IAM1287 – Author Helps Individuals have a Wow Story

Liz H Kelly (Santa Monica, CA) is the Goody PR Founder, Award-Winning Author (“8-Second PR”), and Podcast Host (“8-Second Branding”) with 15+ years of experience promoting authors and brands with a WOW STORY who is making a positive impact. She loves connecting her client's stories to current headlines and finding a story that moves audiences. As a published author, Kelly had over 500 media interviews (TV, radio, print, and syndication) over 5 years for her first book about dating (“Smart Man Hunting”). Her work and books have been featured on CNN, Lifetime, USA TODAY, The Chicago Tribune, Thrive Global, KTLA, KNBC News, KABC News, BBC Radio, ESPN Radio, NPR, and thousands of media outlets. Kelly also teaches Digital Marketing at UCLA Extension and is an autism advocate.

• CEO Story: When the doors were shut in her career, Liz started her venture into writing a book. Investing her time and money in seminars and finally launched her book in 2012 and was so successful. Since then, she published more award-winning books that made the headlines.
• Business Service: Marketing agency that does press releases, pitches, documentaries, interviews, and earned media. They have podcasts and books – giving tips on specific topics on how to connect to your audience compellingly.
• Secret Sauce: Resilience – keep following up. Coming up with the Wow story – how you impact others through your tips/advice so you can make their lives better.
• CEO Hack: Have a media hook – something unique and something different about you that can work for whoever you are pitching.
• CEO Nugget: Keep it simple, use emphasis statements. To make it more clear, concise, and compelling. It will make your interview more impactful.
• CEO Defined: Have courage, resilience, and no fear. Fail forward. Brainstorm with new solutions. Hire a good team. Come up with new products and services.

Website: goodypr.com

8secondpr.com

Twitter: likely

Instagram: likely

Facebook: GoodyPR

LinkedIn: lizheuisler

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Transcription

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00:20 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:42 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Liz H. Kelly of Goody PR. Liz, it's great to have you on the show.

00:52 – Liz H Kelly

Well, thank you for having me here. I'm so excited.

00:55 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I'm excited as well too. And you're doing so many awesome things. So what I want to do is just read a little bit more about what Liz is doing. So you can hear about some of those awesome things that she's accomplished. Liz is the Goody PR founder, award-winning author of 8 Second PR, and podcast host of 8 Second Branding with 15 plus years of experience promoting authors and brands with a wow story who are making a positive impact. She loves connecting her client's stories to current headlines and finding a story that moves audiences.

As a published author, Kelly has over 500 media interviews, TV, radio, print, and syndication over 5 years for her first book about dating, Smart Man Hunting and her work in books has been featured on CNN, Lifetime, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, Thrive Global, KTLA, KNBC News, KABC News, BBC Radio, ESPN Radio, NPR, and thousands of media outlets. Liz also teaches digital marketing at UCLA Extension and is an autism advocate. Liz, thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule and all the things you're juggling. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:04 – Liz H Kelly

I am ready. I am embarrassed now after you read that bio.

02:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I think- I'm blushing. Yes, I think many people who are listening are probably wishing that they were as embarrassed as they could be as you are in accomplishing all the awesome things and things that you're juggling. So I guess kind of to kick everything off, I wanted to hear how you got started, what I like to call your CEO story.

02:26 – Liz H Kelly

Absolutely, And I think this is important because I got started in PR full-time in 2008 after I got laid off from MySpace. But the backstory is in 2002, I did write the dating book, Smart Man Hunting, and it was hard. I had no idea how to write a good book, how to get a literary agent, how to get a publicist, or how to get a publisher. And so I went through all those experiences and invested a lot of time and a lot of money going to book marketing seminars.

And then when, you know, fast forward to 2008, I got laid off for my space. I say I want to do this for other people. I don't want to do this for me anymore. So I started goody PR and then I wrote my book, its second PR, which we'll talk about more later because I didn't want to focus on dating anymore. I wanted to focus on PR. So that's kind of the story and there's more to it, but that's the cliff note.

03:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, there we go. That's the cliffhanger to keep us going. But I love, you know, kind of hearing I'm sorry to hear about, you know, being laid off from my space, but it seems like it propelled you into some opportunities that maybe wouldn't have existed if you had stayed at, you know, my space or whatever my space end up becoming.

03:43 – Liz H Kelly

Absolutely. I mean, it was a learning experience. And I will tell you and the listeners, because I think this is important when you start your own business, it's scary, right? So, I had no portfolio. The only portfolio I had was me talking about my dating book. So I worked for 1 year for free, just getting clients so that I could say, well, I worked with these people. And I worked with Rich Dad Hawaii. Robert Kisaki was franchising at the time and they had a group called Rich Dad Hawaii. And I had to go to Hawaii. That was painful.

And I ended up getting them on every TV station in Hawaii. The corporate headquarters started saying, who is this person that did this? And then I got hired to work on Kim Kiyosaki's rich woman campaign. It was her first financial education campaign in Hawaii. And for that campaign, I got paid expenses. So the first 1 I was paying for my trips back and forth to Hawaii.

In the second campaign, I got paid for my expenses. And then eventually somebody from that committee hired me and paid me a monthly retainer. So that whole process took about a year. So if you're about to jump into a new business, just realize it takes a lot of time, patience, and perseverance.

05:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more to hear a little bit more about how you work with your clients, and how you serve them with good EPR, and also want to hear about your podcast, your book, and all the awesome things that you're working on as well too.

05:21 – Liz H Kelly

Absolutely. Well, we work on a monthly retainer with our PR clients and they're mostly small business CEOs, authors, and founders. It's not so much the big corporations, although we've worked with a couple of them too. But we have a personalized VIP service. We only take on 5 clients at a time. If you go to any big PR agency in New York, they're going to have 20 clients and you're going to get lost. So I am always brainstorming. That should be a T-shirt. Always brainstorm for my clients. What's a new media hook?

What's a new way to present their story to the media? We work with an addiction center called Warriors Heart, Warriors with an S. So we work very carefully with them on getting things in leadership. Then we've also done TV in the past year where they had a documentary done about them. And so we got them about 5 TV interviews in different cities. You know, I work with them, we have a monthly strategy meeting, we do press releases, we do pitches, and then we do interviews.

And that's really what's called earned media. Earned media is somebody else is vouching for you and saying you're great. And earned media is worth 3 times the value of paid media. So I think that's the big picture with Goody PR with the podcast, 8 Second Branding, which comes from the fact that the average attention span of an adult is 8 seconds. So actually, our attention span is less than a goldfish's because a Goldfish's attention span is 9 seconds and we're 8 seconds. So it's really hard to get people's attention. So what I focus on is how to be clear, concise, and compelling, how to emotionally connect with the audience.

So in both, we give tips on how to do this and different specific topics. And the book, 8 Second PR was created so that if you can't afford to hire a PR or marketing agency, here's a book where you can do the how-to and it's $19 versus a big retainer fee. We were excited because we had a book testimonial that we've now published on YouTube from a small business owner who was in that exact scenario. She said to me, Liz, I cannot afford to hire you. What should I do? I said, read my book.

She read the book. She showed it to me. She's got sticky notes all over it highlighting. And she got a feature story on Fox 11 Los Angeles. So I was just blown away. I was like, this is exactly why I wrote 8 8-second PR to empower other people to do what we do. And yes, you need a lot of gumption, you need resilience, you're going to get told, no, I get told no all the time. But you just keep going back and you keep pitching different angles until you get that yes. And until that, you know, a magic connection happens with a reporter.

08:33 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that. Would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? And it could be for the business, yourself, or a combination of both, but is it that resilience, that desire to kind of see, I think, you know, really great stories come to fruition? Do you think that sets you apart from McSheedee?

08:51 – Liz H Kelly

I think resilience is key. 1 of my clients says you're also really good about follow-up. We haven't talked about that, But that's part of resilience you have to keep following up the story that I was talking about that was in real leaders. I have been calling that reporter for 1 month. And so finally, I emailed him yesterday on a Sunday and he wrote me back and said, I have published the story today. So he published the story on a Sunday, which you would not expect, but it was that resilience and that follow-up.

Now I want to add 1 other thing though that I think is important with the secret sauce and part of my secret sauce is coming up with this wow story. And the wow story is what makes you unique and it's also what emotionally connects with the reporter. And a lot of people can't see that because they just wanna talk about their cool company, their cool book, or their cool product. But the wow story is about how you are going to help other people and how can you impact others through your tips or your advice so that you can make their lives better.

10:06 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be something from your book or something you might tell somebody that is something a little bit more tangible like an Apple book or a habit that you have. What would be your CEO hack? You must do public relations. You can't just do paid ads because the value is 3 times more valuable. And when you do PR, you can do it yourself, you can do it with an agency, but you have to think about what is your media hook.

I think that's a term that I would like to share. A media hook is something unique and something different about you that can work for whoever you are pitching. So let me give you an example. I have a client who wrote leadership books and he wrote something about hiring it said in the book that you should hire based on behaviors versus a resume. So that is a unique media hook, hire based on behaviors versus a resume. And then you make it relevant by tying it to the great resignation trend that is going on right now.

So I sent that pitch to Fast Company. It took them 2 months to get back to me. Then they interviewed the client and then it took another month to get the story published. But that's a great example of a unique media hook, how to pitch it to the media and tie it to something timely that's in the headlines, and then be patient and persistent to make it happen. Then you want to use sixth-grade vocabulary when you're talking to the media because That is the average reading level for newspapers, and that's the vocabulary you want to use on TV radio, or podcasts. So keep it simple.

And 1 thing to add to that that can help with keeping it simple and keeping it focused is to use what I call our emphasis statements. An emphasis statement is talking in threes or emphasizing a key thing. So for example, you want to say the most important thing to remember is to use emphasis statements. The top 3 reasons you want to use emphasis statements are to be clear, concise, and compelling. It will make your interviews so much better and so much more impactful. So people remember you and then they go check out your website and you get like my other reader $10, 000 in product sales.

You can use these emphasis statements with everything you do in an interview, in a column, or in a radio broadcast. But also when you're talking to people and they say, what do you do? A lot of people when they say, what do you do? 30 minutes later, they're still talking about their company. That's going to put people to sleep. Don't do that. Please just think of 3 ways to describe what you do.

13:02 – Gresham Harkless

Keep it simple. I love that. So I appreciate that, Nugget. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Liz, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:17 – Liz H Kelly

Great question, I think the definition of being a CEO is you have to have courage, you have to have resilience and no fear, and no fear because you will fail. You will fail forward if you have a no-fear attitude. So every time you fail, just pick yourself back up and say, okay, what can I learn from this? And let's keep going.

And that's the hardest thing because a lot of Small businesses do fail and they do close, but you wanna be always brainstorming. What's a new solution? What's a new way to expand your business? Hire a good team, and come up with new products and services so you can make money while you sleep. And, you know, don't be afraid to fail. It's okay. You can do it.

14:06 – Gresham Harkless

Truly appreciate that. Of course, I appreciate your time even more so what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get ahold of you, get a copy of your books, listen to your podcast, and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

14:23 – Liz H Kelly

Well, thank you so much for having me. I love this podcast. I am CEO podcast. I've been listening to it for a long time and there are so many great messages here. I think the message I would leave people with is, you know, with the year, think about writing a book because a book is like a credibility business card. It will up your game by so much. And the media wants to interview people who are an author. So if you can't write it yourself because you're too busy or you just, it's not your thing, then think about hiring a ghostwriter because that book is yours, it's like your PhD.

When I wrote my dating book, somebody told me it was like getting an instant PhD. And when you write that book, take time to make sure it's a high-quality book. And there are lots of tips that we will have on our 8-second branding podcast about that. You can find out how to promote it and build your wow story in our 8-second PR book, second edition, get the yellow copy.

And if there's anything else you need from us, just go to goodie, goodie with a Y, goodiepr.com. And you know, my mother calls me Pollyanna sometimes because I'm so positive, but I do have my down moments. So anyway, I'm trying to be a cheerleader here because I want you to be successful.

15:46 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, I truly appreciate that. And we will have the links and information that show who knows who and who doesn't need a cheerleader. There are you know, everything's not always sunshine and rainbows, especially the entrepreneurial journey is a roller coaster ride. So I love that you have that positivity, that you can lean into that and help out so many people and be able to kind of see sometimes their genius, their light that they can shine to kind of help out so many people. So thank you so much for doing that for us today. And of course, doing that in so many different ways. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:15 – Liz H Kelly

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

16:52 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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