Today’s Titan
Jane is the founder of a service based company focused on helping people leverage on their content strategy, write and publish their books and raise their brand authority and profits significantly. – She has helped create over 250 bestselling authors. – Named one of the top 100 people online by Fast Company – Often quoted in the media, contribute to a number of publications on Thrive Global, Business 2 Community and others.
Resources
https://janetabachnick.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetabachnick
https://www.facebook.com/jmtabachnick
https://twitter.com/janetabachnick
Show Notes
Coming Soon!
Transcript
Josh: What is up everybody, Josh Tapp here again and welcome back to the lucky Titan podcast today we’re here with Jane Tabachnick so excited to have her here today, Jane really came to me an interesting way we just found out she actually had our company reached out to me proving her point as a PR champion, because I get pitched too, all the time to be like, Hey, come on your show and it doesn’t mean I don’t like people for, for wanting to come on the show but you kind of have to protect your audience so when she came to me saying, hey, like I’ve done all these amazing things, you know, she’s really been she’s been featured a lot of different places she’s made over 250, 250 bestselling authors, she’s a top 100% by was, was made that by Fast Company, you don’t really get there without being very, very good at PR, which she is so Jane, I’m super excited to have you here today so could you say what’s up to our audience and then we’ll hop right in.
Jane: Hey, folks, I’m so excited to be here thanks, Josh.
Josh: Yes, absolutely it’s going to be fine so Jane, my very first question to you is actually about podcasting and PR, we talked about this a little bit at the beginning, but your whole focus has had to shift I assume because of the Coronavirus situation and as far as getting your authors on to, to, to show us to promote their stuff so what role does podcasting play in the PR and your PR world?
Jane: Yeah, so podcasting has been taking a larger and larger role in the PR we’re doing you know, we were we were doing radio tours for authors and there’s something called the satellite radio tour, where you can actually do them all in one day, all remotely and so it was easy to transition to the podcast format but with the Coronavirus with less people driving, we just felt that podcasts made more sense, because we could reach the people that we were looking to reach through the podcast medium, and it just felt like a better fit for our audience you know, for my authors and experts as well.
Josh: Yeah, I love that I was just kind of curious; I hope people will look at that because the, the value of podcasting and PR has really been seeming to, to explode because it allows you to just get your message out there and honestly, it lets you kind of train yourself but what I love about your model is is getting on to an audio situation so either radio, or podcasting is just one piece of the PR so can you kind of walk us through, what you would do is to say, I come to you and say, hey, I want to blow up my personal brand, what would be the first steps that you would take me through to help me to actually get my message out there to more people?
Jane: I love this question juicy so the first thing that I’d want to know is who you think your audience is, and what they listen to what they read and I’m amazed to find that a number of people come to me really don’t know and that’s okay but this is really important to know, because you want to fish in the right pond so you want to be pitching the right publication, you want to be where your audience already is, that’s the magic and the leverage that you have, it makes it so much easier you’re already speaking their language and you’ve got a warm audience by doing it that way so you want to know where who your audiences where they are and if you haven’t already interviewed them spoken to them, you want to know really what their pain points are and sometimes it’s not what we think they are so it’s valuable to actually speak to your audience and to do it maybe once a year or twice a year because things change and that way, you can also pick up how they describe the problem, the actual language they use and you’ve probably heard this said, but when you use that language, in describing the work, you do the problem, etc. it resonates more with them because I can call it a widget but they call it a X Y Z, and you know, like Coke and Pop in different parts of the country so you want to resonate with them and then it’s really a question of being, knowing also what format they like some audiences like long form content more than short form content or they’re more visual, they buy more audiobooks, and it’s not a one size fits all, I don’t want to see just that you can have an audience that buys maybe 60% more print books, but they’re still buying audiobooks, and e-books but you want to have a sense of that and you want to have a mix of mediums because you may reach some people with the podcast, but some of your readers are going your audience are going to be reading entrepreneur or ink or some other publication so you have a greater chance of reaching a diverse spectrum and more people within your target audience by being on different mediums and you can also take that content, we really encourage this and repurpose it so an audio interview can be transcribed into text and can be broken up into posts for social media memes, etc. and I’m amazed how many people don’t do this, I mean, sometimes you listen to yourself or one of your clients on a podcast, Whoa, those were golden those are nuggets of gold you’ve got to repurpose is you’ve got to share that. Make sure other people see it and hear it because they need to hear that.
Josh: Yeah, I completely agree and and I love that strategy because it’s, it’s about multiple exposure, right I mean, there’s so many different verb like verbiage sure, you for how you would call that, we call it the content multiplier, right? It’s taking one piece of content and blowing it up all over the place and really one of the core foundations of your methodology is a book is that correct?
Jane: It could be done without a book but a book is really a great part of that strategy, it really adds so much credibility in just that one not that it’s an insignificant piece and book is major, but it just adds so much credibility and it also adds things like what I call search engine love, if you publish your book, it’s listed on Amazon, someone Google’s you, that’s going to be one of the first listings that comes up and people do Google you and this is something I think a lot of your listeners may not be aware of but the media will Google you, if you pitch the media, you pitch a podcast host, they’re probably going to go Google you and see what Google says about you, you know, I had this experience two years ago, I was thinking of hiring a mindset coach. And I liked her, I liked what I saw on social media and the interaction we had and I googled her and I saw that she was an HR professional, nothing about the mindset now we all have reinvented ourselves I’m not saying that’s not something you can do but you’ve got to leave a footprint, you know, you’ve got to put that stake in the ground that’s going to show up in Google otherwise, there’s a disconnect, and people question your credibility or they think maybe you’re too new, it’s something and maybe they want to hire someone more experienced. So the media will do that, podcast hosts will do it, your prospects will do it, your competitors will do it so by using those different platforms, you can see that search and build that credibility and the association with known brands so if you’re featured on your podcast, or in the New York Times, and that shows up in your feed, that’s a positive brand association that elevates you and people regard you in a higher esteem because oh, well, if he’s good enough for the New York Times, is good enough for me that kind of thinking so it’s really powerful to have those kinds of associations.
Josh: I love that and while you while you were talking, I decided to Google year just because I wanted I wanted to see, right, we gotta get proof of concept here so obviously, a lot of this is audio so I’m just going to show it but go Google, Jane Tabachnick, perfect example. Her website is number one, on the right hand side, it shows both of her books and a picture. You know who she is like when you’re looking at when you look her up? So you definitely have proof of concept here, man, yeah, you’ve got you’ve got a good profile, I can’t get distracted. You’ve got a lot of really good stuff there so I would agree with you. I think what people don’t realize is that if they’re in congruent across all of their platforms, nobody really knows what you’re doing and even though with our brand, we constantly have to be checking all these different platforms saying, is it all fitting right and we’re actually currently doing, I wouldn’t even call it a rebrand but it’s like a relaunch of our brand, to make sure everything is congruent, or building a secondary website and everything for that reason, because, like what you have here, everything should point towards, I help people to brand themselves right that’s, that’s what Jane does so I love. I love that that’s your methodology so I want to ask you this, what are kind of the biggest value ads as being on top of the or the biggest pieces that need to be seen on the top of Google when somebody Google’s you, Like your book, one of them?
Jane: Yeah, book is a great one and I would say, you know, media placements, and what I mean by that, so it could be that there’s something called earned media so when the media writes about you, or if someone were to share some, some content of yours or retweet you, that’s earned media, you basically earned that right or that, that recognition so those are really valuable, but the same impact can be achieved if you were to publish an article, like a bylined article on a large outlet it could be entrepreneur, ink, it could be business to community there’s so many different publications and the value of that is it is often a recognized brand and because they’re considered, considered a high authority website, they’ve got a high domain authority, it will help it come up higher in the search engines like on the first page of Google so that helps you with that credibility, someone Google’s you and that comes up instead of sometimes what you see for people, they’ve done a great job they’re on different social platforms they’ve got a website, but everything you see on the first page of Google is their own media, their own website, their own LinkedIn profile, their Facebook profile, and that’s all great. But that is all, something you’re generating and here’s what I like to say, no one cares what you say about you they don’t totally trust it, people are skeptical but when you’re in a publication, you’re on a podcast now, you’ve earned that right to be there, if you will and so people trust Josh wouldn’t have Jayne on if she was incredible if she wasn’t an expert and they think the same thing if you’re in the New York Times so the media outlet is going to bet you and make sure that you’re the real deal before they’re going to have you on unless it’s an expose and then you probably need a crisis management team or reputation management.
Josh: Yeah. Well, and I love that you’ve, you’ve brought those up, because one of the big, I think setbacks for a lot of people are roadblocks for a lot of people entering our realm, right saying, hey, I want to be a coach or an agency, you know, they’re trying to kind of get their name out there as a personal brand. People are terrified of the content, right? How do I start? And where do I start? And I know, for me, one of the best piece of advice I ever got was, are you comfortable on video and I said, No, not a chance right? They said, Are you comfortable talking to somebody one on one behind a microphone, a mic? You know what, I could probably do that I think I am comfortable with that, that’s where we started I did not record the video initially, because I was terrified of doing it, right. But eventually you get comfortable with it. But that was how we, we kind of got into it so I want to get your take on how you get the content and where you start with the content.
Jane: Yeah, so, we’re all comfortable speaking, some of us maybe could refine our elevator pitch and do better with it but we, since a young, young age, spoken language is the primary way to communicate so I think it’s a really easy way for us to create content and one of the ways I actually create content, I’m a really slow writer, I’ve been published in publications, but I don’t think of myself as a writer and really, I’m slow so I will speak the article, I love open a Google Doc, use the voice little, you know, transcription technology, their free tool, and I speak it and yeah, you have to clean it up afterwards but basically, it’s a great, easy way to create content in a format that most of us are used to doing and are comfortable with.
Josh: Yeah, and I love that. So I mean, I know a lot of people even use, like the voice memos app, and then they take the transcription from there. I mean, it’s, I found for myself, if I don’t verbally say it, or I don’t write it down it doesn’t I’ll forget it. It’s a great piece of content and you remember six months later, like, shoot, I should have posted that I just totally forgot about it. I’ve made it a habit Personally, I have on my phone. I mean, one of my, my short links is to, to voice memos for that reason, right? Here’s this piece of content, here’s what it’s about and then I have our team just goes through and makes a good piece of content out of it right and that’s, that’s for us has been a big benefits because what you’re already doing, right, you’re not having to like create time to do it, you’re already thinking about it. So I love that. Do you recommend people write books that way, too. Oh, sorry to interrupt you.
Jane: But Sorry, I was just gonna share that I have the similar app on my phone, and I will use it, I’ll be out walking and I usually don’t listen to music when I walk occasionally. I’ll use that time to listen to a podcast but it’s mostly time to be with nature and clear my head and just, you know, kind of think I get some good ideas that way and sometimes I do get good ideas. And I’ve got to write that down. So I’ll pull out the app recorded and send it to myself. So I’ve captured it.
Josh: I love that, well and so my question for you is like, do you recommend doing that for a book as well, I know some people have written whole books doing that. Do you recommend that as a strategy?
Jane: Yes. So I have used that strategy, I don’t like when people take the transcript pretty much the way it is clean up any typos and just publish it spoken Language and written language are really not the same and they read they we process them differently so I think you can create the basic content, but I then feel like it needs to be massaged a bit and you can have an editor do that, that’s a great process, actually, you kind of do a brain dump if you will, and then you can hand it off to a good editor who already knows your thought process has the stories, your language patterns, and then can shape it into a book, that’ll be the kind of book you want to represent your brand but look, if that’s the way you get your book done, it still gets you to be a published author, if you speak your book and publish it and you know, I think it depends on what you’re looking to do with the book, I think, you know, there can be different levels of how you use the book, and you know who you’re going to be sharing it with that kind of thing. So,
Josh: yeah, and I really liked that well and I think part of the, the core piece of a brand is like, knowing what your core methodologies are and what you’re teaching, I think a book does a great job of helping you articulate kind of your risks, like what you’re willing to what you want to share so I want to ask you, how do you help people get those core methodologies or find their voice right? I don’t think you can find your voice until you know what you teach, right?
Jane: Yeah, that’s such a great question so I spend a lot of time trying to get to know my client and what they do and I guess you could say I’m a bit of a quick study so I may be a little bit intuitive, so I will get a sense of what they do, I’ll feed it back to them and then I’ll usually have an idea of how to incorporate it into the book so I, one of the first books I did was for a woman who is a dating, and love coach and she has a great methodology that she come up with called the three P’s and each, she focuses on helping women and so the book talks about the three P’s this process, it’s that each woman has a princess, a priestess and a peasant within her and each part plays a role and when to use those roles and how to support yourself and your love journey is part of what she teaches so that was what I downloaded from her and then I said, well, let’s put some worksheets in Let’s help the reader explore her princess side, her priestess, side, etc. so there are downloadable worksheets that you can go to her website, download them, and it gives people a taste of the process, it extends the ability of the book to be a tool, as well as to give them a taste of her, her method and it I was actually this is pretty amazing, I was with her at a conference not that long after the book came out and she came running over to me really excited that I just got this message, Facebook, this person read the book, they saw my posts on social media, and they want to know how they can sign up to coach with me, $7,000 client boom and that was they read the book, they got that taste of the methodology, they said, I need this and you know what happens, people worry about giving away their best content but I encourage people not to worry about that because the truth is, I think most of us can read a book, we can just take it so far, then we need that expert guidance, that accountability, that objective perspective, a little kick in the tosh to help move us along. So books are great, you can definitely learn from them but for transformation, I really think you sometimes need a group or one on one situation to really take it to the next step.
Josh: I love that you said that because a lot of people are so scared of that of, well, if I share it here, they’re not gonna buy from me later and it’s the truth of it is like you said, share everything, share your best stuff, because people need you, they need you to make it happen and even though you’re giving them all the pieces, most people’s brains have a really hard time of putting things into order and saying this is how you do it, you know, I know for us, I have literally taught everything that people have paid us 10s of 1000s of dollars to do for free on social media, right? You could learn how to be a billionaire on YouTube but knowing what to watch when to watch it how those pieces fit together is so that’s what people pay for, I love that you love your methodology on that and so we have covered a lot of different topics here. But I hope people are catching on to the true vision of a brand, you know, it’s all about multi-purpose in your content but let me ask you this, the solopreneur right, the person who’s saying I’m just starting to be a coach, I don’t have employees, I have money to hire employees, how do they get their content out enough without having to spend all of their time on producing content?
Jane: That’s a good question and I think it’s safe to say truth be told we all struggle with this time is you know, limited. So I think you need to be strategic and that I think goes back to what I said earlier about knowing your audience knowing where they are already and then going after that if you’re going to write one long article, let’s say where is the best place to put that to get in front of more are the most of your audience in one shot so really being strategic and maximizing your return on time return on investment.
Josh: I love that. It’s kind of funny, because there’s, there’s so many methods with which, like, do this and you’ll be rich, right? Everybody says just follow this this one framework but I do know that when we first started, I had to learn to simplify and to stop reading sometimes and stop consuming information, because I said, Okay, I’ve got to get good at one thing, I’ve got to get good enough at this to see some, some skill and I love kind of you had a very, I would say kosher approach to it because you weren’t saying, the first thing you should do is start publishing live on Facebook, right? I know a lot of people are like, this is the one place you need to be but the problem is, those aren’t evergreen strategies, Facebook Live last year was hugely successful this year, it’s actually been down quite a bit because people aren’t watching the lions as much it’s just really interesting to see that the shifts there so we have covered a lot of different topics I do want to pause here and say, How can people connect with you, because a lot of them are probably saying, I need help with my PR, maybe they have just started or maybe they’re further into it but they really need help in expanding their, their PR and their reach? Where can they connect with you?
Jane: So I would love it if they would stop by simplygoodpress.com. and I just launched a visibility assessment it’s short assessment, and it will give you some ideas of how you’re doing and some areas where you could increase your visibility and authority positioning so I encourage them to take that and then once you take that, I’ll also share with you some resources you can find on my website, you can also just go to my blog, there are some posts there that I’m told her helpful and informative so poke around on the blog, and, and or connect with me, and I’m happy to have a conversation about how you can get more visibility and if there’s interest in working together, always happy to
Josh: love that.
Jane: Yeah.
Josh: First off, thank you for sharing that with everybody so it’s simplygoodpress.com, I love that assessment idea, I’m actually going to take that because I think you should have something like this to kind of benchmark yourself multiple times and where am I at you know, and am I doing? Okay, I think what most people will realize they’re actually doing better than they think they are I’m hoping that’s kind of what they’ll see with, with your assessment, right but then being able to know exactly where to target that’s really cool so I really appreciate it that I’m going to go use that so I.
Jane: I just want to say so the idea is not to be judgmental it’s just to say, hey, you’re doing a great job and here are some additional opportunities for you, that’s my goal is not to say, hey, you stink and you’re asleep at the wheel.
Josh: Yeah, and I think some people’s tools are built to that. They’re like, yeah, you really sucks. You should hire me, right?
Jane: I’ve gotten pitches like that via email. Yeah, we’re not going to work together.
Josh: hurt our personalities clash, right. Well, then let me ask you one final question to finish off the interview day, Jane. So we have covered a lot of different topics so if you could leave one final parting piece of for, excuse me one final parting piece of guidance for our audience, what would that be?
Jane: So I love to create little habits, it’s actually not something that comes easily to me, but they’re really useful so you can create a visibility or PR habit, you can spend 15 minutes a day I actually just did a blog post about this, I made a Facebook post about this. So you can do simple things like if you’re familiar with Haro, help a reporter out, you could scan that email, see if there is a PR opportunity for you, you can find a new podcast that might be a fit for you to be a guest on and pitch them so just figure out what it is you want to be doing and then set a time maybe Tuesday morning, every Tuesday you’re finding a new podcast and pitching a new podcast, that means you pitch 52 podcasts by the end of the year and if your hit rate is a 50% success rate then that means you’ll have 26 interviews within the space of a year or so that’s pretty amazing, right?
