Andrew O'Brien — The PR Blueprint - How To Get Into Any Media Publication

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float, Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf.

Hey, welcome back to the Hustle and Flow chart show. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

He always sings like that. It's really embarrassing. Especially when we're going to get some, like, tacos at the taco shop. Yeah, everybody's looking at him when I'm over there, just like, dude, shut up.

You especially hate it when we're in fancy restaurants wearing tuxedos.

Oh, my God. That happens, like, every Wednesday.

Every Wednesday on tuxedo dinner night.

Tuxedo Wednesday.

Tuxedo Wednesday. Shouldn't it be Tuesday? Tuxedo Taco Tuesday.

Ooh, that's it.

We're making that a thing.

All right.

Today's Tuesday.

We missed it.

I know.

All right.

No, but we went to a taco shop.

We were not wearing tuxedos.

We did not wear tuxedos at the taco shop. Today on Tuesday.

Hashtag fail.

Hashtag tuxedo Tuesday fail.

All right, what are we doing today?

Today we're talking to a good buddy of ours, somebody that. We actually spent quite a bit of time in Austin and in San Diego.

You went to a football game with us.

That is true. We mentioned on the football game with him. Yes, I've spent a lot of time with him. He is a PR ninja master. Public relations, not press releases. We'll talk about press releases and public relations on this episode. But what we dive into really, really deeply on this episode is how to get featured in media, how to get earned media on local news, on national news, in magazines.

Oh, have you heard of this little, little publication called For Forbes? Yes. Yeah. Like, basically, this strategy gets people in Forbes. Yeah.

And gets people on TV as well.

Everywhere.

And this dude's a hero, by the way. Let's just.

We'll get into that in the episode.

All right. But he's a hero. And you'll know why very shortly. We don't need to go into it now.

But, yes, he is a good, good, good human being, but he's also a brilliant human being when it comes to this PR stuff. Correct. And one of the big things that people seem to struggle with when it comes to PR and is they'll get the PR and then once they have it, they don't know what to do with it. So, like, they get a TV appearance or they get featured in a large publication, and then it just kind of peters off and nothing ever comes of it. Well, we're going to dive really deep into that as well. What do you do with this press once you get it? So on this episode you're going to learn how to get the press and then what to do with that press once you got it. I mean, this is a formula for growing your brand like really quickly.

And hint, if you have any kind of marketing funnels set in place and some marketing chops you can, you definitely need to implement this stuff. Absolutely. So it pairs up perfectly. And you'll hear in this. So it's funny, I mean you hear our references to GenM. They're our sponsor of this podcast and we use them extensively for apprentices doing all of our marketing work and stuff like that. Things that we can definitely pass to others for very inexpensive. Andrew was the one that introduced GenM to us. So it's kind of ironic this whole thing and what he teaches with press. Not press releases, bad press releases. Pr, pr, public relations. The other pr. The good PR is he. He literally in his training and, and he tells people, hey, have them go and do a lot of this work for you. So I'm not even going to say anything more about genin because we bring it up inside the context of this whole thing. So you'll hear some actionable ways to use the service. But definitely make sure to go to evergreenprofits.com genm g e n g m to get a 10 buck off discount and you could get all the whole deets there.

Yeah, yeah. And you'll hear that link again because I pretty shamelessly plug it. Now let's dive in with Andrew o', Brien, the publicity guy that actually used to be one of his brands.

That's true.

The publicity guy. Let's do it.

What's happening? Andrew, thanks for coming on.

Thank you for having me on.

Of course. Of course, dude. I mean we've. Let's see here. We're all mutual buddies with Omari. He's been on the show. He's a good buddy of all of ours. And yeah, I think we've had like now countless talks of PR and marketing ranging from probably talks with Omari and stuff. Us in Austin, you were doing work.

With David Schloss who's been on the show twice already. And I think David told us to connect.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, that was. I was way back in my PR days.

That's what it was. That's where the connection came from with. Through David.

Take us back to those PR days because I want to hear it again. You've done some crazy stuff.

Well, no, I want to go further back Actually ex military dude. And I want to get your story of how you got into entrepreneurship and also included in that, the whole PR story.

Yeah. So I'll do like a two minute background story and then we can just dive in deeper, wherever y' all want, if that sounds good. Perfect. All right. So by the age of 22, I've experienced four major hurdles in my life. And those four major hurdles are prostitution, war, suicide, and murder. Right. So I was actually raised by a prostitute mother. My mother was a prostitute. I don't say it to be mean or hateful. It was her career. Career choice. We were raised in motel rooms, trailer parks, cars, apartments, houses. Moving every three to six months. Never stayed in one place very long. Witnessed a lot of traumatic things as a child. Decided after my childhood, getting into my adult life, that I wanted to escape, you know, the Dallas Fort Worth area, which is whatever, where I was raised. And so I decided I was going to join the Army. I actually had dropped out of high school, so I had to get my GED to join the Army. I joined the army in 2007, was in until 2011, deployed to Iraq from 2008 to 2009, where I was the lead gunner the entire. Well, nine months out of the 12 months. Then I came home and Iraq had been the first time I felt purpose in my life. I felt. And this is all tying into the end story here, but I felt purpose. I felt like I belonged. I felt like I had a mission in life, like I wasn't a failure anymore. And then I came home and it was all gone. You know, you go to Iraq, you have a purpose, and then you come back and in the army, if you're not deployed, you're picking up cigarette butts and moving rocks. So that was a transition that I went through. So I came home and a year after returning home from Iraq, I actually attempted to take my own life. Luckily, I failed. I was 22 years old when I did that. And it was November of 2010, and I got out of the army in February of 2011. My contract was up. I was never planning on being a lifer. It was more of I just needed a daddy to get the punk teenager out of me. And the army definitely did that for me. And then I got out into February of 2011. In October of 2011, my mother actually shot her husband point blank in the head while he was sleeping. Made a bunch of lies that someone broke into the house and shot him. And then she came to me and asked me to help frame his ex wife. For the murder, which I declined. And I went and moved into Austin and throughout that time. So it was 2011 until 2014, where she was finally imprisoned. I actually testified against her in court in 2014 about her asking me to help frame someone else for the murder, where she was sentenced to 60 years in prison. And all these experiences led up to. It was in 2013, before my mother had even gone to prison. Yet it was in 2013 that I woke up one morning. I saw the news about 22 veterans taking their own lives every day. And it just. It was like in that moment, something clicked for me. And it was like, all right, this is what I was meant to do. I want to go help these people. How do I do that? Well, they need to hear my story. They need to know that they're not alone, because I always felt like I was alone until that I saw the News interview about 22 veterans taking their own lives every day. I just felt like I was the one weak one. And so I went into my girlfriend at the time's kitchen in an apartment which was horribly lit, used the laptop camera with no microphone, and. And shared my story on a YouTube video for five minutes. And I sent that YouTube video to the local media here in Austin, got on Fox News Austin first. And it was the worst interview I've ever done. I looked so uncomfortable the whole time. I'm smiling, talking about suicide. It was horrible. And then I got on to the Austin American Statesman, which is a local newspaper here in Austin, and I was actually front page in a full spread on the inside, which was picked up by the Associated Press and sent around the world. And. And it actually landed on the front page of stars and stripes, which is on every military base around the world. And that article got me invited to my first speaking, paid speaking engagement in Schofield barracks, Hawaii, which is actually the place where I tried to kill myself. So full circle. And I spoke there. And then after that, I spent the next three years of my life doing media interviews and traveling the world speaking. And that's what got me into pr.

Wow. So. So the business was. The business at that point was the speaking, Right?

Yeah. I've written like a 30 page book called Welcoming your soldier home. And I was traveling around speaking on military bases.

Wow.

There's so much to unpack in that story. I'm not even sure where.

Where to start. Yeah. Because I didn't know this, you know, like, your background. I knew. I knew bits and pieces in there and. But yeah, I think I was. I was checking out just a little bit more of what you. Because you. It's just fascinating what you've done in the story. And I saw some of these bits of what you were saying. I was like, holy moly. Okay. Like, you're just facing all this adversity and, you know, with outside influence, yourself and all that. You're. You also. I don't think you mentioned it, but the veterans group that you've created as well on Facebook, I believe it's on what, like 10,000 people or so?

Yeah, it's 14,000. So it became the world's largest community of military veteran entrepreneurs online.

I mean, like, that. Like you just. And you're 30 years old. It's like, what? Like, I can't. I can't wait to hear in the next 20 years what you. Well, shit, just five years, you know what you're going to do.

I appreciate that.

Yeah. No, and that's. That's what you've always struck me as a guy that just, you know, you're down to earth, but you are just going to go for it and you're going to go big if you're going to do it. And. Yeah. So how. It sounds like you just naturally fell into PR then, in this case.

Yeah, I mean, it was what led into. So I traveled the world for three years speaking on military bases, getting paid as little as $2,000 for a speaking engagement to as much as 25,000 DOL. And I got to speak in, like, South Korea and Japan and all over the United States. And I spoke into crowds of 8,000 people to crowds of 2. And those are paid speaking engagements. So I'm not complaining. But I also ended up making it to the White House. I spoke at the White House. I spoke to Health and Human Services. I was given over 20 awards by the United States government, including a Congressional recognition award from the House of Congress for my work. I'd given over 50 awards. I actually served on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline board. A lot happened for me in that three years. And I credit it all to pr. Like, no one would have known that I existed. Were in it for being featured on over 75 global media outlets within three years.

And it started from you with that crappy laptop in the kitchen and what you said. You just started emailing, cold emailing, or contacting local news, and that's how it came out.

Yeah, just cold emails. It was the worst written email ever, and somehow it worked.

I mean, it's the power of an amazing story, though, right? Like, when you've Got your story dialed in, and you've got a story that people want to hear and need to hear. It seems like even bad pitches could work once you've got that sort of story to tell.

Yeah. And it's also called newsjacking. Right. So newsjacking is when you're tying yourself into something that the news is already talking about. So I decided to go public at the same time that veteran suicide was a hot topic. It's not a hot topic anymore because it's been talked about so much over the past, you know, five years. But at that time, it was a brand new hot topic.

Sure. So with newsjacking, I mean, obviously you got your storytelling down. You could pitch yourself. Do you want to talk about that?

Like, should we start real quick? Just. I want to. From the story perspective. I want. I'm just. I'm curious about one more piece. How did you transition from being in the media, telling these stories, speaking all that kind of stuff, to being the guy that people go to to get their media done? What. Why did you transition into that?

Yeah, so I'm actually be fully transparent here, which is a big thing I tell everybody, if you really want to stand out, be honest. Right. So I'm gonna be honest. I loved speaking. Right. It was great. But two things happened. One, I am not a psychologist, so I'm not trained to deflect other people's issues. So I became a sponge, which meant I was absorbing issues of other people. Right. Because I cared so much. And it's just. It was wearing on me mentally, because after I would speak, I would have lines of hundreds of people just coming and talk to me for, like, three days straight, telling me their stories of traumatic things that happened and life stories, and they just became overwhelming. And then the second thing, the real reason I ended up having to quit that and do the PR stuff is because the government budget got cut, and the first thing they cut was mental health. And that was who paid me my money, money to do the speaking, which is how I fed my family. So I had. I was faced with a moment where it's like, all right, well, you're not going to get paid to do this anymore, so you got to figure out what's next. I knew I would never work for anyone else again. So I had to figure out, well, what skill sets do I have and who do I like? And I like entrepreneurs because most entrepreneurs that I meet are in it because they want to make an impact. They want to do something big. So I was like, well, I learned this over the past three years, I'm going to start doing that. And that's where the transition came in.

Got it. Got it.

Yeah. And it just seems like a natural thing because, you know, the impact, you've seen it. And I can imagine the kind of, like you said, being a sponge, not being there to actually help. I mean, you're helping, but you're almost bringing awareness more than psychologically helping them, you know, when you were doing the speakings. So it makes sense why you made the transition just for yourself.

And you're a super badass. You are a fucking superhero in my mind. I mean, like, to go through the adversity that you've gone through and then still kind of pull out, pull yourself together, channel that energy to help other people overcome a lot of the similar issues, in my mind, that makes you a superhero.

I appreciate that, man. Thank you.

Yeah, no, it's true. And it's apparent you got your storytelling. I want to get back to that because I think that is one of the most important things, not only in pr, but just in life. If you want to leave an impact, you need to explain yourself or the why or the purpose with great storytelling. So let's. I want to get into that. Maybe there's some pointers or some fundamentals that you use to create a good story.

Yeah, I'm going to add on to that real quick because as you were telling your story a few minutes ago, I feel like you had your story dialed in almost like you've told it before. And there's a lot of people that are probably listening to this episode going, you know, I lived a pretty normal middle class life and haven't really had to face a ton of adversity. What story do I have to tell?

Yeah, you know, it's funny. I hear that more often than most people would think. A lot of people who tell me my life was boring, nothing really exciting happened. And I always call BS on that. Right. I always say that's crap. It's just we get so used to hearing the worst stories possible that we discredit what we've been through ourselves. Right? Because if you hear this story of mine, you're like, wow, that's insane, dude. There's people out there that have lived much worse of a life than I ever have. And so I think what happens is you have to stop comparing your story to someone else's. And I had to learn to start telling that when I share my story is, hey, don't compare your story to mine, because that doesn't Mean that you haven't been through anything. The most important thing is to be honest, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. I mean, we've all been through struggle. Right? We've all been through near bankruptcy, foreclosure, being broke, trying to figure out just how to pay rent on the first. Like, we've all been through hard times at some point in our life, especially as entrepreneurs. I feel like we face hard times every month with something new.

And the biggest thing when it comes to sharing a story is I tell everybody the best pointer that I can give because I'm not the story brand guy. Like, I don't. I don't help draw stories out of people. But what I do tell people is if you aren't scared to tell the story, it's not powerful enough. So it should be. You should be scared. It should put knots in your stomach to even consider the idea of sharing that story publicly. That's the story that you should be sharing. And the reason I say that is when we talk about pr, everybody thinks, oh, PR just means getting in the news. No, PR is public relations. How do we relate to the public? The best way to relate to the public is to make them feel like you are just like them. You've been where they are. Right. And that means tapping into their emotions. I study psychology all the time now. I have a ged. I am not. I have no other education, but I study the brain all the time because that's what public relations is. People like to feel connected to the people they do business with.

Yeah. And it's pure honesty, like you just said. I mean, we could relate. Matt and I had a good conversation yesterday. Just, even just being honest with people you work with at a small level, I feel like will unpack bigger, meaning bigger things that you can do as a team. I know Matt and I, we have a long history with each other, but there's certain things that we might not always be telling ourselves, but we know something's holding us back. That's a version of a story that has allowed us to grow more. But then, like you said something, you have knots in your stomach. There's all sorts of stuff that we probably can't. We're not thinking of. It's hard to describe, but you really have to mind dump all this stuff in your life that's happened, and then you can kind of probably start to connect a really cool story around that that can relate, but also shows you that you've been through some stuff, proves this impact that you're trying to actually Put out there into the world.

Yeah. What the media actually calls it, they call it, we live in a false truth era. And what that is is right now everybody's trying to sell the idea that they're rich and successful and in Lamborghinis and mansions and, you know, people living in Bali acting like they're rich. Because when you live in Bali, you know, $2,000 a month, you are rich. And so what happens is the only way to really stand out now, to get your story out in the media, to get people to connect with you, is to be honest. Like, because that's the rare thing. Now, back in the day, lying was the rare thing. Now lying is normal. So when someone hears the truth, they can. They, like, they're drawn to that person because it doesn't happen with social media. We all live in this instant gratification world where we base off how important what we say is based off of how many likes and comments it gets on Facebook. I mean, like, but when you share something transparent, like, I've been going through some relationship issues and I share that on social media, man, I can ask people if they want to be on Forbes. I'll get like 10 likes. I talk about some relationship issues I'm struggling with in my personal life, and I get like 120 likes and comments and interactions. And I actually get more customers when I share stories like that because I get. I've gotten probably about 10 messages just today saying, hey, I've experienced something similar. I really, when you shared that publicly, I was so impressed by that. So what is it again that you offer? Oh, I'd like to do that. You know what I mean? Like, it starts that conversation 100%.

And I've noticed the same thing. If anybody follows my personal profile on social media, I share my struggles probably three to one with my successes. I share struggles way more often than I share successes because I feel like when I share the struggles, people relate to me, people I get. Every time I post something, I get people PMing me saying, you're, you know, you're so. You're so courageous for sharing that publicly. But I had that same thing happen to me and, you know, I start getting all these people reaching out. I posted a story recently about how I actually collapsed in the middle of a networking event. I just fell over and collapsed due to, due to overwhelm and anxiety. I've shared stories about, like, bad mental patterns that I have going on in my head that I, that I can't sort of break free of some of these Patterns and, and when I share that stuff, I get way more interaction and way more people reaching out to me to want to work with us due to that authenticity. And I just, I 100% relate just from my own experience.

Mm.

People do business with people they like.

Dude, it's 100%. I mean, I love actually getting vulnerable on there on social media because it is the contrarian way of doing things on social media, which is shitty because it should just be the real life. I mean like for me, I post stuff about foster. I posted this massive letter I wrote to my foster daughter that went away, got hundreds of likes and. But in box full of things and rnesh. He's a old client of ours, listener, prior, dentist. He actually, I saw him at a party the other night. He's like, dude, that took some balls. That was so cool that you put that out there. You're so honest. No one does that. He's like, you taught me something through this whole lesson that was super hard for you. I'm like, dude, that's the point. Right? Put it out there.

That's exactly it. If we just stop pretending that everything is perfect, that we're all living this luxurious lifestyle and everybody's happy all the time. If we look at the biggest influencers, you won't see them do that. Right? And I think, I think out of everybody, they have the biggest responsibility because if they could stop, start being transparent and honest, it could really change the world. But again, that's just me going off on a rant about that. But I just think the reason that this world is so depressed and so anxious all the time is because we're constantly comparing ourselves to this false ideation that everybody is so perfect.

Yeah. No, and I think, I think social media is a big problem. I personally have a love hate relationship with social media because I know it's sort of a necessity in our business as digital marketers, but I personally don't check into social media because I feel social media makes me feel less happy. So I just don't check in very often.

That's exactly it. Right. All I do in there is I use it for business. I sell and I share my transparent stories. I don't really read other people's things.

Yeah, agreed.

I think it's good for the mind, man.

So I want to circle back around to something you mentioned earlier and Joe was about to ask it before I stopped him from asking it.

I forgot what news jacking.

Can you sort of explain the concept of newsjacking and how others could use that as a tool in their business.

Yeah. You know, so the hardest part about newsjacking is people get too emotionally involved and they feel guilty for doing it. Right. But I think it's important when it comes to pr, it's something we have to talk about. So whenever comes to newsjacking, let's say that you own a construction company and. Or a mitigation. A disaster mitigation company. Right. And you know that Florida is about to get hit with a hurricane. That is the perfect opportunity for you to get your business featured on the media, teaching the local community how to prepare for this hurricane, how to best protect their assets, where to. Where you should hide in the house, or if you can't escape in time, what do you do? Like, if you find a way to tie into what's going on in the world today, that's the best way to get on the news, because the news wants to hear something that can tie into what they're already talking about instead of trying to find an angle for something that doesn't exist yet. Right. So it's easier that way. When it comes to politics, if you do anything in that, that's easy. Right. Like, politics is a conversation every single day. So if you can tie your business into that if you choose to. Again, I always say when it comes to pr, I don't talk politics, I don't talk religion. That's just my two rules.

Agreed.

But if you do that, then that's the way to tie in. It's just finding what the breaking news and finding a way to tie your business or your service or your product or your book into what is happening in today's world.

Yeah, yeah. No, it seems like there might be sort of like a fine line between doing newsjacking in this. This sort of ethical sense. Like the. The example you laid out of, there's a storm coming, here's how to be prepared. And that sort of gets your brand out there. But it, you know, it's essentially content marketing through the media. You're giving free content and value so that hopefully people remember you when they need your help. But it seems like there could be this sort of unethical. I don't know if unethical is the right way to word it, but there's a fine line of, like, gray area where you might see, like, a disaster that happened and then try to link your brand to something that is a little more distasteful. You know what I mean? Like.

Like a misleading type.

No, just like, let's say there was, like, A so the same example of like the disaster mitigation, if that was handled in a different way, like a hurricane just hit and then you go on the media about your, like your disaster cleanup business, then it might feel a little like you're capitalizing on the backs of a tragedy kind of thing. You know what I mean? I don't feel like I'm wording this.

Right. But no, what you're saying is making sense, right? Because then what happens is people say there's no such thing as bad pr. And I think that's a complete lie. Right? Because then if people feel like you're taking advantage of some people whose lives were just destroyed, I promise you, you're not going to get positive results from that. Right. So, so another example is let's say a storm already hits and if your company were to go out and donate like a week of time and resources and products to help that community, right? That's another form of newsjacking where you're doing something positive and you're just getting the news to share the story about it.

That makes sense. Let's kind of role play. Let's say we are this construction company or something. What would you do with that? You have this idea, you figure out how to tie your company in with this natural disaster that happened or is about to happen. What do you do from that point?

From that point is. And this has to do with the perfect pitch. But you always, the biggest thing I tell everybody is don't write press releases. They're the biggest waste of time, money and effort that exist. The only people press releases make sense for is like Nike or Adidas or Brad Pitt, you know what I mean? Like people that brands that people already know and are super interested in what they're doing next.

And why is that? Because there's still, there's a handful of people that feel like press releases are like, no, this is where I'm going to get me seen. I'm going to be in the media.

Yeah, I hear it all the time. And the thing is, is you have to understand the average media outlet, like the number of pitches they get are into the hundreds to thousands of pitches a week, maybe multiple thousands, depending on what media outlet you're talking about, what city it's in. Like let's take San Diego, for example. I promise you the average. They probably get hundreds of media pitches of press releases a day. Right? A day. So what you have to understand is maybe one or two people are monitoring that news tips at fox news san diego.com no one really checks that stuff. Maybe a college intern. And they get so many press releases that they don't care. You know what I mean? It's like, what if you got 10,000 resumes? How many of those resumes are you really going to go through? Are you just going to look for keywords, use the keyword software? You know? So it's. For me, it's like, I think that's the biggest waste of time. And then there's also other services like PR Newswire, and I'll tell you, that's not real pr. When you get your press release added on the back end of websites that no one ever sees, that's not real pr. That's just SEO. It's good for SEO. But I'm talking about real earned media. Yeah.

And I think the SEO thing is even debatable these days, too, so.

Right. Because I don't know anything about SEO. I just know that earned media is powerful for SEO. And it's actual real interviews. It's not you writing about yourself. It's someone else interviewing you and talking about you.

And so what you want to do is you want to find an actual media contact. You never send a pitch to news tips at, you know, blanknews.com that's just a spam folder for everybody to send random things to. And you have to think, how many crazy people do you talk to on a daily basis? Now imagine being the news, and how many crazy people send in news tips on a daily basis about someone's cat stuck in a tree or something? You know what I mean? Like, they probably get some pretty stupid things in their mailbox. So I always go straight to a reporter that will most likely connect with what I'm pitching.

And how would, how would you go about finding their contact details or getting in contact with that reporter?

You go, every media outlet has like a staff part, right? Let's. Let's say it's like local tv, like Fox News San Diego. They have a team portion on their website where you can scroll through and you can read everyone's bio. You can find them on social media. You can literally learn everything about everyone at that media outlet. You find the ones whose bio matches it the most, and that's the one that you pitch. Because in their bio, most of the time, they talk about what they care about. Maybe they're part of nonprofits or they love sports or whatever it is. You can find something in their bio that says that gives you the inkling that this person probably will care about what I have to say, got it.

So you're actually. Go figure. You're actually doing some research prior to reaching out, huh?

Research is the biggest part of my. Of the job. Right. Is finding the right person.

So talk about the research more because I know when we hung out.

Yeah. Well, so I'll preface it a little more from when we hung out, when we were talking about Haro, right? Help a reporter out. We kind of. So just to sort of preface the story, the three of us all hung out in Austin and went to dinner. And then after dinner, like, our brains were. Our wheels were spinning. So we went for like a, you know, like a couple mile walk or whatever and just talked PR stuff. And we got on the topic of Haro and how to actually leverage HARO to get into the media. And you had some amazing advice around research. So I'll just go ahead and preface it with that.

Yeah. Because here's what I do. I've. I've interviewed reporters from cnn, USA Today. I've actually interviewed the editor in chief of USA Today. I've interviewed the editor in chief of Investopedia. I've talked to editor in chiefs of all these media outlets. And these are like. They're like the CEO, right? They're. They're the leader of these media outlets. And I've talked to reporters, I've talked to journalists because I want to know, right? I want to know what their daily life is like. The same thing that every single one of them says is they want to know that you actually know who they are, what they care about and what they write about. They want to know that you actually did some research, then just copy and paste an email and send it to them, plus 2,000 other reporters. And so when we're talking about Haro, right? Haro is help a reporter out. They send you, you know, every three days or three times a day, you get reporters looking for stories. Problem is, is everybody's on haro, which means you're competing with everybody else. The way to stand out is it always gives you the name of the reporter and the name of the media outlet. All you have to do is go research, learn something about them, and start the email out talking about them first, and then give them what they're asking for in haro, and it drastically increases your chances of getting a response because you did what no one else has done and you actually took time to research and learn a little bit about them. Everybody likes to feel honored and appreciated. And reporters, they get treated, they get felt, they feel the most dirty because people are just using them all the time. No one takes time to get to know more about their work or what they've accomplished or what they care about.

Yeah. And I remember you were saying you'll look for key items, maybe something. Well, you keep it professional, for one. I think that's the distinction. Right. For you.

Right. Never talk about family. It's always professional. And you look for a key accomplishment, some award they've been given or a recent promotion they've gotten, something that has to do with their career that they're probably really proud of.

So, yeah, you started off that way. You're obviously going to get attention and then you lead into. All right, what they were asking for. Give them value. And I would assume, hey, here's my contact info. I'm available for other things on this topic.

Yeah. Is there anything else to the pitch that you add? So you've got this sort of personal anecdote to show that, look, I researched you. I know what you're into, I know what you're looking for. So here's my response. And then your response. Is that pretty much the whole message or is there more to the. Is there more of a template that you use?

No. So it's a. It's a template and it's research, compliment, connect, humble, brag and ask. So research is just proving that you know who they are. Right. And the compliment is their recent accomplishment or an award they've been given or promotion. The connect is something that you can you and them share. Whether it's like, you went to the same college, you care about, the same charities, you like the same sports team. It can be anything. Right. So sometimes you're not able to connect. I always leave that. That's the optional part.

I imagine the connect could even be if you like the opposing sports team. Like. Like, if somebody's like a Raiders fan, I could be like, hey, I'm a Chargers fan, but I won't hold that against. Against you. Right. Like, that's a way to connect, too, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It's just finding a way to, you know, connect over a similar interest. Right. So it's the connecting, and it doesn't always. You're not always able to connect, but obviously you're connecting on some point because you're pitching them, because they care about what you have to do in some way, whether they write about it or whatever. Now, understand that what we understand is niche or niche, whatever way you want to say it. The reporters, that they call it their beat. Their beat is what they write on that's their topic that they focus on. You know, business, sports, video games, consulting, that type of stuff. So the connecting is an optional part. And then the humble brag is probably the hardest part for most entrepreneurs is because when it comes to the humble brag, you've got two sides of the coin. You've got the one who is too timid to talk about themselves because they don't want to come out, come off egotistical, and then you've got the one who's extremely egotistical and too proud of themselves. And your humble brag is right in the middle. Right. It's qualifying yourself. It's just saying, look, look, I'm not just another Joe from the corner. Like, I actually know what I'm talking about. I actually, you know, this is what I do. I have experience. I've succeeded in this way. I'll give you an example for a humble brag, right? My name is Andrew o'. Brien. I actually teach PR to entrepreneurs. You know, it was after being featured in over 75 global media outlets and saving the lives of over 200 veterans who are considering suicide that I realized the power of media. Right? That's a humble brag. It had nothing to do with how much money I've made, had nothing to do with kind of car I drive. It has to do with something I've accomplished that qualifies me as a expert in publicity.

Got it.

That makes sense. Yeah. And it's just being human. I think we talked about this in Austin on that walk. It's crazy that you almost have to remind people to not just pray and spray copy and paste and send emails.

And actually, how about we connect? Let's kind of do this little Dance is Dating thing where you're like, getting to know each other so you can then take the next step, whatever that is.

Well, it's because it takes work. No one wants to do the work. They want automation. They want to just click a button and get all over the news. And the last part of my method is you do your ask, right? You just ask that question. And the question is always a rhetorical. Do you think your audience cares about X, Y or Z? Do you think your audience would like to learn about X, Y, Z, X, Y or Z? Reporters care about their audience. The way you can look at reporters is as Internet marketers, they care about likes, shares and comments.

Their ratings is based off of views, just like an Internet marketer, right? So that they care about content that their audience is actually going to be intrigued by. Controversial is best because if it's controversial, that means more people will share it and engage and interact with it. And the biggest thing I want to say when it. Because, because, Joe, what you just said about actually having to put in the work, I promise you that I can get more results than the most PR firms do. And because most PR firms, what they do is they use these databases full of reporters that don't even know that they're in these databases, and they do a copy and paste press release, and they send it out to a list of 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 reporters. And they play a numbers game. Let's just see who bites. Mine is more of a very, very strategic sniper approach. Right. I don't do the machine gun approach. I do the sniper approach because I can get more responses. A good pitch probably take 30 minutes to write, but that 30 minutes, I'm going to actually get a response, and it's most likely gonna turn into an interview. The average clients, students of ours, like, I just had a student who just sent out their first pitch, got a response within 20 minutes, the article was live within four days. Another student got a response within 60 seconds of sending their pitch to a local reporter. And they showed me screenshots. So it's like, this works because you have to understand in pr, the one thing about pr, the one way to succeed is go to one step further than everybody else. And that one step further is doing that research.

Yeah, I mean, we can relate with the media side of things just by running a podcast. You know, we get. We get multiple people per day coming to us asking to be on the show. And I would say 9 out of 10 of those emails don't even make it to us. But 1 in 10, 1 in 10 will get passed along to us by one of our VAs saying, Look, this might actually be a good fit for your podcast. And then out of those that make it to us, maybe one a week or so, we might pick one a month and actually bring them on the show. So we have pretty, pretty heavy filters as a podcast that doesn't have nearly the reach of some of these media outlets that you're talking about.

Well, and here's the kicker is that most people do the copy and paste thing, even if it's them themselves. Sometimes their agencies, booking agencies do that. You know, when I think we got you in a new Media Summit in Austin podcast thing, that was like our feedback to all these people who were at the event wanting to be on shows like ours, we said, please do the research, Please take some time. And actually give us some specific points that you want to talk about on the show, how that gives value to our audience. And I think one person maybe did that.

Yeah.

And I reminded, like, five other people who reached out to us. I'm like, dear God, we said this like, 10 times.

Yeah, well, because even at that point, they're just back into the numbers game mindset. Right. Because they heard you say it. But then they're like, oh, I met so many podcast hosts, I just got to send out all these emails.

Emails, exactly.

Yep, yep. I mean, the logic falls apart pretty quickly when you really think about it. But, you know, from the. From the podcaster standpoint, like, we're not even as big as some of these media outlets that are probably getting hundreds of pitches a day. We're getting, like a couple a day, and barely any of them make it through to us because they're doing that copy and paste sort of thing. And, yeah, I mean, it's just. It's just crazy to me that people still think that's a good way to go about it. And I'll tell you, this is a little tip for anybody who's listening going, man, I aspire to be on Matt and Joe's podcast because I know we have a ton of listeners that are like, one day, my bucket list goal is to be on Matt and Joe's podcast.

Andrew's like, yes, that was.

No, that's just my ego coming out. No, but the people that actually have made it through and been on the podcast, I'll tell you the line that usually gets you through.

What is it?

I listen to your podcast.

That is true. Kind of like the Holy Grail right there.

Maybe a little bit of proof that you listen to the podcast. Like, I especially like the episode where you talk to this person about X, Y and Z.

That's pretty much it.

That's it. If somebody tells us they listen to our podcast and give us a few little details that kind of prove that you listen to our podcast, you have a 90% better chance of actually getting your email through to us.

I think we need to up the filter now that you said that.

So I was about to say, now you're going to get a ton of pitches up a.

Of ton.

Like three shows or something.

Here's the. Here's the great part about that, though. Anybody who uses that technique, we now know they listen to our podcast.

True to it. All right. Challenges out to you listeners.

So, Andrew, I know you put together a kind of a pitch formula. Where can people go check that out if they want to get this like, specifically, you know, like templatized and all that stuff.

Yeah. You know what we decided to do is the sexiest thing that I do is get people in the news. Right. I teach so much more than that. But that's the sexiest thing everybody likes. So I was like, you know what? But being partnered with a marketer, which is Omari, who y' all have had on the show, we were like, we just need to get it out to him. So we created what's called the perfect media pitch, which you can find@perfectmediapitch.com and it's a $7 offer. And for that $7, you get a 30 minute video training where I actually walk you through the perfect pitch. Me pitching myself to the media. You get a checklist and you get a playbook. And so literally you get everything that you would need to pass it off, even to a va. Like a VA could do this. It's not that hard. It's just how. How good of a work ethic does that person have? That's all that matters. Anyone can do what I do if they aren't lazy.

Can somebody from GenM do it?

Yes, GenM can do it.

Okay, just checking, because GenM is the sponsor of this show and people can actually get $10 off genm if they go to evergreenprofits.com genm.

You know what's really cool is Andrew, I think you are the fairy. First person was a brat. Costanto.

No, I think it was. I think it was Andrew.

I think it was Andrew. Yeah, it was you, man. That introduced us to GenM. And we have what, three apprentices now? And yeah, it's just really cool. So thanks to that or thanks to you for that.

We actually just had Mo Abbas, the founder of GenM, on our podcast a couple weeks ago based on when this episode is being released.

Yeah, Omari told me. He's like, dude, I introduced you to it. Then you told Matt and Joe about it. And then Matt and Joe somehow got the founder on their show. Like, how does that work?

That's what we do.

Actually.

We highly suggest people use GenM because, you know, none of us as entrepreneurs, we don't have time to be our own publicist. But GenM provides you a freaking apprentice for 40 hours a month for 50 bucks a month. Well, I guess with $10 off, not 50 bucks a month. And literally what I teach, I mean, just a seven dollar product, it shows. It's literally a checklist. It's like a 32 point checklist. All they have to do is check the box. Go. Next step, accomplish it, check the box. It's really simple. They just have to have the work ethic.

I love it. Now your strategies and philosophies, I'm assuming they work at pretty much any level, right? Like you know, is there a difference in the way you would pitch like a local public access cable company versus I'm gonna go be on like NBC Nightly News.

You know, it's all the same except when it comes to like getting on Joe Rogan's or Tim Ferriss podcast. Like that's just different, right? Because those guys have people on that they know and look up to and like that's more of a really well connected like they like you as a person or they've met you or whatever. So like this doesn't work for those types of outlets. But when it comes for everything else to like tv, magazines, newspapers, even the majority of podcasts, these methods work.

Yeah, makes sense.

I think it's a no brainer and I know from experience looking at your stuff, I mean you're a military dude. So all the checklists, all the everything is done by a fricking checklist and it's mapped out perfectly. So perfect. MediaPitch.com. just go get it. Seven bucks. Don't be crazy. Don't be dumb.

So one thing I want to sort of dive into. Are you good?

Go for it.

Go for it. One thing I wanted to dive into is, is so what? We kind of touched on it briefly earlier in the episode. But once people get media, what do we do with that media? You know, I've known people and I've actually heard this story from probably three different people now that they were on a show like Good Morning America and they, you know, they put out a book and they got on Good Morning America and it did nothing for them. Like they have a little video clip that they can show and it boosts their ego and it's it and it's like this cool social proof thing that they were on Good Morning America but from a traffic to my business and this converting into sales for me, it's done very little for them. So what do we do with this press once we have it?

Yeah, you know, that's actually I used to own an agency on the publicity side and I got out of agency work because I got so tired of no one doing anything with the pieces and getting mad at me for it. So here's, here's my advice. If you are getting on the media One, before you even worry about getting on the media, make sure that your marketing is on point. Meaning you have sales funnels, you have lead magnets, you have a way to capture an audience. Your pages are pixeled. Like, if you don't have any of that set up, don't even worry about PR right now. Get your marketing on point first and then once you do get in the media, what you do. We have a link shortener. It's not open to the public yet, but we can let Matt and Joe know. I actually have y' all testing it out, but it's, it's a link shortener and it allows you to pixel an audience that you send to third party websites that you don't own. So you can literally send people through a link shortener to your article on Forbes and it'll go straight to Forbes. But it pixels that audience and you can retarget that audience and say something like, hey, I saw you just read our article on Forbes where they said this, this, and this. By the way, we create a lead magnet around the process of what we discussed on Forbes. You can download it for free here, right? So it's like you want to have the, the you're sending paid traffic to it. A lot of people expect organic results. If you are expecting organic results from publicity, don't do it. You're not going to get organic results. Forbes has over 1200 contributors and the majority of them write an article a week. That means on Forbes, on average about 1200 articles go live a week on Forbes. Now that means that just because you got on Forbes doesn't mean you're going to make a bunch of money. So you really want to have all that set up. You want to have a traffic plan, you want to control the distribution of that piece. Don't just expect Forbes to do it for you.

Got it? So I love that concept of the pixeling. So I'm assuming the tracking tool, you can do it with Google or Facebook or anywhere that you can drop a pixel.

Yeah.

Cool. So basically, let's say we get on Forbes, we create our own link. It might be, let's just say, for E's sake. EGP.com Forbesarticle Right. And that when somebody goes to that URL, we don't have EGP.com so if you're listening, don't go there. But if that was our short link and they went to that Forbes article, it's going to drop a Facebook pixel and start to create an audience of people that read that article. And anybody who read that article, we can now retarget them and say, hey, thanks for checking out our article on Forbes, by the way. We've got a 10 point checklist of the exact process we taught you on Forbes. Go here to get it.

Yeah. And the biggest thing that you, you said there. Right. And the biggest part of that is making sure that the lead magnet that you're telling them to download has something to do with the article they just read. I can't tell you how many people try to just send them to some random lead magnet that has nothing to do with what was talked about in Forbes. Right. So it's making sure that whatever you're sending them to combines with what was discussed in that media outlet.

Makes sense. Yeah. I was literally writing down like a little flow based off of what you just said on a paper over here that basically is that it's like, okay, you have this PR piece. Matt and I do a lot of stuff with retargeting in pixels. So okay, use your tool to drop those pixels. Facebook, Google, whatever to remarket with an ad. Maybe it's to a quiz that's around that topic or something, but in your ad copy it says he remember that Forbes article? Maybe it's an image of it or something.

Yeah.

And then boom. Now you get people to do a low barrier thing to dive into your, you know, maybe they join your email list, buy your product for seven bucks, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah. I mean one of our most successful campaigns we ran for a client back when we did agency work was they had an article published on Huffington Post. It was back when it was a lot easier to get articles on Huffington Post, but we published an article on Huffington Post. We did a little link shortener and dropped a pixel on the in between. And then retargeted people who read that Huffington Post article and the people who bought off of our retargeting ad, the people who clicked on our retargeting ad were our best. Converting traffic. That was one of the best campaigns we've ever run for a client business.

We just haven't done that for ourselves.

We haven't actually run that kind of thing for ourselves because we haven't put enough focus on going and trying to get get pr.

Well, seriously, after this conversation, I mean, I've kind of actually had this realization earlier, but this kind of reminded me is this is something we should do in our business because we have our marketing down, we have the pixels, we have all the funnels. My role in the business is more front facing other than obviously you are here, Matt, but like in terms of talking to prospects and people and partners, I mean this is like a perfect opportunity for us to spearhead or probably for me and then wrap it into the marketing funnels that Matt's mainly hands on with. So it's a perfect combo. And I feel like any listener here, if you have the ability, partner or maybe you just divvy up your time, just do this.

Well, yeah, and I mean, going down this rabbit hole a little bit, we actually have our traffic course, our perpetual audience growth course where we're essentially telling people.

Drive your initial ad traffic to content and then once people view that content, then go and retarget them back to your offer. So it's sort of a two part ad funnel. Drive them to content, get them to know like and trust you through your content, get them to understand and sort of be sold as a result of your content and then retarget them to go for the sale. That is essentially what we teach in our course. And this is almost taking it just a slight step farther and saying do that same thing. But it doesn't necessarily even have to be content on your own website to start with.

And I think, you know, I think it helps that it's not content that starts with your own website. Right. Because it's a trust building. It's earned media is third party endorsements from media outlets that they trust. Right. So what I would do, let's say I was, let's say I was you, Joe, and I was getting, you know, evergreen profits on a feature in Forbes, right. What I would do once that Forbes article came out, I would run an ad and I would target people who follow Forbes and match the rest of my avatar and. Right. And send them to that article on Forbes. Because now I already know that they trust Forbes because they follow Forbes and now it's Forbes telling them more about me versus me telling them more about me.

Right?

Because when, when you're talking about yourself, you have to spend more time building that trust, improving yourself and all that. Once Forbes tells them that they can trust you, they're probably going to trust you because Forbes said so and because they haven't been on Forbes. Right. So it's like that, it's, it builds that credibility. And I think right now as entrepreneurs, we're all in such an overcrowded market, the best way to stand out is to get that earned media, that third party endorsement from outlets and media places that people know like and trust.

Yeah. Now this question is totally a loaded question that I have no clue how you're going to answer it, but I'll ask it anyway. Have you noticed any sort of specific media outlets have bigger impacts than others?

Like the 80 20, like the 8020.

Of media outlets to focus on and this. Okay, so maybe this is a two parter. So like TV versus radio versus podcasts versus getting on well known blogs. That'd be kind of part one. Is there any sort of standout media outlet that works? And then part two would be like maybe a specific brand like a Forbes or a success magazine or you know, I'm obviously thinking of business related stuff because that's the world I'm in. But have you noticed any specific trends? I guess, yeah.

So let me ask you this. Your listeners probably know what a customer avatar is, right?

Yeah.

Okay. So the same thing that you would do with a customer avatar, you want to make a media avatar, right? And the best way to make a media avatar is go to your customer avatar. Sources of information. That's where you want to be. Right? So I always tell people, we get so caught up in the idea and the ego of I want to be on Forbes, I want to be on cnbc, I want to be on Bloomberg, I want to be on Wall Street Journal. And it's always funny because it's like that's not where your customers are. Why do you want to be there? Right. For us, you know, like Matt, Joe, myself, of course you and I, we want to be on the business publications because we serve business owners. Right. So it makes sense for us. But it also depends on who is your audience and where do they get their information. That's where you want to be. But for our world, I will say that Forbes is the highest ranking, the most impressive one. People are more impressed by Forbes than any other media outlet because it's, it's just well known if I base everything off of SimilarWeb.com if you go to SimilarWeb.com you'll see Forbes has like, I think it's over a hundred million visitors every month. Entrepreneur has like 20 million and or entrepreneur has like 15 million and inc. Has like 20 million. So I base off of how many visitors do they have on which ones I'm going to put a priority to. But I will say that Forbes is my most requested media outlet whenever I used to get people actual outlets for them.

Got it.

All right, so I'm going to be super, super selfish because that's what we do on the show and, and our listeners have told us that our favorite parts is when we just get selfish and ask questions about our own business, so might as well go for it. What's coming? So we've got this podcast, Hustle and Flowchart, and we want to get it more exposure. We want to get it in front of more people. We want to get more PR around this podcast. What sort of. Obviously, without going into what you would sell for consulting, but what, what, what sort of quick advice would you give us? What sort of path would you lead us down to get more exposure for a show like ours?

So what I would do is I'd go to Google and search top 10 business publications and you'll find the list of like Forbes, wired, Entrepreneur, Inc. TechCrunch, things like that. I would go to those top 10, make those my top 10 priority. I go to each one of those and search the keyword saying top podcasts and you'll find articles of the top 15 podcasts to listen to on this topic. The top 10 podcast to listen on this topic. I will find people writing articles like that and start to introduce myself and go through the perfect pitch that way, you know, the research, compliment, connect, humble, brag and ask. I would follow that method by reaching out to people who have already written articles about podcasts because those are the ones more likely to write about it again and find ones that are older. Right. So you don't want someone that just wrote about it like last week because they're not going to write about it again anytime soon. I'd find someone that maybe wrote an article about top podcasts at the beginning of 2018, because they probably plan on writing another one at the beginning of 2019. So finding someone like that would be best for y' all and pitching those people.

So literally right now is probably the best timing to be doing that if people might be gearing up for a new end of year version or something.

And it seems like a perfect Gen IM type of research role too.

You know, just gotta get that pitch in there, don't you, Joe?

Do all the research and send you the link and the contact information. Hell, you have the training. Just give them the training. Have them do that if you trust them enough. So that's just. But that's what I would do. Yeah. Because right now we have to understand is as it gets closer to the end of the year and at the beginning of the year, the majority of articles you're going to find right now are going to be about, you know, what are you going to do in 2019? The three steps to blow your business up for 2019 the four success tips to have your best first quarter. You know, things like that, you're going to see a lot more of those.

Trending 10 podcast to tune into for 2019.

Damn it, Andrew, you're going to see us on one of those lists.

You're going to be the first one to know about it.

I'm trying to think if I have any other questions about the PR media stuff.

There's a lot of stuff, but I think the big thing that it is here is figure out your pitch. I mean, that makes sense. You got to be concise. You got to figure out what you're doing, but actually do the damn work. This is like, like talking to myself too, but also the listeners is, you know, it's just do the work. And like you said, if you do a little bit more than just the masses of other people, it feels like. It's not like Google Ads where, you know, it's easy to just start an ad, run an ad and, you know, you're just bidding around and targeting. It's like it becomes crowded, you know.

Well, there's subjectivity to it and there's things that are out of your own personal control around it where Google Ads, it's completely in your control.

Exactly. But, but this one at least, like you're, you're dealing with a human and if you go a little further, you're kind of setting yourself up in this space where you're kind of by yourself. Maybe Andrew's there, but, you know, you have a lot less competition to actually get seen by a lot of people.

Well, I'll even go one step further and say, don't do it by yourself. Don't do it for yourself. Have your team member do it. I mean, how many of us have assistance where we don't even have enough work to give them? Right? We're like, well, I don't really know what to tell you to do right now. Any downtime that you're a virtual assistants, you're in assistants, your team, someone on your team is intelligent enough to do this. It's really not that hard. It's just following a process and doing it step by step. And you could have just go to GenM and have someone else do this for you. So literally, with my training at $7 and GenM's person at $40 a month, which is what I'm guessing it is, with the $10 off or whatever it comes out to, that's like $157. And you will get massive media exposure for the next three months. If you have someone that's just dedicated to doing just that. And I promise you, if you got one media interview for $150, it would be worth the investment. I will tell you that I charge $5,000 for one interview if I set it up.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I'm like, I know you do help people out, but you have a massive retainer.

Rightly so, you know, so one question about, like, media. Let's say we did get ourselves on the news, like local San Diego TV news. Do you have advice for people that are about to, you know, go in front of the camera?

Yeah. You know, the biggest thing I will say is practice before you go on there, right? So you want to make sure that your posture is, well, don't slouch, sit up straight, make eye contact, be comfortable. You know, I know it says it's easier said than done because you're going to have a camera in your face, but you got to get really comfortable with someone putting cameras in your face. Make sure you get comfortable before you go on tv. I made that mistake. And you will find some pretty horrible TV interviews of me on national and international media outlets looking extremely uncomfortable. I remember, you know, there was one time I was on an international media outlet. They put this earpiece in your ear and you're staring into this big ass camera lens. That's it. And you got a green screen behind you to make you look like the city is behind you. And you're in this like small little 600 square foot studio space and you are the only one in the room. The studio people are behind a screen somewhere and you hear voices in your head and you're staring into a camera. It's extremely uncomfortable. So make sure you get comfortable with that way. And always make sure that when you're doing interviews on podcasts, on tv, on magazines, always have somewhere to send people. And if it's going to be audio, make sure it's something easy, like I told y'. All. Perfect. Mediapitch.com if you can't remember that, go smoke some more weed. But other than that, you should be able to remember perfect. Mediapitch.com right? So have something simple like that where you can tell people a simple URL that they're going to remember that's going to stick in their head and that's the best thing to have because you want to make sure that you have somewhere to send people during that interview.

Love it makes sense to me. That's solid, man. Well, yeah, I don't want to open up any other loops because I feel like it'll go for a while.

Yeah, we'll be doing around two. I mean, next time we'll probably do it in person. I think.

I don't.

I think it was before the recording we mentioned that I'd love to do one in person and set up cameras and sit around a room, chat. Maybe me, Joe, you and Omari all together, do a little Mastermind video episode or something at some point. I think that'd be really fun.

I think it's the perfect mix. PR and marketing. You need both of them, you know, and it's a perfect combo. And if you just master at least the basics, foundations of those, then, I mean, you're setting yourself up really nice.

For sure, for sure.

And I always say PR is an enhancer, so that's is a tool that's there to enhance your marketing. It's not a replacement tool.

Yeah. Now, is there, is there anything in the sort of PR.

Earned media world that we haven't touched on that you want to get into? I mean, you don't have to give like unload everything. That's obviously what, you know, perfect media pitch.com and your services are for. But was there anything that maybe we should have touched on that we didn't get around to?

No, I just, I really want people to see the importance of PR. Whether it's something you have someone do 10 hours a month or 40 hours a month or 40 hours a week, I don't care what you do. But make sure, don't just get on Forbes and then, you know, be like, oh, I don't need PR anymore. I got on Forbes. Like pr, you should be consistently in the media every month. You should be on more podcasts, on more TV interviews, on new magazines. You should be on someone's guest blog. Like, you should consistently work on getting in the media on a consistent basis, not just get those few, you know, cool little pictures as seen on for your website and be done with pr.

Yeah, don't do that.

No, I know I mentioned that that was going to be like my last question, but I actually thought of another question I want to ask. How important is social media and your existing following to getting pr? Because I've, I've interviewed a handful of PR people in the past and some of the advice I've received in the past is when you contact them, if you show them, look, I've got a hundred thousand followers on Twitter and I plan to share this article to Twitter. There's a chance that they're going, there's a better chance that they're going to want to feature you.

Have you noticed that depends on the type of person you're pitching? So there's three different types of people. There's contributors, there's freelancers, and there's actual reporters or staff writers. Contributors are entrepreneurs who write for media outlets for free. As an exposure play. The only reason a contributor is going to write about you is if they knew that they're going to get more exposure from it. They're not really caring about what you have to say. It's going to be more about how are they going to benefit from it. When it comes to freelancers and staff writers, they don't care so much about your social media following. They're more intrigued by the story. So it depends on the person. I won't disagree with those, with what those other publicists said. I'll just say it depends on who you're pitching.

Got it. Okay, cool.

That makes sense.

That was my legitimate last question. Except for our final wrap up question.

My last question is, do you have any books that you often recommend or find yourself reading often?

You know, my biggest book, and this is something that I've read a couple times, is Expert Secrets. And the reason I love that book is just the in depth that it goes and how it takes from other what other people have said. And he credits everybody in Expert Secrets. He doesn't like take advice and not give credit where credit is due. But I really love Expert Secrets because I'm always impressed by influence. Right. I mean our company is called Leveraged Influence. So Expert Secrets is. Is my favorite book. It actually that is what led to the creation of Vetpanur Tribe was Expert Secrets.

Russell Brunson.

Russell Brunson's both of his books, Expert Secrets and Dotcom Secrets are honestly some of the most actionable books I've ever read as far as tactical marketing.

It's a playbook.

Yeah. I mean they're essentially just playbooks that you can literally go and plug and play some of his systems into your own business.

Yeah, no, that's a solid book.

Good recommendation I do have. I want to ask one question real quick. It's totally.

Oh shit.

No, it's off topic. But so if there's anybody listening that really sort of resonated with your story and the sort of, you know, like the suicide rate of veterans and things like that. Is there a charity or place that you. That people listening can go contribute if that story really touched them and they want to get involved in some way.

You know, there's so many of them now that I don't have one that I reference. But I would just say if it's something that's near and dear to your heart, you know, just do your research and find someone locally. Or I always say support the smaller guys, right? I mean, the Wounded Warrior projects, all those guys, they have plenty of support. So find some smaller local based nonprofits and give them some support. It's kind of like saying, you know, don't support Walmart, support your corner store. So that's, that's the basic thing. You can find plenty of them out there. I wish I had one I would suggest, but I don't have one specific.

Cool. And any sort of, any vets that are listening in? I know we do have quite a few vets that listen to our podcast that are entrepreneurial. How do they access your resources for vets specifically?

Just go to Facebook and search Vetpreneur Tribe and you will find it there. Vetpreneur. Not Vetrapreneur. Vetpreneur.

Yeah, I've heard some awesome stuff about the community. Not from just you, but other folks in there. And it's cool to just, just hear about like I'll, I'll hear that name. I'm like, oh, I know that guy. I'm like, you should get to know him, you know, if in similar space. So it sounds like an awesome group for, for vets to just come together. So.

Sure.

Awesome, Andrew. Amazing. Go to perfect mediapitch.com go grab that thing for seven bucks. It's a no brainer. We've already said it enough here.

Is there anywhere else you want to check? You want our listeners to check out or just go to perfectmediapitch.com perfect.

Mediapitch.com is perfect. And I'll just get you on my email list and make sure you're taken care of there.

So he will take care. Yeah, man.

Sweet.

Thanks, Andrew. It's been fun. We'll do it again.

Thank you, everybody.

Talk to you soon.

Bye. All right, thank you. And I hope you just enjoyed this episode you just listened to. Now, right now, before we sign off, I have a few things I would love for you to do. So the very first thing is to go find our guest on Facebook and tell them that you loved their episode with us. That's going to help them just feel good about themselves, but also it's going to spread the word a little bit more for us. Go find them on Facebook. Everybody's on Facebook. And go say that you love their episode and maybe one cool thing that you learn there. The second thing is to go to itunes and subscribe to our podcast. Just look up hustle and float chart and hit the subscribe button. And the very last thing, the third thing is to leave us a review on itunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast and help us spread the word more. That's how more people are going to get this awesome knowledge, this, this cool podcast training, and a whole bunch of other cool, free training that we give out@evergreen profits.com. so that's about it. Go find them on Facebook, go subscribe on itunes and leave us a review. You would be amazing, amazing if you did that. But you're always amazing. So thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.

You're awesome.