Bacon Wrapped Business With Brad Costanzo

How To Get Massive Exposure and Media Coverage with CoachDeb Cole


Deb Cole is a social media pioneer, author, and powerhouse consultant known affectionately by her clients and fans as @CoachDeb since Twitter was born.

She was dubbed “The Twitter Queen” by her friends when she predicted the mainstream use of Twitter by celebrities and even presidents.

Now she’s known as the CEO’s secret weapon when it comes to influencing marketing with her social media campaigns that get phenomenal results.

Combining her formal education in Psychology with her underground education in influence and persuasion, she is one dangerous woman when it comes to creating marketing campaigns that go viral online.

Today, she joins us to share some industry secrets to getting massive media coverage to build your brand.

To find out more about Deb Cole and the insider secrets to what works in a nowadays competitive and very noisy media world, visit

Here’s What We’ll Cover in Today’s Episode:

  • The insider secrets to help you get noticed by those who matter to your business
  • The steps to owning the media and making yourself irresistible to the most influential people in it
  • Why it’s important to be on both new media – the online stuff – and television
  • How to get mass exposure on television or leverage your exposure on social media
  • Integrating old media an new media
  • How Deb got to work with one of Oprah's producers
  • How to get invited to guest on TV shows and become a regular
  • Producing your own show versus trying to be on other people's shows – the pros and cons

About The Guest: Deb Cole

BWB Deb | Getting Massive Media CoverageDeb Cole is a social media pioneer, author, consultant and powerhouse.

Known affectionately by her clients and fans as @CoachDeb since Twitter was born. Dubbed “The Twitter Queen” by her friends poking fun of her when she predicted the mainstream use of Twitter by Celebrities and even… Presidents.

Now she’s known as the CEO’s secret weapon when it comes to Influence Marketing with social media campaigns that get results. Her formal education is in Psychology.

Combine that with her underground education in influence and persuasion, she’s One Dangerous Woman when it comes to creating marketing campaigns that go viral online.

How To Get Massive Exposure and Media Coverage with Deb Cole

If you own a business or you could benefit from massive exposure and credibility creating media coverage, then you're going to want to pay close attention to my guest, Deborah Cole.

These days, most media appears to be consumed online, from social networks to YouTube and of course podcasts, but TV still packs the most powerful punch when it comes to creating credibility, exposure, and even trust with clients and customers alike.

That's why our guest is perfect for revealing the insider secrets to what works in a nowadays competitive and very noisy world, helping you get noticed by those who matter to your business.

Deborah Cole is a social media pioneer and trailblazer. She's been the host of a national television show, wrote the first book on Twitter and on social media marketing.

A woman of many talents, she previously founded and exited a successful software company without writing a single line of code all while living on the beautiful North shore of Hawaii.

Deb, often known as Coach Deb to her followers and clients, now runs a consulting company, which takes her all over the world. She's lived everywhere from New York City to Hawaii and even Spain, but now she enjoys living on the beach here in America's finest city. That's right, its’s San Diego.

Deb is about to reveal some of the insider secrets about getting on television, something she knows quite a bit about. She's starred in her own award-winning television show.

She's appeared in several films, commercials, and work behind the scenes on several Hollywood sets. More importantly, she's also directed and produced shows for other celebrity brands who see her as their secret weapon.

If you own a business that could benefit from massive exposure, whether you want to be at on TV as a guest, or you want to start your own show.

She's about to guide you through the steps to owning the media and making yourself irresistible to the most influential people in it. Let's go ahead and welcome Deb Cole. Deb, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Brad.

It's great to have you here because as somebody in media myself, but as also somebody who benefits from media, both my own businesses that have my clients.

I realize how important it can be both new media, the online stuff, but also television, which I've been on your national television show. Thank you for very much for that.

Yes, you were a great guest by the way.

Thank you.

You were one of my favorites and I don't say that to everyone.

I've had some practice.

Just the handsome ones.

Flattery will get you everywhere.

I've learned that.

Deb, I've always been fascinated by the strategies that people use to get attention in the media and one of the areas that I know very little about is mass exposure on television.

I know a little bit more about how to do it in the digital marketing world, but I really wanted to have you on the show to show you some of your expertise because you have done a lot of things across the entire media space.

I'm older than I look, at least I hope.

At 21 years old, you’ve done some amazing things. That being said, I'd love to hear about a little before we jump into the actual heart of how to do it.

Give us an idea of the story, the journey that's taken you here. How did you get started? How did you discover media and social media and where did it all begin for you?

I think the first thing I did is I hired someone to really get into it because when I started my company, I knew I needed to get media exposure and at the time, Twitter didn't exist.

What company was that?

That’s how old I am. It was RPM Success Group. That was the name of the first company that I started.

What was RPM Success Group doing?

It was a consulting company that was primarily to help business owners, entrepreneurs, the small business owner, the mom and pop, give them marketing strategies that would work on either on a shoestring budget or really maximizing their budget so it would go further.

That's why when I first started and looked at a social media for a marketing perspective, this is the best thing for a small business owner because you can leverage your exposure so much and way more than TV or commercial.

I noticed if you did a commercial, you were there once right on TV but if you did social media, it was that one video you did but it lasted again and again. People could keep watching it. Once YouTube came on the scene, it was the most exciting thing for me.

You started off to get exposure for RPM Success Group, right?


Tell me about some of the stuff you started to do early on.

I first started writing for the local newspaper and I remember I took a class about getting media exposure and they're like, “Don't try to get on Oprah right away. Start with your local news. Start with your local newspaper, your magazines.”

BWB Deb | Getting Massive Media Coverage

Getting Massive Media Coverage: Social media is the best thing for small business owners because they can leverage exposure so much and way more than TV.


Because then first of all, you get to practice so that when you do get on Oprah, you've practiced. You don't get nervous and you go flub up on local channels way easier without as much embarrassment is if you get on Oprah.

I started small and I started local, it was a local newspaper and I literally started writing a weekly column for the Star-Bulletin in Hawaii and it was about social media marketing. It started again as marketing and right as I was writing, the shift was taking place to social media and I started writing about that.

When was this? About what year?

2001 is when I moved to Hawaii. About 2002 is when I started writing for the newspaper and I did that for many years in the business section in Honolulu Star-Bulletin every Sunday.

Was social media even a term used by before?

No, actually it's funny that you mentioned that. It was called new media because it was old media or traditional media and then there was new media, which was Myspace. I'm that old.

We're all talking about Tom, our first friend on Myspace. It was Myspace, it was Friendster, and it was FriendFeed. There are all these different things that started that new media world.

When I've mentioned that before, because the first book talked about new media, I don't even think it had social media in it.

I said something about “New media channels” and this dude, when I say dude he’s like 21 years old, he's like, “What's that?” I'm like, “New media? What do you mean what is that?”

He had no idea because he grew up with it being called social media. That to me is fascinating because people now have grown up with social media have never even thought of it as new. It is just media, which is exciting.

That’s one of the things I've noticed is that new media, social media, it is becoming all media. I remember somebody mentioned that even with social media, social media is not something on top of the internet. Social media is the internet. That’s where people go first.

There are also tremendous ways to tie in mass media exposure such as television, radio, which is often called old media to new media and to use them overlapping and you have a good job of integrating the two.

Thank you. Yes, definitely. As I feel, even though I was a social media champion, I didn't pooh-pooh traditional TV radio because it still had millions of people and it still had the exposure.

When we talk about syndication with podcasts, what we used to describe it is syndication like Oprah has a show that she films in Chicago, but she's seen all over America and now the world. That's syndication.

Podcast, we are able to syndicate our own shows, which is really cool but you want to always incorporate everything because there are still millions of people that are ready there, pick up a remote and click through their TV.

If you already have the medium, if you already have the station, you want to get in on those stations. One of the things that you asked a little bit that I want to answer is something about getting started.

I have learned that when I was living in Hawaii that there were cable stations that needed content. I was like, “I have content.” You have a ton of content and there are TV stations that need that content. They have sponsors and they want to get the commercials out there.

That's how they're getting paid, but they need you to supply the content. There are plenty of channels out there. You just have to go and pitch to these places that need content.

You can accelerate success by hiring the best and getting some tips. Otherwise, you learn as you go and make a lot of mistakes. Click To Tweet

I'm going to make a note in my imaginary notebook here to follow back up with that. I think that you hit on something very powerful and I want to circle back to this.

Your journey throughout this, you started doing new media and getting different types of exposure, but you've got a TV show, you've been in Hollywood, you've been in all these.

Give me a background on some of the things you're most proud of or some of the things that are the most fun and interesting ways that you've used media or been involved with that.

I would say one of the most embarrassing things, but yet things I'm proud of is I was on a reality show. Most people don't know this. You're exposing the secrets of Coach Deb.

Was it Bachelorette?

No, it was actually a makeover show. Do you remember Ty Pennington from Home Depot?

Yes, absolutely.

It was a takeoff of those different types. It is their home makeover and then it was your makeover for yourself and there were these doctors. There were two doctors in Hawaii that I think I met them through a BNI, a networking organization.

I don't remember how we met, I remember them coming to me and asking if I wanted to essentially be an executive producer. An executive producer is someone who foots the bill.

You put up funding for a project. A lot of films, a lot of documentaries, you have an executive producer. All that person does typically is write the checks and then sometimes again, as an executive producer you can have creative input.

I was basically brought in to have creative input to put little funds to pay for the project. It was expensive, especially back then, cameras were much more expensive than even our iPhones now and less powerful by the way.

They wanted me to be the coach on the show. The good thing about that is I was able to have essentially some director input into it.

We’ve got to pick the talent. We’ve got to pick the people that were going to get the makeover. We called it Dream Makeover instead of an extreme because we wanted to be different than Extreme Home Makeover or Extreme Makeover.

We wanted to get to the heart of people and look at, “You change the outward appearance, but what about the inside?” That's where they brought me in as a coach, basically the life coach.

The clips are I'm going to have no bangs, I have hair down past my waist, and I'm talking to her. I've shown pictures of that and people are like, “Is that your sister? Is that your cousin?” I'm like, “Who's prettier?”

I did that and I'm proud of it because I had some producer input into it, the spirit of it and actually won an award. I was really excited about that.

Congratulations. I love that because somebody who has been in media now for three years, it is new media because my show is all on iTunes and YouTube, but I have no experience with that. I'm making it up as I go. Can you tell?

That's really good. First of all, that you're doing it and you're winging it as you go because that's what we all did when new media first came out.

BWB Deb | Getting Massive Media Coverage

Getting Massive Media Coverage: It's cool that you can syndicate your podcast show, but always incorporate everything because there are still millions of people ready to pick up a remote and click through their TV.


I think a lot of people ignore old and traditional media and they want to jump in and do it all brand new for themselves.

Traditional media has been around for so long that a lot of the practices are great practices for grabbing people's attention, whether it's the producers or the talent or the audience.

That's one of the insights that you bring to the table that not a lot of people do is you understand how the two converge.

What do you think are some of the best pieces of wisdom or advice that you've learned from traditional media? How it translates to what is going on now and how to use that whether it's for myself in a podcast or if I have a YouTube show? How can I use some of the best of traditional media?

When I started hosting my own TV show, I started watching more TV because I was a cord cutter. I cut the cord to TV, no cable and then I got this gig where I was hosting a National TV show and it was going to be on cable. I'm like, “I don't even get my own show.”

I started watching it and I would watch things like Oprah, Ellen, Jimmy Fallon, and different talk shows that I wanted to either emulate or get ideas from. What I think I've learned along the way, the difference when I got into traditional media and TV is that it's always a higher production value.

With podcasting, it's typically you’re doing everything. You're the cameraman, you're the lighting guy, and you do everything. Whereas when you walk on set for a TV show, there's a lighting guy, there's a writer for you.

Jimmy Fallon has a multitude of writers and that's what I don't think a lot of podcasters or even anyone in new media realize. Jimmy Fallon, he's the star. He doesn't typically write.

That's also Oprah. She had a team of writers, a team of producers. I actually worked with one of her producers and it was just one of. It's not like she has one.

What was interesting is with TV, there's a bigger budget. That's why these guys are entertaining because all of those sketches that they do are all done for them. They just sit in front of the camera. They look pretty, and handsome and they perform so you’re talent.

Something that we have talked about which was how you worked with one of Oprah's producers. Tell me about that.

That's how I first got started when I wanted to get on media and I wanted to dominate on media and all channels. I decided, “How do you accelerate your success?” You hire the best, you hire the pros, you hire the insiders and get the tips.

Even in business, when I first started consulting, I hired Jay Abraham to consult me on starting a business and it totally accelerated my learning curve.

I’m a big fan of hiring the best as the mentors.

Otherwise you're learning as you go and you make a lot of mistakes.

You hired one of Oprah's producers.

She gave me some insider secrets.

You’ve got some explaining to do. How did you find one of Oprah's producers? Take me through that.

People value what they pay for. Click To Tweet

I think it was a conference I went to and she was presenting on how to get media attention. I went up to her after the event. I took her to lunch and that's another secret that a lot of people don't realize.

I had said this once when I was presenting on stage, I went to an event and the next day I was eating alone at lunch. I'm like, “Why am I eating alone?”

I'm a speaker. There are all these people having all these questions and they're asking me on Twitter and yet they're so afraid when you go in person because they think you're busy and they think you're important.

Which of course you are, you're very busy and all of that but you're also very approachable when you're going to these events. That's why we go to them.

I said from stage, “I can't believe I ate alone for lunch.” Needless to say, right after that, there were twelve people at the table. We've got like the big round table at lunch because then people realize they had permission to approach the speaker.

That's a tip right there is if you go to any event, not only ask the speakers that you like, figure out who's going to speak ahead of time that you want to work with and ask them ahead of time. Schedule, take them out to dinner, especially if there's a multi-day event.

Traffic & Conversion is a great event to figure out who's going to be there and then ask them ahead of time so they don't get bombarded. I took her out to lunch.

You took her out to lunch. This was not something that she was out there publicizing that she's for hire but you asked her and she said, “Okay.” Was it a hefty penny?

It was not cheap and it hurt. It hurt me putting that investment, but I knew it would take me ten years to learn what she would teach me in a month.

Plus if it hurts, you're going to pay attention to it. You're not going to slip it off because people do value what they pay for. The more you pay for, the more you value it and I've seen that both with myself and with my clients.

What were some of the big things that she taught you early on that you've applied throughout the years?

The biggest thing was starting small. Start local and get practice. Become the expert and then dominate everything. My whole goal was to get on TV but in the meantime, take advantage of all the others. It was a magazine.

Entrepreneur Magazine, I started writing a regular column for them and I was one of their first social media columns when first started out. What I love about Entrepreneur is they were the ones who got it right in the get-go.

They understood that yes, they had a physical magazine but if they go online, they reach way more people and their stories last and now they're doing it again with their videos. They go Facebook Live, have you seen them?

Yes. goes Facebook Live and you get to join them and interact with them and that's what I love most about new media that television doesn't typically do.

In my show, I try to be interactive with them and I tell them to tweet me and the director is like, “What's this tweet me stuff?” I'm like, “Trust me, it's a thing.”

This was back then.

BWB Deb | Getting Massive Media Coverage

Getting Massive Media Coverage: When you walk on set for a TV show, there's a lighting guy, a writer, and a cameramen for you. With podcasting, it's typically you doing everything.


She basically accelerated my learning curve and she also stepped up my goals and even though I was immersed in social media, my goal was still to do all media, which was newspaper, magazine, television.

What else is there other than television? Movies. We did some documentary movies as well and some films. I wanted to dominate all of it and then learned some behind the scenes.

That's been fun too is once you do some Hollywood sets, you meet the editors. That's the other thing. I met this one editor and I was on up Paramount Studios and I am sitting there watching him edit for a sitcom.

It's a 30-minute sitcom and he gave me the budget for their editing. How much do you think it would be to edit a 30-minute sitcom?

I can't imagine but I have to think it's enormous.

Enormous would be $1 million per episode for 30 minutes. There's color-correcting, there's sound, and then there's an additional color correcting and sound.

He literally gave me seven different layers in seven different places that the place would go out to. Do you know some of the Marvel movies that you see? I saw Thor.

At the end of Thor, you see all of these effects. There are different companies and there's literally two dozen under this one and then there's something else and then more effects. I think there are more credits to effects in Thor and it's the same thing.

You realize how many layers that is. That's so fascinating. It makes me realize how much I actually don't know about this entire world of media.

I'm learning and learning by doing and learning by talking to experts such as you. You hired Oprah's producer, you got in there and obviously you were an overnight success.

Of course, that's how it all works in business. You become an overnight success because you follow the rules of the gurus. No, absolutely not. It took a while and when I say a while, I mean several years.

I immediately got media exposure. I immediately got on local news stations, I got the magazine, the newspaper. I was getting local exposure very quickly. Applying that and having my own TV show absolutely took several years and I started as a guest.

I didn't go right in and say “I'm going to start my own TV show,” because I had a lot to learn. I'm glad I didn't do that and it's funny because when podcasting first came out, I started a podcast but there were maybe a hundred people out there.

It was silly, back in the very early days. I stopped it because there's not enough listenership and that's when I was like, “I'm going on radio and TV because there are millions there.” Now, there are millions on iTunes so podcasting is great.

I would tell my clients, get on YouTube, get your podcast out there and as soon as they would get videos out there on YouTube, they would get picked up. They were using keywords and they were getting picked up again by local stations.

My goal was to get on local news stations. Get a lot of experience as a guest and then host my own show. I became a guest for all of these different places and then I wanted to become a regular guest.

Speaking of becoming a guest, first of all, what are some of the better ways to become a guest on the news stations and shows like that because it sounds pretty daunting. What works?

I think I was scared of it at first. There are two things I was scared of that immediately got squashed. My fears were unfounded and one of them was someone's going to ask me a really hard question and I'm not going to know or I'm going to get nervous.

Becoming an overnight success by following the rules of the gurus is fake news. Click To Tweet

I think one of my other biggest fears is I would not know what to say. First of all, none of that is true. The reporters are there to provide entertainment for their viewers. They're not there to make you look bad unless it's Hardball. It's something that's not what we're going after.

If you're in politics, maybe, but in business, they're looking for content. They're looking for interesting stories or interesting characters to show because they want viewers. The more interesting, the crazier that the stories they show, the more people watch their show.

How do you get your pitch in front of them?

There are different places and actually HARO, Help a Reporter Out was one of the first services I signed up for contributing articles and that gave me practice in writing interesting articles. A lot of it is networking. You'll hire a PR company and they will get you gigs.

What I learned very early on is to write interesting talking points because you could get your story or your pitch in front of them, but they get so many. As a host, I'm like, “No, that's boring. How do I make that interesting?”

Do their job for them. That was the first tip I learned. First of all, be interesting. Be entertaining. If you're crazy and outlandish, you’ve got blue hair. If you'll look weird, that's automatically going to set you apart.

Dye your hair blue.

That's one of my first secrets. I actually gave that tip to one of my clients and I didn’t tell her to dye, get a blue wig and she did.

I love clients that will stretch it and push themselves because it's getting yourself out of the comfort zone but remember on TV when we watch it, it's characters. It's interesting. It's entertaining. Be engaging, be an interesting character.

Don't sit there and go, “I want to talk about my business,” because that's freaking boring. Have a story. The more you can tie into current events, if you have anything that you could tie into a current event for news, absolutely topic.

If it’s topical, it makes it so much easier to get your foot in the door. Put that and then slide on it.

Another secret is giving the reporter what you want to talk about. If you want them to highlight something cool about your business or a story, you give them talking points that will ask either specific questions.

One thing I learned, not everyone will do this because some people will look at it, they throw it away, and they don't adhere to it.

That’s what I do.

The ones that do and once you become a regular guest, you start seeing what their style is and you know how to give the anchor, the journalist, the reporter what they want.

What I learned as one of the secrets is, “If I write the talking points out,” some of the talking points were for me to say and they read my talking points. I was like, “That was what I was going to say,” and they said it.

The light bulb moment was, “I can do that,” and the next time I was on that journalist show, I wrote the talking point of what I wanted them to say.

That fed me what I led into, the story I shared and then I didn't write the story I was going to share because then I knew that person would do that. It was really good for feeding them the story that you wanted to talk about.

BWB Deb | Getting Massive Media Coverage

Getting Massive Media Coverage: Be a great guest that gets booked again: Be as engaging as possible to not just get that one hit but to be asked back to the show.


You mentioned about becoming a regular guest too because it's one thing to be shown one time, but obviously, the more you can be on there, the better. Explain how you become a regular.

Do you want the secret on how to become a regular?

 It's not called Bacon Wrapped Business for anything, bacon-wrapped goodies.

This is another funny story that people will think, “It's complicated,” or “It's really involved,” and some of the steps getting there but the way I got to be a regular guest is funny.

I'm on the TV show. I had become a guest. I think this was the first time I was on this one particular show. It might've been the second time I was asked back because you always want to get asked back. It's your goal.

You want to be as engaging as possible to not just get that one hit, but to get it again and again because often a PR company will get you different media gigs, but then if you can book yourself after, you don't have to use a PR person forever. That’s another little secret.

I want to be a regular guest and I was there and we were wrapping up our five-minute segment. He asked me a question that was going to be way more than a minute answer. I basically responded, “I'll share that next week when I'm back.”

I wasn't asked back, there was no appointment to come back but the secret that I learned is they went, “Sure. Next week.” When Coach Deb is back on the show next Wednesday, I'm like, “That works.” I risked something. What do I risk? I risked him going, “You're not going.” No, he's not going to say that.

Not to put him on the spot but in a very friendly way.

What I learned is the hosts typically don't know what the producers know. The host doesn't know that the producer didn't book me as a regular guest or booked me on two shows. That was probably one of the coolest secrets that I discovered. It totally worked and I became a regular guest.

That is a sizzling hot piece of business advice that guarantees to make you fat. I love it. What about taking it beyond local and even up to the more national level? Is it the same general principles or does the game completely change?

I think the game actually gets a little easier.

Why is that?

It was a little more pressure because I was taking over a show that already had an audience base. I was probably more nervous than when I would speak in front of thousands in Australia because those were my people when I went to Australia.

I would speak in front of Singapore, there are thousands in the room. I'm an extrovert and there are physical people there. I can read your faces, I can see if you like it. If I have to adjust something on TV, I have this lens looking at me and I don't know who's behind the camera.

I don't know if they don't like me and there are those fears. I was a little nervous, but what I learned is the game is a little bit better because there's a bigger team behind you.

The level of professionalism is so much bigger than when we would do a podcast from our basement or our garage. I liked that part about it.

It was a lot less pressure for me because I didn't have to be the director, the producer, the writer, the talent, the cameraman, the teleprompter person. I got to sit on the couch, in front of the camera and perform basically.

Every business these days, quite literally, is show business and people are dying to be entertained and educated. Click To Tweet

I took acting lessons or classes, I took some masterclass, I took some Udemy classes on being more captivating or things that actors know because you can go to school to be an anchor.

I didn't. That's not like I went out to be a host. I did it to get more exposure for my brand. I read a comedy book. I read a lot about comedy.

Some were like, “You're a serious business coach. Why do you have a comedy book? I'm like, “Because you don't want to be always so serious.” This guy's hilarious. I think we need some bloopers for the things he does off-camera.

I think so.

You're funny. You're engaging so you are a character that people would want on TV.

It helps. Deb, so far we've covered a lot of things and a lot of that has been getting featured on other people’s shows.

However, as somebody who's got my own show, and I know you've helped other people produce their shows, at what point should they look to actually own the media that they're appearing on?

Like when Oprah owned OWN, a nice use of words there?

Producing their own show versus trying to be on other people's shows.

You have your own show, Bacon Wrapped Business as opposed to being on guests of other people's shows. I think when you're a guest on other people's shows, you get the credibility and the exposure to all of these different markets.

Getting your own show, once you're prepared, you feel, “I have enough interviews under my belt and I have a lot of content or something interesting or exciting to share.” You want to be entertaining.

I think if you want to talk about differentiating yourself, don't produce another show like everybody else. Model it.

Model from Jimmy Fallon, from Ellen because they've got a formula that works. They've gotten millions of dollars in production to show you the formula that works but somehow be different.

Do something different and I think the time to own it is when you have the time because that's one thing, I learned hosting a daily show is exhausting. Do a weekly show in my opinion.

My suggestion is if you're going to do a show, do a weekly show as opposed to a daily show. Learn from some of my trial and error there because it's exhausting and it becomes a job.

If you don't want a job as a host or anything on TV, do something that's weekly. Come to them weekly and do something 20 minutes, 21. The other thing is remembering in TV you have to put room for commercials.

Whereas for podcasts, you could do a 40-minute show, but that's not necessarily something that people can consume. Do a quick show and do it when you have time and have a lot of content to share that you would educate people or entertain people then you could get sponsorships.

That's the other thing is like TV, whether you do a podcast show or a TV show, sponsorship is where the money's going to be.

BWB Deb | Getting Massive Media Coverage

Getting Massive Media Coverage: Having a story behind your business is going to get you on a show instead of just saying, “I have this and I want to talk about it.”


That and if you have your own business, if you're bringing that in, it can lead to lead generation. It can lead to a lot of things but the nice part is it can lead to both. It can be sponsorship and lead generation.

I know you work with multiple people and helping them produce their own shows and helping them do it right and follow some of these time-tested formulas that have been on mass media like Ellen and everything else.

Who are some of the people that you look to now for inspiration? Is there anybody who is particularly doing it well in a good blend of mass media with online and new media as well?

Ellen is a great example who has blended it because she does her TV show, but she also embraced new media very early on. She even created an app, the Heads Up! app.

It's a game that exists, but she had her team. It's not like she wrote code to write the app. We know you don't have to do that, but she created the app Heads Up! and it's over a million downloads.

She's doing it right because she's taking advantage of new media, social media. She was on there tweeting and she'll even talk about that in her five-minute monologue when she opens it. She'll talk about her Instagram addiction.

She'll talk about different things and that lends you over to Instagram to follow her, to see what she's up to and it's like, “Ellen might talk to me, she might tweet to me.”

That's when you're doing it right when you're using massive exposure but then you give the people that do want to partake and participate with you through social media.

When you look back at when you started doing this in the majority of the time when you were trying to figure it out versus right now for somebody brand new, trying to figure out this whole space, what do you think has been the biggest changes, both positive and/or negative?

I think the biggest is everything's cheaper to do and easier. I remember when you had a blog, you had FTP stuff. That’s how long ago it was. You would do a show and then you'd have to do that and then streaming would glitch a little.

Now, we watch Netflix and don't even think about the fact that it is a streaming movie and God forbid we ever have a pause in it and we're like, “What is that?” We can hit ticked off.

By the way, there are certain things you can't say and that would have been one of them, so ticked off since this may go on TV and that's probably the hardest thing.

Can’t I say ticked off on TV?

You can say the other word. You can say ticked off, you can say the other words if you're not ticked off. That's probably the biggest challenge and if you are doing a podcast or a YouTube channel unless you're going to go on Netflix where you can say anything.

If you're going for cable and TV, stop cursing because they don't allow it. That was a challenge because I'm from Jersey and there's a certain word that you can't say on TV. It's my favorite word and it's practice because if it is part of your speech, it's part of your sentence and it’s hard to get rid of it.

They may let you slide with the censors with one but you'll never get invited back so you’ve got to be careful.

That's actually a tip that I learned from doing cohosting. Someone came on the show and she did say something that was inappropriate, and she was never asked back.

We needed somebody and I'm like, “I think it's so-and-so,” and they didn’t quite blackball them, but they said no because they messed up and it was a guy who said something. You're marked and you're not seen as professional because you don't know the rules.

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You've got to know those types of rules when you're going on TV. The biggest difference from then and now is the speed in which we can consume things and upload things and the ease of it. YouTube is so easy.

Everything is faster bandwidth. Even our cable and internet providers, everything is so much faster to do what we want to do with the video. That's exciting to me.

It's never been less expensive as far as a barrier to entry to have your own show or produce it than ever before and the ease of it. There are so many people who can help you out as outsourcing.

Deb, this is amazing and obviously you're a wealth of information. You also go by in the name Coach Deb or as I'm going to see sometimes, @Coach Deb.

You’ve got to have to say @Coach Deb. That's right. When I put my name tag on conferences, I put the @ symbol. People have been making fun of me for a long time and I think if you have thick skin, that's one of the things in this business.

If you're going to be a pioneer especially in anything you do, you're going to be made fun of with social media. I got called the social media queen when it was not a compliment.

Right now it's a compliment. It's a badge of honor. It was not when they said that and now all of a sudden everyone's embracing it. Everyone's an expert. Everyone has a course on it. I am a little weird. I'm a little crazy.

Obviously, the name implies that you do help people, that you do coach people through this. How do you work with clients specifically?

On a big level, I think of it as the Jerry Maguire approach where it's smaller clients, more attention. I'll tend to work with two to three big clients, one big production.

Whether you go deep with them, production and coaching on that.

Literally producing their shows, helping them with their documentary or helping them get on TV or their own show.

What about for people who can't quite afford or quite aren't ready for the heavy personalized stuff? How else can they work with you?

I don’t know how I can help them. I'm going to start putting something together for the person that can't hire me to spend a whole day or spend a month and do some production. I'm going to put a course together as the shortcuts, the quick tips to get them accelerated.

That's probably what I've done since I started again back in 2001 is giving people courses to give people the quick tips when they can't afford the big package. It may be six months, a year later, and then they hire me as their consultant.

That's a great way to get people to get momentum because it's a lot easier. Once you've got momentum and it's moving, then hire the right coaches and hire the right people to help you out as opposed to starting from absolute dead standstill scratch.

I know that's one of the secrets of my success is get going and then bring in the team players along the way because there's a law of physics that says, “Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.” I'm a big believer in that.

Where can people find you in order to learn more about you, in order to reach out and see what you're doing and get your help?

I’m @CoachDeb everywhere. Obviously on Twitter there's a fan page, but if you go to CoachDeb.Tv, that will bring you to the main website that I have. Once I do put a course together for people to get a jumpstart in media, I'll put a link there as well.

If they want to reach out to you also with some of the more personalized one-on-one consultation and coaching, can they reach you there?

Yes. If they want to pitch right to be on my show, they can do that as well. They can either send me a DM through my Facebook page or Twitter, or follow me and shout out and say, “I've got a story for you. I've got something that's interesting,” or you know an interesting guest.

The more interesting or having a story behind your business, that's what's going to get you on a show more than, “I have this I want to talk about.” It's having a story being interesting.

I couldn't agree more. Speaking of having a story and being interesting, you've been very interesting, your story and sharing. I'm not just saying that and sharing all of the insights and wisdom with myself, with the audience in an effort to harness the leverage that we have.

What I find exciting and I know you do as well is that never in human history have many people been given the opportunity to reach many people inexpensively than right now at this exact time in history and it's a very noisy world.

With the right education, the right insights, you can get noticed in a very noisy world in a way that can cut through the fog and the clutter and create credibility, get exposure for yourself, for your business, building a personal brand and become an influencer.

This word influencer wasn't even really a thing until a few years ago. Now it's absolutely everywhere and this is one of the best ways to become an influencer.

Deb, thank you very much for sharing this Bacon Wrapped Business advice with me and the audience. For the audience, I want to encourage you to go back to this and take notes, reach out to Deb.

Look at all the resources that she's been providing for you and assess for yourself where media exposure, whether it's new media, traditional media or a combination of both, can really provide you leverage in your business whatever you're trying to do.

Every business these days quite literally is show business and people are dying to be entertained, educated, and all of this.

It is one of the reasons that I put this show together and I invite experts such as you to make me look smart by osmosis and comparison. I really appreciate your time and I encourage every single person to go to CoachDeb.Tv.

The new company that we launched to produce people's shows, it’s

Thank you very much Deb for stopping by the show. To the audience, share this on social media. Tag your friends and tag @Coach Deb. Thanks a lot.

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About The Guest: Deb Cole





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