How To Turn A Free Speech Into A Multimillion Dollar Brand (with Lee Richter) - Genius Network Episode #93

But what happened was he built a global brand and now this little zookeeper who in the beginning just asked for one little story that's blossomed into another. And he said yes at every single opportunity. He's now worth over $8 million.

Genius Network member Lee Richter reached 40 million people, got 328,802 shares, 2,800 comments, and added 25,000 names to her email list with with one social media post. This is her story. Remember to subscribe to Genius Network so you don't miss a Future episode. Visit geniusnetwork.com subscribe for more.

I get a lot of requests from people asking me to speak at their events. And often they want me to speak for free. Sometimes I do say yes if it's the right event. I'm sure many of you get asked the same thing. The question is, what should you say? Often the right answer is yes. Speaking for free could help you earn a ton of money. That's not just me saying it. It's also Lee Richter, your next 10 minute speaker. Lee's going to prove to you in her message how you can turn a free speech into a multi million dollar brand using social media. Lee knows about building multi million dollar brands and businesses. Lee currently owns and operates nine different businesses employing hundreds of people from two veterinarian hospitals to a speaker's bureau and the Events Planners Association. Lee is truly a business strategy genius. Lee's been recognized as a winning business innovator by the San Francisco Business Times, as one of the Top 100 Women Business Leaders and the 2017 Elite Businesses of the Year. With Infusionsoft, Lee knows how important it is to build your brand. So her title is how to turn a free speech into a multimillion dollar brand. Please help me welcome the very awesome Lee Richter. Thank you, dear. Thank you.

You know how companies spend millions of dollars on advertising and they go out there. I mean, if you just watch the super bowl, you'll see how much money they spend on advertising. But what I've learned is if they combine that with some public relations, they actually will get a bigger bang for their buck. And this morning we talked about marketing and how many different ways there are to market to your audience. I find there's 13 different ways. One of them is public relations and speaking. That is one tactic under marketing. So that's what we're going to talk about today. So what do I mean by a free speech? Joel always tells us to make sure we tell you exactly what we're thinking when we give you a term, a free speech is something that you're not getting paid for and you can't make an offer from stage. So you're really just giving something to the community or connecting with someone or, or in this case being here at Genius Network. This is an opportunity for a free speech by being a member. It's one of the benefits that we get which all of us should be using and I'm glad I'm using it today with you guys. Here's some ways that you can do free speeches for your audience. Of course there's YouTube, Facebook Live, which we're doing a Facebook Live right now, webinars, social media, all of those things. And I should let you know at the end, I will give you a way to get this presentation so you don't have to take notes, you can just enjoy it. And I will also give you a couple gifts at the end as well. So I'm going to talk about Pixar, who's an iconic brand now and happens to be. This is a view that I see on the way to my daughter's school. When I drop her off in the morning, I actually go right by Pixar and I'm inspired by the creativity that's going on inside of there. But you know, in 1986 it was just an idea and Steve Jobs and two of his friends put this in as a side project. It wasn't even their main focus. And they went around and they gave so many free speeches and they told so many people about what they were doing as an innovative and creative company, right? They were being mind blowing out there, but no one knew who they were. And they spent all this time and they even went to Disney and said, disney, we want you to be part of this. And Disney's like, no way. Don't want to have anything to do with it. We don't see this in our future. Do you know, 20 years later, Disney paid over $7 billion for Pixar. But in those first years when they were doing free speeches and they were getting out there and giving the word, other people couldn't see into the vision, but they saw their vision and they stuck with it. And that's the key. They were consistent. They kept getting the message out there and they stuck with their vision. So me personally, I love working with global companies, companies that really want to make an impact and a positive impact around the world. I've worked with companies in finance for many, many years in lifestyle business, including my own company and pets. My husband's a world class veterinarian. And so I support him in that industry. And that industry brought me to our biggest conference just a month ago. And at that conference were 17,000 attendees. And I was invited to a free and beautiful breakfast with Jack Hanna in the penthouse. And there were about 20 of us invited while there's 17,000 people at the conference who can't wait to meet him. Well, during that two or three hours that we spent together, a lot of people were asking him all about animals and all about the things that he did in the world around animals. And he would give a lot of canned answers and things he said a lot. Well, I had the opportunity to sit with him and his wife for a little bit, and I was asking him about his media, and he just lit up talking about it. He's like, no one ever asked me this. And so I just asked him, how did you get started? And he goes, I got started because we had an ape in captivity that was gonna have a baby. And what we wanted to do is get the word out. So he went to the local news station. Local news station put him on. Then Good Morning America saw it, they invited him on, and, you know the rest after that. He spent the next years having 200 times that he. 200 presentations on the David Letterman show. Now, the thing is, in the beginning, he only got paid zero, nothing. He paid his own way. He paid his transportation. He paid his hotel room. Over time, he got a $75 stipend every time he came in. So that's pretty close to free if you're flying to New York. He said at the very end, at his 200th appearance, he started getting $125. But what happened was he built a global brand. And now this little zookeeper who in the beginning, just asked for one little story that's blossomed into another, and he said yes at every single opportunity. He's now worth over $8 million. There's very few people in veterinary medicine or in zoos that can claim that. But it was really wonderful to see how it touched his life just by saying yes. So every time you speak, you have the opportunity to create the next opportunity. I mean, that's what happens. Everyone gets up here and they talk about the last time they were here and the things that happened in between. Well, it wouldn't have happened unless they took the chance to come up here. So what you want to do in your company is create buzz around the things that you want to get out there. If you're wanting to tell the world what you do and how you do it create a way to share that. Like we're watching Carrie, who's doing it on Facebook Live. We're watching people sharing it on social media. We're watching Joe, who's doing it in many different fashions. And it was really interesting because the reason I'm inspired to even share this with you today is because the last meeting I was here, Joe had mentioned he spent over $300,000, which he reminded me was $360,000 on an advertising campaign. And the advertising campaign got the name out, got his name in all these beautiful publications. But what I told him is what if he took that $360,000, split it in half, put half into advertising and half in pr, I think I would have gotten him a bigger bang for his buck. He would have gotten so much more attention and it would have been better attention because it would have been articles written about him, not just advertisements. So that is what sparked me to want to come to you guys today is to start thinking when you're putting together your marketing budgets. Take some time, take some energy and getting the news out to the media. The media is thirsty to tell your stories and all it takes is one phone call and the connection and the follow through. Richard Branson is mentioned every single time in this meeting. I don't have to put his name up, I don't have to put anything up there. But you know, he's done many free speeches in his life too. And he's thought about many different ways to support his community and his clients. And can you believe those are his brands? Now that I have nine, I feel like I'm really behind the times, right? I'm not there. But he is managing all these because he's thinking about all the ways to connect with his ideal client. And you know, every one of those brands has a spokesperson and every one of those brands has somebody who's putting out regular news releases and calling media and telling them what's going on. And that's why when we open USA Today or Forbes, our entrepreneur, we're constantly seeing his name out there because he's consistently getting the story out there. And it's really something that you can do as well. Right now he's worth $5.1 billion. And it all started with just little ideas, consistency and building great teams to help him do it. So my recommendation to all of you is to look at these companies. PRCOM, PRNewswire, PR Insight, PRWeb. Put a profile up there, get things ready so that when you have news to share which frankly should be at least once a month, if not once a week. Something that's going on in your company, a new talent that you acquired, a new software that you're working with, a new collaboration. At least get the word out there so the media get used to seeing your name and who you are. And the biggest key is follow up. They won an award with infusionsoft. It's their elite business of the year. For my PR marketing company, which was extraordinary. But the next day, my team went and created a news release, got it out on the wire, and then within two days, I had interviews with Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes magazine, Huffington Post. They sent me a list of all the places the news release was put. 20 pages, all around the country, all around the world that never would have known who I was if we didn't get the word out about this. Infusionsoft is even happy because their name is being circulated with it. So not only am I happy, but the person who gave me the award is sending me a thank you note saying, wow, we love all this attention for our company. And that's how you get attention, is by creating a way for the media to talk about you, for social media to talk about you, to go viral, especially if it's a great and interesting story. Now, this is a meme that I put up in November 2015, in January 2016, all of a sudden, it went viral. On a Friday, it had a million views. By the following Friday, it had 40 million reach. It was unbelievable how many people were looking at this meme. So I have a little thing here. 40 million reach, 328,000 shares, 2,800 comments. And it was just by sharing something that Julia Roberts, I mean, we all know she's a movie star, and she was actually sharing something that was a quote from someone else. It wasn't even her quote, but it had this huge reach. But the beauty of this is it added 25,000 names to our email list who are interested in talking about what we're interested in talking about. And it let us put them in a category where we have conversations with them based on this topic. So how would you like to add 25,000 names? Actually more than $25,000. 25,000 names to your list. You can do that just as well. So paying attention to your community, planting the seeds exactly like Joel said, these are coming up a little bit faster. But I will tell you, planting the seeds is so important. Watering them, nurturing them, looking at the ways to not only get connected, but to stay connected. Look in this room, everyone you're connected to. How do you create a way to stay connected and then building your tribe both online and offline, in person and online so when you speak you get more exposure, more opportunities and more connections. We've established that there. And I'll tell you what, these guys are doing it, I'm doing it. And I know that you guys can do it too. And I hope that I was able to prove to you today that there is power in a free speech at the Genius Network.

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