Long Term Thinking vs Quick Fix

There are coaches and experts who are thinking long term- they want visibility that compounds, and for their message to carry on way beyond them physically being there telling it. 

They’re usually the ones with staying power, who reap the rewards of PR. 

In today’s episode Catherine Ball and I dig into how visibility compounds with PR. And why this results in lasting impact and legacy 🔥

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Transcript

Legacy Versus Quick PR Wins

Speaker 0:00

Welcome to Dauntless PR Unfiltered. Our topic of the day is legacy versus short-term fix.

Speaker 1 0:09

So I love this topic because I love to talk about the real advantage of PR that I think a lot of people either don't realize or they don't think about it. They don't know about it until it starts happening for them, which is this kind of long-term legacy building that PR offers. So people tend to be thinking, and you know, I'm sure I'm guilty of this too. We're living in the moment, we're thinking about what's happening to us right here and now, what's the thing that we need to sort out this week or this month or this year? And often when people start to think about PR for their business, they're thinking about, oh, you know, I want to reach this particular goal, I want to get more sales, I want to reach more people, but they're not necessarily thinking about the how is this going to build my brand for a long-term strategy for the future? How are people going to look back on what I've been doing? How is this going to like work for me over the next 10, 15 years plus? But actually, particularly now that we're in this digital world, you know, we used to be this sort of joke about, oh, you know, today's news is tomorrow's fish paper, we'd say in the UK, because it would be like this idea that once it was out, you know, people would read it and then they would throw it away. They'd use it to line their rabbit hutches or whatever. The reality now is that most things hang about for a long time online, and they really create what people think about you, what people know about your values, what people know about what you've got to say. And an interview that you do today, you know, you might still have people reading it or listening to it or being affected by it years and years into the future.

Speaker 2:16

I still have people coming through and telling me that they've just read an article and it could be something

Digital PR That Stays Searchable

Speaker 2:24

that's been out there for seven years.

Speaker 1 2:26

And even from a journalist's point of view, uh, there's things I've written years ago that still I think people often don't realize this that media outlets, if something is evergreen, and what do I mean by that? I mean it's not going to go out of date, it's not going to no longer be relevant. If something has kind of a an appeal that goes beyond the time it was written, they will often put these things out as fresh content. And that happens a lot for expert pieces as well. If you say you were a psychologist and you were interviewed about kind of the mental health benefits of doing a particular activity, that's not going to stop being relevant in two years. So if an outlet suddenly needs a piece about that, then they'll go, We've got these comments, we'll put this out again. And effectively for them, it's kind of pushing it up onto the home page, putting a new date on it. It's kind of a bit like a shop putting something that had been in the bag back in its shop window to catch people's attention. But what that does mean is that it gets a whole new audience, a whole load of fresh attention. So this is one reason that I really say to people, look at the time that you spend doing your PR as a long-term investment, not just uh what will it do for me right this second? So don't necessarily judge things by going, oh, I spent an hour talking to that journalist, and what have I got from it? Because actually, you are creating these building blocks for a foundation that is going to build your personal brand, build your legacy. And if there are things that you really, really care about, then you're putting that out in the world and they're going to stay as like durable, I guess like checkpoints really of what you've got to say that people will find from Googling you. AI will search these things. If people are asking their different AI things like Chat GPT or Claude, or you know, tell me about this person. AI is looking, well, what's the publicly available stuff? And me, and they will give much more weight to something that's in the media than something you've put on your own social media. So anything that you say in the media, they're going to be like, yeah, they've given this advice, this is what they're known for. So it has much more of a durable appeal than anything that you might put on social media. I know sometimes people will re-put things out. So they'll be like, oh, here's a throwback to a popular post I had a year ago. But the media is sort of doing that for you without you having to keep on with that effort.

Speaker 5:14

Completely. And this is the thing, isn't it? Like I I love social media. It's so it's so much fun and I make some great connections on there, but I would never rely on it because it's like it's not, I didn't sign up for a full-time job creating content. You know, I can't that's not why I came into business. And although I love it, I don't want to be tied to it 24-7. And it's like you can put your heart and soul into a post. You can you can absolutely put your heart and soul into something you can think, oh, this is amazing, this is really gonna take off. And the algorithm will only show it to a few people, and then two days later it's gone, and you're like, Yeah. And then other times you can you

Evergreen Coverage And Compound Interest

Speaker 6:00

can do a post that's half-assed. Like, say you're rushing, you've got 10 minutes to do a post, you could just whack one out there, and then it goes viral. Like, but with um, you carry on.

Speaker 1 6:12

I was gonna say the interesting thing, I think, is that often where people's social media posts that do go really viral, where they become more durable, is that often when a social media post goes massive, it then gets a wave of media about it.

Speaker 6:29

And yes, yes, hangs about.

Speaker 1 6:31

That's it. That's it. That you will often find what hangs about in the search engines and for people to find. It's the media about the social media that has the durability. So if someone has a super viral video or something, you will find that they end up attracting media attention and they get pieces. So they definitely work hand in hand, but that's kind of much a much clearer and more steady way of it kind of hanging around and it actually having not that it doesn't have value. Um, obviously, short-term stuff also has value. So, you know, I'm not the no nothing against short-term wins, they're amazing, but like it's having that balance that it also has this kind of um durability that will last longer. So I will often come across pieces that, you know, they might not be particularly new, but they come up when you search a particular term, these pieces come up for people. If you are an expert who is like talks a lot on a certain subject, it won't only be the stuff that you've just said in the media that will come up when people are looking for stuff. It might be a piece from three years ago. And if you have set yourself up as somebody talking on these topics, you're still going to get the attention from when people want to know more about it.

Speaker 8:03

I still get people asking me about burlesque. I haven't done burlesque dancing for about 15 years, and every now and again I'll get somebody messaging me about burlesque because they'll have found something from all of those years ago.

Speaker 1 8:19

What I find quite ironic really is that when the internet first became big, people saw printed products as being much more kind of rooted in reality, endurable and lasting because they were a physical thing, and people saw the internet as being very fleeting. You know, things would go on and it was all very fast, but the actual opposite is true often. I mean, obviously, you know, books and things like that will will hang around for a long time. You could have a book on your shelf for 30 years. Like it has a lot more of a lasting impact than I think anybody imagined when these things started, that you know you could still be reading something. I actually found I sent I sent this to Luana for amusement, but I used to work when I was a long, long time ago. I used to write for the student newspaper when I was at university, and somebody has uploaded all these pages of this newspaper onto the internet, and I was just like laughing at things that people I knew had written, things because I had imagined that that had gone in the sands of time, that unless somebody had maybe a box in their garage with a load of these, that they were gone. And it was really exciting to find this online archive where I was like, we could read what people had were talking about that then. And I think that's the thing, isn't it? That you can find things from years ago. Now that the internet is isn't it isn't a little baby anymore, it's been around a long time that we can find these things that keep keep working for people. And I like to think of it as being a bit like your PR is a bit like a compound interest situation that you know, if you start a pension at the age of like 18 and you consistently pay into it, you are gonna have a really large sum of money. I'm saying this as somebody who didn't do that, by the way, and is like I should have probably done that. You're gonna have a really lovely sum of money by the time you get to retirement. And the same is true of PR. If you consistently show who you are and you keep appearing in the media, talking about the things that matter to you, sharing your story, sharing your message, sharing your expertise, that is gonna build and build and build. And more and more things are gonna be out and around about that. So that when you look back, you're gonna have built this huge legacy of what you've got to say.

Speaker 10:57

Yeah,

Why AI Trusts Press Over Followers

Speaker 10:58

that's it. That's exactly it. And it's why, as well, like when AI recommends people who aren't even alive anymore, and it's because in their lifetime, like before even social media was a thing, they did so much in the press, and they had all of these things, you know, that that AI takes from. And something else, like just on about AI, you know, when you were talking about how a piece will go viral from the socials and then it'll get picked up from the media, and AI recognizes from that media, not from the initials, um, not from the socials. Well, followers, like a lot of people wonder why AI isn't recommending them because they've got a lot of followers, but AI isn't looking at the amount of followers, and the only way it knows how many followers somebody's got is if that's been cited in the press. Like if a press piece comes out and and names them and says like they've got however many followers or something like that. Otherwise, it's not paying attention at all. It needs these, you know, the top tiers that are really credible, and also the mid-tiers for volume, because it's looking at not just like the big hits, but also consistency as well. And we've got clients, haven't we, who are being recommended by AI, and that is because they are all over the national press and they are there regularly.

Speaker 1 12:24

It's looking for third-party sources. So it I'm not saying that it doesn't at all look at your own stuff because it will take bits and pieces from your website. It's a hierarchy, yeah. Social media. It's a high hierarchy. But it's going to go for the person who has the biggest body of work that's publicly around. So if you were to say to it who is the top person in whatever area of expertise you're interested in, it's not going to look at everybody who does that. It's not going to be like, oh, let's search and find everybody who is an expert in that, and then let's make a judgment call on who's saying the most interesting stuff. It's going to be like, who has the biggest visibility, who has the biggest body of work, who has been showing up in lots and lots of different sources that are not then. So they're not their own LinkedIn page, they're not their own website, although, like I say, might well gather information from those sources. But the people who are in lots of places, so newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, podcasts, online news sites, different types of things, and they are showing up saying the same kinds of things consistently. And the reason I keep saying consistently is because not only is it important to have a consistent PR strategy and that you are not just having a little rush at doing it for a month and then getting bored, you keep doing it, but also that you're consistent in what you are saying. So if you were somebody who comes on and you're like, I'm really passionate about this one thing, and I'm talking about that, and then the next month you completely pivoted, you're talking about something completely unrelated, and then a year later, it's something completely different, and none of these things seem connected at all. That's just going to get confused. It's going to see you as different people. So it's going to be like, oh, okay, well, there is a person of this name that talks about this, and then there is a person of this name that talks about that, and then there's another person with the same name that talks about because AI doesn't have the human reasoning to understand it. It goes for the simplest explanation, which is they're probably different people because what they're saying is so wildly different. Doesn't mean that you can't pivot and change and expand and move into other things, but like it works better if you are talking on the same kind of topics consistently for a long time in lots of different places.

Speaker 14:59

Yeah. And by the way, that doesn't mean just talk about your, you know, exact business topic and the thing else. It just means don't like flip-flop all over the place. Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:08

And under an umbrella, so within that, so say for example, your expertise could be in mental health. Well, there's huge numbers of things that you could talk about within that. But it would all make sense because they would all come under that umbrella. Exactly. All like health. So we're not saying like pick one very specific thing and only talk about that. Like having things that are kind

Consistency Builds Authority And Clarity

Speaker 1 15:32

of at least related or aligned to each other and make sense together and work really well. And giving them extra information. So, for example, things like sharing your backstory again is really helpful for people to understand who you are and put those pieces together. Not just your human leads, but also helping the internet and AI understand who you are, like helping Google. Um, I'm obsessed with, I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast before. I'm obsessed with Google knowledge panels because they happen they feel like they happen by magic. Obviously, they don't happen by magic. They happen when you have shown up enough that Google recognizes you as somebody of know, and not just somebody of no, the most notable person with your name. It's amazing, isn't it? So the unfortunate thing, if you're called John Smith, it's very hard to get on. But I absolutely love them because it's evidence to me of the value of the different bits of media that people have been doing. Because when they suddenly go to having a Google knowledge panel, and if you're thinking, I've no idea what you're talking about, Google somebody famous that isn't called John Smith, somebody famous, and you'll see a lovely thing comes up on Google. It's not just a load of boring listed results. There'll be like their pictures, their date of birth, a little bio, some links to usually something relatively recent. So maybe a recent interview, might be something they've written themselves on social media or their blog, like some current things. And it'll all be packaged together in a visual thing at the top of Google. And it straightaway says to people, this is a person you should be paying attention to. And then it will lead people. Google's doing this completely for free without any input from you. It's leading people to see some more stuff about you, like things that they can click on. And it will change and evolve. So as you do different things, your Google knowledge panel will also change. And it's things like that that aren't nobody I've ever spoken to when I ask them why they want PR has ever said, because I really like a Google knowledge panel. It's one of those like completely hidden benefits from many people that they don't even know about, or they're not aware of it. They assume that they are assigned to people or that they have to apply for them and they're not this sort of organic thing. But it's all part and parcel of building your profile so you become somebody that is recognized not just by people but by machines as being the person of authority in your topic.

Speaker 18:39

That's it. And to get there takes real long-term thinking, which everybody in business is completely capable of, because you have to have long-term thinking to establish yourself in business in the first place. But we're conditioned these days, aren't we, for quick fix thinking. Like get this results, and that is also used by a lot of people selling PR. That's not exactly real PR, like it's not earned media, they sell it as a quick fix. So you you can see why some people do have this idea that they're gonna get PR, pieces are gonna go out, their business is gonna absolutely explode straight away. But the reality of it is that it is very much a long-term approach, isn't it?

Speaker 1 19:29

Yeah. There is no single piece, no single piece anywhere that will completely keep you in inundated with leads for the rest of your business's lifetime. There's no single piece could do that. Even if it was the absolute piece of your dreams, it will definitely be valuable and help, but it cannot stand alone. So, like you could be on the front page of the Times or like a huge feature piece in the New York Times, or like a spotlight in Forbes, and that would be huge and really valuable and probably bring you a lot of amazing short-term results. But if that was the only piece of media you ever did in your lifetime, that wouldn't be enough to keep you in people's minds and attention forever. And that's where the I feel like it's a bit of a miss selling when people ask this amazing piece, pay us lots of money, we'll get you that. That will do it for you. Because these pieces are important, but so are the smaller things. So are the the consistently showing up. Any single person that you can think of who is famous, you didn't see them in one thing, you saw them showing up again and again and again.

Pitching As Long-Term Visibility

Speaker 1 20:52

You know, celebrities don't do one interview, and then that's it. Oh, I've done an interview with somebody and that was big, and I'm never gonna speak to them again. It's about having that kind of you're not trying to do the least possible, you're trying to keep showing up, having that long-term vision and enjoying it as well. It's don't see it as a, oh, I've got to speak to somebody and oh, I hope this actually brings me something. Like, see it as a huge opportunity to like share what you've got to say and enjoy talking to people about it.

Speaker 21:27

The people I always find the people who love PR and they're excited by it, and they want to go into the spotlight and they want to share their message, they're the ones that get the huge results. Where the people who kind of drag themselves in, they don't really want to be there, but they feel like they should because they want this specific result. I think energetically, people can feel that and it just doesn't happen. It's like the people who go in and think about the audience. That's what they have is they think about they're gonna give value, they want to share the message, they want to. impact and that's where it all be that's when it all comes together isn't it and it's the same you know with this long-term thinking it's the same I always think it's the same with pitching as well because when you pitch yes of course you want the instant benefit which is I want to book you that's the response that everybody wants from sending a pitch however it's not as that's not the only reason to do it like that that's great but the other reason of course is so that you get it you're constantly showing up in journalist inboxes next to your topic showing the kind of things that you can speak about showing a range like your angles if you're constantly showing up in journalist inboxes with relevant angles you are going to get noticed maybe not straight away but you are going to get noticed even if that person that you're emailing maybe even if they don't place you there and then you don't know who they're recommending you to you don't know what talk is going on behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 23:04

Absolutely and you know most of the time a journalist will not know you exist unless you are pitching yourself. They're not and I think this might be a little bit of a misconception of how journalists work. They're not sitting there searching the internet looking for people to fit there to give them stories. They're not actively thinking oh I could really do with an expert I'll just go in all after just see who's out there because they have lots of people coming to them and pitching them ideas, pitching them stories. So if you are somebody who is just going to sit there and wait for to be discovered by the media you are probably going to be really disappointed you know unless you are the only person in the world that can talk on an extremely topical thing that suddenly everyone's like oh hang on a minute there's this one person who we need to talk to about this thing because we've googled and they are literally the only person so we're going to go to them. The most cases people who are in the media are not there by accident. They're not experts that you see showing up all the time they did so with a consistent strategy and having the right attitude and giving journalists what they need and all the different stuff that we talk about that makes you a really great person to be in you know like actually having interesting things to say and you know just responding even just responding to people when they email and picking up the phone when people ring them and just all of those different things they come together to work really well for your PR whereas like don't gatekeep your message by being like I'll just sit here quietly doing it in a corner and if somebody asks me and I think it will really benefit me I might tell them my like thing like shout it from the rooftops get in touch with journalists pitch yourself out there and even if you don't get instant results if you keep doing it and you keep saying these things that's how you build a long-term legacy that you can actually be proud of and you can make a real difference to the world.

Speaker 25:30

100% and if you really believe in your message as much as you say you do then like why the hell would you not set it free? Why the hell would you hang on to that and not let people benefit from it? And it doesn't mean that you're not going to get paid it means the complete opposite it means that your people are trusting you that they're sure you're demonstrating what you can do you know because you can tell people all day long but you've got to like you've got to be able to prove it these days that you're you're demonstrating what you can do and then you're doing that over and over and over again. Really powerful that's when it comes back I was going to say tenfold but we don't even know how many times over it's just something that keeps rolling and keeps rolling.

Final Takeaways And How To Reach Us

Speaker 26:14

Okay well we will finish there for today. Email us at hello@dauntlesspr.com with any questions, any comments we'd love to hear from you and we'll see you next time