The Marriage Between Internet Marketing and Traditional Media - Dan Janal

Speaking with TJ Walker, dissecting the communication skills and practices of world class leaders. The world of media gurus is often divided into two camps. You have the old school people who are all about hits, publicity. Call that editor back, get the booking, get the talk show appearance. And there's the new school, those who are really savvy at Internet marketing. Well, our special guest today is an expert in both. Dan Genial is one of the founding fathers of Internet marketing and publicity. He wrote one of the very first books on Internet marketing way back in 1994. He's also the head guru behind PR leads. So he is great at connecting people to talk show bookers, producers, newspaper reporters and getting good old fashioned interviews the traditional way. Dan, thanks for being our guest today.

Thanks tj it's great to be here.

You have been around in this business even longer than I have. What was it like writing a book about Internet marketing when you started in 1993? People must have said, what are you talking about?

You're absolutely right. And that's a great place to start because if you don't know your history, what's the old saying? Then you're doomed to repeat it. My background is in high tech pr, so I was involved in many launches of high tech products that were trendsetters, world setters. I mean, I worked on the PR program for Kaypro when Kaypro was synonymous with the word computer. Many people listening, say, have never heard of a KPro, which is kind of funny. I worked on the, the PR launch for the CD ROM. You know, back then CD ROMs were very expensive and schools had bake sales so they could afford a CD ROM and get Grolier's Encyclopedia. And now, and some of our listeners.

Don'T even know what a CD ROM is exactly.

Now there used to be CD ROM sections in software stores and now there aren't CD ROM players in computers and there aren't software stores. So. But the world has changed and so has the media. But you know, writing a book back then was very interesting because, you know, I was on the PR team that launched America Online. I worked for a PR firm and Commodore was our client. Commodore Computers, which again was a big name back then. They were one of the original investors in America Online and we launched America Online and it was frankly not so great. AOL was the number three online service back then. There was CompuServe and Prodigy and AOL and it just was like pulling teeth trying to get publicity for them. And then one day I pick up the New York Times. And on the COVID page of the New York Times, front page of the New York Times, there's this article about this Internet thing. And I pick up a copy of InfoWorld and Computer World and PC Magazine and they're all talking about this Internet thing and they're on the front page and AOL is not on the front page. And I was saying to myself, what's going on here? So I'm smart enough to see a trend. And I realized that there is no Internet company, there is no president of the Internet. They didn't hire an advertising or PR agency. This Internet thing just sprang up from nothing and was capturing the imagination of every reporter everywhere and every thought leader everywhere. And was making the front pages of every magazine and newspaper. So I said, I'm going to write a book about this. And I'd written a book before and I got an agent and they wanted to buy the book and all that and they found a buyer for the book, which was great. And you asked how is it writing a book about the Internet? Well, back then there was no graphical user interface. You know, this nice windows like browser system that we had. The browser had just been invented before then. The Internet was this blank screen with a dot and you had to know what commands to type in. And it wasn't easy. It was really used for educators and scientists and people like that. It was not a, a daily consumer product. Then the browser.

I well remember just seeing people with computers, not even being on one myself. In 93, I believe it was 1990. Well, I did for typing. But in 1994 I think one of my tech nerd friends got me on CompuServe. And that was my first experience with it.

Yeah, and CompuServe was great. And I was on CompuServe too. I was a forum host on CompuServe. That's why I knew about the marketing potentials of the, the online media and the online services. So I wrote a book about that and it changed every single day because there are all these innovations and all these changes and all these upgrades and all these new features that were coming on board. So I'd write a chapter about security and saying there is no security on the Internet. And then the next day RSA would come out and say, we have this new standard for security on the Internet. And it's like, oops, got to rewrite that chapter. So it was this very, very long book. It did very well. It positioned me as an expert. It led me to speak liter around the world from Beijing to Budapest I taught Internet marketing classes, the first Internet marketing class at Berkeley and Internet branding at Stanford, consulted with a lot of key companies and really launched my career. So that's the story of the Internet Marketing Handbook. It was republished and updated three times. And then I realized that it must.

Have been hard getting on the Internet in Budapest back then. I'm going to Budapest for the third time this year, but I'd never been before this year. It's a great city now, but I would, I would think it would have been hard getting Internet connection back in the 90s.

Curious thing about Budapest. I go to Budapest and they paid me a little bit of money and airfare and enough to bring my wife over and have a nice vacation, which is great because Budapest had a very, very low standard of living back then. I don't know what it was like today.

Cost of living.

Cost of living. Cost of living, yes. I mean, standard of living was very high. The cost of living. People didn't make much money. So I go and they have copies of my book translated into Hungarian, except they didn't bother to pay my publisher or me. And they were selling the book to people for a few bucks because they didn't have much money. So I'd be speaking about, oh, you get a copy of Adobe illustrator or Adobe PDF maker, whatever for $195. And they were looking at me like, $195. Are you kidding? That's like a month's salary. But they were wonderful people. It was a great time and it was good to influence.

I'm curious, what did you do about that? Because over the years, I've met so many experts, author. Author wannabes, worry about piracy. And my standard response is, hey, buddy. And it's typically a man, your biggest problem is obscurity. Not that people think your ideas are so great that they want to steal them, but in this case, you actually had your intellectual property stolen. What did you do about it?

Did worth pursuing? My book has been translated into six different languages, and basically my publisher, John Wiley, sells the rights for about $500 to a foreign publisher. So it's not a lot of money. And we would get additional royalties if they earned out. And either they never did or they never reported the money as earning out. So we never got any additional money. So it really was too small to worry about. But yeah, you're right. In this larger issue, it's all about virality or spread ability. And you know, back then, you know, back in 1993, every consultant had a newsletter and they charged 195 or $595 for their newsletter. And it was printed, and it cost a lot of money to print and proofread and mail and put a stamp on and put into an envelope, and a lot of manpower. So someone comes along and says, hey, you know, I'm a consultant. I really don't want to make $195 selling my newsletter. I want to make $50,000 or 500,000 dol dollars selling a consulting program. So I'll just give my newsletter away for free online. And the floodgates opened. It's like the first consultant came in. I don't know who it was who gave their newsletter away for free. But soon no one in the world would consider paying $195 for a newsletter from a consultant because they're all online for free. And now, fast forward x number of years. The Internet is all about free information. So everyone has their free blogs, their videos on YouTube and Vimeo and other services, free podcasts. It's like all this intellectual content, you just give it away, and there's no value in the ideas or the sharing of ideas. And I think a lot of people are struggling with that. They're saying, how do we make money if we're giving away our ideas for free? And I think it's the implementation of the ideas and the creation of an individual program where the money is. That's what people will pay for. Because frankly, if I want to find out how to how to launch a podcast, I could hire someone to do that, or I could find 10 articles that basically say the same thing that give me step by step on how to do and launch my own podcast. And if I were technically inclined, I could do that. And if I were afraid of technology, I could hire someone to do it. And I'd hire them because their article I read podcast or any other content or any other thing. How to lose weight, how to reduce stress, how to fill in the blank. There are zillions of consultants and thought leaders and people have really good information who are using that same model of giving things away for free.

And so much of the value is just telling people, ignore all this other stuff. Do it this one way. Because you're right. You can read 10 articles on how to start a podcast, but then that will link you to 100 articles and 1,000 articles, and they all say something a little bit different. Which is why I in fact, hired a consultant to help me give a little guidance, to wade through all of that. That is part of the value of the expert you mentioned giving stuff away and stuff is free. I forgot who said it first. But one high level speaker said, you know what, the more you give away, the more you get. And I have found that to be true when I look at some of the most successful people I admire, but also in my own business, I mean, I have to give away so much content. This podcast, videos, newsletters, and a tiny percentage will come back as paid clients. Tim Ferriss famously says he, you know, he spends, I think he said, 95% of his time giving stuff away for free. But then when he does sell something, he charges a tremendous amount for it for his time or for a speech. Gary Vaynerchuk the same way he gives away a tremendous amount of content. But if you want him to show up at your event for a speech, well, it's Gonna cost you $80,000 or more. How do you see your clients who come to you navigating the right mix of what should be free and what should be paid? Because books. I'll be honest with you, I have half a dozen books. I don't make a lot of money from my books. They are primarily promotional tools. If you're already wildly famous like a Bill O'Reilly, sure, you can make money selling books. It's a great way of monetizing fame. But if you don't have fame, books can be loss leaders at best.

What are your thoughts?

And you've worked with John Wiley, which is respected publisher, largest or second largest business publisher in the world, depending on how you count it. I've published a book with them too. But what's your sense of how books can play a role in an expert? Whether you're an expert, an author, an academic, however you're you view yourself, what's the role of a book in your overall revenue model for most people these days?

Well, that's a great question. I really want to applaud you for pointing out what many authors don't realize, and that is that there's frankly very little money in the book. The money is in the business of the book. So the book is really a big business card. And you're not going to sell 10,000 copies of your book or 50,000 copies and become an overnight. Everyone claims they're a best seller because they got five of their friends to buy their book on Amazon on the 4th of July when no one else was buying books. So your book ranked high because no one in the world was buying books that day. To me, that's not a real best seller. And most people who do that kind of strategy. Don't walk away and say, gee, I made $50,000 on my book, or 75,000 or a million. No. In fact, if you go to Barnes and Noble, Avery Barnes and Noble, and you look toward one section in the store, they have these books that are bargain books. And all these books sell for a dollar or $5 or $10. And they're all by famous people. You know, Colin Powell, former presidents, movie stars, talk show hosts, you know, people of huge platforms that you and I can only dream about. And yet they're selling books for $5. Why? Because they're not promoting their books anymore. So even famous people have a hard time selling books. So I think the reality is that every consultant, speaker, author, realtor, any doctor who's listening to this call, finance person, whatever. The real value of the book is to promote your own credibility as an expert. So it's worth doing a book for that reason alone. And you can get any number of companies to publish your book and make a book look like a book, like CreateSpace can do a book. Other companies can make books look like books and really shine and make you look good, and that's good. Then you can give the book away as a big business card or as a loss leader, as you say. And you say, here's my book now. You know, like, and trust me, or you were on the way to knowing me and liking me and trusting me, so you will give me more of your money as a consultant or hire me as an expert to speak at your conference and whatever. That's totally true. I mean, I send out my newsletter almost every week, and almost every week, someone who reads it says, you know, I've been reading your newsletter for 11 years, and now I'm ready to hire you. And sometimes it does take that long. Sometimes it's a lot faster than that. But usually some business does come in because you're out there. We can have discussions forever about whether LinkedIn or social media or Facebook can really help you. And for some people it does, and for some people it doesn't. Depends if your audience is online. But to get back to books for a second, I've done a number of campaigns on Facebook for my clients, fiction authors and nonfiction authors. And I found some startling. I mean, number one, I think Facebook advertising is absolutely tremendous for people who want to build their lists, people who want to get more people on their email lists, people who want to build their funnels and get people on the top of the funnel. I think Facebook advertising is absolutely fantastic. And I Love working with my clients to do that. But you really need a whole system behind it as well because they come, they get your freebie, your free book or your free tip sheet or whatever to build that know, like and trust factor. But what's next? You have to walk them through the, this whole series of emails and other things, other strategies to get them to actually send you money. It's a hard process because everyone wants to get your money and there's a lot of competition and there's a lot of advertisements going around there.

Giving away stuff for free isn't that hard. Getting money out of people.

There you go.

Is extremely difficult.

Exactly. So it's easy to get them into your funnel, but you really have to massage them the right way to. And it takes time to get them to give you the money. So you have to be committed to the long term. Now, getting back to books, we would do campaigns to get people to go to Amazon to buy the book. And you think about it, this is a very logical process. They see your ad. If they're not interested in the ad, they wouldn't click on the ad. If they are interested in the ad, they click on the ad. So you know right away that people who are clicking and by the way, on Facebook, you only pay for the clicks. You're not paying for the impressions. You're actually paying when people are engaging and want to see more information. So we're paying for real traffic here. We're not throwing away money. So they click on this link for a book and then they go to the Amazon page and they're not buying. And it's scary as heck. I mean, because they are qualified. And you look at Amazon, Amazon is like, there's nothing wrong with Amazon, right? Amazon is like the most trusted name on the Internet, if not the most, and certainly one of the most trusted names. So they're not going to go, I.

Spend time there every day and I spend tens of thousands of dollars a year there.

Perfect. So you know what it's all about. You can't find it anywhere cheaper. So you wouldn't say, oh, I like this book by TJ Walker, but I think I can get it cheaper somewhere else. No, you can't. There's social proof on each page. So it's not like, oh, I don't know if this book is any good. Just the opposite. There are reviews by editors, there are reviews by people who bought the book. There's social proof. The interface is the same on each page. They can't say, gee, I was confused I didn't know where to click or what to buy or what to do. No, just the opposite. Amazon is perfect and yet we couldn't sell any books. So I'm telling all of my clients who are authors or consultants and coaches and speakers and trainers and whatever who have books that instead of sending people to Amazon, let's send them to a lead page, a lead magnet that basically gets their name in exchange for a free piece of advice. You know, a tip sheet, a book, an article, a webinar, whatever.

Then you get their name. Because Amazon is great for customers. But if you are a publisher, if you're the author, it's frankly horrible because you're not getting the name and email address your own customers. More on that in a moment. You're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker. This is the program where we bring you world class leaders in their fields and analyze what exactly do they do when it comes to planning their communication, preparing, whether it's for media interviews, speeches, talks, webinars, what are they doing differently from most people who frankly aren't very effective and how can you use some of the same tactics? Our special guest today is Dan Genell. He is the founder of PR Leads. You can find out more information about him@prleadsplus.com he's the author of eight books including Reporters are looking for you. We've linked to that in the show Notes as well. We're talking about communicating in the modern Internet era and using old school and new school tricks. Facebook advertising for one, good old fashioned paper and hardback books for the other. Dan, put your crystal ball in front of you. Five, let's say 10 years from now with books, is it going to be like news? As we were speaking about earlier newsletters, you used to be able to charge People a fortune. $200 for newsletters. 500. There are investment gurus who used to sell their newsletters for $5,000 a year. Basically all of those are free on the Internet. Seth Godin has famously given away some of his books online and then later went on to sell millions of the same copy. Amazon, as we were discussing, has this unlimited program. It's where I get most of my books these days. I spend nine bucks a month and then I can get about half a million books at no extra charge, 10 at a time on Amazon. I find myself buying books like that. What is your advice to authors who are your clients who come to you because even 99 cents can be too much. Are we headed towards a model where books are free and they are just used as a loss leader for speaking engagements, for consulting contracts and other business services.

Yeah, for consultant speakers, authors, trainers and such like that. I think definitely there are a few people who are going to be able to make money selling books. But you know, the Stephen Kings and Patricia Cornwells and Danielle Steeles and people like that, they have their devoted followers who are going to pay full price for their books or go to Costco and pay half price for their books for the end of time. But I think what you're pointing out here is that there are just so many books, it's really hard to stand out. And that's from an author's perspective or a thought leader perspective, but also from a reader perspective. It's like, how much time in the world do you have to read all this stuff? I can't keep up. I can barely keep up with all the blogs and easings that I subscribe to, let alone books. The other day I signed up for Goodreads and bookbub, which are great services and they recommend books for you based on what your friends are reading or what your own interests are. And on the case of BookBub, they give you offers for free books or 99 cent books. So I signed up the first day and I got these offers for three free books. Well, I could have had any number of books, but I downloaded three free books. And I don't remember if they were the full books or just excerpts from books. And if you like the book, you buy the book. But then the next day I got another email with 20 recommendations and they were all good recommendations, but I still hadn't read the first three books. And the next day I got another email from bookbub that said, here are even more recommendations and some of them are free and some of them are a buck. And I didn't download any of them because I saw these three other ones that I hadn't even looked at. Then the fourth day, I didn't even open up the message because I didn't have time.

You're drowning.

I'm drowning in information. Yeah. And books are like 250 pages. Well, maybe an ebook is 97 pages or 47 pages. That's also a trend in books. They're getting shorter and shorter and shorter and they're still called books. So I see. If you're a niche leader, if you are the person in air conditioning repair and you come out with a new book and everyone wants your book because you know everything about air conditioning repair, then you've got it Made. So the riches are in the niches, as they say. To become another Tim Ferriss or someone like that is hard. It takes a lot of work and granted it can be done. Tim Ferriss made it and there are other people who are making it every day. And some of them are 13 years old or 17 years old and they have fashion blogs or cosmetic blogs or they're dishing on celebrities and somehow they stand out. So there's always that 15 year old superstar who goes on American Idol and becomes Carrie Underwood and there are a lot of others who don't, but there's always the next Miley Cyrus and the next Taylor Swift and they're all 15 years old and somehow they fit Justin Bieber, I mean, great story. He was found on the Internet. He was not, say, homeless, but he was living in a hotel room with his mother and put these videos online and the next thing you know he's world famous. So it definitely can happen. But you mentioned Tim one person, not a million people.

You mentioned Tim Ferriss and a lot of our listeners are very familiar with him. I'm a regular listener to his podcast. I well remember it was probably eight years ago, you and I had a conversation at a National Speakers association convention about Tim Ferriss and I believe you had had some dealings with him. I'm wondering what your sense is of why he is so successful. He's certainly interesting and he is very candid about how he shrewdly came up with the title of the Four Hour Workweek that he just came up with a whole bunch of titles, tested them on Google to see which one clicked the most brilliant advice and yet simple and cheap. I still don't find anyone else doing that. So I'm wondering if you see any other influences that Tim Ferriss has had and if you just had any other insights from having dealt with him that you think made him successful.

Sure, yeah. Tim used PR leads. PRleads was what Tim used to catapult himself to fame in some respects. We'll talk more about that. But PR Leeds is mentioned as one of the services that he recommends in all the editions of the Four Hour Workweek. So I'm very happy for that. But if you read the Four Hour Workweek, you'll see something very interesting about Tim and that is that he is a brilliant student. Tim became the tango champion of the world because he went to the best tango teacher and learned what to do and did exactly what the teacher said. He became the first Westerner to win this big martial arts contest because he Went to learn the rules and he realized you don't have to take the guy down and pin him down. You just have to like push him out of the ring three times. So I figured, how do I push the guy out of the ring three times and he becomes the champion. So Tim is brilliant at being a student. You know, if I were taking the tango lessons, I'd say, gee, the teacher said to move your foot here. How about if I moved it? If 2 inches is good, 3 inches must be better. Wrong. Tim was very good at following instructions. So back in the early days, Tim would go to every Internet marketing conference there was. He networked like Matt. He's a very outgoing person, very friendly, very, very attractive personality, as we all know. So people gravitate toward him. Very charismatic personality. And you know, he would learn. And when the book came out, he, he used all of his connections and his connections paid off and they promoted the book and there was a great deal of controversy. I mean, I mean some people loved him, a lot of people hated him. There were hate blogs about Tim Ferriss, if you can believe that. But he moved on that he might.

Talk, which is generally a sign that you're pretty successful.

Yeah, your whole blog's devoted to hating you. Yeah, you're getting people's attentions, that's for sure. And he has leveraged that in ways that I'm sure he had never imagined back then. I mean, I remember I got my first email from Tim and he said, hey, I have this new book, it's coming out, it's called Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit. And I said, I can't help you because we don't promote drug dealers. Of course, if you read the book, he was selling nutritional supplements. Those were his drugs. He had it set up so that other people were really running the day to day operations for him. And he was making a lot of money. So yes, there was truth in the title, Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit, but that was not a politically correct or expedient title. He comes back a few months later, I guess after he did that test marketing and came out with frankly, the best title for a book ever. Who doesn't want to have a four hour work week? I mean, Tim will probably be the first person to tell you that he does not work four hours. He probably works 400 hours a week and he does it more efficiently than anyone else. But I spoke to a lot of his readers who sign up for PR leads and they really wanted to work for four hours. They were lawyers who were tired of working too long or whatever. But yeah, the whole idea of test marketing a book book title has been around forever. People used to take ads out in the back of the National Enquirer and they suggest book titles there or they test the book titles there. So that was an idea that's been around from time immemorial. And more people should do it because they would percentage.

What percentage of people are doing that of your clients and just people you encounter, whether they're people from the National Speakers association or other professional groups you.

Interact with, I have no idea. I can see things on my Facebook feed every once in a while for someone to say, hey, here's my idea for a book cover. Which one do you like better? Or a book title, which one do you like better? And so some people are doing it, and some people are doing it because they want the facts, and some people are doing it because it's a sneaky way to promote the fact that they have a new book. So good for them. I think what's interesting here is as that the world changes.

You are listening to Speaking with TJ Walker. Our special guest today, Dan Janelle. He is the founder of PR Leads. This is an organization that connects authors, experts with members of the media. Dan, we've, we've mentioned it briefly before. Many of our listeners are familiar with it. But for those who aren't, give us the overview of PR leads.

Sure. PR Leads is like speed dating for, for thought leaders and experts and reporters. Reporters need to write stories, they need to quote experts, and they don't know who to contact. So they send their leads to us and we send those leads to our clients. So if a reporter could be writing a story about real estate trends or how to save your marriage or how to motivate your employees, and we send those leads to our clients, and we only send them the targeted leads in their specific areas so they're not inundated with the leads that don't matter to them. So it's very targeted service. And we provide training for our new clients so they know how to respond. We give them coaching, we give them training, we give them feedback on their responses. So we do everything we can to make them as successful as possible.

And full disclosure, I've used the service before. It's a great service and it is a great way to connect with a lot of major media. I know your clients have been seen in New York Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, you name it. You personally have appeared in all these places, cnbc. So you're eating your Own cooking too. How else does a typical client of yours come in and use the service? How much time does it take? Navigate us the practical day to day tips of how someone would use this the first 30, 60, 90 days.

Sure. Thanks. Basically, it's very, very simple. They don't want you to write the article. That's their job. They're looking for experts who say three to five experts who have something interesting or different to say. So that's where you come in. So every day you check your mailbox and you see leads from us and you'd say, hey, this one looks interesting. I think I'll respond. So what does a lead look like? Well, you see the reporter's name, the publication they work for, a brief description of the article and the information that they need, and then their contact information, which is usually their email address. So you'd respond back to them with a couple of tips and a couple of ideas. So these are your best ideas, things that you're known for. If you say the same thing as everyone else, you're not going to get quoted. But if you give them your new, interesting, interesting ideas, there's a very good chance you're going to be quoted. In fact, if you disagree with their thesis, you'll get quoted even more. Because the reporters want to get both sides of the story.

Controversy sells.

Controversy sells. So if you think that the reporter is full of garbage or the reporter says, gee, the economy is looking great, what's happening? You can say the economy stinks and here's why, and you'll probably get quoted too. But in either case, if you offer tips and ideas, and I suggest you have two to three tips that are two to three sentences long, because that way reporters can literally copy the information from your message and paste it into the article if they're under deadline pressure or if they are lazy. And frankly, that happens a lot. And you're saying two sentences that doesn't sound like a lot. Well, if you read any newspaper, and I don't care if you're President Obama or Putin or the Pope, you get quoted for two sentences before the reporter looks for someone who has a different point of view and then quotes them for two sentences. And that's just the way journalism is.

You just mentioned the example of the economy stinks and here's why. And this show is not political, and I don't really want to get political, but I just can't resist pointing out how Donald Trump is the master at that sort of thing. You can go back every couple of years for the last 30 years. And Donald Trump has gotten massive amounts of media attention saying this president is the worst president in the history of our country. And he said it about Bill Clinton, he said it about Bush, he said it about Obama, and I believe he even said it about Reagan. He said the economy is horrible. Anytime you attack forcefully and say something is the worst, you will get media attention. Now, I'm not advocating that you say that if you don't believe it. I'm certainly not advocating Donald Trump. But I just wanted to point out, just structurally, that is an excellent technique if your goal is to get media attention. You mentioned Tim Ferriss, walk us through. If you can name names, any other clients you've had of where they started, how they used their service, how it generated perhaps a placement in a small article, but that was then picked up in a larger article article, and things snowballed.

Sure. You know, people use publicity for a number of different reasons. Some want fame, some want money, you know, increase the size of their business. Some want to help the world make it a better place, you know, spread their ideas. One of my clients was a psychiatrist who created the term seasonal affective disorder. And you know, if I told you his name, you wouldn't know his name. But everyone knows sad and everyone knows what it is. So he wanted to promote that idea. Another one of my clients, coincidentally another psychiatrist, wanted publicity and she used that to get a bigger advance for her book. She got one of the largest advances that that publisher had ever given at that time for a book in that field.

Because, and for most of our listeners, let me actually define that. Once upon a time, publishers actually paid authors money in advance of the book. They didn't say, okay, if you want to publish the book, give us $25,000 guaranteeing you'll buy the first 3,000 books. Just clarification.

Yeah, great. I've actually heard that from a number of my clients and it shocked me and now I'm hearing it more and more that even traditional publishers are going to pay for Play Model. It just is a sad reflection of the times where it just is. But other clients, they want to make the world a better place, becoming viral, getting the message out there, getting their thoughts and opinions out there. Others use the publicity in their marketing materials and their sales materials to promote themselves. So when you go to LinkedIn, you see logos or on their website you see logos from the media, places where they've appeared. When I get introduced, when I speak, I always use my media credentials like USA Today called Dan Janelle Internet marketing pioneer. And the Los Angeles Times called Dan Janelle an Internet marketing expert. So people who didn't know me 5 seconds ago are now saying, oh, he must be an expert because the Los Angeles Times and USA Today said he is. And that's pretty prevalent even when Jack Canfield is introduced. And of course Jack Canfield was the publisher of the or the co author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He sold 25 billion with the B books. But when he's introduced, his introduction goes something like this. Time magazine called Jack Canfield the co creator of the publishing revolution of the decade. So even Jack Canfield, who sold 25 billion books, is still looking to Time magazine for outside credibility, independent confirmation. Yeah, exactly. The media. For all the stings and arrows that the media absorbs. People still trust the media when they say, you know, go see this movie or go eat at this restaurant or this person's the real deal. They you can eat that up and use that to build your own brand.

Sure. No matter how much Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh mock the New York Times, their bios always say new York Times bestseller. Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh.

Good point. Yeah. You know, it really does show how the media is changing, how people are using the media. Because there's what I call the peso model. P E S O. It's an easy acronym. P is for paid media. That's your advertisements and your press releases. You control the message, you deliver the message. You decide who sees the message. So you can put an ad in the New York Times, you can put the ad in. It's totally up to you. You can send a press release over PR Newswire, which is another service that we provide and it gets out to the media. So that's paid. You control the message. E is for the earned media. That's where you get quoted in the media, whether it be say PR leads, introduces you to a reporter and you get quoted in the media. Or you might have a PR firm that arranges an interview for you, or you run to a report at your local Rotary Club meeting and talk to them and they write about you and your new business. That's cool. That's earned media. The S stands for social media. Now is where, you know, the first two were old school, now we're getting new school. The S is for social media. That's where you start taking those clips and things and putting them on Facebook. I know you do this, you know, you put your own media out there. Your critiques of people, speeches and the political events of the day and such like that. Well, everyone can do that. So that's social media. And then O is your owned media, which again is a variation on social media. You are your own publisher and everyone listening to this podcast is their own publisher. You write your blogs, you put it out there. You take your blog, you put it up on LinkedIn, on the Pulse section of LinkedIn, which is the article section which you may not be aware of, but I love it. It's basically putting your thought leadership, content and articles out on LinkedIn so people who are connected to you can learn more about your thoughts and ideas and have a better opinion of you and get to know like and trust you even more. You are your own publisher. So the peso paid media, earned media, social media and owned media, that's how the world is changing. We are our own publishers. You know, it's amazing. There are even 15 year old girls who have huge followings, say they're doing fashion or makeup or current trends, you know, gossip, entertainment, whatever. And they have huge, huge followings and they're being courted by Hollywood producers to promote their movies. You know, some of them are even acting in the movies and they even have agents. You know, this is just wild. So they're not taking $50 or $500 from a producer because it's like, wow, this is great. I'm 15 years old and $500 a dollars is a lot of money. No, they're hiring agents and the agents are actually negotiating huge deals with these people because frankly they can deliver and they're worth it. So that's where the media is going, where anyone working out of their bedroom can become a media star, an Internet star, and wield enormous influence in a very short period of time. Now it doesn't happen to everyone, it doesn't happen all the time. If we knew how it could be done reliably, well, frankly there'd be a lot more people doing it right. But for some people it just clicks. And that's the beauty of the Internet.

And the problem for so many people, whether it's small businesses or big businesses, is there are just so many choices. When I upload a video to YouTube, YouTube just gives me the choices at the bottom of a gazillion places. I could share it to the Russian version of Facebook and Tumblr. All of these places, no one has the mind space to keep all of them in track and to certainly engage with them in a meaningful factor. One thing I do hear a lot of gurus talk about is this idea of Better to do one social media forum really well than spread yourself too thin over 6 or 8 or 10. What is the social media platform that you enjoy the most? Where you have the most engagement? Is it LinkedIn? Is it Twitter? Which one is most important to you?

Great question. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure that out. I spend more time on, say, Facebook, followed by LinkedIn followed by Twitter, and the results will vary for everyone. But here's what I find. I find Facebook is really good, not for getting new business, but for seeing what my clients are up to. So if I see one of my clients is posting videos about his cooking and he loves to cook, well, now I have something to chat with him about. It's a conversation starter. If I see that his father died, I can send a little condolence note and he'll appreciate that. And that builds the know like and trust factor. So Facebook is compared to a cocktail party where people are sharing personal information. And to some degree that's true. In other cases, they're blatant self promotion. And that's just what it is. So that's how I use Facebook and I'll post my blog post there and you know, things like that. And other people post where they're speaking or who they're consulting with or whatever. So there's a little bit of promotion there. I like LinkedIn because I can post my articles there and start to engage more on a really intellectual level where people are asking me questions or posting their own ideas on my ideas and we have a discussion and there's some engagement. I find Twitter, at least for me, is totally lacking of engagement. I get all these followers, but there's no conversation, there's no communication. But that's just me. I hear that other people actually use Twitter quite effectively in engaging people back and forth, but that just happened. Doesn't happen with my audience. And I assume that for a lot of speakers, authors, consultants, it's the same thing. That we put our blog posts out there and there are no comments, a lot of spam, but very few comments. So to get people to engage beyond a like is really difficult. Again, people don't have time. But some people, I don't know, it's evolving, that's all I'll say. You know, I was involved in the Internet from the very, very early days. And even before the Internet, there were bulletin boards where people would have these private chats on their own modems and their own special software where people would engage for hours at a time with political or other information, professional information, Going back and forth and sharing information. That's what we did on CompuServe and the PR forum where I was a host for many years. And it was a great exchange of professional information. Sometimes you see that online and sometimes you don't. LinkedIn does have professional groups, and sometimes the engagement is very high and sometimes people post articles there and there's absolutely crickets chirping. So you got to try lots of things. You have to throw lots of things at the wall. And what's going to stick for you may be different from what sticks to me, may be different from what sticks to a 13 year old who went to Comic Con and now has a following of half a million people. It's just there are a lot of different worlds out there, a lot of different markets.

Who do you think is the best communicator out there today, who has been around a long time, was perhaps a great communicator 20, 30 years ago, but has continued to evolve and use new media effectively? For example, I'm not a Bill O'Reilly fan, but he does seem like he got a website up pretty quickly, has email newsletters, sells a lot of things on his own site, seems to be, has a large Twitter following, seems to be at least have people involved so that he is active, reaching out to younger people in newer markets. But I'm wondering, who do you respect as a master communicator who's great at both old media and new media?

Oh, God, I wish you didn't say the word respect, because I think the person, person who is really blazing and.

It may be not that you respect them intellectual, it may be that you don't respect them intellectually, but you respect at least their mastery of the media.

He has mastered the media, social media and traditional media in a way that no one since maybe Reagan has done in the last zillion years. He is controlling the message, he's controlling the news flow, he's controlling his position on the message and with his own followers. Every time he says something he did.

And I'm sorry, Diane, we lost the, we lost the audio for a second. Who was the person you're talking about?

Trump.

Oh, Donald Trump. Yes, definitely. Definitely a master of the media. Now, it's very difficult because I have people who hate Trump who trash me when I ever say something positive about his communication skills devoid from political analysis. And then if I criticize him, I get trashed. So I get trashed both ways. He's definitely a fascinating case study of someone who is great at initiating new Content initiating ideas using old media, news and new media, whether it's NBC and primetime or Twitter. And interestingly, he's not doing it as much now, but for the previous five years, he would just throw on his webcam and create little videos for people and communicate. A lot of people who are a lot less famous than Don, I won't say less successful, because that brings up a whole can of worms of whether he even has any wealth. But a lot of people thought, oh, if I can't do video with high production values, I'm not going to do it. And I do give Trump credit. He would just turn on his webcam, talk. His desk was messy, the lighting was bad, he didn't have a mic, the audio was not great. But he was communicating with millions of people that way before he ever ran for president.

Yeah, Howard Stern is also a master communicator. Reagan was a master communicator because he had the acting skills. The other thing I liked about Reagan in terms of his messaging is that he was always consistent. Even if he was wrong or people disagreed with him or the facts didn't bear him out, he would double down and keep on repeating the same message. And I think there's something that people psychology, that they like consistency. And he understood that before anyone else did. And he just kept out saying the same thing over and over again. And it just worked. It just really worked. And of course, his nickname is the Great Communicator. And I think to some degree, Trump is doing the same thing as Reagan did. In fact, Reagan's slogan was make America great. And Trump's slogan is let's make America great again. I mean, he's playing off of Reagan. He's clearly studied what Reagan has done. So we could spend hours talking about the things he's done and how he phrases things or whatever. But I'm not a big fan of him politically, and I shouldn't really say that because I'll probably lose half my clients. But he is a master communicator. He is able to convince his followers of his point of view and get them to cheer along and chant along, and, you know, who's going to build the wall? Mexico.

Who's going to pay for it?

You know, who's going to pay for the wall? Mexico, you know, blah, blah, blah. He's just. He's just a master at riling up a crowd in a way that, you know, Obama was very good at that. As a campaigner, as a president, he doesn't do that. But as a campaigner, on the campaign trail, he was fantastic. Then again, it's interesting to hear politicians. I heard John Edwards speak live when he was running for vice president and he was great speaker, great speaker. And then, you know, his, his, his universe came crumbling down, you know, you know, one $400 haircut and one, well, one sexual escapade. You know, his career was over, but man, could he deliver a speech. He was just great.

So fantastic speaker. You mentioned Reagan and repetition. I think that's one of his great skills that doesn't get enough attention. Certainly one of my questions to clients, especially when I'm working with political candidates, is what did Reagan stand for when he ran for re election? And what did Jimmy Carter stand for? And typically people say with Reagan, let's see, cutting taxes, strengthen defense, getting government off your back. And it's basically those three ideas because he said them again and again and again and again. Whether you agreed with it or not. What did Jimmy Carter stand for? And people kind of scratch their head and say, oh, I won't tell you a lie, or well, no, that's what he said in 76. What did he stand for in 80? And people typically say they don't remember, and I don't either. It's because Jimmy Carter said something a little bit different every day. Ronald Reagan repeated his message day in and day out, and that's what it took in 1980. I think it takes that even more. With all the media clutter surrounding us. Dan, in our remaining moments, tell us a little more about PRleads. Plus what people find when they go to the website. And specifically how you help authors and experts navigate the whole world of publicity, Internet marketing, and the media.

I offer coaching and consulting services where we basically position you and find out what your message should be. And this is really great for people who are linear thinkers. You know, they have all the facts. Excuse me? They have all the facts, they have all their figures, but they don't know how to make it sound interesting.

Uh oh, is this a health, is this a health crisis of our guests? Are you, are you fit to be a marketing guru now? I just heard a call.

Well, I did have an upper respiratory infection, so I will come clean on that. But I still have the stamina to do an hour long podcast. Great, that's comforting to hear. Thank you. So I basically work with people who have great thoughts and ideas, but they're linear thinkers, they get data and they're frankly boring. And they know they're boring. If they don't know they're boring, then there's a disconnect. But I help people who turn that boring stuff or that dry stuff and make it interesting, exciting, sexy and turn it to way that reporters and other people are more interested in listening to them so they can actually get their messages out there.

Thank you Dan Janelle for being our guest today. You can find out more about him and his services by going to PRLeadsPlus. It's linked to in the show notes. You can also say hello to him on Twitter or thank him for being a guest today. Rleads on Twitter. Don't forget to check out his book. It is on Amazon and it's also a part of the unlimited program if you're into that. That's how I got the book. Reporters are looking for you. Check that out as well. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening to speaking with TJ Walker where the communication skills and practices of world class leaders are dissected.