#54: Jason Feifer Editor & Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine: How To Begin To Build A Personal Brand

Come on this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.

I'm ready for my close up.

Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited you're here today. It has been a crazy week. As you know, I launched my first ever mentoring program May 1. I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know how I had priced it. I'm a big fan of and I really believe Marketplace determines pricing. So for me, I'm just going to share with you what my thoughts were. Stepping in yet again to a business model I had no experience with. Stepping into really a new business. I thought to myself, okay, number one, I want to deliver an excellent product, which I always want to and I'm sure you always want to as well. But I thought I mentored people in corporate America and you know, for 20 years, I know I can do it. I don't know what it looks like in this space. I don't know what the time commitment is. I don't know what the value add has to be. The curriculum, the one on one, the pricing. And I really didn't have a lot of time to market because I decided to do this two weeks before launch. As a result of COVID my speaking engagements were all canceled. I have learned so much in the last week. It's today's one week since my program started as I'm recording this and it's just so crazy how much has happened. So I want to share it with you. Okay. I'm finally gonna have my marketing done for my website next week. So I went to market without any marketing, without a website and it was just crazy. I'm super proud of the way that I did it. I think the reason I was able to do it is because of my brand that I've created on LinkedIn over the past four years, my expertise in business and my testimonials. Those are really, I think, the core fundamentals as to why people trusted me and knew that if they were going to sign up for this ambiguous program with me based off a DM or an email, that they were going to get value. And I just, I believe in delivering and over delivering value on expectations. Okay, so here's where we are. Super exciting stuff, guys. I mean, it's just kind of crazy. This is why you need to just pull the rip cord and jump in even when you're not ready. And speed to market will always be critical. I just asked myself if I know I can help people and I'm not doing it. I know I need a new revenue stream to replace my speaking engagements. Why not just pull the rip cord and go? And I'm so glad I did. Okay, so here's how I did it. I have a confidence video course which is already created, it lives online and my costs are essentially fixed on that because it's just time, you know, setting somebody up as an end user on this. So, so I had that. I have my PDFs, my 30 day plans and programs, I have automated email systems set up. So I had a lot of the inner working set up on what I would want to give to someone. However, I didn't know how much one on one time I needed to give people. I do have more time now that I'm stuck at home all day long and I'm not traveling. So I said I'll just figure it out. I'd rather over deliver. Well, I found out that I was over delivering and I had set up one weekly, one on one meeting a week with each individual in addition to one group weekly meeting which has been the best part about the whole entire event so far. I'm so excited about it. Here's my findings, here's what I want to share. I undervalued my time, I over committed myself ad nauseam and I under priced myself in the marketplace. How did I learn this? Well, I learned it by doing it wrong. And this is, you know, I go back to there's three errors in my book Confidence Creator. If I had gone more slowly and taken more, you know, rereads of my book, would they have been fixed? Yes. But I don't care. It's fine that there's three small flaws in there, you know, and I challenge anyone to find them. I found them. But here's the thing, people aren't going to notice. And when you lead with your heart and doing what's right and bringing your best self to market, good things will happen. And I live my life like that as an entrepreneur now. You know, it wasn't that way by the way, in corporate America. It was all about don't make mistakes and Heather, don't let us down and don't fail at this. And now I just, I lead knowing that the fail or the pivot or the issue or the roadblock is all gonna lead me to the right place and I'll figure it out eventually. I have total confidence in myself and I want you to have that confidence in you too. Show up as the real you. Do the right thing, that next right thing and things are gonna work out okay. So two of the people in my program have expertise in coaching and both of them explained to me my price point was too low. I undervalued myself and I way over committed on one on one time. Here's what I I've learned in week one. I'm so busy, it's overwhelming. It's been causing me a lot of anxiety and the thing that's sucking my time up is that one on one time. So I'm revamping my program for June. Still going to offer amazing value, increasing my price point to be more in line with market expectations and what other people are charging. And I'm cutting back on the one on one time. That's going to free up a lot of my time so I can get organized, follow up and execute and be more in control of my business again. What I've done this week has been ridiculous. It's just been out of control. Okay. So live and learn, make improvements, adjust along the way. What's been really shocking to me is one of the the biggest things is the team weekly meeting is really the most powerful venue event of the entire program. Not only are my teammates getting to know each other, support each other and cheer each other on in the chat section on the Zoom meeting, it's so cool to see, but people are showing up as their real selves, sharing how they built confidence. This week one person shared that she had to write her bio out. She's doing this huge presentation next week and we were working on it and she had to write her own bio out for the meeting and it gave her this sense of confidence, stepping outside of herself and looking at her expertise and looking at all she had achieved and she felt so proud. So that's a great challenge for everyone right now is go ahead and write down your bio, write down your highlight reel updated on LinkedIn and step into who you are. Shine that light because when you do, you boost your confidence. You also put yourself in the game to be recognized for all that greatness inside of you. So definitely do that. Another woman shared I have this unique value proposition challenge I offer to everyone that I work with, which is essentially reach out to 10 people in your world and ask them what is unique, valuable and different about you that they can help shed some light on for you to understand about yourself. It's such a great exercise. I love it and I always save the responses I get because it's going to make you feel so special, so good about who you are, and you might actually learn something that you thought was just like a normal trait or skill is really special and so valued and you didn't know it. So one of my teammates had that experience this week and, and shared with all of us how it uplifted her. Another person on my team, we worked on her job interviewing skills, we did some dry runs and she got the job. So that was huge. Another woman, I'm helping her get ready for this big presentation. And it turns out she didn't really know that much about PowerPoint, which, sadly, I worked for a toxic company in corporate America that had zero resources. So I had to teach myself everything. While I hated it when I was there, the fact that I didn't have robust resources, wow, does that pay off now? I said to her, oh my Gosh, shoot that PowerPoint over to me. I'm going to do a couple things. It took me 10 minutes to animate everything, animate the transitions, have things fly in, fade out. You know, it took me no time at all to turn her presentation from a solid B into an A because I had to do those things for myself for my entire career. So it was so cool to see all these skills that I developed along the way in corporate America that I thought nothing of now that I can put to work for other people and really help them, and it doesn't take me long at all. So it's so cool to see how we're all coming together. Another teammate of mine suggested we we create a private LinkedIn group so that the conversations can carry over from that team meeting to a private, special space. And we did that. I had never created a private LinkedIn group, so I'm having all these firsts. It's so exciting. And now I've gotta say, all right, I've gotta start marketing for my June program and filling that pipeline up. Well, one of my teammates on a one on one meeting this week said to me, heather, this guy, he's a CEO of a company, super smart individual. And he said, I went ahead and prepared an Excel spreadsheet for you and outlaid what your projections are on revenue, on what you should be charging. You need to raise your rates. He gave me some comparisons on other groups he's been in where he had spent a lot more and received much less, and how I should renew a portion of the team each month and add new players each month at a higher price point. It was so insightful and great to see that Excel spreadsheet and help me with forecasting as accounting and Excel spreadsheets are not my favorite part of any business. It was great to see him jump in to help out and help guide me. And it's just been such a cool experience thus far. One week in, how many amazing things have happened. I have two different people who are launching their own companies and I'm playing a role in that. And it's just, what an exciting time for me. And it's crazy. This would have never happened if it wasn't for COVID 19. That is really surreal to me. And I'll tell you, I'm not gonna let this portion of my business go when things, quote unquote, get back to normal. Okay, so fast forward. I was working a lot with Harvard in the past few months and doing some guest professor opportunities. And a professor from Harvard came to me and said, saw your program, I wanna partner with you. Cause I've been talking a lot about my program online and on LinkedIn specifically. And he said, I think you and I should do a really high end program, $10,000 a month, where you and I work together only for two high level executives to get them to the next level in sales and business. And I said yes. Now do I need more work on my plate? No. But there's once in a lifetime opportunities that come along. And when you can work in conjunction with a Harvard professor to deliver value for people and enter into a new business, why not try it, right? So I'm home. I'm going to jump in and do this. I'm actually working on marketing for that right now, so. So I'm taking a lot on, but it's super exciting because it's all new. So if you're not reinventing yourself right now, please look at the chaos I have going on in my life. Look at how I have no idea. But I jump in and I'm so grateful I did and I do. It keeps paying off. Okay, so that's what's happening on the mentoring program and Harvard side. Now flip to. I believe I mentioned to you that I started pivoting my keynote business to a virtual speaking business. And I gave a virtual speech this week. It went unbelievable. I got so many DMS after and of course I asked for a review and recommendation of my work, which was stellar. Put it on my website immediately. I'm now creating a virtual page on my website to really market the virtual product. In contrast to the on site product, which is different. I charge different now when it comes to charging. I didn't know what to do. I just got hired for another Virtual speech. I, I still don't know. I'm finding my way and what the market will bear for virtual speeches. Fast forward to this morning. I woke up. A huge company emailed me, actually connected me to me through LinkedIn and then to my website. I have a contact me page on my website. If you don't have a personal website, definitely look at investing and creating one does not cost that much, but it's worthwhile for your brand, your business. Anyhow, so I get this DM from this huge company saying that they'd like to hire me for a virtual speech speech in June and if I could talk, they'd like to speak to me. So immediately I replied back after, as soon as I get off my morning meeting call, I'm happy to do it. Jumped on a call with this huge company who I had pitched for an in person speaking engagement last year and never heard back from them. Which you know, that happens all the time, it's fine. And also one thing to be aware of, large companies have multitudes of different divisions and there's great news here, right? So that's multitudes of great opportunity. Once you get your foot in the door and do well for one segment, they can refer you, you know, within the brand and within the organization so that you can get a bunch of different speaking engagements across many different sectors of their business. Okay, so I'm on the phone with this woman, it's going great. It's really apparent that I'm a good fit for her and her brand and what they're looking to achieve. And she says, I've just got to ask Heather, I don't know if we can afford you. So I share with her my on site keynote speaker fee, which is $15,000. And she said, okay, but what are you charging for virtual? And I just told her the truth. I said, I gotta be honest with you, I really don't know. I'm finding my way. And I don't wanna price myself out of your event because I am new to this. However, I will guarantee you I will over deliver on, you know, whatever dollar amount we agree upon. I've kind of just been asking, you know, what budget people have available at this point. Cause I'm finding my way. I don't know what the price point is. And she said, well, can you tell what's the one that you just did? I got paid $2,000. And she said, oh my gosh, you are so undervaluing yourself. And I said really? Tell me what you guys pay. And this is a huge company. What do you pay for virtual speeches? She said our budget is 5 to $8,000 of virtual speech. That was really eye opening. And here's my point to this. If you're fishing in the wrong pool, you're never going to find someone who has that allotment and can afford that amount of. When people come to me sometimes online, I really want to help and I want to get involved. And you know, I do care. I really do care. And it builds your testimonials and your experience and expertise. Because a virtual speaker is different than an on site speaker. Truly, there is a difference because I've seen some very good ones and some not so good ones. So that's a reason why I was willing to kind of cut down on my fees. Because I wanted the testimonials, I wanted the experience, I wanted that feedback for myself on, you know, really knowing I could charge more. And I do feel that now I'm at that spot where I can charge more. But it was really eye opening to hear. When you fish with the bigger companies, the really large brands, they're going to have really large budgets. And when you deal with some of these smaller associations, they're not going to have those budgets. So don't get in the mindset that there's just one and done. It's only this small dollar amount. That's all that's out there. That is not the case. There are large companies out there with large budgets. There are companies out there hiring right now. One of my teammates doubled her income on this new position she just got. So don't fall victim to this mentality that everything is bad out there, everyone's getting laid off. Yes, there is tremendous layoffs happening right now, and that is horrible. However, there is tremendous potential and opportunity out there too. So don't turn a blind eye to one just because the other one can seem so consuming. I am in fact, raising my rates. I'm raising my rates on my mentoring program, I'm raising my rates on my virtual speaking. And I'm so excited to be learning so much during this time. I hope that you are learning too. And I'm so excited to get into this next conversation, which is really going to be around how you can build your personal brand now, how you can start getting featured in media and how you can take yourself to the next level. So hang tight. We'll be right back. Meet a different guest each week and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. Jason Pfeiffer is the editor in Chief of Entrepreneur magazine, host of three podcasts, Pessimist Archive, a history show about why people resist new things, hush Money, about the way money makes life awkward, and Problem Solvers, about entrepreneurs solving unexpected problems in their business. He's also been an editor at Men's Health, Fast Company, Maxim, and Boston Magazine. So there was no one better than Jason to have come on and answer all of the questions I've been getting about how to get exposure in media. Jason, thanks for being here.

Oh, you bet. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, for sure.

So if you can give us a little bit of insight specifically into Entrepreneur Magazine, as I have had so many of my listeners reaching out now that we're all in quarantine, everyone's trying to find ways. How can I launch my personal brand? How can I grow my personal brand? How can I establish myself an expert? And people are really struggling where before they were busy with work and not thinking about these things. How can they dive in now and really make a mark for themselves?

Oh, I think that now is an amazing time to dive in and make a mark for yourself. Probably the best time, honestly speaking. And the reason for that is because digital engagement, way way up, Desire for good information, huge. Right now, we are seeing enormous spikes in interest in engagement on our stuff at Entrepreneur, and I see it on my own personal stuff. People want trustworthy information. They want people that they can connect to. And this is a moment, honestly, an amazing moment for you to step up and serve people and be somebody for people. And so the first thing that I would do if I were somebody thinking about this, and we can talk about how to get press separately from the thing that I'm about to say, because I think that they're somewhat different things. But you have to know if you're going to put yourself out and serve an audience, the number one thing that you need to know is who is your audience? Like, you need to. I know that that sounds so basic and simple, but I see so many people launch online magazines, develop some kind of social media thing, launch a podcast, and it goes nowhere. Did you know? And this is. This number is from maybe about six months ago, it's probably even more now, but that there are 750,000 podcasts in the Apple Podcasts ecosystem, and less than 20% of them have been updated in the past six months. You know what happened to all the rest? They didn't have an audience and nobody was listening. And then the creator gave up. You have to identify who are you serving? How are you serving them in a way in which nobody else is. What can you do be for people? You know, when I put stuff out there for myself, for my own, you know, quote unquote personal brand, I'm always thinking about how am I valuable to those people? They don't care about me. Why would they care about me? What they care about is what I have to offer them. You have to always be putting it through that filter.

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But Jason, it's really hard. I launched my personal brand four years ago while I was still in corporate America. I didn't know who my audience was. I just knew that I had expertise in sales and sales leadership and I thought it was something that I could do to serve others. To share what I had learned, how to get to the C suite and how to do things that I knew a lot of people hadn't done, but I didn't know. At first I thought just women would want to hear my message. Turns out my audience is 50% male. But I didn't learn these things until a year or two years in as I saw the feedbacks and the DMs and the requests for information. So how does someone who's just starting out try to understand who their audience is?

Oh sure, you'll never have it perfect at the opening and what you did there is exactly right. You listened to, you learned, you watched the data and you adjusted along the way. You should always do that. Reid Hoffman, the co founder of LinkedIn has this great phrase. He says, if you're not embarrassed by your first product launch, then you launched too late. The idea being that you should get something out there when it's imperfect so that you can learn from it. But when you get something out there, you have to have some kind of thesis. You have to know who you're for. And I would suggest that something you did that you clearly internalized it, you hadn't. You maybe weren't able to articulate it at the time when you did this, but you had narrowed down to knowing that you had a specific thing to offer and an idea of the kind of people that would receive it. So you weren't trying to be something to everybody, because if you're something to everybody, then you're nothing to nobody. And so you went narrow. You stuck to what you knew, and you knew that there was value to that. Here's a way. If you don't have that idea in your head, something that you can do right now is start listening for when people ask you questions. What do people want to know from you? Because that will tell you something. What it'll tell you is what they think your value is to them. So, for example, for me, I noticed as soon as I became editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine that people were always asking me some version of the same question. And that was, what are the qualities of successful entrepreneurs? That's what they kept asking me. And I thought about it, and I was like, oh, of course. The reason they're asking me that is because they think, and they're right. I'm the guy who's always talking to tons of entrepreneurs. So I can be the pattern matcher. I can see what's consistent through all these people. So they think that my value to them is telling them what successful entrepreneurs do. So I said, great, that is my mission. Now I can understand that. And then once I spent enough time thinking about that and refining some answers, and I realized that the primary answer is they embrace change. That's the thing that successful entrepreneurs do, is they embrace change. So then I thought, well, okay, how do they embrace change? Can I come up with specific ways that they embrace change? Lessons to draw out from that? And then once I did that, I was able to build all these things on top of it. I was able to build a talk. Like when people hired me to speak at their conferences. I primarily give this one talk about how to embrace change. Podcasts very oriented around how to embrace change. This is something that now, because I was listening to my audience, I Had some idea of the thing that I was targeting at the beginning, and then I drew in the feedback, and then I earnestly responded to it. I was able to further refine what it is that I had to offer.

Well, this is so interesting, given the time that we're in. This concept of embracing change and really, you know, owning that, that is. That's a unique skill and talent, which I think many people struggle with. But you're saying the people that you're dealing with really thrive in that circumstance?

Oh, yeah, they absolutely do. I was thinking about this last night. I was trying to write a column, but it was 9pm and my kid got me up at 5, and so my brain was fried. But I was sitting there looking at the computer and I had this realization, which was that entrepreneurs are dealing with this challenge in a particularly constructive way. The people that I talk to are optimistic. They're saying this is a moment of opportunity. This is something where I can build, I can refine, I can see what things people need and I can grow. And you know why they're able to do that? I think my thesis is because if you have gotten into the world of entrepreneurship, then you have already internalized that things will go wrong. Like, if you already have that in you, it's almost like its own kind of vaccine. You know, you put the virus in your system and you build the antibodies, and that's functionally what a vaccine is. If you put into your body the idea that things will go wrong, then when they do go wrong, you're not that surprised by it. You're already kind of thinking about how to overcome it. And yes, what's happening now is wrong in so many completely overwhelming ways, but it's still at its heart, things are going wrong. And that means that there are solutions. I think that one of the core values of an entrepreneur and the core values of anybody, by the way, I just should define entrepreneur because, you know, a lot of your audience doesn't think of themselves as entrepreneurs. Step back and think this. My definition of entrepreneur is someone who makes things happen for themselves. You don't have to have started your own business. You don't even have to have a side hustle. If you are a person who has a vision and you work towards that, then I think that you are functionally an entrepreneur. You should embrace that term. So I'm talking about you. And I think that one of the key things that an entrepreneur can do is that they look at what's happening, they look at what they're doing, and they're totally okay knowing that what worked today may not work tomorrow. And that means that they have to abandon what worked today and figure out what's going to work tomorrow. And that is not as scary as it sounds. Because if you're building something and it was working and then it stopped working, you have a lot of data, you have a lot of information that will tell you what people want now, because you're on the front line of that change, which means. Means that you are better positioned than anybody else to shift with that change. You just have to be open to it.

Would you also agree with this idea that even if you're in corporate America, you still are an entrepreneur because you are looking at launching a personal brand, or you already have launched a personal brand and now you're in the situation at home where you're starting to think, is there a way for me to generate revenue from home and through my computer?

Yes, without question. I mean, there are. You could be an entrepreneur in so many ways if you're working in corporate America. A term that I've heard is intrapreneur. You're basically an entrepreneur inside of an organization, but you can also be an entrepreneur with your own thing. I think that everybody should be building things that they own. And that doesn't have to necessarily be a company that they own, but it could be an identity that they own. Right. If you go out on social media and you start to mean something to people, well, then you own that in a way that you don't own anything else at your job. I have this idea of work, I call it work, your next job. But here's what it is. And I think that this goes to that thing that you were just saying about you work at corporate America. You figure out something on your own. Now is a great time to do it. Okay? At any one time. Now, BC before coronavirus, AC after coronavirus, you have two sets of opportunities in front of you. Opportunity set A are all the things that people are asking you to do. If you work in corporate America, you got a lot of tasks, you have a boss. There's all these expectations. You're doing things. Opportunities. Opportunity set B are all the things that are available to you that nobody's asking you to do, but they're there for the taking. They could be there for the taking at your job, they could be there for the taking. Somewhere else, you could be building something on social media that's just yours. It's available to you. Nobody's asking you to do it, but if you do it you will prepare yourself for greater success. I always. I believe so strongly that the most important stuff is in opportunity Set B. That's how I've built my career. Those podcasts that you listed off in my intro, nobody asked me to do that. I just started doing it, and now I have these podcasts and they make me money and they build my personal brand. And they also taught me how to speak on mic in this way in which other people like you want to have me on their podcasts. That all happened because I just started doing something that nobody was asking you to do. Now is a perfect time. Nobody's asking you to do a lot of things. You've got the time to do it, so start doing it.

And so how would you suggest somebody goes about launching that personal brand?

So first, I would take stock of what you have to offer. You know, you think about, what are people interested in? What role can you play? Do you serve as some kind of provider of information or wisdom in your own personal network that you can. You can see, this is how I could have value at scale. And then I would think, how can I produce that in a repeatable way? What can you do that's going to be able to connect with people and be something that people return to because it fits into their lives? And then. And this is going to sound crazy, but I think that once you let it digest, it will sound less scary than it is. The second is going to come out of my mouth, but here it comes. Turn yourself into a character. So think about how would you simplify yourself down to elements that fit very neatly into other people's lives. All this stuff that you just heard from me for the last however long I've been talking, these are parts of my character, right? It's a character named Jason Pfeiffer that I play. It's not all of me. It's part of me. These are genuine thoughts that I think, and this is genuine way in which I've produced my work and thought about my career. But, right, you didn't bring me on your podcast to listen to, like, all of me. I could waste your time rambling about my kids and, you know, all this crap. And I'm like, but that's not what people want. They don't want that, right? They want a version of me that is simplified so that it does the thing that any media property does, which is that it has a mixture of predictability and surprise. Predictability means people are coming to me or to any magazine or to you or to anything because they Know, generally speaking, what they're getting. They know how it fits into their world. If people pick up Entrepreneur magazine and they open up the COVID and it's actually Seventeen magazine, bad surprise. Like, they don't want that, right? Like, that's not what they wanted. They want the predictability, but they want surprise in that. They want to hear new things. They want to be shaken. They want to have a new perspective. So predictability and surprise. You get that by thinking of yourself as something that is definable enough to people that you can deliver that thing over and over again. I mean, that's what you do on your podcast, and that's what I do on my social media. You have an understanding of the thing that your audience wants, and you have given them the slice of you that is most potently delivering on that thing. So think about that. And that should make it less scary to go out and be a personal brand, because I think a lot of people are afraid, oh, who's going to care about me? Who's gonna care about my life? My kids? I have to put all my stuff on social. No, you don't. Nobody wants that, so don't worry about it. It's so much easier and simpler when you think, no, no, they just want the part of me that is most useful to them. So think about that and think about ways to articulate that. Yeah, you could try with a podcast, but it's probably easier to try with Instagram. What's a thing that you could produce over and over again that would be valuable to people? For me, for example, I realized, you know, a lot of people are putting inspirational quotes in their posts on Instagram, and that's fine, and people like that, but that feels like it's a little bit of a. I could just follow along. It doesn't feel that unique. And also I feel like if I did that, it should have something that is filtered through the way that I present myself. I present myself as very approachable, accessible. I respond to all DMs. I create things in a very raw way because I want people to be like, oh, yeah, he has a cool job, but he's like a real guy. And so I started with notebooks. I started writing these phrases that I came up with in my crappy handwriting in notebooks and then just photographing my hand holding the notebook. People love it. You know what it's called? It's called a franchise. I made a little franchise, a repeatable concept that can scale infinitely. And that's what I was doing. So think about that how can you distill yourself down to something kind of simple and repeatable that's useful to people, that's really coming from you, but isn't all of you, and then offer it over and over again.

I love that idea of the franchise and get so smart. And I haven't come up with that yet, but I totally appreciate you putting that idea in my mind. One of the things that, for me, I found challenging was when I first launched my brand, you know, I went and did a big photo shoot. I invested all this money because I thought that's what you have to do. I mean, significant amount of money. And only to find out, here we are four years later. I. I've completely revamped my brand, my website, three different times in four years. The messaging, the content, the look and feel. I mean, I've gone through so many evolutions, and one of the things that I want people to know that I guess I didn't know. I thought I had to have it nailed that first time, but I really had no idea what I was doing. Now I know today it's gonna evolve even more so moving forward. And I'm banking on that. I'm banking on the change. I'm banking on failing, like we were talking about earlier. So when you start becoming more fluid with it, it's much less scary because it isn't this black or white concept. It's going to work or I'm going to fail and it's done. But it's more. This is all part of the process and the evolution. And I try things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. And I don't necessarily know why.

That's absolutely right. That's the way to do it. That's perfect. You know, what you just described, I mean, it sounds complicated, especially when you're like, it's personal brand, there's pivoting. And what you just described is very simple. You were having a conversation. You were having a conversation with your audience. You started in one place and you guys both moved and evolved and you were listening and you were engaging, and that means that you saw where they were going and so you shifted with it. You said, here's how I can continue to be most relevant, can even be more relevant to these people, because I'm open to it and I'm having a conversation. I mean, this is the thing that anybody should be doing who's producing literally anything. I mean, if you work in corporate America, if your company is successful, it's having a conversation with its consumer Right. It's consumer obsessed and it's constantly evolving in the direction that they need to go. And the companies that fail are the ones that stopped listening, that stopped evolving, and that did this thing that brands and companies will do, which is that they become 100% invested in refining and making most efficient the thing that they're already doing. You think about it, this is going to sound like it's totally different from you talking about your personal brand, but it's not. It's the same thing. You think about. Why did Blockbuster fail? Right. You know, the story is like, oh, they didn't see it coming. Netflix came in first with DVDs, mailed, and then was streaming. And Blockbuster just didn't see it coming. No, no, no, they saw. I mean, there were a lot of smart people working at Blockbuster. They saw it coming. The problem was that Blockbuster did the thing that organizations tend to do, which is that they stopped innovating and they started focusing entirely, structuring themselves entirely for efficiency. Efficiency at doing the thing that they were already doing. And that meant that they were only focused on how to make those stores work. The entire corporate infrastructure, the entire incentive system was driven towards how to make those stores work. So now somebody at the top or somebody at the bottom, or maybe everybody in between was like, oh, no, the entire model for how people are consuming entertainment is changing. And they couldn't change that company because the entire thing was built on a foundation that was un, unchangeable. That is how you spell certain death. And so what you are describing is you were describing a nimble operation, an operation that's willing to reinvent itself, that's willing to say, oh, well, I was this thing, but now I think I need to be also a little bit of that thing. And I see where my audience is going and I see that that's an opportunity for me to serve them. And you're going to, you're going to be in, to quote Reid Hoffman for a second time, permanent beta. You're going to be in permanent beta. You're always, always, always in evolution. And that's what we need to do. And you do that at your job and you do that as a personal brand, and you can do that everywhere in between. That's what you need to do.

So it's so interesting, given the time that we're in right now, because I'm grateful that I had evolved my business over the past two years to have book sales that happen virtually, have a course that, that sold virtually online, have a podcast that lives online. I can do all of these things and generate revenue and income from my home. However, I sadly was living in a world where my primary revenue generator was speaking events on site, where I would appear on site at events. And what I've learned over the past few weeks is that business model is completely broken essentially for at least this year. And what I need to do is find a way to pivot that business. And I will tell you, I had a complete and total meltdown the other day, realizing yet again I'm starting over as a rookie. I need to learn all new platforms, I need all new contacts, all these VCs that are starting these new companies around virtual entertainment and event entertainment online. I need to start over at ground zero again. I need to find a unique way to create, to convey my message. Now that I can't jump around on a stage, how can I connect like that through the computer? And I got really sad about it. And I know that a lot of people share this feeling when you're 45 years old and you have 25 plus years experience and expertise in something and you're at the top of your game, suddenly crashing down and going back to ground zero. It's a hard hit to take.

Yeah. You know, I've had to go through a similar process myself. When this first started, I stepped back and I thought, oh crap, like I, I was built for a different world. I also jump around on stage and make, make a good amount of money doing it. And I was telling these stories of limitless opportunity and these entrepreneurs who are doing these things and in Pessimists archive, telling these, these, these innovation stories and railing against people who can't change in a time of bounty. And now I'm like, does anybody want that? Does anybody want me? And that sounded terrifying and scary. And then I realized, well, okay, the thing that I say over and over again is that people need to change. The fortunate position that I'm in that I've been in is that since I've said that, I haven't actually needed to change, but now I have to do the thing that I keep telling everybody that they need to do. You can't have a message and not live it. So I thought, well, okay, what do people want from me now? And the answer I came to by talking to lots of people is that although we are now in extremely uncertain times, people still want that core thing that I started with at the very beginning, which now just has to express itself in a completely different way. Right. Like, it's like you go back to Basics. What is the core value that you have? Because you say you're jumping around on stage and that's great, but that's not. Your core value, isn't jumping around on stage. Your core value is the message that you were then drilling down and bringing to life by jumping around on stage. You can't confuse the thing with the form. This is a problem that people have across time is confusing the thing with the form. This is a crazy way of thinking about it, but just stay with me here because this is really valuable way of thinking about the world. So, okay, when people talk about technology, I'm going to bring this back to the human level. But when people talk about technology and they talk about the changes in technology and we're, you know, we're afraid of this, that, you know, people say, oh, my kids, my kids are on Snapchat and they're texting, and that means that they don't know how to have conversations with their friends anymore. Screen time is terrible, right? That's confusing the thing with the form. So what is the thing with the form? The thing is a core part of us or a core value that we need, that we love, that we live with, that's embedded deeply inside of us. And the form is just the way that it feels or looks for a particular period of time or for a particular generation. So at one point, community looked like bowling leagues. Now there's that book, Bowling Alone. Bowling leagues were the form, but community was the thing. Now, we got rid of bowling leagues. Did we get rid of community? No. Now, community could be Snapchat, it could be Zoom, it could be texting, it could be a million different things. We live in a digital world, and digitally, native young people are going to be building their community on digital tools. That doesn't mean that community disappeared. But if you're a generation older than them, you're going to look at the way that they relate to their peers and you're going to say, oh, no, they don't have community. No, no, they have community. You've confused the thing with the force. And so when you are worried that because you can't get on stage and jump around and share your message that people aren't going to be interested in you. You're confusing the thing with the forum. The thing is your message. The thing is the thing that people are taking from you, that's most valuable. The forum just happens to be jumping around on stage. But if you can just come up with a different form, a different way of thinking about how you're presenting the core value that you have, then you're able to stay with people. So I think the core the thing for me, and I go back to that thing that people were asking me, what are the things that people are doing to be successful? Now what they're really asking isn't like a list of anecdotes. They're looking for insights. They're looking for me to say this is what people are doing. This is the way that successful people are thinking. This is the way in which you can think your way through this problem. That's what they wanted from me. And so I was doing that originally in a world that function normally and now I just have to do it in a world that functions abnormally. But my core value is still the same and I can't run around on stage anymore. But that's fine because nobody's expecting me to because if I got onto an auditorium stage, nobody would be there to watch me. So we're gonna do it on Instagram and we're gonna do it in LinkedIn and that's great. Once you realize that, once you realize that you have that you are not the product of like the surface level thing that people are engaging with, but you're actually the product of this very core thing that lots of surface level things just happen to flow from, then you realize that you just need to stick to basics and pivot a little bit and understand that the thing that you have is still valuable. You just need to talk about it differently and you need to meet people where they are now.

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So thank you for that clarity on that because it really resonates with me. I know I only have so much time with you today because you have about 17 different jobs. So one of the key things that I really want to share that I'm asked all the time is how do I get media? And I know you know I've learned how to pitch myself. I leverage social media, I have a verified account on Instagram and I have some different key things that work for me and happy to share those with everyone listening. But I really want to hear from you because you're the one that's picking the people and I'm sure you're inundated with people like us Requesting to be featured.

Oh, am I inundated? Yes. I mean, in the time that we had this conversation, you know, there's 30 more emails in my inbox of people who are looking for press. Okay. So there's a lot to say here. I'll give you the kind of big takeaway points. Number one, I think people don't necessarily understand how media is produced. You know, it's interesting. We all consume media, we all read magazines, watch tv, whatever, but we don't really understand. If you're not in it, you don't understand how it's produced. And so I get a lot of people reach out to me. I would say the majority of people who reach out to me speak to me as if I am a service provider. Right. As if my job is to give them press. How do I get a story in your magazine? I would like a story in your magazine. Right. Like, they're talking to me like they're ordering a hamburger. And that's. That's a misunderstanding of my job.

Right.

And, like. And that's not. I don't say that to be defensive. I say that because if you are going to reach out to literally anybody in business, you need to understand how they think and what they do. So, you know, you don't contact Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, powerful venture capitalist in tech, and you're like, I would like some money. You know, like, you know, that's not how you do it because that's not how they work. Right. You have to understand what people are looking for and how they think. So the important thing to know is that I don't serve. And I'm going to say. When I say I now, I'm going to mean all journalists. I am not here to promote you. I am here to serve my audience. So you have to talk to me about the value that you bring to my audience. I am not here to serve you. So that means that when somebody reaches out to me and they're successful, it's because they have spent a lot of time understanding the audience that I serve and the kinds of stories that I tell them and the way that I tell them.

Them.

Entrepreneur. Every publication tells stories in a different way. And entrepreneur, by way of example, is especially. I mean, in normal times right now, we're, like, doing all this service stuff about how to. How to, like, survive this crazy time. But, you know, like, in normal days, we're telling stories of really creative problem solving. I want to tell stories of how people solved problems and get inside of their heads so that people can read these stories and see how smart people think and calibrate their way of thinking to creative problem solving. So give you an example of how a pitch almost went wrong and then went really, really right. This woman, her name is Joelle, she reaches out to me about a butter dish called Buttery. She makes a butter dish. And clever thing about the butter dish is that it's a butter dish on a hinge, right? So instead of like a little tray and then a top, and you, like, lift the top off, it's on a hinge, so you flip it open. Why is that valuable? That's valuable because it turns out you don't actually need to refrigerate your butter. You can leave your butter out, it can get nice and soft, and you can spread it more easily. But the problem with nice soft butter is that if it's in a butter dish where you lift the top, the top will inevitably bump into the butter and then you've got butter everywhere. So the hinge solves that problem because you know exactly where the hinge where, like, the butter is opening and closing. Great. Very clever. Nice, fun. She solved a problem for people. But that's not the kind of problem solving that I'm talking about, because every business solves something problem in the world. That's why it exists, right? So I'm not going to write about her butter dish, but that was only the first, like two sentences. Then she told me this. She said that when she was trying to develop, when she was working to develop Buttery, the butter dish, she wanted to do some market research. She wanted to do a bunch of surveys and get people to tell her important things like how much would they pay for this? What kind of colors would they want this in? And so she went to a company and she said, how much would it cost for you to do this research? And they said, $10,000. And you know what? She didn't have $10,000. So she was not sure how to do this research. And then one day, Joelle was in an airport, and she was flying somewhere for whatever reason, and she's looking around. And again, pre coronavirus world, you're in an airport, and she's looking around, and she realizes that airports are full of people who have absolutely nothing better to do than answer questions about butter dishes. Nothing better to do. And in fact, bonus, you could start at gate one, and by the time you get to gate eight, gate one is full of new people. And bonus number two, you can show up at the airport Whenever you want. So you could, you could conceivably buy the cheapest one way flight out of there, right, for less than $100 and then show up at 6am and stay there all day. Nobody cares if you get on the, on the plane. You could be at the airport all day. And so she just started doing her market research herself at airports by doing this. And that's how she created Buttery. Now that is a story for us that's brilliant because that's problem solving in the way that I love problem solving. She was a consumer of the magazine. She saw the kinds of stories that we were doing and she told it to me. And one other really big takeaway from that story is she figured out what actually made her unique. Because the thing is that when people reach out for press, they oftentimes don't actually present the thing about them that is most distinctive.

Right.

We all think of ourselves as distinctive in some way. And I would challenge you. Like, here's a thought experiment you can do right now. I ask you, what makes you distinctive? Whatever your answer is in your head right now, throw it away. Wrong answer. I'm just telling you. Wrong answer. Right. Like what makes me distinctive? I'm a. I mean, these are like things that I get in my inbox all the time. I'm a teenage entrepreneur and I started this thing. I'm a mom and I started this thing. I have a rags to riches story. These are great. These are great. Congratulations. But this doesn't make you unique because I have an inbox full of people who are telling me rags to riches stories. An inbox full of them. So that's not your distinguishing factor. Your distinguishing factor is something else. And it's different per publication. So when you get to know the publication, you get to know what your distinguishing factor is for them. For me, Joelle, her distinguishing factor was this really creative way in which she did market research. Now that's not going to be her distinguishing factor if she reaches out to food and wine, but it is her distinguishing factor for entrepreneur. And because she got to know what the publication does and then thought about her own story and figured out the thing that really sets her apart. The thing that I'm not hearing a million times in my inbox. And it was really valuable to my readers. It was an instant.

Yes, that's such a good story. And I love that she came up with that idea. That was brilliant and such a good use of her time. Because I, I've been stuck in many airports in my life and never Thought about surveying the people that are sitting around with nothing to do. So kudos to you.

I know. It's so good. It's so good. And you know, I mean, like, and what's, what's so. But what's also so great about it is. And this is what makes such a perfect story for me, I can tell that story, and boy, do I tell that story a lot. I can tell that story in an auditorium with a thousand people and everybody from, you know, countless different industries, they all laugh and they all say, that's so smart. Right? It's a universal. It has nothing to do with butter dishes. It's a universal idea. And that's what I love.

It's so good. So you just need to do your homework, you know, understand the audience, understand the publication and find what it is about you that connects with that audience and is unique, different than what everybody else is pushing.

That's right. And offer one other thing. Sometimes you were not the story. You're just, you're not. I'm sorry, you're not the story. Like you're going to pitch and you're going to want that profile of you with the big splashy photo and you're not going to get. Get it for whatever reason, but doesn't mean you can't be part of the story because you, I guarantee it, by being on the ground in whatever industry you're in, whatever it is that you do, you know more about your world than the journalist who you're reaching out to. I guarantee it. Because journalists, most of them, their backgrounds are journalism. They didn't work in your industry, they're writing about your industry. They didn't work work in your industry. So you have an insight about some interesting trend or something that's happening that is going to be really relevant to the publication. And if you are the one who brings it to them, then they might write about it and they will include you. They'll probably make you the lead because you were the one that brought it to them. And that's a way, that's a really great way in. Think of yourself as a resource for journalists. Right. Like this is. This goes back to that shift that I was saying. A journalist is not. They're not a service provider.

So.

But if you can provide a service to them, then you have just kind of built your. You've just kind of like built your ship on the way into their publication.

Love it. And I never thought about that one either. So thank you. All right. I know that I'm on my deadline for you right now. How can everyone find you? Find your podcast and connect with you?

Yeah, so I will. I know there's a. I have a lot of junk. So let me. I'll just simplify it to this. If you're interested in change, in how change happens and why people resist change, and these are lessons that we're all going to need going forward, because we are in a moment of extreme change, then please check out my podcast called Pessimists Archive. Pessimists Archive. We look back at the moment when things that today we think of as completely commonplace were actually new and scary. Everything in your world was new and scary. At some point, things that you can't possibly imagine seemed scary. Teddy bears, novels, chess, coffee. People have been trying to ban Coffee for 500 years. This is the stuff that forms the foundation of our world and yet was at one point new and scary. And if you understand why things were new and scary back then, then you can understand why today's new and scary isn't so new and scary. So check that out. Pessimists Archive. And then you know, I'm on Instagram at. Hey, Pfeiffer. I'm very active on Instagram, very active on LinkedIn. Jason Pfeiffer. Or you go to jasonfeifer.com or where all my stuff is.

All right, well, thank you so much for your time and your insights today. Very, very helpful, Jason. Appreciate it.

Oh, hey, thank you. This is so fun.

All right, hang tight. We'll be right back. I asked you to try to find your passion. I hope you like meeting Jason. As much as I love sitting down with him, he is a great guy, really smart guy, and obviously accomplished so much. He and I have worked together on another podcast and it's just been great getting to know know him. If you're not following him yet, please do and heed his advice because he definitely gave us great advice. It makes me think back to four and a half years ago. I launched my personal brand for the first time. Posting online, creating a website and trying to get press was super, super hard. You know, I've hired PR teams over the last four and a half years. I've done it myself. I had one of my team AT members in my mentoring program came to me and wanted to ask, should I spend $3,000 a month, Heather, hiring a podcasting marketing team that's going to get me placed on different podcasts? And I said, heck no. Three grand a month, number one, you could get a PR team for that, which is going to get you a heck of a lot more than just podcasts. And number two, you know, get some experience going on podcasts to start dming people, reaching out as to why you're going to bring value to different podcasts hosts. You know, what you're going to do to promote their brand and promote their show, how you can help them. You'll start getting featured on different podcasts and then get really strategic about what are the podcasts you want to go on that are the right fit for your brand, your product, you know, your book, your expertise? And let's make that list. Let's find out who the hosts are. Let's start finding out where the contact here link is, how you know, let's put together basically either a reel or a sizzle reel or a PDF on you, why you, how you're going to add value. And let's start pitching. That doesn't cost anything, right? You can do that yourself. That's a great place to start if you're looking to get on podcasts. But you need to really put yourself in the shoes of that podcast host. Why you and why would they want to bring you on? How are you going to benefit them and their audience? That's really, really critical. I have people ready out to me sometimes. Heather, I want to come on your show because I'm great and I'm this and I'm that and it just goes right in the trash, you know, listen, I know the people I want on my show and I'm targeting them. When people come to me, they have to show what value they're going to bring me, my audience and how they're going to help grow the show. Otherwise, I'm not interested. So really put yourself in the other person's shoes. Okay, so I've been getting a lot of messages lately about what happened when I got fired, since so many people are getting furloughed and fired right now. And I want to share some key steps that you can implement in your life, not only if you're fired, but really just being in Covid right now. So here's a few things. Number one, when I got fired, the first thing I did is I posted about it on social media. And I know some people say that's crazy, but to me, I thought, if no one knows I've been fired, then guess what? No one's going to offer me an opportunity. So I posted. After 14 years of continuous advancement, I have been fired. And it hurts. And if I've ever touched you in any way, I really need to hear from you today. And a lot of opportunity came to me from that post. And what I learned is convert the opportunity in the moment. Don't wait and say, oh, I'll get back to that person in a few weeks and take them up on their offer. No, that person will have moved on. So when Froggy from the Elvis Durant show tweeted at me, heather, I'd love to help you. Let me know how I tweeted back, yeah, get me on the Elvis show. And he did. And I went to New York and I got on the show and I was on with Elvis. And halfway through the interview, he said to me, well, obviously you're writing a book. And I said, well, obviously. But what was interesting is I wasn't. I had thought about it, but I wasn't. And he somehow transferred his confidence and conviction in that I should be writing a book. To me, I took that on and I googled on that flight home, how do you write a book? And it was as simple as you need to be disciplined and write X amount of hours a day, which I did. And then you need to hire an editor who's light years ahead of you. The editor I hired had written 19 books and I had written zero. So I wrote for a couple of months, five hours a day. I believe it was three or five hours a day. Then I hired an editor who had written 19 books, and before you know it, I had a rough draft of my book. We over complicate things so much. It's about moving, taking action, and believing in yourself. And I did those things and it really worked out for me. Then I had a product to sell. Then I googled what is the best way to sell books? And it said, go on podcasts and speak. And I started dialing every company I knew, hey, I'd love to come here and speak for you about my new book that just came out, Confidence Creator, about how to create confidence in the workplace. It allow for innovation, collaboration, improved environment and culture at work. And so people would say, yes. And I wasn't charging because I was looking for a way to move my book because I was out doing that. That started a domino effect of me speaking all over the country. And finally when I called a company, they said, sure, what's your speaker fee? And I had to research, speaker fee, what is that? And I found out this is a multibillion dollar business where gary Vaynerchuk makes $200,000 a speech. And I could be charging for this. So I started small and I think I charged. I Don't know, three or four thousand dollars, the first paid speech. And then ultimately getting up to 15,000, which is what I was getting in corporate America, you know, for corporate America speech up until Covid occurred. And it was so eye opening to me that I wasn't even aware that was a business or an opportunity. And I only figured it out because I jumped into it. So these things happen as a result of taking action. And then I started pitching myself for podcasts and going on small podcasts at first. Really that first year, I went on a number of small shows. And then I asked for a favorite from one of my friends in media if they could help start landing me on some bigger ones. And that friend landed me on the Lady Gang, which was huge for me, for my brand, for my book. They had this massive audience, millions of listeners. And once you land a bigger show, the opportunity for you to go on other bigger shows is more present because they see, oh, if they wanted her, she must really be a great guest. And then you leverage that, that opportunity for the next one. So it really is a domino effect. And it all starts with taking action. So no matter where you are right now, if you've been laid off, or if you're just working from home or if you're fearful you could be laid off, start the pivot now. Start taking action. Because you never know where it's going to lead you. And I'm so excited that it's led me right here today with you, hoping that you're taking action and creating confidence in yourself. Because I want you to know I am right here with you. We're doing it together. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.