What if your business could get national visibility for free?

In this week’s episode, we sit down with The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange, a seasoned strategist with over 35 years of experience helping entrepreneurs, entertainers, and everyday business owners harness the power of press and media. The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange breaks down what “media” really means (hint: it’s not just writing a press release), how to position your business for TV, radio, magazines, and podcasts, and why any business  yes, even a dry cleaner can make the news.

The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange shares juicy behind-the-scenes stories, including working with Orville Redenbacher and Suze Orman, and gives real examples of how local businesses have used media to dominate their markets. Plus, he explains why authenticity is your secret weapon and how to build a long-term strategy using his 11-pillar framework for expert entrepreneurs.

Whether you’re looking to grow your local presence or build a nationally recognized brand, this episode will give you the tools and the mindset shift to start thinking like “the media does.”

Key Takeaways:

• Press and Media: The most underused free marketing tool available to business owners.
• You Don’t Have To Be A Celebrity: Get featured no matter who you are, even local dry cleaners can leverage the media.
• Mainstream media: Still holds significant credibility and influence over public perception.
• Speak The Language Of The Media: Formatting and headlines matter in your content.
• Be Authentic: It is your most powerful asset when working with media.
• Exposure Through Press: Can boost your visibility, credibility, and ultimately, your revenue.
• Be A Recurring, Trustworthy Guest: You can become a go-to expert with the right training.
• Missing Out On Media: Many business owners miss out on media because they misunderstand what it is and how to use it.
• You Don’t Need To Do It Alone:  The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange offers coaching and a self-guided course to get you started.

Unlock the Secrets to Building a Resilient and Profitable Business at the Profit Connectors Club - https://profitconnectors.club/

About The Expert Expert:

For Over 35 years as The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange has specialized in working with entrepreneurs, and business owners to create the business behind their skills, talents, and areas of specialty while positioning themselves as authorities and experts in their field, creating a business that can be monetized for sustained success. He is considered an expert in many facets of entertainment and business, has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, All My Children, VH-1, ABC, CBS, & FOX T.V. News and many local and regional radio and television shows nationwide. 

Throughout his career, The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange has had the opportunity to work with, coach, represent, and promote hundreds of businessmen and women and worked with many top-name professionals in the worlds of entertainment and business including George Burns, Steve Allen, Phyllis Diller, Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, The Beach Boys, The Monkees, Loretta Lynn, Michael Jordan, Don Rickles, Orville Redenbacher, Wally “Famous” Amos, Mrs. (Debbi) Fields, Robert Kiyosaki, Suze Orman, and many other national, regional, and local entrepreneurs and business owners. 

Today, The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange spends much of his time educating, training, and consulting entrepreneurs and business owners on all levels on the use of press and media in their business, and with his proprietary education, training, and business development system 

The Expert Expert™ Rob Lange has experienced tremendous results helping countless others achieve fantastic success in their business. He remains an in-demand media guest, business analyst, podcast guest, speaker, coach, and consultant with clients worldwide.

About Sharon:

Sharon Galluzzo, Profit Growth Strategist at Profit Connections, is the author of several Amazon Best Selling books including “Legendary Business: From Rats to Riche$.” She ran a successful multi-six figure, award winning business for more than a decade before selling it for a profit. In her more than 19 years as an entrepreneur, Sharon has coached professionals across the country from franchisors and solopreneurs to businesses on the verge expansion. 

http://sharongalluzzo.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sharonagalluzzo/

https://www.instagram.com/sharon_galluzzo/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharongalluzzo/

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Rob, Hey, welcome back. We are here with

the Expert expert today, and I am so excited to introduce you

to rob Lang. I'm going to read his bio for you for over 35

years as the expert which happens to be trademarked folks.

Rob Lang has specialized in working with entrepreneurs and

business owners to create the business behind their skills,

talents and areas of specialty, while positioning themselves as

authorities and experts in their field through the use of press

and media, creating a business that can be monetized for

sustained success. Welcome Rob. So glad that you're here. A

couple other things, just some highlights from the bio that I

didn't read. Rob has been doing this for a very long time, even

though he looks like he's 20, he's been doing this for 35

years. So when he says, expert, expert, he has been there and

done that with so many famous folks. And I told him before the

interview that I will twist his arm to share some stories with

us about those people. Because, you know, who doesn't love a

great celebrity story? And so we'll, we'll get him to talk, to

open up about some of those things as we get into the

conversation. And I just want to bring to the mic right now.

Welcome Rob. Expert, expert. Let Tell us. Tell us the first thing

we need to know about press and media for building our

businesses.

Oh, well, thank you so much here, and it's great to

be here. I think the first thing about press and media is, you

know, there are so many different marketing and

promotion and ways to try to get exposure and get your name and

your business out there, and some of them can be costly. When

you go into them, you don't know what the results may be. Will

there be a return on investment? Was it a waste of time and

effort? But the one thing that has continually worked over and

over again, without fail, is the use of the press and media. Now,

the press and media is a very it's over 500 years old. And

current press and media, if you think back the last 100 years,

we invented TV, we invented radio, we invented the internet.

I mean, really, things have really just taken off online

media. So media is very powerful. It's influential. But

most people don't think of it as a business tool, something that

you can use in your business. And once you understand how the

media works, that's kind of the first part of it, is they work

very specific way. We were talking off here about structure

and systems, and that's what they thrive on. And if you can

learn their structure and systems and learn how to tap

into that, this is a resource that you can use over and over

again, and it's absolutely free. Every time you do it, you never

have to spend a penny to pay for ads or media buys or any of

that. Once you learn what I teach in my coaching and my

program. It's something you can do over and over again. And you

know, you hear experts or gurus talk about, you got to keep top

of mind awareness and keep in front of your audience. This is

an excellent way to do that. And over the last, I don't know,

1520, years, everybody's talking about in the movie has been to

social media, but what I'm talking about is mainstream

media, because when you get real good mainstream feature length

coverage of you and your business, you can take that and

cross it over to social media, and it gives you content for

both. So it's the best of both worlds

that's really cool. But I'm not I'm gonna

challenge you here, Rob, because they're out there thinking it,

and I'm gonna say it sure tell me that an HVAC company or a

dentist office or a dry cleaner can get press and media like,

and also talk about what press and media is like, and tell us

like, can, Can we really get exposure that way

you can and and the first thing is like, I say the

the media is influential. It's powerful, it's credible. And

when you are in the media that that is reflective on you, the

media has a lot of credible sources. That's why you can't

just pick up the phone and say, Hey, I'd like you to do a story

on me. The media has wire services, media associate, news

associations, all of these credible and approved resources

that they know they can get their media, their content ideas

from, and that's why it's important to tap into the way

they operate. But in reality, one of the things I take the

greatest pride in is, you know, I started working with

entertainers and and I don't mean to slam them, because I was

one of them, and I have a lot of friends that are, but they are

the worst business people you've ever dealt with, only in the

sense. And if you think about it, it makes sense. They're

creative types. They want to focus on their area. Of

creativity, and they look at the business side of things as, you

know, I don't want to be bogged down with all this tedious, you

know, business operational stuff. So they hire managers and

agents. Everybody handle it for them. And a lot of them, you

hear all these stories about how they get screwed out of millions

of dollars or taken advantage of or whatever. But the point is,

is, in the 38 years I've been doing this, I have yet to meet a

business that I haven't been able to help. And I've been

challenged. I've been challenged. But you mentioned

dry cleaners. I work with the movement today is online

business, and I always feel like, well, I know that's what

all the gurus say. And you'll find out as we talk, there's a

lot of things the gurus tell you that I seem to be opposite of or

don't agree with. One of them is niching down very small and and

I think that's fine at a certain point, but I think the press and

media allows you to reach a broader, wider loyal audience.

These media outlets have the most loyal audiences of anybody

I've ever met. And while I have worked with famous people that

use the media to become media personalities, or whatever,

celebrities, a lot of people just want to do this in their

local market, their nature industry. So where I've worked

with athletes and celebrities, I also have worked with the local

dry cleaner, the local car wash, the local baker, many, many

realtors and businesses of every type, whether they just want to

use it for exposure and visibility, whether they want to

use it for the credibility, whether they Want to use it to

stand out from their competition, separate themselves

from the competition, or stand out from all the noise. There's

a lot of benefits that the press and media can bring, and I think

that's that's one of the things. But there are ways we one of the

things we do is we teach you how to look at the media differently

than you and I are just defaultly trained to look at

them. We look at them as, oh, we watch these, this TV station for

our news programs and maybe entertainment sitcoms, talk

shows, reality show radio. We listen to for music, maybe some

personality magazines. Well, we like Vogue because it's all

about the latest fashion. You know, we, we, we we receive our

media the way that they intend it to be, but what we do is we

look a little bit beyond that and look at how the media can

actually help businesses. Now, let's say you were a dry

cleaner. You know, there are several things that the media

really likes and welcomes and embraces the local business

person done well, doing good. Women in Business, anything

that's self empowering, anything that prevents, especially with

seniors, but everybody prevents scams or frauds or, you know,

consumer awareness, things health and educate. Health and

wellness, education, all of these are topics that the media

loves. So if you can adapt your message to something like that.

So I have worked with a dry cleaner who said the same thing

as you, how can the media help me? I'd love to do that, because

he wanted to dominate. I guess when you're a dry cleaner, you

only carry about, care about, like, a five to seven mile

radius, which, you know, he told me, and I said, Okay, well, we

could dominate your five or seven mile radius, but we could

also get you to the point where people drive from across town or

two towns over. He didn't believe it was possible, but

what we did is we tapped into different hot buttons for the

media, and one of them is health and wellness. And I said, for a

dry cleaner, you should always be able to tap into spring

cleaning. You know, get your new summer clothes out, wash your

dry clean your other clothes, your drapes, your curtains, your

sheets. This is a great time for your sheet, because a lot of

people don't do their sheets and drapes and curtains enough, and

offer tips and offer why this is healthy, and what happens if you

don't? So he adapted his whole dry cleaning. He created a

package, actually a spring package, a fall package, and he

taps into the medium. That's what I'm saying. This isn't a

one time thing for PR. This is something you do all the time.

He things that you wouldn't think that he could tap into. He

even tapped into back to school, which is a big media topic in

August, you know. So he does the spring thing in March and April.

He does the fall thing in October and November. He does

back to school in the summer, and then he'll do something

after the holidays, you know, like, you know, start the new

year off with, you know, a clean home and healthy, health and

wellness and caring get rid of the mites and the dust and your

you know, all of this stuff. So. He really found a way to tap

into, and that's just using the health and wellness area. You

know, there's other things that he can tap into, too. And we do

this with so many different things. When you see the media's

different opportunities each and every month, you see like, Oh,

this is a true marketing or promotional medium that I can

tap into over and over again as needed, and now I've got

businesses that are creating their services based on the

media tie in, so they know that. Okay, well, if I'm going to I'm

going to be a baker. Okay, well, I know that there's going to be

graduation. I know there's going to be holidays and Christmas and

Thanksgiving, and they create media campaigns based around

this, and they create their products based around media

campaigns. So

I'm going to jump in here really quick,

because I want to define something Rob and I talked about

this before, before the conversation that I might jump

in. So when you say media, define that for us, like, what

does that mean? Because my brain is going 16 different places,

and I want to make sure that we're defining for everyone what

it is that you're talking about. When you say media, does that

mean writing a press release. Does that mean, like, what are

and what you know, what areas of media. Great question. Write

that down. Yes.

When I say press and media, I'm talking about having

you and your business featured on TV, radio, podcasts,

newspapers, magazines and online media. And I don't just mean a

mention or a blurb, I mean, feature press and media

coverage. So in other words, if it's a magazine or a newspaper,

it's a full story, hopefully a cover story, a front second,

front page story, usually with photos, and it's all about you

and your business. And It's same for magazines on TV, it could be

a guest segment on a talk show or a an information segment on a

news program, or like a morning show radio. The same way it

could be a guest segment on a talk show, it could be just a

segment you do for fun with the morning and afternoon drive

team. It's to feature press and media coverage about you and

your business, and as far as the press release, what that is is a

vehicle or a tool to reach the media. And we teach several of

those in my my programs, there's a misconception, you know, not

everything on the internet is right or correct, and there's a

misperception that all I need to do is search the internet for a

blank press release, fill in my information and send it out and

it'll it'll get me in the media. And that does not work. It works

rarely, if at all. But you know, even a broken watch is correct

twice a day, so you could possibly luck out for a second

there, but I had a radio station for a while, and this is in the

day of fax machines faxing, you know. And people would fax their

press releases to the radio station, and we would get

between 203 100 a day. And right next to the fax machine, we had

a big 55 gallon like a janitor's garbage can on wheels. And when

a fax would come in, we'd look at it, and we would know within

one second whether we were going to be interested or throw it

away. And only of the two or 300 we only probably really kept and

considered seven or eight of them, because the first thing

the media does is they look at the formatting. And if it's

formatted, the way I call it, the language of the media, if

it's formatted in their language, then it's something

that they may consider to read 15 or 20 seconds to see what

it's about. If it's not, they don't even look at it. It just

goes right in the garbage. Because for them to use it, they

would have to rewrite the whole thing and structure it, and it

would probably take an hour of time that they just can't do for

everyone. So I think that's the big thing, is press releases can

work. It is, I guess, if you were to look back over the last

100 years, it's the long time staple. But I would say 99.9% of

the people don't know how to use a press release. Don't know that

there's maybe eight or 10 different types of releases, and

you've gotta find the one that's right for your business, your

message and the media outlet that you're seeking, right?

So it's, it is what you're saying is that it is

something that you can, you can break into it's not necessarily

intuitive, because, yeah, like, you could go get you could go

get a template offline, online that's not necessarily going to

fit the audience that is that you're aiming for. I think that

press releases, if you just want to make sure that you get your

name out on the. The search engines. Press releases can be

great for that, whether they reach anybody or not. So they

don't have a no value. They can build up your online presence,

uh, however, one that's formatted for the media that

you're trying to reach, in the language that they are looking

for, that's going to catch their attention. I have heard

statistics. I don't know them, and you might know them, about

the number of numbers of emails reporters and producers and

those kind of people get every single day, and the the

frequency of them even clicking on it, like you have to have the

right subject line or where, whatever, where you have to have

something that's going to catch their catch their eye. I mean,

it's in everything. I was just on a cruise a few months ago for

marketing and speaking, and we were talking about TED talks,

and just getting a TED Talk approved. Like the title of your

TED talk is, like, there's a whole every single way you need

to communicate with people. It can be done any old way.

However, if you want to do it successfully, finding the expert

that can help you get there is the is, is the value, because

otherwise you're wasting time and energy. So that's why I love

that you're here and you're talking about about media today,

and there's so many other areas. And I love that we're speaking

about something that most business owners are like, Yeah,

I can't do that. That's too expensive. It's too much work.

I'm not going to get through and and that there, that is that

area of that however, if you partner with the right expert,

then actually you can have all of those things that you're

talking about. And I, I really love that you're opening up what

people think about it as the old the old media. We're talking

about television. We're talking about radio. Yes, this is a

podcast. A lot of people get their stuff on on podcasts now,

absolutely. So you're old media and nude me media, and so we

think news, you know, we think that print and television and

radio are dead, and that's actually not true. Can you talk

a little bit about how viable those media are still

sure a couple things you said, you hit the nail right

on the head. First of all, there's some misconceptions that

the press in media is only for celebrities or major, major

companies that spend a lot of money. And that's simply not

true, that you have to be an expert or have a lot of great

talent. And my joke to that is usually, but look at the

Kardashians. I mean, they use the media for their I don't mean

that as a slam, but my point is is, you know, they didn't have a

they weren't a big company when they started, but they use the

media, and of course, tapped into that. But the media is very

credible. It's very I like your distinction between the new

media and the old media, because and when you tie it into like

headlines in my course, I take not just the different types of

press releases and break them down so you know what's best for

you, but I go to the in this has come up over years of working

with students and clients, I break down every single line of

a press release, and I'm a big believer in business, while it's

important to know what to do, it's equally and sometimes more

important to know what not to do and why. Because if somebody

makes a wrong detour and they don't know it, they just keep

going down this wrong path, and oh my gosh, to get them back to

the point where they made that decision just to go forward is a

major effort in itself. But so we break down the press release.

And you know, when you were talking about headlines and

stuff in our emails and their subject line, that's a headline.

And the people that created headline was the media. So

that's why, when they look at something, they they look at a

headline differently than you and I would, because to them,

that's that's the opening catch. You know, if that's interesting

and intriguing, they'll want to read on. If not, you'll lose

them there. So, but I think the difference is with media is a

couple of things have changed just in the 38 years I've done

it. Number one, people have a much shorter attention span, so

that means your your hook, your angle, your headline, you've got

to really catch them much quicker. And that's a good

thing, because I think this is something that we can utilize in

all aspects of our business. Email campaigns when we speak

those first minute and a half when you come on stage is so

crucial to keeping your audience, connecting with them,

building rapport, and having them engage and be interested in

what you have to say. And speaking is the catalyst to all

business we if we can't speak. About our business. We're not in

business, you know. And we speak in different ways. We speak in

the print, we speak on video, we speak in audio. I even get some

people, you know, I mentioned earlier, some of the challenges

I've had. A guy that came to me that was a had an Italian

restaurant, has an Italian restaurant, but he's not from

this country, and he spoke very broken English, and he's very

aware of that. And he said, I really want this press in media,

because I would love this to work for us, but I can't do it,

and there's no way. I just and I told him, I said, one of the

things I cover in the program is it doesn't even have to be you.

It can be a spokesperson. It can be an employee. It can be your

spouse. In his case, he had an adult daughter, I think, in her

early 30s. That was the hostess there, and she spoke. She was

born here, and she was raised here, and she spoke perfect

English, and she was cute. She was good looking. I said, Who

better to have as your spokesperson? Because not only

can she speak and she's pleasant to watch, but when people walk

in the restaurant during the prime dinner hours, she was the

hostess there. What a kick that is, you know. So this doesn't

have to be you, if you're one of these people, like, Oh, I could

never get up in front of people and speak. That's okay. Don't

let that deter you, because your business can still benefit. But

that's one of the things about the modern wave of businesses,

is in the press and media is everything is so much more

direct and streamlined. Now, yes, reporters do get hundreds

of emails all the time, a day or a week, but for a well crafted

email or a pitch or a press release or a story idea, if it's

presented right, and it's it's got the hook and the angle that

they need, it's in their language, and they can see how

it could relate or benefit their audience, their readers,

listeners or viewers, then you're gold. And the other thing

with the press and media is, once you become a media guest

that does well, they will want you back. You know, when I first

released the book, press and media for entrepreneurs and

small businesses, it was about how to get on, get in the media,

how to utilize this. And when people did the print and

magazine newspaper interviews, they were great because the

reporter would write, would take the information, do the

interview, and then craft this beautiful story. Sometimes they

would take things out of context or misquote. But when they did

TV or radio, some of these people kind of froze up and

weren't that smooth or or comfortable. So I took the book

off the market. That's when I made it into a course, and I

added some modules to it, including how to prepare to be

media ready, how to prepare to be interviewed, how to become a

good media guest, and then how to become a return media guest,

over and over again. And some people think of, Oh, I was in

the local Times newspaper. They had me so they won't need me

again. That's not true. There's there's, it's almost just the

opposite. That's why it seems like the same people in your

market are in the media all the time. There's a reason for that,

and we tap into that, but I think that's

actually a really good point. I have a

someone who's one of the things that she does, she does many

things, and one of the things that she talks about his body

language. And I have seen her on so many television shows

whenever some celebrity couple or some famous people, and

what's going on at this public event, they'll have her on, and

they'll, like, analyze their body language. And she'll say,

you know, like they're, they're how they're standing or looking

at each other, or look at their feet or whatever. So that's and

she does it often and in a lot of different markets. So if you

get known for something, for a niche thing, that is a

repeatable thing, then you actually could have a repeatable

presence in the media

well. And you just touched on another difference

between the old media and the new. Everything was news,

factual for many, many, many decades. Now, though, with the

exception of sports, sports would always have post game

commentators and wrap ups, and the next Monday morning they

would review the things on the air. And now they're doing that

for fashion. They're doing that for new product releases.

They're doing. Oprah did that with the Book Club when she

started and there. So there is much more commentary. And there

are some people that are getting media spots. They use my system

to get in the media. And if you're a good media guest, which

is what we kind of create with you, train you to be they want

you to come back more and more, and then at a certain point, we

show you how to take that to them and say, I like to discuss

with you about this being a regular segment, maybe the first

Friday of every month, or maybe every Friday, or, you know what.

And it can be a newspaper. I got a person in the parenting space

that was writing articles. She started writing articles for a

local Parents Magazine. They loved it. They said, if you get

any more, send them to us. Oh, back to school is coming up. Can

you send us an article to get your kids ready for back to

school? She did that after about the sixth or seventh one, she

said, I've got to I want to propose that you give me my own

column, and I'll do something every month. And we helped her

to do that because she had tried it once on her own and got

nowhere. And we kind of cleaned up what she was doing and gave

her a different model to approach with. And they bit

right away, but what a great idea. Oh my gosh. How soon can

we start this? These are our deadlines. Can you meet our

deadlines? These are our themes, you know? And that's how it

starts. And you're so right. And that's another trend in current

media that might not have been around 10 or 1215, years ago,

you know,

right? That's awesome. So I did promise that I

would twist your arm for Okay, celebrity story, and I looked at

your list, and maybe you can tell us a different one later.

However, I am all about snacks, and one of my favorite foods on

the planet is popcorn. And I saw the name Orville red marker on

your bio. And if you are too young to know who Orville red

maybe you can tell us a little bit about who Orville

Redenbacher is. However, he was this little old man. He came on

TV with a bow tie and he made popcorn. And it's actually my I

am, like, pretty solid fan of Orville Redenbacher. That is my

go to brand, even today. So it works. So tell us. Tell us an

Orville Redenbacher story. Okay,

well, let me tell you about Orville real quick.

Orville, it was a real person. This wasn't a character made up

for the media, and he was. And to this day, and I have met

1000s and 1000s of people, and I can honestly tell you, Orville

was one of the most intelligent people I've ever met on a single

subject. And his happened to be popcorn he was, and I didn't

even know this existed until I met Orville, but he was a

popcorn farmer. He he was so into hybrids, and he would tell

me, he said, Rob, you know popcorn the right kernel that

you're talking about. We have humidity in the moisture in the

Midwest that we don't have anywhere else. That's why

Indiana is one of the greatest places on the planet to grow

popcorn and and he just knew everything about popcorn, how to

make most his first challenge was how to make the most kernels

pop. Because back in the day, if you use, regardless of your

method, whether it was the Jiffy Pop, remember Jiffy Pop, whether

it was that or the hot air poppers, or whatever, there were

always un pop kernels in the bottom. Yep. So his big

challenge, one of his big challenges, was to minimize

that. And to do that, it had to do with the hydration rate,

which allowed him to pop at a certain degree. You could get to

that degree in a certain amount of time, and so on and so forth.

Well, then big industry started coming out with microwave

popcorn. The microwave came out in 67 although didn't catch on

that early, the quest for microwave popcorn started, and

Orville didn't like that. He didn't he he was kicking and

screaming against microwave popcorn. Yet, as a popcorn

farmer and an intelligent man of popcorn intelligence. He loved

the challenge. He took the challenge. And that's really

when pop microwave popcorn took off. Is when Orville got

involved and did the same thing how to get the right size for

the fluffiest kernel, the least amount of this, oh my gosh. And

he just, I've never seen anybody get so passionate and excited

about what they did as Orville. And of course, when it came time

to go, take this wider, they wanted him to be the

spokesperson, because nobody could speak about it with with a

spokesperson or a celebrity figure could say the words, but

they didn't have the passion in his eyes like Orville did, and

he was very serious. I he didn't have the best sense of humor,

because I remember saying to him, Orville, between you and I

is, do you is that a clip on bow tie? Or do you just, you really

tie that thing every day? And oh, no, I've been wearing a bow

tie since I was seven, and I'll show I could. And he he could

tie a bow tie just about as well as he knew popcorn. But no, he

was very serious. He finally embraced being the media person

for it and using press and media to create the character and to

spread the knowledge. And he actually founded October as not.

National popcorn popping month, something he created, because

I'm like, why October? You would think the summer movie season,

movie popcorn. You know, he goes, No more popcorn is sold in

the fall for the for Halloween, and popcorn balls and this and

this and that, and people use it to in the old days, they used to

string popcorn strands to decorate your Christmas tree.

I've done that like the Darling, right? So he just he could tie

popcorn into anything if you were getting married, I

guarantee, if you knew horrible, you'd have popcorn at your

wedding in some form, shape or another,

perfect example of what you were talking about

earlier, that you can make anything fit everything. If you

step forward as that expert, and you have a mindset of, how do I

make my expertise right into every area that's appropriate in

every season, in every whatever? This is the perfect example of

exactly what you were talking about, because that's what

Orville Redenbacher did,

yes, yeah, and we helped him get out, you know, do

interviews and be good at it, because he would like, I say it

was kind of straight and monotone ish and didn't have a

lot of flair to his personality. And some of the people were in,

like, his publicist, his PR firm, were saying, Earl, you

gotta, you gotta pump it up. You gotta have a little pizzazz.

Yeah, and I was just the opposite. I'm like, Hey, this is

who you are. That's how you should and your message. People

are focusing on your message, not your flair. Where, when I

worked with Suze Orman, was just the opposite. She was a waitress

that was kind of spunky or sassy, kind of, you know, witty

and and when she decided she wanted to go into finances, all

of her regular customers at the diner that she worked at knew

about this. And long story short, one of her customers

said, I think she needed like, 50 grand or 20 grand to start.

He said, I will give you the money to go pursue this. But on

one condition, you don't let the guys bring you down, because it

was a real male dominated field back then. And secondly, you've

got to do it with the same Sass and spunk that you you work on

these, on these tables here, and that's why Suze Orman is has

always been a call it like you see it. She got in with Merrill

Lynch as her first job. Had a problem with Merrill Lynch

because they lost a lot of her money. So she sued Merrill and

she sued her own employer. I'm like, What a great story. But

anyway, she used the media, she used her Sass and her spunk, and

that's been her, her brand, ever since.

I think that what you just described with

both those people is the and it's the word we hear all the

time now, authenticity. And they had authenticity. They were who

they were, who they are in that moment, and that's what caught

the zeitgeist. That's what brought them in. That's why

people connected with them. That's why I remember Orville

Redenbacher. So be yourself. Be who you are. I think a lot of

times we want to be whenever we get into have a camera in front

of us or somebody something's important. If it's if it's

important, we often will change how we show up and what we're

doing, and that's actually the opposite. And a lot of times

that's nerves, or you're overthinking and that kind of

stuff. But anytime you can step into who you are, like on this

podcast, I don't do any editing. I am who I am. I show up as as

me. I'm loud, I'm I'm I talk fast. That's who I am. And can I

change it whenever I'm speaking in front of audiences and stuff?

Yes, this is my podcast. I'm showing up as me and and this

is, this is my the way I'm stepping forward into the world.

And I think that the most powerful way to do that is be

yourself. Because sometimes that thing that you don't like about

yourself or that you think is too much, or it's too right to

something too too little, too short, too tall, too loud,

whatever it is, a lot of times that's actually the thing that

people you'll get known for, because you don't sound like

everybody else, you don't look like everybody else. You are who

you are. So that's what I'm hearing from what you're saying.

How do you what's your advice in when it comes to media?

Well, and there's another example of old media

versus new. In the old days, you had to fit that anchor, that

news person. You know that? Yeah, that stern framing of what

that was supposed to be. I will tell you as you I'm listening to

you talk and the things you're saying. It's It reminds me a lot

of Oprah. I did the Oprah show in her first first year, and she

took over. Most people don't know this the Oprah show. She.

She was, there was a morning show in Chicago called am

Chicago. The host left to go out west, and she took over that

hosting job. So it was actually she first started by hosting am

Chicago, but she was so authentically herself that

Chicago really just latched on to her. I mean, it was like, Oh

my gosh, this girl is real. She calls it as she sees it. She's

got the same mindset that we have, you know, she's not, like,

up here and everything else. And granted, she wasn't the Oprah

that we know yet. So I did her show, and I saw this from the

inside, not just in her, but in her whole operation. And if she

was shaking up the industry a little bit, it's like, Who is

this girl in Chicago? Well, then the whole thing took off. Then

the second time I was on Oprah, things had changed. The first

time was before the internet. I think was 85 somewhere back in

there. The second time the internet was out, Oprah was the

Oprah that we now know, still authentically herself, but with

more power now. So when you have authenticity and you gain some

credibility and power, oh my goodness, the world is your

oyster and but she was the same Oprah, and as I'm sitting there

talking to her like I'm talking to you on her show. It was just

a great fun conversation, and she got so excited, and she had

later said that that the episode of I was on was one of her

favorite ones because of some of the topics we talked about

stuff, but anyway, I get done. And then we hung around for a

few minutes, hugged and kissed, said goodbye, and you know, she

was great, because we had a great show. I was high because

it's like, I got to do Oprah again, you know? And she's huge

now, right? She's syndicated. But that's the thing I didn't

realize, in the power of the media again, is a few days

later, when it aired, I started getting all kinds. My phone was

ringing off the hook, mail, everything, because you don't

realize when you're talking like we are. Now that Oprah is seen

in 142 countries, 20 or 30 million people a day, and people

saw me as a guest, and they were wanting, again, your credibility

there, you know, taps into that of the show. If you make it in

Oprah's Favorite Things, or Oprah's book club. Oh, what a

boost that can be to it's like a comedian being on the old Johnny

Carson Show. Your life could change overnight, you know,

right? And mine did. I went, I went from a national business to

an international business because of Oprah in that that

one episode. So, but I think that's it being authentic to

yourself. Yeah,

and just to jump in there, when you make

these steps, and you make these strides into becoming more

visible, you also have to think about, what is that impact on

your business? Because now, once you get this exposure, it's

going to improve your business. And you also need to make sure

that you're taking care of your structures, your systems, your

processes, to improve that. Because I've heard that there

are people that go on Shark Tank and they suddenly, they they

blow up, right? And the infrastructure within their

business can't withstand, withstand the popularity. They

can't keep up. So it just keep that in the back of your mind as

you're doing these things that you need to level up your

business side. Even as you're, you're getting more exposure and

doing all of these things, keep that as part of the process that

you're, that you're doing, so that you don't get to the place

where you can't fulfill orders or function or whatever too

much. So it's, it's a hand in hand kind of a business building

along with the media.

Yeah, well, and you make a good point there, because

Shark Tank is a great use of press and media to get exposure

for your business and, of course, funding. But, and I talk

about using press and media as a business tool, but press and

media is also used in non business ways. You don't it's

not just to promote your business. If you have a message,

a cause, a nonprofit. I don't know how many years ago, this

was maybe the 90s, but John Walsh started using the press

and media to help catch future fugitives on America's Most

Wanted he would profile them, put their pictures up there,

their stories, give a few pointers on them. And the

American public, which we're finding them, are turning people

in. Another thing I remember being part of is when Elizabeth

smart was missing. And whenever you watch like a Dateline of

2020, or 48 hours when somebody's missing, one of the

things they always say, if they talk to the investigators, is,

you got to keep it in the media. You got to keep it in front of

people. Don't let this story fade away, you know? And that

helps people volunteer to search, and it really kicks

things up. And if, if there's a person at fault, like a kidnap

or something, it really puts a lot of pressure on them. So

there's a lot of good. Uses for press and media other than just

business, but, and it's something that's, you know,

people like John and the sharks and everybody have found a great

way to utilize in entrepreneurship or in in trying

to apprehend fugitives, even Dog the Bounty Hunter brought a lot

of exposure to the world of bounty hunters. You know, a lot

of us have never incurred that and and try how he tracked him

down to a lot of people, whether you liked him or not. It was

just fascinating that, holy cow, that's how these guys think.

This is how they they talk to people, they get tips, they you

know, and they stake out the whole process. It's great use of

press at media. So I

agree with you absolutely. Um, Rob, talk to us

a little bit about, we've talked about the the media and press,

and we discussed, before we jumped on that that is just one

of the pillars that you utilize within your within your

framework. You just talk briefly about some of the others. A

little bit about what you do with all of that.

Yeah, I have my signature program is called the

expert entrepreneur, and that is for people like I said that like

the dry cleaner didn't want to be he didn't want to be Orville

Redenbacher. He just wanted to be a sustained and dominant

business in his marketplace, his local marketplace. Other people

do want national or international fame and

credibility, and the media can help you attain both of those

and everything in between. So I think when I started working

with these people that wanted to use press and media as their

platform for their expertise, this coincide very closely with

another media phenomena that happened at the time, which was

the infomercial. And two of the people that I knew from those

days, one of them was Carlton sheets, who'd had a real estate

investing course, and he was all over overnight and late night

TV. And another one was Susan powder, this fitness girl white,

spiked hair that kept yelling, stop the insanity. And Suzanne

summers and her thigh master, all of these people use the

media to promote their product make them a celebrity. And even

this goes back Jane Fonda and her her workout, and Richard

Simmons and his sweating to the oldies. I worked with Richard

and they used use this to establish their platform, their

credibility, and, of course, sell a lot of products. So I

think in working with those people, I determined that there

were 11 things that it takes to be a true expert. Today, a lot

of people just coined themselves the term of expert, or a coach

or whatever. But to be a true expert, it all came down to 11

points and of the 11 pillars that I have, one of them is

press and media. I feel like to be a true expert in your your

area. There's certain things you need. You need to be able to

speak. You should be a published author, whether it's a book or a

course. You You have to be able to teach, share and teach your

expertise with people. Usually you have to build a community.

And of course, you need to utilize the press and media. And

although there are varying degrees local, national,

international, I believe that's a big part of all of this. And

in today's niche down world, if you were to do it the way that

the gurus tell you, you would need one one course and one

mentor to get for speaking, another one to be a published

author, another one to, you know, use webinars and online

media to build your list and lead generation and all that,

and then one for marketing, and then one for selling. And

there's, a there's just so many things that it's like, okay, if

you take each course and say, each course costs 3000 bucks and

it takes you three to six months to master you there's 100

different things you could use in your business, SEO, AdWords,

you know, website development, you I talked about this in my

course. It would take you, like, 100 years, and I don't know how

many hundreds of 1000s of dollars to try to get this, I

don't like niching down to single topic courses. So the

expert entrepreneur, since it was started, covered all 11

things. I've had people tell me it's like 11 courses in one and

press and media is one of those, and one of them that the people

experience the most success with because not everybody wants to

be an expert. They just want to boost for their business and get

their word out there. It's one of the things that it's

available two ways. It's available as a course where you

can take it and do it on your own, or if you want help, I've

got it available with three months coaching to kind of work

with you and guide you through those first few months, because

most people get their first media coverage with my system in

the first 3060, days, sometimes 90, if they're a slow mover, if

they're aggressive, it could be within 10 days, you know. And I

help them do that. And then there's a process that happens.

They get all excited, they've got their first media coverage.

Then after a few days of that, they start reflecting on it,

thinking, Oh, I forgot to say this, or I. I didn't do this

right, or I could have done this better, and then they kind of

start editing themselves, and that's part of the process to

becoming a better media guest. So, so I think that's the key.

Is ideally, if you want to be an expert, I think having all 11 of

these pillars in place and developed will be what you need

to do. One of them is putting all of these together into a

business operational system that works together. So many if you

get this guy's marketing course and this guy's website course

and this guy's Social Media course, they don't always sync.

They don't always play well together. And in my program, all

11 of them fit nicely into a business operational system. So

it's really a true business development system. And this is

what I started when I started working with the entertainers

and everybody to create the business behind their skills,

talents and abilities. And one of the interesting things that

happened is entertainers would try to adapt conventional

business to what they were doing, and it didn't work well.

And I believe that entertainers had a different set of rules,

business rules, than conventional business so that's

why I created my proprietary system for entertainers. And one

of the things I did not expect was as my entertainers referred

me to other people that were non entertainers, my methods, my

systems for this entertainment business work, famously for non

entertainer businesses. You know, regular, conventional

businesses didn't work the other way, but this way it worked

well. So that just opened me up to working with so many

different types of people, and that's kind of where I am today,

38 years later.

Awesome. Thank you so much. This has been so

much information and so entertaining. Thank you for

entertaining us and telling us those stories. I'm sure that you

have so many more. However, I know that you have a gift for

our listeners. Always want to know if you would please tell us

about that.

Yeah, you know, I, I find when I I'm exposed to

somebody for the first time and we talk about press and media,

we're just scratching the surface here. A lot of people

don't know what it is, or it's like, what is that? I never

thought of the press and media in that way. So as a free gift

for your audience, what I'd like to offer everyone is a special

gift, which is a report that I created called Getting Started

with press and media, free tips, strategies and more that you can

utilize. It shows you how to utilize the power of the press

and media in your business and to better familiarize you with

the benefits of press and media marketing and promotion today,

what we've talked about might have triggered some thoughts in

some people, and I think getting this report will kind of like, I

never thought of that. I didn't think of it that way. Or it gets

your like, you say, the mindset and the juices flowing about I

could use press and media this way. I never thought about that.

There's no reason that this company has to be the prominent

one. And everybody knows about in my market, I can rise above

that, and I can the media is great for positioning, business

positioning, and all of this is kind of covered in here, so it's

a great introduction and some insider tips if you want to try

this on your own, and if you want to work with me, it's got

information on how you can do that as well, and a couple of

different options there. So it's available at the expert

expert.com gotta put the the in there, and when you go to that

page, there's a big red badge on the right side that you can

request your free report, and it'll be in your inbox in no

time at all

awesome. So what we're going to do is we are

going to, actually, if you didn't write that down, we are

going to have put in our community the profit connectors

club. That's profit connectors dot c, l, u, B is the URL and

connectors, because you are the one connecting. So this profit

connectors dot club, and it's a free community. You just log in

and inside that community, we are going to put contact

information for Rob, his bio, His free gift and information

about this episode, as well as all of the other episodes that

we've published and all of those experts, gifts and contact

information, so that's where you can go to find all of the

information from all of the guests that we've had on our

podcast. And thank you, Rob, this has been a very

entertaining episode, and I thank you so much for being

here. Well,

thank you for having me, and keep up the good work of

what you're doing. A lot of times people don't take time out

to Pat somebody on the back, saying, Hey, you are doing

fantastic, and you are doing better than fantastic. I think

this is great. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Rob. Thank you all for

joining us here today. I encourage you to keep showing up

your future self will thank you, and remember it's your business.

Your impact, go, make it count. Thanks for being here. You.