How the Unemployable can get their 7 Figure small business noticed - Part 2

Excellent. Thank you, Jim. Let me, uh, let me pull myself back in here. Um, really good stuff. Um, and I think there's so much to unpack there with the, with the Speak PR framework that you have. Um, a couple things that I wanted to unpack a little bit more, Jim, that you kind of went into. Um, you know, you talked about the when and how important it is to think about when content gets sent. Because you're right. You know, we create content and it's like we get so excited because the content is done. We want to get it out there right away. And sometimes you have to be a little bit patient. What are some steps people can take, some tools people can use to determine when the optimal time to send content is?

I think first is common sense, right? Common sense. So I think that first of all, it's about thinking who the avatar is, who's going to receive it. And so I think, you know, it's about saying, well, if it's a student that's going to university, for example, I do some work for a university, a UK university in China. We need to send information at certain times of the year when those students are looking to study overseas. So that's a seasonal when, right? And then obviously we've got holidays and so on. That's another when. So I think looking at just common sense, what are the life patterns of people? Are they driving? Is it a weekend? And then there are analytics that show, for example, I use Zoho. As a platform, and that will allow me to auto-schedule according to when people are most likely to open my emails. For example, so Zoho with the newsletter, I can choose by time zone, but also by when they're most likely to open it. I think probably, I'm sure HubSpot has the same. So I would say common sense first though, Jared, you know, applies, and then you can use some technology, but don't rely on the technology just to do it for you.

Yeah. You know, I've used Zoho before and that tool is really helpful because not a lot of email marketing programs that I've used have that, but basically just, just to unpack that. And especially if you have a global audience, I think this is important. So instead of just setting like, okay, I'm going to send this email out at 10 o'clock Eastern time, it would go out at 10 o'clock Eastern or go out at 10 o'clock in the morning to everybody in their own time zone. So that instead of like, okay, it's 10 Eastern here, but then it's, you know, in Australia, it's a different time. That's very helpful to make sure people get it at the right time of day when you want them to get it.

And, you know, for things like press releases, for example, that's absolutely key because we know that Tuesdays and Thursdays are optimal days. Monday, the journalists just get through everything. Tuesday, they've got time to think. Wednesday, Thursday, they're making the story. Friday, they're filing, right? So, you know, each of the different audiences have got their own particular need. And the other point about that, Jared, is The timing also dictates the platform they're gonna receive it on, right? So if you're gonna send information out when people are commuting, right, between 7:30 and 8, obviously they're gonna have a mobile phone and maybe on a train or in the, or in a car, right? So audio is great, but if they're at the desk, they probably put the phone to one side and then they've got the big screen, you know? So we also need to just think which platform is gonna be most appropriate to deliver the content. It may all be Twitter, but they may interact with it on a different device. And now what we've seen is that Google now does location-based search for mobile as well as for desktop, right? They're bifurcating. So that's also very interesting. Yeah.

One other question I wanted to ask you about, Jim, you know, you had that interesting graphic up there, you know, and you talked about how it's not always ideal to go to one hero influencer. But instead find lots of people who were able to be influenced. And this, I think for some people might be a bit of a paradigm shift or different than what they expect. 'Cause you think, oh, if I can find a big influencer who is big, especially among my target audience, that seems like it would be good to do. And so now I'm curious, you know, what are the benefits and drawbacks of finding an influencer if that influencer does have some pull with your audience? And the second part of the question is then how do you go about finding the people who are able to be influenced? Because it seems like more of a challenge to find a whole bunch of different smaller people who can be influenced instead of just finding this one hero influencer.

Yeah. And just to clarify, smaller doesn't mean they're shorter in any way. The, I think, you know, I'll just tell you a story. A friend of mine or a client of mine has just paid a lot of money to an influencer to be seen drinking tea out of a mug that he makes. And he, and they sold 3 mugs as a result, right? But actually his target audience are other shops that buy his mugs, right? And so the shop owners aren't influenced by this person drinking tea because the shop owner is interested in margin, stock cycles, payment terms. influencer drinking a cup of tea. So one is that sometimes we go for an influencer without thinking who the audience is first. That's the first thing to do, right?

So we just see like, oh, million followers, let me get them instead of really thinking how relevant. Okay.

Makes sense. And the second point is that because that person is an influencer for one particular aspect of life, let's say cosmetics, it doesn't mean the people that follow them for cosmetics believe that they know about finance. So the shop owners aren't influenced by this person drinking tea because the shop owner is interested in margin, stock cycles, payment terms. So one is that sometimes we go for an influencer without thinking who the audience is first. That's the first thing to do, right?

So we just see like, oh, a million followers, let me get them instead of really thinking how relevant.

Okay.

Makes sense.

And the second point is that because that person is an influencer for one particular aspect of life, let's say cosmetics, it doesn't mean the people that follow them for cosmetics believe that they know about finance or they know about cars. So they can be influential for one particular domain, but not necessarily for other domains. So you may find that, for example, in the case of mugs, you may find that someone who has a very successful wholesale distribution business who says you can make the best margins with these mugs could be a much better person because to your second point, the person who that influencer knows are the people that you want to sell to, right? They're the trades. So sometimes we have influencers, but the people in their in their influence community and not necessarily the people that you need to sell to. The final point, if I may, is that in China, there are people with lots and lots of influencers, but they're not real followers. And so what we've also seen is people have padded out their following, right? So does that answer that? So I think that, so to your other point, which is the harder part, is where do you find them? What I've been working on with this client in the mugs business is doing the value chain. So, Jared, looking at who else do I know that buys what I want to sell and that has in a community other people that are like them. This is the whole concept of social proof. Social proof doesn't mean necessarily that they want to wear the same makeup. It could be they want to buy the same electric car or they want to maybe have the same franchise opportunities. So that's why the avatar is so important. So then you can find them. For example, if I carry on with the analogy of the cups, trade associations, there are retail associations that sell to his particular customer group. So he's much better off talking to those people who actually have other people who are buying for the same reasons as that influencer. Does that answer that? Right.

That makes sense. That makes sense. One other question, you know, you had the quadrant, um, where the x-axis I think was, you know, how interesting is the content and then how frequently is the content going out there? I think it was the, the x-axis was, you know, how interesting is the content, right? Is it dull or is it innovative? And it strikes me that having self-awareness here of whether you're, where your content is on that x-axis is important. You know, so if you're putting out dull content, but you think your content is really innovative, Well, that's not going to be a good thing and vice versa. What signals should people be looking for to know where they are as far as that goes? Like to know where their content is on that scale of being interesting or not?

If no one's sharing and no one's liking, that is your response, right? I mean, a bit like a standup comedian. If no one's laughing at your gags, you know, it's probably not that funny material. I think what I would like to just share on that is that the number one problem that I find for clients is they say, I don't know what else to say about myself. And remember under the Speak PR I talked about under the storifying, the personalization, the paradigm shift is it's not about you. It's not about you, right? So I work with one client, they have a big engineering company, and she said, I keep putting pictures of turbines. On the internet and no one likes them, right? And no one's following me. And I said, well, how interesting is that? She said, well, I guess if you like turbines, you know, but I said, but where are the customers and where are the people inside the company? She then went back and what she found, Jared, was that the origination of this company was in saving soldiers in the First World War because the tanks used to overheat. And so what happened was that they developed some fins on the engines that cooled down the engine. So then she started a whole narrative around, oh, actually our business, the story is about saving lives because when engines break down, people can't do their work. So then she went into the field, their factories in Brazil and customers in Africa, and she started to get this really rich content. from people in field using the product. So the paradigm shift, hopefully for people, is the PR isn't about you. It's about what you do for others, right? And if we look at Apple as an example, they are one of the great examples because what Apple does is even in the pictures on the billboards here in the UK, the picture on the phone is a picture taken by an Apple user, not by Apple. So there's the example if you need it, that actually even the big companies are saying, Tech's not about us. It's not about the tech. It's how you use it. And so if people listening to this go, actually, you know what? I could ask 5 customers. What actually happens then, Jared, is if you ask 5 customers to tell you what they're doing, what happens is they share it with their network, right? Actually, they love to be covered. They love to get the recognition themselves that they're important. And that is where you start to get this network effect because they say, you know, this is about me. I want to share this with other people. Does that make sense?

Totally. I think what you just said is golden. And I think it's a mindset shift that when content creators make it, they find that what they're producing resonates so much more.

Yes. And then someone, Kelly said here, this ties in beautifully, creating content for 7 figures. Oh yeah, that's right. Biggest trouble is time. Okay. So I think that one— oh, sorry, Jared. It's your show, isn't it? Sorry. I shouldn't ask.

No, no, no. This is, this is our show. It is our show. Yeah. No, no. Let's get to Kelly's question. Yeah. 'Cause she said, even if I have access to good content and a calendar for posting, it all feels so overwhelming. Any time-saving tips, what to automate, what to outsource?

Yeah. So I think a couple of things. One is if you start to think about this isn't your job to create all your own content. But you're creating a platform for your staff and your customers and your partners to share their story of how you impact them, right? If you, so if you change that mind shift mindset from I've gotta do it all to how do other people do it? Now, Apple is the best example. They hold a developer conference, right? And then everybody talks about what Apple's gonna do next. One of the things to do is to have your customers and your partners and your users in which, and your staff together, either together or in separate clusters, and start to ask them to originate content for you, right? You can give them frameworks. You could tell them what we're doing and you can give them the channels as well to do it. So for example, partners often want to sell to the same people that you do. So how can you partner up? So one is thinking about content as a collaborative exercise, Kelly, rather than just you generate yourself. The next is technology. Technology is our friend. There are so many great tools out there. One is called Jarvis.ai. So you can actually use that for a PR-contributed article. If you look at video creation, Lumen5, for example, which you're familiar with, Gerard, I'm sure. Do you know Lumen5?

Yeah.

As a story there, Lumen5, I created some videos with my sister around the impact of light on wellbeing. She's a luminologist and we wanted to share the message of how light can impact children during lockdown. And we went to some studios, they said £10,000, we'll charge you, right? I happened to be tinkering with Lumen5 because I love all the AI because my PR business does PR for tech companies. In half an hour, I've made an explainer video. Fast forward, we made 5 explainer videos. We've had 2 million views on these explainer videos, 2 million views, and it cost us $80 a month because you put in the keywords and it automatically finds for you images. Okay. So the same exists for creating audiograms. There are tools like Repurpose under Uh, under amplification, there's repurpose.ai. There's a new one called Descript, which is fabulous for doing audio and video. I'm using that. So yeah, absolutely. So summarize, think, Kelly, that you've got people that can create content for you and with you, and that you're the curator. The other one I just want to share, because not many people think of this, your staff and your team are a great source of content. So there's a platform out of the UK called mo.work, for example. And what they do is they have a platform where people within the company can give gifts and share like rewards, and that content can be used for social media. So for example, birthday cake gifts given in, you know, at the office, that's a video, that's a picture. mo.work, and there are other tools like it, enable you to Take that content and amplify it because actually you want to show you've got happy staff. It's better to let the staff show they're happy because on platforms like Glassdoor, this is where it comes out. So collaborate, use technology, and get everybody to really be part of your curation. Your job is to curate just as I created a book, Gerard. I created a book, but I've curated 50 articles. And I used a platform called Dabble Writer. Have you heard of Dabble Writer?

No, that one I haven't heard of.

So it's an online collaboration tool. And this is the third part is to outsource. So I have a VA in the Philippines. I take the podcast, it goes to a transcript. One VA makes it into an article. Another VA loads it into Dabble Writer, and then I just do the editing. And then we export that through Upwork to someone in the Ukraine to do the page layout. Okay. So curation, or if you like collective creation, some AI tools and then outsource. Is that okay? Does that, hopefully that's helpful, Kelly.

No, 100%. And I think Kelly hit on the one thing that I wanted to mention, which is, you know, a lot of people listening to this are going to be one-person businesses, small solo businesses. And so You know, so the idea of collaborating with a team or with employees, that may not resonate quite as much because you may not have a team or employees, but you know, what Kelly said here is important. You know, I'm a business of one, but now I'm thinking I can work with several complementary businesses and we can share our perspectives or stories on others' posts. Absolutely. This is also the benefit of building a community. Because when you have a community of folks, now you can share their stories. Your community can start creating content that you can share. And so you can do it that way. So both of these ideas really work well.

And the way to look at this is, who's the customer you're aiming at? Because that customer or customer's profile will have many, many vendors. I partner with advertising agencies, SEO agencies, and my book, I have people in there from all the different disciplines. I have people doing auto signatures. I have people doing video graphics. We're all talking about communication, but different aspects. So Kelly, find out who's also selling to the same audience as you, but selling a different service, and then you can group up and it's fantastic, right? So I hope that helps because I'm a one-man army as well.

Yeah.

I did have teams in Singapore, China, and India, and I thought I'm spending more time managing people than Making money. So that's why I love your sentiment figure small, because I've been really listening to all of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Now we see the downside to being quote unquote just an attendee. Kelly's nodding her head and none of us can see, but at least she put it in the chat.

So, I know she's not nodding her head sleeping because—

Yeah, no, she's nodding her head, not nodding. Well, Jim, this was awesome. Really great insight here. And I think especially this last part, you know, about, you know, how you do this as one person and kind of in a way that collaborates and that can, you know, add efficiencies. I mean, some of these tools, Just that you mentioned there with, you know, Lumen5 and Repurpose and DabbleWriter. Those are great tools that people should look into. And so, you know, make sure if you're listening to this in the audio version, go to the replay page because we'll have your slides will be in there. Uh, you know, and the links to the technology applications directory, all that stuff will be in there so that people can go check it out. Jim, excellent. Really appreciate it. Uh, again, all the links, everything that we talked about will be on the replay page. And, uh, you know, follow up if you have questions. Obviously, if you're listening on the replay, post them in the comments. Jim or I'll be able to get in there. And answer.

Absolutely.

So yeah, Jim, really appreciate your time today. This was great.

Jared, thank you so much. And thank you for the feedback, because I know you were taking time out of your busy days and you pay for your time. So I really appreciate that you've taken a risk to spend that with me. So thank you so much. And for inviting me, Jared, and thank you so much for all the work you are doing, because it's amazing.

Absolutely. And remember to check out Jim's book. It is The Unnoticed Entrepreneur, available on Amazon. Is it available anywhere else?

Yeah. Barnes& Noble, Amazon, everywhere. Exactly.

Excellent.

Great. Thanks, Regina.

Regina said she just ordered it. There we go.

Yeah. Thank you so much. That's excellent.

All right. Thank you, Jim. Thanks everybody for being here and we'll see y'all inside the community.

Thanks so much. Have a great day. Yep.

Take care, everybody.