What No One Tells You About PR with Celebrity Publicist Nicole Dunn

Transcription

Today’s show is going to be less of a journey type of conversation, it’s going to be more of a how to and what to do type of conversation. I’ve got my dear friend, former publicist, Nicole Dunn on the show.

Nicole’s amazing. She’s a sweetheart, she’s an amazing person, and she was my publicist for three years. And she was the sole reason that I was able to get on the Dr. Oz show and become a regular contributor to Mind Body Green, and US Health News World Reports and a bunch of other websites, and platforms that would’ve been pretty tough to get on all by myself.

Nicole’s great because—as you’re going to see in this interview—she’s also the PR person for The Health Influencer. She’s worked with people like myself, JJ Virgin, Tony Horton, Brett Hoebel, Emily Fletcher, Josh Axe, and on, and on, and on.

She’s really done a smart job and I think this is a great lesson for you, to become the expert in a niche, right? To become the big fish in a small pond.

Instead of being the publicist for everyone, she is the publicist for The Health and Fitness Influencer. Let me give you a little bit of her background.

She started on Dunn Pellier Media in 2008, and she’s set out not only to kind of dominate the health and wellness Public Relation sector, but to tie her extensive connections and experience in TV production to her passion of healthy living.

And knowing that good PR is all about telling the story, the right story, Dunn Pellier Media uses out of the box angles and precise strategy backed by decades of industry experience to bring health and wellness clients to the next level.

Nicole is a former team Emmy nominated producer, and she’s worked with a lot of the people that I mentioned just a moment ago. If you’re interested in finding a publicist, someone who can you on TV, get more media exposure—Nicole’s definitely the person I’d recommend.

And if you want to learn more about what they do, and their website is over at dunnpelliermedia.com and we’ll be sure to link that up in the show notes over at the blog, at healthpreneurgroup.com/podcast.

You ready? You ready to take some notes? If you’re driving you may want to pull over, get out your notepad, and jot down a few notes—because what Nicole is going to share with you here is really the step-by-step process that goes into the thinking and execution of getting your message out to more people using PR and media.

And I’m also going to share the really cool index card strategy that helped me stand out to the producers on the Dr. Oz show, so you’re not going to want to miss that.

Without any further ado, let’s welcome Nicole Dunn onto the show.

 

Yuri:   Nicole, welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast. How is it going?

Nicole:   Thanks for having me. It’s going wonderful here in Los Angeles.

Yuri:    Such a beautiful city. Every time I’m there, I’m like, “I like this place more and more.”

Nicole:   We love it, because it’s sunny every day.

Yuri:    I know, I know. It’s pretty … plus, LA’s got this vibe—there’s so much going on. Every corner you turn, there could be a movie being shot, or some new thing going on, there’s a good energy to it.

Nicole:   Good energy and there’s a lot of workouts, there’s a lot of health and wellness people here, so we love it.

Yuri:   It’s pretty cool. All right. So, I’m excited to talk to you today because it’s been a while since we last spoke. We worked together for about three years, and you were the reason why I was able to get onto the Dr. Oz Show, and the Doctors and a bunch of other great media exposure.

Nicole’s Tony Horton Story

I want to start off by talking with you about … Why you, as a publicist, decided to really focus on health and fitness? Because you did the stuff for Tony Horton, for a ton of other big names in our space, was there a pivotal moment in your journey where you were like, “You know what, maybe I should just focus on this industry?”

Nicole:   There was. I actually was a TV producer, so I was producing television and there was a moment where you can only go so far. And I was just directly under the EP—which is executive producer—and there’s not many of those executive producer jobs. So I was really vying for a job that really wasn’t available.

My husband said to me, “I think you should start your own business.” And I said, “You’re crazy. Why would I do that?” So he said, “I just think you’re really good with putting people on television, and you could really do this.”

So I set out, I hired a coach, I ended up getting myself on the cover of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, and I set out to actually get a client.

I had a mastermind group and one of the women in the mastermind group said, “Listen, I’ve got a client that I cook for that I think would be really, really great for you.” And I said, “Oh, okay. Who’s that?” And she says, “Tony Horton.” I said, “Wow, I’ve never heard of this person, what does he do?”

Yuri:  Are you serious? 

Nicole:   Yeah. I hadn’t heard of him.

Yuri:   That’s awesome.

Nicole:  This was ten years ago. And she said, “You haven’t seeing his infomercials? They’re all over TV.” And I said, “No,” because I was not into health and wellness and fitness.

I did not take care of myself when I was in television—and that’s a whole other conversation—working the hours that we did. So as I got into this relationship with Tony Horton, he was my only client.

I started with him, and I started traveling with him, and he was like, “What do you do for workouts?” And I said, “Actually, I don’t work out.” He said, “Well, we’re going to change that.”

So I started working out, which increased all these great things in my life. It was like, “Wow, I actually feel like I can breathe.” I just looked better, I felt better.

And the pivotal moment for me was, we were in Washington DC, and we were doing a workout for the Press Club. Now, if you don’t know anything about the press club in Washington DC—it’s very exclusive, there’s probably 2,500 members of journalist that attend Press Club meetings and press conferences there. And it’s very prestigious.

So we were raising money for journalism by utilizing Tony Horton to do a workout, to raise the money. And we were walking down the street after the workout and this woman was running down the street, African-American woman, she said, “Oh, my god, you’re Tony Horton!”

And he says, “I am.” And he says, “Do you have any questions for me?” And she said, “I do. I lost 100 pounds doing P90X.” So they started talking and she said, “You know, today is my birthday.” And he says, “Oh, happy birthday.” And she said, “And my name is Hope.”

And we’re like… “Oh… Hope, happy birthday!” And she said, “You’re never going to believe this.”

And he says, “You told me it’s your birthday, and you told me you lost 100 pounds. And your name is Hope. What am I not going to believe?”

And she says, “Look at this. She’s carrying a box, and she opens the box and it’s a birthday cake with his face on the cake.”

That was sort of my real pivotal moment, where I said, “Oh my gosh, I am going to do this health and wellness thing” and I really got into it. I really started to focus my efforts on just health and wellness.

And the coach that I hired in the very beginning when I first started said, “You’ve got to go niche. You just have to go niche and really pick something and fine tune it.” That was my pivotal moment and I didn’t look back.

I was like, “I’m doing this. I’m doing the health and wellness thing and I’m on board.”

Yuri:    That’s awesome. That’s a great story. Tony has such a great personality, I can see all that going as you’re describing it.

Nicole:   Yeah.

Essential PR Tips

Yuri:    You’ve worked with a lot of people in our space, like myself, Tony, Brendan Brazier, Josh Ax, JJ Virgin, some really influential people.

A lot of our listeners are obviously health and fitness entrepreneurs. Out of all the people that you’ve worked with, when you think back to your roster, what are one or two common traits that all these people have? That have helped them get on TV or just get more exposure, or help them get their messages out to more people?

Nicole:   Yeah. I think the number one thing was, they were very clear about who they were, why they were doing what they were doing, the direction that they were taking their expertise, and they were very credible experts to begin with.

So they had really good information for their audience, and I think that made it really easy for them to get PR. They knew exactly what they wanted to put out, and they utilized me as their biggest megaphone.

I think when you have good content, and you’re a credible expert, you really shouldn’t have a problem putting the information out to get coverage or to build a following with your expertise. If you’re really clear about your why and your messaging, it’s a lot easier to get coverage.

And I would say they have something special, all of the experts that I’ve worked with. For one, they’re particularly great, and they take direction really well.

So I would say probably, all in all, everyone that we’ve worked with, they had something special. They had something that no one else had and they specialized in it.

Yuri:   That’s cool. I know I had something no one else had, which was no hair, so … that’s something that no one can touch.

Nicole:    Right? I know.

Yuri:    Exactly. And what would you say, for people that are considering putting in the time or the investments to hire a publicist, or go down the media route, what are a few things they need to consider in terms of mistakes to avoid?

What are some things they don’t even know they don’t know, that they should know about?

Nicole:    Yeah. I think the first thing is to understand what public relations is, and public relations is a way to take your message and put it out to the media and to their audience.

And it’s really not about you. It’s about their audience and how do you fit into their audience.

I think people don’t understand why they need PR to begin with. If you want to be more credible in your field and you want to build up your expertise, you probably would go out and utilize media.

You’ve got a book to promote, you have something to promote, and I’d say—for people that are just starting out—figure out what is your why. Why are you putting your message out to the masses? And get clear about your expertise, you as an expert.

Coming up with lots of content, content is king in our world. So coming up with content, and being able to research and identify before you set out to hire a publicist.

Where could I actually write and contribute to? I always tell people, “Think about those outlets, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Hollywood Reporter, Washington Post, where would you see yourself contributing content to?”

And then the second thing would be to really find your local staff first, don’t just go for the big shot stuff right off the bat. I think you need to be a star in your own niche, in your own area first.

And that’s really easy to get coverage. People don’t really realize how easy it is to get coverage.

And then, it’s creating ideas that you think the public would be interested in. How are you changing lives and how are you taking what you know to a mainstream audience? So that they can understand what it is that you cover, and what your expertise is, and how you’re helping people.

Yuri:   Nice. So content is really the platform. In today’s day and age where there’s so much information, so much content, is content enough? Or does it really have to have a unique hook, or angle, just like anything catchy online would have as well?

Nicole:    Yeah, it’s got to have a good angle and good hook.

I tell people generally—have a really good subject line for your email and have a really good first paragraph. It doesn’t need to be long and lengthy.

And you can get through to somebody with an email. If you’ve got that one catchy title, that’s going to get your email opened more so than it would if you didn’t put any thought behind it and said, “Hey, I want to be on your show.”

Yeah. You’ve got to have content. And, like you said, content—there’s so much of it out there. So as an expert, you’ve really got to think of ways to … how do you stand out from the rest of the crowd? You want to be different, you want to stand out.

And people don’t really realize, we send out … Let’s say for one pitch, we probably send out maybe fifty emails. And if we get three or four responses back, we know we’re on the right track.

And we know we’re on the right track because we got a response. And that tells us that our pitch was good. If we don’t get a response, we go back to the drawing board and we recreate, and come up with something else.

And I think as an expert, you just have to think outside of the box. How are you going to be different than the massive amount of experts that are out there now?

Yuri:     That’s good. It’s a good lesson in marketing, because there’s a lot of smart people, as you mentioned. A lot of the people you work with are leaders in their field, very, very smart. And then, it’s like … I wanna talk about probiotics.

Okay … How do we put a sexy packaging around probiotics to make it really appealing?

And that takes practice, it’s not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. How do you suggest people get started with kind of coming up with that angle or hook?

Nicole:    Yeah. I want to say one thing about the angle and the hook that brings you back to what you’re just saying.

What we do is we create google alerts—on ourselves, on the people that we represent … And it’s a good idea because let’s say you specialize in probiotics. You set a google alert for probiotics, so that you can be looking at what kind of content people are pumping out about probiotics.

Become an expert at your own expertise. See what other people are writing about. And then create your pitch, or your idea that’s different from everybody else in whatever the clutter is.

And often times, the clutter is what’s trending. There’s a way that you can “newsjack” and you can take your concept and then play off of something that’s happening in the news, as well.

So, it’s a two-sided thing. It can be too cluttered but at the same point, it can be trendy and you can jump on the bandwagon of, “Hey, wow, that’s a trend right now, the gut is huge right now.” I mean, it was huge a year ago, but it’s still huge right now.

Yuri:    That’s really great advice, because I think a lot of people online are focused on evergreen content—stuff that is going to be searched for years on Google.

But I think as you just mentioned … the Today Show, the media type stuff, it’s more like what’s happening right now. So that newsjacking idea is great, it’s a really good suggestion.

Nicole:   And you also really have to study. Like I said in the beginning—when you identify five outlets that you think that you could contribute to, you should do your homework.

You’ve got to study how they present their content, what they’re covering, because if you’re just going to blindly pitch your content and it doesn’t match their audience and what they put out, they’re not going to use you.

So I try to tell people, “Do your homework.”

Yuri:    It’s good advice, not only for kids, but for adults as well. So let’s say the pitch goes well, there’s an interest from a show, or from a magazine, or anything else, what’s the next step? Is it a sit down with the producers, or does it depend on the outlet?

What to Expect at a TV Show

Nicole:    It just depends on the outlet, it depends on the show. If it’s a TV show generally what happens is we send a pitch over, they say we like this, we kind of work through it to make sure it fits their audience.

They’re always going to say, “We want to make this three points.” And then you’re going to say, “Okay, great. Here’s the information that I can add to the segment to make it great for your audience.”

They usually do a pre-call, and if you’re a local, then that’s great. If you’re going to be on the Today Show, you can just jet over there. I generally tell people if they get a bite like the Today Show, or they get a bite on Dr. Oz, one of the bigger shows, get yourself there.

You can write that off and you can get yourself there, but generally they have a meeting with you before you go on the show… And if you know your content and you know the show, you should be well-prepared before you get to the show. It shouldn’t be hard.

And you have to be able to think on your feet because television is a visual medium, it’s also quick and fast. You only get like four minutes to do a segment, versus doing something for Mind Body Green.

Mind Body Green has a lot of experts that contribute to their publication. So they’ll ask you to write an article, they’ll say, “Okay, these are trending topics that we want to cover. Can you please contribute on these items.” And you’ll just write it up for them.

Generally what we do here at our firm—we typically do their job for them. So they don’t have to say, “Wow, I need this, this, and that.” We give them everything that they should need—and we kind of go overboard, because I think that’s the way that we’ve been able to land great content for clients, is because we do their job for them. We make it easy. We know how many emails a day they get.

Each show is different. I do have an interview checklist that I have, that I can send out to anyone who comes to our website. We’ve also got a PR checklist that we send to people that gives you ten steps on how to get your PR started.

And then, for those people who are in the other place, where they’ve gotten some PR and now they’re nervous … They’ve gotten the big interview with the Today Show, we also have a checklist for the interview, which is very important. It’s important to know what to do when you get to the station.

Yuri:    Yeah, totally. We’ll make sure to link up to those links, to the sites in the show notes, for this episode. So be sure to check those out, guys.

So what I did with the Dr. Oz meeting, with the producers ahead of time is: I have those cue cards made out, kind of like drew these cartoons for the five different segment ideas.

I’m thinking, “Okay, they probably see 100 of these people on a weekly basis. How do I stand out? How do I become memorable?” How do I give them something that makes their life a bit easier, where they can take these and just get a caricature of what I’m thinking. On the back, just some bullet points of things they can consider. And they loved that idea.

So I don’t know if that was the reason I got on, but it was just something I thought would go above and beyond to make their lives a bit easier. Because as you said, there’s so much stuff.

It’s like, “Who’s that person again?” And you just have to stand out.

Nicole:     I remember those cards. And you did do an excellent job with the cards. And that was one of the reasons that you stood out.

You stood out to them because you did your homework and you gave them exactly what they wanted. You listened to them, and you listened to, “Okay, so what are you covering?” You came up with five different segment type of ideas, and you went in and you blew them away.

That’s what happened. You knew your material, but you also knew the show. That really, really helps cement your time on Dr. Oz.

Yuri:    Yeah, no, it was great. I want to thank you again. I don’t know if people realize this or not, is that—especially with an online business—there’s a lot of suspicion.

“Oh, is this guy a scammer?” or whatever. Having that credibility is huge. It really does make a difference.

And it’s something that you can always refer back to. Like, “Yay, I’m a New York Times best selling author, I’ve been on Dr. Oz.” All of these little sound bites, when you’re introducing yourself on video, when you’re introducing yourself on a podcast, or when someone is reading your bio …

We live in a world that’s very superficial. It’s sad to say, right?

But people make judgements. And if you have the stuff to use to your advantage, that’s going to help push you above everyone else.

I’m a huge believer in really leveraging all that for sure.

Nicole:    Absolutely. It’s a vehicle. It’s another vehicle to say, “Hey, I’ve got a book, hey I’ve been on the show.” It gives you more leverage, it makes you a star in your niche, in your field. And you get more followers, and you get more clients, you get more people buying your products and it’s just another thing to add to your resume of sorts.

Setting up your own PR mission

Yuri:     Yeah, totally. If someone wanted to start doing, for instance, their own outreach from a PR perspective, what are some things they need to do? How do they start?

Nicole:   Okay. So I said in the beginning of our interview, content is king.

So, coming up with ideas, first and foremost, of what you could be putting out. Generate topics that you think that the media would want you to contribute to. So come up with a list of at least two months worth of content—stuff that you can post on social, about you, your product, your brand.

Think of trending topical stuff. Like I said, set the google alert, come up with a short, sweet succinct pitch. Google is our best friend—I always say this to anyone starting off.

Identify the five places that maybe you wanna start writing for and contributing to. Let’s say that’s Women’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and Huffington Post.

And then you go online and you start reading and looking at who’s posting things about the type of stuff that you’re writing about or the type of stuff that you put out for your programs. And start following those people that are putting content out there—editors, reporters, journalists, and you can just Google the person’s name.

I’ve come up with emails, we have a program here that we use—it’s called Cision, it’s very expensive—but we also just Google people. We Google them, we find them on Twitter, we start a conversation on Twitter, we look at their Instagram.

Really you can identify people very easily, and you can pitch one line. You can send them a direct message and say, “I’ve got a great pitch about adding fats to your diet with new scientific information.” And you might get something just from doing that.

I always say—get your content down, identify the places that you wanna write segments for or contribute to, and then research. Just research, research, research. And you can’t do enough research to find people that are like-minded, that you can contribute stuff to their publications, and also their television shows.

And I’d say, start small. Start in your own neck of your woods, in your home town. Why not start there first? And start with your local paper, and start with your local news. They’re always looking for content and coverage.

I’d say, probably the worst time to approach a journalist is if there’s some breaking news story, especially with a hurricane, or some kind of an incident. You have to really be careful about when you’re pitching people.

And usually in the mornings the reporters are very busy with the TV show, or they have deadlines—so being really courteous with people about it … “Hey, do you have a few minutes?”

Personally, I pick up the phone. And you can do that very easily. Just get started and have a base for something first, because then you’ll understand the process of public relations and why you’re doing it and how much work it takes to get the segment, or get the story.

Start local and take that mainstream after you do your local presence. And be organic and create something that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd.

Yuri:    That’s good. It’s good advice. One of the things that I recognized as I got into understanding PR a bit was … These shows are massive content publishers. Whether it’s a news show, or a Dr. Oz show, they’re constantly having to come up with new contents.

And I think what I realized is—my job is to just give them what their looking for on a silver platter.

Nicole:    Yeah. Yeah.

Yuri:   When I started to think of it in that way, it really helped me thinking about, “Okay, if they’ve got this problem of filling in these gaps, how do I do that? How do I give them something that’s unique, that’s different than what they’ve covered before, and gives them easy to utilize content.”

Nicole:    Absolutely.

And I think people generally respect you a bit more when you’ve done the work for them. They’re like, “Wow, this is so great. Thank you so much.”

And lastly, I’ll say … every time that I book something for someone, for clients, I send a thank you note. No matter what.

No one does that anymore, and they’re going to remember you. I tell people—let’s say you get an article on Mind Body Green. You are going to want to promote the crap out of that article.

You’re going to want to go to all of your friends and all of your followers: “Hey, please, share this article.” Because the more shares, the more popular it is, and they’ll ask you back.

I always ask them for an address. I say, “Can I get your address? I just want to send you something.” And I send them a quick note, “Thank you so much for having me on your show,” or “having me in your publication. It means a lot and I look forward to continuing to build a relationship.”

Those little things go a long way. I have done it for every single client, when you went on Dr. Oz, and the Doctors, they got thank you notes, they got flowers, they got wine.

I tend to want to reward the contacts that I have because they’re very valuable, and you have to wear golden gloves with any kind of media contact.

Yuri:    That’s great advice. And I think there’s just less clutter. People get less mail than they do email, so why not send notes?

Nicole:    One time we had a client. We got her on the Today Show, we built a diorama, like in school, like in eighth grade, and-

Yuri:   Not a diarrhea, a diorama? [laughing]

Nicole:    Diorama, yeah. Diorama. So we built this whole thing and we put this box together and we had all these kitschy things that we put in the box and we had sayings that we put on the inside of the box when they opened it up, and we got booked right away on the Today Show.

And I think it’s because we had a really good idea, but we also had that box that showed up. And the producer was like, “Whoa, okay—nobody does that.”

Yuri:   Yeah, it’s going that extra little mile, which I think a lot of people just out of laziness don’t do.

But I think if you’re really identified those targets that you’re after and just say, “Okay, listen, this is worth it, I’m going to invest the time, the money, whatever, to make this happen,” it will certainly leave a mark and probably pay off.

Nicole:   And speaking of time, one last thing, PR is something that takes time. It just does not happen overnight. And, like you said, we worked together for quite a while, to build up that reputation and build up the credibility, so I think people get the wrong idea. They think, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to be on this show tomorrow.”

And I’ll give you an example. We worked with Emily Fletcher, ziva meditation, we worked with her for a year and then we she hired us for something recently and we invited someone from the Today Show, who came to see her speak in person.

And then they said, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to put her in a segment.” And literally a week later she was on the Today show, and recently she was on the Today Show again.

But that took time, that didn’t happen overnight. You have to be mindful of that time and the journey to get there.

Yuri:    It’s true, great advice, just like with building a business, doesn’t happen overnight.

Nicole:   Exactly.

Yuri:   There’s no teleportation that I’m aware of yet, whether it’s flying from New York to LA, or zero to a million on your business. So enjoy the journey.

Nicole:   Yeah.

Rapid-Five

Yuri:   Nicole, are you ready for the rapid five?

Nicole:    Yeah, go. 

Yuri:    All right, so here we go. All right. Let me get pumped up here, one second.

Nicole:   I’m holding my hands together. [laughing]

Yuri:  Okay, here we go. Your biggest weakness?

Nicole:   My biggest weakness. I am a worrier.

Yuri:     A worrier. Cool. Your biggest strength?

Nicole:  My biggest strength, my ability to connect.

Yuri:   One skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business.

Nicole:   Meeting people and just talking about the business, and what we do, and connecting.

Yuri:   Nice. What do you do first thing in the morning?

Nicole:   I meditate.

Yuri:   Complete this sentence. I know I’m being successful when.

Nicole:  I know I’m being successful when my clients are on major TV shows and in the biggest publications out there.

Yuri:  Awesome.

Nicole:    And their success is my success.

Yuri:   Totally, totally. That’s great. Well, Nicole, this has been awesome. What is the best place for people to follow your work, get in touch with you, if they ever want to engage your services?

Nicole:   Yeah, we’re on all kinds of platforms. We’re on Instagram, so it’s Dunnpellier PR and our website is dunnpelliermedia.com. And we love to connect.

Starting this fall we’re going to pick back up and do our media mornings with DPM, where we answer all of your PR questions, we talk about anything to do with PR, and media, we’re there. Every Wednesday at noon.

Yuri:    Awesome. Great stuff. And we’ll link up to those in the show notes, guys. Those all will be over in the blog.

Nicole, great to have you on the show, I’m so excited for all of our listeners to follow your work and obviously just take some of this stuff and, if they’re considering doing more media and PR, these are things that most people don’t consider. So, I’m surely grateful that you were able to share all of this with our listeners. So thank you so much.

 Nicole:  Thank you.

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All right. So if you’re serious about getting more exposure on TV, magazines, websites, and so forth, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.

Now, I’ve got a little action step for you to take. This is something that I, a type of implementation exercise that I use with pretty much any kind of live sessions that I do, from our big events or from our workshops, and it is this. This is kind of an abbreviated version of it.

What I’d like you to do is think about what is the big “a-ha,” what’s the big insight you got from our conversation? I want you to write that down.

I want you to write “The big insight I got from this discussion was ______.”

Once you’ve written that down, I want you to challenge yourself to take the next three steps.

What are the next three steps you’re going to put into place? To make that insight actionable.

That might mean write three pitches for this piece of content, or research five websites I want to write for, or contact the editor at this magazine. Whatever it is for you, write down those three action steps, where you take that big a-ha, that big insight, and you now move it into execution mode.

So that’s my challenge for you to do right now, but assuming you’re not driving, obviously. Unless you’re driving a self-driving car, in which case you can actually do the work while the car drives itself.

 

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