Powerful Publicity Secrets Even The Pros Don’t Know

Lorraine Schuchart: Welcome to The Prosper Project, the show that helps entrepreneurs build brands that impact the world and the bottom line. We know that success doesn’t come in a one size fits all package. That’s why we’re bringing you adaptable marketing strategies along with valuable insights from inspiring changemakers, firebrands, and visionaries. I’m Lorraine Schuchart, founder of the Disruptive brand agency Prosper for Purpose. Now, for this week’s episode. 

Hi, everyone!  

My guest is Susan Harrow. Susan is a media trainer, marketing strategist, martial artist, and author of the best-selling book, Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul®. For the past 33 years, Susan has trained thousands of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders worldwide to shine on Oprah, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fresh Air Marketplace, Bloomberg, MSNBC, NPR, CNN, Fox and The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Wired, Forbes, et cetera.  

So we could go on and on. But basically, Susan is known for helping clients be able to present themselves as thought leader and authority in their field so that they can shine in national media. Her course, “The Zen of fame, Your Genius Gone Viral®” I love that name. It’s about how people can promote themselves with integrity and spirit. And then finally, what I find really interesting about Susan is that she’s a former teaching tennis pro and has a black belt in Aikido. I hope I said that right. 

Susan Harrow: Aikido. That was close. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Aikido. Oh, gosh. So close and yet so far. 

Susan Harrow: That’s all good. I like how you embellished it.

Lorraine Schuchart: So great to have you here. 

Susan Harrow: Great to be here. Thanks, everybody. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about well, I want to ask you about everything I just referenced, but tell us a little bit about what led you to start your business and kind of like, was that a kind of one thing, one domino, or was it a lot of things, or was it something that you always wanted to do? 

Growing Your Brand Organically With Publicity + Media Training

Susan Harrow: Definitely not something I always wanted to do. It really happened organically. I was in high-tech sales in an all-male environment and a startup. I majored in Shakespeare. I’ve always been an English major. I was in a writing class with this gal who was doing PR for Bill Graham presents, The Telluride Film Festival, and Title IX Sports. I said to her, “I’d love to shadow you and see what you do because I thought PR would be a perfect marriage of writing and sales.” Since I wasn’t afraid to get on the phone and talk to people, I went over, I started just learning about PR. And then she said, “Why don’t you, jump up on the phone and start booking people? I said to her, “What? Can I listen to you first?” 

And so she jumped up on the phone. This was all in the old days before the Internet, so she jumped up on the phone, I listened to her book people and then I started doing it.

Then one of my very first clients was Missy Park of Title IX Sports which was a two-person business then and has grown to be I think the third largest retailer of women’s athletic clothes now. And I started just booking her, in the Wall Street Journal and her growing her business.

What evolved from there is as I booked and worked with more and more clients, what happened was sometimes I would be booking them on Oprah, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, and all these different shows. Sometimes what would happen is a big nothing. 

They would come to me and go say, “Hey, Susan, PR doesn’t work.” I would say, “It’s not the PR that’s not working.” I mean, I did the booking. Let me hear what you’re saying. Then I started listening to what they were saying and I realized that the issue was what they were saying, that they were not connecting with their audience.

I started working on how you speak about your business and brand in such a way that it satisfies the journalist or host. How it connects with their audience and is informative, educative, entertaining, and encourages people to connect with you on whatever level to grow your business so it’s free with maybe a small engagement, a larger engagement to sell your business, book, product, service, or cause. That’s the evolution of it. And I loved it so much. 

Media Training Works for Presentations, Panels, Conferences, TED talks, Meetings + Zoom Virtual Meetings

I started doing more exclusively that and it’s really expanded. Lots of my clients know, it’s just media training. One CEO, even though I’m hired to media train him, they are speaking at a conference where they have eight minutes on the stage speaking to 1000 people.

So that’s sort of a media interview.

I’m working with him, and they’re expanding their business. They’ve expanded worldwide and I’m working with him to be a dynamic presenter and to get results. And what do you say in those 8 minutes? He’s got three types of people in the audience that he wants to connect with as well. How do you connect with all three of them in those eight minutes so you are actually driving results? 

Media Training Goes Way Beyond How You Sit, What You Wear + Stop Saying “Um.”

Lorraine Schuchart: That’s amazing. So when most people think of media training, they think of somebody who shows up one day with a camera, records them, helps them not say “uhm” and plays that recording back. Talks to them about how they are seated, what they’re wearing if they lean into the camera, those kinds of things. But you’re taking that way beyond. You’re going into what is the message probably how do you speak in sound bites or memorable statements that people will take with them? How do you become memorable? Right. 

So it sounds like your media training is….and you and I have spoken, I’ve done media training, but it sounds like your media training goes way beyond what most people do. And I think that’s so important that you’re seeing the big picture. Not just, okay, I have this TV interview or there’s been, God forbid, a crisis, and now I have to address the media, and I’ve never been media trained. What can we do? 

Work Your Presence In Front Of The Camera

Susan Harrow: I love that you noticed that, I think. Of course, I address all of those other things because people typically their very first questions, I need to lose 10 or 20 lbs. Then they say, “Now we’re seeing ourselves on camera and it’s not easy to see.” Which is sometimes the most horrible thing, right? Or hearing their voice and not liking it.

So it’s the criticism. The criticism, all your stuff comes up. So what people maybe don’t realize is we do talk about mindset, but we talk about it before the media appearance. We can talk about clothes first if that’s what people need and where to look at the camera and all of the technical things. But really what I’m working on is a person’s presence and their messaging that’s going to have the effect that they’ve said that they want. 

Oftentimes PR people go, “Oh yeah, you know, I got in the New York Times.” My question is, what did it do for you? Yes, it’s prestige. It’s really wonderful that you have that. And that is something, that credibility is something. But really, even if you’ve got a line or two in the New York Times, if it’s the right line or two, that can attract in, $100,000 or a million dollar client. And I’m looking for what are you saying to whatever you’re selling a business with product, service or cause that is going to grow. Not to have lookie-loos come to you, but to have the people who are really into….you work with B Corps. So you don’t want someone who’s got an oil slick in Texas. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Correct. Not be our ideal. 

Susan Harrow: So you want your messaging and positioning to attract other B Corp social entrepreneurs. I’m in that same realm, too. It’s people who are working on the world’s most pressing problems or have something incredibly fun. I also have super serious people that I just love, but also things that are, I will not turn away from a good chocolate bar. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Me either. 

Susan Harrow: Or a snack. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Yeah, I love that. That’s really important. 

Susan Harrow: I think the other thing to address is that even if somebody’s going for VC money, it is really their presence, their leadership quality that makes or breaks the deal. Yes, of course, they have to have in the background, they have to prove that the business is viable and they have to prove that it will work in the marketplace.

But really, the question is, are you the right person for the job? Are you going to lead this company? This is what they’re looking for in founders, entrepreneurs, and CEOs. Most millennials want you to have a social platform of some kind, a philanthropic arm, something that you believe in. They want to know about that. 

So that needs to be incorporated into the conversation, as well as the seamless promotion of whatever it is, whatever your offer is, that’s something else that needs to be incorporated in, I think, now that there’s so much more consciousness, at least for certain people, to buy or buy into whatever you have, whatever you offer. 

XXXX STOPPED eDItiNG HERE.

Lorraine Schuchart: Yes. I love that you said that. So for B Corp, that’s really easy because to be certified, you have to have that purpose that aligns with a social or environmental impact. But what you’re saying, and what we do as well, when we’re doing brand narratives for clients, is that is not just your CSR that lives in a silo over here. That has to be part of the message. And I liken it to a thread. Or you could say a piece of yarn. You’re knitting a big blanket with all these different messages and things you do, but you’ve got to pull this piece in. It has to be part of the foundation of the blanket that you’re creating, not just something that you reference from time to time that’s sitting over here. Because people are onto that. 

They’re tired of people who just talk about doing good. They want to see evidence of how you’re actually doing that, not just once a year, not just saying, we’re having a women’s day, we’re doing this, we’re doing that. But what are you doing through your business to make that possible? 

Be Consistent With Your Personal Brand

Susan Harrow: On a consistent basis? Yes, yes, on a consistent basis that shows what type of business you are, what type of person you are. Because now, a CEO or a leader of a company does need to have their own personal brand as well as their professional brand. And those need to knit together in that same fabric, too, and needs to be consistent and that messaging needs to go through. Everything you do say, aren’t think from your words to your website, that all needs to and the look and feel of you and the look and feel of your website. So it’s not just the words. It’s everything has to match. It really is. Gandhi’s my life is my message. How you are here is how you show up everywhere. Right. And everywhere professionally. 

And that’s really what we’re going for, too, is when you were referencing before, it’s really personal growth, because whenever anyone comes to me, the fears come up. I mean, the fears of we want to be seen and we don’t want to be seen. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Yes. 

Susan Harrow: Right. So do you have these two opposites, I want to be seen, but no, I don’t want to be seen, or I don’t want the things that I don’t want to show, but everything shows. Like in Aikido, Japanese martial arts, I hate it, love it, because on the mat, everything shows you cannot hide. Your body is giving it away. But it’s the same in media. People think they can hide it, but no, we can see when you’re uncomfortable. We can see where you’re uncomfortable. People read that and pick that up all the time. My sweetie and I have a joke because he’ll go, “I don’t like this person.” Somebody on the news. “Can you tell me why?” I watch it and I go, oh. And then I start to dissect. 

I go, you don’t like him because he’s puffing up or he’s trying too hard, or he’s being boastful, or do you see the way his chin is a little bit high? It projects I’m better than you are. So it’s all of those subtle things that we do that are both unconscious. But it’s not just you and I who pick those things up. Your audience picks them up, too. They might not know why they don’t like you, but they don’t. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Yeah. So I want to talk about the different ways that you serve people because I think this is really important as well. We think of media training. If you’re an individual, something that might happen online, or if you’re a company, somebody who, as I said, flies in with cameras. But you do media coaching. You do consult. You do media training for athletes and celebrities. You do all kinds of different things under your consulting arm. And then you also have courses and books. So let’s start with the consulting. 

Can you take, if someone’s listening right now and says, I really need to start doing publicity for my business, and I’m the owner, so that’s probably going to be me. I’m not really comfortable being on camera or even audio, maybe podcast, or recording. Susan sounds like someone that I should check out. I want her to work directly with me 1 on 1. What would that look like? 

What Working With A Media Coach Is Like

Susan Harrow: Yeah. So I do work 1 on 1 and then I work in groups and I do fly in with my camera. Right? Yeah. I’m actually going to L.A. in October to do media training with a group. That’s then going to be one day in media training. The next day they’re actually going to be filming on camera with the celebrity makeup artist and everything. We’re getting some of the assets that they need when they do publicity done. The professional photos, the footage of them in the studio, and the actual media interview. So that’s super great. So the first level is I work 1 on 1 with people, and I work with them first on the phone or on Zoom. 

And if somebody does want to fly to San Francisco or fly me elsewhere, we work in the studio or we work at their company or in hotel rooms, wherever, it doesn’t really matter. You don’t have to have a quote-unquote company. We can do it in a hotel room, but it’s an organic process where I listen to the way they speak naturally and shape what those messages are that are going to bring in the kind of business they want and develop their brand. We typically do it for a minimum of three months. People stay with me for years and years. That’s really the first level. And then we jump up, obviously we jump up on zoom if you’re close enough. We work in person. 

Especially a lot of my clients, even though I’m a media trainer, clients have asked me, if I’m doing the Ted Talk, I’m doing the media training, and the CEO for his Talk. So I do that as well. If it is something that is way more extensive, I do say I’m not a Ted Talk coach. So if that’s what they need, I will refer them to a Ted Talk Coach. But people have been asking me, some people have the Ted Coach too, the TEDx Coach, and have me. I do that and I’ve media-trained people for we have the Omega Institute that we have here in Santa Cruz, all of that sort of thing. 

And then the next level is I have a small mastermind group, and that is you can get group coaching with me while taking the Zen of Fame, Your Genius Gone Viral®, and go at your own pace. So you get me in a group once a week. And then the last level is that people just want to take the course on their own and go through it at their own pace. It’s self-paced anyway. But if you don’t want my input, you can do that on your own. And that has three parts. Your key messaging, because you actually need the messaging first before you reach out to the media, having your system set up because PR brings people to your door and you need to usher them through the hot leads. And it needs to be in a system that really works. 

And then the last thing is setting up a PR campaign for you. If you can’t hire someone like Lorraine and you want to do it in-house where you’re smaller and when you grow bigger, you can hire her. It’s how to set that up with your own in your personality going a little beyond your comfort zone. Maybe not in your comfort zone because we all know about it. But the other thing that I want to say is that because people’s fears come up and all the stuff comes up. What I want to say is that we do make sure that we cover worst-case scenarios because there’s no such thing as being completely prepared. Something is always going to happen. 

One of my clients now who’s a telemedicine evangelist, she’s a doctor and she’s licensed in 50 states, she said to me the other day, she goes, “I think the one thing that I’m learning here, Susan, is that something’s always going to go wrong. Something is always going to be unexpected.” And I said, “That’s absolutely right.” So one time they put the mic behind her hair, and her hair was covering her face, and she was getting ruffled. There was another time it was a different setup. She had her computer set up in a different way, and they wanted it. She was horizontal, they wanted a vertical. It’s always that they changed the topic. It’s always something. And I’ll be, yes, we have to prepare for all of that. So people think, oh, yeah, I’m ready, I’m going to go on TV. 

And if somebody is not concerned or worried, I am worried, because lots of different things you need to be prepared for, and the most that you need to be prepared for is the unexpected. To be able to maintain your own equanimity, stay on message and come here to deliver the message that you came to give your audience. That’s what’s most important because what people remember is the feeling. They don’t remember the host’s question or the journalist’s question. 

Lorraine Schuchart: I love that people remember how you leave them feeling. 

Susan Harrow: They do. 

Lorraine Schuchart: It’s so true. And I think that’s really important. And I think as you said, that is the whole package, how you’re sitting, how you’re leaning in or leaning out. And you should always train for worst-case scenario while hoping for best case scenario. 

Susan Harrow: We train for both. We train for best scenario, worst scenario, and we ask the questions that you don’t want to be asked and how to navigate around. 

Lorraine Schuchart: That’s really wonderful. So what can you share with people listening? What is a media tip, maybe, that people don’t typically talk about, or just some random fun fact or something that people can think about that they don’t normally think about? Even if they want to practice. Like on Zoom, you can actually go on Zoom or Google Meet or whatever your record preference platform is and record yourself speaking if you’re thinking about starting to do videos in a Facebook group or teach or whatever that is. So what should they look for? Maybe when they’re playing that video back. 

PR Secrets: Have A Sound Bite Buddy To Practice With

Susan Harrow: The quickest way to learn is to jump up. Like we’re doing a Zoom interview together. So you want to be looking at the dot. When Lorraine talking, I’m looking at her, but you want to look 100% at the dot. Now it looks like I’m looking at you. And that’s weird. 

Lorraine Schuchart: My biggest struggle, honestly, I want to. 

Susan Harrow: I want to look at you, too, but I look at you when you’re talking. But when I’m talking, I go ahead and look there, even though and I can kind of see how you’re reacting out of the corner of my eye, right? So I think what we do in the sound bite course and the Xenophane course is we match people up with a sound bite buddy, because you don’t always know your own genius. So you might think something that sounds really smart and really great, but it doesn’t land with the other person. So with the sound bite buddy, we have people practice and give each other feedback, not in a critical way, but in a kind way to say I don’t understand this or can you explain this more? Or I’m not clear on that. And this is what I remember. 

Effective PR Tips for Business Promotion

Check out our PR and Media Training Workshop to Jumpstart your Publicity

So you can start to understand what lands. When somebody is doing a podcast or a media interview, the thing to listen for most is what gets repeated and how someone rephrases what you do. Because sometimes when I tell my clients to listen for this, all the time they have phrased something because they know how to do it because they’re a journalist or producer and they do this all day long. They shape and package you in a certain way and I’m thinking, oh my God, that’s brilliant. So we use it the next time. When somebody who introduces may say something. One time a girl introduced me, she mispronounced martial artist and she said “Susan is a marital artist.” And I go, yes, in a way I am a marital artist in terms of relationship and things like that. 

Those are the kinds of things that can you just want to listen to have somebody package you that is landing with their audience too. Then you want to try that out in real life for you and do it. So it’s role play, rehearsal, and iteration. So that’s one of the most important things. I’m trying to think of something super innovative. 

Lorraine Schuchart: No, I think that’s really important. I think that if you’re too embarrassed recording yourself and playing it back, get over it and then take the next step and have like a sound bite buddy. Explain what you do. Try to get shorter and more succinct. We used to call them elevator pitches and I’ve never been a fan of that because it kind of implied that you memorized something. 

Susan Harrow: Albert Einstein said to make things as simple as possible but no simpler. It’s not dumbing it down, but letting it down. So it’s a brilliant thing. Aphorisms are our very first sound bites, right? Because those are what we remember. And so you do want to have some of those. It’s not the entire conversation, but you want to have those one-liners and things that people are going to remember within the course of a conversation. For sure. 

Lorraine Schuchart: I love that. I think that’s so great. Susan, it’s been so wonderful having this conversation. I want to let everyone know and I do want to touch on the two books you wrote before we go as well. But we will have links to Susan’s website and I think your course is open right now. The Zen of Fame®, right? 

Susan Harrow: That’s open, I have another course that your people might be interested in. The one and only, Get Into O Magazine, Oprah’s Magazine. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Okay, that’s great. 

PR Secrets: Landing A Product Placement In Oprah’s Magazine

Susan Harrow: Yeah. For people, who have products, it’s really the best placement on the planet for things of interest to women. That really can triple your business overnight. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s very different than most other PR. And now she’s got the digital version. The hard copy is quarterly, which is more prestigious to get into. But the digital version has its merits, too, because she’s doing so many Oprah’s favorite things in so many different areas. And also it’s digital, so it is archivable and you can find it forever. So there are advantages to both of the platforms. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Right. I did have a client in Oprah once, but I’m still interested because I don’t know that I could reverse engineer what I did. You may see me signing up for that. And here’s another thing. I love this. So you and I have been in conversation. We’re going to be sharing a client. I think it’s so wonderful to approach people whose offerings may overlap yours and look at ways that you could potentially collaborate because we can learn from each other. Your background is not the same as my background. 

My history of work is not the same as yours. So we each pick up different things. And it’s so nice to be able to learn from someone and not look at them as a competitor, but as a peer who you can share things with and they can share things with you. I love that we’ve been able to do that, and I encourage our listeners this week to do the same. 

Susan Harrow: It’s complimentary. I think one thing that women do is “co-opetition” we do overlap some parts of our business. Right. But that’s okay. And you have strengths and talents and skills, and it’s complementary to what I do. So I think it’s co-opetition and women are really good at that. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Yeah, I totally agree. So you may see me on your new client roster. 

Susan Harrow: I’d love that. 

Lorraine Schuchart: I think that’s great because, you know and that’s another thing, and I just will say this really quickly. Sometimes we have success and then aren’t able to figure out how we did it, and we might be able to do it again anyway, or we might not be able to do it again without kind of really being able to understand how we did it. Right. And some people just brush it off as well, I was just lucky I could never do that again, whereas other people will say, no, I need to figure this out because there had to be a reason. Right. And so I think that’s a really wonderful way to look at, okay, I had the success, I figured out what it was, and now I’m going to share that with people. 

So thank you for offering a lot of the things that you do for people that are not ready to work with you. I think that’s just a great way to help people no matter where they are in their business and in that journey of, okay, now I’m ready for the big time. I want to be in national media. I want to be interviewed on big podcasts and the Today show and all those good things that we listed at the beginning of the hour.

Susan Harrow: I want to say, I do have a lot of free things on my website. Most of them are on the blog, so it’s prsecrets.com/blog. There are a whole lot of different things depending on what you’re interested in. But you can start anywhere from the 100-word email or the editorial calendars. I give 50. There are actually 80 editorial calendars. If you want to start with magazines, which are slower and easier than a podcast. Some, especially people with products, magazines are ideal, right? Because now there are a lot of digital versions as well as hard copy, but that’s a really great placement for products, for sure, as well as your local TV and podcasts and all the other DAMs. So I have something for everyone at every level. So you can start where you are because that’s the only place we can start anyway. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Right, that’s right. 

Susan Harrow: We can’t start any other place because people go, I’m not ready. Well, we’re never, ever ready. 

Lorraine Schuchart: When you step outside your comfort zone, right? We never change things exactly where we are. Yeah. So, Susan, I always end my interviews by asking people, what does it mean for you to prosper? 

Make Your Personal Growth A Daily Practice

Susan Harrow: My goal is peace of mind, which I’m very far from. So it’s a daily practice for me. I practice all the same things that I ask my clients to practice because I want to grow myself in a way. I want to grow myself personally and professionally, spiritually, emotionally, and all those things. So to me, I have a lot of daily practice. So for me to prosper is for me to feel like I am peacefulness and equanimity and able to have freedom. I know all of you entrepreneurs are thinking about this, but the freedom to set up my whole day the way that I want. The freedom to choose the kind of clients that I like to work with, the freedom to connect with. 

I’ve set my schedule up so I do have time for my family and my friends and my daily rituals and my walking and my training and my podcasts that I listen to. I’m always doing something in Master class. My sweetie goes, you’re a lifelong learner. I’ll say, yes. I took a master class, one of my favorite ones with Alicia Keys. I’m never going to write music, but she has so much to teach me. So for me, it’s prospering the mind of the spirit of my expansiveness into freedom in all of those areas. And of course, being comfortable. I know we talked about the comfort of having enough money to do what you want as well. And that’s it too. I don’t need any more stuff. I’m not really interested in any more stuff. 

I want to clean out the stuff that I have. Part of my prosperity is I would like to divest myself of some of the things that I have to simplify because you know what I mean? I know a sort of crazy dream is like sometimes I think just like Steve Jobs, one outfit not to have all that stuff to worry about, to be like the monks. It’s like you just wear one set of clothes so you can focus on the things that are important. 

Lorraine Schuchart: Wardrobe is popular now. 

Susan Harrow:  Oh, really? Okay. But then again, I love different pieces of jewelry and things like that. So I go back and forth. But I think to me, prosperity is the simplifying, the Zenifying of my life too. So I’m focusing, I have the time to focus on the things that are really the most important thing to me. 

Lorraine Schuchart: That’s wonderful. I love that so much. Susan Harrow, her website, and her company is PR Secrets. Her books are Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul and Hire Your Next Boss And Get Your Dream Job. You can link to all the ways that you can work with Susan. Her books, her freebies, everything at prsecrets.com. Susan Harrow, it was so wonderful having you as my guest on The Prosper Project today. Thanks so much. 

Check out our PR and Media Training Workshop to Jumpstart your Publicity