Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast Episode 117.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are, girl. Stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies, and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:24
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 117 of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by Uplevel Media where we teach primarily women but lots of cool guys also heart-based, relationship-based LinkedIn marketing, especially in these times where we’re doing a lot more networking virtually This is even more important. And today’s topic with Amanda Berlin. This was recorded before we were self-quarantine and while we were still out and about more than we are now. And it’s an interesting topic because I think it’s more relevant now than ever Amanda and I talk a lot about PR and press and how to reach the media and how to really use the tools that are available to us like our social media tools even right to get more publicity to get more visibility for our brands and for our business. Amanda share so many cool things, I can’t wait for you to hear this. So remember that if you know we love to hear from you. So if you love this podcast, if you’ve listened before, or if you just want to share with your audience that you’re listening now, please take a quick screenshot, and pop it up on your stories or your social media. Tag me I’m @karenyankovich. And let your audience know that they too should be checking into this right about now. And then I’ll be sure to share your posts with my audience and we all get more visibility that way. And that’s how we all lift each other up. So I’m always grateful for that and I’m grateful for you. And you know all of the LinkedIn marketing that I teach, or a lot of the LinkedIn marketing that I teach has a PR spin my course my she’s linked up course has a PR training in every single Module because I want you to know how to do this. I want you to know how to use LinkedIn to build relationships with people that can get you a ton of visibility. And you don’t have to be Oprah for that to be the case. And Amanda and I had a great conversation about that, and I can’t wait for you to hear it. So tune in and check out Amanda Berlin. So we have Amanda Berlin with us today on the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast, and after more than a decade in the New York City Public Relations world, Amanda Berlin now uses her pitch powers for good. She helps entrepreneurs step into their presence create a story that inspires others and spread their message in the media. Amanda has created a library of template guides and trainings and works one on one with clients to guide them to strategic storytelling and media relations based on our 12 years of experience guiding strategy for major brands in the corporate world. Amanda and her clients have been featured in all types of media from Business Insider to Entrepreneur on Fire from WNYW Fox Five to bustle.com. She’s the host of The Empowered Publicity Podcast, and loves arming soul-powered business owners with ideas and skill set that they need to go from hidden industry gem to recognizable trusted expert. Amanda, I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve been trying to make this happen for a while now. So I’m so glad we finally made this work.

Amanda Berlin 3:14
Thank you so much for having me, Karen. I am also thrilled. Yes. You’ve been on my radar for eons.

Karen Yankovich 3:21
Yeah. And we like Amanda. I don’t even live far from each other. We have some mutual friends. And somehow, we’ve just never really managed to connect more than this. But that hopefully will be changing.

Amanda Berlin 3:30
I have a feeling it will.

Karen Yankovich 3:31
Yeah, yeah. So there’s so many things I wanted to dive right into here. But one of the things that if you guys that are if you’re that listening heard me talking about in her bio, I, you know, I definitely offer templates and things like that in my LinkedIn training, but it’s harder to do that on LinkedIn. Because on LinkedIn, it really needs to be personalized, right? You really want to be in initiating conversations with people from like, what what is the common interest that you have? So I hope that you guys ears perked a little bit when Amanda talked about today. Because I know that’s one of the things she’s really known for. Because I think in her world templates are beautiful thing and they can make your life so much easier. And I love with it that she brings all this experience to this. So tell tell us, tell me, tell us a little bit first about your journey. What? What made you kind of shift from New York City PR to running your own business the way you do?

Amanda Berlin 4:21
Yeah, awesome. I’m so happy to dive into that. I do want to make one comment about templates. Because, for me, the purpose of a template is just so you don’t have to start from that anxious blank page scenario with the blinking cursor of death.

Karen Yankovich 4:35
Mm hmm.

Amanda Berlin 4:37
I also, as you do subscribe to this notion that everything really needs to be customized and personalized. So I just want to know, you didn’t know that I’m on that bandwagon as well. But templates provide you with a jumping off point.

Karen Yankovich 4:53
I agree. I agree.

Amanda Berlin 4:54
And the template really, just to kind of segue into the question that you asked me. It really was born I have this sort of 10,000 hours of study that I had to do in the way of actual work. in the corporate world where I was in my last job in the corporate world. I’m the editorial director for a niche firm that specialized in getting our clients coverage on television and on the radio. And so as editorial director, I was tasked with meeting with the client and discussing with them their messages, the product that they wanted to get out there, what they wanted to say about it, who it was for all of that, and then coming up with a story that actually kind of melded their messages a little bit into a story that would be palatable for the media. So we had these two competing interests that we needed to take into account and then you So from there, I realized after many hours and probably a year so however many hours is earned a year, I realized that that wasn’t something you know, creating a story that a consumer audience or even you know, your consumer audience, whether you’re a business to business, business or business to consumer business your audience really wants to hear is not something that everyone knew how to do. And pitching the media also is not something that everyone knew how to do, which is obvious, but it was not obvious to me at the time. So that’s really where my transition to my own business kind of happened. And in that in between time was, it was gutting. It really was was so challenging, as I’m sure anyone who has made the transition from corporate to entrepreneurship can also attest to it’s a really unique and signature journey that builds a lot of character.

Karen Yankovich 6:51
Oh my gosh, yes. Oh my gosh, yes, I yeah, I have been there as well. And don’t you just want to like call the IT guy sometimes, you know, right? Where’s the IT guy?

Amanda Berlin 7:00
Right, like totally right. And there were moments where I was walking down the street in the city, really feeling anxiety ridden. And so I used to lead it and saying to myself, well, do you want to go back to the cubicle, you can go back to the cubicle if you wanted to go back to the cubicle. And the answer like, even though it was so dreadful and so hard at times, in the beginning, was always, unequivocally No, I’m sticking this out, I’m gonna make this work. And I had a ton on my plate at the time just to give a you know, personal snapshot. I was a new mom, I had, you know, literally I, I got laid off from my corporate job in January 2012. And I had my daughter The following year, so and I was also the breadwinner for our family. So everything was really riding on me figuring this out. And I still was, you know, probably, in retrospect, a little bit naive and stupid to consider. This is the way to go. But it um, it definitely built an interesting story and I really feel like a warrior because of it.

Karen Yankovich 8:09
Well, you are, you are a warrior because of it. Oh my gosh. So okay, so so then your business. So I have to say that people like me that don’t have the PR background that you have are grateful for people like you who bring that skill to the rest of us. Because, um, you know, I know that you do work privately with people as well, but there’s just so many people, but you also the podcast, right? So I know that you share tons and tons of tools and things on that. And there’s, I think the power of PR is really underestimated by many entrepreneurs, because they feel like you know, I’m just like this yoga teacher from, you know, Ridgewood, or I’m just this, you know, coach from whatever right like they don’t think that but you’re just like everyone else, you know, and then sometimes you’re sitting like, how many times have we been Have you been sitting with friends or whatever, and you see someone on TV and you’re like, I don’t want that. Like, why are they talking about this? Right? Like, yeah, or you see, you know, you see other you know, I’m, I’m sorry, I’m gonna be picking on you yoga teachers, but you see other yoga studios getting featured in newspapers and magazines, you’re like, Why? You know, my studio is so much better than that studio. And it’s because of the power of, of PR, in many cases, and, and it’s available to all of us. So tell us if, like, tell us if we wanted to Well, let me take a step back. So when I work with people around LinkedIn marketing, and, and my my strategy is always to get on the phone with people. I want you to get on the phone with people every single week in a really micro targeted way. But it’s not always and it’s almost never a problem. You know, it’s not always about just getting on the phone with people that could be clients. It’s about building relationships with people that can bring more value and cash into your business and sometimes its partners and other times. It’s the media Right. So what? So what is the for if we start to, you know, shift our thinking a little bit and think, okay, like if I really want to start building a relationship with the media, like, What do I do? How do I do that? What do you Where do you start people?

Amanda Berlin 10:15
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I you know, just to backtrack for a second, I think I think that people sometimes don’t even understand what PR actually is. And…

Karen Yankovich 10:26
Please tell us.

Amanda Berlin 10:27
Yeah, yeah. So like, we can look and say, like, Oh, well, that studio is getting great PR or that expert must have a great publicist. You know, Why else would they be out there, especially if their information is shoddy at best. But the fact of the matter is, you know, I think we need to look at the way all the ways that we’re interacting with our public and that’s really what PR is, is it’s public relations. It’s giving your public the opportunity to create a relationship with you, and so Media is one aspect of PR. But I work with my clients as I’m sure you do as well. And that a truly holistic way of being visible, that utilizes all the different ways that they can create an experience for the people in their audience for their public. And so when people work with me, they’re looking at media as one aspect of that. And yes, we talk about all the mechanics of pitching the media and creating relationships with journalists and reporters and influencers, decision makers podcasters, all of the above. But we’re also looking at all the other ways that you can connect with the public who’s really searching for you. And a lot of times it is through these very grassroots organic means of connection like collaborations and alliances and like speaking and hosting events and bringing people together. Some of these are actually the faster track to getting new clients into your business, whereas new Media actually serves the purpose of positioning you as an expert more so than these other tactics.

Karen Yankovich 12:06
Wow, I love that. So let me ask you like to just dive go a little, like take a little bit of a detour for a second. Has that shifted? Do you think that that’s shifted the the true publicists job? Because, you know, 10 years ago, you had a publicist and the published publicist had relationships that you know, with journalists or with people that could get you in front of people, but now, you know, we can build some of those relationships on our own. So how is that shifted the traditional PR publicist type role?

Amanda Berlin 12:37
That’s a good question. I don’t think that the publicist role has really shifted all that much. There’s certainly a place for publicists out there. I think that we as solo entrepreneurs, or as small businesses are waking up to the fact that yes, we can make these connections ourselves. And a publicist or a traditional PR firm is actually cost prohibitive. It wasn’t it A system that was not built for us. So we need to be learning the skill of our media outreach and creating these kinds of connections in the media if we want these opportunities, because many of us are not going to hire a publicist, and on a philosophical level, I’ll just add for from where I sit, it’s not best. It’s not in service of our message and our mission and vision in our businesses, to have a third party out there telling our story for us. We need to be out there using our own voices. putting our own stories out there being our own publicists, because journalists actually want to hear from us they want to hear from the source they they are burnt out on hearing from all the publicists and I mean, as a podcaster. You probably get pitches, I get pitches from publicists, it does not mean as much as it actually I kind of disregard When I hear from a publicist because I’m like, this person doesn’t care about my show, this person who agree this, this talent does not listen to my show. And it’s not, you know, more often than not, it’s not the right fit. However, when an individual reaches out to me, they’ve listened to the show. They know what they can provide in the way of valuable content to my audience. And that’s someone that I’m going to book.

Karen Yankovich 14:22
Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s interesting. You know, my personal practice around this has actually shifted, this is this will be like, somewhere around Episode 111, or 112, or something like that. And so we’ve obviously been doing this for a while now. And, you know, initially I was I had an application, a guest application, and I put, you know, and I and I sent it off to people, but I found that that really didn’t provide my listeners the best shows when I was interviewing people that I really didn’t know and wouldn’t know anything about. So I honestly would even if I’m getting pitched if it’s if it’s by somebody we at least have some kind of mutual connection. Like if you take the time to build a little bit of a relationship with me first or understand what the message is around my podcast, that I mean, if you just come to me cold, I say we don’t accept guest applications right now. They’re the guest applications are closed for the moment. And we have most of our interviews are people I meet somewhere or I’ve developed a relationship with in some way, shape or form, because I think those conversations best serve my audience, because I want my friends on, you know what I mean? You know, so, so that speaks to exactly what you’re saying. Right? Like, it speaks to exactly what you’re saying. And it’s funny because as somebody who likes to get speaking gigs, you know, I that gives me a little bit of a headache, because it would be really nice to write a check to somebody and say, just like, tell me who to talk to this week, you know, right, but, you know, that doesn’t really always work that way. Okay. So let’s just say we’ve got, you know, somebody who, you know, is one of somebody that listens to this show, and implements a lot of the tactics that they’ve learned here and starts to build relationships with, you know, to me, I think they’ll be interested local journalists like one of the things I teach in my courses, you know, go on, like we both live in the New York metro area, which by the way, makes it a lot harder because it’s the biggest in the world, right, though, right? I live somewhere else, right. But there’s a there’s a couple of New Jersey business publications.

Amanda Berlin 16:20
I like when a client tells me they live in like Memphis. I’m like, the best.

Karen Yankovich 16:25
Right? I know. But I routinely go, yeah, I routinely go to the business publications in New Jersey. And I go to the search bar, and I type the word LinkedIn in and I look to see who’s writing about it. Because I want to make sure that I am on their radar, right? I don’t reach out, reach out to them and say, Hey, I saw your word about LinkedIn. And I want you to know me, I will share that article on maybe on LinkedIn and tag them or connect with them and say, Hey, I just saw this article you just wrote, you know, I’m local. I’m in New Jersey. I teach LinkedIn. I love this and I’m sharing it with my audience. Like nice thing, right? And that’s how it starts. That’s where it kind of starts, but comes from like just doing a little bit of research on my own. But let’s say we’ve done that, right. And now we want to pitch them like, what do you what do you do?

Amanda Berlin 17:10
Yeah, so I love this, this starting point of, you’re basically creating a warm lead, where you share their content. You know, I would drop an email and say, like, I love this piece that you wrote about blah, blah, blah, I, you know, this point is something I never thought of before Great job, whatever, you know, whatever. It may be something specific that you, you know, one short, specific takeaway, so that you’re in their inbox, if you can find their email. And then from there, you know, hopefully they respond. They’re like, Oh, thanks so much, you know, whatever. And then from there, I think you can reach out and be really, you know, somewhat informal about it and say, Hey, I had this idea. I know you write about LinkedIn, would you be interested in a piece about and then try to write the head Blind for them the way that you might see it in their publication? Because so often they that that just works. They’re like, Oh, wow. And she even wrote the headline, the way that we would have written it. I have gotten that kind of feedback in the past.

Karen Yankovich 18:15
Oh!

Amanda Berlin 18:16
Yeah. But that what you’re doing, like the why the reason why you should do it that way, or the the reason behind that is that they need to be able to see it in context, they need to be able to see how this will seamlessly fit into the content that they’re already creating. So if you, you know, you write it in the tone that I’m sure that you’ve heard this, if you’ve listened, if you’ve, you know, done any sort of research about pitching in general is like you want to mimic the tone that you see in the publication. If you’re writing if you want to write for someone, you want to even mimic the tone that you would hear on a podcast if you’re writing, you know, writing a pitch to a podcast. So from from that warm lead, you can say, you know, I had this Idea wanted to run it by you would you be interested in a piece on blah, blah, blah, insert headline here. And then you would just give them like three bullet points that they might expect to see in that piece. So you could say in the, in this article we could talk about and then give them three bullet points. And I think, you know, you need to make the distinction. You want to kind of dissect the publication a little bit and see if they have journalists that do all of the reporting for them, or if you are pitching yourself as a contributor. So there are two different roles that that you want to take a look at it with my clients, we sort of dissect which is the best approach based on who, the client, you know who they are, who the client is, but then also, you know, what’s the best route for the publication? You know, does it make sense for the client to be featured for you to be featured, meaning they write the article about you, or does it make sense for you to have Write the article because you want that byline and you want the credit, the credibility that comes with that they’re both they both provide you with different types of credibility, but you need to decide what you’re going for. So that your pitch kind of articulates that.

Karen Yankovich 20:15
Interesting. So would you just do some research on the publication and see like, just based on the publication and what you want to contribute, like which Avenue because some publications might not even accept guests?

Amanda Berlin 20:26
Yeah.

Karen Yankovich 20:27
You just do some research?

Amanda Berlin 20:29
Yeah.

Karen Yankovich 20:29
Is there like, so how would you do that? Like, Is there like a place you can look to see if they…

Amanda Berlin 20:35
Mm hmm. So sometimes they will have writers guidelines, which indicates that they are open to guest submissions, meaning you can write for them. So you could you could just simply Google the name of the publication and writers guidelines or submission guidelines, and see what comes up. You can go to the contact page and see you know, what kind of forms they might have or You know, they might have like submit an idea to us and like it’s a form on the website. That’s fine. For information gathering purposes, I would always opt to go the route that you described and try to connect with an actual person who works at the magazine. The other thing is to, you know, just kind of look at the content, like, you know, you were really onto something when you were saying that you follow all the people who write about LinkedIn, in your local business publications. So if they’re the ones that are writing about it, they may be more likely to utilize you as a source, as opposed to as opposed to recruiting you to write for the magazine. You know, it all depends. It also depends on what your goals are. And this is where I start with all of my clients, what are your goals in getting publicity or being more visible, so like, let’s say your goal is to is to publish a book like a traditionally published book down the line, then you want to be seen as a contributor who is writing within your own voice in the publications that are meaningful to your audience there, that’s how and how an agent or a book editor then would be able to see like you have the chops to write, and that you’re also cultivating your platform and building your audience that way. If you’re looking to be seen as a thought leader and an expert, then being featured having the reporter write about you and cite you as a source or, or do a profile of you is so much more powerful because it’s someone else has like, deemed you worthy of being covered in this way. Does that make sense?

Karen Yankovich 22:41
It does make sense. I love that. And you know, what I like about that, too, is that you’re doing pre work to make like, if you’re looking to write a book, that’s a big undertaking, right? whatever you can do to, you know, to kind of create the path to success, a week, a month or A year or two years ahead of time, you know, how awesome is that? Right? Like it puts it gives us more control of our destiny, I feel like.

Amanda Berlin 23:08
Absolutely. I mean, frankly, if you want to publish a book, you have to be building your platform in advance. There’s I have a client who is a really prominent thought leader in the field of behavioral economics. She’s a, you know, kind of a lone female voice in that in that realm. And she has a really distinct point of view. She has a podcast, and we connected her within with an editor Actually, I connected her with a friend who is in the publishing world and that person connected her with an agent, which is the first step is to get an agent to be interested in your topic and help you write the proposal and then they present it to an editor who would purchase it on behalf of a publishing house. The agent loved her was so interested in her point of view and her voice and her topic, but would not take her on until She built her following. So building your following being visible and doing that publicity PR profile building platform building work ahead of time is absolutely essential.

Karen Yankovich 24:13
And you know what I, you know, I feel like there’s still people listening that are thinking, yeah, but that’s, I’m not there yet. And if that’s you, that’s thinking that I want you to, you know, I want you to stop and think i think that you are there now. Yes, if the most of the clients that I work with, they’ve never had publicity before, and it happens so quickly and so easily, because, you know, you said earlier, Amanda, when, you know, like, when I explain, like, you know, I look to see who writes on LinkedIn, and then I share their article, they almost never don’t respond, because they want people to share their article, right, like, that’s what makes them successful when they have more social media hits. So when I’m sharing their article and tagging them, you know, maybe even on multiple platforms They are absolutely going to respond to me somewhere like they are. And I mean, it almost never happens that they don’t I mean, I, I watched somebody recently, watch a TED talk recently. And I love the TED Talk. And I connected with the person there. And I shared it all over the place. And I connected with the person that that did the TED talk on LinkedIn. And the TED Talk has been seen by millions of people. And I just didn’t know this person before. And I. And you know, I don’t think she spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. But it was like a couple of maybe even a month later that she saw it. And she’s like, Oh, my gosh, this is so nice. Thank you so much. Now I’m building a relationship with this person. Yeah. Yeah, it’s not it’s not I didn’t you know, I didn’t reach out to her to ask her anything. I truly thought her message was so in line with what I teach that I wanted my audience to see her TED Talk. And she’s not a journalist. I’m just kind of using that as an example of how easy it is to think big, right? to think big and to really understand that these are Journalists news is 24 seven, they need us more than we need them. You know, I actually was on I wasn’t actually on the panel, I was speaking at an event in northern New Jersey last year. And there was so of course, in the New York metro area where the, you know, it’s the hardest market to crack actual, you know, media. And it was a panel of media, you know, people I know was, their names are like went out of my head, but it was like somebody that was on news radio ad somebody that was on like, so these are people that are well known in this area, right. And they’re, they’re journalists, they were they were the the, the on air people. Okay, so they were the honor people that were in a couple different places in in the New York metro area, names that are recognizable if you live around here, which I can’t remember as well that I can’t remember them, but, but nevertheless, what they said was, um, the question was, if I have a story that I think would be interested how what’s the best way to get it to you and unanimously, they all said tweet us. I was like, What Wow. Like I was even surprised by that, like unanimously they all said tweet us. And I was like, really kind of surprised by that. And you can tweet Oprah, right? Like I tweet anybody. Yeah. So, you know, do they sometimes have people helping them with their accounts? Of course they do. But will those good ideas get through to them? They absolutely will.

Amanda Berlin 27:20
Yeah, a lot of journalists will put their actual email address into their Twitter bio, because they do they’re looking for leads, they absolutely need good sources. And you know, I do want to speak to that person in your audience that you refer to who feels like I’m not there yet, because there’s so many easy grass roots, really aligned authentic ways to reach out to people that you know, whether it’s someone in the media or just someone you admire, who can help up level your, you know, uplevel your relationship and you know, get you into the next stratosphere of connections, you know, it’s absolutely worth reaching out because, you know, you pointed to it with the TED Talk example, Karen, people love your feedback on their work, especially the positive feedback. They love to be recognized and seen and understood for what they’re trying to do out there in the world. And that’s really the goal in everything that I teach my clients in the way of outreach is appreciation appreciating the kind of work that these, you know, essentially are all of the people that we’re talking about are content creators, you know, that these content creators are putting out there into the world, their blood, sweat, and tears, whether they’re a blogger, journalist and podcaster, you know, a lot of for a lot of them. It’s a labor of love. Journalists are not like the highest paid rock stars out there either. So, you know, they’re really putting their hearts and souls into this work. And so when someone emails them and in recognition of something that they did, it’s really meaningful and that’s a great way to start billing. In your relationships, so for the person who doesn’t feel like they’re ready, that might be the one thing to do to kind of dip your toe in is email someone you admire and just tell them you really appreciate their work.

Karen Yankovich 29:11
Yep. And share their work with your audience. Because that’s get they, you know, they’re I mean, I don’t know a ton about what’s going on in, you know, newsrooms and things like that. But I do know that, you know, if you if you see, like, just sticking with the TED Talks, for example, if you see a TED talk you like, the more a TEDx talk is shared, the better chance it’s going to get more visibility with Ted calm, right. So, so and that is just like, throughout the news, you know, people that whose articles are getting the most visibility are the ones that are getting the best articles. So they want that and they appreciate when we’re sharing their content with a bigger audience, even if it’s a week or a month or a year or 10 years later. You know, it’s get it gets them more eyes on their content, and that helps their career and that is just win win.

Amanda Berlin 29:57
Absolutely. I was speaking at a A conference in November, and I came off the stage and I came out from behind the, you know, the curtain or whatever it’s called. And this woman kind of gave me like the bum’s rush, like not the bum’s rush. She like rushed up to me. She ran up to me and was like, I heard you on Entrepreneur on Fire. And I was like, that was five years ago.

Karen Yankovich 30:22
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

Amanda Berlin 30:25
I will never forget that. Because she’s, you know, people need to be touched many times before they will remember you or be influenced by your work. And that was what she needed to connect with me Was she saw me speak at a conference and she had this memory of hearing me and Entrepreneur on Fire and now we’re now we’re buds.

Karen Yankovich 30:45
Right? Right. I will say I mean that is I can I’m sure we can sit here for another hour just talking about wins that people have gotten doing those kinds of those kinds of things. You know, on you know, being a guest on a podcast, having guests on your podcast all the time. Those things get you in front of a bigger audience, right? And the whole the whole idea of like, I have a client who’s a realtor, and I’m sure I’ve told the story on this podcast before, but he he read an article on NBCnews.com, about real estate and he’s in Washington State. And the journalist was in, you know, I think Maryland or something or Georgia, somewhere on the, you know, East Coast. And he saw the article. Now he looked like a free Look, he did his homework. He did his part by making sure to LinkedIn profile that positioned him looking like he was professional, or didn’t think they were just phonies. On his LinkedIn profile. He had a profile that really, he was my client, let’s get real, like they have no choice. So he he had a great looking profile. But he reached out when he saw the article, he connected with the journalist, tag, the journalist shared the article all over the place and said, You know, this is such a great article that ad Suzy blah, blah, blah, wrote and shared it everywhere. And of course, she connected with him and said, thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate it. One week later, she reached out to him and said, I have a question. Can I ask you? And he’s like, yeah, sure, it ended up being a full page article on NBCnews.com, I’m just quoting him, like just quoting him. So not only is it seen by 65 million people, which, if everybody, like, I want to be really clear, that’s awesome and fun, but that doesn’t necessarily put money in your pocket, right? But when he can say, as seen on NBC, number one, he’s winning the business over realtors that can’t say that. And number two, when he’s at a listing appointment, and the issue of pricing, house pricing comes up, and he can drop that article on the table and say, Well, when I was NBC’s pricing expert last month, he’s winning the business every time. Right, right. And it simply came from just serving that journalists and just building the relationship with somebody who talks about the things he’s expert and he’s a realtor in Washington State. You don’t I mean, he’s not Barbara Cochran yet, you know, so, but yet he keeps getting that kind of visibility and it could be you. It absolutely could Be you that’s listening. And it’s it’s as simple as doing that. And having the confidence to know that, right having the confidence to know that you know your stuff. And you’re you can confidently talk about whatever it is you’re expert in with anybody. And I bet you can, you just have to just have to build the relationships and be ready for those conversations to happen. I have another client who’s who just yesterday, responded to a request, an immediate request, and that was anonymous, and she didn’t know who it was. But she responded, you know, again, has a great LinkedIn profile and really positions herself well, and she’s the Mel Robbins show was flying out to New York City next week to be on the show, right? Like so, you know, we spent some time today talking about Okay, like, Are your ducks in a row on the back end? You know, what can you do to maximize this, this opportunity? Because great, the visibility is great, but, you know, Show me the money, you know, and she happens to have a podcast so I was like, great, your goal, more than anything else is to have them introduce you as you know, black Blah, blah, host of the blah, blah blah podcast. Like that’s your goal, if you can get them to do that on the Mel Robbins show, you know, that’s your when you know, and that will get you know, because you’re not gonna they’re not going to say and get on her email list by going here. They’re not going to say that, right. But you want to be positioned when you get these opportunities then to maximize them and whatever that opportunity is. It might be different in every case, but this is what can make huge changes in your business.

Amanda Berlin 34:27
Absolutely.

Karen Yankovich 34:28
So cool. All right. So we have gushed a lot about this a lot. Tell us a little bit. You talked a little bit about how we craft the pitch. I think I think that’s an important piece. You know, some of the things that I’ve been told, let’s maybe give us some don’ts. What don’t you do, too, when you want to when you when you’ve got an idea and you’ve got a couple journalists that you want to reach out to about this idea. What do you know what’s the best way you talked about how to do it? Are there some things like you like I know, for example, like one of the things I’ve heard is don’t include attachments include links Two things you want them to see, or anything’s like that, that you can share with us.

Amanda Berlin 35:04
Yeah. Well, so I think one of the operative words in the example that you just gave me is if you have an idea and you want to reach out to a couple of journalists with it, I actually don’t recommend reaching out to a couple of journalists with the same idea. You want to make sure…

Karen Yankovich 35:22
Kkay, so there’s a great, there’s a don’t right there.

Amanda Berlin 35:25
Yeah. Customize your idea for every outlet that you’re reaching out to. And by outlet, I mean, media property, you know, whether it’s a magazine or television program, or whatever it is that those are considered outlets in my book. You need to you need to customize your pitch your idea for every outlet, and especially if this is a scenario where you’re going for a byline, where you want to be the one to write the piece you actually it’s it’s against the journalistic ethics to pitch the same idea to multiple outlets at the same time, many outlets will not accept what they call simultaneous submissions, meaning you’re kind of pedaling this idea around to see who will bite on it. So you you just kind of it’s a best practice in terms of your thought leadership to develop a fresh idea that’s customized for every outlet, you’re going to pitch. And sometimes it is, you know, basically frowned upon to pitch the same idea across, you know, all these different outlets. So that’s one thing. And then the other thing that immediately came to mind is that, you know, just kind of tacking on to what we’ve talked about earlier, is create a relationship before you ever send a pitch. So don’t send a cold pitch, if you can avoid it. Take the time to research the person, try to find their actual email address or connect with them. You know, I know Karen, you would say LinkedIn is the place to find them. I think you can look on LinkedIn, you can look on Twitter it, you know, journalists provide a lot of good personal information on Twitter like…

Karen Yankovich 37:09
Yeah, Twitter, Twitter is Twitter seems to be the place that journalists hang out.

Amanda Berlin 37:13
It is the place that journalists hang out, you can get a sense for what they’re working on in the moment by following them on Twitter. And a lot of times, like I said, you will get a set you will get a very clear picture of who they work for, where to contact them, the kinds of stories that they’re working on. It’s a it’s a great research tool, whether you’re I you know, I have clients that are like, I’m not a Twitter, I’m like, you don’t have to be a Twitter. Just use it as a reuse it as a research tool. So, yeah, so go you know, go on Twitter and figure out who works for whom and find their email address, and start to build a relationship with them that way before you ever send a pitch if possible. And you know, especially with podcasts, I know podcasts are really Guess for a lot of small businesses. And I think that’s a good thing, because of all of the media podcasts are the ones that create the most intimate relationship between you as the thought leader and the audience, therefore, you know, more readily resulting in potential clients and connections. So podcasts are your focus, I think that’s a good thing and create a relationship with the podcaster. Because I know, I’m sure Karen, well, I won’t assume but I bet you would agree with me and that it’s so much better to hear from someone who is a listener of the show, who really understands what you’re doing, who knows how they’re going to fit in and what they can provide your audience as opposed to hearing from someone that’s just firing off a bunch of pitches in the hopes of getting on getting on some podcasts.

Karen Yankovich 38:49
Absolutely. And you know what, it doesn’t happen that often. So I will notice it. I mean, listen, I love when people connect with me that that doesn’t happen that often. It does happen where people connect me on LinkedIn and say they’re listening To my podcast, but I talked about LinkedIn. Right? So I think that I probably get more than the average podcaster of those. Which, if that’s true is sad, because I don’t get, you know, I don’t get 10 a week, right? And, you know, if you have a favorite podcast, like this podcast, or like Amanda’s podcast, or whatever the podcast is, why not connect with that? podcaster on LinkedIn, right, connect with them and say, I’m a big fan of your podcast, and then share some of their episodes and tag them when you share them. I would love that. I would love that, you know, and because that helps me my podcasts, get more visibility, I’m grateful for that. And if you and I pay attention to people that do that, right, I will notice you and that, you know, if you have a message now then then if you’re if you have a message that that you think could be relevant to my podcast, you know, I’m paying attention to you now versus I didn’t even know who you were five minutes ago.

Amanda Berlin 39:55
Yep. Exactly.

Karen Yankovich 39:57
Awesome. So Amanda, how can people learn more You so much was this this is there’s been so much good stuff I think in this show today. How can people learn more about you and the work that you do?

Amanda Berlin 40:08
Awesome Yeah. Well thank you so much for having me Karen and thank you for creating space for these kinds of conversations. I love hearing from any you know from from you guys from the audience, so please feel free to reach out to me. You can find me at amandaberlin.com, and that’s exactly how it sounds just like the city Berlin. You can go to the Connect tab and send me an email it goes directly into my inbox Tell me if you do take that challenge of doing that one thing of reaching out to someone you admire and telling them that you think their work is great. Tell me how that goes. You can also download a template guide for me at amandaberlin.com/templatedownload. It gives you the podcast pitch template that I kind of described in this conversation but it also gives you some To review success as well, so like a little media training self media training guide.

Karen Yankovich 41:07
Oh my gosh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Thank you so much. We love presence here. Very cool, very cool. So we’ll put all the links to all of this in the show notes on wherever you’re listening to this. But I hope that we’ve inspired you to understand that this is possible for you. And even if you just look virtual, once you get that first media hit, that is so fun. But the difference it could make in your brand, if you are a local business, and you have competition, and you’re the one that’s truly being able to say, you know, as soon as that could make a big difference in people’s perception of which you know, which drycleaner they should go to which yoga studio they should go to right which whatever, right so it we we Google to figure out where we’re going, you know, where we are, how we’re going to conduct our lives, right, make it easy for people to choose you and this is one of the ways to do that.

Amanda Berlin 41:57
Absolutely. Great points.

Karen Yankovich 41:59
All right. Thank you so much, Amanda, for being here. And I can’t wait to I’m going to download all your stuff.

Amanda Berlin 42:04
Thank you, Karen. Thank you for having me.

Karen Yankovich 42:06
Oh, my pleasure. Oh my gosh, I loved this conversation so much. We recorded this a few weeks ago. And it reminded me that I really need to connect with Amanda. So Amanda, if you’re listening to this, we really need to make that happen. Although we live in New Jersey, we might have to live on opposite sides of the world right now. Right? But, but it makes this conversation as I said in the introduction to this even more important, even more powerful. We are using online marketing tools even more now to reach the people we need to reach. And our brands are our stories, our messages are more important now than ever. Our digital footprint is more important now than it’s ever been. And this is the kinds of ways that you do that. So I hope that you love this by you definitely have to take Amanda up on her offers, download all the free stuff that she offered. It is amazing. I did it and I’m telling you it’s really really good stuff. For those of you that have been asking me for templates around LinkedIn. You know, I’ve been Push back on that a little bit. These are the templates you want to get. So check them out all the links to all of Amanda’s stuff is in the show notes. So thanks again for listening. Remember, if you want some help with your LinkedIn marketing, the best place to start is either by joining us in the Facebook group at Karen Yankovich comm slash Facebook group we do. It’s a LinkedIn tips group. We have conversations in there every day we can support you however you want, whatever you need, and also we’re doing we do weekly trainings, you can get free LinkedIn training from me at freelinkedinworkshop.com. So check that out as well. And we’ll see you back here again next week for another episode of the Good Girls Get Rich Podcast.