Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have access to media exposure without having to pay for it?

Have you ever noticed how some entrepreneurs seem to get all the breaks and land in the spotlight with ease?

Have you ever dreamt of finally getting the recognition you know your business deserves?

What I’m about to share with you is my proven process for leveraging your personal brand. This specially designed method will help you land your business in the spotlight without the need for an expensive PR company or wasting a bunch of time on social media.

Since you’re reading The Six-Figure Coach magazine, this is probably not the first time you’ve read an article on personal branding. We are, after all, in the marketing business. But let me start with a bit of reassurance: If you’re still mystified about what a personal brand is and how to use it, it’s not your fault.

There are a lot of gurus out here sharing bad information, and it easily becomes overwhelming. This feeling is what often keeps us from succeeding. In the past, you may have tried to use social media to build your brand and you may have been lucky enough to land an interview here and there, but nothing really came from it. But you can turn this around instantly! You just need the right information.

What the Big PR Firms Want You to Believe

Big PR firms want you to think that reporters and producers are these mythical, magical creatures that can only be reached by trained professionals and that you need a lot of money in order to hire them to pitch you. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case at all. Those firms have their own reasons (mainly financial) for wanting you to think that, but it’s not true.

What the big PR firms actually want you to think is that you can’t pitch yourself for story ideas. They want you to hire them and to keep you from succeeding on your own. The difference in what I’m about to share with you is that you can do it yourself, and it’s not that complicated.

I want you to know that you can and should step into the spotlight to harness that light and turn it on anything you want, be it causes, missions, your business or projects that you love. If you’re a new coach, what you’ll get from this article is how to get started. If you’re an established coach, you’ll see how to take it to the next level.

My goal is to make you see that real media exposure is the best way to grow your business and that personal branding is what makes interview opportunities possible.

“If you aren’t deliberately, systematically, methodically – or rapidly and dramatically – establishing yourself as a celebrity, you’re asleep at the wheel.”

– Dan Kennedy, GKIC Founder

From Astronaut to Author

I first learned about the power of leveraging the media when I worked for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center from 1998-2001 as the Manager of Advertising and Consumer Research.

While I was there, we were launching space shuttles on a regular basis and putting on quite a show for the world by launching rockets into space. Because of the grand nature of such events, getting free media exposure came quite easily.

After I left NASA to pursue the “American Dream” of owning my own business, I didn’t think that being a business owner was newsworthy, so I did what everyone does when they start a business I joined the Chamber of Commerce. I don’t have anything against the Chamber, but if everyone joins the Chamber and goes to the meetings to pitch their products and services, how am I seen as any different?

I quickly realized that I needed to separate myself from the competition and build my credibility and authority. To do that, I began submitting articles to magazines, pitching myself as an expert for TV interviews and deliberately worked on elevating my message and image above my competition. And it worked.

To take it one step further, two years ago I walked into the GKIC Superconference and saw the big stage and spotlight shining on the speakers. Then and there, I decided that I too would become a professional keynote speaker. Mission accomplished. I am now a multi-work published author and professional speaker.

In 2017, I was accepted as a HuffPost Contributor, landed 28 media interviews and now have a regular gig on a local TV station as a business expert. In addition, speaking opportunities come to me and I’m having a blast marketing my business instead of dragging myself to every networking event in town.

This approach really works!

The 3 Secrets to Leveraging Your Personal Brand to Land in the Spotlight

Secret #1 – How to Land Media Exposure Without Hiring an Expensive Publicist

When my business partners and I published our first book Amplify Your Business, we hired a publicist to help us get media exposure. Since I was busy running our agency and handling the VIP book launch party that we were hosting for prospects and clients, I really needed a professional on my side.

I relied on that publicist to handle the media campaign for the book. Disappointingly, the publicist cost us thousands of dollars and her efforts only resulted in one local radio interview.

Afterward, I made time to understand where we went wrong and what the media was actually looking for in their guests. I realized that the pitch the publicist had created based on my input was not something that was entertaining, informative or newsworthy at all.

Instead, it was self-centered and all about us. The entertainment factor that reporters and journalists were looking for was clearly missing. It’s no wonder her efforts didn’t result in more media exposure!

Over the next two years, I worked on crafting “Perfect PR Pitch” based on trial and error and hundreds of successful and unsuccessful pitches I personally made to the media. My Perfect PR Pitch combines relevant, timely statistics with short and easy-to-remember takeaways for the audience to implement.

When I set the goal to become a HuffPost Contributor, I worked on the email pitch for weeks before I sent it. I decided to create a pitch bypassing the online form that other people were using, opting instead to reverse engineer the email address for Arianna Huffington.

This allowed me to reach out to her with a personal message, making my case on why my story ideas were relevant to her audience. Note: I did not send a press release! Press releases are dead. They’re useless. Do not bother with them.

In 2017, I successfully landed $108,000 in free media exposure for my business by using the right pitch.

Truth #1
You can land hundreds of thousands of dollars in media exposure just by having the right pitch. Make your story angle simple, entertaining and NOT about you to get free media attention.

Secret #2 –  How to Ethically Steal the Spotlight from Your Competition By Modeling or Hacking Success

Now, you may be thinking that becoming a media rock star takes a lot of work and you’re just not ready for it.

When I decided to tap into the power of personal branding, I hired the best coaches that money could buy to fast-track my success. The first coach I hired was an Emmy award-winning TV producer. I hired him to help me learn how to become excellent on camera. I took his TV hosting workshop so I could learn how to answer questions in sound bites, manage my way around a TV studio and put my best foot forward in my appearance on camera. This was money well-spent.

The second coach I hired was a successful keynote speaker. I traded services with one of the country’s top leadership speakers to learn the basics of the speaking business in the shortest amount of time possible. If I would have tried to learn the speaking business all on my own, it would have taken me five times as long to go from being an audience member to the main stage speaker.

The third coach I hired is the world’s best speaking coach. My partners and I joined the Speaking Empire program to learn how to entertain and engage an audience while speaking as well as to learn how to sell product both online in webinars and from our own seminar programs.

Even coaches need coaches. The world’s top professionals in every category harness the power of life coaches. Rock stars have voice coaches. Pro athletes have coaches. The world’s top entrepreneurs have business coaches. By hiring the best coaches money could buy, I was able to steal the spotlight from my competition by modeling successful people in my industry.

Through studying these coaches, I learned how to share my story and present ideas in an entertaining and engaging manner that makes me attractive to both prospective clients and the media.

Truth #2
You can fast-track your way to success by modeling the top performers in your industry and elevating your circle of influence.

Secret #3 –  How to Land Your Ideal, Perfect Clients by Not Following the Status Quo

Most marketers or business owners are doing it completely wrong when it comes to marketing their business.

They’re doing what I call “6-foot radius marketing,” which means that every time they come within 6 feet of someone, they hand them their business card. This spray-and-pray form of marketing doesn’t work and isn’t attractive.

In order to leverage your personal brand and move into the spotlight, you need to take a different approach to your marketing and be seen as the go-to expert in your industry.

When you have expertise that other people need to change their life in some dramatic way, you automatically become valuable.

Zig Ziglar said:

“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

By providing answers to the questions that are keeping people up at night, your insights, advice, and ideas become valuable. If you help other people get what they want, they will, in return, give you platforms and opportunities to share your ideas.

Don’t hold onto your success secrets. Give them away and help as many people as you possibly can to reach their goals. Move away from the status quo of self-centered marketing and instead give away massive value at every interaction in your Buyer Journey. This is how you will become known as the go-to expert in your industry.

Truth #3
You can land your ideal, perfect clients by going against the status quo. Give away your success secret.

Do You Think You Can Become Successful?

I hope by now that you see how you can leverage your voice, your talents, your insights and your message to become known as the go-to expert in your industry and land hundreds of thousands of dollars in free media exposure.

You just need the perfect pitch, a successful person to model and marketing that provides massive value to your audience.

If you worked on those three things, what would the end result look like for you?