Publicity and Referrals with Jill Lublin
Jill is the author of four bestselling books, including: Get Noticed…Get Referrals (McGraw-Hill), Networking Magic (Morgan James), and Guerrilla Publicity (Morgan James), which is regarded as the “PR Bible”, and her latest book The Profit of Kindness (Red Wheel Weiser), which went #1 in four categories.
With four international bestselling books, Jill is acknowledged as the go-to person for building success through influence marketing, networking, and publicity. She helps authors to create book deals with agents and publishers and well as obtain foreign rights deals.
Jill is also the Producer and Host of the TV show, “Messages of Hope”, which inspires people to take positive action to improve their lives and create a better world.
In addition to her speaking engagements, Jill trains and consults with executives, sales teams and marketing departments in Fortune 500 companies, as well as in small-to-medium-sized companies. Her innovative influence marketing and publicity techniques consistently increase bottom line results for her clients.
With 200+ speaking engagements each year, master publicity strategist and consultant, and bestselling author, Jill Lublin, consistently wows audiences worldwide with her entertaining and interactive keynotes, seminars, and training programs on publicity, networking, kindness and influence marketing.
Jill has shared her powerful networking and publicity strategies on the stages of Tony Robbins, T. Harv Eker, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Loral Langemeier, James Malinchak, Lisa Nichols, Richard Simmons, and many others. Additionally, thousands of people have attended her popular Publicity Crash Course.
Over the past 25 years, Jill has worked with ABC, NBC, CBS, and other national and international media as a highly regarded publicity expert. She has been featured in The New York Times, Women’s Day, Fortune Small Business, Entrepreneur, Forbes and Inc. magazines.
Jill Lublin’s Publicity Masterclass | Jill Lublin
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Full Transcript Below
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I’m Roy. Hey, we’ve got a fantastic guest with us today. Uh, can’t wait to get to her talk about a couple of things that are very important in business, especially during these times are publicity and referrals. And, uh, we are fortunate enough to have Jill Lublin on with us.
She is, um, a speaker that speaks on radical influence, publicity, networking, kindness, and referrals. She is the best-selling author of four books, and her latest is profit of kindness, which went to number one in four categories. Jill, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us.
Jill (00:45):
I’m delighted to be here. Thank you.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (00:47):
Well, you know, we had talked a week or so ago, and what really interested me about you is, uh, publicity and referrals. I can’t ever explain enough to people that referrals are probably our cheapest source of acquiring, you know, cheapest, but the most cost-effective source of acquiring our clients consumers.
And so, but it’s why I find in general day to day operations is as one of the least, uh, saw it’s one of the, the, the least pursued activities that salespeople take. Sometimes it’s as little as just, um, you know, five friends that could benefit from whatever my service or product is. But anyway, I don’t want to steal your thunder. I’m gonna, uh, you know, let you weigh on this because obviously it’s a Ford, the key subjects that you tend to talk about. So I, I know that you feel that they’re important as well.
Jill (01:42):
Very important. I mean, you know, realistically, um, I think it’s all publicity, first of all, when you walk out into your zoom room or your networking meeting, uh, you are representing yourself, always, uh, asking for referrals, citizen essential part of your system and getting to, uh, ask it in a way that is connected and, and, uh, takes in to account the other person.
I, I really like, I call it the who question and it’s who do you know, who needs dot, dot, dot fill in the blank. Right. And so that, that’s, that’s a really good question. Um, and I, but I think it’s really an underused strategy that most people forget about.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (02:26):
Right? Exactly. So before we get way off track, um, are way down the road on this subject. Can you explain what is the difference between publicity and regular straight marketing? And then also, you know, I know that there are a couple of different types of publicity, but could you just kind of give us the basics of that please?
Jill (02:47):
Sure. Well, publicity is, is broad. I mean, I look at it as a credibility building visibility, building exposure in the marketplace, building trust and connection. And then, um, you know, that that’s a real key marketing, I think of like a tree, right? And there’s a branch of the tree. The branch is publicity and that branch is, is key to of course the tree’s life.
Um, but certainly a key element that you needed to be looking for in terms of, uh, knowing that you need to budget for it. Right. I tell people at least 10% of your thinking gross revenues, like just really just put it back into publicity because that’s a ever returning strategy that keeps you out out in front.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (03:36):
Well, and you read my mind because that was my going to be my follow-up is that there are really, there is the paid publicity and non-paid, I think a lot of us novices always think of PE uh, publicity as, you know, news coverage sometimes in a negative light, but we never really think about that paid portion. So how, what are some of the things that we could do to pay, to get positive publicity for ourself?
Jill (04:03):
Well, a couple things, um, first of all, the paid stuff is called advertising. So I’m not, I’m not an expert in that that is a particular art form, right. Uh, and you know, it’s controlled and that’s nice. There’s things that are called advertorials, which look like publicity, but actually you’ve paid to have the article put forth.
And by the way, I, you know, I’m all for certain parts of that. I think it’s great. What I’m talking about though, is getting the free stuff. The, the articles placed the podcast, the interviews, it’s your social media, it’s your Facebook lives. It’s your Instagram lives. It’s any way you want to go alive. You know, it’s your YouTube channels.
That’s, that’s all publicity, my friends, everything we just included there, your blogs, all of its publicity. So start thinking about your content, what you want to get out there, your message. And in fact, I like to call it, why should people care? You know, you got to answer that question, right?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (05:02):
Yeah. And usually, uh, we take our, what I’ve tried to do lately in the last few years is take more of an educational stance. How can I add value to the story? What can I do to educate a consumer, the general public? And so I think when we take that frame of mind, the other thing, there are a lot of people out there, a lot of news, uh, news reporters, other outlets that are more than happy to have your content on their program.
They’re looking for good content. So sometimes it’s as easy as reaching out, making a phone call and saying, Hey, I’ve got this great, uh, angle. I don’t know. Sometimes I hear things on the news or reporter feel-good story. I think, well, how could I tell a story or something off of that that you can call and say, Hey, I can build on this.
Jill (05:54):
So, um, part of it that I always like to is use everything you’ve got, right? So some you’re listening for news and how you can fit in that’s number one. Um, then you’re also listening and looking for what’s going on. So I think it’s really important. People go into Google alerts and put your name and put your, uh, contact and, uh, meaning keyword of what you, what you’re selling, promoting, connecting to, uh, and that’s really helpful.
Um, and then, you know, get bigger and broader. I mean, I was on a TV show in Dallas, Texas, you know where you are and Hey, guess what? It was talking about an advertising company being fired, um, because of a racist comment they made, right? And so motel six fired them and, uh, Dr. Pepper and all kinds of Cracker barrel and all of them. And, and they want to my comment, because I’m an expert in publicity.
Jill (06:47):
Now I have to tell you, I’m not an expert in advertising. Right. And so always the answer I just want to say is yes. And you just want to be here. You just want to be looking for building your business. Um yes. On top of stories that yes are already existing are already out there.
And so yeah, if you see a story and you can, shall we say, add to it, connect to it ex um, enlarge it great, and, you know, stand straight in your own. Shall we say expertise and know that it’s not about what you’re necessarily promoting and selling, but what can you add to the conversation and finding angles that way is, is really, really good.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (07:30):
Yeah. It just made me think about a service that I’ve checked out before. It’s called HARO H a a R I’m trying to get the acronym right. Is help a reporter out. Are you familiar with that?
Jill (07:45):
I love it. And I recommend it to all your listeners help a reporter out dot.com is actually the website. And it’s perfect.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (07:55):
Can you tell them how that, how that works? That exchange there?
Jill (07:59):
Absolutely. So what happens is, um, reporters are, you know, and that could be inherit. It could be a blogger, it could be, anything are looking for people just like you listening to this podcast. They need people to pay attention to, um, uh, whatever their stories they’re working on.
They’re on deadlines, right? So the good news is that they’re, they’re putting it out there waiting for sources like you to comment. Um, and so that’s how stories really begin get large. But this is the part about, I like to call this, use everything you’ve got. So for example, on hero, uh, which is help a reporter out, I received a query there called a query, uh, of looking for a story for winter.
Uh, it actually was a, it was June when they were putting this query out and it said they wouldn’t even say which magazine it turned out to be women’s day, which is huge.
Jill (08:58):
And they’re working on a story for December now. Here’s what you all got to hear, especially, especially, um, magazines, they’re working three, six and nine months ahead. Right. So even though it’s June, yes, they’re working on a December story so that they can produce it right at et cetera. Well, they were looking for feel good stories.
I ended up talking about my volunteer service with my senior companion program of which, uh, which I was a part of helping to take care of a senior once a week. And that was wonderful. It was a great story having nothing to do with my publicity business or my virtual publicity courses or my four books, nothing, but what it was about of course, was a diff you know, another part of me.
So w I want you always to be watching and listening for where can I contribute? What what’s a story that could matter that I know something about.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (09:55):
Yeah. And I, I got lucky. Um, I reached, somebody reached out to me through her Herro as well, and I made a relationship with this reporter. And so I think you have to it’s, it’s not always just one off either.
If we play our cards, right. She called me back two or three times for other comments, uh, you know, over the next year or so different ways that I could add value. And so, I mean, how easy was that for me just to reach out and do the, and, and I think, um, if I’m not wrong, a lot of these news Chan or TV stations, they have websites that they have to have content on.
So maybe you don’t run as a news feature story on TV, but this was on one of our major, um, network websites is where that the couple stories I was mentioned in, so a lot of press, a lot of eyes on a lot of good, you know, SEO value. So you just really can’t go wrong.
Jill (10:55):
Right. And everything matters in everything counts. And that’s what I want you all to hear too. Everything matters. And so, yeah, whether it’s on the website of a major network, you can still say we’re featured on the local Fox affiliate. Let’s just use that as an example where the local CBS affiliate and, and that’s just as good as anything.
See what you’re really looking for is we’ll call it bragging rights. And, um, and that lives on forever. Your comments you’re being quoted, the fact that you were, uh, featured in a CBS TV affiliate, they don’t need to know that it was on the website. And this is, you know, this is, I always want people to get a little more braggadocious in a nice way.
I mean, without being ego filled, the truth is publicity is going to move your business. So you want as much of it behind you as you get. And that that’s a real key to success, right?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (11:49):
Yeah. Because it makes us, uh, appear not always, but it, us appear to be a subject matter expert. Why would a reporter reach out to this person if they weren’t the smartest on that topic? So it’s, it’s really good. Well, um, I want to kind of shift gears for just a minute and talk about referrals again. I just don’t think that we actually ever do enough re where referrals.
And so, um, can you help us out with that? What are some good ways to reach out or to start a lot of people just, I think we get back to the, the, uh, bragging rights. A lot of people are just hesitant to ask for that. They don’t feel good about it. So talk to us a little bit about asking for referrals.
Jill (12:35):
So a couple things, you know, referrals are about, I call it the three CS, right. Communicate, connect, and create, create the relationship or create the referral. Um, so that goes back to asking the, who do you know?
I think it’s just a really simple question and, and people appreciate the straightforwardness is what I’ve noticed. So, um, sometimes there’s a little bit about, yeah, you have to get over yourself in the asking for it. Right. But what’s, what’s so powerful is to ask for it in a very nice and upfront way, you know, who do you know who and then fill in the blank, um, might need some publicity help, who do you know who wants to get a book deal?
Uh, because I help people actually get book deals. So I might ask that, who do you know, who books, speakers for virtual speaking engagements?
Jill (13:27):
Like just whatever it is you need. Those are three of my asks, right? And I’ll, uh, when I’m in a group and they say, what do you need? I will ask one of those questions, because this is the, you know, the thing that you gotta be careful of, so to speak, because you don’t want to be caught like a deer in headlights, as somebody says, how can I help you? And what do you need?
You want to have the answer to that question? Um, that’s important. And, and I believe me, I’ve asked many people, how can I serve you? What do you need? And they’re like, uh, they don’t really know what to say. So how can you ask for referrals if you’re unclear, what you really need next, that’s one thing, be clear about what you need next. Okay. And that’s important. And then within that same category, um, literally be willing to ask your clients for referrals.
Jill (14:18):
So I like to call this in the happy dance stage of, you know, it could be after you’ve done, if you’re a consultant, a few sessions, or, um, you know, I just helped somebody close a six figure book deal for their book. Of course, I’m going to say, listen to Mike, you’ll have some referrals, other people who might want this or things like that.
So you want to ask sooner, rather than later, you don’t always have to ask at the end. And the other thing related to that is testimonials, um, split that has to be part of your system. Like everybody who goes through my virtual publicity course, like half hour before the end, I will say, Hey, listen, you know, if you love this course, we love testimonials. Um, and, and it’s a nice thing to do. Right? Right. Um, so you have to ask for it.
Jill (15:05):
Sometimes it’s gonna feel uncomfortable. I’ve made it easy for people to give it to me. In other words, we have a system for it where they just have to click a link. So here’s the deal. If you’re going to ask for referrals and testimonials, you need to make things really easy for people to do that. So, you know, somebody asked me recently for a LinkedIn, uh, testimonial, uh, and I am happy to do that, but I’m like, send me the link started. All I have to do is to figure anything else. And I think that’s really important these days is just make everything as easy as you can for people,
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (15:39):
Right? And if you provide a good service, a good product, people are gonna, people want like to brag even about the, you know, what a great deal they got, what they got the best service more than any of their friends did. And so we can kind of set them up to have bragging rights if we provided that great service, that great experience, a good product, you know, they want to tell their friends. So we need to be sure that we can be there to help them tell their friends about us.
Jill (16:09):
Yeah, exactly. And to know, you know, that you’re a gift to people, right? In terms of your service, your product, what you’ve got, and people do want to talk, they want to spread the word. They just, sometimes they don’t know how they haven’t been asked. So that’s, that’s something I really want to, um, underline for all of you is, is that referrals are going to drive your business.
It’s I think one of the best and least expensive marketing tools, and that’s other people talking about you and saying great things, and, Oh, you’ve got to call, you know, you got to call so-and-so for this service. You know, we, we do it naturally. We tell people about restaurants are good movies. So think about doing it for your service and other people’s service and ask them to, how can I help you? Can I give you a testimonial? That’s a great thing. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (16:57):
Yeah. The reciprocation, I was going to say that is a great thing when we can, uh, when it goes both ways, it, it seems like it kind of opens up a lot more communication makes people a lot more, um, ready to, you know, give us their referrals as well.
Jill (17:13):
Yes.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (17:15):
So, um, the, uh, I guess the other thing about the referral end is that you really don’t, or my, my, uh, my experience with them is you really don’t have to typically have that hard, uh, sales process. And it shortens up your not only is it it’s a more cost-effective, but it shortens up your sales cycle. Because what I hear from my referrals is, well, Joe’s already told me all about you, what you did and this and that.
I just want to, you know, let’s just get started or you buy the product or whatever. So we not only need to think about that, but, you know, maybe, um, like a typical client, you may have to have eight, 10, 12 touches, and you go through the whole cycle a lot of times with referrals. I mean, it’s cut to the chase, I’m ready to buy. That’s why they told me about you because we were, you know, we were, uh, at coffee the other morning talk in and, uh, I told him I needed your product. He’s like, Oh, I know who to go to. So, you know, we cut all that out.
Jill (18:19):
I know it, is that a good thing? Right? Cut, cut the sales cycle, shorten the process, get right to it, you know, create more prospects, create real relationships. And frankly, you know, let’s do business. That’s what business is all about.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (18:34):
Right? Right. Exactly. Well, Jill, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to be with us, talking again about, uh, publicity and referrals. Uh, a couple of questions before I let you go. Number one is what is a tool or a habit that you have during your daily life, either professional or personal that you just couldn’t do without,
Jill (18:58):
Um, it’s really, you know, call it prayer, meditation, uh, daily. That’s really important to me. And, uh, and I’m working on the exercise daily, but both of those, you know, we’ll put it in the category called self care. Um, you know, what I’ve learned in all in business for a long time is that self care is key. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (19:19):
Right. Uh, we were just talking about that with some family members the other day is that, you know, we can’t take care of other people if we’re not in a condition to do that. So I think that’s so important. And then the walking, you know, I never hesitate to say this when I go for a good walk, it seems like it really clears my head.
And, uh, my girlfriend, she hates it when I come back, she usually goes with me to keep me from thinking too much. But when I come back, it’s like I’m full of ideas and things that we need to do, you know, just from taking a 15 or 20 minute walk here. So anyway, well, uh, can you tell everybody who your customer is, uh, how you can help them, how they can get ahold of you?
Jill (20:01):
Sure. Thank you. So if you’re a small business owner, I mean, frankly, I’ve worked across industries, uh, with consultants, coaches, authors, speakers, um, but what I call small business owners, that’s people also have products and services and, uh, and I teach a virtual publicity course. Um, I have a wonderful free masterclass. I’m happy to give away as a gift to all of you. Uh, and may I give the contact information or you want to put it in the show notes, I’ll put it in
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (20:31):
The show notes, but yeah, please go ahead and give it to everybody.
Jill (20:34):
Sure. So it’s Jill lublin.com/publicity. And that will put you into my free publicity masterclass, which is live and interactive with me. So we definitely, yeah. We definitely get to connect together and that would be super.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (20:50):
Okay, great. Yes. I will follow up and put that on the webpage show notes. So y’all please be sure. Reach out to Jill, get in this class, learn how to generate some publicity for yourself. You, you certainly won’t be sorry. I know that for sure. All right, geo. Well, thanks a lot until next time again, this is Roy, uh, with the business of business podcast, you can find us at thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com, iTunes, Stitcher, Google play all the big, uh, podcast platforms as well as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a YouTube. So until next time, thank you.
Listen to more episode of The Business of Business Podcast here