Everything you need is in your social network

Posted on February 8, 2010
Filed Under General, Steve Harrison, implementation, quantum Leap, ten minute actions | View Comments

Master Marketer, Steve Harrison, puts a high value on relationships. So much so that he tells his Quantum Leap students that THE most important thing they can do every day is focus on building their relationships. www.yourquantumleap.com

I’m taking on the challenge of using the model Steve is teaching to sell the remaining copies of my first book in bulk.  I started on Friday, and met my week’s goal of 10 contacts in just one day.  I’ll keep you posted here on the blog on my progress.

Getting over the hump to make the first calls was a challenge.  I called in the support of my mastermind group to help encourage me.  Just posting the note to them motivated me.  I got on LinkedIn, and started searching through my groups for people in the fitness/health/weightloss industries…people I know will be interested in my book.

In just an hour I was able to make contacts with 10 people I hadn’t known before, and within another hour, had 2 responses.  10 messages, 2 responses, that’s a 20% response rate, double what you’d normally expect from a cold call!

I couldn’t wait to get up to start again this morning.

Dressing for productivity…when noone’s looking

Posted on August 11, 2009
Filed Under General, energy, implementation, internet marketing, psychology of success | View Comments

I’m from Syracuse, NY, the buckle of the snow belt, and though I left there at age 11,  I still prefer the chill of autumn to the melting heat of August.

This morning I took a beautiful 2 hour bike ride.  It’s 95 degrees here in Philly today, and by the time I got back to my beautiful home office my sweat was sweating.  Can you say ‘hot and muggy’?

So I took a tip from the wonderful people we lived with on the Burma border of Thailand.  I took a cold shower (there it would be in the river, but we make do with what we have!), and without toweling off I slipped into my cotton sarong.  AAAAHHHH!  Cool, convenient, and comfortable.

It’s amazing what a difference clothing can make in our productivity.  There has actually been research that shows that at conferences people can concentrate better without their shoes on.  Sitting here in my cool sarong I feel ready to conquer the world.

You, too, can have a Thai sarong.  (Thai men wear these, too).  Simply get a swatch of cotton fabric, large enough to go all the way around you at least once and a half.  Make it a beautiful and colorful fabric.  Fold it in half with the wrong side showing, and sew up one side to make a tube.  Turn it right side out and voila!

That’s it!  To wear it, step into the tube.  then tie the top around your chest, or for men, around your waist.  Or if you get good at it, you can wrap and tuck, or even use a pin.

I’d show you a picture, but the beauty of working on the internet is you can wear whatever you feel like wearing and no one can see!  But trust me.  I’m cool, gorgeous, but most of all comfortable and productive!

The National Publicity Summit: Taking Your Business to the Next Level

Posted on July 27, 2009
Filed Under Affiliate, General, Publicity Summit, Steve Harrison, resources | View Comments

The first time I attended the National Publicity Summit I started attracting media attention almost immediately, and my book wasn’t even written yet! Since then I have learned so much from Steve Harrison that I have been able to use to become a successful author and entrepreneur.

If you’re wondering what attending the Summit can do for your business, consider some of the things I learned at this event:

1. Even A First-Timer Can Land On The Cover Of Entrepreneur Magazine.

When my business partner and I attended the Summit for the first time, we had an idea for a book, but it wasn’t complete. We were total newbies, so we really learned a lot.

Having gone through the instruction at the Summit, we came up with this idea of how anyone could achieve their goals by breaking down the required steps into 10-minute action steps. Entrepreneur magazine was there, so we approached them with the idea of doing an article on how to start a business in 10 minutes a day, and they liked it.

It wasn’t that long before the article came out. I think the Summit was in April and the article came out in August. This publicity led to a couple of other things. One was that the story got picked up in Germany, so we got the front page of an entrepreneur magazine in Germany called Starting Up magazine.

2. You Can Use Publicity For Lead Generation To Make More Money.

While getting such tremendous press coverage so quickly was very exciting, the truth is it didn’t directly do anything for my company’s sales. We didn’t get one phone call, one email, nothing.

The media coverage, in and of itself, didn’t lead to any business, but being on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine enabled me to call Entrepreneur.com, the Internet part of the business, and leverage that article into a semi-permanent gig there as a blogger on implementation issues. That has led to a lot of business for me. It’s really helped to establish my reputation as an expert in the area of goal achievement and idea implementation.

The lesson from this experience is that publicity is not always about direct revenue, but it is often about establishing a platform and establishing yourself as an expert in your field. Any publicity, especially something with an organization that has a good reputation, can continue to be leveraged into other opportunities.

3. Developing A Platform Can Increase Your Income.

To understand the concept of a platform, think about being in a particular field when you’re one of thousands doing a very similar thing, let’s say you’re a fitness trainer. Lots and lots of people are fitness trainers, so what is it that’s going to make somebody want to use your services as a fitness trainer over somebody else?

Think of a platform as a diving board. The larger your platform, the higher up you’re standing relative to the other diving boards. You want to have things that elevate and enlarge where you’re standing relative to other people in your field.

Actually, publishers will look for a platform before they agree to publish your book. A platform can be something like you teaching at a reputable university or you being a celebrity of some kind. If you’re an Internet entrepreneur who has subscription list of 10,000 or more, that’s a platform.

Most people come to the Summit thinking that they’re going to write a book and make a lot of money from writing a book, but they learn very quickly that that’s just the first step. Writing the book is a step, but building up your expertise and your platform is really what the ongoing process of publicity is all about.

4. Thinking Like A Producer Can Land You On The View.

One of the things that Steve teaches at the Summit is to think about yourself from the point of view of the media. When we went to the Summit, we were thinking we wanted to figure out a way to get media coverage so we could sell people our idea and our product. What Steve helped us to understand was that the media is an education and entertainment outlet. In their job, they’re responsible to the consumers. In order to think like producers, I have to think about what will service the audience, who are the show’s consumers. Instead of pitching myself, I learned to pitch an idea that will be helpful to producers.

Steve had us thinking about things that were timely, things that were in the news that we might talk about. For my business, which is idea implementation and goal achievement, there aren’t that many things that are topical. We were finding as we were pitching our ideas to people, we were having some trouble coming up with something other than this generic idea of being able to do anything in 10 minutes a day.

There was a movie that had just come out and one of the actresses was up for an Oscar, which was newsworthy. I was able to relate the plot of the movie to a personal story about a condition my son has. I hadn’t considered trying to get publicity for anything other than my business before this, but I was very inspired to use the media to get some publicity for this condition. When I was talking to Dateline, I just mentioned it as an aside. They weren’t interested in the pitch for my business, but they were thrilled to hear the story about my son.

Because of their reaction, when I spoke to The View, who I knew wouldn’t be interested in my business pitch, I suggested this story to them as well. They were also interested and actually did a story soon afterward.

I hadn’t gone to the Summit thinking about how I could get publicity for causes or issues that I care about, but for me that was an important lesson. I can use what I learned at the Summit not only for my business, but for other things that I care about.

Because of that interview, I developed a relationship with The View and I’ve continued to stay in touch with them. I would consider them friends/colleagues. I haven’t been on again, but I’ve suggested other show ideas to them that they’ve done things with. It’s been great to have that connection.

5. Media Coverage Can Lead To Coaching Opportunities.

After my success at the Summit I got in touch with Steve and said, “You know, I’d love to come back to the Summit as a coach and help other people do what we did since we got some major publicity both from The View and the Entrepreneur and things like that.” He invited me back as a coach to help people get centered and become clear on what it is they want to achieve.

My coaching helps people move more quickly through the process of determining what they really want to achieve with their message. People who come to the Summit have big ideas. They are people who are willing to put the energy and time into moving beyond the pack with their ideas. They’re all passionate about what they’re doing. They’re up to really big things, and they want to change the world. I just love working with people like that and helping them implement their ideas.

6. Publicity Is Only Part Of A Business Plan.

I discovered that publicity is a tool, and I learned how to put it into perspective. It’s important to understand where publicity fits into a business plan. I really do take Steve’s advice to have a daily publicity habit seriously. It’s an important process. It is a gradual way to build a platform and build a reputation. I have a daily habit where I’m reaching out to people about what I do and doing interviews and doing articles and blogging. Now all the social networking has to be considered part of my publicity.

7. Publicity Is An Ongoing Process, Not a One-Shot Deal.

As a result of appearing on The View, I got a four-page spread in People magazine. I am able to leverage one big TV appearance into other things. It’s not like you get a national interview and you’re finished. That’s just one more piece of the puzzle. It’s important to keep building, adding, enhancing, and looking for new areas and new ways of thinking about what you do. Think about the relevance of what you do and how to provide stories and value to the media.

8. Journalists And Producers Want To Speak With You.

Before going to the National Publicity Summit, I had a different perspective on doing interviews. I used to think of media outlets as doing me a favor by interviewing me. I felt that I was lucky that someone was willing to interview me. Now I see myself as offering a service, and I realize that it’s really the other way around. I’m offering something of value to media outlets. I’m really making their job easier. I’m providing value to them, because they’re providing content to their audience. I’m providing something for the media to give to their customers, and they’re providing me with a platform. It really is a mutual benefit.

9. Because Of New Media Developments, Less Is More.

I think that there is directness to the new media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Internet radio that I find appealing. With traditional media, there was a gatekeeper who would decide what people want to hear. With the new media opportunities, if there are 500 people who want to hear what I have to say, that’s great. It is more targeted. I don’t need to have 5 million people hear my message. I can sell books or get speaking engagements with a much smaller audience than I would have needed before. I can be on a small radio station and sell more books than I would with People magazine. The new media really offers the consumer much more of a choice about what they can read or be exposed to than in the past where it was the producer who was deciding what would appeal to people.

10. The Investment You’ve Made In Learning How To Get Publicity Is Of Ongoing Value.

This is an ongoing process, so if you’ve gone to the Summit you can always send a media contact an email saying, “I met you at the Summit,” in the headline. Even if it’s been years since you’ve been there, you can pick up where you left off.

It’s something that I continue to do. I do it all the time with things that are unrelated to my business. I got major publicity for a fundraiser that one of my organizations was doing. Everybody was so impressed that I got a front page article in the paper. I made that happen by using what I learned from Steve.

Since attending my first Summit, Steve has actually hired me to do some coaching with his Quantum Leap Marketing & Publicity Program clients. I’m also an affiliate for the National Publicity Summit so if you are interested attending please check out my affiliate link: http://www.nationalpublicitysummit.com/?10627

Rory Cohen is the creator and owner of Take 10!, a company specializing in idea implementation coaching. Her company has been featured by CNN, MSNBC, The View, Smart Money Magazine, NPR, Entrepreneur magazine, and the Fine Living Channel. For more information visit her website at: http://www.take10now.com

Posted on May 28, 2009
Filed Under General | View Comments

One of the perks of getting PR is that really good photographers come to my house to take really good pictures! Nathaniel Welch did this spread in May’s issue of Smart Money magazine. He had just come back from shooting the Palin family in Alaska. Great stories, nice guy. Check out his web site. www.nathanielwelch.com

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