Trading Secrets - 176. More Than Money: Breaking down how to succeed in branding, finding your niche, and navigating the world of PR with business coach Julie Solomon

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

This week, Jason is joined by entrepreneur, business coach, public speaker, bestselling author, podcast host and working mom of two, Julie Solomon! For more than 15 years, Julie has been empowering lives, including her own, and has launched several successful online programs and masterminds including, Pitch It Perfect, The Influencer Academy and Shine Mastermind. She was recently named one of the top 100 leaders in influencer marketing. Julie breaks down the importance of PR and branding, the steps to building your brand, when to bring in a publicist, how media and PR work in regards to ROI, how niching down is key, what the diamond method is, why she finds selling a $3,000 course is easier than selling a $30 book, how a huge following is not critical to monetizing, secret to negotiation, and finding your anchor price. It’s an episode you can’t afford to miss!  To get access to Julie’s FREE class: juliesolomon.net/trading Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: John Gurney Guest: Julie Solomon Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial  Trading Secrets Steals & Deals! Cort Furniture: Get furniture on your terms with CORT. Rent or Buy furniture that flexes to fit any situation, style and budget and to get 50% off your first month’s furniture rental head over to cort.com/podcast Farmer’s Dog: Brighten up your dog’s bowl with fresh, healthy food. Get 50% off your first box, delivered to your door here

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets, More Than Money Edition. Today, we are joined by entrepreneur, business coach, public speaker, bestselling author, podcast host, and working mom of two, Julie Sullivan. For more than 15 years, Julie has been empowering lives, including her own. the host of the influencer podcast. Julie has launched several successful online programs and masterminds, including Pitch It Perfect, The Influencer Academy, and Shine Mastermind. She helps women turn messages into movements and empowers entrepreneurs to grow their influence and impact through her work. Julie was recently named one of the top 100 leaders in influencer marketing. Having been featured in publications like Forbes, entrepreneur, business insider, success, and

people, we are going to pick the entrepreneurial brain of a true brand building expert and learn how she got to where she is today. Julie, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of More Than Money. Thank you so much for having me, friend. It's good to be here. It is good to be here. And I'll tell you what, when we talk about brand building, there is not one person listening to this that I should lose because whether you are a teacher, whether you are a cleaner of homes, or you are a CEO or a celebrity. You have a brand and building it in this day and age, especially with access to social media, is not something one needs to consider or want to do. It's something they need to do, and you are the expert of that.

So we're going to get into that. But before we do, we haven't really explored the world of PR on this podcast before. And your background is all in PR. You worked at OMG, Thomas Nelson, press here, et cetera. So I want to get into just the concept of PR. So for anyone that doesn't know, or they're just business listeners, and they're like, I don't get it when people say, like, what is PR for brands or people? And what does it actually do to benefit their brands? How would you answer that? Yeah. So this is a great question. And it actually kind of ties into branding beautifully. So I think I'm going to be able to answer two questions in one. So I think to understand the importance of PR, we first need to understand the importance of branding and what branding is. So branding is not what a lot of people think it is, right? Branding is not a logo, even though that's a very useful tool. tool for branding. That's not what branding is. A lot of people think branding is what I offer,

my products and services. Well, that's what you sell, but it's not what your brand is. There's a lot of things that people think branding is, but really at the core of it, branding is your reputation. It is the perception of whatever people have at what it is that you're throwing out at them. And as long as they have that corralled mostly to where you want it to go, then you're winning. and it's all great. The big problem is, though, that most people don't have their brand corralled where they want it to go.

It's not being seen by the people that it's meant to be seen by. There's no clarity. There's no through line with what it is that they offer. So where PR comes into play, PR is just one of the many mediums or channels, if you will, that help mold and shape that perception

of your reputation. So that is essentially my definition of what branding is and really what PR and how PR plays a part in that. And so with PR, public relations, it's that perception of a brand, a personality, or a business in the public form. And so you will have publicists that's goal and job is to really shape the perception, the message, and all of the nuances that come with who you are as a business brand or as a

personal brand. It's perfectly said. I always think like using base cases that we all know is a good way to tie in theory and lessons so it clicks. And when you're saying what you're saying, instantly I think of one of the most reputable or most well-known brands out there, reputable is up for debate and discussion, I guess, but McDonald's, right? And to exactly what you said, it's not that people remember McDonald's because of cheeseburger or French fry or a specific item on their menu. It connects

actually to the book McDonald's Society. When you go to a McDonald's, no matter where in the world it is, you have the expectation of what their reputation has built for all the years. The smell, the food, the price, everything that comes with it. So I think it's perfectly said, and that's an example that we see every day as we're driving. Now, let's get into PR for my everyday listener to PR to a massive celebrity, because I know that you've represented Grammy award-winning musicians and Golden Globe award-winning artists, et cetera. So when we get into PR, let's go to Mom Pop. So Susan is listening to this in Cleveland, Ohio, and she is, she just started an esthetician company where she's got a couple areas where she's doing facials and skin care.

So very small. How would something like PR benefit her? And would you suggest her engaging with a publicist, given your experience? So if she was starting out, I would actually not suggest her engaging with the publicist because I feel like she may be kind of throwing money at a wall to seeing what sticks. So there's a couple of steps that need to happen before I believe someone gets to a place where they are actually ready to be amplified by a PR strategy or a publicist. So the first thing that I would tell her is that she needs to be YOP, which stands for

be your own publicist. You need to start getting out there, building that relationship, shaping that perception for yourself, getting really clear on what your unique value proposition is, who your ideal buyer is, and how are you effectively and efficiently articulating that value to them through all of the various media channels that you have, one of which is the probably fastest and easiest way to grow and to get to that ideal buyer nowadays is social media. So that is the avenue that I would say you've got to really start to build your own platform there first. You've got to start to really articulate and get clear on what those

points are for you. And then you may be ready to have a publicist help you amplify that. I think a lot of times where people get mixed up is if they're sitting here thinking, okay, but Julie, what if I don't know how to figure that out for myself? What if I don't know what my unique value proposition is. What if I am not clear on who, like I think I know who my ideal buyer is, but if no one's buying from me or I'm not getting those consistent sales,

like how do I do better at that? And that's when I think that it actually makes more sense to probably invest in some brand strategy first, get really clear on who you are as a business and personal brand because those are really the tools that a publicist actually needs to then take and then amplify. But if there is no brand foundation there to begin with, it's going to be a lot harder for a publicist to essentially amplify what may or may not be

there. And so building the platform, I think, is huge. And then from there, you're going to start being able to have more of that meat, if you will, for a publicist to come on board and say, okay, we now have this platform to work with. How do we amplify it? So I think, again, PR and publicity is more about amplifying what's already there, whereas brand strategy and laying that brand foundation is about building what's needed to get there. I love it. It's brilliant advice. but one of the things you did say, and I think for anyone that's listening, like take that and run with it, especially when you think about dollars and cents and deploying them efficiently

in the early stages of the business. But one of the thing you said is it's not worth the money. So give someone an idea of different PR retainers you can expect if you hire a publicist, let's say low end, high end, and what you'd say on average, someone should expect to pay. Yeah. So, you know, any credible publicist or PR firm at this day and age, and this is May 23rd of 2024, you're going to be looking at anywhere between, I would say, $4,000 maybe on the low end, all the way upwards to $15,000 to $20K a month, depending on who you are, what the project and plan is. To give you my own example, when I did a book launch for my book that came out back in 2022, I paid a PR team $6,500 a month, minimum retainer of six months. And that was

pretty standard for, you know, the traditional media landscape that I was focusing on. We also focused on some podcasts. But that's really another. thing to consider is that, you know, what kind of PR team are you hiring? Are they going to be focusing on the traditional PR landscape, which is more TV, you know, dot com, print inclusions, those type of things? Or are you looking for them to really help support a lot of your social media endeavors? Because those projects are probably going to dictate the fee and the retainer. But that is, is, would be my recommendation for anyone listening. And then, you know, if there's somebody out there that's like, hey, I charge $2,500 a month. I mean,

you could definitely still flirt with that idea and see what it is that they have to offer. But, I mean, when I started in PR back in 2007, we were charging at minimum $3,000 a month. So just knowing that we've, you know, with inflation and everything else that's coming up, I truly believe that you do get what you pay for, especially when it comes to an asset that is under the umbrella of any type of PR and marketing. And so those are the ranges that people can kind of expect realistically. Okay, great. When people think of marketing, especially small businesses, or they're just like building their brand for themselves, obviously it comes at a cost.

And then hopefully with that cost, there is a return. So when you think about the $6,500 that you spent on the six months, what are some things that you looked at to justify that spend or at the end of the six months to say that money was absolutely well spent or that was poorly well spent? And people back home, what are some things they should look for if they do hire or engage a PR firm to help them? with their branch. Yeah, this is a great question. And I love it. There's actually an old saying in the PR world, Jason, and it's advertising is paid and PR is prayed. And so a lot of times it's hard to quantify the ROI of that. But this is actually what I love to work with my clients on because I really kind of help them think bigger when it comes to PR. So for example, I had a client that had a book come out and she worked with the PR team for 12 months. And she came to me and she was like,

Julie, like, I just feel like I didn't get a lot from this. Like I did 12 months of the and, you know, I wanted GMA and I didn't get it and I wanted this and I didn't get it. And, you know, instead I got, you know, I did over 95 interviews with a bunch of local markets like your KTLAs and your New York ones. And she goes and now the campaign's done. And it's like, yeah, the book did well, but I just feel like I spent all this time and energy and money on this PR campaign and like for what? And I said, okay, well, and I'll just say your name, Angela.

I said, okay, Angela, now what are you going to do with all of that? And she goes, what are you talking about? I said, you're sitting on a goldmine of media assets now. If someone Googles you, all of those videos are going to come up. All of those media clips are going to come up. So not only is that doing your job for you of building authority, but how do we take that KTLA segment and turn it into a real? How do we take that KTL segment and maybe create a blog post for your readers

to send out to your email list? How are we taking that PR, that segment on KTL? and repurposing it into 50,000 other pieces of content that you now don't have to pay for. And so that's really the first step of like, let's think bigger here. Let's not just think about, oh, I did this and I didn't get GMA, therefore there's no return here. And it's like, how are we taking all of these assets, podcast assets, dot com inclusions that you've got, book reviews, you know, no matter the TV segment, it's still a TV segment. You're still sitting in front of a camera talking about your brand, talking about your products and

services and how are we using that to be to start coming into what I call your nurture channel to start nurturing your idle buyers and using that media as a sales engine for yourself by building that authority that PR gives you in the first place and so that would be my feedback to anyone of you know the ROI might not be as clear cut as say an advertising campaign right I'm going to give you know Facebook I'm going to give you for you know a dollar and you're going to give me back three there are ways that you can really amplify the ROI and this is what I did and what I helped Angela and some other clients do to say, okay, this is what the campaign got you for the first round. Now, how are we going to take this and set up a plan of action for you to build more

visibility and awareness to keep using this content over and over and over again? And let's see what the ROI is for that. Let's set up, you know, an email sequence where you're sharing all of these media clips with a click to purchase something from you. Let's look at that click rate. Let's look at that purchase rate. And then we'll be able to quantify an ROI there. So there's a lot more nuances, if you will, when it comes to media and PR and that ROI piece that goes beyond just the, I gave someone a dollar. Now what's my return? Because there's so much visibility there that you can't really put a dollar sign on, if you will. Yeah. And it just goes back to like creative ingenuity and being innovative.

with what is given to you. Because like you said, if you take those clips, you have 4K cameras, you're on set, you have four personalities there interviewing you. If you take five clips from that, the amount of money you'd have to spend for a studio to put four people in those chairs to get those clips with that quality of audio,

then you put the Google SEO in your name connected to it, and your return is right there in literally one interview. So I think that's a great piece of advice. Now, I want to transition to branding a little bit because I think people get really stuck on branding. I think we initially immediately always think branding and go to that McDonald's example that I gave earlier. But each of us, in our own right, no matter what we do, no matter what our occupation is, we all have our own brand. And a lot of people are stuck in their careers.

They're stuck in life. They're trying to do the next thing, but they haven't tapped into themselves or their brand in any capacity. For those like 101ers who are really trying to step into who they are and what their brand is, what are some big pieces of advice you give as it connects to the, building blocks of like day one, I really want to hone in on my brand and like exercises they could actually do to get there. Yeah, absolutely. So if we know that brand equals reputation, because we talked about that earlier, then we also know that I'm probably not going to just have one brand, meaning the perception of my reputation that Jason has could be completely different than the perception of my reputation that Samantha or Hillary or whoever has. And so it's first about

realizing that I'm probably going to have a bunch of different types of brand perceptions out there. And I can't necessarily control that. What I can control is what is my, who am I talking to? What do they need or want from me? And what solution to what do I provide? And what do I specialize in? And I think that that last one is super, super huge. So when we talk about the unique value that I provide, right? Like what does someone come to me for so much. so that I could put, I could monetize it, right? I could put some kind of money behind it. It's that valuable. Then who needs it? You know, who is the ideal buyer that is in so much pain that they cannot wait to pay someone for a solution for their problems? Then we go to the next one of,

well, what problem am I solving for this person? What is the problem that they're having? And then how I solve that problem is with my specialization. And a lot of times people come to me, I mean, I don't know if you've heard it too, Jason, that they're just like, you know, I have such a hard time with branding, Julie, because, you know, all I hear all the time is that I need a niche down and I've got to pick a niche and niche this and niche that, but I don't want to niche down. You know, I'm so multi-passionate and I want to help everybody and I want to serve everybody. And here's my thing with that. If the niching down bit confuses someone or gets them stuck, then throw that off the table.

I don't want to focus about niche and down. It's not like a niche really is just a subgroup of people that you see. serve. It's not your content. It's not your offer. It's just a subset of people within a greater group that you serve. I like to then focus more on what do you specialize in? Because if you can really hone in and become the absolute best at what it is that you specialize in, then you can do anything you want. Then you can, you can let your multi-passionate freak flag fly high in the sky. But first, we have to get really known because branding is perception and reputation. We have to become known for something. And I'll give you a really great example of this, Jason. When

Amazon first came out, what did they sell? They sold. It was books. Books. And they became the absolute best in the world at selling books. Now what do they sell? Everything. Anything they want. Why? Because they first became the absolute flippin best at selling books. They broke that wall. They became known for that. You see this a lot in Hollywood, too. You know, let's take Lady Gaga as an example.

What did she do when she first came on the scene? She was a singer. She was a Grammy award-winning, world-renowned, you know, had all of her Gaga fans, you know, Little Monsters, I think, is what she calls them. And she became the absolute best that she could be at that. Now what does she do? Well, she's an Academy-nominated actress.

She has a makeup line. She sits on boards for mental health. She has a production company. She does whatever she wants because she became the absolute best at that first. She specialized in that one thing. And then by specializing that one thing, it unlocked opportunities to everything else. So that is my biggest takeaway for anyone listening, that if you are resisting, niching down, if you are resisting not wanting to serve one type of person because you think you need to serve everybody,

it's like, well, if you're talking to everybody, you're talking to nobody. You know, no one is going to pay high dollar for a generalist, but they will pay high dollar for a specialist. If I go and break my knee, I don't want to go to the town doctor to go get it fixed. I want to go to the doctor that specializes in knees. I want to go to the best of the best. And so you kind of have to just think of it in that way. The more you specialize, the more you become known as the absolute best at one thing, the more opportunities you're going to have in the long run to build your business, to make more money, to serve more people. But you've got to start there first when it comes to your brand.

Interesting. I think that is, it's obviously advice that has been done. It's been successful and it can be repeated. And I think if you think of like anyone that's at like the highest podium of branding and success, like a Lady Gaga or like a rock or anyone like that, you're exactly right. I mean, look at a rock. That was a football player gone WWE. And now we can do anything and everything in Sing-Mawana. in Disney movies, like A to Z. So it's exactly right. I'm curious what your take is on this strategy, because with, especially, I'm making this specific to me and I want to see if it

connects to anybody else. But like my audience is, of course, naturally integrated and came from The Bachelor. And so I wanted to create the niche of finance and career navigation. But I thought that if I hammer the niche too hard, just hammer, hammer, hammer, I'm going to lose my audience who came for the reason that I was on the Bachelor. and there's a way I could very lightly massage it in. And then what I did was I actually built its own category, its own page. So like if you want that stuff, you'll get a 24-7 go over there. Because I have found a lot of people at social media or influencing or specifically

people that come from The Bachelor, they hear the niche thing down and they go all into that niche. And if they're doing one thing, let's just call it fitness. The only thing you will see is fitness. And so talk to me just a little bit about how you're not niching down and being so specific that you're losing the human element of like people want to know more than just your specific skill set. And that's, you're staying engaged for more than that. Because I do think that's a huge, huge part of the puzzle. Do you agree with that? Absolutely. And it's actually a method that I teach

a lot of my clients. I call it the diamond method. So if you think about a diamond, right, it's got all like millions different facets in it. For someone to come into your world and to find value in what it is that you're offering and to either see themselves in you or think, hey, I can learn something from this person or, hey, I'm being entertained by this person or I'm being inspired by this person. They don't have to relate to all the millions of facets in the diamond. They just have to relate to one facet of it. And so I think that when it comes to this idea of niching down, there's this line between, you know, it's about attracting and repelling. In order to specialize, in order to serve that one specific type of person that you can serve best,

you have to really attract them in, which is naturally going to repel the people that aren't those people. And at the same time, the way in which I don't worry about that is that I am, I'm not just one-dimensional person. I am a human being with multi-facets of things. So even though personally as me, I'm an online brand and business coach for online entrepreneurs, but I'm also a mom, just because I'm not talking about the five different backpacks your son should have for school, moms who are also online entrepreneurs that want a solution to the problem that I solve are going to relate to me because I'm also a mom who is also an entrepreneur. Another thing is, you know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee and I travel a lot.

So it's like for people that maybe love to travel or, and you know this, Jason, everybody's wanting to move to Nashville now. So they're like, oh, that's interesting. She lives in Nashville. It doesn't mean I talk about Nashville in my content. Yes, it's a natural part of maybe what someone sees on stories or what have you in just the Nashville social scene and the aspects of me just living my life. And that could be a facet that they're intrigued by of like, oh, Julie's originally from a small town. She's a Nashville gal. I like that about her. But what's really making them feel compelled to want to buy for me is that specialization piece. What compels them to see themselves and to see a bit of themselves in me and to be like,

hey, I want to get to know this person. I like this person and I trust this person are the other facets that make you who you are. And so I always tell people, don't be afraid to be human. Don't be afraid to let people into parts of your world that, you know, you want to let them into. You get to create that boundary. But I even think about it in terms of the content and what I teach my clients on. It's like, you've got to get clear on, what are you doing here? So for me, it's like I educate. I build authority and I inspire. I don't do a ton of entertainment on my kind of content. Like I'm not a comedian. My content's not funny. I don't do memes, you know. But if I'm educating them, if I'm inspiring them, and if I am building authority so they know

like and trust me, then I know that I'm checking off the boxes and I'm doing my job. And the way that I may do that may be bringing in elements of my personal life that have nothing to do with my to humanize me on social media or in my content, but it's not the driving force of what I specialize in. So I think it's this balance for people of, I don't want to put myself in a corner. I don't want to put myself in a box. But I also don't want to be so open that I'm all over the place

and I confuse the audience that is there. So it's about having that brand clarity, the messaging. Right now I am in this tweeter era. So let me tell you about it. It's where I moved into this place. I thought I'd be here for six months. I'm now going month and month that I've been here for 10 months. So I'm in between phases.

So a huge partner of mine has been court furniture. Now, let me tell you about it. They will design your area for you, whether you're in a tweener era or a fresh start era, or you just want to facelift with what you're looking at around your house, or you're moving somewhere, but you don't know how long you'll be there. They'll design it for you. They drop off the furniture.

They literally install it all, even the mirrors on the wall. And then what happens is you pay money. monthly for it. And as soon as you want to pick up, boom, they will bring out the trucks. They will take it away and move it out for you. And like, for example, I just got this new sick kitchen table. I bought it and I'm working with a company on it. And what are they doing? They're going to bring new chairs that fit for this kitchen table. I'll be paid monthly. And the second, I need to be gone, they'll pick them up. So whether you're in the tweener era, you are just in a refresh era or you just want to facelift with your current furniture, you don't want to make a huge

long-term commitment with it at a big cost, go to court furniture, check out their furniture selection, and it could be huge for whatever area you're in. And I'll also tell you, if you're looking for that long-term buy, you want furniture, if you go to the website, they have unbelievable discounts on furniture that you can buy that was even used or new. So check out court.com slash podcast. That's c-o-r-t.com slash podcast. someone could find interesting or inspiring or compelling. Right. And I think everyone at some point has either content fatigue or branding fatigue or writing fatigue,

writers block, whatever it may be. And I think when you have that branding clarity that you speak to, when you just go back to the table and try and think of what's next for yourself and you have the root of who that brand is and what it is with that clarity, it will help you out of all those stumps. But I think most people just don't identify that and just start, you know, shooting from the hip and then they get stuck. And that's like probably the last question I want to ask on branding

before we transition to some of your courses is there are so many people out there that are offering branding advice, right? Some of them are PhDs and experts. Some of them are full shit, right? So what I want to hear from you is what do you think is either the biggest misconception, the biggest lie, the biggest detriment that people are actually kind of listening to or implementing when it comes to branding

that you would be like, just do not do this. What would that? Yeah, for sure. When it comes to branding and really growth, right? Because what's the whole point of building a brand? It's not just to build a brand. You want to grow something. You want to build something.

And the biggest misconception that I see happen time and time again is that people think that they have to have a large following in order to have a profitable brand. People think that they need a massive audience in order to create impact. And it's just not true. In fact, the majority, of my clients that are making 50, 60, 70, 100K plus a month are the ones with less than 10,000 followers on Instagram because they focus on the value that they bring to the table,

who they're meant to serve, and really just simply, Jason, helping people. They focus on it showing up consistently to help someone solve a problem that they have instead of focusing on how can I get more followers, how can I be more famous, how can I get those numbers? How can I get the likes? Because fame is fleeting. Yes, visibility is important. You need visibility and you need conversion in order to have a sustainable brand. We have to work on those pieces. But visibility is different than the vanity metrics. And so it's really about, it's a mindset shift that a lot of people need to have to realize that the most successful people out there are about people first always. They're not

over here. To be honest, they don't even, and Jason, you probably know this. Like the most successful people that I know online, they're too busy being successful. They don't have time to worry about if someone, you know, stopped following them. You know, they don't have time to worry about like, if that real got enough views. Like, they're too busy serving people and creating impact and making money. So it's about that mindset shift of where your focus goes, the energy will go. So how do we stop focusing on the things that really aren't moving the needle at the end of the day and how do we start focusing on the things that are going to give you the authority and the visibility and really the traction that you need to start making some impact

in the world? I think that whole mind shift entire just the theory of it, the process of it is a good segue into the courses. And so I think one of the courses and one of your masterclasses is the three steps to skyrocket your social media and land 10K deals in just 30 days. And as we're talking, my mind was spinning with a million questions. I had to start writing them down. Before I get into those questions. There is one thing when I think you, Julie, I will never forget this line that you said to me and I've repeated it to so many people is Jason, it is easier for me to sell a $3,000 course than it is for me to sell a $30 book. And my gosh, is that right? My question is in all your experience of selling business development and branding and marketing, why? Why is it

easier to sell a course as we transition into your courses, a $3,000 one like that, than a $30 book. What do you think the behavioral answer is there? Yeah, because I think at the end of the day, everybody, quote unquote, everybody can write a book. Everybody has a book. There's millions and millions of books out there. There's not, not everybody can create a successful course that actually gets people results. Not everybody can, you know, support people in that capacity. Not everybody has the courage and the confidence. to slap a $3,000 price tag on something because they know in the transformation value that it provides. They've got the social proof. They've got the testimonials. So it's a bit, again,

of a mindset shift, but also it's that perception of value, right? Think about it like this. You know, if you go, if you walk into a Walgreens and you buy a stick of gum for, I don't know, a dollar, you're probably not going to think much about it. You're going to give the dollar. You're going to chew the piece of gum, walk out and go about your day. Never think about that stick of gum ever again. Whereas if you go to buy a house, there's a lot more steps, right? You've got to go see the house. You've got to go get it appraised. You've got to get it inspected. There's a lot of red tape. There's legal involved and accountants involved and financial people involved and negotiations involved. And, you know,

there's a lot more steps to that because the value of a house is a lot larger than the value of a stick of gum. So when it comes to books now, and I'm, I mean, obviously, I'm a best selling author like you, Jason. I love books. I love writing books. I see the value in books, just like I see the value in podcasts. I think it's a great first step entry for someone to get into your world and learn about you. But the overall transformation that can happen in a course or in some kind of coaching program or in, you know, working with a VIP client, the kind of transformation that can happen in that, the value is far greater than just here's my book. And so to answer your question, from my experience, it is a lot harder to try to schlep around a bunch of books because

people are like, well, what makes this book any different than the 15 million other books that are out there? But when it comes to a course that solves a specific type of problem, that really gets a nice return on investment for somebody, it's a little bit more intriguing and they see the value there. Yeah, we could probably do a whole podcast on the idea of pricing and marketing and how those go hand in hand. There are two case studies I recently read. I'll summarize them quickly. One is four seasons. Four seasons, no matter what, even if they have occupancy rate of zero. No one is in those hotels. Not one. They still will not reduce the price point under a minimum threshold because that will diminish the value of the brand they've created. The other one I read a case study,

it was about KFC. They're working with this high profile marketing guy and they can't sell this one product and he says, increase the price. And everyone looks at like he's got five heads. What do you mean increase the price? And they're like, well, if we decrease the price, what information does it give us? they don't buy it, right? We are putting ourselves in a position where we can't win. Let's increase it see what happens. They increase it. Sales like completely tripled.

So it's wild to see the different dynamics, not only in subject matter and your specializations, but also price point in marketing. That's a big one. And I think it's a good transition into the first master class, three steps to skyrocket your social media and land those 10K deals in just 30 days. One of the things you had said just a few answers earlier

was that you don't have to have a big following to make the bucks. You don't have to be famous. You don't have to be on TV. You don't have to be a public failure. So my question to you is, the golden answer, how many followers do you have to have, or does one individual have to have for them to start monetizing? Yes. So I'll give you an example of a woman named Zoe in my course, Pitchit Perfect. She had 382 followers and landed an $8,000 brand deal. Three hundred and eighty two followers. What? I've got you. Oh, come on, Give me, give me one more. User generated content.

So she did it with user generated content. So what that means is basically she found her niche, her specialty, if you will, and creating a specific type of content around wellness, specifically keto recipes. And there was a keto brand out there that loved the way that she created the content so much so that they just said, we want you to create some content for us. We don't even care if you put it on your page. Like, we want the content. And for the brand, it's way more cost effective to them to pay Zoe $8,000 than it is an advertising

company $28,000 for that piece of content. So that's how Zoe did it. I have another client that is in the spirits like liqueur and she was a bartender and then turned into like an online spirit influencer, probably not saying that right, spirits and wine. And she was able to get, she had 800 followers at the time and got a $5,000 brand deal with a spirit accessories company. So like they make the martini glasses and that sort of thing. And it's because she was so niche. So not everyone knows how to curate these beautiful cocktails like she does. And she had really good visuals. She had really good cocktail recipes. And so that company was like,

we would love to do a deal with you. And like, let's grow together. And, and she had 500 followers. So I have, I have so many examples like that. And someone can go to, you know, pitch it perfect.com. right now and see all the testimonials. But so many examples of that with people, you know, less, way less than 10,000 followers, way less than 3,000 followers, less than 1,000 followers who have been able to consistently make this happen. And a lot of it comes down to the content strategy that you have and also the negotiation strategy that you have. And really knowing how to anchor price, which kind of goes back to the pricing strategies that we were talking about earlier. And really, of course, starting with you seeing the value in what it is that you offer. Because

if you don't see the value in it, how is anyone else going to see the value in it? And also knowing when to give and take. And this is another thing, Jason, that I'll share with anybody listening because I'll get a lot of DMs of people saying, Julie, I don't want to take any more gifted product or every single time I try to work with a brand for a paid collaboration. They only want to gift me something. And I don't want to do that. And I say, well, hold because is this going to give you the opportunity to then go and

build the relationship with the brand? So I'll give you an example of how I was able to do this. And I landed like a $250,000 brand partnership with less than 10,000 followers back in 2016. So I didn't have a lot of followers at the time. So that wasn't a value to the brands, right? Like I wasn't going to be able to go and say, hey, I've got all these followers, work with me. They didn't care. So I had to figure out how do I make this valuable?

What I wanted to do at the time, Jason, is that my husband and I, you know, my husband, John, we were living in L.A. and we had, our son was two years old at the time. And I wanted to turn his little baby room into a big boy room. And I didn't want to have to pay for it. So I was thinking, is there a way that I could work with a furniture company and potentially get his room redone, right? And to me, I had to get honest with myself. In that case, even if I were able to get that gifted, the value of that was there, right?

the value just to be gifted that furniture was probably greater, it was far greater than what I could ever have been paid at the time with where I was at in my brand. I was a nano-influencer. I didn't have a lot of engagement. I didn't have a lot of followership. So the gifting there, it made a lot of sense in the value.

So that's the first thing I just want to pause and tell people that you have to think about your own ROI, that if this gifted opportunity actually exceeds what you would realistically probably get paid, paid for to do the deal anyways, and it's going to give you an opportunity to build the relationship with the brand. Stay open. Stay curious to see what could happen. So that's what I did. I remained curious. I reached out to some brands and they all said no. They were like, we don't want to work with you. You have nothing of value to give us. So instead of just being like, well,

I suck and I have no value and I'm just going to go quit now, I thought, okay, they're not seeing the value in what I'm pitching them now. So how do I create more value? that they actually see valuable. So I did something that is revolutionary. I asked a question. And I said, hi, brand. What would be something that you find valuable right now?

Like, what's something that you want that you need that's juicy and tangible? And, you know, some brand was like, well, you know, we're looking for celebrity endorsements.

And then this other brand said, well, we're just looking for, you know, good quality content, you know, on social media. This brand said this,

this brand said that. And one brand said, well, we want media. And I was like, huh, okay, could I maybe get this brand some media? Like, how would this work? So I said, okay, good to know. Pause talking to the brands. And I was like, can I find media contacts and potentially pitch media for this opportunity? And at the time, I was doing mommy blogging.

So this was when I was in PR. I was trying to transition into the online space. I started off as like mom lifestyle content. That was my way of getting into the online space before I got into online education. And so I started researching media outlets that had like a mom angle to it, right? So I was looking for contacts to like pop sugar moms,

mom dot me, people magazine moms, you know, that sort of thing. pitched a lot of those types of brands or types of dot com media companies and people.com got back to me and they said well funny enough we are starting a

a blog page on our dot com focusing on mom and lifestyle. So like we need content we would be interested in something like this so I was like okay I've got mom dot I've got people.com mom blog

you know, that are interested. So I went back to the company. It was World Market. And I said, okay, World Market, People Magazine is interested. I just said it. I didn't go, people.com's mom blog. I just said, People Magazine is interested. But in order to do it, they need this to be bigger.

They don't just want to see you remodel my son's room. They want to see an entire home rent a house. I literally made that up. Wow. I was just like, how big can I make? How bold can I be? And so World Market said, okay. And so that initial idea of doing this led to getting over $250,000 worth of furniture

from World Market plus interior design services from Decorist, which is a virtual interior design company. We did this whole thing. It was featured in People.com. World Market was happy because they put all of the links to world market on people.com's mom page. So they got all of those affiliate clicks. Everybody was happy. And then from there, I created this system that actually a lot of people from Bachelor Nation ended up doing. After I did that, there was a lot of people from The Bachelorette and The Bachelor that then went on

to work with World Market and Decorist in People magazine doing this exact same formula. And so that's just a long story short of how, if you're listening today and you feel like you have nothing to offer, I want you to stay open minded and I want you to stay curious about how can I make this work for me? How can I offer something of value? And that's when, you know, and I know I've been repeating it during this whole conversation, but the first step to getting anything that you want is you have to figure out what do I offer someone that they find valuable in. And with, you know, world market, the first thing that I pitched them, them, they were like, we don't see value in that. But instead of just giving up, I was like, okay, well, what would they see value in? And when I asked him that and they told me, then I got curious again. And I was like, well, is there a way that I could make this happen? This took me about six months from like the initial pitch to actually making it happen. But I did not give up.

I did not stop. I remained open. I remained curious. And I kept pitching. So to sum all this up, that initial kind of plug, if you will, when people, people started hearing about that. They were like, Julie, I'm sorry, but like, you have no following and you just made this happen and I have like a million followers and I'm not making any money. What am I doing wrong? And that was really the lead in to me then going and creating my course

Fidget Perfect, which teaches people this very method, how to land paid brand deals no matter their following number. It led to then a lot of the online education and the coaching that I now do for content creators and influencers. But it's just always a fun story to share. So, no, you don't need a lot of followers to make a lot of money and create a lot of value. It's a fun story. And the two like massive, and what I'll call them as trading secrets there are one, you created a win, win, right? You created a win for people. You created a win for yourself. And then you created a win for a win for a publication. And not only that, but they didn't have to fork over cash. They forked over inventory. That was probably just sitting on a balance sheet.

And they found the right inventory to give it to you to make it make sense. It's an ultimate win, win, win and then a nice little carrot you dangle there too was the fact that bachelorette and bachelnation they saw this they see it and they move on it and i'll tell anyone back there one of the biggest prospecting techniques we used for a talent management company is like go check out hashtag ad go check out hashtag pay go check out hashtag partnership see the companies that are doing deals out there and then have the conversations just like julie did and whether you have 500 followers or 500 000 or 5 million you'll be so surprised if you can create a win for them what will happen.

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if they're interested. And then it's a loaded question, but I don't want the ad. I don't want the, when I go on Instagram, if I see Julie Solomon trying to push her, I want like, give me a little piece of that course.

Give me just one thing from each course that, you know, you're going to give us here exclusively as opposed to just the high level summary for each other. Of course. So the first thing that I would say is that, and I just, I shoot it straight with people.

So I want you, if you're listening, and if you're someone who is interested in landing paid brand deals, like that's a focus for you right now. now, that's something that you want to do. I highly recommend watching my free class. You can actually go to Julie Solomon.net slash trading. And we'll make sure that that's also in the show notes to get access to that free class. And that's going to lay a lot of the groundwork out for you.

Another plus to that is if you go to Julie Solomon.net slash trading and you watch the free class, what else is going to happen in that is that you're going to get the opportunity to get the program at a discounted rate. So it's normally $8.99. But if you get it through that link, you're and get it for $599. So just shooting it straight with you there. Cool. If there's other things that you want to dive into, maybe you're someone that's like,

I don't necessarily want to land paid brand deals, but like I want to work with you or I want to kind of hear more about it, you can go to Julie Solomon.net slash interest. And there's going to be just like a form there where you can fill out. Let us know that you came from Jason's world because if you do,

we'll make sure to kind of fast track you up so you can talk to someone. I just believe in like humans talking, to humans. And sometimes like it's not a course that you need or like a recorded training, but like you just need to talk to a human being about your goals, your strategies, your challenges to see if we have something that could potentially help you. Because I've got masterminds. I do VIP sessions with clients. I've got a really high level group coaching program for other people out there that may want to have kind of a similar business model as mine, online education,

online courses, that sort of thing. So again, just go to Julie Solomon.net slash interest for that and let us know that you came from this podcast and we'll make sure to fast track you up. So that's just some tidbits there. But when it comes to the brand deals and kind of the takeaways, I'll say a strategy that is not in, it's not actually in the free training, but it's one that I talk about and it's in regards to negotiation and to price acreing. So for those that don't understand what price anchoring is, when you anchor a price, it's the first price that you throw out to someone.

And the reason why it's called an anchor is that psychological, logically, we are going to remember whatever that price is. So you always want your highest price to be the first price that you throw out because every other price after that is going to be anchored by that top price. So I do this not only when it comes to brand deals, but I do this in any type of negotiation. You always want to throw the highest price out first. The other thing that people are blown away with is that I always say,

how much do you want to make on this brand deal or how much do you want to make, you know, how much do you want to course this, you know, price this course out? And if they're like $300, I'm like, cool, double it. And that's going to be your anchor price. And nine times out of 10, if you double it and someone says yes without trying to negotiate with you, you're still less than where you should be. Whenever you price something, you want a negotiation. If someone's just saying yes, that means that like, hey, they probably would have given you a lot more money, but you just lowballed yourself. And so they're like, sure, we'll pay you. you that for that done, you kind of want it to hurt a little bit. You want people to feel

stretched. Whenever anyone is investing in anything, it's an exchange of energy. It's an investment of some kind of next level of growth or transformation. So it should kind of hurt a little bit. You know, I'll never forget the first time I invested in a $25,000 mastermind. Like, it hurt. I was like, am I really doing this? I've never invested this kind of money in myself. I didn't tell my husband because I thought he was going to think I was crazy. But I was like, is there a payment plan? Can I do this? But that $25,000 yes, that even though I was scared and even though I was nervous, I said yes anyways turned in to $1.3 million in nine months. So like I'll take that return any day of the week. But if it would have been like this $5,000 thing that maybe I didn't think that much

about, like would I have shown up the same way? Would I've given it my all the same way that I did? would I have really like stretched myself and said like this has got to work just because I put so much skin in the game? Probably not. So that's just something a lot that we talk about within that program and really a lot of the coaching strategy that I do about about anchor pricing. And I'll give you another one just to kind of top it off. So a couple of weeks ago there's a program that we have that we were running and it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier, Jason, about discounting. We were running a special for the month with this program. And my director of ops slacked me and she just said, hey, now that we're done with this promo, we need some other kind of sense of urgency to get people to say yes.

So how do you feel about giving them a month free? And I'm like, let me think on this. So I was like, okay, I'm month free. Like that's valuable. Like that's good. Or we could just raise the anchor price. So originally it was like, this is $5,000. and we're going to give it to you for $3,000.

Well, now that that deal was away, well, why don't we just put a new anchor price of what's actually $7,500, but you can now get it for $5,000? Mm, interesting. So we're not losing it. It's just still $5,000. We're not losing anything. It's repositioning it.

Right. And you can get a month for free. But we're still making, because the month for free is no skin off our nose. We're just providing more value to the client, but we're not losing that money that we would have lost by discounting. So I'm a big believer in. Never discount something.

Always ask yourself, how can I add more value? There you go. The anchor price. That is paid content that you just got for free. This has been incredible to learn more about your classes, some of the branding techniques. We got to wrap with this. So it's a more than money episode. So not connected to money or financial success, but more than money magic that you have deployed.

Like what is something that only you've deployed through your career, through your success, through your learnings, your failures, and all the consulting you do, and it's not connected to dollar cents or even connected to a $25,000 investment, which is amazing. What is something that's more than money that's been your magic in your career success? For me, I think what's been more than money has been my mindset. And I know it kind of sounds silly and stupid, but what I have learned through the process of growth from someone that literally came from nothing, when I was sharing with you that world market story at that very same time in my life, I was also $30,000 in debt and lying to my husband about it. So I literally went from being found out, being $30,000 in

debt, you know, having a horrible mindset when it came around money and wealth and being worthy of what it is that I was asking for to then building, you know, an eight figure business. And that all stems from mindset. It really the name of the game, it's 20% strategy. You like, you need, the tools, you need that know-how, you need to work with people who have successfully done what it is that you're trying to do. But it's 80% mindset. It is one thing to ask for what you want, but it is a whole other game to actually be able to receive what it is that you want. And that's why there's a lot of people out there that they'll say that they want the job or the money or the car or the relationship or whatever it is, but they're so energetically

blocked from actually like being able to hold it and own it and having the confidence and the courage and the worthiness to say, like, this is who I am now. Like, I'm a million dollar earner. I'm a 10 million dollar earner. I'm someone that's in a successful relationship. I'm a happy parent, whatever that is for you. And so for me, it was a lot about mindset and really getting into the wealth energetics that's needed, not just for money, but just mind, body, and spirit. Because it takes a completely different version of you to be able to hold the kind of life that you say that you want that is different than the version of you that is today. So what kind of beliefs do you have to adopt? What kind of mindset do you have to step into?

What kind of habits do you have to create to actually become that future self? And so the mindset is a huge part of that for me. And that just that little shift changes everything from like chasing and wanting and accepting the lower deal. And I'll take it to being chased. Like that small little mind shift changes literally everything. It's all about mindset. That is great more than money magic tip. But Julie, I am going on your podcast right now, the influencer podcast.

Everyone, go check it out. And you just gave me a little baby carrot, something we're going to have to talk about, $30,000 in debt lying to your husband. We're going to talk money. Obviously, it worked out very, very, very, very well for you. But, Julie, if people want your courses, they want to see you online, they want to listen your podcast, everything. I know there's a lot here or by your book. Just give us the full rundown of everything they can get and where they can get it. Yeah, so you can find me on

Instagram. That's where I hang out the most. I'm at Joel's J-U-L-S-S-O-L-M-O-N. As you mentioned, the influencer podcast, you can listen wherever you love to listen to podcasts or watch on YouTube. My book, Get What You Want, How to Go From Unseen to Unstoppable is on Audible. It's on Amazon, wherever you love to buy or listen to books. And then again, if you want to just go deeper in any of the things that I've talked about, if you're curious about what it's like working with me, you can just go to julie solomon.net slash trading

or julie solomon.net slash interest to share more about yourself. Let us know that Jason sent you and we'll take care of you. That is a beautiful thing. And if you need any links, they will be in the show notes. Julie, thank you so much for being on this episode of More Than Money.

Thank you for having me. I'm coming. I'm coming.