Business Public Relation Essentials with Richard Kaye | Biz To Biz Podcast

Welcome to the Biz to Biz Podcast, your number one source for all business news. Hey, hey everybody, welcome to today's episode of B2B Vault, sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems. I'm your host, Allen Kopelman, and we're here today with Dr. Richard Kay, and he is the maestro of business acceleration, and we're going to be talking about public relations and promoting your business. And what are the ways to do that? Publicity and PR, how to promote yourself, promote your business. And welcome to the show, Dr. K.

Thrilled to be here to serve you, Allen.

So tell us a little bit about what you do and how you—

where do you begin with what do you do? You know what time it is. He does a lot because he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's make a distinction between PR and advertising and publicity and all that kind of stuff. PR, let's begin with it works, it works really well. What is PR? And you mentioned it earlier, sending out press releases and praying to God someone picks it up. It's a slow news day. If something comes out of the White House or, you know, there's a war someplace, whoever's getting that, it gets 86'd, it's trashed, right? That's PR. And does it work? Again, it works beautifully. What's advertising? We all know advertising. You go to the movies, you see advertisements. You drive on the freeway, you see it on television, you hear it on radio. And by the way, you can measure ROI, return on investment, on advertising. You place an ad, does revenue go up? Is it trackable? You can't track ROI on publicity. You can't on PR, public relations. What's publicity? Publicity is guaranteeing that something gets placed. And we talked about leveraging any publicity, like your daughter's on television, she has a job. So does it help her? It helps build her credibility. Publicity is about increasing your influence and credibility. You get out there, it's like you do these programs, you have credibility because you provide great service. So is that pretty good overview, Allen, of the distinctions between those things?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, pot— you know, podcasting is— and, you know, YouTube channels are definitely one of the ways people can get the word out, not just by having your own program. I also guest on other programs frequently, and that's a way to expose yourself to more people so they can learn about you and learn about your business.

Precisely, precisely. And ladies and gentlemen, first of all, or second of all, or tenth of all, thanks for tuning in and watching either all or segments. You're going to get some skills, some hard tools here. You will develop the skills on how to do your own publicity. That's what we want. We want the world to go out and say, I choose you, Allen. I know this is coming as a total shock to you. You're not the only guy doing merchant processing. You know, it's a surprise, right? How do you get people to say, I want to do what you're offering, Allen? I'm going to give you a background story. When I graduated with my doctorate in chiropractic and drove out from New York to San Diego to start a practice, there were 300 chiropractors in town. Ladies and gentlemen, we're all in crowded fields. No matter how wonderful, magnificent we may be, we're all in crowded fields. So 300 and the new kid on the block. Well, I learned about publicity. I got myself invited to be a guest on the only morning television talk show in San Diego. It's gone now. It's— it used to be called Sun-Up San Diego. Turned that into being invited back every month for about a year. Well, that was nice. Then I got myself an article in the San Diego Tribune. Way cool. Then I got an article in the Los Angeles Times. Even better. Now you say, well, that's not in San Diego. It doesn't matter. There were very few people who made the 2-hour jaunt from LA to San Diego, but it gave me credibility. And later we're going to talk about leverage. I still leverage that out because I'm talking about it. It raises your influence and credibility. Now, Allen, you've heard the expression, it's not what you know, it's who you know. And ladies and gentlemen, you've heard that. Yes.

Oh yeah. That's always, that comes down to a lot of things.

It does. Now let's take it a step further. It's who knows you. I get a phone call one day from the producer of the ABC News in San Diego. The essence of her question was, who are you? I'm seeing your name around town. I'm hearing your name. Now I got a 6:30 news segment on ABC television. That's even better. Then I get a very similar phone call from the producer of PBS. Who are you? Now I got a PBS segment about me. That's influence. That's credibility. That's publicity. Now, truth in advertising, Allen, it was so long ago I was giving people half-inch, you know, giving them VHS tapes out of stack on my office. Go give this to your neighbor. Go give this to your friend. That's what publicity is about.

Yeah, it's important, you know, like I tell people all the time, like, you know, putting— you have to put yourself out there, you know. Doesn't matter what business you're in, you know. We have to put our— you have to put yourself out there. And sometimes in the podcast we have coming out this week, I was having a discussion with somebody and it was— we were talking about You have to, you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And if you want to have, if you want to put yourself out there, you know, you're going to have to learn. Like the first few podcasts I did, probably 50 were horrible. But the person who kind of convinced, you know, I was following somebody and they said, listen, if you're going to do it, you need to write it down. You're going to commit to 100 episodes and you're going to get better. And that, you know, and I've gotten better.

So, Allen, you made a very interesting statement there. If we were to— you're in a room gathered around and you're watching someone trying to take a few steps and they stumble and they fall and everyone giggles and laughs and says, come on, you can do it. And the person gets up and tries again. They get up on their hands and knees and finally they— and they stumble and they fall. And they're giggling and everyone's giggling. I'm gonna make this a shorter story. A baby learning to walk, no one says, oh, you suck at walking, you can't do that. You keep going until you survive and thrive. And that's, it sounds like what you've done. Yeah, you sucked it, you fell and stumbled the first couple of times and then you got up and, you know, barring any physical disability or drugs, shit like that, you walk and you do it nicely. That's what I'm hearing you did. You said your first couple sucked. Ladies and gentlemen, you got to keep going. And by the way, practice doesn't make perfect. If you can't practice with coaching and mentoring and improve your skills in whatever it is, you're going to keep doing the same lousy stuff all over again. So, Allen Kopelman, you learn whether you had coaches, mentors, or you got feedback, or you watched your own shows. Say 'Oh, I can do better than that.' And that's what it is with publicity. When you send stuff out or you engage someone like us to do that, you know it can be done a better way. And that's constant and never-ending improvement. So ladies and gentlemen, just by the way, you're going to get some stuff later on. Again, you're going to learn how to get on television, you're going to learn how to get on radio, you're going to learn how to get in the media. Stick around, we got some good stuff for you.

Oh, I'm waiting. I love it. It's, you know, listen, another way to get your name out. Like I was telling you, like, I write articles in a mag— in a payments magazine. And I started off, you know, with a few submissions, and then they asked me to do a column. So I did the column last year. It's called The Green Sheet Street Smarts. And then for this year, they asked me to do it again because they really enjoyed the con— the content.

And that's it. Well, let, let's talk about publicity and magazines. This is some of the stuff we do. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening, I'm holding up the Los Angeles Tribune magazine with Nicole Kidman on the feature. We get clients on the other side. Half the magazine runs one way, half the magazine runs the other. Who's to say who's on the front of this magazine? If you're on this magazine, maybe Nicole Kidman is sharing it with you. You can't get this from PR. This is publicity. Here's another magazine I'm holding up. If you're just listening, the New York City Independent with Beyoncé on one side and one of our clients on the other, Dr. Moira Lavelle. Now, does this make her business? No, no. It says, hey, I'm in the magazine with Tom Hanks or Nicole Kidman or Beyoncé. This adds to your credibility. It's fame, if you would, by association. And fame doesn't do you anything, by the way. It's getting your face, your image, your message out to the world. This makes sense, doesn't it, Allen Kopelman?

Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, listen, everything has a cost. So you have to kind of figure out, like, what's the— not that it's a hard— you know, what the cost, and then what can you get out of it, or what can you do with it afterwards that's going to propel more business?

At the end of this show, near the end, Allen, I'm going to give your viewers, your listeners, a free segment, a short video on how to leverage any publicity they have, whether it's like your daughter being interviewed, you being in magazines. What does that get you? If you're growing your business, one of the things you want to do is let people know who you are. You know, I go back to my early days as a chiropractor. People knew my name because they kept hearing it and seeing it, not in an obnoxious way. When you're on television and radio and newspapers, they get to recognize your name. So you're going to get a gift on how to leverage, uh, 10 ways to leverage any publicity you've got. That, and that's what you're speaking about. How do you turn it into revenue? It's nice to be in the newspaper, The first time I did it, it was just a newspaper. The second time, I learned how to leverage it, and I still have reprints that I— when I talk and I do a live presentation, that I will show the article, full-color pictures. I don't practice chiropractic. I retired 20 years ago. The point is, it's leveraging. As a matter of fact, Allen Kopelman, would you and find it appropriate for me to tell you and everyone else how to get on radio, talk radio?

Sure. Let's hear about it.

Okay.

I would like— I, you know, I always wonder, like, how do people get on these, you know, radio shows? Media today is like very spread out, right? 20, 25, 30 years ago, if you got in the newspaper, it was awesome. It was nice. And I used to be a chef. And I should hang up a picture behind me of when I was a chef. And I was in the newspaper probably dozens of times. I have framed photos of newspaper articles and, you know, yeah, we'll, we'll talk about how to leverage this.

Like my saying, I was a chiropractor in, in, in the Los Angeles Times. Today we get you in the Los Angeles Tribune, which is almost equally as impressive. Let's talk about radio and, you know, how do you leverage this stuff? And you mentioned something that I often hear. So I ask a question, and it's rhetorical, but have you ever read a newspaper article about somebody or seen them on television or heard them on radio and say, "How the heck did they get there? Why not me?" Here's how. Let's talk about radio, and it's a metaphor for all of this kind of stuff. Find a radio station that you like that's got your target audience. Now, Allen, ladies and gentlemen, before we went on the air, Allen and I were talking about sports and number 22. I'm not a sports fan. I don't know who played, let alone who won last year's Super Bowl. You don't want me on a radio talk show or a podcast about sports because after I say hello, I've got nothing to say.

I get it.

So find a show that matches you. Like Allen and I here, he's an entrepreneur, I'm an entrepreneur. Ostensibly, those of you listening, you're not looking to see who's got the best batting average. You're here to learn how to grow your business. That's the gift, one of the gifts that Allen offers to you. So how do you find the shows? When I did this way back when, Allen, you're probably old enough, we had something called the Yellow Pages. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was a printed phone book. The phone book was white. The Yellow Pages were— hello, yellow— so you can tell them apart. And they listed businesses. Today it's called the internet. Find the programs you like. Listen to them. Get a flavor of what they're about. Get a feel. What does it look like to you? Can you contribute to it? And don't go to take go to give. I retired 20 years ago to serve entrepreneurs, having the time of my life because it's all about being in service. Find the show you like. Back then you had to go to the Yellow Pages to find the producer. Do not bother to pitch the host. It ain't them, folks. They're the ones making the final decision. It's got to come up through the ranks. So, and I'm talking about live radio, not podcasts and, you know, Zoom calls and things like that. I got to clear something from my screen, excuse me. There we go. Find out who their audience is, what they're about, and how you can serve them. And again, I say show up to be in service. So write a pitch. You can call them and ask for the producer because you could find that online and ask them. By the way, same thing for paid speaking gigs. If you're looking to get paid for speaking, find out what they're looking for. Don't just send everything you've got. Find out what are they looking for. If you're a match, great. If not, it's called next. And we live in a one-click society.

Next.

Pitch them. Send them an email. Tell them you're going to send them an email with what you do and how you may serve the audience. Ladies and gentlemen, quite frankly, I pitched Allen Kopelman on my being a guest. I didn't tell him how great, wonderful, magnificent, and all the things I did. I said, here's what your audience is going to get out of it. That, I would like to believe, helped you, Allen, make a decision. Yeah, this guy's got something to offer my people. That's what you want to offer.

Yeah, well, we're looking for interesting guests that are going to give business owners good ideas on how to do whatever in their business, whether it's AI today, it's publicity and PR.

Exactly, exactly. And I tell you, anytime I pitch, whether it's paid, live, or whatever it is, it's what the audience is going to go get out of it. And that's what I'm inviting you to do. Write them. Now, I have a page that I use that says who I am, what I do. It's got a short video of me in action. It's called the Speaker's Reel. It shows me— no, that's for a different project. It It's a video on what the audience is going to get and let them make a decision. Do not send them every link you've got— Twitter, YouTube— no, you want to make it easy for them to find you. Give them your website, give them your LinkedIn page because that's business. Facebook is not turning business but more social and contact information. One email, 42 links. It ain't professional.

So yeah, I have a— I actually have a website, allenkopelman.com, just for that purpose. If somebody Googles me, they find me and it tells them what I do, about the podcast, and there's some videos there, links to articles, but it's, you know, straightforward. Who is Allen?

That's exactly it. Now, the page that I send, and I sent this to Allen, if you want to see an example, it's richardkaye.com, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-K-A-Y-E.com/guest. I'm looking to be a guest. Total transparency here. You know, Allen interviewed me. I interviewed him over the internet. We didn't have a physical phone call. And he said, okay, this guy, I want him on my thing. Richardkay.com/guest. It's not a sales page. This is what I send to people if I'm looking to be a guest. Use it as a model. Build something of your own. I don't build these for people. It's not a sales page. It's just, hey, if you have me on, this is what you're going to get. Do not call them or email them or follow up the next day. Hey, did you get it? Everybody is busy. Give them plenty of time. What I do, and I can only tell you what works for me, is a week to 10 days if I haven't heard back. I'm just checking in to see how you feel about having me on as a guest, how I may serve your audience. No is a perfectly okay answer. I don't know the data, but there are a gazillion shows every single minute And if someone doesn't get back to you, it's not personal. They just— I, I don't get a response, a positive response. Some people just ignore it. It's okay because there's always someplace else that will have you on, and you're going to find the best fit. The host knows what they're seeking, and they know if you're going to be able to serve their audience. And when you get on, just be there to serve. Like, I'd like to believe you're getting value out of this. Now you know how to get on radio. Great. Now what do you do with it? It's not just a one-shot deal. It could be if that's all you do. You leverage it. Let me tell you how to leverage it. RichardKaye.com/leverage. It's, it's, it's that simple. RichardKaye.com/leverage. You're going to download or view— I think it's about a 6.5-minute video— 10 ways to leverage what you've got. I'm gonna give you a real-time example, Allen. One day I get a phone call advising me that I have been awarded the White House President's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wow, that's awesome.

That's exactly it. Your response— now, does that make me money? Not on your life. But your response says, hey, this guy's got something different. And if you're watching, that's it on the wall there. You know, it's a nice certificate and a fake gold medal, but it's, you know, it's nice. The whole goal, ladies and gentlemen, is to enhance your influence, credibility, and exposure. And there's another way to do that, and that's with a book. You, if you're like me, Allen, you get several times a week, hey, I can teach you how to write your book with AI in 3.5 seconds. Yeah. And your laughter speaks to it.

I know. I get pitched for that every, every day. Pitch for, oh, I'll edit your podcast. I'll get you 5 million followers. Do you want to write a book? Constantly.

Let's talk about what a book does. You're gonna hear this a lot. Influence, credibility, and exposure. Do not use AI to write a book, please. Most people who are educated, and I just don't mean, you know, scholastically, you can tell an AI-written book. Um, I, I, yes, I use AI for some stuff, creating headlines. It's brilliant. And when you write, says, and in conclusion, you know, AI just publish simply means make available to the public. That's all it means. So if you write a book and you go to the big houses, Random, Putnam, They're gonna ask you, what's your marketing budget? And they own you for 5 years. They own the copyright for 5 years. Can't do a thing. Allen, you and I, ladies and gentlemen, you and I can go on Amazon Kindle KDP and publish our own book. You own the copyright. You pray to God that maybe family and friends will read it and that it looks good. It's got an attractive cover. And there's no marketing. We are a hybrid publisher. We guarantee a bestselling book, but not just bestselling, number one, and not just in one, but in multiple categories. How can we do that? Because we distribute it through our workshops, programs, seminars. We invite people to speak at our events. We get people so that you have a number one book. And again, so what? And by the way, don't call me up and say, I want to sell a million books. That's not your goal. If you want to influence a million people and your book is a mechanism to do that, that's different. Again, my whole shtick since I retired— well, even when I was practicing— was about to be in service. And the book will not make you money. And you'll hear people say, a book is a business. No, it's not a business card. It's an introduction. If you want to be on radio, you want to be on television, you want to be in a podcast, and Person A has a submission and you have a submission and you have a book and it's ranked, you know, high on Amazon, that's number one bestseller, who's going to get the opportunity to go first? By the way, there are now, last week I checked, 34 million books on Amazon.

Wow, that's crazy.

How do you stand out from the crowd? I have an interview later on with a lady. She's interviewing me to see if she wants to engage us. Her book is 4.6 million on Amazon, and I say, for Cécile, it's not that bad out of 34 million. There are 4,000 books released every single day. Your job is to stand out from the crowd.

So I'm sure, I'm sure out of the 4,000, 3,900 were AI books, right?

Probably, you know, under 4 million, no one's gonna find it. You've got to get out. And that's, that's one of the things we do, Allen, is we make sure that the world knows about it. My wife, for example, she writes books. She does fairy tales.

Oh, okay.

We, we met on the internet, not a dating site. I was facilitating a breakout room and she was in the breakout room. She's from San Francisco, was living in the UK at the time. And when kids fall in love with themselves, same thing with adults, they don't go out and shoot up schools and stuff like that. That's what her books are about. And this is just one of them, The Bella Santini Chronicles. Ladies and gentlemen, if you got kids Bella Santini Chronicles, or Grandkids.

What's the age on the book?

7 to 13. Okay, very, very good. Uh, Bella Santini, they're about— it's an adventure of a girl falling in love with herself in, in the fairy realm. She wasn't selling any books. She's now a number one. She started doing business with us, then we fell in love and got married. That's a whole different story. Um, she's a bestselling author now. She speaks on stages. She's gotten to be a columnist for the Los Angeles Tribune. Can you do this? Entirely possible. How do you do that? By having the right people work for you. And Allen, I'm gonna throw this in. We do a lot of events. We just had a live event in Hollywood. We had over 200 people. Some of you know the name Lisa Nichols. Allen, does that name mean anything to you? Now she was the star of the video The Secret. She's been on Oprah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, a couple of months ago I invited her to be interviewed at one of our events. She saw what we did. She says, I'm hiring you guys. And we're having an event with her, probably happened after you're seeing this, ladies and gentlemen, so I won't tease you except to say she did a Broadway show. The president of our company is the executive producer of that show. You never know who you're going to meet. We are always seeking people to be interviewed. If you want to get in touch with me, talkaboutpublicity.com, talkaboutpublicity.com takes you to my calendar. And again, I'm going to use this as a real example. Look at how easy it is. I'm not giving you 42 ways to reach out. When you want to make someone, give someone an opportunity to contact you, make it easy for them. Talkaboutpublicity.com. We can explore if we can have you interviewed at one of our programs or come out to Hollywood again. That's a red tie, that's a dress to impress, that's— and it ain't that expensive, it's a couple hundred bucks to come to something like that. And that's going to be in December this year. So we just finished one 2 weeks ago and it's all over the press. Media, that's what you want. You want the media to focus on you. And you've gotten some tools, you've got some new skill— well, you don't have the skills yet, but you have new strategies. Exercise that muscle. It's Allen, like you were at the beginning of your podcast, you know, you said I sucked at it, and now I want to acknowledge you because you're really darn good.

Thank you. So give us, as we finish up here, tell us where— give me 3— let's have 3 actionable things. Somebody's in business and they want to do something. What's 3 actionable things that somebody can do besides call you on the phone and ask?

Yeah, get on radio. Get on radio. And by the way, that could be a, you know, a month or 6-month process, the back and forth. They got to slot you in. I just applied for a podcast yesterday. We're on at the end of July. Be patient, be persistent, but don't be a pain in the butt. As I said, if you pitch somebody and they don't get back to you, don't go, hey, what happened? I didn't hear from you. You're there to be in service. Get on radio. Same thing for television, by the way. And when you're on television, there's two places you look, either at the camera or at the host. You don't go wandering around, you know, all over the place. Get articles published. Write your best stuff. Send an example. Call people, speaking gigs, this is what I do. What are you looking for? May I be able to serve your audience? Serve. And so I said to Allen before we were live, how may I serve you and your followers? Show up, be in service, find reputable people to work with, find people, do your due diligence. There are too many people out there who have one goal in mind, and that's to take your money without serving. I just got feedback yesterday from somebody who I know. She says, I just had to sue him because he said he was going to deliver and he hasn't. Do your due diligence, reach out, learn how to serve, get your book or newspaper articles, whatever you want. Use that as credentialing to— and you'll hear this again— increase your influence, credibility, and exposure. You'll watch your business grow. Because you're out there serving people.

All right, perfect. And we're going to put all the links that, uh, Dr. Richard Kay gave us— it'll be in the notes of the podcast, plus we'll put out a blog post. We'll have all the links in there so you can access this information, which is really awesome. I really appreciate you coming on the show today. Any last words?

Yeah, when you go out into the world, one of my favorite quotes is from the Talmud, We don't see the world as it is. We see it as we are. So bypass judgment, bypass anything out there. It's a reflection of who we are. So be gentle on people.

Very good. I like that. So thank you for joining us today on B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast. You can find us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can connect with Dr. K on LinkedIn. That's where we found each other. And I appreciate you being on the show today. Everybody have a great day. Peace out. And I always say, carpe diem, seize the day. Thank you very much.