So you want more visibility, right? So let me ask you, are your media ready? Do even know what that means? I sure didn't. Not to worry. My friend and media maven Meredith Liepelt is in the Café today, sharing everything we need to know to be media ready.

Intro: It's time for the Growth Strategies Café podcast designed specifically for female online business owners. I'm your host, Teresa Cleveland and I believe we can all make a difference and that having a successful online business is one of the best ways to do that.

Let's be real, though. Growing an online business isn't always easy, it definitely doesn't look sexy all the time, AND it's one of the most fulfilling endeavors you can take on.

There are no secrets to building a successful business, there's just the stuff you don't know yet and we'll be talking about it all here in the Café. Whether you're on your way to 6 figures or beyond, you are in the right place.

So grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. Let's get to it.

Teresa:Hey. Hey. Thanks for stopping by the Café today. Like I said, Meredith Liepelt of Rising Star Publicity is back this episode, and we're talking about being media ready. She's got a fabulous guide, it's called Your Media Kit Checklist. Give the Media Exactly What They Want to Feature You. You can pick it up at https://www.risingstarpublicty.com/mediakitchecklist. And of course, I'll put that link in the show notes.

There is so much good info in this guide. You definitely want to get your copy. And again, you can find the link in the show notes.

In our conversation today, Meredith is sharing so many valuable nuggets, including how far in advance to begin pitching for different types of media outlets. And that was one of my questions when I reached out and asked her to come back and share some more of her brilliance.

We're sitting here, I'm in Ohio, so we're here in the States, we're ramping up for Fall and everybody's getting their hot spice, pumpkin spice lattes and all that lined up.

Of course, now people might start thinking a little bit about, well, there's Halloween is coming up, and then there's Thanksgiving, and then there's, of course, Christmas and the New Year. So we kind of know those things but unfortunately, so many times we don't, until we're right on top of it, we don't stop to think like, oh, my gosh, how do I get ready for this?

So, you know, one of my big things is let's prepare. Let's be prepared in advance so we can make it easier on ourselves and we're able to show up as our best selves. So we definitely are getting into that today where she's talking about just that, the timelines for different types of media because they are different.

Oh, and I want to mention real quick. Meredith was a guest back on episode 14. And we talked about a variety of things when it comes to being visible and all of that. So if you haven't listened to it already, you definitely want to go back and listen to that one as well.

One of my favorite tips that Meredith has shared in this episode is that again, she knows my heart when it comes to planning and setting yourself up for success, so she said, look out over the next twelve months and everything that you have going on. You want to do that because you can then plan well ahead, because setting yourself up to get good PR doesn't mean that you have to work on it every day or every week, and especially when you're starting out.

I hope you breathed a sigh of relief there because so many times, there's so much that goes into this. And I think PR is a highly overlooked tactic to growing our visibility and authority. And I also think that many people, myself included in the past, have passed on it. Right? We're just like, "Whoa, no, hold up!" because it seems so overwhelming or out of reach. And of course, there's the whole mindset piece that we think like, well, who am I? I don't have anything that's newsworthy or media worthy. That's not for me.

And I'm going to challenge that thought. I want you to challenge that thought because the thing is, plain and simple, we're just too close to our own shit. We just aren't able to see it sometimes or let's be real a lot of the time.

I have to say that is one of Meredith's greatest gifts or talents, skills, like, she is so good at this, that she's able to see what we don't because we're so close to it. And you'll really experience that when you work with her. And of course, I'll put her contact info in the show notes as well.

I know for me so many times that's when I've worked with experts in different areas, that's just it. They're able to see things that I don't, you know, because of my mindset, because I do it all the time because it's like, well, doesn't everybody do that? Doesn't everybody know that anyway? She is stellar at this.

So I'm really excited because I asked Meredith. I said, "Hey, what do you think? Would you mind coming on every quarter and sharing your brilliance, like, once a quarter to help us get more comfortable with PR so that we can make a greater impact?" And she has graciously agreed. So you can look forward to that. She'll be here once a quarter. And I am so thrilled to share her and her brilliance with all of you.

I have to be honest, I am right here learning right along side of you. There are always things that I can do better, and I know that we can all do better, make a greater impact for ourselves and our community and the world around us. Alright. Well, let's jump over to today's episode,

Teresa: Meredith Liepelt, it is so great to have you back to talk all things PR.

Meredith: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Always happy to talk to you.

Teresa: Well, it's always a pleasure, too and I know that we've heard from listeners that when you were here, I think it was episode 14. Everybody should go back and listen to that. Not right now, but go back and listen to that one. There were so many good nuggets in there. Today though, what I really want to talk about is, you've said this before and I hear people talk about it - being media ready. We'll get to that in just a second.

But before we do that, you know, we talk about marketing and we've talked about, oh, my gosh, what a big, broad umbrella. And we've got Facebook ads, you've got guest podcasting and all kinds of things that you can do for that. I rarely ever hear anybody that's talking about marketing talk about PR.

Meredith: Yeah.

Teresa: And I think that it's just a highly overlooked thing. And I think that people who do even think about it, it's like what came first, the chicken or the egg. Do I get the PR? And then I go market or do I market and the marketing brings in the PR? So can you talk about that real quick?

Meredith: Absolutely. Yes. Thank you for having me talk about this because publicity, it can be overlooked and it's often misunderstood. We often think we have to have a $10 million business to get publicity. And that's just not the case. It's really not. Certainly there are publications that that's the kind of business owner that they look to feature. But there are plenty of media outlets out there looking for stories. They want to tell stories. So if you, as a business owner, have an interesting story to tell, you can probably find an outlet for it.

So a lot of times for small business owners, PR isn't something that you're going to have a story every month. Okay. You're just not. However, imagine what it would do for your credibility and your visibility if you had one or two or three, or maybe even four media mentions within the course of a year. That starts to tell a story about your commitment to your body of work. It starts to tell the story about what it is you do and how you're different. You can have the logos of those media outlets on your website, which is an instant credibility builder.

When people come and they're vetting you against somebody who does something very similar. If you've got some media credits on there, you look more professional. You just do.

There are ways to go out there and pursue media coverage without feeling like, oh, I've got to do this, I've got to have a big thing every single month. That's just, most companies don't, honestly. So it's just a matter of figuring out what is right for you. What can you pursue? What are the stories that you have to tell and then you go for it.

Teresa: I love that. And that conversation has been coming up a lot lately in different ways with people that I'm talking with. It's that it doesn't have to be this monumental thing. It doesn't have to be how you cure cancer. It doesn't have to be, dear God, how we got rid of COVID, right? It doesn't have to be that. We've seen the stories when we talk about COVID, we've seen the stories where people are talking about washing their hands and all the things that they do.

And I think that when we're talking about PR, because I know a lot of your people have been on TV, I was back in the day, too. You had me on the morning news thing here. And I think what people don't realize when we think of PR for some reason, we think it has this big, big feeling. But all we're really doing is the same thing we would share in a blog post or the same thing that we would go and help a client with, except we're doing it on a bigger stage or a different stage. It's not always even the size of the stage, right?

Meredith: It's just different. It's just packaging what you're doing so that it fits and it suits a certain media outlet. Certainly. Like, for example, sometimes people will come and they'll say, hey, I'm having an event that I'd like to get some publicity around. And I'm like, great! And we go on this fact finding mission of what are the stories underneath that.

Because if you just approach a media outlet and you say, hey, I'm having an event on Thursday afternoon from two to five, and it's for women business owners, you're not going to get publicity, right? But if you go in and you give some value around the content that you're going to be delivering at your event, you have a much greater chance of getting publicity.

So I can give you a couple of quick examples, if you don't mind.

Teresa: Sure.

Meredith: So one of my clients a couple of years ago was Fashion Week Columbus. We're here in the 14th largest city here in the United States. And there's a fashion week, what I had to do, and it was their 10th anniversary so there's tons of stories to tell. So one of the things that I did was just in conversation with them I found out that one of their models was an original Lazarus model from Columbus.

I guess years ago, Lazarus was a huge thing in Columbus. She was one of the original models, I think in her 80s. She had a fur from that time that she was going to wear in the fashion show. So I put that forward as the story, focusing on that person. It wasn't even on, hey, fashion weeks coming up, it was focusing on that human interest story. And that got picked up by the Columbus Dispatch. And it was a huge article. Big photo. It just got a lot of publicity. And, of course, they're talking about, hey, it's Fashion Week, Columbus. And it's coming up on this day and time and yada, yada.

But we put forward a client story, so to speak, if you put it in terms of what we in coaching, consulting and small business world think. We put forward a story about a human interest story, something that people would be like, oh, that's interesting to read.

If you're doing events, one of my clients, she's a consultant and she was doing an event about helping women to promote themselves in the workplace. And again, if we were just to say, hey, she's doing this event for women in the workplace, we would not ever get a response.

But what we did is we went to a television medium and we figured out how to give some tips. Like, literally one of the tips was how to give a great handshake. That was one of the tips. One of the tips was if you're going back to work, go on a treasure hunt and find your skills. And so we have a little treasure box. And she pulled out coins that said, like, communication and organization and speaking and all this kind of stuff. So we found ways to bring value to that TV show's audience. And then at the end, it was like, oh, there's an event coming up that you're doing. Tell us about that.

This is what I love about publicity. You have to bring the value. You have to bring the value to their listeners, to their audience, to their viewers. You have to bring tips and that kind of thing or for a feature story, for example, that would be different. There are some publications that feature business owners so then you have to kind of, I call it I'm sexy and I know it approach because you have to talk about, how are you sexy? Like, did you write a book? Do you employ this number of people, I don't know, to all the different things. Like what makes you interesting? So it's about bringing value to a certain media outlet.

Teresa: I love that. And so back to the one with the handshake and all of that. So what was your hook on that you pitched that as?

Meredith: That was, if I remember correctly, that was how to go back to work if you've been out of work for a while.

Teresa: Love it.

Meredith: Yeah.

Teresa: See, that's wonderful. And that's what I was going to say with the piece about the Lazarus model. Locally of course, people, I'm 60. My mom used to take me to Lazarus to see the Christmas themes in the windows and that was like a magical time. I was on, look, I was on TV way back when I was four or five, maybe on Lucy's Toy Shop.

Meredith: Awesome.

Teresa: I'm sure the older people remember Lucy. And, you know, there were just things like that. So for local people of a certain age, the Lazarus model would be like, oh, that's like royalty of some kind. Right?

Meredith: Absolutely.

Teresa: And what I see in that is that it's the value. That not just the value, the interest. It's so many different things wrapped up in there because, yes, it's Fashion Week is coming up but think about the viewers, not even the news station, but the viewers or the readers or whatever it is. And what is the thing that's going to interest them?

Meredith: Exactly.

Teresa: So I just think it's such a different approach to especially in the online world, which we're going to be tackling some of that stuff on upcoming episodes. But, you know, it's so different than what we are, the way that we're doing things online. And maybe that's part of the reason it gets swallowed up and people don't look at the publicity as much because I see it.

I know some of your clients, Jacqueline is skin care. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Meredith: Yeah. So I've been working with Jacqueline, her company is Skin Perfect Spas. And I've been working with her for over a decade, and she's gotten a lot of publicity, certainly, on television. She's on TV at least once a month. But she's been featured in all these other publications because we just keep figuring out what's the next story.

She has a makeup line now, and it's vegan. So that was a story to tell. There's a new vegan makeup line that's out. And what's interesting about it. Well, it's vegan, and there's a color analysis process and what's unique and different about it. So that was a great hook and that got publicity.

Teresa: And if I can say right there, it's that obviously not all of the viewers are vegan, but for those who are you've called their name and they're looking specifically for things like that. And again, yes, those people are going to be like, here's somebody and somebody local that I can go and talk to you and do that with. You know, I just think it's so remarkable. It's truly just overlooked so much.

As I said earlier, people talk about being media ready.

Meredith: Right.

Teresa: And I know you and I have talked before, and it's like, what would you do if Oprah called tomorrow? So obviously, it doesn't have to be that big. It could be anywhere, anytime. But what is that? Because when you say that to somebody, because I remember so many people back when she had her show, you know, everybody was just like, oh, my God! If I could just get on Oprah, right? And to get on Oprah, it was the same thing to get on anything in front of somebody else's audience. So I think that this is something to think about, even when you want to collaborate with other people online or other people in whatever business who serve your audience in a different way is always going back to what's going to interest the viewers or the listeners or the course participants or something like that.

So what if somebody actually, if Oprah actually called and said, hey, I'd love for you to be on the show. You know, there's the panic like, oh, shit. Right?

Meredith: Right.

Teresa: So what should we do if we would like for Oprah to call us so that we don't panic when Oprah calls?

Meredith: Yeah.

Teresa: What do we do?

Meredith: Well, when I talk about being media ready, there are things that you can do to be packaged and positioned well. And then there's the training. There's media training. You need to get comfortable with sound bites and saying your message and things like that.

But what I'd like to talk about today is the packaging and positioning on your website. And just so that, because it might not be Oprah. But I work with lots of people just in local publicity. I mean, even just recently, just this week, a client of mine I was doing some pitching on their behalf and they said, well, you know, they called and they asked for photos. And they have yet to have a media kit on their website.

So imagine if you meet somebody out and about which again, that happened to another client of mine, they happened to meet a journalist out and about and got in a conversation with them. And then, like, I'm not ready, I don't have all this stuff. So I think that if you are somebody who wants a few media mentions within the next twelve months, you owe it to yourself to get yourself ready and prepared. And act as if it's going to happen because you put that energy out there and you want to be ready, you want to look like the professional that you are.

So there's just a very simple way to do this. And it's by having a media kit on your website. And you can have like a media tab in your navigation. So it can say media kit press kit, for the media or however you want to say it is fine. But imagine that you're out and you meet somebody and they're like, yeah, I'm interested. Send me some more information. Wouldn't it be great if you could say, "Great. I'll do it right now." You whip out your phone, you get their email and you just say, I'm going to send you a link to my media kit. Boom. And you're done. Okay? That right there makes you stand out.

Teresa: I was going to say that's just like DAMN!

Meredith: Yeah. It's like I'm not just sort of thinking that I might want to do this. I'm ready. I'm ready for you. I'm ready for publicity. Let's go.

Teresa: And I do think there's that energy and we put it out into the universe. And it's just saying like, okay, it's here. I'm ready. Bring it. And the confidence that comes in that because then you're more apt to look for those situations and make sure that you are getting in front of the right people.

So I know you have a fabulous media kit that we'll put the link to in the show notes. And let's talk about that because I think there are some things in here that, as I was looking through it and walking through and I thought, you know what? There are some things here that I think some people might really freak out about, although they're not really that big a deal.

So one of them was a video of you speaking or sizzle reel. And I can see where people could go "yikes!"

Meredith: Yeah. And you know, in the checklist that I offer, I'm saying here are some basic things that you can have in your media kit. And then here's some advanced things that you can have in your media kit. And the truth is, if you have any media kit whatsoever, I guarantee you, you're ahead of most people. So just like even to this, because this is all very simple stuff.

So you mentioned a sizzle reel. So what a sizzle reel is is like a compilation video. You might see somebody when you go to an event and before the speaker comes out, they're showing this video and it's like, they've been on this stage and this media and all this really jazzy stuff, high energy music. That is a sizzle reel. Okay?

So if you don't have all that, it's okay to not have that. But the truth is, after you have two or three media hits, you can have a short sizzle reel. Which kind of shows, it's a clip of you on television here, or it's an image of your article that was posted on Thrive Global or just like, a few different things. And then you can just keep adding to it.

But the reason that I have that on there is because if you don't have a sizzle reel, what I do recommend is having some sort of video of you speaking to the camera. So you can go on Zoom, do a quick video of you saying, "Thank you for checking out my media page. My name is Meredith Liepelt, and I love talking to people about X, Y and Z. If this is something that is interesting to you and your readers/your audience/your listeners, I would love to talk to you. Thanks for checking out my page." Done! Okay?

Teresa: See, that's what I love Meredith, is how doable you make this! It's so easy, because when we think about, if we go to those events and we see those a lot of those, and they do spend thousands of dollars getting those put together, and you think, 'oh, I can't do that so therefore, I'm not yet worthy or ready or pitchable' and all these other stories that we tell ourselves. So I love that because there are way, way too many ways that you can do this now.

I have even talked to people who didn't have a Zoom or any of that. There are a multitude of ways, but Facebook. Set up like just a dummy Facebook group and then go in and do a Facebook live and download that and use that. There are so many ways around it. There are like, very, very few excuses that I think hold water.

And to what you're saying, I think that it's a good thing for people to check out your media page. It's https://RisingStarPublicity.com/media. And I really like the video that you have on there because it's just a compilation like, you're nowhere in there. I did not see you in there at all, but it highlighted the people that you have helped get onto television and different situations. So I like that. So again, if people, you don't have to be right there on camera because I hear that one a lot too. So obviously, those people would not be pitching to television. But if it's for a radio show, for a written article or something like that, it's still good to have that there. And I like what you said about having the image of your article that was published wherever it was published.

I know you do coaching around all this as well. Not only do you help people get on television, but you have the coaching around that, too. And I think over the years, one of the things that I value most about you is your ability to see what we don't. I remember in the early days of us working together, way back in the olden days, I had said something about, just in a conversation, and there was something about I built over 200 websites at that point, and I had clients, I was talking about one of my clients in Australia.

You were like, what? I don't see that anywhere in any of your stuff. And I'm like, is that a big deal? What I do, right? I love that about you so I can see where somebody is having an event, where you can pull those stories out and you can pull out the pieces that really are of interest. And because, you know, the media field so well, you know some of the things that are going to garner more attention and more interest from different outlets.

And I would say back in episode 14, we definitely talked about that. Some of the ways to look at the different types of media and how to prep and pitch for that. So absolutely go back and listen to that if you haven't already.

One of the other things, back to your media kit, one of the other things you talked about, and this is in the basics. And I do like that. You have it broken up into the basics and then more advanced. So still in the basics, you had said to include a company background or a boiler plate, like not a locked PDF, so that it's easy to cut and paste.

Meredith: Right.

Teresa: So is that like a word doc or?

Meredith: So what a boilerplate is, it's like a paragraph that gives an overview of your company. So it might be, for example, something that you might see at the bottom of a Press Release. It's just like an overview of like, the company started on this date and it exists to do XY and Z. Maybe it might include the company's been awarded, this acknowledgement and this award and yada yada yada ,visit blah blah blah. It's literally just something that, they can orient somebody in the media to say now, what is your company about? It's sort of like an about. Let's call it eight to ten sentences. So you can just have that just right there on your website so they can just see it. They can copy it. They might hold some information from that for a story. You have to think about, how do you want to be positioned out there in the market? That's going to be your boilerplate. So it's just a short paragraph overview of what your company is.

Teresa: And that's so valuable and I've told people this, even when they're applying to speak at an event or something like that, have it all in one place, because it's easy for me to download. Easy for me to copy. Like you said, copy/paste into a document, because when we sit down as a group to look at who we're considering, we're not going to pull up everybody's website and do all of that. So making it as easy as possible for people to copy and paste and to create their own file on you.

I think it's is wonderful. And once they accept you, there's the images and everything else, they can just go back and get it. It saves you time as the business owner or the person who is being pitched, because you now don't have to have four more emails that go out and all the stuff.

Meredith: Exactly. And you hit the nail on the head when you said it makes it simple for them, because that's our job as the entrepreneur. We have to make it as simple as possible for them to do a story on us. So when we have our headshots there, our logos ready to go, any kind of images, product, images, maybe some lifestyle shots. If you have those anything like that that you can put on your media page could be easily downloaded. And then I can imagine if someone's doing a story on you and then there's all these images as well. I mean, that makes it even more valuable to you. So put it all out there, make it easy for them to pull all that stuff and use it.

Teresa: Fabulous. And again, you are so good at, even with props and things like that. Once you help pull out the stories and all of that and those make for great images to have on your website, even if it's just to have on the page that they're not downloading so that they can see you in action.

Meredith: Right.

Teresa: So let's talk about a couple of things in your advanced content in your media kit. Case studies, like what role do those play? I know a lot of people and again, you don't have to do everything on the list, but if I thought, well, yeah, I could put a case study on there. But why would I? You know, what role does it play?

Meredith: Great question. Okay. So a couple of things. One is that it does help to tell the story. So it's one thing when you say I am great at X, Y and Z but when your client is saying this is how this person helps me, that's a completely other situation. It's somebody else telling the story about how you are valuable out there in the marketplace, that's number one.

Number two is oftentimes if you have a feature story. So a feature story is you as a CEO, there's a focus on you, your company. What they'll want to do is they want to have or want to interview a third party. So if you've got, like, one or two of these up there, they might say, hey, I saw you have XY and Z up there as a case study. Could I talk to them as well and include them in the article?

Again, you're already making this as easy as possible for them to see you as somebody who is media ready, ready to go. Not only do you have your talking points down and you know what you're going to say but you've got a third party person who is ready, able, willing to show up and speak on your behalf about what it's like to work with you in a case study.

Again, that can sound so, so big. Right? But it could be as simple as I worked with. so and so. What was the problem? What was the solution? And then what were the results? A couple sentences on each one. That's a case study.

Teresa: Very straightforward.

Meredith: Very straightforward. It doesn't have to be this whole, like charts and graphs and, you know, all this kind of stuff. It can be a few sentences. What was the problem that they came to you with? What was your solution? And then what were the results? That can be your case study.

Teresa: I love it. Another thing on here is screenshots of your site and your blog. That one was new to me when I saw it. So tell us why that's important.

Meredith: I mean, it's not like it's super important. But sometimes people, they just want to have more access. Right? So for example, you want to really highlight your free offer and you've got that above the fold, so to speak, on your website, you can just take a screenshot of that and say, here's a screenshot of my website if you like because that's what would benefit you the most. Right? So put out there what would benefit you the most? Maybe they'll use it, maybe they won't. They could very easily go to your website and get their own screenshots. But if you just want to put that out there as saying, I even have a screenshot of my website, if you would like it, you are doing a little bit there to control the narrative. You're adding value. But you are also controlling the narrative to some extent.

Teresa: And there's that thread that runs through it all of making it easy for them.

Meredith: Right.

Teresa: Okay, well Meredith before we wrap up today, let's talk about how far in advance people should be pitching, because I know you know, there's never a bad time, right? But we're looking at right now, one of the things that I'm trying to do with my audience is to guide them into planning and preparing ahead of time. So we don't want to do, like Black Friday offers the week of Thanksgiving and throw that thing together because you're going to get thrown together results. So how far in advance should people be pitching, for now we're looking at the end of the year. Fall/Winter/the beginning of the year. How far in advance should people start pitching these things?

Meredith: Another fantastic question and the answer is it depends. It depends on the media outlet. So if you think about it anything that prints ,like anything that you would pick up in the grocery store, like a magazine, for example, that is done well in advance. So really, like December publications are being started in June, July, August. So if you were thinking that you would maybe get in a magazine in December and it's now the start of fall, it's probably a little bit too late for that. You could still go out there and try, but it's probably a little bit too late.

But other things, like newspapers or television or podcasts, those types of things, online properties. Those things are more immediate so they can be more immediate. Sometimes the newspaper. I mean, I've worked with newspapers that they work on things for a few weeks. And sometimes it's literally like, what can we do this week and let's get it going.

So it really just sort of depends. So to be thinking about, like, right now, you should be thinking about fall, winter and New Years. And it's a good idea to to just take a look holistically and think, what do I have going on within the next twelve months that could be potentially newsworthy.

What's new? What could be exciting to viewers to readers, those types of things. Do you have an event that's going on? Is there something special about that event that maybe you could pull out and start talking about? So take a look at what you've got going on within the year, and then you can start to plan. Again, you don't have to be putting in all this time and effort into your publicity if you're just starting out. You don't have to be working on this every single day, every single week, every single month even.

But if you know that there's something coming, television is a great example. So television could be booked if they happen to have a spot open tomorrow and you pitch and they're like, oh, my gosh, yes, because I need to fill this. You could be on as soon as tomorrow, but you could also be on, it could be next week or two weeks, three weeks. Something like that. So television can be more immediate. Certainly podcasts that's across the board. You could record something today and it's actually not published for a few months, or it could be published, you could be doing it live. So that kind of runs the gamut as well.

So if you are thinking like a magazine like a local magazine or a national magazine, what I encourage you to do is go to those websites and go to, it's usually in the footer. It will say something like advertising or it might say media kit or something like that. Go there. And what you're looking for is what's called an editorial calendar. And what that says is, they usually put out like a one page document, and it will have every single month of the year and what topics they're covering.

So you can take a look at that. Like one of my clients, I had looked on a real simple magazine. I pulled up their editorial calendar. They were doing an issue on color. And this gets back to my client that you mentioned Teresa, Jacqueline. Skin Perfect. She has a whole color analysis process. So that was several months down the line. So I thought, well, hey, that's great. Let's pitch for the color issue. Which we did. We got in conversation, and it never turned into media coverage.

But the great news is, it was a good enough pitch that we heard back from them. National magazines are really hard to get into, but your local magazines usually also have this as well. So you can go and you can look and you see, where might I fit in in the next twelve months? In the next three months? I don't know. You just have to go and take 30 minutes and go do this, and then maybe you'll find a great opportunity. You just have to put some time and effort into it.

That's a long answer to your question, what's the time frame? But it really is, it just really does depend on the media outlet.

Teresa:
And this goes back to why it's so important in our business is to be planning ahead, to be looking at the whole year. I know we do at Growth s\Strategies Café, we do it in October for the upcoming year. Now we don't plan out all the details and all the tasks and everything else. But we know when we're going to be offering what, right? And so as you're doing that, and I think the other great thing is to like you said, when you know those things, when you've gathered that information, you can say what's the spin that I can put on this, what's the twist or the interest, the hook that would go with this.

And I can see how if somebody's doing something on color, I think a lot of people might have missed that with Jacqueline's color analysis. So it's being creative. And I like that it allows us to free up that or use that part of our brain that we're not always doing when we're over here looking at numbers and all the data and everything else. So it gives us that creative space.

So, Meredith, thank you so much for coming and talking about all of this. I'll make sure that all of your links are in the show notes, including your Facebook group, the Visibility Collective, and for anybody who's jumping off, you can go to https://Facebook.com/groups/The Visibility Collective. You've got some great videos in there that you've done and gone over a lot of this stuff more in depth than we obviously had time to do today.

So thank you, thank you for that. Thank you for showing up the way that you do and helping so many of us get out there and make a bigger name for ourselves.

Meredith: Well, thank you for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here in Growth Strategies Café, talking to you, talking to your awesome people, and thank you for this opportunity.

Teresa: Always a pleasure, my friend.

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