TCC Podcast #150: Building Authority Using Podcasts with Brigitte Lyons

For the 150th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we asked public relations and podcast expert, Brigitte Lyons, to talk about the best ways to build authority. Brigitte has presented to our Think Tank and The Underground, but we felt like what she has to share is too good to keep secret. In this interview, we asked her about: •  her early experiences as a PR specialist •  how she shifted her business from PR to specializing in Podcasts •  why podcasting is a powerful medium for building authority (and finding clients) •  how to get started pitching podcasts—what to think about before you pitch •  her advice to beginners and those who have “nothing” to say •  the elements of your podcast pitch—what you need to include •  what not to do when you pitch (the bad pitches she’s seen) •  what to do after the podcast goes live to maximize the impact •  how to make the interview successful—how to prep •  why you need a clear call to action to direct people to your website If you've thought of using podcasts to build your authority as a copywriter, you'll want to listen to this episode. To do that, just click the play button below or subscribe with your favorite podcast app. Readers can scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Creative Live Entrepreneur on Fire Lacy Boggs Zencastr Sims CatQuest Brigitte’s website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Kira:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits? Then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work. That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob:   You're invited to join the club for episode 150 as we chat with media strategist and podcast expert Brigitte Lyons about building a reputation, tactics copywriters can use to build authority and recognition, what to include in your podcast pitch so the host will say yes and a few details about her new business Podcast Ally. Kira:   Welcome Brigitte. Brigitte:         Hi. Thank you so much. Episode 150. I heard you saying in the intro. I feel like that's a milestone episode. Kira:   This is a big deal episode. Yes. Rob:   Definitely a big deal episode. And I probably just said the business name wrong too, it's Ally, right? Not Alley. Brigitte:         Yeah, it's Ally. The naming of the business, that mistake right there was actually my biggest kind of fear. And there's another company that has a pop-up ally and for years I thought it was Ali, so I'm like, it'll just, it'll be what it is. Rob:   Yeah. My apologies. Everybody check out Podcast Alli and yeah and learn more. Kira:   So we are so excited to have you here, Brigitte, because you have been in our community, you've already run a couple of workshops for our mastermind group and for our membership. And every time you run a workshop you teach, there's so much you bring to the table and you teach us about podcasting and PR. So we knew we had to bring you on the podcast and I'm personally working with you too. So I'm clearly a big fan. So let's just kick this off with your story. How did you end up in PR? Brigitte:         Yeah, well I got into PR really early in my career. When I was in college, I was a creative writing major and of course, like all creative writing majors, I thought I'm going to leave school. I want to do something really creative. I want to write. Of course, I want to write the great American novel, which I haven't done, but there's still time. And I stumbled into PR by accident, while I was still in school, I did an internship for actually a local sheriff's department. It's this crazy story where the sheriff ended up in the hospital. My mom was an ER nurse and they got to talking and she's like, ‘Hey, do you have any internships for my daughter?’ And it turned out being a really amazing experience because by the end of that summer, I was writing a full newsletter. We were doing all these really cool events. We did this whole event around not drinking and boating and we did some film spots and things like that. And I thought, ‘Oh, this would be kind of a cool way to spend my time when I'm out of school.’ And so I dove right into PR. I started out in the big agency path. So I did really political PR, so issue management, government relations, like if a company wanted legislation passed, I was in the agency helping shape public opinion about that legislation. If you're getting the sense listening to this thinking like, ‘Oh, Brigitte, so you are one of the bad guys.’ You're not entirely wrong about that. And so when I was doing that work, I just really realized that some of the things that I was working were entirely lined up with the beliefs and the values that I had. And so I started looking for ways where I could take that experience and apply it to people and companies and business owners that I felt really passionately about and invested in. And so that's how I ended up with the business that I have today. It's been more than a 15 year journey from those first days of doing that kind of political based PR to what I'm doing now. But every step of the way I feel like has been led to this culmination of what my business does now, which is super cool. Rob:   I love hearing that. I have a similar experience early in my career where I was writing PR for a big agency and our client was into radioactive waste. And so I was writing some things about why the company was so good for helping with this and just felt really icky. And it was nice to leave that behind. But having said that, what are some of the things that you learned as a PR specialist that you use today in your business in order to get the right kind of customers and the right kind of attention on you? Brigitte:         Yeah. Well the more I've gone into my career and especially when I started building my own business, I realized that everything in PR is really about sales, right? We call it pitching the media because we're selling our clients stories and ideas to the media with the hope that they'll pick them up. And so when I started building a business, I realized that all of those skillsets really served me well. I mean, the number one piece of training I had was trying to identify what is the person at the other side of the table or the other end of the phone. What do they really care about and how can I convey my client's message in a way that speaks to the heart of something that really concerns them? And in my agency days, we were dealing with these really technical issues. I dealt with things in the energy sector, so it was this really technical stuff and we had to work really hard to explain these things in a way that the general consumer would understand, ‘Why is my electric bill going up?’ Right? And so being able to take something that was so dry and work so hard to translate it into a way that the average person can understand these technical models was so important to me in building my own business because I don't have that gap now when I tell people that I do PR or I do podcast outreach for small businesses, they generally get it. But it's not enough to just say, this is what I do for people, but you want to tell a story about why it matters to the person you're talking to. So whether I'm in a one on one conversation trying to sell my services or if I'm representing a client and trying to pitch them a story, I'm always looking at, how can you dig deeper and relate it back to the person you're talking to? And I think that that skill is something that serves you so well in your career. Kira:   And, Brigitte, your business has changed over time too. And now you're focused primarily on podcasting. So can you just tell us a little bit more about that evolution in your business and even that moment when you realized, I'm really going to go all in and focus on podcasting. Brigitte:         Yeah. I love talking about this because it is something that is important to me in terms of the audience that I work with and how this evolution has happened because it's really guided by what the clients I was working with needed. So when I first started my business I was very involved in the creative entrepreneur space. I was doing design blogging on the side, I was really in that design, sponge, decorate kind of space. And so I started out building PR plans for creatives. That was my first business evolution. And I did some creative live classes and then I started taking on clients. But when I started taking on clients, product based PR was never my background. I'd done the government and the B2B PR. And so I started shifting in a little bit. It was still people who were kind of creatively inclined and had that spirit but more people who were speaking other business owners. So like your copywriters, creatives. But a lot of those sales are B2B. And so early on in those days, this must've been seven or eight years ago, a lot of what people were doing were guest blogging or they were doing things like contributions on fast company Inc. and entrepreneur. And so that's where I started. Podcasts really were barely a thing if they were even a thing. I think the very first podcast, maybe it started at that time. So we were working with people on that and helping them kind of get their message out and get media logos for their sites and things. And then about four years ago, I had a client who came to me with a really cool project and she was just saying I just want some media badges for my website. So she was really heavily invested in the Facebook advertising and she's like, ‘I just need these for that social proof and we can do a couple of other things too.’ And we did some experiments with her so we got her those media logos,