Using Publicity to Appear Larger Than Life with Heidi Krupp-Lisiten

In this Episode

• [01:40] – Heidi talks about how to get coverage and appear in the media. She suggests starting by clarifying your story and message.
• [03:49] – We learn that Heidi considers herself a strategist, not a publicist.
• [05:56] – Heidi clarifies the three questions she has just mentioned: Who cares? So what? And why you? She then workshops this process with Stephan, offering an example of listeners for how they should go about addressing the questions.
• [11:09] – Heidi’s advice to Stephan is to be more forthcoming about the great work that he has done, for example by providing data on his books and by being clear about the clients he has helped.
• [14:22] – Stephan recaps the lessons that Heidi has just covered to make them clear for listeners.
• [15:36] – We learn about Heidi’s “know me, like me, trust me, buy me” philosophy, and how they tie into what she has been talking about.
• [17:57] – If your domain is available as a .com, that’s the one you should get, Stephan points out. He explains why this is important.
• [19:55] – Heidi talks more about taglines, specifically using the example of David Bach, the author of Smart Women Finish Rich.
• [23:09] – Stephan recommends an earlier episode with Ephraim Olschewski about building relatedness and closing seven-figure deals.
• [24:42] – Did Heidi come up with the “debt diet” concept and pitch it? How did all that work?
• [29:05] – Stephan takes a moment to rave about Heidi’s talent and skill in being a strategist based on the story she has just shared.
• [30:53] – Heidi has known Tony Robbins for over two decades, she reveals. She then talks about her experiences with him.
• [34:57] – Stephan talks about his personal transformation and the fact that he met his wife thanks to Tony Robbins. He also recommends his other podcast, Get Yourself Optimized.
• [35:33] – We hear about Heidi’s determination to connect Oprah with Tony Robbins, and how fulfilled she felt when the two connected. She then talks about being conscious about choosing clients who are the right fit for her.
• [40:03] – Heidi discusses her role in the Chicken Soup for the Soul 20th Anniversary Edition, and the feeling of seeing her name on the cover of a book.
• [42:50] – What has that book done to change Heidi’s business and career?
• [44:40] – Stephan draws out a lesson for listeners, which is that anything is possible.
• [46:07] – Heidi and Stephan go through another brainstorming exercise, which is figuring out what angle Heidi would pitch to get on Good Morning America for her role with the recent Chicken Soup book.
• [50:00] – Stephan brings us back to the angle of pitching Good Morning America.
• [52:00] – How can people get in touch with Heidi if they want to hire her?

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Transcript

Welcome to Marketing Speak Episode 98. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer. I’m so excited to have on our show today a world-recognized expert on publicity and public relations. Her name: Heidi Krupp-Lisiten. Heidi is the founder and CEO of the Manhattan-based Krupp Kommunications, also known as K2. Heidi’s been the publicist behind more than a hundred NY Times bestsellers. She’s developed and executed PR strategies for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Weight Watchers, Ann Taylor, Gaiam, and Tony Robbins. We’re actually going to workshop some of her processes live and unrehearsed in the episode. You are going to love it! Heidi, welcome to the show! Thanks Heidi for joining us on the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Stephan.

Let’s talk about public relations and how to appear bigger than life and get lots of press.

In the spirit of fake news, our appearance is bigger than life.

How do we get the coverage that we deserve because we are awesome and we share so much, we add massive value into the world? How do we get on TV? How do we get into magazines and newspapers, onto radio, etcetera?

I get that asked a lot, a lot of people come to us and try to figure that out. Here’s where I think someone always needs to start, what’s your story? Who are you? What’s your personal story? What’s the story you wanna share? Getting that message really clear about what that is, because I think that that is what people miss doing, I think it’s the most important thing for people to do. I think, often, just saying, “Hey I wanna be famous, I wanna be on the radio.” Just sending out their bio without knowing if you’re pitching NPR, you need to listen to it and know the guests they have, the things that are important to them, how they would go ahead and what kind of guests they have and what they would say and how you could come up with an angle or your story, your personal story and how that can connect to it. Also, a lot of times, the media doesn’t just take pictures from people they don’t know. I think a lot of it is based on relationships and building those relationships. If someone is just starting out and they can’t afford a publicist or don’t know what to do with the publicist, I think they could reach out to these people, but again, you have one shot in the door, you have to do it in a way that’s gonna be engaging and inviting and showcase that you’re informed and you understand what they do and how they cover and the kind of value you’re gonna add, it’s definite.You and I used to talk about these things about marketing. I think that you gotta create win-win relationships for people, you can’t just be like, “Make me famous.” It could be, “Make me famous and I’m gonna add value to your show so that both of us win.” I think, sometimes people miss that part and I think that’s the critical, most important piece.

Like you say, it’s all about relationships. You can’t just put in a pitch and hope that you’re going to have something come of that, you really need to come in from an angle where somebody has introduced you, you’ve come pre-vetted and preselected. That’s where a publicist can be so valuable or one of the many areas where publicists can really add value.

I don’t consider myself a publicist. Yes, we do media relations, I consider myself a strategist. I’m a former producer, I’m a packager, I know how to package a story, I know what the media is looking for because I have an off the media mindset. When people come to me, I literally think about, “What’s gonna be the tagline? What’s gonna be the headline? What’s gonna be the thing that’s gonna excite that media outlet, that’s gonna be one of the goals that I’m gonna wanna go after? What can I offer them for my client that they’ve never gotten from anybody else before?” I’m 21 years in, I have these great relationships with media everywhere. I, sometimes, even call them before I sign a client and test and say, “What do you think of this person? Would this be of interest to you?” Even when I get hired, our agency does this workshop, Stephan, called Who cares? So what? Why you? It’s the three questions. Those are the three key pieces, who cares? So what? Why you? From there, we come up with what the guiding policy is and then we come up with the strategy and the branding, we look at the competitive landscape. Nowadays we have to look at the digital footprint, the roadmap, all of it, to really try to make sense of what’s gonna be the right message hook angle for the person. I’m not just like, “Get me on TV.” I’m thinking like we have to look at this like we’re dissecting a car, look under the hood, figure out what’s working, figure out what’s not. Honestly, it has to be authentic, people’s bullshit radars are so high now that you can’t hide, you can Google and find out something about anybody in a second. I think it has to come from a place of authenticity, contribution, it can’t just be, “Give me my 50 minutes of fame.” It just doesn’t work like that anymore.

What is this process, the Who Cares? So what? Why you? Could we maybe do a little exercise with this? Use me as an example.

Sure. Who cares about your message, Stephan? Who is your audience? The who cares is this, who’s your audience? What’s their target demo? How old are they? What’s the right person? If we wanna just talk about this podcast, for example. If you wanna reach more people with the podcast. Why did you start this podcast in the first place?

I wanted to add value, I wanted to share my knowledge and the knowledge and expertise of a lot of my friends in the industry who are really, really good at various aspects of marketing. I thought it would be good, also, as a marketing channel for me to build my true fans, my thousand true fans, my tribe.

To build your tribe for what? Did you wanna build your tribe to have more consulting projects? Did you wanna also build your tribe to help make value and make connections in the community for your people? When you think about it, are you talking to the C-Suite? Are you talking to business people? Are you talking to first time experts wanting to get into this? When you’re thinking about it, who’s the ideal customer? On the customer journey, who’s the customer that would care the most about listening to your podcast? That would be the who cares.

It would be, I think, marketing managers of mid to large sized companies, also CEOs of smaller companies who are more heavily involved in the marketing or entrepreneurs who have a startup where they’ve got some funding, just a few different audiences like that who would be a prime target for me to sell them consulting and offer my expertise to them and help them dominate in Google. But also, I want to expand my relationships to a lot of really cool people in the marketing world and I wanna meet more of them and have them on my Rolodex, so to speak, and be available if they need SEO advice or wanted some recommendations or something.

It’s networking, it’s contributing, it’s adding value, you’re very clear. This isn’t like a podcast for stay at home moms unless they wanna start a business or are thinking about something, that are interested in business or interested in marketing and understanding that aspect. It’s really for entrepreneurs, like young entrepreneurs association or the YPO or the college student that’s thinking of starting something or the digital marketers, the people that would’ve gone to Brendon Burchard’s Expert Academy, those kinds of people. You know your who cares. Now I know your who cares which is good because I could be one of those people that helps add value and contributes to you, this is great.The why you, let’s pull out your story. This is fun, I’m so glad we’re doing it cause I know I’ve met you before. You like to help the other people talk about them and I’m gonna now pull it out of you. What is your expertise? What is your background? How did you start this? Why should I believe you versus anybody else? Why are you someone? What have been your proof points? Who have been your successes?

Those are all great questions. I’ve been in this game for a very long time since the 90’s, I started an agency in 1995. I have staying power, I also know how to build a company from scratch and get funding, bootstrap for a long time but then get funding, build a multinational business, we were in three different countries, get Fortune 500.

Which business, Stephan?

This was Netconcepts which I ran for 15 years and then I sold it in 2010. That’s another thing too, I know how to build a company and then sell it.

That would be part of your why you. But specifically, you started it at X, here’s how you started it, you knew how to do the bootstraps, you invested X in it and you sold it for XYZ, that gives you a proof point.

Also, my three books are definitely a proof point. The Art of SEO is the one I’m most known for which I co-authored. It’s a thousand pages, it’s in its third edition. Whenever I hand this book to somebody they’re like, “Wow, you’re the real deal.” Otherwise, you can’t write a thousand paged book if you don’t know your stuff.

Exactly. Those are your proof points, what successful companies do you have testimonials or companies and people that you’ve worked with, that you’ve helped shape their businesses, are you allowed to talk about them?

I have a ton of testimonials, I have testimonials on my website, I have testimonials in my books on the praise pages. Some of the clients that I’ve helped, Chanel, Zappos, Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy Canada, Quicksilver, Sony Store, CNBC, Bloomberg Businessweek, those are a few.

That’s great. My advice to you, we didn’t talk about doing this ahead of time, this is like an impromptu, who cares? So what? Why you? But normally, we would do a bunch of research ourselves already and we would already know a little bit of background, that I would’ve already done some research and come prepared with questions, I would’ve known some of the answers to a lot of these things and doing it. The one piece of advice that I would say to you, just like in our first meeting, it’s very typical of you because you’re about helping the other which is why I love you so much, I think you’re an extraordinary real deal guy. You should be more willing to give yourself the props for the great work that you have done. Don’t assume that people know everything about you. When you talked about your three books, list all three of those books, list how many copies they sold if they were best sellers, talk about the companies that you’ve worked with and how you’ve helped them with their businesses and what those proof points are that you taught the business from X to Z. I would just have you shape your story better because it’s clear that you are the expert in this area but you talk about it in such a humbling way which is wonderful, I’m not telling you to change that but I would just add a little flavor to that and be proud of it and share the great successes and accomplishments that you’ve done because I think it is important when people are looking at you and what you do. There are other SEO experts that are out there, I know I’ve met a lot of them that claim that they could do XYZPDQ but they might not be able to. I think part of your why you would probably, if I’m working with you on this, would be to help people understand that there is a definite disconnect in what you do and how other people do it and what they should be aware of or fearful of from others that share that. Not to say that you’re trying to scare them but you wanna showcase what the pain is because there is a lot of pain around this, social media and SEO and digital and link backs, all of it, it all happen very quickly. There’s a lot of people that do it and there’s a lot of people that have made a lot of money on it and there are a lot of people that have done that that aren’t necessarily the leading experts in it. I think there’s been a lot of confusion and fear and change around it. If I’m you, I would speak to that and be able to showcase what that would look like so that you can help people get out of that quickly, so that you could be their friend, their ally. I don’t know that this is true but maybe you uncovered that with some of the things that you are doing, maybe there is a personal antidote or story to connect to, Stephan, where you try to do XYZPD and you couldn’t figure it out so you learned this on your own the hard way and here is how. Since you learned it, then you wanted to share it with everybody else. I don’t know if that’s true or not but I’m trying to pull it out of you and get to the heart of a personal story.

That makes a lot of sense. Let’s recap all of those lessons for our listeners so that they can apply it to their personal situations. Personal stories are really important like stories of struggle as Brendon Burchard likes to call it, highlight the pain for the viewer or listener if it’s radio or reader if it’s a newspaper or whatever, have your proof points and get really specific. For example, it’s not just a best-selling book because everybody claims they have a best-selling book, they were on Amazon in some obscure category in the top 10 or whatever for five minutes because they got their friends to buy enough books or whatever and then they took a screenshot. My book, The Art of SEO, sold 40,000 and some copies, proofpoint that’s very specific and irrefutable, those are the proof points that are really important. Distinguish myself from everybody else, what makes me different and unique and special and worthy of the person’s attention. Is that a good recap?

That’s a great recap. Always connect to your personal story because people love the connection. If they can connect to you personally, they can buy into you personally, and they can have shared likeness and like mindedness around you. I always talk about Stephan know me, like me, trust me, buy me. In this who cares, so what, why you? We’re trying to get the people to know you, we’re trying to get the people to trust you, that’s the why know me, trust me, buy me, the buy me is why we’re buying you, that’s part of the so what, we’re gonna get to that. The so what is what do I get when I’m with you? How is that gonna help me? Where is that gonna lead me? Know me, like me, trust me, buy me, all of those things are very important, they all tie into your guiding policy and your who cares? So what? Why you? It’s a strategy like when we come up with what we call people. If someone used to call themselves, let’s say a peak performance coach, we decide, maybe that doesn’t really say much but you’re really a life business strategist, that’s the kind of thing that we help people define. I have a friend that wanted to build her platform, she’s a mom, she has four kids, she helped her husband in the restaurant business. She really wants to help people that they can do anything that’s possible. You know what I came up with her after she went through this exercise? I said, “Kristen, you’re a possibility expert.”

I like that.

I said, “That’s what you are.” You know what we did, we went to GoDaddy, we did a Google, we went to GoDaddy, guess what, it existed.

It was available.

It was available. We bought it and now here I am, I’ve been working with her on building her website, getting her images ready, working with her on what her key message is gonna be and getting her ready to go out and start meeting with press. She started her coaching business again because she used to be a life coach, she’s going back to that. But she’s not really calling it a life coach, it’s more really for moms to get their groove back in. We’re helping her determine what that’s gonna look like and be, how she’s gonna monetize.

That’s awesome, I love that. Possibility expert and you got the .com to go with it, that’s great.

All of it, all of it.

One tip for our listeners that I wanna highlight is that if the domain is available as a .com, that’s the one you wanna get, not .net, .biz, .info, etcetera, because the equivalent for a toll free number would be an 800 number if you have a .com. If you have one of these newer TLDs like .guru or .ninja or whatever, that’s the 844 number. A lot of people won’t even take that seriously, a lot of people don’t even know that an 844 number is actually toll free or an 855, etcetera. 800 is the best for toll free number, 888 second best, that’s still pretty well-known, after that it’s just not that good to go with the toll free number that’s like an 844. Same thing applies with the .com, get the .com. There’s some great market places for buying .coms that are already taken. If you go to buydomains.com or you go hugedomains.com, those are the two great resources, market places where you can search for domains that might cost only $1,000 or a couple thousand dollars. Side story there for our listeners. That’s awesome, you got her the possibility expert brand. That kind of tagline is such a difference maker. I met the lady who came up with the tagline for Cisco which was at that time the Human Network. That was one of her big accomplishments in her career. What a difference that made for Cisco to be the Human Network, that just really added a face to that company. Do you have any other examples that you wanna share of that kind of difference in terms of tagline?

When we first started working with David Bach, who would actually be a great guest for you to have on your show if you haven’t yet.

I would love to. He’s on my list, actually.

David Bach was one of my very first clients, one of my very first authors. He was working at a financial institution. He wrote his first book, Smart Women Finish Rich. He is quite the marketer, Stephan. I think you’re gonna like him a lot. When I met David, he hadn’t even yet been on television. Working with David, it was all about putting together his key messaging, pay yourself first was a very big key point of his. Because he was a man talking about women, it was one thing to be a financial expert but he was the guy’s guy that could help women and man and families understand about money. He became a trusted voice in it, we came up with the concept for Oprah called the Debt Diet. He was a big part of that and he did a really great job. For almost 21 years, we have worked with him on and off for 21 years. When he moves business, he brings us. When he leaves, when he’s done with his books and he goes to different companies, he’s brought us in. It’s been a great relationship. I think he would share that us helping him hone in to define his messaging, and introducing him to key media and allowing that key media to help him figure out what his overarching message was to “dumb it down” and go slowly and share it really helped him break through and sell millions of copies of all his books.

Pay yourself first was such a critical concept. I heard him speak live, he came to a mastermind that I’m in. Neil Strauss’s Secret Society. David Bach came and presented. It made such an impact, pay yourself first. Those three words finally sunk in because the social security and medicare and all that comes out of your paycheck if you’re a W-2 employee. Why aren’t you pulling money out and not even seeing it, it’s just going straight into a wealth account. For years and years, I wasn’t doing that but now I’ve been doing that, it just builds a nice little nest of eggs.

We love being a part of sharing these people’s messages with the world. Here’s the truth, David had that messaging, it was within his books, it was a little buried. He just wasn’t sure that those were his top five tips of how he should explain, or as I call it, create the narrative to what’s gonna pull people in mostly. I also love the story that he had about his grandmother and how she taught him very young how to trade his first stock which is with McDonalds. He’s been doing Facebook live posts with his son selling lemonade, I’m giggling and watching because our sons go to the same school. I’m giggling and watching and I’m smiling ear to ear because he’s teaching exactly what he was taught. He’s the real deal. That, to me, always makes a big difference.

The personal stories are really, really critical there and it helps build relatedness. He’s not somebody in an Ivory Tower that, “Oh yeah that’s easy for him to say. He was already successful, he was already a millionaire, that’s easy for him to say.” No. He went through the struggle, he started somewhere, he has these great personal stories that I can relate to and that builds relatedness which is critical to sales and marketing. If you don’t have relatedness, you don’t have a connection and they don’t know, like, or trust you. A great episode by the way, listeners, is with Ephraim Olschewski, episode 88 of Marketing Speak, was a great episode about building relatedness and closing seven figure deals. He closes six and seven figure deals personally for coaching. He deconstructed his whole process for that and part of it was building relatedness, making that connection with somebody climbing that wall of context between you and the other person and getting in their shoes, seeing the world from their eyes and getting their world and making sure that they feel gotten. It’s not enough that you get them but only if they feel gotten, does it actually count. Great episode, number 88. Another thing that I want to talk to you about, Heidi, specifically with David Bach was the Debt Diet. Was that something that you came up with and pitched to Oprah? How did all that work?

I had just launched the South Beach Diet. Again, he was a doctor, he was obviously a very credible doctor in Miami. He already have had the hearts named after him called the Agatston score when you go to get your heart monitor, that was his test. It wasn’t like he was all of a sudden writing a book, that he was a nobody writing a book, he was already a pretty substantial somebody. But he wasn’t really well-known in the health and wellness and diet space, that wasn’t what people knew him to be. That was such a phenomenon. Dieting was so heavy in our brain because we started to become the accidental diet PR firm, we went from South Beach to weight watchers, have since worked with almost every thought leader or expert and company and health and wellness and diet space successfully and have loved it. Jean Chatzky have come to me to work with her on her book called Pay It Down, it was from debt to wealth on $10 a day. Great title, I thought it was terrific and it’s coming out paperback. She was just revising it. I went for a run and I called her and I said, “Has there ever been anything called a debt diet?” This was before the financial crash, by the way. I was like, “Has there ever been anything called the debt diet?” I know that people are in credit card debt for over $8,000. But has anyone ever put them on a program? One of the things that a lot of my friends that are producers, I think, respect and like about me is I think like them. I literally come up with the header of what the show could be and then I build out the segment. I asked her, “Is there a debt diet?” I started just building out what that would look like. We talked about getting a credit card company to help match the money for everybody in the audience, we thought about going into people’s homes then moving in with them and having them share what all of their pieces were. She really wanted to be on Oprah, that was her goal, she had not been on Oprah, really. For her that was a very, very big goal. The Oprah show, this is when the Oprah Winfrey show was on air, they love the idea but they wanted it to not just be this one expert. They thought it would be more compelling to have two other experts with Jean and have three families follow these three different scenarios and families through what real life is being in debt and how to get out of it and just see three different thought financial experts perspectives and three different scenarios perspectives of how to get that done. The audience, of course, could go along with us in doing that. It became a five part series on The Oprah Winfrey show, not just one show, it became what Oprah coined The Great American Debt Diet. It was pretty exciting, I remember when we worked there for the taping, watching her do that and seeing this whole idea that I helped create come to life was very exciting. We had encouraged Jean to add in her paperback a chapter that said, “This includes the Debt Diet.” There was a burst on the cover of the paperback that said it includes the Debt Diet. Her book was able to get most play around it. I was her publicist at that time, it was really something that I wanted her to have more share in. Being that I had worked with David in the past, it was great that he was able to be a part of it as well. They had another expert as well, Glenda who was great. It was wonderful, it did so well, they created a DVD series, they sold the DVD series. That experience in that show, also at the time, had landed Jean an opportunity to become Oprah’s financial expert on her then radio platform that she had on series called Oprah & Friends. Jean had her own radio show there which I helped negotiate and manage and handle. Sometimes these big ideas can go a lot further than you think. We also ended up negotiating various partnerships and relationships and conscious connections with brands and companies that also supported the platform and the ideas, it was exciting.

Sometimes these big ideas can go a lot further than you think. Share on X

That’s amazing. The story just underlines how you are so much more than a publicist, you really are a strategist and a creator of just world changing stuff. That’s an amazing story, I love that. Who knows how many people you actually changed their lives, got them out the debt. Some people actually commit suicide because they’re in so much debt and they feel so hopeless and lost. You probably saved some lives with that.

Stephan, thank you. Honestly, it’s what wakes me up everyday. When we worked on The South Beach Diet that sold over 25 million copies, it made me feel so great to be behind something that was changing the way America eats. Having that purpose and that passion around something that can actually make a difference is everything that we do. I look at us as the catalyst behind the leaders of our future, our changemakers, our thought leaders, all of them. Thank you for that, thank you very much.

I certainly mean it. You really have done some amazing things. The people that are out there saving lives, changing lives, like Tony Robbins, they have a team of people behind them that you don’t really normally hear much about. The expression standing on the shoulders of giants, the giants was Tony, he really is a giant. He’s standing on the shoulders of some amazing people with his team and you are part of his team, you made a big difference for him. I don’t know if you wanna go into any of the details of the cool stuff you’ve done for Tony.

I love Tony. Tony and I are friends, we’re family, I love him. I’ve known him for over 21 years, actually, since I first started the business. My mentor, who is an amazing woman, Jan Miller, was his literary agent. She wanted me to attend one of his seminars because he was doing a book with his best friend and partner in crime, Joseph McClendon, who was writing a book, Unlimited Power A Black Choice. Jan wanted me to go and learn about Tony. She, of course, was hoping that he would do another book as well, it took 20 years later for him to do that. Tony doesn’t do anything unless he has the focus and commitment to do it, he’s never gonna do anything halfway. He is who he is, what he tells people is what he does for himself. He is really the real deal. I’ll never forget that first seminar, I’m just sitting there at spitting distance, there were maybe 1,500 or 2,000 people in the room in New Jersey. Just to give you a sense, just a couple weeks ago in July, my husband and I have just gotten back from Greece and we went to New Jersey. He filled a prudential stadium with 14,000 people. Honestly, I’m not usually one for loss of words and I’m not usually one to take a second to take in the impact of what I’ve helped create or be a part of and the grace behind what that is and does. I will share, my breath was taken away and I did, just like you said, I took a second, I literally looked around that room and thought, “Oh my goodness, wow.” I was so happy for him that he has an even larger platform to share his heart with the rest of the world. I was humbled. I worked with him for many years, for many, many, many years. One of the things that I made a must, for me, not that he said you have to go do but after that first event where I met him I was like, “He should be connected with Oprah. Someday I wanna make him a best-seller.” I had this little wish list of all these things that I wanted to do. I was like, “I’d like to meet my husband or my future husband through his work.” Which ultimately I did too. Honestly, I’ve crossed everything off my list for all the things I wanted to do with Tony, it’s been pretty exciting. When I had our son, I was on maternity leave and Oprah was moving from the Oprah Winfrey show to start OWN. A lot of those people that worked there aren’t there anymore but have worked there then were friends. They would call me, how are you? How’s the baby? I’d be nursing and God forbid, I shouldn’t still be thinking because that’s what entrepreneurs do, you still come up with the ideas. They had said that they were gonna do a show called Oprah’s Next Chapter. I said, “Oh gosh, wouldn’t it be great for Oprah’s Next Chapter if she went to a Tony Robbins event and fire walked?” I know we’ve been trying to get them together for many, many years and I had pitched them so many ideas. I kept trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and the timing wasn’t right. I don’t think that Oprah really knew who Tony was, I think her perception of who he was, like other people, sometimes a part of what a publicist has to do is help reshape perception of people’s stories that they believe that someone is without even knowing who they are. For me, because he became so personal to me and I cared about him so much, it was so important for me to passionately, continuously share how real he was with anybody who would listen. I would tell everybody, everybody knew I was the Tony girl.

I’m a big Tony supporter too, a lot of people get tired of hearing of all about it. I met my wife through Tony Robbins, I had my personal transformation where I went from a guy that you wouldn’t even recognize who I am today. My other podcast show, Get Yourself Optimized, is all about that journey and how to reboot your life in all aspects, not just physically but also emotionally, spiritually, peer group, financially, in business. That’s all because of Tony.

Absolutely. What makes me feel amazing is the more people I shared him with and then the bigger platforms we’re able to create and connect him with, then I feel like I’m part of that grace and trickle effect of the impact that he has had on so many people’s lives including mine. I’m full of gratitude, it was very funny. I had this whole passion to connect him with Oprah. We ultimately did get Oprah to go to an event.

She did the firewalk, I even saw photos of it. Some of my friends were in the same group with her and they took photos of her walking on the hot coals and what a difference that made for her.

If you look in the image, you’ll see my husband who I politely placed over Tony’s shoulder because I was working, to make sure that that walk happened. Our son, Caden, who at that time was nine months was backstage with the nanny, I was still nursing. Literally, it was like I gave birth and then I gave birth again. It was an incredible moment, I was so proud of Tony because for her to say that that was one of the greatest experiences of her life, I felt like, “That’s complete, that goal that I have happened. Oh my gosh, she sees him, she sees him for who he is.” Years later, I could tell you, I understand that that wasn’t just about Tony, that was also a lesson and a learning for me because I was not owning my power on the power of relationships and connections and the things that I could do. I wouldn’t have been able to even articulate that seven years because for me, yes, most of it always is for the other people but often, sometimes, there are things that also help fill us up and it’s okay to admit that because we all have to learn and grow and build and do. That was incredible, that turned into yet another great thing because Tony had a show called Breakthrough with Tony Robbins that was on NBC and NBC cancelled it abruptly. I can’t say my feelings about that because the profanity that I would share wouldn’t be appropriate. But, anyway, the great news, the lemon and the lemonade which there always is, which was always a good thing, OWN picked it up and aired the entire thing. Because of that relationship, it was like the gift that kept giving and now you know they have this great friendship and she’s had him on Super Soul Sunday which we did last year and he was just there for Super Soul sessions. He’s on her podcast she just launched. They trust me, her people trust me and they knew that I was giving them somebody that I believe in and I trust. A lot of what we do and I ensure I do always especially is I’m conscious of those connections, of those opportunities that I give. It’s not just clients coming to me and wanting to work with us, we have to make sure that we can believe in them and that they’re gonna be the right fit for the relationships and connections that we’re gonna build for and with them.

I totally relate. I turn away prospects who wanna work with me and I just don’t get behind what they’re doing, it just doesn’t match with my values or I just don’t think that it’s compatible with what I wanna do in the world. You changed so many people’s lives by getting those two powerhouses together, all the people that got exposed to Tony’s message because of Super Soul Sunday, because of the Breakthrough Show on Oprah Winfrey network and all that stuff, it’s because of you, it’s amazing.

Thanks, Stephan. I’m getting… I’m learning how to take it in, I think that’s been the biggest lesson that Mr. Robbins has been working with me on, take it in, girl, take it in. Thank you very much.

Let’s talk about something else that you’ve gotten going that’s really quite amazing, that’s the Chicken Soup For The Soul 20th edition book. Let’s share the story of that how that came about and what your role was in that.

I had a friend that was working for the company at the time and she was a marketer. The company was sold to new owners, Jack and Mark didn’t own it anymore, Mark Victor Hansen, Jack Canfield, it was sold to someone else. The company wanted to have a 20th year anniversary issue. They came to me, it was actually startling because I’m so not the person that puts herself forward, I’m the behind the scene girl that’s pushing the other people. They came to me and they said, “We wanna do this 20th anniversary book, we feel like you would be a great curator of the 20 new stories for 20 more years.” I was like, “What?” I said, “Well, let me think about it.” I started to collaborate with one of the owner and editors. I came up with my list and I went back and forth and I was super excited because I got a lot of fabulous stories in there. I got Deepak, he had already been in before but I got him to do it again. Tony, of course, shared a story with us, we got Gabby Bernstein in and she hadn’t been in before and Kris Carr, we’ve got a lot of new up and comer 21st century thought leaders and experts that hadn’t yet been considered and that was really exciting. It’s fun, for my 21 years I’ve been in business and I’ve helped promote a hundred New York Times Best-Sellers, to see my name on the cover of a book was a kick and my parents loved it.

Not just any book.

Exactly. Here’s the interesting part, we never did PR for Chicken Soup For The Soul prior to that. All those years that Mark and Jack had done what they did, we weren’t a part of that. Ultimately, it’s like a great little pay it forward story. Oprah was doing Super Soul and her team was figuring out who they want for Super Soul and they wanted to have Jack Canfield. I was able to get them Jack and then they showed my book, the 20th anniversary book, within that package piece because you know, the friend of the show, someone that everybody knew, they knew that his story was in that, that I was helping to package it together. It was very cool that they did that for me, I thought that was very nice.

Awesome. What has that book done to change your business, your career, I know you curated the book, you didn’t write the book but your name is on the cover. I’m sure that’s had an impact on your life, what happened?

It definitely had an impact on my life, Stephan. I will say to you, I know you know this about me, the thing that we haven’t done a lot of for ourselves and for agency is marketing. We have not really done much marketing for us because we’re so busy doing that for other people. Now I’m doing your podcast, I’m starting to talk to people about the kind of things that I’m doing, I’m starting to become my own thought leader expert and share how people can come up with their story and be their own publicist. I’m creating a course eventually, that’s gonna teach people how to do that, I do these conscious connections dinners, I’m starting to proactively think about the kind of ideal client that we wanna work with and go after. I think Chicken Soup gave all of us a serving to our soul of the things that are possible. I think what that did for me is it showed me what’s possible and now I have it on my desk and I’ve really been thinking about what’s next for us? What’s next for me? What do I wanna share? Did the stories and the successes that I’ve had, are they gonna help other people? What if there is another, soon to be blossoming Tony Robbins III out there that wants to be the best that they can be and come up with what their story is and what their thought leadership is. Obviously, maybe, they can’t afford to pay us what we usually charge now but maybe I could even give them a nugget or a stepping stone or something to help them get there in a smaller way. Those are the things that I’m thinking about. You and I should really talk about this because I bet you can help me a lot to think about what I should be doing.

I’m sure I could, I would love to. For our listeners, this is a great reminder that anything is possible. I bet you would never have dreamed five years ago that you would be on a cover of a Chicken Soup For The Soul book, they have a whole series of them. But the big one, the 20th anniversary edition, I’m guessing that you probably didn’t have that in your mindset.

No. I’m so humbled by it and I’ve really not done it justice to promote it and talk about it and share it. Often, I look at the various stories and I’ll read them, it’s like that bedside table book that always makes you like a warm cup of soup that just fills you up inside.

It sure does. Let’s bring this full circle back to one of the early topics that we started on at the beginning of this episode which is you have to have an angle. The relationships are critically important as we’ve been discussing through this whole episode but also the angle is really important. What would be the angle that you would pitch to get on Good Morning America or The Today Show about Chicken Soup For The Soul The 20th Anniversary Edition, you, Heidi, being on the show rather than one of the contributors of one of the 20 stories? Let’s do another exercise, let’s brainstorm an angle.

You’re trying to stop me.

We’ll make this awesome. Our listeners will learn something in the process. Who knows, this could be the Oprah, Tony moment for you.

It’s funny, my team really wants me to do more and more of this. They’ve really been encouraging me to do it and I have a lot of friends that are producers. But here’s what I would do, if I were to go on TV or if I were to go on print and obviously I’m talking to you about this right now on the podcast, how I would position it would not be about me. I certainly might tell the story about how being this accidental book publicist, who would’ve thought years later that I would be the forward writer to one of the most important books of our next generation, of the 20th Chicken Soup for the Soul Edition. Again, it’s all about your story, it’s all about who you know, your relationships and connections, and believing in the possibility of what is. Sometimes, people don’t think about that. I think that inspiring, mentoring, encouraging others to share what those stories are and how they are. My friend, Lauren, wrote an amazing story, I don’t know if you know Loren Slocum.

Yeah. She’s been on my other show, on Get Yourself Optimized. Or actually no, she was on both, she was on Marketing Speak as well talking about network marketing.

Yeah she’s amazing. I love Lauren. Lauren introduced me to my husband who was at a Tony event, at Life Enterprise Management, years ago. Tony and Sage said they were gonna find me someone to fall in love with because all I did was give love to everybody and they wanted me to have love myself. I was like oh, are you my matchmaker too? Lauren spotted Darren, introduced him to Sage, and the rest is history. We were married in Namale and Tony and Sage were witnesses of our wedding.

I love Lauren, she’s amazing, what a difference she made in your life. Episode 39, listeners, by the way, if you wanna listen to Lauren talking about multi level marketing, a great episode.

Lauren is amazing. She told a story, a Chicken Soup story that when her father passed, she had bought a car and there are quarters on the bottom of the car and it was a brand new car. She talked about how wherever she would go, when her dad died, it was so hard for her, but it was really refreshing for her to find quarters. I have a Yorkie, his name is Isaac, he just passed away a month ago, he was almost 17. We have a son who’s gonna be seven, it was really hard for him to comprehend. I was able to pay her Chicken Soup For The Soul story forward to Caden. Now, Caden has created his own story of when he sees pennies, he can think of his dog. Fast forward, a couple weeks ago, Lauren was in New York and we were having dinner. We took her to a restaurant with Caden that we always go to or we order in from. Never, ever, ever have any of us ever noticed that in the threshold, when you open the door, underneath the door, there is a line under the door. My son noticed it right away because there were quarters embedded in the opening of the door. He pointed it out to Lauren and said, “Look, your dad is here.” That’s what Chicken Soup did and does and that we’re just all gonna keep doing. It’s sharing our stories and our passions and our lessons and our lives with the world and how they can better and impact and help other people.

Amazing. To bring this back to the angle, imagine this, you pitched Good Morning America that this is a segment about losing a pet. How to grieve? How to get over it? How to heal? You bring Lauren on the show, you pitch you and Lauren and you bring a dog on the show.

And my son because he also came up with an idea to get a helium balloon.

You bring your son on as well and a dog because if you bring a dog on the segment, that’s a sure fire way to get a great segment.

Or we can adopt the dog, there will be adoption there and we’ll adopt the dog after to move on from the healing.

You bring a dog on the segment who is a adoptable from one of the local shelters, that’ll be a big hit. You explained this process of how to get over losing a pet and the pennies and that’s one of the stories and then they cut to the book cover and that ties it all into your book. That’s a great segment, that should get on Good Morning America or The Today Show. I think that’s an easy win for you.

I will call them. You know what I’ll do? I’ll make sure that you see it, I’ll give you the shout out for giving me the courage to go do it.

Awesome. You heard it here first, listeners. There is gonna be a TV segment on one of the big shows. It’s gonna be all about grieving about your pet and getting over it, healing. It’s gonna tie into the awesome Chicken Soup For The Soul 20th Edition book. I know we’re out of time, how do folks get in touch with you if they wanna hire your firm to help them with getting their message out there and changing the world? How do they get in touch with K2 and with you?

Our website is Krupp Kommunications or K2.com. We’re based in New York, I’m on Facebook, I’m on Twitter, I’m Heidi Krupp-Lisiten. I look forward to hearing about your stories and hearing how I can help you with your marketing and PR needs. Stephan, thank you so much for having me today, this was so fun.

It was fun. Thank you. Also, thank you listeners. Make a difference in the world. The action items checklist of things you can do to start making a difference in your publicity and getting the word out so that you can make a difference in the world. Thanks listeners and thank you, Heidi. We’ll catch you in the next episode of Marketing Speak. This is your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.

Important Links:

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

☑ Have a clear understanding of my message when creating my pitch. Make sure that my story tells who I really am at a personal level.

☑ Know the show I am reaching out to before sending my pitch. My pitch should be relevant, add value, and connect to an audience and theme.

☑ Package an engaging and inviting pitch that sticks to my branding. Have a clever tagline that the audience will remember.

☑ Ask myself 3 key questions: who cares, so what, and why me? Answering these questions will help me come up with a guide for my branding strategy.

☑ Understand that getting media coverage is not simple. Figure out what works and what doesn’t by trying out different strategies such as hiring a publicist.

☑ Improve my social proof by telling people about my accomplishments such as testimonials, speaking events, and awards. This builds trust in my expertise and capabilities.

☑ Come up with a clever label for what I do. For example, instead of just saying business coach, try “possibility expert.”

☑ Always connect my message to my personal story because people love connection. It’s important that my audience can relate to me on a deeper level.

☑ Believe in my message so that others perceive its true value and buy into it.

☑ Continuously build relationships while pitching. Connections with others can help make my job easier and more rewarding.

About Heidi Krupp-Lisiten

Described by Bella NYC Magazine as being passionate, energetic, and full of life, K2s founder and CEO, Heidi Krupp-Lisiten, is right at home in the world of marketing, promotion, and media. With over 25 years in the field, Heidi has become recognized as an industry leader who works closely with her clients to develop innovative 360-degree brand platforms designed to engage consumers, excite media, drive awareness, and most importantly, deliver quantifiable business outcomes.

As the head of K2, Heidi provides multi-disciplined marketing solutions, including unique strategic PR programs, on behalf of globally recognized brands such as Weight Watchers, Ann Taylor, Gaiam, and Everyday Health. Notably, her recent work with Nerium International (the fastest growing direct sales company in the world) has helped them to achieve their U.S. goals and expand into other countries.

After earning a Bachelors degree in journalism and communications from Ohio University, Heidi moved on to play an integral role at ABC News 20/20, amassing an impressive string of production and publicity credits (including her first publicity credit for her work with Barbara Walters). It was while she was at ABC that she discovered her true calling as a PR professional and entrepreneur. This discovery led her to establish K2 in 1996.