It’s one thing to write a book. It’s another to get people to read it. In this episode, Juliet Clark sits down with Business Strategist and Marketing Consultant Shannon Procise to find out how she successfully attained over $3.2M in FREE publicity. Spilling some of her marketing secrets, Shannon shares how you can stand out in the noisy online world and get more qualified leads. She also digs deep into writing press releases, highlighting the important points to take note of to bring in more people and get your message out to the world. Join Shannon in this conversation to learn more about how to market your book without having to spend lots of money while having fun doing it!
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Lessons On Gaining Free Publicity And Getting Your Book Across With Shannon Procise
We have another extraordinary guest. For those of you who have books, or you’re getting yourself out on the show, because I have to tell you, this is someone that my friend, Tracy Hazzard, uses as well. Get out your notepad, take lots of notes. Before we get started, I want to send you over to our YouTube channel. Please go over and follow us on YouTube. If you want to see some of these live on video, or even if you’re a video person, all of these interviews are live on YouTube. Go follow us. Subscribe at Super Brand Publishing. Also, don’t forget to take our Promote Profit Publish Quiz. Everybody is excited when you write a book, but do you have an audience that will buy the book? Can you use it as a loss leader to lead into your other products and services? Find all that out before you spend all that money on publishing and learn some hard lessons. You put a lot of work into it. You deserve to have a book that’s purchased.
Our guest is Shannon Procise. She has successfully attained over $3.2 million in free publicity and is notorious for being the Owner of the Million Dollar Rolodex and teaching others how to do the same. She has trained and coached thousands of individuals in marketing, event, production, business development, and personal growth. Shannon is the Creator of a magnetic community, the Business Acceleration Network, where she guides businesses to a successful enterprise while having fun and making lots of money. She brings together social entrepreneurs, visionaries and new thought leaders that want to collaborate, create a better world and focus on prosperity so that they can pay it forward to make a positive impact. She appeared on television, radio and in the press. She’s co-authored the Law Of Business Attraction: Secret Of Cooperative Success, an Amazon number one bestseller with T. Harv Eker of the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Welcome, Shannon.
Thank you, Juliet.
Before we get too far into this, could you please explain to our younger crowd, those under 50, what a Rolodex is?
I need to change that. A lot of people are like, “What is a Rolodex?” I want to say Rolex. The Rolodex is that old machine, an old paper file. They used to hold note cards for phone numbers. It spun around, and it was how you had contacts. It’s another term for a contact list. I’ve been known to have a million-dollar contact list.
You and I have been working together on some press releases. I’ve been finding this as a powerful tool for those who want credibility. Can you talk a little bit about that?
It’s been so much fun working with you, Juliet. Thank you for all you do for authors and stuff because I’ve learned so much about your industry and how you help others. The press release is designed to, number one, get your message out there, spread the word of what you’re up to. The credibility piece is where, when you’ve picked up on ABC, Fox, MarketWatch, AP news, that is something that you can add to your website or LinkedIn profile. Whenever you’re doing future press releases, you can mention that you’ve been featured in or seen on these particular things. As far as credibility, this is a great vehicle to add that to what you’re doing.
Free publicity takes a certain way of storytelling. Share on XI’ve known for quite a while that you can do this on your own, but there’s a right and wrong way to do it. If you go to a publicity person, they’re going to charge you an arm and leg. One of my clients used Fiverr. She was amazed because she said, “I didn’t know where I was featured.” Why would we use someone like you versus a Fiverr or doing it ourselves?
One thing is when we work together, we give you a full report. It’s over 50 pages with all of the links. We guarantee that you’re going to be picked up in 200 spots, but I’ve never had a report come back less than 400. It’s powerful to be able to get those direct links with the logos of where you go. The other piece is because I’ve been an expert in how to get free publicity and free publicity takes a certain way of storytelling, that makes it powerful to be able to include some of those key things to get picked up. For example, Juliet, when you and I were working together, one of the questions I asked you, “Is how many people do you serve in hundreds of people that you’ve helped with?” The other piece is I ask them where some of the big names that you’ve worked with. When you shared some of the people that you’ve helped, those pieces make the story more appealing for somebody who doesn’t know you. It also builds more trust.
It was interesting doing this. We’re going to digress to what we talked about. I copyright for a lot of my clients, and if I had to write my own press release, I couldn’t do it. Here’s why. When I copyright for myself and I hand it off to my copywriters, they laugh at me and go, “You call yourself a copywriter.” Most of it is because it’s hard to write for yourself. You were sharing the too that you spend a month writing your own press release because it’s so hard to write for yourself.
I find this a lot even with helping people get their bios done. It’s difficult to tell a story about ourselves. That’s why when you have somebody helping you, you may have an idea of the story, which is great, but then we can help you dive deeper into what is that story, and how do we connect this as a professional? How do we connect this to your audience and to what’s happening in the world? There’s a lot happening. For you, Juliet, with your stories, a lot of people are all online. How do you stand out online, and how do you get more qualified leads? To tie that to what’s tapping in the media, it helps it picked up. As far as talking about yourself, yes, I was telling somebody. I’m like, “I have three press releases in the wings.” It’s better to have somebody craft it and tell that story for you to make it easier and get it done.
You and I talked about it. I’m not braggy. It’s hard for me to dig in and say. I’m not a name-dropper about who I’ve worked with. It’s hard to dig in because it feels like bragging. My father used to say, “If you have to tell people how great you are, you may not be that great.” I hear that in my head about if I have to keep telling people how fabulous I am, maybe I’m not that fabulous. A lot of people feel that even though the voice may be saying something else inside their head, it’s hard.
This is why the press release is great because then there’s that third-party piece that’s speaking for you, and why? One of the first things Juliet, when I work with people, is helping them create their expert power bio because you’re not alone. There’s some personality type that’s okay with bragging about themselves. We need to be okay because if people are making a decision and why I like the bio and the press releases, I don’t have to do the talking and say, “Read this, check this out,” and then it does the work for me.
When you were talking about that report, that was the thing when I mentioned that one of my clients did this on Fiverr. She gave you and I the press release. She’s getting ready to work with you. I said, “When you did that, who did you peer on?” She’s like, “What do you mean?” She had no idea. She did it because she thought it was the thing to do. She had no idea that there was all this credibility involved with it.
This is why I’ll share a little bit about the education piece that we built into. The report I love about it is it shows you the number of readers that this particular distribution normally has. It gives you the direct link, the logo of where it is. I’ve had everybody get picked up by AP News except for one. AP News is a hub on top of that. Even though you got your report, I’m sure that AP News, there are others that may have picked it up even outside of that particular distribution. You get to see the readership. What I found is what you said like, “I don’t know where I picked it up. I don’t know what happened.”
I would give people this report, and then I would check in with them 1 or 2 weeks later, “How’s it going? Did you do this? Did you do that?” I would spend time with them coaching them on the credibility piece, and they wouldn’t do anything. I created these videos where it’s like, “Step one, go get a screenshot of your article with the logos. Step two, add them to your bio.” It’s a real short video. There are a lot of different ideas on what to do, but to make sure that once you’ve done this, that you can see it, maximize it, monetize it. I think people should be sharing those links on their social media. If you get picked up in AP News, you want to be sending that out to your contact list, to prospects, add it to your email signature. There’s a lot to avoid you bragging about yourself. Let it do it for you.
I went through the education piece but it didn’t make sense. I got my report. She met with me and said, “Did you do this?” I was like, “No. I didn’t know what it meant.” She loops back with you on it as well. I shared an article, and here comes Ms. Shannon, “Could you add a few hashtags?” I’m like, “I’m not a hashtag person.” I have to make stuff up.
If you have to keep telling people how fabulous you are, maybe you’re really not that fabulous. Share on XYou need to brag about yourself too. I would put checkout, I was featured in, and it is again, bragging about yourself, but sharing that social media. “At my article, this story got picked up.” Even with you, Juliet, you had offered people a goodie. If they do a certain assessment, not only can they check out what they’re doing, but they could have an opportunity to meet with you. That was the other piece that I think it’s important with the press releases that I also work with people to determine what is the call to action that you want to have happened so that we can work on both not only the press release but also within the strategy of your marketing to make sure that happens. What I love about this particular platform is that we get to hyperlink. We hyperlinked everybody to your LinkedIn. We get to hyperlink the call to action. We also get to include a video. People get to see you and get to know you in that way. There are a lot of great things to make it easier for a prospect to get to know you.
Who would this be ideal for? Is it just a business? We did it for my business, but I know we’re working on books for a couple of my people.
Anybody that has a book, that’s a speaker, for me, I’ve done press releases on inspirational stories, human interest stories. You’ve heard my story where I was paralyzed after surgery. I healed it with Qigong. I wanted to get that message out to the world. I submitted a press release. There may be a fundraiser, but you bring on somebody new to your team. What’s great about this distribution service is that we can get away with a lot more than we would in the free publicity. In the free publicity, you have to be strategic. When we quoted Juliet, I was able to say a little bit more about Juliet and our company. When we do free press, we have to stay away from things that are selling it. I don’t know if you’re doing a product launch. I cannot sit with somebody and not figure out 60 stories. I would love to be challenged from anybody to sit with them, and we all have the education. There is some human give back or human-interest story. There’s a lot that we can write a story about.
You wrote an entire book called Media Magic. Tell us a little bit about the free publicity part of this.
Before I do that, can I say something that I love about you with your people with books? I don’t know if people realize this as they are reading, but I have sent you a few people. I’ve even talked to you about things with my book, and you’re an ocean of information for anybody publishing a book. I remember my dear friend, and we know her mutually dealing with printers and dealing with many things that she spent probably a month in headache and heartache. She got on the phone with you. I remember there was a migration I was doing with my book. I wanted to brag about you for a minute because those that may not know you to me are a book diva, and any publishing or books, you’re the one to call.
Media Magic, I wrote this book after producing 400 events. When I was producing the events, I cracked the code on how to write a press release that gets picked up. I’ve been able to garner millions of dollars in free publicity for myself and other people. From this, I wanted to help others learn how to do the same because I kept talking to people where they spend $5,000 or $10,000. They’d hire publicists, then they’d come back to me, and they would show their press release. I’m like, “I can tell you exactly why he get picked up.” They didn’t get the results they wanted. I wrote this to empower people, to at least have enough information when you hire somebody, you can determine, is it a good fit or not, but also that if you’re on a tight budget, you can do this all yourself. We can go through how to put the press kit together, how to write an expert power bio, how to contact the media, the various pieces that are important to being ready for media.
A lot of times in the past, people have brought me books and said, “I’m going to do a press release.” They do it in order to sell the book, but they do it in a salesy way. They don’t consider the relevance of the book, how they can fit it nowadays, which is one of the things we did with both of the books that I’ve sent you is how can we fit this now and make it something that people would want to read. It just happened that one of it was grief and COVID, and the other was someone who’s homeless. She brought herself up from nothing. People don’t realize that when they’re writing the press release, it’s not all about them.
It’s what’s in it for the reader, for the prospect, and how can you make a difference because in what you’re sharing, I know with you, Juliet, I don’t think people are aware of in 108 seconds or less that people can identify an ideal lead. There’s this education piece that when you can educate people, inspire, or support people with some information, then that becomes more viral. There’s one thing with the press release, which is great but it’s even better if it can get picked up and shared by others.
When you can educate, inspire, or support people with some information, then that obviously becomes more viral. Share on XFor those of you who don’t know, our tagline for our quizzes is that our quizzes allow you to determine who in your audience is your best client in 180 seconds, which is super catchy. Somebody else came up with that and then walked out of the room. I was like, “Mic drop. I’ll use it.” Where do we find you? Do you have something you want to give us?
I’ll give everybody a copy of the book. I took this book diva. Her name is Juliet Clark. A few years ago, she gave me this advice at a mentor table. I finally took them. If you’ve go to MediaMagicBook.com, you can download the entire book for free. There are over 100 of the most powerful words in the human language that can help you with your power bio and your press release. It’s set up like a workbook. You can go through this and start filling in the blanks. Beyond that, I also have 21 Days to Media Magic that you’ll read about as you get in there that some more support if you want with some video training.
This is what I do all the time, I will get a book on audio or the eBook, and then I’ll realize this is a workbook, a reference guide. This is one of those. When you download it, you’ll have the opportunity to buy the book too. I’ve got it back there someplace. It’s one of those things that you can flip and open, get ideas and write down. You might want to consider getting that softcover copy from her as well, and that mini-course at $47. It’s not a huge amount. As we’re looking around in the market, people have to do this a little bit more and more for themselves as money gets tight. Consider it. Shannon, Thank you.
Thank you, Juliet. For the readers, know that there are thousands of dollars in publicity waiting for you now with your name on it. If you haven’t connected with Juliet, her quiz and what she’s doing, please take a look because she is a true gift for those that want to get their message out to the world. I love working with you, Juliet. We have a common mission and you help people get it done.
Thank you. We’ll see you next episode.
Important Links:
- Super Brand Publishing – YouTube Channel
- Promote Profit Publish Quiz
- Shannon Procise
- Business Acceleration Network
- Law Of Business Attraction: Secret Of Cooperative Success
- Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
- Fiverr
- MediaMagicBook.com
About Shannon Procise
Shannon Procise has successfully attained over $3.2M in FREE publicity and is notorious for being the owner of the “Million Dollar Rolodex” and teaching others how to do the same. She has trained and coached thousands of individuals in marketing, event production, business development, and personal growth. Shannon is the creator of a magnetic community – the Business Acceleration Network, where she guides businesses to build a successful enterprise while having fun and making lots of money. She brings together social entrepreneurs, visionaries, and new thought leaders that want to collaborate, create a better world, and focus on prosperity so that they can pay it forward to make a positive impact. She appeared on television, radio, and in the press and she has co-authored the “Law of Business Attraction – The Secret of Cooperative Success,” an Amazon #1 best seller with T Harv Eker of the Millionaire Mind.
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