, hours upon hours of training, huge bottomless budgets, and the perfect mix of impossible luck and 24-7 work. Or they just have a better sales platform like HubSpot Sales Hub.

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5:08Visit hubspot.com slash sales to stop dreaming and start selling with Sales Hub. That's hubspot.com slash sales. Today, I have an amazing guest on the show. I recently got to be with her in a room and it honestly just felt like the human form of sunshine. And I'm so excited for this conversation today and to go deeper. So Susie Moore, welcome to the podcast. Jenna, what a thrill. I'm delighted to spend this time with you. Thanks for having me. I mean, the listeners are already like, wow, she is like vitamin D in a human. Like, how is this even real? Okay, Susie, I have known you and your work for years, but getting to experience you in real life, like nothing is better than that.

5:52and I want to kind of talk about something that is just so obvious, even from the first line you just said on the show, which is confidence. You have confidence about you. That is so beautiful. It is something that I feel like is this level of warmth that invites people to bask in your glow. And have you always been that way? Like, I want to know what Susie as a little kid was like, Like, how did you get to this point of confidence in your life? Oh, well, thank you, Jenna, very much. I would say I've always been optimistic and evidence shows or research shows that we all are born with a different kind of level, a different set point of optimism.

6:34And I think that I've always been high on that scale. But, you know, working as a life coach, understanding how the mind works, choosing my thoughts, upgrading my beliefs, being intentional each morning, especially when things aren't going right in my life. I know that my superpower is I choose how I feel. I choose how my day is going to go. Not every day, right? It's not perfect, but we have so much more power than we realize as human beings. And I almost just know when my mind is going in a direction, I don't want it to. And I go, nope, I feel it. I feel the negative emotion. It's a real-time feedback loop.

7:09How genius. Let's redirect. Something else is more true. So I think that with some practice and training, it's possible for anybody. I love that. Tell me a little bit about your journey to get to where you are and where you are today. Because if somebody is listening, they're like, okay, I want to learn from this person. How did you get to where you are today? And where are you today? Well, I grew up in the UK. We moved around a lot. I had a lot of chaos when I was growing up. My father died of addiction when I was a teenager. We lived in different domestic violent shelters. I've written about a lot of this.

7:47And when I was young, having the blessing of an early challenge created a very strong desire within me. I think that this can be the blessing of maybe things not going right, or maybe you not having the start or the wishes that maybe you would if you could choose your life in the beginning. And so when I was young, I had such a strong desire to live a full life. I'll always love and respect my parents, but I just knew that their life wasn't going to be my life. And I'd see women on TV and I didn't even know it was New York, but I was like, those women in that big city with the tall buildings and their nice clothes.

8:25And I just knew that I wanted it. And so I went for it young. I got a job in the tech sector when I was 30, I was earning half a million dollars and I really enjoyed the work that I was doing, but I just knew Jenna that, you know, it wasn't my life's work and we know how precarious life is. No one knows how long we have. And I started side hustling as a life coach around the time I turned 30 and I'm nearly 40 and I loved it. And I was like, this is it, but it was a side hustle. Right. And it was like a trickle of clients here and there, tell your friends, you know, don't forget to like you know mention it to anyone you know who could use a bit of help like I was so green but I decided that if I was going to go for it if I was really going to make it happen that two things were true the first was that I wouldn't have this dream to pursue something if I didn't have the mechanics of its fulfillment within me if there's a seed in a dream there has to be a way and then I also just knew from my own life experience the more that I just talked about my story, for example, the fact that I was divorced in my twenties, the right people would want to work with me as their coach.

9:35They'd seek me out. I just tell stories even at parties, even at barbecues, even at a noodle bar line. And then I'd say, I'm a life coach, by the way, if you want any help with, you know, creating an action plan. So I just realized the more you tell stories and tell the truth, then the right people who are for you can find you. Okay. This is segwaying into this beautiful thing that you and I connect with on a deep level. And I have for the last decade said this line on my podcast so many times, and you and I so connect on this. You have to be your own publicist. And it's so funny because Susie, you'll, you'll appreciate this every day.

10:16I love to look at my Facebook memories because I was someone who, when I started as a wedding photographer, I celebrated every single thing. I celebrated every wedding I booked. I would put up a post about it. I would talk about a hundred fans over at photographs by Jenna Lee on Facebook. If there was a reason to celebrate, I was throwing the party. But in reality, it was brilliant, right? Because every single time I posted, I was reminding people here I am. Here's what I do. Here's what I love. And I look back at those posts with so much joy, but also just like so much gratitude to the version of me who was willing to show up and consistently get myself and my work in front of people, just like you at the noodle bar.

11:08I was my own publicist. Let's talk about this because there are so many people listening to this podcast who are just starting out and they're like, I will never see my name in Forbes or you will not find me in L magazine or whatever their dream is. Where do we begin? And why is this a crucial topic for every single business owner listening? I can just even hug young Jenna who's posting about her weddings, like saying, Oh my God, I got a bookie. Congrats. Yes. But you see, you know, the way that I define confidence is a willingness to be uncomfortable, right? And maybe we don't feel really comfortable all the time putting ourselves out there.

11:45That's okay. We can still decide, you know, some days to be a little more willing and being your own publicist, talking about your business, your offers, what you have to share, your story. No one's going to be more passionate about it than you. Nobody. They couldn't be, no matter how much you pay them, no matter what they want to do for you. So when I think about, you know, the media specifically, traditional media, so meeting like large websites, yes, certainly magazines, television, any form of traditional media, I know that they want regular stories from real people, just like you and me. Yeah, it's great to have your, I hit this X goal, or I now live on a yacht, or something really cool, impressive thing.

12:25But we want to hear real stories from other human beings just like us. And sometimes I think that we forget the magic that is just who we are and what we've learned. One of my favorite quotes is from the author Derek Sivers, who says, what's obvious to you is amazing to others. And so maybe you're really good at helping your picky children eat healthy food, or maybe you've gone through a lot on a fertility journey and there's just some wisdom that you have to share. Or maybe it's some fun party planning advice that you've mastered that allows you to put a party together on a budget that looks really cool.

13:01Whatever it is that you've learned and almost won in your life in terms of your own experience, it's generous to show up and share it. And I think to myself, yeah, I can post on my own platforms and I do, I do all the things, but why not throw everything at your success, give it a microphone and go to the outlets that have spent years and hundreds of millions in some cases, building audiences that need what it is that you have to share. So the way that I got started was, of course, I had my trickle of clients, which I was thrilled with, but in my cubicle in the afternoons, like waiting for five o 'clock, I would waste my time, like count down the clock, reading Marie Claire, reading Huffington Post, reading MindBodyGreen.

13:44And then I noticed that a lot of the content that they shared, seeing it through the lens of a life coach now, not just a consumer, was a lot of the types of content and topics I love to coach on. So productivity, spirituality, dealing with grief in certain ways. And I just thought, hmm, maybe there's a little hint here for me. And so one afternoon when I was meeting a friend for drinks in downtown Manhattan, when I lived in New York, she was late. I'm always early. And on my tablet, I just sent 500 words to MindBodyGreen. And it was about no is the new yes, ways to scale back your busy life. And it was because I was, you know, working full time, traveling a lot on my corporate job and then having a side hustle.

14:30And I was like, there are a few things that I'm learning. and I shared it. And two weeks later, it was live. I had an author page. I had no website, Jen. I had nothing. I was like, where do we send people to? And you're like, Oh boy. I'm like, what a missile. I got my act together quickly after that. But the article was shared nearly 4 ,000 times and it was terribly written. I mean, I'm a writer. I mean, I'm just someone who writes like I talk, just, you know, like as I'm speaking to you now, but all that matters is, do you have something of value to share? And that was January 2014. I've never stopped.

15:07This is a method I love to come back to. Initially, I just wanted one-on-one customers, right? That was my goal. But it turns out it brings you many other blessings too in ways you don't even realize when you get started. One thing that I think is so interesting about this, Susie, is that so many people right now have these huge dreams, right? Or they've been through these huge life experiences that they want to put meaning towards or to make a bigger impact. And I think one of the biggest sticking points is like, it is really hard to grow followings these days, right? It's not that easy. And so one thing I love about this is this opportunity to leverage channels that already exist, that are already creating.

15:46Let's talk a little bit about like why that method to grow, because I think it's honestly genius, but also like, how do you, we'll get into like, how do you position yourself to be a fit for those channels? So first let's talk about why leveraging other channels? Well, I mean, the market already exists. The way that I think about it is imagine if you have a lemonade stand, right? You've got two like cute young girls. If they set up a lemonade stand outside your front door, that's cool, right? Like that's anything's a win. Do the things, take the action. And you might have a few people who walk by, you might sell some cups of lemonade.

16:24Fantastic, right? You can't compare that to a Saturday at a busy field full of kids running around, sweating, playing soccer or whatever it is and setting up your lemonade stand there. Right. So do both, do whatever makes you happy, but you just know where you're going to go, where the hunger and the thirst is. And these outlets, these media outlets, one of my editors told me recently, she has to put up eight pieces a day. holy cow exactly precisely right because their job is traffic more views more eyeballs more engagement so i think if i've got a story to share or a point of view a conversation to chime into i don't have to be perfect i don't have to even be original i can just be myself then not only am i benefiting because i'm tapping into a large audience that has taken many like many years in lots of cases to build my editor's happy or producer and then most of all the audience wins because they get something that's helpful or informative, I hope, are valuable somehow that they get to access.

17:25And then that is a red carpet journal leading to your products, right? So whatever it is, say that you help people who have difficulty sleeping and you're giving some tips coming into the holidays, maybe there's disrupted travel sleep, or maybe someone's a new parent, or maybe we're dealing with different seasons and different hemispheres, and you've got some advice, when you share that generously, you're showing up, right? You're giving advice for free. In some cases you are paid, but a lot of the time you do it for free. That person receives the value of your content and then a portion of that audience are going to want to take the next step.

18:00So let them know, like let them know where to go. And it can be anything, right? It could be your book, your podcast, or one of your evergreen funnels, if that's what you have set up a one-on-one application page, whatever it is. And some people have really advanced it, you know, where they drive people. Some people are like, Hey, like, here's how you just fill out a form. So we'll email you. That's what I did when I got started. It's enough. And one thing I think too, that I didn't realize until after a few years of doing this is the power of context. So if someone finds you anyway, it's wonderful, right?

18:33Noodle Bar or whatever it may be, Facebook. But if some, so for example, if I create some content for Refinery29. And there's some girl called Kate in Chicago who's subscribed to Refinery29 for six years and reads it religiously and gets their newsletters and follows them on Instagram. And she sees my story, whatever it is I'm talking about, say it's New Year's resolutions, whatever. To Kate, I am Refinery29. So the trust is built immediately, which also shortens a sales cycle for someone to work with you. wow. When we were young, we dreamed of castles and fairy tales. And as we grow up, those dreams might shift into building something real, like starting a business.

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20:15Look, I've become kind of a systems nerd and anything that gives me more space in my day, I'm all in. And a reliable connection is a huge part of that because when the internet lags or cuts out, everything pauses and suddenly the simplest tasks take forever. I learned really early on that dependable internet, it's not a luxury, it is a must. Whether you're a content creator like me, a restaurant owner, or running a busy dry cleaning business, you need that steady connection to support your team and your clients. That's why I'm excited to share a solution for my fellow business owners. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all types connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services, all with connectivity solutions built for your budget.

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21:40It really does make a difference. If you've ever been to my website even it's like as seen on and it's like if all of these sources think this person is awesome they must be awesome right it's just how our brain connects the dots and i think so many people especially in this world where it feels like there is just so many options having those pieces of credibility that can separate you could be yes all the difference in the world oh my jen i'm so happy you brought this up because you're right. You take that logo, so to speak, it's in your bio forever. Say you're on the Today Show once, that's in your bio forevermore, however long you want it there.

22:21And look, I don't make the rules, right? But the way that it does work, like you just said, is you are elevated in the eyes of the world, right? So you may or may not be the best life coach, astrologer, dermatologist, whatever it may be. But if there are a group or someone selecting, you know, who should I work with? Who should I hire? All else being pretty equal, we will always just lean towards whoever has the biggest trust factor with that credibility. That's why people, right, put those logos everywhere. If you even go to a physical office and there's media, you'll see it all over the walls.

22:54It's like, you made the right choice. You're in the right place. And that authority pays off in the short term, in the long term. And I always think to myself too, you know, what comes up when someone Googles you, right? So it's your website, your social handles. Great. But everyone has, well, not everyone, but most people after a certain stage of business have those things set up. So why not give it a huge boost? Like why not put like a circle of diamonds around it and have as seen in Cosmo, if that's where your audience are, or in Forbes or in Business Insider. Why would you deprive yourself of the ease of that?

23:30Like, let it be easy for someone to, to want to lean in and work with you. Yes. Oh my gosh. Don't even get us started on the nitty gritty of search engine optimization and all of the SEO benefits of this. But so here's what I want to dive into Susie, because there are probably people that we have intrigued, right? We are selling this because it's important. I mean, it's so important and it's often overlooked. If somebody is listening to this and they're like, I legitimately have nothing to offer. I don't have a big T trauma story or I don't have this super interesting origin story. Like how do you even begin in uncovering what would be interesting to these outlets or to the press?

24:10Oh, great question. Well, this actually does come up a lot. And I can tell you that I've never met anybody ever, ever who's got the interest to, to become more visible, who hasn't got potentially a hundred stories within them. Sometimes I'm like, give me a napkin. Like, okay, just tell me, give me five minutes of context. In the noodle bar line, Susie is doing this. Yes, right. Let's go. But when you think about it, most people have no idea how interesting their lives are. Right. The fact that you live where you live and run your business from home, that's fascinating. Right. You know, just say someone has relocated and made friends as an adult.

24:48We need that, right? There's an epidemic of loneliness that we're hearing about again and again. I was just reading this morning, I think it was on Refinery29, about someone who was diagnosed with ADHD. She's taking medication. It's affecting her sex life. And she's asking questions about that. And I'm like, these are all things we want to know about. We want to hear from real people. And we think, oh, that's basic. Oh, that's not interesting. I, it's almost like I want to lovingly shake someone and go, no, your life, like what you've experienced, you don't have to have had some big, big, terrible thing happening in your life.

25:24Although if you're willing to share that, in my opinion, wonderful. But what about co-workers who are gossipy where you step out of it? Or what about a situation where maybe you're upgrading your look and you're testing some elegant looks? What was the outcome? I mean, it's really unlimited, the stories that live. Sometimes we almost just need the space to feel creative and an understanding of other stories and how other people do it. And you can even just have fun online playing around, looking at some media outlets and see how simple and completely unoriginal the content is. Oh my gosh. Yesterday I got an alert and it was like, this is the one thing dentists will not do or something.

26:05And I was like, I have to know. And I was like, this is so dumb. But then I was thinking about it and I'm like, oh, I could actually use a headline like that. The one thing I would never do again in my business or things like that. I am assuming, Susie, that it would be helpful for a listener to go to some of their favorite publications and just look at what topics are trending or what they're curious about or clicking on because that might maybe help them uncover some ideas. Oh my gosh. Yes. And then even just think the stories that you share with your clients or advice that you give to your clients or customers.