The ABC's of Publicity - Lisa Simone Richards

What would it be like for a fitness editor if you came to her and said, Hey, I'm seeing this trend in this space, I could do an article on this, or you could interview me about this subject. I have a bunch of high-res images, I have quality video, I know three people you could interview on this subject, and this is what it would, these are what the takeaways would be for your audience. You've just given her a story with a bow on top and made her life so much easier. So when you can show up as that prepared person who has everything to offer, you have now become their best friend.

And this is episode number 130. I talked to Lisa Simone Richards out of Canada. Isn't that interesting? I wonder why that is. Anyway, uh Lisa, you know, so she's a master in public relations, publicity, PR, uh, whatever you want to call it. And it's a masterful thing. Uh when I started my first gym business, uh, first of all, there was no Facebook ads. Second of all, I wouldn't have had any money to do it anyway. Uh so you know, besides hitting the streets and working referrals, um, as soon as I had any money in my pocket, uh, we would invest it in PR, which means we hired someone to do uh who had connections to get us on, you know, local TV shows, get on the radio, on the radio all the time, getting in newspaper articles, whatever you name, whatever you call it, it was a way to get out there. And what a great way to get your brand and company out there. And Lisa gives us a three-step process on how to do it. Uh, a lot of people just don't seem to see this as an option. I don't understand why. It's extremely powerful. And, you know, having someone vouch for you as an expert, being, you know, whatever the media outlet is, uh, TV, news, um, print, uh, radio, whatever it may be, uh, it's a very, very powerful thing. Someone is essentially vouching for you. You're not pushing advertising in front of somebody. And it's it's a great way, I would say, even one of the best ways, besides referrals, to get business in the door. So uh extremely powerful, um, a lot of a lot of value packed in here, and I really appreciate Lisa coming on and being so open uh about how to do this this type of thing. So uh before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by CertifiedCourseCreation.com. So when you go to certifiedcoursecreation.com, I'm now part of the team. It's a really exciting thing that we're doing. You know, we're helping people with a deep uh knowledge within the fitness, health, and wellness space, uh actually outside of it as well. Uh just people with great ideas, right? Things that they need to get out there. Uh we help them create an accredited online certification, which can be A, very lucrative, um, very lucrative. Uh, it can also be an excellent way to expand your knowledge and move from B to C to B to B. Uh so there's a lot of advantages to doing it, and we're looking for great partners in 2019, uh, not necessarily high volume, but we're looking for the right people to work with. So go to certifiedcoursecreation.com, um, submit some information, book a time with me. I would love to chat with you and discuss your idea. Either way, um, whether it's a great fit or not, which hopefully it will be, uh, I can at least give you some great insights into what the market is dictating and where the opportunities lie, and if you have a great idea and if you're sitting on a golden goose. So, yeah, that's it. You can also reach out to me at uh Eric, ERIC at level5mentors.com, and uh we can find each other that way as well. So, without further ado, this is episode number 130. This is Lisa Simone Richards, and we talk about the ABCs of publicity and public relations. Enjoy, there's a lot here. Grab a notepad. All right, and we're live. Lisa, welcome.

I am so excited to be here with you, Eric, and to really serve your listeners today.

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to have you. And it's uh as I was telling you before, there's something about Torontonians. I just learned that that phrase. There, there's just so many of you uh successful um kind of pillars of industry uh in the fitness industry from Toronto, so it's cool to get another one on here. It seems to be a thing.

Amazing. I'm so glad our city is represented well.

Yeah, it is. You guys are doing something special. So um, Lisa, let's kick it off with this. Give us uh give us some background, give us your story, a little bit of bio.

Yeah, okay. So the long story short is I've been a publicist since I straight out of university. Falling into fitness was a total accident. So when I was about 22, 23 years old, I was working at a PR agency. Um so it's like, you know, time sheets and working Saturdays and all that stuff, getting paid peanuts. And I was doing a women's only boot camp with one of my girlfriends, and we were having so much fun. We were getting amazing results. We looked forward to our workouts, it was awesome. And it turned out that the company actually liked to hire from within their system of recruits, um, as we were called. So uh they didn't know what to pay a PR person. My oncoming salary was twice what I made at the PR agency with way less stress and way fewer hours. So since then, I've been in the fitness industry and I've never looked back. So I stayed with that boot camp and helped them grow to Canada's largest women's only boot camp. We went from 30 locations to over 100 across Canada. We took our revenues from 400,000 a year to over 4 million, which was pretty cool. And then after that, I moved into working for one of uh the biggest uh Pilates brands, so an international multi-million dollar corporation, stayed there for a few years. And what really made me passionate and what I was really drawn to was so many people were leaving their corporate jobs to start a fitness business, but they had no access to hire an agency for 6K a month. So I started my own fitness PR agency, did that for about two years, and then I realized even then it was a little bit of a stretch for people to bring me on for a four-month retainer. And I'd also see that once their uh retainer with me was done, so was their coverage. So, what I really wanted to do was teach a man how to fish, so to speak. So I started doing publicity coaching online, teaching fitness business owners how to actually get their own publicity, connect with them, make the really the right relationships with editors, producers, all the gatekeepers who are between you and landing on self-oxygen shape and publications like that. And I haven't looked back since.

Wow. Yeah, it's it's an interesting thing, right? I mean, I I often wonder because I sometimes I dabble outside the fitness industry too, and the budgets are always way bigger. I mean, let's be honest, right? Um because the people do get into fitness and health uh industry because they they want to help people. There's generally some kind of need that they they need to fulfill of giving back or um feeling satisfied in the work they do, which is really cool. Uh, but like you stated, a lot of times the marketing and the PR and all that is a second thought. People rush in, they're like, well, as long as I know about training and you know I serve my clients really well and I give them great results, the business will just flood in, right? And uh it it just it just doesn't work that way.

Um, something I've really realized in the last few weeks, especially as I've been interviewing a series of fitness business coaches, is really understanding that personal trainers, guys, I love you so much. You're incredible coaches, you're incredible trainers, you're just not the best business owners. And the reality is running a business, you have to master sales, you have to master marketing, you have to handle accounting. Like there's more than simply training your clients. So, any way that you know we as fitness business owners and um coaches can contribute to fitness professionals who are creating that impact, it's amazing to come together and really serve the community so everyone can do the biggest and best job possible.

Yeah, yeah. So let me let me get into some some questions specific to what you do. So, you know, you look at like the categories of marketing sales, and then there's PR, right? I feel like PR is, you know, marketing is okay, well, it's getting the word out there, you know, letting people know that you exist. Sales is obviously conversion, converting people from prospect to clients, and then PR, right? And then so what what does that mean exactly for people who may just think it's like you know, something for big corporations like Apple or Coca-Cola? What is it?

Okay, so here's what's really cool. I think a lot of fitness professionals don't know that they can get featured on sites like Pop Sugar and magazines like Forbes, if that's who your target client is, on websites like the Huffington Post without having to pay for it. So we're all familiar with the concept of marketing, we're all familiar, sorry, with the concept of advertising. But a lot of people don't recognize when you pick up your favorite magazine, when you watch a morning news show and there's a fitness pro showing on, you know, the latest news for spring break, they're getting on TV for free. They're being highlighted for their knowledge, whereas we all know what to do when we see an ad for the most part. We scroll past it, we flip past it because we know they're trying to sell us something. So one of the differentiators that I like to make, it's one thing to say, hey guys, look at how awesome I am. That's what an ad does. PR has somebody saying, hey, look at how awesome this person is. And it's way more powerful to have someone bragging on how incredible you are versus trying to scream and say, hey, look at me, guys, I'm awesome, because that's what everybody's doing. When Oxygen features your workout, people know you're legit. When Forbes refers to you as an amazing entrepreneur, like nobody even needs to read the article about you. Everyone's like, oh my God, they got featured here. So what I really do is help people build their authority and stand out. Because how many fitness pros are there out there? How many people are marketing on Instagram? How many people are marketing on Facebook? And 100%, those are some solid strategies. But when you use PR, that really helps you to elevate yourself above everybody else.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And it's it's noisy. I mean, if there's one industry that's that's noisy, it's gotta be fitness and health. I mean, you know, uh I look at my Instagram feed now and it looks like an adult film reel, right? Like it's just like, wow, like, okay, so so and so, you know, did a bikini competition or you know, something and now they're a fitness expert. Okay, wow, right? And it's so misleading. It's just a lot of noisy to guide through through if you're really, you know, into um you know delivering solid results for the masses and not just you know 1% two. So you have you have some actually let me go back up. I I think it's really interesting what you said because when I started uh my first gym facility, which was 08, right? Um Facebook wasn't around, right? Uh Instagram was definitely not around. And you know, we started looking at traditional advertising like print, and I decided to invest in somebody who actually did PR, right? So we got into local newspaper articles, I got into a radio station, got all these things, and it worked really, really well. And then, you know, with 2014, 2015, like we were talking before, is when I started doing some Facebook advertising, I was like, holy cow, like this is amazing. It was so inexpensive and it was so effective back then, and it's I'm sure it still is. Uh I just don't do it much anymore. Um, but then it's like PR got for got forgotten in some weird way, right? But it's still like what you said is is so money because yeah, having yourself say, hey, we're amazing, we have the best service ever, come see us. Uh, and people are tired of advertising, right? It's in their face everywhere we go, right? I mean, on TV now, you know, you can't even get a break from advertising. They just push the commercials into the actual shows or the sports or whatever you're watching, and it's crazy. And people are becoming immune, or at least like, you know, they just don't they just don't listen anymore. So PR is a fascinating thing, and I think um what you're about to unleash on us, which is you know, some systems on how to do that or some steps, is gonna be really valuable. So everybody's listening, grab a pen and paper because we're gonna get into the ABCs of of PR and branding. Go for it.

Yeah. And as I jump into it, you know, there are two distinctions that I want to make, and I really hope I remember them both. Um, the first is think about the people that you look up to. So when I look up to some fitness grades, I'm thinking Bedros Coollian, I'm thinking Craig Valentine, and they are huge on social media for sure. If you see them step onto a stage and get announced, nobody says, hey, it's uh Bedros Coollian coming up now, who has like 11,000 followers on Instagram or how many he has. He is introduced as featured on Forbes at Fast Company Inc., all those other sites that lend him credibility and authority. So that's one distinction about you know getting those accolades behind your name. And now the other one, of course, has left my is left my memory, but I know we'll jog it as we keep talking through those conversations.

Yeah, yeah, it'll come.

So, yeah, what I'd love to share and really go into are the ABCs of publicity because one thing I'd like to speak into is I think a lot of people have the impression that getting featured in the media is just something that's really cool and people will brag on them about it. But really, any publicity gets to create an ROI for your business. We get to actually create a return from investing in this kind of strategy. So typically, when I see people who are interested in getting PR, it's for one of three reasons. They're either trying to build awareness, they want to create buzz, or they're looking to establish credibility. So let's talk about which each of those three are and which one might serve you based on where you are in your business right now. So we all know that you can be the best in your industry, but if you're the best kept secret and people don't know about you, they simply just cannot work with you. So if you're launching a new online course, if you're starting up a new boot camp, whatever you might be doing that you are launching, a new program, what you're putting out there, people need to know about it before they can jump into it. So building that awareness is critical. The buzz, I always like to use an analogy of going to a movie for this one. So I'm personally not a huge moviegoer. The last one I saw was Crazy Rich Asians. And when that movie was coming into huh?

Great movie. Yeah.

So good, right? Love the book.

Yeah.

So when that movie was coming into theaters, I didn't read about it once in a newspaper. I saw it in a newspaper, I saw it in magazines, they were talking about it on television, the ads were popping up all over the place, and it was hitting me so many times that eventually you have to be like, okay, what is this thing that everyone keeps talking about? They built a buzz around it, and we've all heard that marketing statement that it takes seven to ten touch points for a consumer to take action. So, you know, another story I love to tell is one night I was at dinner with three of my girlfriends, so the four of us were out, and at the end of dinner, as us ladies do, we whip out our lip gloss. Three out of four of us were using one by a company called Fresh. Not planned, not on purpose. So the three of us use it, and girlfriend number four is like, what's that? And why are you guys all using it? Like, what's the deal with this? And then lo and behold, she went and bought one. Not because she's a follower or sheep, but because you know, if all of my friends are using this, there's obviously something behind it. So there's a huge um, a huge bonus to having a buzz around your business, making it talked about. When I think about the boot camp company that I used to work for, we would be 110% sold out because we were in magazines, because we were in newspapers, because you turn on the television CR CEO, and other companies that offered the exact same workout were 50% capacity. And you knew this because we're working out in park, so I could see you down the street. So that's the buzz factor. The third one is credibility. Now, this really comes down to what is your strategy right now. Most people I speak with, they're like, I want to get featured on Oprah, I want to be on Good Morning America. Listen, if you have a clinic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, it's great to be featured on Oprah, but 99% of the readers may not be in Toronto, so they can't actually walk into your business to pay you. But when you've been featured on Oprah, your profile has gone up. You can charge premium rates. People aren't questioning you anymore because someone who's an authority has endorsed you. So it's really interesting to look at that credibility aspect. Does it make more sense to get a local feature? Does it make sense to get a national feature? Because I think about some uh clients I used to work with are identical twins who own a rehab center here in Toronto called Sports Specialist Rehab Center, identical twin chiropractors, who the fun? So uh they became uh national experts on or experts, sorry, on a national television show. It would air all across the country. It was amazing for their rep, it was amazing for their credibility. However, when they got featured on the not so exciting local cable news network, that's when they had more foot traffic into their clinic. So you really have to think about how is this going to serve my business and what's going to make the most sense as opposed to what may puff up my ego the most.

Yeah, awesome. Awesome.

So oh, and can I just say one more thing? I remembered what number two was. We talked earlier, we were talking about those distinctions earlier, and there was a one about having those credibility builders behind your name, just like we were saying. There's also leveraging the audience of others. I think about one of my clients, Leanna, who recently got featured on Pop Sugar. So we all have our followers on social media. It's amazing that we can connect directly with them. However, we're limited to as many followers as we have. Whereas Pop Sugar, for example, her story got featured on their website. Within a week, it had over a thousand shares and was featured on MSN as well. Wow. Has anyone on here who's listening ever had a blog post get shared a thousand times in less than a week? Because I'm really willing to guess, for the most part, no. But she leveraged their audience to be able to amplify her message. Um, they then decided to feature her on their pots sugar uh fitness stories. So the you know, the little daily circulars that go on on Instagram. They have 889,000 followers. So it's great when she posts after her own Instagram account, that's powerful. But when they post it to 900,000 followers, that is blowing her message up on a whole nother level that she simply can't do on her own. And if she wanted to have that exposure and pay for it with Instagram or Facebook ads, do you want to guess what a dollar amount on that's gonna be? We're talking tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. So let's let's break this down. You know, I'm um I'm Joe Fit Pro, right? Uh, maybe I have a facility on a local level and I want to get into, you know, on a local TV show or in a local um publication, something like that. How do how do I start that process? Like, how do I start the approach? Is there like tips or tricks to making sure that, you know, to optimize your chances of actually getting in the publication, I guess is the question.

Definitely. There's one commonality that I see with most people who do want to get featured on a local television show, newspaper, radio, whatever it may be. They think it's really interesting to make the story all about them. Hey, I'm DopeLo, and I have this facility, and we have this many equipment, this much equipment, this many trainers, et cetera, et cetera. The reality is no one cares as much as you do about your business. That's the honest truth. What your job is as somebody who wants to get PR is to actually focus outward, stop making it about you, and think about the person who's on the other side. So if you're looking to get on a morning television show, for example, I think about Breakfast Television here in Toronto. It airs Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. That's four hours of content that they have to fill. The producer of that TV show is thinking, what do my viewers need? So if you go on and you, you know, if you were to pitch them and say, hey, I'd love to do a segment all about my new gym that I just opened up, meh, maybe that could be newsworthy. However, if it's March break is coming and you're like, I would love to do a segment because I know a lot of your viewers are going to be traveling for March break, they're going to be leaving their regular workouts behind. I would love to share three tools to pack in your suitcase that you can use on vacation to stay fit. That now is a story that's interesting to a broader audience. And of course, while you're on, you get to name drop your facility and who you are, but now you've become interesting as opposed to self-serving.

Yeah, it's got to be relevant, right? It's got to be relevant. Absolutely an audience. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And do you think uh I would imagine a lot of people who are listening probably have a bit and we're now gonna get into the mindset of it, a bit of the imposter syndrome that comes with it, right? Like, oh no, no one's gonna wanna have me on a show, right? Um, how in the reality of it when you're trying, I'm sure it's different in different markets, right? New York's gonna be different than Northwest Montana, where I am now, right? Um, it's gonna be just different. And uh I guess the point is is how difficult is it? Like, is it really challenging? You know, is it something that people maybe are a little bit intimidated? I I would be intimidated, right? I mean, I did it, right? And I I get on other people's podcasts and other shows and things like that. I don't do it actually with intention, but I do. Um but reaching out and you know, because I'm I I've just gone through this with other clients as well, you know, like hey, just reach out, you know, offer value, right? Is there how and that what is the reality of it? Is it difficult to do? Is it easier than people think?

Uh it's absolutely easier than people think, and I love that you mentioned the mindset of it all. Because let's say you're brand new, you just finished your personal training certification, you're like, who am I to get on this outlet? Guess what? News is called news because it is new. Maybe you have the latest information, the cutting edge research and technology because you have just come from this. Whereas let's say you're a veteran and you've been doing this for 30 years, you've seen all the trends come and go and you know what works. So it's about being in that mindset of no matter where I am, I have value to offer. And you know, a lot of publicists use the term spin, which has a bit of a negative connotation to it, but you get to be creative to highlight exactly what angle you can offer to the situation.

Yeah, awesome. And then, you know, let's let's go back to that morning news example. I think it's a great example of runway. Who do I reach out to? How does that communication start?

Okay, so some fun tips I'd love to drop if you're looking to get on morning news. So remember what when I mentioned that one show, Breakfast Television, four hours of content five days a week. That is 20 hours of content they have to film. So that is a lot. When you do a good pitch, you are actually doing a favor for the producer on the other side. So, in terms of who you want to contact, you want to make a lot of people think that they reach out to the host. The host is simply the front face, they get to work every day and they're told what they're gonna be talking about on camera. They're Typically not behind the scenes doing the research. So you want to look for a segment producer, is typically the title you're going to go for. It may be a lifestyle producer, but someone with a title producer is what you're going to be looking for and the person you're going to be sending that pitch to. You've already like done better than half the competition because they're going to be reaching out to the hosts. And then a little tip I like to share is if you're not quite sure who that person is, watch the news on a Friday. Because typically Monday through Thursday, the Thursday, sorry, the credits, they're just really brief, you know, copyright 2019, City News, Television. However, on Friday, they're going to run the full row of credits, the hosts, the producers, the writers, the editors. So you'd actually just want to fast forward to the end of that show to get the names. Figure out what the netwright name is. Some other ways to do that is, you know, you may find our three producers for the show. Hop on LinkedIn, see who covers what kind of content. Do some sleuthing, as I like to call it, because it sounds way better than stalking. You know, go on Facebook. Don't necessarily add people, that can be creepy. Yeah. But look them up on Instagram, look them up on Twitter. What is the content they're publishing? And then you can actually start to figure out okay, this person talks about a lot of like cutting news in the medical and health world. That's probably not my person. This person seems to have a lot of fitness and lifestyle-related content. That's the person I should be reaching out to. Um, two more tips that I'd love to share. Um, number one, if you use Google Chrome as your browser, install a tool or an extension called hunter.io. Typically, when you go on a website like City News TV BreakfastTelevision.com, this little orange box will light up and that will help show what the email formula for that station is. First name.last name, first letter underscore last name. It'll actually help you figure out what the formula is so you can email the right person. Second tip I'd like to share, I love pitching morning shows on a Thursday, a Thursday or a Friday, specifically because they may be getting cancellations for next week and now they're freaking out because they got to fill their spots. So, you know, maybe you'll just get lucky that someone canceled and we have a spot to fill. So, okay, you're in. It just ups your chances.

Yeah, this is great. This is some covert ops you got going on here, Lisa. I like it. I enjoy it. So um, in your experience so far, let's let's stick to the local, the local fitness professional. But what types of media has produced the best ROI, do you think? Is it morning TV shows? Is it local papers? You know, which ones are up and coming? Uh yeah, give us some insights on that.

Yeah, in my experience, television has always been the best simply because it creates that visual connection. People can see you, they get a sense of your energy, provides better connection. How many times are we making breakfast in the morning where you just have the local news running in the background because you just need an update on what's going on for the day? So I love using that. I also love weekend news television shows, um, afternoon television shows, sometimes even evening. Like, for example, think about an actual station. So I'm gonna use a lot of Toronto references here. Um, you guys have NBC in the States, one of ours here is global. So global news may actually run some of the same segments in their afternoon news, in their evening news. Evening tend to be a little bit more of the hard news updates of the day. So, what we're talking about is soft news. It's kind of like it's not like breaking its lifestyle content. Um, they're actually probably going to replay the interview on the afternoon and the evening news. They may even use it on a weekend spot. So I think about when we were launching boot camps out in Vancouver, BC, they it was a saturated market. There were a ton of boot camps out there already. So we're like, oh, should we be going to somewhere that's already this busy? So we decided to do something super interesting. We went for a Guinness uh Guinness world record for the world's longest uh fitness class. Long story short, we didn't get it. And honestly, we didn't really care. Um, but it was newsworthy. It was interesting. Hey guys, this boot camp that's now launching in Vancouver, they've been going for 48 hours in Central Park or whatever it was. And we brought on someone who was qualifying for the Olympics. So she came and did the workout. We also so now we had a newsworthy attached name to it. Oh, you're gonna see Ashley going to whichever Olympics it was in skiing. Come check her out. She's doing this growth Guinness World Record with us. So we had Global News come out, we had CTV news come out, and our segments aired three times over the weekend on each station. So that was considered three minutes of coverage, three times, nine minutes, two different stations, about 20 minutes. Repeated three times throughout the weekend, sold out in a few days.

Wow. Wow. Yeah, it's a completely different approach. And then not to use a term again, you know, lightly, but mindset, right? Like, how can I create buzz? How can I how can I differentiate, and then how can I leverage the local media by giving them something they want that also serves you know the purpose of the business here? So let's shift a little bit and let's look at maybe like um someone who's more on a global scale, like an online fitness professional is trying to go after a specific audience. What type of publications or media are are valuable for that type of person?

Digital is gonna be amazing. And it's really funny because I think back to when I first started working in PR when I was outside agency that paid me half of what the boot camp did. Um, our clients, like big name, Staples, Virgin Mobile, Crayola, um, they want it to be in print, they want to be in newspapers, they want to be in magazines, and if they were on a website, like, okay, whatever, sure, but they really wanted that tangible handheld item. Now it's actually totally flipped 10 years later. Because now when someone finds you digitally, you can track that. There are no borders to it. So I think about one of my clients, Cassie. She um does oh, what's the name of her company? List like a boss is one of the programs that she offers. So she wrote an article for self.com. It went live on January 1st. She wrote an article for menshealth.com that went live on January 2nd. By the end of the day, on January 2nd, 2017, she had made three times as much money as she made in January 1st to 31st in 2016. Simply because she was able, she also was really smart and had uh like the Google Analytics behind it, the Facebook Pixel. So she could tell where people were coming from, she could track them, she could retarget them, and that helped her create, you know, huge ROI in just two days.

Yeah, yeah, incredible. Incredible. Um you know, we talk about how you know maybe print has gone to the side, but I feel like, and I may be way off, but you know, especially if I talk to a lot of fitness professionals who are trying to reach like the baby boomers or people over 40, which I'm like, oh wow, I'm 42. What does that say? Uh anyway, that's my own personal problems. But you know, people are trying to reach, you know, maybe the the older audiences, uh, and maybe social media or traditional or the more digital media isn't getting to them. Are you seeing any value in going to the more traditional, the the print, right? People are specifically trying to get something. I mean, we've even talked, I had talked to a client about starting up door hangers again, right? Because hey, nobody's doing it anymore. You know, is there any is there any advantage to going to where people are not going and trying to find those hidden niches?

I absolutely love that you say that because it really comes down to knowing who your ideal client is and asking them, where are you getting your information? Where are you getting your news? So I think about one of my friends who runs a travel rewards company. You know, when you know the salespeople get to go on the pool cruises and stuff like that, he creates those kind of experiences for huge brands. So he was sharing with me one time my ideal client is a CEO who's probably in their 50s, and they get the Globe and Mail or the National Post, you know, the New York Times and Washington Post for you guys. Um, they get that delivered to their office every morning, or they're having that while they have their morning coffee at their breakfast table. So for him, it's cool, it actually makes more sense for him to be in a print newspaper. So you need to know the person that you're trying to get in front of, think about their consumer behavior, think about where they're getting their information from, and that's where you get to go. So it's actually not all about okay, well, my favorite magazine is muscle and fitness hers. If you're training the average woman who wants to lose 10 pounds, she's not reading muscle and fitness hers. She's reading Cosmo and Glamour, that's where you need to be. So it's really keeping again the ABCs in mind because the credibility of being featured in muscle and hers, that's huge. But the right person who needs to be aware of you is reading glamour cosmos, something like that.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, you have to understand your avatar, right? And that's something you always forget.

And I think that's a running theme. It's not all about you, it's not about what you're launching, it's not about what your favorite publication is, it's about your ideal client and what they need and being a valuable resource to them.

Yeah, and it's not about your abs or what you eat for breakfast either, right?

Like that can come into play. That's where social media is awesome, you know, because people are voyeuristic. That's the honest truth. If they're looking up to you in a certain perspective, they want to know what's going on behind the scenes. So, yeah, this is what I'm eating for breakfast. This is what helps me have a flat stomach all day. They are curious about that. But when it comes to traditional media, like they really don't typically care that much.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. So maybe it's run us through like um, let's say we are, let's let's talk about like the 65 over, right? Um, do you have anybody that you work with who successfully used PR and public in publicity to get to that audience? And maybe we can run through just an example of that.

Yeah, it's awesome that you asked that because I did work with a yoga professional who was actually targeting retirees, and her whole stand was yoga isn't just about blondes wearing Lululemon. There's more than that. So for her, it made a lot of sense to get featured in the AARP, the retirement publications. It made sense for her to get featured in a magazine like Zoomer that caters to the 50. So for her, and she actually was really smart where she worked in sponsorships with um companies like um large Pilates brands that serve the active aging population. She actually even looked to create a partnership within uh, what do you call it, hearing aid company. That's where your ideal client is. So don't try and fight it, go with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And so this person approached those or like approach AARP and said, hey, I want to write an article for you.

Yeah, she even got in touch with someone from Forbes who was talking about, you know, there was an entire section in Forbes about retirement. So she was able to pitch them a story around the concept of staying active once you're retired. That was relevant to her target client. And even if they weren't necessarily picking up that specific issue of Forbes to read it, the fact that when they log onto her website and they see as seen on Forbes and other media, that um automatically creates credibility, it creates trust, it elevates her. Like when we think about anyone in our industry that we look up to, whether it's Mindset Fitness, Tony Robbins, Pedros, whoever it is, Lewis Howes, scroll just a little bit on their website. You may not even have to scroll before you see as seen on Ellen, Good Morning America, The Today Show, et cetera. They know that that lends some credibility and it separates them from every other Joe Blow in the market.

Yeah, yeah. And you use these tasks.

Absolutely. Yeah. 100%.

Tell me like how do you incorporate it into your workflow? Like, is this something that you do every week? Do you like how how would you systematize this for people? Uh like start looking at, obviously, looking at who their avatar is, right? Start asking those questions of those ideal clients. Where do you get your news? What do you read? All that. Yeah, walk us through that. How can we start applying it today?

Yeah, so again, one of those things to be really conscious of is being strategic. So if you know you have a big launch coming up in September, that the doors are opening to your online course, your in-person studio, new programs coming out, whatever it might be, then think, okay, when do I want to start filling registrations? Do I want to start about four to six weeks before? Great. So what is the lead time, which means how long does it go from idea to publication, whether it's on television, a newspaper, a magazine? So something I'm a big fan of in all aspects of my life is work back plans. What's the result I want to create? When does it need to be done by great? What does that mean I need to do three weeks before, six weeks before, eight weeks before? So to even give you a quickie on what timelines look like for different publications, if you're going for a print magazine, that can be anywhere between a four to six month lead time. Like right now, we're having this conversation at the end of March. They're working on April, May, June, July, August, September issues. So if you want to pitch them a story for June, you've missed the boat on that one. However, for their digital arm, for their website, you know, content is typically rolling. You could probably reach out to them three weeks before you want to see something go live. Um, with television, if you're looking at a TV show like one of those pre-tape national shows, you're gonna want to look four to six weeks out. So you're gonna want to send that idea four to six weeks ahead of when you want to actually see it air and go live. Conversely, if we're talking about morning television shows, typically you don't need more to two than two to three weeks for that. And again, if you're using that pitch on a Thursday when they have cancellation strategy, that can just be a week before. So set yourself up for success. Pitch three weeks in advance, follow up the week before you'd love to see that go live because who knows, maybe they had someone drop the ball and now they need to fill a spot.

Yeah. And you better be ready.

You oh my gosh. So, one thing to be clear on, especially coming back to the imposter syndrome, yeah, media do not work with the best. They literally don't. Some of the people that they highlight are absolutely not the best in the industry, they are the fastest, they get their content in ahead of schedule, they send, they're the most resourceful. You know, if you're a journalist, hold on, okay, let me share the story in a different way. If we looked at newsrooms about 10 years ago, there were more people staffing in there and fewer content platforms to create on. So they didn't have to worry about Facebook stories and Instagram and all this other digital stuff. They just have to get ready for their upcoming print issue. Now, with the reduction in ad spends, there are fewer people in these newsrooms who are responsible for way more content. So imagine what it's like on the other end, again, focusing outward, we're not making about us. What would it be like for a fitness editor if you came to her and said, Hey, I'm seeing this trend in this space, I could do an article on this, or you could interview me about this subject. I have a bunch of high-res images, I have quality video, I know free people you could interview on the subject, and this is what it would, what these are what the takeaways would be for your audience. You've just given her a story with a bow on top and made her life so much easier. So when you can show up as that prepared person who has everything to offer, you have now become their best friend.

Oh, that's awesome. That is really important, you know, to looking at, okay, who are you trying to reach? Like you mentioned, the um, you know, segment producer, anyone with a name producer. And then you have to really understand uh what their life is like. How are they, how are what are the metrics they have to hit, right? How is their performance judged? And then if you can come up with a creative way to help them with that, you're gonna be on you're gonna be in the media all the time.

So here's a fun story for you. Number one, remember that they're not there to give you a free ad, they're there to do a job. So as soon as you start making it all about you, they're just like, here's a referral to our advertising department. So the fun story I want to share. Um, I remember back at Boot Camp, um, my CEO just wants to get in the Globe and Mail. Her big goal was a story in the Globe and Mail. So hear what I'm saying in terms of I'm being focused. I'm not just throwing spaghetti at a wall seeing where it's gonna stick. I'm focused on where I want to go. So I identified who the fitness writer was. It's a woman named Monique Savannah, and I started sleuthing her, like I mentioned earlier. Not adding her to Facebook just yet, but I was following her on Twitter and whatever platforms were big at the time. So one day on Twitter, I see that she's tweeting about her cat. Cat lady over here, Lisa Smone Richards, has two cats that are sitting beside me right now. So I mentioned something about her cat. We start talking back and forth, developing a rapport, and I'm like, hey, you know, I'm working at this women's only boot camp. I had an idea for this story. Would that be a fit for you? So I've already created a rapport with her. I'm not just going in for the kill asking for something. Long story short, we got featured in the Globe and Mail twice that year. Um, she also was a writer for Live Strong. She had her own Fiterati vlog. We got featured in all of those. We developed an amazing friendship, and anytime she was writing about fitness, my CEO became her go-to person. And fun story, 12 years later, while she isn't a fitness writer anymore, she's still a very good friend of mine.

Awesome. Yeah, that's a great story. It reminds me of the book. Have you ever read the book, The Go Giver?

Yes! Oh my gosh, I'm so excited that you mentioned that. I did read it earlier this year. My business coach is obsessed with it. So, yes, love that book.

Yeah, it's one of a it's for people listening. It's a parable about how to just live your life, do business, and and always be looking for ways to help and give value, right? And I think that perspective and that, you know, frame of mind when you're approaching these types of things is really, really valuable. It's not, like you said, it's not people can sense from a mile away if you're just looking for free advertising, right? But if you're there to help, like, hey, I understand what you're trying to do, I understand the messaging you're trying to create across and the value you're trying to get to your audience, and you can be part of that and be helpful, uh, you'll make great relationships. And it sounds like in that example you just gave me, you know, really it all comes down to relationships and and understanding people, right?

Yeah, and I think something really powerful, like when I I remember when I was making the transition from the boot camp to um the to the Pilates company, and I was actually looking at interviewing for LG and Target at the time. And I was like, if I go to this Pilates company, I'm gonna be stuck in fitness forever because I'll have been doing this for seven years, no tech company's gonna hire me. And I thought to myself, you know what? I literally need to have good relationships with 10 people in Canada to be able to get a ton of coverage. I'm already friends with the editor, the producer at City Line, I'm already friends with the producer at the social, I already know the writer for the Globe and Mail. Why don't I just dominate this industry because I already know the right people? So, for fitness business owners who are listening to this, like obviously you don't want to become a publicist, but what if you just needed to focus on becoming friends with three people and they would have the power to put you in front of thousands of people all the time?

Yeah. You'd be golden. You'd be absolutely golden.

It's a no-brainer. And like again, I want to stress what the value of this is. So for those uh the clinic owners, the twins I mentioned earlier, they started getting featured on this national TV show called The Social. So again, national show runs from one to two every day. To put it in perspective, Walmart, Tropicana, and I'm not saying that these brands paid that price, disclaimer, disclaimer, but big brand names would pay about $100,000 for a six-minute segment. My clients got on there for free, talking about their expertise for the same amount of time without having to drop $100K. And big brands are doing this because they know how valuable it is. And what's even cooler is because they became recurring guest experts, meaning they weren't at the clinic working with their uh patients, the show started to pay them every time they came on TV. So, like getting paid is not the important part. Let me just clarify that up front. Making $300 for doing a segment, yeah, that's cool, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is getting access to the tens of thousands of people who are watching that because now they become interested in working with you. They got featured on the social, like I mentioned, national show. They only have the one location here in Toronto. Their bookings went through the roof after that.

That's cool.

Everyone wants to be with the best, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what I really like about this too is that, you know, for the audience that we're we're talking to now, is many of them like, well, I don't have five grand a month for you know, for Facebook ads or Instagram, you know, IG stores, whatever it is that they want to they think they need. This is something right now you can start right now. You know, I'm thinking immediately, I've been taking notes. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go after this and and come up with 10 different publications or places that I want to be, and I'm gonna start listing it out. I'm gonna start looking at their websites or tracking, you know, in a spreadsheet. That's how I do things systematically, right? Figure out who the names of the people are, what their um social media handles are, and just start following them, right? Start looking at what they're doing and understanding what what type of value they're trying to bring their audience. It's not gonna cost me a penny. It's probably gonna pay off in the next year.

Absolutely. And I absolutely love that you said that because look at the investment. So you said $5,000 just now. Um, spending $5,000 on Facebook ads, like personally, my experience has been I spent money on ads and I've gotten nothing out of it. It went down a money pit. Chances are I need to hire a professional to handle it properly. So 100% let me own that. But when you spend $5,000 on an ad, once your ad spend goes off, your content is gone. It does not live on forever, it is shut off. However, if you were to invest $5,000 to work with a PR professional and actually learn how to do these strategies, that will pay off over and over and over again. I look at one of my clients, Jesse Lane Lee, a former client. We worked together back in around 2015, 2016 when I was like, Can I teach somebody how to do this? So back then it was like a really low retainer rate that she paid to work with me for three months. It might have been like three grand or something really small like that. To this day, I still see her get featured at least once a month on television. Awesome. Three, four years later. So that was a great investment because now she's been on every major television show in Toronto.

That's great. That's awesome. So it's March as the day of this recording. You know, what what do you have going on this year? What's your uh big plan?

That's fun. Um, I was not expecting the tables to be turned on me. Um, really, what I want to do is arm fitness professionals with this kind of information, how to create this kind of authority. So I'm working on speaking on stages is one of the biggest ways for me to be able to do that. So I'm looking forward to speaking at Mind Body Bold is the big one on my agenda. Um and really I like to serve clients by doing things like I'm running the Fitness Business Success Online Conference right now where we have a bunch of fitness business coaches who are dropping their information knowledge bombs on there. Um, I'll be opening up my mastermind around June. And I also work with some private clients and VIP Day clients. So just really it's so when I do it for you, once I'm gone, that relationship is mine. It leaves with me. When I show you how to be able to do that, that's a friend you've got for life. The twins, they still have a monthly recurring column in a magazine, and I haven't worked with them in two years. Oh, that's awesome.

Awesome. Well, Lisa, where do people find you? Where do you send them?

Yeah, they can hang out with me over at LisaSimoneRichards.com. And if they actually go over to LisaSimo Richards.com slash Eric, they're going to get access to my free Forbes, my free checklist on how to get featured on Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., and other major media. So in that three-page checklist, I show you how you can actually start getting in these features and how you can actually use the content you're currently creating for social media and leverage that to get featured on a bigger platform. So you can take what you're using it now to help you. If you know you want to be on a morning television that's live to air, then learn how to do Facebook Lives on that topic. Get used to not being able to hit record again and perfect it, and actually use your energy and send that off to a producer so they can see what it's like. So I'll show you how to use the content you're already creating and leverage it to get in front of thousands of people.

Awesome. Awesome. What a great gift. Thank you, Lisa. This has been a lot of fun. I think uh I'm always happy when we we cut you know podcasts and there's just clear, actionable steps that people can take right away. And uh obviously you deliver that today. So I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.

Uh, thank you so much. It's always such an honor to share this information. It's so powerful. And you know, whether it's with me, with somebody else, like just learn how to amp up your authority because there's a huge difference between the person we look at. Let's say we go to a live event. There's a difference between the way we look at the person beside us versus the person on stage. Remember, your clients are doing the same thing. You don't want to just be another person who's promoting on social. You want to be the person that they look up to, not directly at.

Right on. Love it. Thank you for coming on, Lisa. This has been great.

Love it. Thanks so much, Eric.

Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Lisa Simone Richards. Hey FitnessFans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means. It helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh, it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And we're we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to keep it create actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh, if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness Marketing Alliance.com