We typically book three types of guests on the show. We book producers or editors in the media who have a media platform and are looking for content and experts. We book people who have used the media to launch their brand or grow their business. The third type of person I like to bring on the show is somebody who helps us elevate our game and become a better story (because if you’re living a really great story that’s an excellent first step towards getting attention for it). My guest today, Zane Caplansky, fulfills all three of these requirements because he is a celebrity chef, he owns multiple businesses (all in the food industry), he’s an absolute media magnet extraordinaire and he has his own podcast. If you’re at all in the food industry or want to be in the food industry this is the guy whose show you want to get on. 

The Globe and Mail article: There was a huge article in the Globe and Mail (Canada’s biggest English language newspaper). The headline was Caplansky’s Deli goes national with restaurants ‘built for Instagram’. Caplansky’s had re-branded their logo and he offered the Globe and Mail an exclusive on the new logo.

Exclusivity: Zane’s offer of exclusivity was attractive enough for the editor to say yes and assign a writer. This only works if you already have an established relationship with a particular editor. Exclusivity is a very sexy thing to the media. 

Editing: Once it’s out of your mouth what they report is out of your control. It’s up to the journalist to decide what to print and how it’s going to go. It’s all in the editing. Editors and producers decide what story they want to tell. All you can do is put on your best performance and then leave it up to them to either be sympathetic and favorable or make you look like a jack ass. 

Sound bytes: The best thing you can do to prepare for a situation like this is to have certain key sound bytes prepared. They’re not going to want to cut out the sexy bits. Make the bits you want to have come across the sexiest. 

Know your audience, know your editor: You do this by consuming the product. You read the paper, you see the kind of stories they are telling and look for trends. What type of story do they keep telling? Then ask yourself how this applies to your business.

Franchising: Zane resisted the idea of franchising for years. His thinking was that running a restaurant is hard so running two would be twice as hard. Then he got an offer from an organization to open two franchise locations in the Pearson International Airport in Toronto. He said yes without really thinking through all the possible ways and reasons why it might not work. They became very successful in the most challenging environment possible and that convinced Zane they could grow. Think about how you stand out from the crowd. What do people gripe about? Zane went to the two most common gripes (overpriced, low quality food) and fixed them.

Podcast: Zane was invited to be on a radio show. Afterwards the producer called him and asked him to be on a discussion panel the following Thursday. He did and was invited back the next time and the next. Finally the producer told him to just keep coming until they told him to stop. That was two years ago and he’s still on the panel every Thursday. The other members of the panel were seasoned veterans of radio and he studied them to learn from them. One day he stuck his head in the program manager’s office and said “If I was going to pitch you on a food radio show what would I have to tell you?” and the manager said “That’s a good idea, let’s do it.” His podcast started six weeks later and is called “Let’s Eat with Zane Caplansky.”

Getting on Zane’s show: Being invited on the show has a lot to do with personality and topicality. Just sending an email saying “I’d love to come on your show” isn’t going to get very far. He wants to know why. Tell him something that’s going to be compelling for him to want to put you on the show. Make it easy for him to say yes. 

• You can reach Zane on Twitter @Caplansky, on Facebook under Zane Caplansky or Facebook.com/caplansky and Instagram @Caplansky
• Zane’s Globe and Mail article can be found at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/caplanskys-deli-goes-national-with-revamped-restaurants-built-for-instagram/article29497520/
• I love hearing from you. I’m @lifewithgeeta on Twitter. If you want a peek into my personal life follow me on Instagram where my handle is Baby Got Booked. You can reach out to me via email or via my website contact form at geetanadkarni.com

• Write headlines no journalist can resist, with the 58-headline template pack. [http://www.babygotbooked.com/headlines]

It’s much easier to tell a better story if you are living an amazing story. Tiisetso Maloma falls into that category because he is an entrepreneur many many times over. He’s worked in very diverse industries including but not limited to marketing and PR, photography, graphic design, web design, copy writing, public speaking, event organizing and a lot more. He is about to launch a brand new book which you can pre-order right now called The Anxious Entrepreneur: Anxiety Defeats Creativity and Creativity Defeats Anxiety. I’m excited about introducing him because I think anxiety is a big dark underbelly of entrepreneurship. We will talk about using creativity and story-telling techniques to defeat the anxiety that may be holding you back, maybe crippling your business or if your business is successful sucking a lot of the joy out of your life.

What most people don’t know about Tiisetso: Most people think because he is on Facebook a lot that is he very sociable. He is but he is also more of an introvert. He needs time to himself to read, write and do other things that interest him. A lot of entrepreneurs are like that. He’s interested in a lot of things. He’s always been the kind of person who’s dabbled in more than one venture. That alone can cause high anxiety because when you’re running more than one business the risk of failure is multiplied.

Where does anxiety come from? As soon as you involve yourself in a number of ventures that’s when the anxiety gates open up, so it’s a matter of keeping focus. This can mean anything from having Facebook and Twitter open while trying to write a blog post or trying to run two businesses at the same time. You don’t want to miss out on anything but you need to stay focused.

Defeat anxiety with creativity: Anxiety defeats production. When you are anxious you can’t be creative, when you’re creative you’re not anxious. Chop away anxiety by getting creative. Getting creative could mean going for a walk, going for a run or indulging in something you enjoy like writing or playing music.

What if I have a deadline? That’s about energy. When you don’t sleep well you feel it in your body. Take care of yourself, make sure you sleep enough hours and exercise as well. This will help you in dealing with a stressful situation like a deadline.

Geeta said she doesn’t think she struggles with anxiety as much as most entrepreneurs do, but she used to. The reason she’s gotten a handle on it is because she’s put in certain habits that are non-negotiable and fitness is one of them. People say they don’t have time. Geeta doesn’t have time either; she’s pregnant, has a young child and runs two businesses. She makes time.

Dealing with nighttime anxiety: Start off with the priority tasks. If you do all the priority tasks before noon for example after that fewer things will affect you and anxiety won’t control you.

Also, get honest with yourself about your energy cycle. A lot of people ignore their energy cycle, we don’t pay attention to it, and we look to external signals. It’s a lot like letting your body tell you when you’re hungry or you’re full rather than just going by the clock.

• Tiisetso Maloma’s website is www.tiisetsomaloma.com

• You can try your first workout on www.liftsession.com for free using the promo code Geeta.

• I love hearing from you. I’m @lifewithgeeta on Twitter. If you want a peek into my personal life follow me on Instagram where my handle is Baby Got Booked. You can reach out to me via email or via my website contact form at geetanadkarni.com

• Write headlines no journalist can resist, with the 58-headline template pack

[http://www.geetanadkarni.com/headlines]

Today I

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On today’s show I’ve brought on a story telling maestro. Park Howell has been a professional story teller for more than 30 years. He has helped firms achieve epic growth through the power of story to define their brand and connect with customers, all the things we’re going to teach you how to do today. He’s a professional speaker, a marketing consultant and a brand story strategist. He’s going to help us craft and tell a compelling story and then we’re going to hook those ideas together to show how you can leverage this for the media (that’s where I can bring some of my ideas to the table). 

Joseph Campbell: Park was introduced to the work of Joseph Campbell through his son who was going to film school in Hollywood. Joseph Campbell is America’s foremost mythologist. His 17 step hero’s journey can be seen in the movies you love, the books you read and even the songs you listen to. If you really want to see it in action all you have to do is look at the very first Star Wars movie because George Lucas used Joseph Campbell’s blueprint to write that script. When Park started overlaying it in his advertising and marketing work he saw the same hero’s journey, the same story patterns materialize. 

Ten Chapter Story Cycle (also available as an infographic on Park’s website businessofstory.com)

Contact Information: Park Howell can be found on Twitter @ParkHowell, on LinkedIn and at Business of Story on Facebook. His website is businessofstory.com

Geeta wants to know your thoughts on this episode. Reach out to her and tell her what you got out of this. She’s on Twitter @lifewithgeeta or you can reach out to her via email or via her website contact form at geetanadkarni.com. 

Park invited Geeta to be on his Business of Story podcast to take this to the next level and talk about the story cycle as they use it in their companies. 

Write headlines no journalist can resist, with the 58-headline template pack.

Today’s guest is somebody who’s going to teach you how to talk about what you do in a way that makes people want to lean in and hear the rest as opposed to the elevator pitch that makes people say “oh, okay” and the conversation is over. Jenny Beres has run a successful freelance writing business for 10 years. She started with $75.00 in her bank account and quickly transformed it into a six figure freelance copywriting business. She helps brands tell their story in a compelling way and she also helps a lot of freelance writers or freelance social media people run a successful business. So it’s the skill of writing itself, what stories to tell, what stories to leave out and then on the other side of it the business aspect of running a freelance writing oriented business. 

Compassion and inspiration: Whether you’re a business owner writing your own copy or you’re a copywriter on a team and you’ve been hired to capture someone else’s story you must write from a place of compassion and inspiration. Those are the two places that marketing copy must come from. You must speak to your audience, which essentially if you’re a business owner is maybe you five years ago before you found the solution to the problem that you were experiencing. 

Vulnerability and oversharing: One of the main questions a customer asks is “Do you see me? Can you feel what I’m feeling?” so being vulnerable by saying “I’ve been you” (if you have) is a great place to start. You aren’t coming across as inauthentic but at the same time you aren’t oversharing. Make sure the story you’re telling is the story that’s related to your audience. Find the intersection where your story connects with your target audience. It’s very easy to get lost down that rabbit hole of sharing so much you turn your client green. There is a fine line between being vulnerable and oversharing and that intersection keeps you from crossing over it. 

Questions Jenny asks her clients and recommends you ask yourself and discuss with someone you trust:

When you make a mistake: If you feel like a joke didn’t land right or an email didn’t come across as intended being direct about it is the best way. Jenny said she used to fret and apologize for ten hours whenever she made a tiny mistake and she had to learn to rein that in. She would email the person immediately and say “I just re-read my email and it didn’t come out quite the way I meant. If you took it the other way I’m super sorry. This is what I meant…” and then she would clarify what she meant. 

Do you remember the Herbal Essences commercial where the woman in the shower is going “Yes! Yes!”?  Well, I don’t have the woman in the shower (she’s a model) but I have with me the woman who wrote that ad campaign and made it famous. My guest today is Linda Kaplan Thaler and she is responsible for some of America’s most famous advertising campaigns including the Aflac duck quack and the yes, yes, yes Herbal Essences campaign. She has won 13 Clio awards (which is like the Oscar for advertising) and two were for best original music and lyrics. If you’ve ever heard “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid” and Kodak moments that is her. She runs a billion dollar advertising agency in New York City called Publicis Kaplan Thaler. Her latest book Grit to Great (co-written with Robin Koval, who is also the co-founder of the company the Kaplan Thaler Group) is a national best seller that teaches us how to be a better story (other books include The Power of Nice, Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World, and The Power of Small.)  If there was ever somebody who could boil down a brand’s story and tell it in 30 seconds in a way that turns it into a cultural piece of shorthand this is the person who really gets how to do it. 

The Grit factor: You don’t have to be born with unbelievable talent. 98% of really great people have, not the It factor, but the Grit factor. Anybody can develop grit; you don’t have to be born with it. That is what the book Grit to Great is about. 

Most important factor: Linda and Robin couldn’t figure out why they were so successful and winning almost everything they were pitching. They knew it wasn’t because they were geniuses. Then they realized when they started doing post interviews with clients such as Wendy’s or Proctor and Gamble and would ask “why did you award this to us?” they would always get the same answer which was “Your work was great, everybody else’s work was great too but we didn’t think anybody could work harder than you did.”  

Famous examples: They started looking at famous people who have done extraordinary things but were completely ordinary growing up. Colin Powell was a C- student in college until he discovered the ROTC and decided he wanted to devote his life to service in our country.  Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times. Michael Jordan couldn’t even make his high school varsity basketball team. Walt Disney got fired from his first job because he lacked imagination. What did these people have? They weren’t brilliant, they weren’t particularly talented, they had the Grit factor. 

G.R.I.T:  Guts, Resilience, Initiative, Tenacity

Your 90 year old self:  Jeff Bezos of Amazon tells a great story about how everybody told him he should stay at his comfortable Wall Street job instead of starting amazon.com. He had a conversation with his 90 year old self who said “Of course you’ve got to do this. Do you want to turn out being this age and never even tried something that you really really want to do? “Have a conversation with your 90 year old self (in the privacy of your own home of course) and you will know exactly what you should be doing. 

Advice that took Linda out of the baby pool and into the ocean: Every time you do something for somebody you are throwing out a positive imprint or a seed. That seed will blossom and grow in ways you can’t even imagine. Do not expect anything when you do something nice for somebody. In some way, shape or form the universe is going to pay you back and it’s going to be unbelievable. 

Have you ever bought a copy of Inc. Magazine, read it cover to cover and ripped out pages to use as a blueprint to create your dream business? Today’s guest is none other than James Ledbetter, editor of Inc. Magazine and Inc.com. Prior to this position he was the founder and editor of The Big Money, which is Slate’s business and finance site (if you’re familiar with slate.com) and the opinion editor for Reuters. He has also been deputy managing editor of CNN Money and senior editor at Time and is the author of four books. Today he’s going to spend some time with us telling us what sort of stories excite him, what his inbox looks like and how you can pitch him in a way that gets you an invitation to join their contributor network so that you can have your own column in Inc. Magazine.

Vetting process for contributors: They ask contributors questions such as what is it that you want to write about? What is it that makes you qualified to write about it? What are you going to offer us that no one else can offer us? Then they ask them to give them ten headline ideas for columns that they would write. Then they give them a set of guidelines, a mission statement and some training on CMS. Depending on how often the person is writing there is a try out period between 4-8 weeks. During that process the contributor is watched closely and given feedback if something seems off.

Choosing the right content: What distinguishes Inc is that they are always trying to tell the story from the point of view of the entrepreneur. How did this person make this happen? How did they overcome the obstacles that are well known to people in small business? What makes them tick and what can readers take away and use in their own business? They do reader surveys once a year and one of the questions is “how often in the last 12 months have you taken something from the magazine, ripped it out and used it in your business?” and the numbers have been really gratifying.

Copyright: The copyright is temporary. They are not in a position of wanting to own all the rights to everything that they publish online. They ask for exclusivity for a certain number of weeks and when that period is over the writers can do absolutely anything they want with it including re-publishing it elsewhere or turning it into a book.

Paid and unpaid columns: They pay columnists who write at least six posts a month minimum. They pay on traffic at a rate of $9.50 per 1,000 U.S page views. For most people it helps with the grocery bill but is not enough to make a living but a handful are making a lot.

James inbox: James gets 200-300 emails a day. He looks for ones that stand out and have a targeted and modest goal.

Emails that get deleted immediately: Emails with 7 MB files attached will be deleted immediately due to limited storage space. People that send out multiple emails and forget to change the name so James will get things like “Dear Doris”; if your attention to detail is that low he doesn’t want to deal with you.

Email subject lines that grab his attention: An email with a subject line that already sounds like a headline story is one he would respond to. For example he got one with the subject line “Is there a doctor on board?” which was about an app that lets you consult a physician while you’re on flight.

Piece of advice that took James out of the baby pool and into the ocean: At his first job in journalism as a summer intern for a magazine called The Wilson Quarterly the man who ran it told him “never come to your boss with a problem, come to your boss with a solution. If it’s the right solution you’ve done him or her a favor but if you just come with a problem you’re making his or her life worse.”

Jason Silverman is a Martial Arts Master Instructor, Information Marketer, Marketing Expert & Coach, Sought-After Speaker, CEO of Powerful Words Character Development and Co-Founder of Dance Sites Done Right/All Star Cheer Sites. We met when Jason interviewed me on his podcast which is called The Real Deal. We talked about specific strategies that dance, cheerleading and martial arts studios can use to get themselves media coverage. Jason has helped and continues to help more than 500 studios worldwide with a marketing system right out of the box that helps them bring in, retain and engage with their clients.

Licensing: Jason started by piloting seven people to make sure the system would work when someone else was running it. They did the pilot program for about a year then decided to take it farther. They got a website and merchant account and Jason called three people in the industry that he knew well and asked them to tell people. Overnight they had around 100 new clients.

Their System: It is a powerful words system they created of how to teach personal development in a facility. This is something a studio owner would teach their teachers to implement in class. In cases where the owners are also the instructor, they are teaching the lessons and using the material to better market their facility. For them it is a short cut.

Whiteboard: The steps to have a whiteboard video script are more intensive than writing your own script. So if you do that first you use that as cliff notes as you’re doing your own video. Jason called some of his clients and they agreed to answer questions about the business while Jason recorded the conversations. Each client came up with one thing he had never thought about. From those conversations you figure out what the most important parts are and break it down as if telling a story at a cocktail party.

Units: When you’re going to have conversations with people schedule a start time and end time. Use units of time of five minutes. How many units do you need? You shouldn’t need more than one or two units. There are a lot of units in one hour. This way you become a lot more accountable for your time.

     Tips for licensing:

My guest today is the guy who spent thirty years bringing life into focus as one of the U.S’s most sought after portrait photographers, and is now inspiring creative entrepreneurs to leverage their so called lack of focus. Jeffrey Shaw actually believes that it is a good idea to chase the metaphorical squirrels all over the place. He’s a business coach, speaker and host of the popular business podcast “Creative Warriors” (in fact we met when he had me as a guest on his podcast). Jeffrey is also a contributor to the Huffington Post, the creator of the online training program “The Creative Warrior” and has been sighted in various publications and trade journals. If you have trouble with “creative chaos brain” where you look at a blank wall and see three hundred different opportunities and you tend to run in seventeen different directions at any given time and are still trying to run a business and be successful and have relationships etc then this is the episode for you.

Creative’s in business: The root of the problem for creative’s in business is that the rules of business have been set forth, established and followed by a very traditional mindset. Those who go in business using their creativity, selling their talents and creative thoughts and transforming people’s lives follow a very untraditional way of being in business.

Hook: For a traditional business they put their effort into understanding their niche. A creative person who’s building their business on the inside out should put an equal if not far greater amount of effort into establishing what it is that they want to stand for. When we’re clear on our purpose we may wear many hats but they all hang on one hook. Figure out the hook. What is the one thing that all the hats are going to hang on? The hats are an expression of that.

Renaissance: This philosophy is grounded in the renaissance of the 1400’s. Jeffrey believes the movement he’s creating is the new renaissance movement established on the same principals of the original renaissance of the 1400’s. It was a compliment to be called a renaissance person. It was a compliment to be good at many things. This is not about doing many things half assed. This is about being very good at more than one thing.

Exercises Jeffrey puts his clients through:

Special offer on Jeffrey’s Seven Day Mini Course:

Jeffrey has a seven day online program called “Week of the Warrior” that you can find at weekofthewarrior.com. Once a day you’re asked a powerful question. When you reply with your answer you get a little piece of the puzzle. At the end of the week those seven pieces of the puzzle come together to create the path of the creative warrior, which is a non-linear path for a creative person in business. It is normally $37.00 but Geeta’s listeners can get it for free with the promo code: podcast.

My guest today is consultant and speaker Steven Gaffney. He runs a wildly successful seven figure business and is in the National Speakers Association Million Dollar Club. His platform is honest communication. He’s tall, dark and handsome, he’s rich and his platform is honest communication (like the perfect man). He’s the author of five books: Just Be Honest, Honesty Works, Honesty Sells, Guide To Increasing Communication Flow Up Down And Across and 21 Rules For Delivering Difficult Messages. His latest book is Be A Change Champion: 10 Factors for Sustaining the Boom and Avoiding the Bust of Change.

Honest communication: People tell Steven “I am honest” and he will say “Well you’re probably lying.” This is not about the ethical point of view about truth or lies. The biggest problem is not what people say it’s what they leave out, what they don’t say. If you can get others to get the unsaid said so they can speak their truth and we can speak our truth without somebody flipping out on us then relationships are dramatically improved.

Recognizing dishonesty: Someone who only shows one emotion is most likely lying. Why? Because human beings have a range of emotions. If you’ve ever had anyone say to you “Everything is great!” that’s impossible. Likewise someone who is always complaining and belly aching is also not telling you the truth. It doesn’t matter how miserable they are inside there are at least some good things they can be happy about.

Too much truth: There is a saying we all grew up with which is “treat others the way you want to be treated.” If the roles were reversed what would you have wanted the person to say to you? Everyone always says they would want them to tell the truth. Someone who is over sharing is still being dishonest because they are doing a lot of talking but aren’t really saying what’s on their mind.

Blind spots: We don’t always recognize how we come across to others. The reason we need to get feedback is because we really are blind to how we come across. Sometimes somebody will say “I’m aware of my blind spots.” Do you realize how silly that sounds? If you knew what your blind spot was it would no longer be a blind spot. This is the value of having really good friends and people that will speak our truth. That’s why we want to cultivate a relationship with people that will actually speak their truth to us. When they do even if we don’t like it we should at least appreciate that they’re speaking their truth to us. That’s how we learn and grow.

Hurting people’s feelings: When you say “I have some feedback to give you, is it okay?” or “Do you really want to hear the truth?” they can already tell it’s not going to be the most favorable. A lot of times people will say they are being honest but they are really being brutal. There’s a big difference between honesty and brutality.

Three keys to good, honest communication:

State the facts, make a request and end with an appreciation. For example “I noticed that you said you didn’t want to hear about what happened to me yesterday. My request is I’d like to share with you what happened because I think it’s really important as we look at what we’re doing moving forward. Because I really do appreciate our relationship and I value us having an open, honest communication.”