Getting Noticed In A Noisy World With Publicity Strategies That Really Work With Esther Kiss

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to bacon wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

Hey there.

Welcome back to bacon wrap business. I am Brad Costanzo and really happy for you guys to be joining me. You know, some of the feedback that I've been getting from the last recent episodes have been really great. I really appreciate you guys reaching out, asking questions and getting involved. It makes my life a lot easier, easier to come up with topics for you guys. And one of the other things that I really want to thank you for, the response has been, you know, just terrific when recently I asked you to go to baconratbusiness.com whoare you and tell me a little bit more about yourself. I've kind of been called every once in a while the guy with the golden Rolodex. I know a lot of people and I'm pretty resourceful. I've got a lot of contacts but I'm always looking for more. I'm always looking for the types of people that either offer services value in any different type of venue, whether it's business, marketing, financial, legal, you name it. It really helps for me to have a network of people that I can contact and jump in and utilize the resources. So I had this bright idea the other day to ask my listeners and say, why don't you tell me a little bit more about yourself. So I set up a little, not a long survey, but just a little questionnaire on baconratbusiness.com whoare you for you to fill out a little bit more information about, well, who you are and what you do. Do you work with clients and what are you great at and what are you looking to find more of? Because oftentimes I go to masterminds. I've got one tomorrow night for instance. And I talk to people all the time and I've got a guest that I'm going to bring on here in just a second and I'll probably ask her, who are you looking to meet? What resources are you looking for? And if I don't have anybody off the tip of my tongue, I'll oftentimes I can go into my little Rolodex and grab somebody maybe like yourself. So if you are interested in being part of this Rolodex of mine just simply head over to baconritebusiness.com whoareyou and we'll get going. So I want to thank everybody who's been doing that, all of the listeners. It's been really fun to go through and see the types of people and types of services that folks offer who are on the list. Now, without any further ado, I want to introduce a friend of mine who is joining us on the show today. Her name is Esther Kiss and Esther is the producer and the host of a very popular podcast called Born to Influence, the marketing show where she interviews highly successful entrepreneurs, where she brings on New York Times best selling authors and other thought leaders like yours truly. I was featured on it months ago and she's interviewed such lofty figures is Gary Vaynerchuk, Perry Marshall, Joe Polizi, Jay Beyer and obviously me. So when working with clients through her publicity agency, which is unlike other publicity agencies you've seen, she helps experts, coaches, consultants, authors, speakers and marketers get exposure for an extended period of time by placing them on the right media outlets. You know, if you been trying to market online, offline, anywhere, you'll, you've probably gotten that frustration with seeing how many places you can go and not sure where you should go. Well, this is one of her specialties now. These interviews go on podcasts, they go on radio shows, webinars and other presentations for TeleSummits, mastermind groups, etc. Now to help her get leads for her clients and sales for their product, service or book launch, she introduces them to a players such as the guests of Born to Influence for cross promotion and long term collaboration. That's exactly what I do here at Bacon Wrap Business and that's why I'm really fortunate to have Esther on the call today because in a lot of ways we're kind of cut from the same cloth and we handle a lot of stuff very similar when it comes to working with our guests, trying to provide value and connect the dots to provide more value for everybody. Esther, thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it's fun. So it's been a little while since I've been on your show and I was really excited to be able to come back, return the favorite and put you on the spot and dig into your past and present and future and what's going on because we're in various online message boards and mastermind groups and we talk online quite a bit and I see you doing some really remarkable things for some people but why don't you give folks a little bit of a big picture overview? I mean, I may have done a pretty decent job in the intro giving people.

Lovely job.

Thank you. You know, what's your story? Who is Ester Kiss?

Yeah, well, I'm originally from Hungary and I lived in six other countries before moving over here. I'm in California now. Lived in LA for the last seven years, and then I moved out to the Palm Desert area, Palm Springs area. So I'm literally in the desert out of nowhere, which is. I love that because, you know, I get to work from home and so I don't really have to travel at all. But to answer a little bit your question, I've been in marketing since my early 20s, and that was a consistent path that I followed until about seven years ago when I moved to la because I had this really good idea that I was going to be an actor. And so I moved here, I went to a conservatory, I finished it, got my degree, and I did a few independent films that nobody's ever heard of. But it was a very lovely experience and to be able to support myself, I was doing day trading during the early morning because LA is three hours behind New York. So I would get up really early, do my research, and then start trading in the morning and then go to school or go to auditions. And that was all very well all the way until. Until the recession hit. And then I took a really big loss. So I was like, okay, what am I going to do now? Let's go back to my roots, which is marketing. And I started coaching people, entrepreneurs on their marketing strategies. And in 2013, with a friend of mine, we launched a show Born to Influence. And every single time when I would have these fantastic people that would come to be guests on the show, really high level A players, they would always have something that they wanted to promote, whether it's a book that they have or an info product they're launching or some kind of a physical product. And so I would always ask, after we stopped the recording button, that, hey, by the way, would you like, now that you're promoting this product, would you like to be on other shows as well? And they would always say yes. So I would introduce them to other podcasters, other people that are new in the business and they just got placed in the media. And at some point it dawned on me that, well, this is a business in and of itself. So it shifted from marketing to PR about a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I've been able to witness that shift and it's been great to see. And I know PR in general is somewhat of a misunderstood field of marketing, because you know, pr, if you just saying the acronym, it could be, what was this, a press release?

Is it public relations?

Public relations, right, exactly. Is it publicity relations? Is it what is that? So, and I'm very familiar with some of the other aspects, some of the areas I'm not as versed in. But let's talk about your version of pr, because I know you have kind of a one of a kind publicity agency. So let's dig a little bit deeper on what makes you different how and some of the strategies and tactics that you use to bring not only yourself, but your clients publicity.

So really we need to look at what you consider media, because PR public relations is about being in front of the right target audience, being in the right kind of media. And my focus is online media. So it's podcast, it's telesummits, it's presentations for jv, webinars for private groups, for masterminds, things like that. And the reason for that is because when you look at traditional media, let's say you want to go on TV and you get invited as an expert to comment on something, it's fantastic for branding because you get to put those logos on your website and it's great for making a good first impression when somebody's coming to think about really working with you. But because those big outlets are serving a major kind of mass market, your message has to be dumbed down. It's very, very brief and it has to be something that's suitable for a mass market audience. So if you are, for example, a professional that is providing marketing services or some kind of very specific niche type of business, going for two minutes on TV or being published in a big magazine is not going to do much for you other than building your credibility for that. It's fantastic. But to consistently go only after those big brand names is not going to really help your business in terms of getting leads and sales. Now, on the other side of the coin, if you go after outlets that are maybe smaller in reach, but they are much, much more targeted, and you get to be in front of the right target audience for an extended period of time, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, depending on the outlet, you really get to educate your market and explain to them your methodology, your process, why is it what you have to offer, why is it the way it is so that through your educational marketing, you're able to actually bring people into your world and most of the time you can make an offer, if it's a podcast interview, most of the time, of course, it would be a free offer. So you get to build your list. If it's webinars or presentations for masterminds, then it can be a paid offer. So then you get to make offers for actual products and services directly right away. So in this way you're able to actually monetize your PR efforts almost immediately. And then the other thing that I love to do is connecting people with the right people, with the right cross promotion partners. This is part of the process that I take my clients through. So for example, one of my clients, Ryan Levesque, the author of Ask, he went on, I think we got him on 50 or 60 shows in the last few months. And what I did every time after that person said yes, I would like to interview him, I would go back and, and say, hey, by the way, he has also this program. How would you like to become an affiliate? So we're building also his affiliate base who then can help sell his product after the interview. So it works really as a two pronged approach that just helps immensely with getting more leads and sales.

Yeah, that's great. And I love how you used both of that as far as get them on the show, but then also get them to be an affiliate. I mean, a lot of, and a lot of the podcasters, a lot of other people out there, depending on their level of sophistication, they may have a lot of listeners, but they don't really know how to monetize it and they oftentimes don't think to ask, well, do you have an affiliate program? It just kind of doesn't come to the tip of their tongue. So that's great that you're proactive in asking. That is the name of Ryan's book too, right? Because you never really know until you get that. And I like the fact that you've got the background in both, you know, the marketing side and understanding direct response, but also how that applies to publicity, etc. So would it be safe to say that one of the. Although this is not the only thing you do, this, this podcast world has been an area where you've carved out a pretty nice little niche for yourself as a specialty and something that you're really, really good at, as opposed to the. The other stuff that you're probably really good at as well.

But I love working with podcasts because it's really so focused on the person that is coming on as a guest and it's Really a win, win, win for everyone because they're so educational based most of the time. I'm not talking about the comedy shows or something that is purely entertainment based, but something that is for business services. It's just. Or even if you're a fitness person or something. In the health industry, there are a lot of shows where you really get to be in front of the right target audience, but then talk to them in a way where you get to either share your story if it's a story based show, or talk your methodology and what you discovered and how it can help that audience and whether or not they want to immediately work with you, that's another question. But at least you get to bring them into your world and grow your list that way. And so my role in that is bringing people together really just finding where the win, win, win is for the audience, for the podcaster, and for the person coming on as a guest. It's fun.

Nice. So what do you think? Kind of gives you the edge with being able to set up podcast tours, as I've heard you call them, or to, to help place somebody in these places. Like, is it relationships you've got with other podcasters? Is it any other strategies that you're particularly using?

Definitely it's relationships because I've been doing the our show for over two years now and it's, I'm very involved in the podcasting community, so I got to meet a lot of people who are very friendly. It's not the kind of situation where, hey, can you please, please, please do me a favor? It's more like, oh, of course, if you're suggesting somebody, I definitely want to take a look at them. And that doesn't mean that necessarily they will interview that person, but most of the time they actually do. And it is because I got to know them long enough to really only pitch the people who are really right for that particular show.

Yeah, that's really a key. It's interesting. I interviewed a guest yesterday on the show. Now it hasn't aired yet. So as a time of we're recording this, it hasn't aired. But one of the things that we talked about was exactly this. And it was we were talking about the, you know, how to pitch podcasters, how to pitch other people to be on their show. So his specialty is actually pitching people to be on television. But he's also, you know, the topic of pitching for podcasts came up as well. And I, you know, I get pitched all the time and some of them are great pitches and some of them are really, really bad. Because you can tell that this person needs somebody like Esther.

Well, let's talk about that. What if somebody wants to be on your show? What your expectations? How should they go about it?

So the best way is to really understand. Well, let me tell you what. What you shouldn't do, you shouldn't make the pitch all about you, because I don't give a crap about you. Honestly, like, I. And this is true for everybody. We care. What's in it for us and our audience, and very much so. I mean, I may be unlike most podcasters who say I care about my audience first. I really don't. I care about me first. Anybody. Anybody who says that the opposite is lying, but I care about. Okay, would I want to sit down and have coffee with you and talk to you, period? Because we're gonna have to get on the phone for, you know, 20 minutes to an hour, whatever. Do I personally find you interesting? Do you have a message that I want to pull out of you? Because I'm not just going to go through and sit there and read a bunch of preset questions. I don't have any preset questions for any of the guests. So the first thing is like, is there anything I want to know from you? And then the second part of it is, is there anything my audience can value from you? And how specifically, if you. Come on, you know, if somebody pitches me and says, hey, Brad, I am a. I'm a marketing expert, and I'd like to be on your show because I can show small business owners how to grow their business. You lost me with that. Because it's not specific enough. Right? And it's. Why don't you tell me? Hey, Brad, I'm a marketing expert who specializes in this. And the secret to my success is that I teach people how to do step one, two, and three. Like, get something specific. Give me something meaty to kind of hook onto. So this is just one part of it, right? This is like the. If you're telling me about you, tell me about you. As it applies either to me. The other things that can be done that I hate is I hate templated emails with absolutely no personalization in them. So if you don't, like. If you mention one of my other shows, even if you didn't listen to my episode with Ryan Levesque or somebody else, pretend you did, because I'm not going to double check. I'm not going to quiz you on it. Hey, Brad, I love that you know that podcast, Stephen Key.

Oh, cool.

So you probably listen to it at least I know you took one second out of your day to customize the email template, right? And then maybe just make something a little bit conversational to where if I think you copied and pasted it. The only reason that I would say yes to somebody who copied and pasted it is if, if all of a sudden this person is somebody I already knew and they're really high profile, or you send me the link to their information and I see that like, oh crap, this, I don't know who this person is, but they're huge. And if they're marginal, then you, you know, which most people are marginal. That's average. Is there's a reason it's average. That doesn't mean that like I won't or that you can't get booked, but you just have to dial in your message and what's in it for me, the guest host a little bit better as well. You know, as well as this is another thing that gets glossed over quite a bit. So you know this as much as anybody. Podcasters, especially podcasters who are not uber successful, you know, the Tim Ferriss of the world, James Altucher, people like this who just have tons and tons, hundreds of thousands, millions of downloads. Everybody else, the number one thing a podcaster wants is publicity for their own podcast, right? So if you indicate something about your following or your list, but more importantly that be proact, don't say, and I'm, I'm willing to whatever, say and by the way, I plan on promoting this episode to my followers, to my, to my hundred thousand Facebook fans, to whatever. And you don't have to have a hundred thousand Facebook fans, but just tell me you plan on promoting this and telling your followers and your list about it because you're really. Because you would be really proud to be on my show and you'll let people know. That's a little bit of flattery, but it also tells me, hey, this person's going to help me promote my show.

So little things shows that you have business savvy, you know, that what is in it for the other person in a way that is not cheesy, but it really shows that you're actually looking to support them as well.

Bingo. Another thing you do, which I really like and, and I have done in order to get on other shows, whatever, is, you know, people like yourself, a person of influence, a connector, etc. If you let me know. Hey, by the way, Brad. Yeah, I'd love to be on your show because X, Y and Z and I plan on promoting it. By the way, at the end of the interview, if there's anybody else that I can introduce you to in my network, such as. And if you've got somebody impressive who's a friend of yours or another podcast that you've been on, if you tell me you've been on the Tim Ferriss show. And by the way, if you're interested in meeting Tim Ferriss, doesn't have to be that big, but I'm willing to make an introduction to the other people that I like. Tell me the stuff you're going to do for me and that will get you on bacon wrap business.

There you go.

If you're listening to this, folks, I've just given you several good tips. But it's interesting because this topic kind of came up yesterday and I think it's an important topic and it's not just for about my show, but anybody's show. I don't know if you got any good tips out of there for what you're doing, but I know it's always a. It's always nice when somebody gets it.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when you were talking about numbers, it reminded me also when we first launched the show. So when I was looking for guests for Born to Influence, we reached out to some really big names. Gary Vaynerchuk, Alan Weiss, people who really are. They're very, very busy legitimately. They're not going to go and waste their time on little shows unless there is something in it for them. And we reached out to them before we launched a show. So there were no numbers. I couldn't show that, hey, I have this kind of following or something like that. But we did get a few yeses from other people who already said that, yes, I'll be happy to be on the show and I'll promote it. And so based on those follower numbers and list numbers that they were able to share with us, we were able to present the pitch, which was kind of a reverse pitch to some of those bigger names that, hey, by the way, even though the show hasn't launched yet, these people already kindly offered that they will promote the show. So we are looking to get the word out initially to this number of.

You said that some of these bigger people, the way you got them to agree was how.

Yeah, that's exactly how. So I told them exactly what kind of reach it would mean for them, even though there was no way for them to check because the show hasn't launched yet at that point, because we were doing the Pre recording ahead of time. But literally I wrote to Gary V. And to Alan Weiss and I told them, among other things, this was one of the selling points that, by the way, we are looking to get the word out initially to X amount of people. I think it was like 250,000 or something like that. Because that was legitimately. How many people already said that they would promote it to their list and see, that's beautiful.

That's beautiful. Yeah. And it's. And it's amazing what you can do with the right positioning and languaging because you could even say, and this is a little secret that I've done in the past, actually not even from my podcast, I haven't had to do this as much, but I've done this for other projects where I've invited certain really big players to be interviewed for something else. And I didn't know if I was going to get them. But then when I was inviting the B level players who are still really big, when I say A level, I mean biggest of the big, and then the B, the way I phrase it is like, I've also invited A, B and C to be on the show as well, blah, blah, blah. Well, simply by saying things like I've also invited them, it kind of gets past that frontal cortex of somebody's brain and they're like, oh, well, okay. Because to them, invited and accepted kind of mean the same thing in a lot of ways. And you'd be surprised with a little bit of, you know, verbal ninjutsu, you know, what you can get out of people.

Yeah, totally.

I love that. That's great. So tell me about one of the more effective things that you have done. One of the things that's going to make my listeners and mego. Wow, that was bacon wrapped. Tell me about a big win. That was a big win, what you just said about how you launched from Xero. Tell me about another big win that maybe you've gotten for one of your clients.

Sure. Well, we talked a little bit earlier about Ryan Levesque and his book Ask became number one on the LA Times Bestseller list and then also sold out on Amazon in all books. He was number one in the category of books in general on Amazon. So not just a sub subcategory. And literally it sold out on launch. So it was really, really cool to see that. I do want to say that how it translates to sales as well, because he has a mastermind that you and I are both part of. And that doubled. It had 540 members in the Beginning when we started working together, and now it's over 1,000. These are people who are paying whatever, $100 a month recurring. So for him, it's a really nice stream of revenue. And the way it became possible to do this is not just through PR and not just through marketing, but combining the two together. For example, for Ryan, what we. For every single show that he was on, if the interview aired before the book launched, he would give away 50 physical copies of his book, free of charge, not even paying shipping and handling. Then if the interview aired after the book launched, then he would still give away the free book, but just you would have to pay for the shipping. In that way, he got so many pre orders that by the time the book actually launched, he was very well positioned to get that bestseller status. Both in the LA Times and even in a Publisher's Weekly, he was number seven, including fiction, which is really, it's a national big deal.

So you're saying. So you're saying if he did before the launch, if he had been on my show and I actually interviewed him way before the book came out. Yeah, but had he been on my show and the launch was set for like two months and the show just comes out now, but one of the offers he would make to the listeners was, yeah, if you want this, like the pre order, I'll give it to you totally free of charge.

Yes.

And it was a physical book, not just a PDF version, Correct?

Yeah. That's great. So that's obviously that's not in the budget of everybody to do, you know, to pay out for that many books, but if that's something that is a really big goal of yours to have to have a national bestseller, you know, it's part of. Part of the budget that you're doing for other people. Similar strategies at work is just doing the free book with the charging for the shipping and handling, and that works just as well. Yeah.

And even given sometimes away, just the PDF you can say look at. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. They both work tremendously well. That is awesome. So what are you working on? What's kind of the next thing right now? Is it scaling up? Is it finding new clients that you can do publicity and do things like this for?

It is. It very much is. And then also the other thing that I really became passionate about is doing a little bit more video work, content marketing, because I've done a lot of interviews with guests where they get to share their knowledge, but now that I'm able to also based on the experience of some of the successes that we have with clients. I'm really happy with sharing these strategies of what works for other people, for pr, for those who are trying to do it themselves or who are thinking about hiring a publicist because there is just so many misunderstandings around it. So I don't know if you remember a few days ago we had a conversation in Facebook in one of the groups that we are in where somebody mentioned that, oh, I thought that PR is for people who know about direct response. It's a really legitimate question because we are so conditioned that you have to measure your click through rates and you have to do the exact following and tracking everything so you know exactly how it turns into money and all that stuff. So there are a couple of things that you can do. Well, one is if you're going after publicity as a traffic strategy, you'll really set yourself up for disappointment because that's not the role of pr. Even if you were to go on Oprah or whatever, like a really, really big show, you will see a spike traffic to your website, but that doesn't immediately turn into leads and sales. So what you want to do is think of these interviews and articles and any kind of media appearance that you have is think of it as an asset that then you have for the rest of your marketing. You can use it integrated with everything else that you're doing. So for example, if you have webinars and you have an email sequence that goes out between the time the person registers and the actual webinar happens, or in the follow up sequence, you can send them the interview so that they're better prepared for the type of knowledge that you're going to impart on them. You can get it transcribed. If it's, let's say if it was a video, you can get it into an audio, then get it transcribed, make it into an article, then cut up that article, make it into little social media snippets, use things like Sniply, which is snip Lysniply. And if you share through that, even if it's somebody else's website, let's say you share, you were on Entrepreneur Fire, which is a really big show. It gets over a million downloads a month. If you were to go on that show and after that you want to share it on your Facebook, you might share it through Sniply because then you can share the link of that show. So you capitalize on the relationship that Johnny Dumas, the host of Entrepreneur on Fire, has with his audience and the brand recognition. But then as people Click through because you shared it through Sniply. There will be a little pop up that follows them where you can customize your own message. And hey, by the way, in this interview we talked about such and such. I offer this cheat sheet or this video series. Come on over, get it here or whatever message you want to put there.

Yeah, I've got Sniply. I've got an account and I almost never use it. I really need to get back into it. Do you really like it?

I love it. It's really, really fun.

Yeah, that's awesome. I've got to start using that for.

Sure and then really start running ads to it. And this is something I learned from a lady, Kim Wash Phillips. She does the social media marketing for Dan Kennedy and she taught me that she actually shares her podcast interviews and other media appearances and on Facebook and stuff and then also runs ads to it to that other person's site.

So this is when she is. When she is being interviewed.

Yeah, yeah.

You know one person who had a lot of success with that, Tommy Powers. I don't know if you know Tommy. He is a YouTube advertising expert.

Yeah, Yeah, I heard his interview on your show actually.

Cool. Yeah. So it was a really popular interview and it was a really popular topic and Tommy was smart enough to run his own ads to my show and all of. And he did it with here. This was awesome by the way. He ran his ads to my show even though the link to buy his product on my page was my affiliate link. So this was extra cool of him. He didn't have to do this. He could have easily just taken the audio and run ads to it, whatever, ask, you know, whatever. But he, he ran hit Facebook ads to. And YouTube ads probably to the. To my show where when people purchased I made half of everything. So I was making money out of nowhere. And this was great because I had spikes like even after the spike of the initial thing comes out, the way podcasts work, you know, you get your right when it comes out you your biggest spike of traffic to that episode and then it starts to die down. But as it died down, my, my, my revenue from him. My. Every time I got a notification was going up and I didn't even know he was doing this until somebody else said that Tommy is running ads to your show. I was like that's great. I wish everybody would run ads to their episode on mine.

Exactly. But that's the thing though that it just sounds like a really fun thing and a nice thing to do for another person. Like a Podcaster, but it also helps his business because it's showing him in the light of being a credible expert, being interviewed somewhere. And imagine if you put yourself in the shoes of one of your followers or somebody on your email list and they constantly see that this person is being interviewed here and then on that show and being quoted in this article and it's just constantly being in the media and then you get to share it up with them in a non annoying way. It makes a difference, especially for those who are on the fence because then they're like, oh well, maybe I really should think about this. And they're so much more likely to buy.

Yeah, that's too funny. I really should be doing that on my own. Like whenever I get interviewed. It's just. It's so easy to set up a quick Facebook ad showing whoops. That Brad Costanza was interviewed over here on Born Influence on Whatever. By the way, do you remember one of the things that I did when I was.

I do. I was gonna say you did a video press release when you were on our show.

Y. Yes. So I don't do this for everybody, but I did this for you. So my. My close friend Rob Burns, I don't know if you know Rob.

Yes.

But he owns prreach.com and PR Reach is I believe the only or one of the only. It was definitely the first video news release service out there so you could get on there and do a, you know, a traditional press release. It does go out to the press goes out to, you know, the Internet machine and it goes out all over. But they also every press release that is written, they have a really high quality video news anchor get on there and read the press release so it looks even higher quality. So I did that not only for me but kind of impress you as well because drives traffic and and publicity to Born to Influence. But it also makes me look extra cool. Now I could have been doubly cool, doubly bacon wrapped if I would have run some ads to that press release. But.

Well, now you know.

Exactly. If anybody wants to go check out PR Reach, I definitely recommend it. I' I've been a customer and a close friend of the owner Rob for a while. Rob's supposed to be on the show but we're such good friends, we keep on putting off the. When I'm gonna interview him, it's like we're gonna get beers, we're gonna go have beers tonight. Like when are we gonna do this interview? I'll throw him a bone.

When I met Him. I met him, gosh, like three months ago, something like that, in San Diego. And then the next day he drove out actually to the desert just to have lunch so that we can talk business. He's such a nice person.

One of my favorite people. I just want, I don't want to admit it in public. And now he's going to hear this episode and now he's going to want to give me a hug when he sees me. Rob, love you, buddy. So that's really cool. I like what you're talking about. So here's now we're at the time where I'd like to ask you just a handful of quick fire questions that I do not plan all these. I just kind of come up with them as I'm talking.

Sure.

So what is your. You mentioned Sniply, but I was going to say do you have any other favorite apps or programs that you typically like to use? I love. Everybody knows me as like Mr. Cool Tool of the day because I'm always like show and tell. Ah, check out this new app. Check out this program I'm using. Is there anything else besides Sniply that you really like?

Yeah, Trello. I love Trello because I can't stand spreadsheets and sometimes I have to use them. But Trello is so much more visual and I can keep track of who I pitch to whom and, and where the status of that is and who was already booked on what show. It's really, really cool. And it's kind of like post its moving post its on your walls. It's really cool.

Let me, let me back up back into your stuff because I just kind of had a thought. Are there any particular types of categories, Podcast categories? We will stick with podcasts where you really specialize or don't specialize. Like I mean I know business marketing, stuff like that. You're really tied in, etc to all that. Is there anything, are there any other areas you do like personal development? Health.

Yeah, the health and fitness. I've been getting a lot of requests for those type of placements as well recently for people who like. One of my clients, Eddie o', Keeffe, he is the founder of Inspired Wear, which is a new clothing line. And so now that he's ready to promote that, we are also looking at fitness shows as well as personal development shows because it's really good for that kind of target market to have simple tank tops and T shirts and things like that, but that have inspirational messages on them. Them.

Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, cool. So Trello I'm a big fan of that as well. Favorite book that you've read recently?

Oh, Ask. It would have to be Ask.

Oh, you can't say ask. No, you've got monetary.

Well, okay, let me just look at my bookshelf because you put recently. So.

Well, if I said your favorite book, that's like. I hate it when people ask that because I read like several books a month, so.

Yeah, shoot.

I don't know.

Totally. Well, I really like this book called Selling the Invisible.

I love that book. I read that years ago.

It's so good. It's all about how to make the intangible part of your offer, which in the case of services, it's very much all about the intangible. You have to make it somehow attractive. And it's not just about your credibility and putting on a good show when you're having a sales call, but really make it so that the person wants it.

Yeah, you're right. So who is your. Who's somebody that you would consider kind of inspirational, like a hero, but you haven't met them?

Oh, I was gonna say Jeff Moore, but he's a friend of mine, so that doesn't.

They gotta. It's gotta be somebody you would love to meet, love to sit down and have dinner with, a coffee with and tell them how much they've inspired you, business, personal, etc, but you just haven't. You just don't know him yet.

Yeah, it would have to be probably James Altucher. Although I did interview him, but I haven't met him in person yet. And he would be somebody definitely I would love to meet.

Okay, Anybody else that you haven't. That you actually have never come in contact with?

Tim Ferriss. Oh, and you know who. Ramit Sethi.

Yeah, nice. Tim Ferriss. I'm still on a mission to meet Tim. I've not met Tim yet, but he and Neil Strauss are both responsible for my very first business and my lifestyle as it is. So I am friends with Neil Strauss, but Tim I still have yet to meet, although I did pass him in a hallway one time. I just love to shake his hand and thanks for the inspiration. That's awesome though. Okay, cool. So tell me about the time, the biggest jump out of your comfort zone that you've ever taken.

Oh, it would probably. It was the time when I moved to LA because before that I lived in, you know, in six other countries, but they were all in Europe. And so this was a huge, different, huge culture shock really. And I didn't know anybody when I Moved here. Like, literally no one. I have family on the East. East coast, but that is kind of far too. That was it.

Okay, so tell me about a nut you're trying to crack in your business right now. When I say a nut you're trying to crack, I'm not talking about, well, a goal you're trying to have. Like, I want more clients or I want this. Is there anything in you in your business right now that you're either really challenged with and looking for a solution for a person, like a resource for. Maybe you need to acquire a skill that you don't have. Is there anything like that? You're just like, okay, I need to figure this out or get this handled.

Right, Definitely. And I think it's the educational part of the marketing, we talked about videos before that I'm working on right now is really preparing the person that comes to have a conversation with me to understand what they can expect. Because most people, when they think about pr, they think that they know what they want, but it's based on very much misconceptions of like, oh, it's all about the traffic, or it's all about the big brands and things like that. And they really need to understand where the value is and how you can maximize your results. And that's a very different. It's a marketing mentality more than a PR mentality. So if I could figure out a way to systematically have them get education in that before they ever come to talk to me, that'd be really cool.

Okay, that's awesome. So one of the last questions. What keeps you up at night?

Time zone differences.

I mean, is there any. Is there a. Is there anything that when you go to. When you put your head to bed that you just kind of. You know, we all have those things that they say that everybody battles a quiet, you know, battling a quiet battle of desperation. Like, everybody has that one thing that they're just. They're. They're feeling.

Yeah. I think it's really. It's about finding a way to better communicate.

Okay.

And I know it doesn't sound like it's a very at first, but it really is. It's like, how do you get that message so that people get it? I don't have to spend an hour explaining things to them because they should have that information before we talk.

Well, I think you're doing a good job right now being on your own podcast tour and doing things like this because you're getting the message out and you're getting it out in a way that. That through a conversation that people can, I think, really dial in on this. So if somebody's listening to this and they're like, esther's awesome, and Brad recommends her, and I want to explore my options on how to get more publicity for my business or personal brand, et cetera. What is the best way that they can get ahold of you or see what it's like to work with you?

Well, you can reach out to me on my website. It's borntoinfluence.com or just email me@estherborntoinfluence.com and then also, we talked about the estate assessment. Is that okay if I mention it here? Because it's really. With pr, it's. It's a matter of where you are at in your business. It doesn't necessarily work for everyone. So I created an assessment that addresses this question. How. How attractive are you at the current stage of where you're at in your business to the media? And also how likely it is that it will actually work for you. So you can go to born to influence.com assessment and answer a few questions. It's really fun. It's like a little quiz that you just say yes or no, and then based on your responses, you'll get some really, really good advice on what you can do to make it worthwhile.

Cool. I love that. All right, well, we are wrapping up, and, Esther, I want to thank you for being a guest on the show. And I want to thank every listener out there for paying close attention and understanding that the reason I do this is so that you can learn. So that I can learn. I learned a few new things. What Esther's doing here that I didn't know before we chatted. So hopefully this has been very enlightening to you. As you noticed, and I mentioned this in the first part of the episode, I asked Esther, what resource is she looking for? What kind of nut is she trying to crack in her business? And the reason I ask that is a couple reasons. I may know somebody who can help her out, I may not. But if I don't, I'm counting on you, my listeners, to help me out. That's why I created. To my knowledge, I am the only podcaster out there who's done such an innovative thing, which is saying, tell me a lot about you. I'm not asking for your email. I'm asking for your email. What you do for a living, who you serve, what you're great at, what kind of customers and clients you're looking for. I will Read every single one of these, and I will categorize them. If I really like what you do, put your website on there and I will go explore that. I am always looking to increase my reach, my Rolodex of resources, because some people, oftentimes they ask me, hey, I need somebody to do web design for me. I need somebody to manage the tech. I need a copywriter. I need a lawyer. I need a cpa. I need something like that. I need somebody who's really good at doing telephone sales. Go to baconrapbusiness.com whoare you. And this is like my own little personal. Not a job board, but people that I can reach out to. And if I know that you're on there, that means that you were. The only way you got on there is you're listening to this show, and that immediately means you're cool in my book, right? So go there, fill out the information. The other thing you can do is if you like this show, review it on itunes. Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode and subscribe to my newsletter. But also talk about it, share it on social media, and let folks know that this is the best show that you've ever listened to in your entire life and that you would probably wither up and die without it.

Love it.

Right? So, Esther, thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show, and I encourage everybody to go to borninfluence.com and check it out.

Thank you.

Thank you.