The Design Business Show 185: Achieving Visibility Through Public Relations with Lisa Simone Richards

Lisa Simone Richards is a PR & Visibility Strategist for online coaches who want to get seen everywhere.

Through her free workshops, masterclasses and mentorship program, she gives you the insider secrets on how to get exposure and reach more people without spinning on social media or wasting more money on Facebook ads.

Her clients learn the lather-rinse-repeat formula for more visibility which makes them more sales. They go from invisible to in-demand getting interviewed on top podcasts, partnering with big names in their industry and building their authority expert status getting featured on major media like FOX, NBC, Forbes, Inc., and more.

On weekends you can find her playing in the kitchen with her husband, petting ALL the dogs in the park, and watching way too many fashion styling videos on YouTube.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Lisa Got Started in Public Relations + Starting Her Own Business

Today Lisa is here to talk about public relations and press, which is a topic we haven’t really covered on the show yet
When Lisa first learned about public relations, it was 2002, and she was in her first year of college – she became interested because Samantha Jones on Sex and the City made PR look super fun
Right after college, Lisa worked for a beauty company; she also interned at Fashion Magazine and worked at a few fashion agencies where she would be behind the scenes at various shows or working designer suites during film festivals
Eventually, Lisa moved into the agency world, where she had more corporate clients like Staples, Crayola, and Virgin Mobile
In 2009, Lisa got a taste of working with small businesses and entrepreneurs and fell in love with how much influence and impact she could have versus being a cog in the wheel at an agency
Lisa shares that she was able to help one company she worked at for four years grow from 30 locations in Ontario to over 100 across Canada and help take the company’s revenues from $400k to over 4 million a year
Now in 2022, Lisa loves teaching creatives and online service-based business owners how to get earned media opportunities, how to get interviewed on people’s television shows, podcasts, newspapers, magazines, and websites
Your ideal client is hanging out somewhere; Lisa helps show people how they can get access to that place, figure out who they need to know, come up with a creative message and get free access to their ideal clients while getting an endorsement at the same time
When Lisa started her business as a side hustle in 2015, she was running a PR agency called Vitality PR & Communications – what she saw in the market was people wanted to work with PR agencies, but their prices were set very high, and that wasn’t realistic for up and coming, new business owners
Through Vitality, Lisa offered 3-month PR packages at a fraction of that cost – so clients could get access to exposure, get up and running, and then they could choose if they wanted to re-sign or not
Lisa wanted to have more impact, scale, and leverage, so she moved from the agency model into doing one-on-one coaching, group mentorship programs, and having courses – and shares that she still has all those things today, but what is fun is now she’s starting to revisit the agency model
The differentiator before for Lisa was having shorter retainer plans, and now they have a 6-month model where they also train an in-house team – Lisa says it’s like the publicists showing you the secrets that other publicists don’t want you to know

Tips for Showing up Like a Pro + ABCs of Visibility

Lisa recommends that if you don’t have a full media kit on your website, at least have a shareable Dropbox or Google folder with certain assets in there like, high-resolution images and headshots, and your bio
Before you start going out for outreach, Lisa says you’ll want to get really clear on your messaging – what is that lather-rinse-repeat message that you can use over and over again
Lisa shares that she likes to work with clients on the messaging – she gets to work with a lot of very talented people who come to her with complex ideas and messaging, and then she gets to help deliver it in a way that will be consumer-friendly
The story of when Lisa worked with identical twin chiropractors in 2015, and they wanted to do a piece on what happens to your elbow and wrist alignment when you take a selfie and how Lisa worked with them on making that message interesting for consumers
How Kim Kardashian was in the UK and took 1,500 selfies that week, so all of a sudden, they were able to change it into a story about what happens to your elbow and wrists when you take 1,500 selfies like Kim Kardashian – that’s when it got picked up by national news, local radio and a magazine
Lisa wants to understand what a person’s business goals are, so where she starts with that is what she calls the ABCs of visibility; are you looking to build A) awareness, B) Buzz, C) Credibility – understanding which one of these you are trying to achieve will determine the types of places that make sense for you to be seen
Another thing Lisa likes to check in on is who are her clients and what are they comfortable with – someone who is introverted may not want to speak live at a conference or be on national television – so really understanding a person and where they are going to shine helps Lisa decide where they should get started as well
Lisa shares that it’s easy to have relationships in the industry, but they are not necessary – if you want to be on Good Morning America, for example, figure out who the segment producer that covers the topic is, send them an email with a good idea – it doesn’t need to be harder than that

Easy Ways to Achieve Visibility + Lisa’s Offers

Why you should have a healthy media mix for your audience when it comes to reading content, listening to content, or watching content
When it comes to written media, instead of writing on your website or doing a blog post, Lisa says you could do a guest blog post on someone else’s site or go to Google and search write for us + your industry, and you will get websites that are looking for people to write on that topic, so you can put your content out where people are actually looking for it
For audio content, Lisa says you could be interviewed on podcasts, radio, or co-host rooms on Clubhouse
Moving to visual content, you could be interviewed on a local morning television show, go live in someone else’s Facebook group or Instagram, you could do a guest training in someone’s mastermind, or speak on live or virtual stages
How imposter syndrome happens to everyone no matter what stage they are at in their business and how Lisa encourages her clients to write a not so humble brag sheet to help build confidence – grab a pen and paper; write down how much time and money you’ve invested in your specialty, and think about the results you’ve achieved
Lisa talks about the transition she went through in her business and says if you are going through a transition in your business, an easy thing to do is to take control of the platforms you own – update your profiles, and send an email to your list sharing your transition into your new niche
When you are transitioning in your business, Lisa shares that you might have to start from scratch and build your brand according to your new niche – think about the new podcasts, stages, and websites it makes sense to be seen on and start positioning yourself for those opportunities so you can get in front of the right people
Lisa’s super deluxe package is for service owners who want to done-for-you PR services who don’t want to be paying the agency endlessly on retainer – a 6-month package where Lisa does their PR and also trains someone on their team to be able to bring it in-house
Where Lisa tends to work with most of her clients is inside her 6-month mentorship program, where she teaches everything she’s learned in her 20 years of experience
How Lisa has a few entry-level courses on podcasting or getting on television where people can go through automated modules and teach themselves how to get publicity
Lisa shares that she used to offer a 30-day program but realized that doing it all for people to a certain degree keeps her up at night, so she doesn’t offer that anymore – she’s learned that she can come up with an amazing PR strategy and hand it off to someone on her team to execute
Although it’s great we can now own our social media platforms, Lisa cautions us that our social media content is where we are nurturing our existing audience – It’s not the same as visibility, which is why it’s so important to get on other people’s platforms to increase visibility and get lead generation
A line Lisa learned and loves is “don’t change your talk, change your audience” – get clear and consistent with your message and put it in front of new people over and over again because for those people, it’s going to be the first time that they hear it and if they think about working with you, they will research and Google you, and a consistent message will instill trust
I talk about my business transition and the 3 things I want to offer, and Lisa comments on how I could package my 3 steps and position my message or how I could break down step 1 in-depth and help clients get little wins so when they want to keep going, they come back to me for step 2 and 3
How sometimes simplifying your process is better than overloading your audience with a bunch of content
After listening to this episode, Lisa encourages everyone to write down one thing they took away from the episode that makes sense for them and put it into practice
If you head over to Lisasimonerichards.com/quiz, there is a quiz called ‘How should I get visibility as an online Coach’ – based on your answers, Lisa will share 1 of 5 ways to start getting visibility and send a training video so you can get started