Ask The Expert: Perfect Podcast Pitch with Lisa Simone Richards

Michelle Abraham: 00:00:03

This is amplify you the podcast about you discovering your message and broadcasting to the world. If you're a coach, author or speaker, you'll want to tune in. If you're looking for the best return on your time investment, to get your message out to the world in a bigger way, we're giving you full access behind the scenes look of how we're running our podcasts, how our clients have found success, and what you can do to launch your podcast today. The world needs your message. I'm Michelle Abraham, the host. Join my family as we unleash your unique genius and find the connections you need to launch your venture today. Join us and let's get amplified. Hello, hello amplify you Michelle Abraham, your host here today. You guys today I have an ask the expert interview for you. I'm going to be interviewing Lisa Simone Richards, lisa. I'm so grateful you're here. Before I tell our audience more about you. I just want to say Hi,

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:01:00

Michelle, I'm so excited to have this conversation. I know that this is all about amplifying our message and our voice and what we're doing in the world. So that's what we're going to give the listeners today.

Michelle Abraham: 00:01:09

Absolutely. And you know, it's great that we have you on here. So you guys, Lisa is an expert at what she talks about an expert in visibility. So I'm just glad that you're here because you're gonna be able to shed so much light on what we are all about here at amplify you, which is amplifying your uniqueness into the world. So Lisa works with coaches who struggled to break through the noise and get more eyes on their business are perfectly so you're here. She knows how to get them seen online everywhere without spinning their wheels on social media. And I think that's so important. We see so many people trying to get visibility. And oftentimes our clients are coming to us are like the best kept secret. They just want to get out there in the world. Now your background is super extensive in all sorts of media, you have huge brands. And we want to dive into that a little bit too. So share with us please, Lisa, how did you get started and what you do becoming a PR and visibility strategist?

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:02:00

Sure. So I'm going to chunk it down into like three kind of key times in my life that helped me to get to where I am today. So the first one that I remember is I must have been around 11 or 12 years old. And I had a subscription to the magazine teen people. And I remember seeing the Letters to the Editor section. And I thought how cool is it that you can write a letter and then see your name and your content in print. So even though I was pretty young at the time, I was in brownies and Girl Guides and we had learned how to write up an envelope and how to write a letter and I knew where my mom kept her stamps. So just completely independently on my own I on my own story, I wrote a letter to the editor. So fast forward, maybe three or four months, Teen People comes in the mail, turquoise background with Jonathan Taylor Thomas from home improvement on the cover wearing a red t shirt. So if anyone remembers, you know that home improvement from back in the day, he was my crush. And I opened up the magazine and I saw my letter to the editor in there and I was just so excited to see my name in print. So that was my first hook into Media and Publicity and visibility. Fast forward to first year at Western University. So this is around 2002. And I was having lunch with a girl in fourth year who was graduating and she was sharing with me that she was going to be going to PR school after graduating. So background 2002 If anyone listening is the Sex in the City fan Sex in the City was in a tape day, Samantha Jones did PR and it was like super cool and exclusive and parties and fashion I was like I am so into that idea. So I ended up going to PR school myself I spent my time at undergrad volunteering in different communications role on student council in my sorority for volunteer fashion shows. And that's where I started honing my craft I literally don't know how to do anything else. So after university I spent a year in PR school I live that Devil Wears Prada life for a little while. So I worked fashion shows and with beauty brands and it magazine. After that I moved on to working with one of those big time agencies. So some of our clients included staples, Virgin Mobile, Crayola, you know, the kind of agency where it's like, yeah, it's $10,000 a month for 12 months. Come on in. So I spent a little bit of time there. But really when we move forward to like 2015 2016 This is when I saw a lot of people taking a chance on themselves. Like these are individuals who had solid career is making high five, six figures, but they wanted to take a chance and do what they're passionate about and get that in the world. So they left their safe jobs. They started studios coaching businesses, creating courses. But the challenge was these individuals were so brilliant at what they did, but they didn't know how to market themselves. So they had the right content, but they couldn't go to an agency like where I worked and sign a $120,000 retainer for the year. So I started off having my own PR agency, I just do three month retainers something super reasonable, like 2500 or $3,000 a month. And what I saw at the end of that three month retainer is these clients still didn't have the relationships. So it was great that they got featured. It's great that they got coverage, but I really was inspired to teach teach a person how to fish so to speak, rather than like making their meal for them. However the same goes I butcher them all the time. So I started teaching people here's how you figure out what your ideal client is hanging out, here's how you figure out who has access to the platform. And here's how you put yourself out there to see if you can be a guest on that podcast to do a Facebook, live with them speak on their stage, whatever it is, but essentially leverage other people's platforms so you can reach the right people, but also in a way that's building your authority and your credibility.

Michelle Abraham: 00:05:19

I think we grew up in the same era between the Girl Guides and the home improvement and Sex in the City, right there with you. I know exactly what you're talking about. I love it. So that's really helpful because you know, teaching someone to fish is a whole different story than fishing for them. So I love and that's, you know, as we're seeing so many podcasters Oh, hello. You have the cutest cat.

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:05:45

Ginger hears people talking, she comes in the background. So for everyone listening can't see all of a sudden we have an orange cat on camera.

Michelle Abraham: 00:05:50

Exactly. And you know what, I'm not surprised. Because apparently, whenever I interview people, they're their pets appears something about my voice maybe. So my friend Evans and I are always on call and his dog constantly comes in the second he hears my voice. That's great. I'm animals just know who

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:06:09

loves them. So they hear you and they're Susan, they want to come hang out.

Michelle Abraham: 00:06:12

She's agreeing with you right there. And so yeah, within the podcasting space is interesting, because oftentimes, the people we're working with the the understand the platform of podcasting, they want to get more visibility, they're oftentimes the best kept secret in our space. So for people that are just starting in, you know, coaching business or an online business, what were your first couple of things you would suggest they do to kind of start with some visibility?

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:06:37

Oh, man, so I love that you started off with podcasts are so many different ways to get visibility, and we can talk about them. But really, when it comes to where I attract my best clients from where my clients are getting their best paying clients from his from being a guest on podcasts, typically, one person who's listened to podcasts will listen to about eight of them. So they may binge watch your episode. And what a great opportunity to really hone in on your messaging, have a conversation with somebody, you know, it takes a lot of the pressure off speaking on stage, like being on television, that that can have a little bit of like an amplifier on you. But we're just having a chat. And that allows me to share my visions, my processes with your listeners, and hey, if any of them did get, they can come hang out. And if they don't, hopefully, they took away one good nugget, that's going to help them get ahead. So for those people who are thinking about getting started on podcasts, one of the things that you know what, actually, this is the first place to start, before we even go to the second place. When you're thinking about getting featured on a podcast or any version of visibility, really, the first thing I encourage people to think about is what is the intention and what is the purpose. And this is what I define as the ABCs of visibility. So typically, I find when a coach is looking to get seem to stop being the best kept secret, there's one of three reasons they're doing it. They're either looking for a awareness, they need their ideal client to know that they actually exist, because if people don't know who you are, they just can't work with you. So that's the first version. And I'll give you an example to pull these all together. So first, you're either looking for awareness, second, you might be looking to build B, which stands for buds, let's say you have a course coming out a program that you're launching, people can't just hear about it once and take action, we know that they need to hear about it multiple times. So maybe you're in a season where you want to book a bunch of podcasts this month, get featured on some websites do like a Facebook Live or an Instagram tour and get seen a number of places. So that's B for Buzz, or C you might be looking for credibility. So let's say you know, you still you have a few clients, you're rolling, you're doing well. You've been at this for a while, but now you're thinking you know, they're the mentors of gurus that I look up to the people who I've studied. I want my name set in their sentences now. So you might be in a stage of looking for credibility. And the example that I like to share with the distinction between awareness buzz and credibility is that last year I was on a call with a copywriter, a copywriting coach and she works with online coaches who are working on their first sales pages, their first funnels, and she said to me, Lisa, I would love to be featured on and I always make up this name. The clocky chat, let's call it it is the top podcast for anyone in copywriting. The people that I've studied from are featured there. I'd love to be on that show. And I shared with her okay, you told me at the beginning of this call that your goal is to get paid clients and someone who's just getting into building their online business chances are they're not listening to a copy specific show going back deep down that rabbit hole, then doing one on email then doing one on sales. They're probably listening to online business podcasts. So while I understand that you love this show and that the people that you look up to are on it. Right now your purpose is to get people who can pay you so rather than you being on a copywriting podcast and blending into more noise of other copywriters and not standing out, why don't we position you on online business podcasts where they cover a little bit of everything. And now you're going to be the person who stands out is the copywriting person, not just another copywriter on this week's show? And for her she had that aha moment of oh Okay, I see we're just because I like paying attention here doesn't mean it's the right place for me to be seen based on what my goals are. That was

Michelle Abraham: 00:10:08

gold. And I just had that conversation with someone recently in the podcasting industry where he was focused on going to the podcasting conferences and things. And I'm focused on going to the entrepreneurship events. And were like more of my clients that are interesting, that conversation that we hadn't, like, each of us were like, oh, yeah, like we both got to this place here together the same time, but it's like, we came from totally different ways of looking at it. So I think that's brilliant when someone's starting out to, to look at it that in a bigger way, and going towards like the entrepreneurship or online, online podcast. That's awesome. And so you guys, it's interesting that at least us here today, because I get as the owner of amplify you, we have so many podcast shows that we work with in so many ongoing clients, we get a lot of pitches in our inbox. And so people always want to be on our show, or one of our clients shows. And so it's a kind of a continuous flow of inbox pitches. And most of the time, I don't even look at my mind, I disregard them. Because one, I can tell when they open it up, someone didn't do their homework, and it's a generic thing that's not doesn't even look closely, remotely fit to what we're talking about, or who we're looking for. And so Lisa is here, I actually received an email from her. And she's here. So you guys, listen to Lisa, because she's doing what she is talking about. And I would love for you to just kind of share with us your strategy on that, Lisa, because it was something that one caught my attention to I mean, I was like, Yes, that's a fit. And three, I knew my audience was going to get huge value.

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:11:40

So one of the things I always like to lean into, and you just said the word right there is lead with value, I find a lot of people and again, through no fault of their own, they don't know better. So when we know better, we do better. So here's your opportunity, everybody. A lot of people just by nature happened to be tuned into or actually no, let me start that sentence in a different way. Everybody is tuned into wi I fm what's in it for me. So if I were to write you a pitch, and I was like, hey, Michelle, my name is Lisa Simone Richards, I'm a PR and visibility strategist, I work with online coaches, I do this free workshop, I have a six month program. And I'd love to come on your show and talk a little bit about publicity. Would that be interesting? You would that would have been one of those delete emails, you wouldn't have read it. The difference is I paid attention to what the content is of your show who you're serving and what matters to them. And that's what I lead with gave you a really brief introduction about who I am. So you had context about me. But I also shared Hey, you know what, this is what your shows about in two episodes that I really leaned into where a and b. Also, I know that the listeners of this show have done a lot of work to build their business, but they didn't want to stay the best kept secret. And I would love to come on the show, sharing with them how to reach more people, would that be helpful. So I lead with nothing about me, this has nothing to do with me. If somebody likes what they hear here, and they want to download my lead magnet or work with me. That's fantastic. But my intention, anytime I go on a podcast is how can I make sure that anyone who listens to this episode, regardless of if they come into my world leaves richer than they came. So when you lead with that intention, and that shows in your pitch that is gets you more likely to get to yes, one little pro tip I can leave with everybody is when you're writing a pitch to do a podcast interview, live in someone's Facebook group be on television, whatever it might be, before you hit send, scroll through that email and look at the left margin. How many paragraphs and sentences begin with either me or my, because if they're all leading with that, that's the hint that you're leading with making it about you and not actually thinking about the other person first and foremost. And you can take the same pitch, tweak it around a little bit lead with your audience, your listeners, the mission of your show, and then add yourself in the background. But when you're leading with me, me, me, me, me, the other person gets bored, they tune out. So lead with value for others. And that's when you're going to get noticed

Michelle Abraham: 00:13:52

through that process. It was real good.

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:13:55

Remember, like, look at your emails the same again, just like these do start with a lot of why me advise.

Michelle Abraham: 00:14:00

Yep. And, you know, being on a lot of like podcasts, like booking sites to like, those pitches oftentimes are like, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And it's like, why did you even look at the podcast like you know, so I love that. And the second thing I want to say so after you send that pitch email, I'm sure there's a process that you go through, which I love to hear about too. But one of the things that I really love about Lisa, after interviewing several 100 people, or being on several 100 podcasts over the last couple of years, and one of the best media pages I've ever seen was yours. So I didn't have to go looking for information. It was already there in and set out in a beautiful way. So can we send them there at least it just so that they can go look at it, our listeners can go and look at it and make sure they can have a good look and see how it's done properly. And then also when they're there they can opt in for you have a pitch template. I'd love for you to share with us about that too.

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:14:57

Yeah, I'd love to offer two things there. So when It comes to the media page. And thank you so much for the compliment on it. I always think about whenever you're pitching for visibility, you always want to be the two things that my mom Sylvia asked me to never be fast and easy. And what I mean by that is you want to take away the friction for the person that you're putting yourself in front of, imagine if you had to go searching around for my bio, or looking for my images or anything like that. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to copy paste and drag get whatever information that you needed. Because again, if there's one less layer, something for you to do, there's more of a likelihood that I might get a yes.

Michelle Abraham: 00:15:33

Yeah, absolutely agreed on that one. And just making it easy for someone just takes take so like, makes you put you in the in the amazing guest category right off the start, right? We're not fishing for information, I have it all here. And I know what to do with it now. So that's super awesome. And, and then when I was there, looking at your media page, I was like, Oh, you have this amazing rain, for a perfect case. So tell us a little bit about that.

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:15:59

Of course, thank you for reminding me. So one of the things that I share with my clients all the time, and my hope is that as I share this with you listening, now you're going to feel a sense of relief. I don't come up with a new message. Every time I'm pitching a podcast, I literally tell my clients, I want you to be bored of listening to yourself speak. And guys, I can tell you, I'm bored of me listening to myself speak for six years, I have a message that I use over and over again. And one of the best things that I learned from someone, I think it'll be really serve this audience. I got this from Lisa savage. So let's give credit where credit's due, she quoted a line from her father, don't change your talk, change your audience. And I love that because if you have a clear message that's dialed in, anytime you're called for a stage or a podcast, you can do it in two seconds. And it makes your life so much easier. It makes your message so much clearer. So I teach my clients how to come up with a lather rinse repeat message, essentially that they can use over again. And for those of you that want to get featured on podcast, but you don't want to be looking at that dreaded blinking blinking cursor on the screen. When you're trying to write compose on an email. I have a template that literally breaks down here is how you do it. This is what you put in what order and I even share a copy of a podcast pitch that I use that got me a yes. So for those of you who want to learn how to write a pitch that gets Yes, and I say that humbly, even though you know, we're here today, you can visit www dot the perfect podcast pitch.com. I make it super easy. With a fill in the blank template, you can see the structure of what I do and why I do it the way that I do. You can see the example that I sent to someone and now all you have to do is just take my information out and drop your reason.

Michelle Abraham: 00:17:31

I love it. And I was super impressed with it because we teach our podcasters to get noticed formula. And it's like doing a little bit of research on the show before you actually then reach out. So you've connected on social media, you've looked at the show and listen to the show. You've had all sorts of, you know, touch points first before you before you send that email. And so I loved it. When I opened it up. I was like this is exactly what we're trying to convey to her. Our podcasts are so thank you for doing all that hard work for us.

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:18:01

See exactly fast and easy did it for ya.

Michelle Abraham: 00:18:06

Exactly right. So that's amazing. So can you share with us a little bit about like, how do you work with entrepreneurs? And what does that look like? And how like it's so obviously we're talking about podcasting today. But there are lots of other visibility avenues as well. Do you focus just on podcasting? Are there others to

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:18:24

know here's what the good news is. When I got into the PR and visibility game 20 years ago, it looked a lot different. We didn't have Instagram and Tik Tok and direct messaging and all of that stuff. It was just the traditional television magazines, newspapers. And now with social media, we have so many platforms. The good news is the principles I learned 20 years ago still exist today. So with social media, you're learning the latest platform. What do I do on Tik Tok? What I do on Pinterest? What do I do on Facebook slash meta? And the truth is, those are all going to disappear one day. Remember fine. Remember MySpace? Remember, what was the other one Periscope I think is what Twitter had back in the days

Michelle Abraham: 00:19:00

parascope just see what that one the other day like what happened to that thing,

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:19:03

right, and they all go away. But the good news is once you learn the lather rinse repeat formula for coming up with a message, finding the right place to get it featured and connecting with a person who has access to that platform. You can just do it over and over again. So the way that I work with people I mentioned before, I used to have a PR agency and it was great. We get people on TV in less than two weeks. We've never been featured anywhere before. But what I love to do is teach someone how to fish. So now I work with clients over a six month basis. I share with them here's how you come up with your messaging. Here's how you figure out the right platform to be on whether it's a magazine, a website, a newspaper, TV show, Facebook Live speaking on a stage going live in somebody else's group, there are at least 15 different ways to leverage other people's platform. And then I share with them here's how you make the ask. Here's the appropriate call to action to leave. Here's how to follow up. And what I love the most about the work that I do is at the end of six months, my business rotates as part by the way my clients really don't need me anymore. They have learned a skill that They can use over and over again for the lifetime of their business. So I had my first cohort graduate from my six month program that I'd revamped last year, I see them getting on the biggest TV shows in the country. And they didn't need me. They know how to do it all by themselves. And how powerful is it to not constantly be handing your money over to somebody, but actually take a skill, bring it in house, teach it to your team, and then use it over and over again, for again, like I've been using this for 20 years. Now the platform's changed the principle dont,

Michelle Abraham: 00:20:26

right? I love that. Yeah. And it's, you know, and like you said it, bring it in house, you can do it yourself. It's, you know, easy to do once you learn how to do it. And so how often do you run the cohort? And when's the next one that's open?

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:20:38

Yeah, I love that question. So every two months or so I teach a free workshop, it's called the get the word out workshop completely free. Again, like I said, my intention is for people to always leave richer than they came. So over the course of a few days, I share with them, here's how you come up with a message. Here's how you figure out what your signature Success System is, if you will, every mentor guru has like their ABCs of visibility or their ladder of publicity, we help you create your own. And I also share with you different ways to get seen. So we will be doing our next workshop in March. And again, I run them about six times a year. So whenever you're listening to this, you can head over to www dot finally get the word out.com to sign up for the free workshop. And if you like what you hear, awesome, come hang out with me deeper over the course of six months. And if you get what you need in those few days, fantastic. Take it, apply it and run with it.

Michelle Abraham: 00:21:27

Awesome. I love those. And as you guys can see, Lisa has been using those same tactics in her interview here today, the ABCs. We heard that one already today, too. So you know, what she's teaching is working, what she's teaching is brilliant, and it's what's working and getting visibility out there. So definitely go check it out. We'll link the things in the show notes, the websites in the show notes, so people can go check out your pitch, perfect pitch, email, and and also your workshops. So Lisa, before I let you go today, because I know Time is of essence. And we've been so grateful to have you here with us today. Anything else you want our listeners to know about visibility when they're just getting going?

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:22:05

Yeah, 100%. No matter what stage of business you are in whether you just graduated from a coaching program, and you're getting started, whether you've been doing this for a few years, or even if you're a veteran who's been at this for 20 plus years, like myself, no matter what stage you're in visibility is for you. I think there's this perception that when I get to a certain level, then I can do it. But the truth is, no matter your stage of business, if people don't know that you exist, they can't work with you period. So with especially when you're a beginner and you're looking for those first clients, visibility actually probably is more important than than it is later on in the game. So for those people who are like, okay, when I get to this stage, I'll do it. I just always remember when I launched my first course in 2015, and I just sat there like I posted on Facebook and Instagram, people should buy it right. That wasn't the case, my friends and my family, they love me, but they don't care about what I sell. So I really had to learn how do I get myself in front of buyers where I have a solution to their problems. Those are the people who are going to take out their credit cards and invest in you.

Michelle Abraham: 00:23:04

I love it. One of my coaches Jim Padilla says it's the bleeding neck problem. Get to find the people at the bleeding neck program problem, right that really, really need what you have and not your friends and family. Those are going to be the people that rush to your court. So that's great advice. Lisa, thank you so much. I just love what you're all about and what you brought to us today. It's been super helpful. And podcasters out there. Please, please, please send value driven pitch emails when you're trying to get on podcasts. And if you need some help, go check out Lisa, and she'll get you on the right track. So Lisa, thanks again so much for being with us today. Any last words before I let you go?

Lisa Simone Richards: 00:23:45

The one thing I pretty much share at the end of every conversation is please don't let this have been 2030 minutes of great information, taking some notes and feeling good about listening to it. Put this into practice, decide what is the one thing you're going to move the needle forward on whether that's determining what the right platform is signing up for the free workshop, downloading the pitch template, whatever it is, don't just let this be information that you heard. Let it be information that you put into practice and create a transformation in your business.