Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Mini-MasterClass with Gloria Chou: How to Hack Your PR!

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

Welcome to this week’s episode on The Radcast! Get ready for a special mini-masterclass featuring PR guru, Gloria Chou. Gloria started her career as a diplomat for the United States Government before venturing into Chinese Television where she was a TV Producer. Through the years, she's built a substantial network while cultivating the best practices for hacking your own PR. She’s developed her own method that’s proven widely successful.Here’s the BEST part -- TODAY Gloria is having her own MasterClass diving deeper into the conversation you’ll hear today on The Radast! Checkout the information below for more details.Masterclass:www.gloriachoupr.com/masterclassPR Starter Pack:www.prstarterpack.comFacebook Community:www.getfeaturednow.comProven Podcast Pitch Template FREEBIE:https://learn.gloriachoupr.com/podcastfeatureTo keep up with all the latest from Gloria, visit her website www.goriachoupr.com or follow her on Instagram @gloriachoupr If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that's radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

you're listening to the radcast if it's radical we cover it here's your host ryan all hey guys what's up it's ryan alford welcome to the latest edition of the radcast we're here live from the well live for us at least this could be any day anywhere for you but we're in live from the, well, live for us, at least. This could be any day, anywhere for you. But we're in the Radcast studios at the home of Radical here in the lovely Greenville, South Carolina. And I'm joined today by someone in a field that I've been given more props to lately than I've ever said. The letters P and R have been coming out of my mouth more than I ever thought imaginable. Gloria, good to have you on the show. So awesome to be here.

Gloria Chow, founder of Gloria Chow PR. PR badass. Can I call you a PR badass? Why not? I love it. Let's use more cuss words throughout this whole interview. Hey, look, you're on the Radcast, baby. Yes, 100%. That's why I'm here. the radcast baby yes 100 that's why i'm here so uh let's talk about gloria and pr so i've been talking you know you've listened to any of our episodes i literally said two episodes ago i was talking to a good friend of mine michael valor who does a lot of pr and personal branding and influencer stuff and i'm getting to this point where i'm like, you know, I'm not so sure you don't start with PR, like when you've got a brand or something, it's like, and maybe that's like all the PR

experts are going, oh shit, I told you that. We've been telling you that for however long, but no, I'm serious. Like the power of PR with all of the channels that are today and everything that is media, it's such a powerful thing. And I don't know that people are leveraging it enough. 100%. I'll tell you something else. In the day and age where we're all at home, we're not going to fancy schmancy schnoozing events with publicists. Your chance of getting featured is just as fair as the other one, right? So now is the time. I've never had anyone tell me, oh, you know, like learning how to pitch on and get on a podcast. What a drag. Like this is a skill that people want to learn. But I think fundamentally, humans are afraid of rejection. And so the reason why people don't do PR, even though they're just like I, like you said, badasses, visionaries is because it's so much rather handed off to someone

else. So hopefully in this, in this episode, I'm going to kind of break that down a little bit and share with you a technique that's worked so that you don't have to get rejected as much and you know exactly how to pitch. I love it. I can't wait to get into it. We're going to hack your PR folks, but let's talk a little bit about Gloria and the foundation of what's kind of gotten you here, what's gotten you coaching and sharing all these insights. We're going to talk about the CPR pitching method, all of those things. But let's tell everybody a little bit about that background. I know you were a producer, a diplomat, PR badass now. Let's give everybody a little of the background. So I always say my life is kind of like building a bus while I'm riding in the bus.

So I never know where it's going to go. I mean, people are like, what? Just pick a career, damn it. But luckily, we're in an age now where it's a little bit more acceptable, but I'll break it down to this is I just love to see people win. And like nothing makes me happier than helping people be more seen, more heard and valued. Right. So obviously, you know, I started off as a TV producer where I was literally Googling to try to get interviews with A-list stars. So Oliver Stone, like Nobel prize winners. This is for Chinese TV documentary. So we were staying in motels. We had no money. And my job was to basically get these A-list people onto the show. And I think that's really what helped me perfect my cold calling, my cold outreach methods.

You know this more than anyone, right? Like that is so pivotal to someone's success is just being able to get out there and get rejected. So did a lot of that. And then kind of got sick, got sick of, you know, being a documentary producer and not really having, you know, that much income coming in. And my mom was like, you need to get a real job. So then I was like, all right. And I was like, okay, I love foreign relations. I love public affairs. I'm multilingual. Let's give this a shot. So I went three, I went 180 degrees in the other direction, became a government bureaucrat. I had a security clearance was sworn in by then secretary of state, John Kerry. And I was on the diplomatic track. I had 25 years ahead of me, pension, all of that. But I was deeply miserable because I was in a golden cage. And I, at age 30, I would like to say, you know,

kind of at age 30, is it like midlife crisis? Moved back home, gave up my pension, gave up my diplomatic security. And by the way, every time I'm in an airport, I'm reminded of that because now I can no longer go through the diplomatic line, but hey, we all make choices, right? And I got home, got back on unemployment and kind of rebuilt my career. And I wanted to work in PR because I just loved pitching. And I knew that that was something I could do. I probably applied for over 1000 jobs. Okay. I had people putting in, you know, references for me and I just could not get a single one because everybody, every agency wanted very specific experience. They wanted agency experience. And I did not have

an agency experience. So I said, all right, universe, what you got for me? So I just went and I was like, this is a test. I'm going to just go for it. I started doing PR for very, very, very tiny startups. I'm talking two founders and an engineer. They didn't even have a product. And they said, sure, I'll have PR. Who doesn't want to be, you know, have PR, you know what, we'll pay you 500 bucks to get you to get me featured on like a CNBC or something like that. And 250 for, you know, publications. I ended up cold calling and getting them onto FT Reuters, AP, Yahoo finance, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NBC. So you name it, I did it. And I was like, all right, maybe I could do this. And so now I just teach the methods that I've learned from

thousands of rejections and cold calls. And I teach founders around the world how they can do their own PR. I think I'd have a hard time giving up that security clearance. Let me just tell you, flying commercial, it sucks. You know, going through, got a little better, you know, one of the terrible, you know, not that we would give up or, you know going through got a little better you know and one of the terror you know not that we would give up or you know have covid to deal with lighter airport traffic but that might have made it temporarily better till i went to las vegas a couple weeks ago to be on a podcast and good grief it's like i was reminded i was i don't know i'd have giving that up right back with the peasants yeah but i love it i think now it's like finally

i feel like i'm making an impact in a way that I'm really supposed to make an impact. And I mean, just getting messages from founders on my LinkedIn, they say, Gloria, I watched your masterclass and I got my, you know, like bed sheet company, like something super boring into like Canadian Vogue and I'm on Buzzfeed. And I was like, all right. So now I have a pair of bed sheets that he gifted me. So. I love that. We had the founder and CEO of Sheets and Giggles

on a month ago. And I am now sleeping on a bed of their eucalyptus sheets. And let me just tell you, they're amazing. But Colin, what was Colin's last name, really? Yeah, McIntosh. Colin McIntosh. Cool dude. Anyway, sidebar. Talk to me about this. I feel like there's this fine line where we get into some of your methods, like this fine line of advertorial, PR, paid. We're getting into this messy middle sometimes of what's earned media, what's paid media, what's paid media. What's your perspective on all of that? And how do you delineate the two? Ooh, that is such a good question because I, you know, it's so funny every day I get targeted with these ads as well. That's like, we'll get you featured on boom, boom, boom. And I'm like,

do you even know what I do? Because like, wow. So, so yes, I get it. But their targeting wasn't very good. Yeah, exactly. 100%. I'm like, so it is such a complex and nuanced landscape, right? Because what you have now is a lot of people and a lot of these channels who will accept advertising money and they will be able to give you in return, like a placement, but it's going to say on their advertising content. And we, this is 2021. We have a smart generation of consumers. So once you read that, you're not even going to continue to read the rest of the story. So, you know, consumers are smart and they understand the difference between something that's paid and something that's truly earned. And that's

why PR agencies are getting away with charging 10, 20, 30, 40 grand. Right. And so my whole mission is to make it accessible and pull back the curtain and say, you know what, it is daunting to go and pitch to a journalist, but it doesn't have to be that hard. You need to have a pitch that's not super marketing speak because they don't want to be your free advertising vehicles. And as long as you can transform your product or your service into a relevant newsworthy story, then there's no limit to the amount of articles,

right? I always say there is no such thing as a newsworthy company because I've written pitches for candles, for bath salts, but there is such a thing as a newsworthy angle. Love it. Love it. Love it. No different than branding on some levels. Like we say those same things sometimes. It's like, you got to make your brand memorable. You got to make your story memorable. So all of that relates. So talk to me about like, what's in developing your system for coaching and, you know, methods and things like that. I imagine it's from the trial and error for how many ever years and learning, you know, methods and things like that. I imagine it's from the trial and error for how many ever years and learning, you know, and experiencing doing this for others, right?

100%. You know, so I never had any journal. So I didn't study journalism. I don't have a single journalist friend. I studied politics and I never worked at an agency. So I came into it cold calling politics and I never worked at an agency. So I came into it cold calling Google, right? And I didn't have anybody, you know, relying on their relationships. So that's how I started. And I took all the different commonalities from the times that I pitched, whether it's email or cold call. And at this point it's thousands of them. And I started to notice patterns of when an editor would actually respond and when it kind of just went into the trash. And so after years of doing this, I mean, now I've gained over one billion organic views for all of my clients, most of whom are super early stage. Some of them don't even have a website.

I noticed that there were some key elements to a pitch that usually gets noticed. And so that is how I came up with my CPR method. That is kind of the tangible part of it. But I think a bigger part of it is the mindset part. And I think, you know, in a saturated market, we know that traffic alone is not enough, right? So if I see an ad, like whatever, but if I'm debating between, let's say, you know, two companies, and I see that you've lent your expertise to a podcast or to an entrepreneur, I'm probably going to go with you, even if it's more expensive and marketing just doesn't get you there, right? You know that because you're in branding. So PR is the only way to both get authority and traffic. So that's kind of what I'm talking about

here is that earned media. And so how do you have a conversation with a journalist who you've never met and you probably never will and get them to feel like your pitch is value driven enough that they want to share it with their audience? Huge. I'm going to circle one word there that is kind of the crux of it, especially whether it's a brand, a business or the founders or people, personal authority. or the founders or people, personal authority. That is the key with PR that people don't understand that you can't build authority with advertising alone. It's not that it has zero impact on authority because you could buy your way to some of it, but 80, 90% of it has to be built through more authentic, more earned, more other people building you up and talking about you or writing about you or whatever that medium is, having that influence that elevates you. I say to people all the time, sometimes you can't always lift yourself

up. Sometimes others have to do it. and that's authority is such a crucial ingredient these days with having that authenticity and having leverage. 100%. And, and, you know, I read somewhere that it takes 25 touch points or more for when someone encounters your brand to when they buy, right? So think of PR and that authority breaking, you know, reducing 25 touch points to two touch points, because especially if you're in B2B, you really need that authority, right? And in terms of marketing and PR, the analogy I always love to give is imagine a man and a woman are on a date,

right? So the man's telling the woman that he's smart. He has a great family and he graduated from this school. That's marketing, right? He's saying the right things to the right people. Now imagine the woman's going home and her most trusted friend from childhood calls her up and says, you know, that guy you were on a date with, he has such a good reputation. I see him volunteering at the cancer hospital every Saturday. He is such a gem. You really have to play your cards right. You see how that's different. That is the power of PR. 100% social proof, baby. It's like, that's what we call it all the time. Like everybody wants to sell their stuff. Like we were the e-commerce brands. They have no reputation. They're like,

well, why aren't we selling stuff? We built an e-commerce store. And I'm like, there's no social proof. You know, we can do that with PR, but you got to do that with reviews. You got to do that through social media. I mean, it's all of those things, but it's credibility, you know, authority and then credibility, you know, all of those things kind of go hand in hand. And that's what PR can do for you that others can't. So what are some other parts of the CPR method? What is what is I'm sure that's an acronym for something. So let's let's get into it. If whoever's listening and multitasking, come back to us because this is the most important part. So Ryan, I found throughout thousands of cold calls,

thousands of times people have slammed phones in my face. I started to pick up on when I could get that person to stay on the phone a little bit longer. Right. And I boiled it down to my CPR method. So your pitch needs to have these three things, the C, which is credibility, one sentence on why you are giving this pitch. A lot of founders go crazy here and they overstuff it with their autobiography and all kinds of stuff that journalists don't care about. So the credibility is literally one line. I am a founder. Boom. Right? And then the P stands for point of view. Why? Because experts have point of view. Remember, you're not positioning yourself as a seller. You're positioning yourself as a thought leader. That means you need to have

insight on where the industry is headed. For example, if you are in e-commerce and you make a stuff for moms, I don't care what industry or what product you are in, 2020 has changed the landscape for all of us. So what are the three ways people are using products differently? How has that influenced family dynamics? It could be three ways to use technology to homeschool your ADHD child, like whatever it is, I want three bullet points. That is your point of view, positions you as an expert. The R stands for relevance. This is super important and probably the most important part. This tells the editor your pitch needs to be answered to right now and then not three years ago or three years from now.

Right. So think about what are the seasonalities? If you are in a heavily regulated industry like therapy or finance, it might be something to do with the new laws that are coming out. Right. SBA loans, like whatever it is. If you are in e-commerce or retail, it could be about Black Friday. It could be about shopping trends around the holidays. It could be about Black Friday. It could be about shopping trends around the holidays. If you're a career coach, it could be something about graduation day and the three most important sought-after skills. So that's exactly what I'm talking about here. And you need to make sure your pitch has the credibility, the point of view, and the relevance.

Love it. I love it. Credibility, point of view, relevance. And you can see where all three of those are so key, because I think you nailed it on the credibility part. I think founders, and I've been guilty of this, not intentionally, I know what you just said. And it's like, I've got to really show, I've got to tell the... They're not write a uh a two-page story on your credit you know your background you know you gotta condense it down uh to uh what are those salient points that truly you know build you as that authority for why they want your point of view and then of course making it relevant but uh the uh that's the biggest thing i see is like it's no different than like a brand and we're

building a website or doing something else. Less is more baby. Yeah. Because it's not about you, right? It's about what's the value for the audience. And, and look, your story is important. Every single person that's founded a company has a story, but the point of the pitch is just to get the journalist on the phone. It's not a whole life autobiography, Ken Burns style, right? It's just, what is the shortest way for me to convey like three value points that they can turn to a headline? And here's two things I think anyone listening, you should do right now to start to train your mind to think like that is I want you to install a Google news alert. So if you type in Google news alert, Google will ping you with all the different publications,

anything that's written online about your industry. So if you're in AI, if you're in fitness, whatever, you're going to start to understand what are the actual subject lines that people are talking about. Another thing you can do is if you've ever heard of HARO, which stands for Help a Reporter Out, right? It's kind of like a journalist inquiry.

It can get really crazy because there's hundreds of them journalists asking to be interviewed for whatever. They're like, oh, I'm looking for the person who has expertise on this. So those are two very grassroots ways you can start to figure out how to connect with journalists

and what they're looking for. I love the Google Alerts. I think I've got to trim mine back because I'm starting to get too many, but I load them up. I don't know if you have that problem. I like load them up. I'm like, I'm not even following that topic anymore or whatever, but, uh, it is super powerful because it will give you, I've got like my own name in there and there's several Ryan offers and it'll show up. And I was like, you know, I did a joke on Instagram story. Like some guy won a golf tournament with my exact name. And I was like, I like, I did this whole spoof. It was right around like April Fool's day. And I was like, I, you know, I won this

tournament. I had like three people DM me, man, I didn't even know you played golf. That is amazing. That's hilarious. That is a great story. But I do love Google alerts. Huge, huge. So those are two things. And if you go on my website, glorychildpr.com, I have a template, which is a podcast template. You can fill in the blanks and you can start to see where, how I write the C and the P and the R in my CPR method. And so that's kind of your way.

If you've ever wanted to get on a podcast, you can start there. And obviously I have my masterclass where I actually revealed the pitch that I wrote for a founder who was not funded. And I show you the email pitch that I wrote and how it got onto Fast Company with a link to the eventual article. We're talking value here, folks, real world examples for how to do this. So get after it. But I do. It's funny. It's I believe this. I tell clients it's this is where some PR and advertising and marketing are definitely synergized, which is everyone's favorite radio station is WIFM. What's in it for me? And it's no different when you're writing the

pitch to the reporter or the journalist, what's in it for them? You know, like you got everyone's favorite station. Yeah. And you know, one thing is as you get past the, okay, I'm not going to put three, four lines about my credibility and they're actually writing the pitch using my method. Another stumbling block is that they want to appeal to everyone. And you know, there's more than anyone. When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. So if your pitch is super fluffy and it's like how we are living in 2021, like that doesn't give me a lot, right? So I want you to be specific. Does your product

or service target a certain demographic, right? If you can cross compare two different sectors, that's even better. Like for example, I worked with a career coach. So talk about market saturation, right? And what I came up with him, with him was, you know what, you should run a survey. So he literally did a survey. I'm talking like free 99 Google forms. Okay. Not a data scientist. He got a Google forms. He went onto LinkedIn and said, Hey, I'm doing a survey, $5 Starbucks card. If you graduated in 2008, which is the recession or in 2020, let me know. I would love your thoughts. He cross-compared their survey answers on how they felt their college degree was worth it, whether or not they felt optimistic about it. He basically took that as proprietary data and he was able to start conversations with New York

Times, Forbes, you know, fast company. He ended up getting featured on Forbes Inc, the Tennessean. And I think, I think one more, I think entrepreneur. So it works because journalists are not going to be able to do that kind of work. You don't need a big sample size. You don't need to interview 5,000 people, right? It could be like 20 and 20. I love that. I love that a lot. We've talked about that very tactic of surveys and other things. And because people want data, you know, and that's back to that proof, you know, like the points and all those things and building the story and having credibility around it, all those things. Yeah, you could say it and you've got experience and all that. But when you've got, you know, 33% of this and 4% of that, you've got credible data points that back it up. I've always been coached before that that that's like the journalist, the journalists love that

stuff. 100%. If you can just do like 1% or 10% a little bit more work, automatically, you're going to be the one to be interviewed, right? It bit more work automatically, you're going to be the one to be interviewed, right? It just, it just shows that you're willing to go out there. And here's another thing about pitching is that, um, I think it shows that you are so confident in your fidget spinner and your, whatever it is, right. That you are able to actually put yourself out there and pitch. And that gives me confidence as a consumer. So a lot of times, you know, like you're saying, Oh, I just make a product. Like, why do I need PR for, or what, what is my angle? So if you don't know how you're making an impact beyond just your product, then maybe you

shouldn't get featured. But I would dare to say that every single founder is here to make an impact in a way that's just more than their immediate product. So let's channel that energy. Yeah. And that's brings me to another another point that's like the struggle with some companies now, like it's hard for the founders to be behind the curtains. You know, like it's just, we're just in such a day and age, people want to know the people they're doing business with. They want to know their values. They want to get to know them.

PR allows those angles and it's such a struggle. And don't get me wrong. I guess if you're fortunate enough to build a category-defining product, maybe you can hide behind the product. But short of that, it's just so important for people that want to know and understand the person, the background, the perspective of the people they're doing business with. Well, exactly. Especially now with, you know, our values, right? Whether it's political, environmental, people want to know. And so what better way to communicate exactly where you stand than being on a podcast and being interviewed and, you know, and it's not just about being interviewed. It's like getting to know these people and speaking on conferences, it's going

to be able to help you with every future endeavor that you have, right? It's about networking. So yes, if you want to stay behind the curtain, that's fine. But you know, I've never heard anyone complain about being invited to more tables. No, especially the right tables. We get to the image table or the golden globes. Oh yeah. With that buffet, sign me up. I know. Well, where can everybody keep up with everything? Gloria Chow, I know you mentioned your website. Let's mention it again. Any of your social channels, all of those things, where can everybody keep up with you? Like I said, I have the podcast template that's gotten me onto at least 30 podcasts that's on my website. And I have a thriving Facebook community now of small business owners who are probably on

the same journey as your listeners, maybe feeling a little overwhelmed, feeling like PR is an expensive luxury item. And I actually made that community full of founders who are supportive. And I go live in it every Friday with how I got featured. So every Friday I interview a small business owner who got featured. And I actually have a lot of podcasters on there. So you might be able to get onto a podcast as well. You can find that and join our community at getfeaturednow.com. I love it.

I love it. And I want to stay in touch because I want to leverage some of these secrets and maybe any of the other things you got up your sleeve that you keep for special people that have you on their podcast. 100%. 100%.

And one more thing is on my masterclass that I do every three months, I'm doing one coming up. I actually revealed the exact pitch that I talked to you about, the one that she got onto Fast Company. So I do a screen share of exactly how I wrote it. So if you want to come to my upcoming masterclass, you can go to laurachowpr.com slash masterclass, you can go to GloriaChaoPR.com slash masterclass. Love it. Get on people. PR is the key, especially in 2021. It may have been always the key and maybe I'm just coming around to it 20 years into my career. I don't know which it is. It's probably a combination of both, but Gloria knows her stuff. You know where to find her. She just told you,

you know where to find us, theradcast.com. All of this content, all the highlights from this episode and others will be there. Just search for PR, all the angles, all the stuff is there. Search for anything. You know where to find me on Instagram, at Ryan Offord on tic-tac-at-ryan.offord. I am verified there. You can DM me there, anything you want to do. We'll see you next time on the Radcast. Yo guys, what's up? Ryan Offford here. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate it. But do us a favor. If you've been enjoying the Radcast, you need to share the word with a friend or anyone

else. We'd really appreciate it. And go leave us a review at Apple or Spotify. Do us a solid. Tell more people. Leave us some reviews. And hey, here's the best news of all. If you want to work with me directly, if you want to get your business kicking ass and you want Radical or myself involved, you can text me directly at

864-729-3680. Don't wait another minute. Let's get your business going. 864-729-3680. We'll see you next time.