In this episode of the Off The Charts podcast, I get to peek into Susan Harrow‘s world of publicity and business as she shares what she’s had to do to pivot her business and serve her clients in the way that really lights her up.
Susan was a publicist and booked people on TV and in the press for many years. You can just picture her getting people on the Today Show, in the New York Times, and other popular media outlets.
Her big realization was that these media appearances weren’t giving her clients the results they wanted. Not because getting publicity doesn’t work, but because her clients needed more media training in order to capitalize on these appearances.
The one thing that Susan had to do in order to help her clients and also take her business off the charts, was to stop focusing on being a publicist (and landing people these gigs) and instead focus on media training her clients.
As soon as she added media coaching, her clients started getting real results from their publicity!
Plus, Susan was offering media training during the dot-com boom, where she was able to help some high level clients leverage their brands into million dollar deals. Pretty awesome, right?
The other piece of the publicity puzzle is having your “back end” ready to handle the influx of attention. That means having a strong opt-in offer and follow-up sequence that leads to sales, and knowing what you’re going to say before you even reach out to the media.
That means having your business systems lined up before you get press.
The other big thing that helped Susan really grow her business was to stop following every guru’s system. This meant that she wasn’t following someone else’s blueprint anymore.
She hired another media trainer to do the teaching in her courses. She also realized that this is the best way she can really focus on what she loves doing.
Susan found that her favorite part of delivering her service is to answer questions via Q&A time. This helped her expand on the parts of her business that she loves.
Plus, Susan started putting more of her artistic nature into her business communication. She sprinkles in references to literature, martial arts poetry, and shares more stories. This helps her speak her mind, and also shows her personality.
About Susan Harrow
For the past 25 years, Susan Harrow has been the brains + heart behind Harrow Communications, a media coaching + marketing agency based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She’s the author of the best-selling book, Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul®: A Woman’s Guide to Promoting Herself, Her Business, Her Product or Her Cause with Integrity & Spirit (HarperCollins) and a regular contributor to the San Francisco Examiner, The Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Find more goodies at PRSecrets.com.
