"If I'm working really hard , I want it to be to create something that ultimately gives back to me and that I love instead of just you know kind of being beholden to someone else."
Intro: You're listening to Thrive by Design, business, marketing, and lifestyle strategies for your jewelry brand to flourish and thrive. Let's get started.
Tracy: Welcome to the Thrive-by-Design podcast Episode 199. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it, we are coming up on Episode 200. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer over at Flourish & Thrive Academy. I'm your host for Thrive-by-Design. This is the place where we share business and marketing advise with people in the design industry, with jewelry designers, makers, if you're a fashion designer or an accessories designer, everything that we teach here is completely applicable to your business, to you and you never know over at Flourish & Thrive we might be opening up into other verticals soon in which I'm excited. So anyway, I have a very special guest here. Her name is Laura Powers. She is an artist. She is a designer. She is a psychic. She is a model. She is an actress. She is a marketer. I think it's really interesting, we connected on Instagram a couple of months ago, and we had a fun conversation. She asked me to be on her podcast. As we were talking, you should be on my show too. It was sort of this random evolution and all of sudden we're interviewing each other to be on each other's shows which is really cool. At the end of the day, I'm always looking for people to talk about different ways to get exposure for your brand. I think that a lot of times we go the tried and true path; everyone is pitching the same magazines, everyone is trying to get on the same influencers, everyone is trying to do all the things but sometimes what we don't think about is other ways to get name recognition or exposure or eyeballs or people listening to what we do; and literally listening like being on a podcast. So Laura is going to be on the show today and talk a little bit about alternative marketing strategies which I'm very excited about including podcasting to get exposure for your brand. I think we're going to hear some interesting tidbits and highlights of things that you can do as a designer to get exposure. So let's do this.
Before I dive in, I was speaking with a SOS designer the other day. For any of you who are in our community, you might know Marcia Newquist. We were chatting in our Facebook group and she kept talking about how she was posting video. I think this is a relevant to what we are doing here. I did a little experiment on Instagram the other day. For some reason, we had a huge influx of new followers and we had a huge influx of new people engaging with our brand and I truly believe because the day that I posted on Instagram, on IGTV, and I used the preview in the feed for some reason the video got pushed out into the feed and created this massive influx of people all on the same day. I kept scrolling down. Did we get mentioned by someone? What is this? I couldn't figure it out. Anyway, we're on a strategy to be doing a lot more video here at Flourish & Thrive Academy in particular on Facebook and all those social platforms but using it to leverage different audiences in different places and to get to a place where we're building our audience. So as Marcia and I were chatting because her business is growing a ton. She has been in our SOS program for about six months and I have to tell you like this girl – like she's like invested in this program and she's squeezing out every single morsel. She is posting consistently. She is taking the actions that we tell her to do and getting the work done in her business. I think that the incredible thing is that when I posted I'm like "Guys I'm going to try to do a daily video challenge on the social platforms, anyone want to join", Marcia was the first to chime in and say yes. What I really want to empower you to do is start thinking outside of the box about how you're getting exposure for your brand and how you're using that exposure to convert people to engage them on your social platforms and beyond.
What we are going to talk about today with Laura is awesome but I'm also doing a master class next week called "The Sales Accelerator Master Class", it's designed to help you move a lot forward with your sales strategy. I'm really excited about it. I'm going to be talking about our three part genius model for sales acceleration which the best way to put it. I'm going to talk about how you can really create more freedom in your life. I know that as people start to build their business and they're thinking about how they are growing; what ends up happening keeps businesses very small – I just did a video on this too – we have a huge number of people in our community that are in two categories. They are either in the mid-five-figure range and they are trying to cross that six-figure mark or they are in the low to mid-six-figures but they have been stuck there for many years. There is a similar issue about why and that's because they are working in their business and not focusing on the things that are actually going to move the needle forward. So instead really focusing and leaning in on the things that are making the most impact including sales, they are trying to do it all. That spreads your energy thin and it also affects your sales and it will prevent you from continuing to grow. So I'm excited about this master class. If you're interested on how it will work for you, it doesn’t matter if you're a five or a six-figure business. You might have already cracked the code if you're in the seven figure range. You can just message me directly if you want to talk about digital marketing strategy and we can discuss that but at the end of the day this Sales Acceleration master class is really going to help you crush those things that are actually working for you so that can dive deep and make more sales very quickly. I'm excited about it. You can head on over if you want to register to FlourishThriveAcademy.com/SalesAccelerator. I will have a link in the show notes as well. That's FlourishThriveAcademy.com/SalesAccelerator.
So let's dive into today's episode.
Tracy: I have a very interesting guest on the show today. Laura Powers and I'm going to let her share a little bit about her background because it is not the unique approach to marketing. Laura thanks so much for being here.
Laura: Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Tracy: Well we met like randomly on Instagram a couple of weeks ago.
Laura: Yeah, I know.
Tracy: We started chitchatting and you were like I want you to be on my podcast. I was like tell me what you do. You were like I love podcasting and marketing and all this stuff and we just started this conversation. So now you're on my podcast too talking about alternative ways to market your brand. So I'm excited to talk to you because you have – you're not a normal guest that I would bring on the podcast. So tell us a little bit about your background.
Laura: Yeah, and by the way, I am probably not a normal person compared to almost anyone. I'm very unique -- I've never met someone like you. Yeah, so I am most known as a psychic and I have built a successful business as a psychic. I do, you know, teach classes. I do private services. I travel pretty much full-time, so I go to various cities, primarily domestically but some international travel. Teach classes, see clients, do media appointments wherever I am and just kind of do that wherever so I do that. I do make more money when I do that but also because I like to travel, so that's the lifestyle that I wanted to create, was to basically just kind of be wherever I want to be and have a business that supports my travel lifestyle. So I created that in an unusual way, as with my business as a psychic. Prior to that, I had a completely different you know background. My Master is in polysci. I was in public administration, higher education and politics but my undergrad is in theatre and as I transitioned out of that, I made my living as an actress but it was kind of a grind so I switched to you know the more practical livelihood of being a psychic. I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek. But actually I was making a lot more money so I switched to that being my primary focus but I've always loved entertaining. I've always loved hosting and talking to people, teaching, connecting and podcasting for me has provided this amazing platform to build by business, build my brand, connect with amazing people, just like we are now, I mean just because the podcasting is basically why we are talking and I've had amazing opportunities open up for me in that way, you know, and I'm a real advocate of building not just a work that you love but a lifestyle that you love. So for me that involves traveling. That involves making my own schedule. That involves, like if I want to go to Caen, I'm just like okay, I'm going to Caen and then I'm going to build everything around that and I don't have to have ask people for time off and you know I just kind of make it happen.
Tracy: Or not make money because you're trading dollars for hours.
Laura: Exactly. Like I had you know a pretty traditional career and I just got -- I remember one time I had you know 30 hours, excuse me, 4 weeks of vacation that I wanted to go to this study abroad program in Prague and I asked for it off well in advance and they said no and I literally waited until 2 weeks before and then I said okay well you can approve my leave or I quit. That's just how I felt about that so you know my boss wasn't really happy with me about that but you know that kind of thing is what really lead to me to be like okay, I want to -- if I'm working really hard and working my butt off, I want it to be to create something that ultimately gives back to me and that I love instead of just you know kind of being beholden to
someone else.
Tracy: So I want to like really kind of relate the message that -- this message to our listeners because with a physical product-based business, sometimes we are tied to an office, but we have a choice and I think that when we build a business around what matters to us most, that's when money starts to come in and when opportunities start to open up. And I think a lot of that happens when you think outside of the box.
Laura: I know.
Tracy: You know, Laura and I just kind of just recently met. We're kind of learning each other's backgrounds, but when I started my first business as a jewelry designer, I felt really tied to an office space, you know, employees and team, and when I closed that business and started my new company, my number one value was flexibility and being able to work remotely from wherever I was. Similarly to you, I love to travel and I'm single and don’t have kids, so I wanted to be able to see my nieces and nephews grow up, you know, and be able to head to California for a couple of weeks without my business stopping because I wasn’t there to physically produce product or because I wasn’t physically there to open the door to let people in my jewelry studio. So I really discovered and learned how to build a business around what matters to me most, which is freedom and flexibility, financial abundance and all those things. I'm glad that we met because like you know I feel like there was alignment there.
Laura: Oh, totally. Yeah. And by the way, sometimes there's a need for that, you know for that to happen, to have you know a space and your equipment or your inventory but that also doesn’t mean that you always have to be the person handling that.
Tracy: Exactly.
Laura: So like in my case, I mean, I'm an author. I have books and you know they need to get mailed out, but I have, you know, I have several people that help me out and I've also learned to do things in a way that is where I'm not having to do it. So I have my assistant. I have my podcast editor and then I have my podcast producers. I have three people that, you know, they are doing a lot of the stuff that is the stuff that I either don’t want to do or just not convenient for me to do. And so there's ways to even if that stuff is required to set up so that you don’t have to be doing all yourself.
Tracy: 100%, totally. That's so true. And I am a huge advocate in outsourcing, whether that be by hiring employees or hiring contractors or hiring vendors or hiring a virtual assistant or whatever. So, I think that virtual, in this day and age, virtual, or remote maybe is a better way to put it, because it can be in the same town, but like it's not necessarily that you have to be in the same physical location all the time in order to keep the business going. And the benefit of this is that the overhead on building a business is so much lower than the traditional modality of having like people clocking in for full-time hours necessarily because when you're starting out and you need help, I think the thing that most of the designers that I mentor and the makers that I mentor like get overwhelmed by is that they think they need to have the budget for a full-time employee when maybe they need…
Laura: Oh, no. No.
Tracy: … the budget to outsource 10 hours a week to a freelancer who is a stay-at-home mom who wants some admin work while her kids are napping or something like that.
Laura: Oh, absolutely. Start small and there are some incredibly talented virtual assistants that are not in the United States, for example, and you can feel so good about paying them a wage that is you know in your budget, helps them, and you know that they provide good work. So I've had good success with assistants in various places. My current assistant right now is in the Philippines and so you know it's a very low rate, and you can literally get an assistant for you know between $3 to $7 an hour and if you start out, maybe you just need 5 hours a week. Maybe you just need 10 hours a week, and that's okay, you know, but that can still be really helpful and give you the time and energy to focus your energy on what is going to be most impactful and helpful for you in your business and moving forward. And also, there's an appearance thing that is helpful when you have an assistant. I do think that people will you know take you more seriously for certain things. So it's a credibility thing and it just, it's for your mental time and energy as well as you know how you're presenting yourself externally.
Tracy: And also, you know, I was just on a call with Brett, who is in our SOS coaching program like before this, earlier today, and I was helping her kind of like get out of her head, like what can she outsource. And we had this almost exact conversation. I'm like, "Get a PA in the Philippines to do like all this administrative work, take it off your plate. Have them…" and then eventually just get 10 hours a week, a business manager or operations manager who is like a fractional operations/what they call in the online world business manager who takes care of day-to-day stuff and makes sure that the stuff is getting done so that you can free up your mind to do the things that are actually growing your business, which I think, I feel like this podcast is turning into a business growth podcast instead of a marketing one.
Laura: Yeah, well, it's connected, but if you don’t, if you're not, if you're marketing or get yourself out there, it's harder to grow your business. So I mean I think you're right but it's also because I think they are inherently connected and I can totally talk about some marketing tools and strategies that help me because for me it's been a really key part of my business growth has been marketing and media in particular and utilizing that, leveraging that for growth.
Tracy: Well let's talk a little bit about that because I think you know, I want you guys to keep an open mind because even though Laura has a different kind of business, there is like huge validity in some of the things that she is going to say from an exposure perspective. That you can have conversations with people and pitch media, alternative types of media that you're not thinking about; it's not going to be a print magazine necessarily or the traditional influence or, I mean, maybe an influence or partnership is part of it, but it's not going to -- it might not be some of those things. These are all ways to kind of reach your dream client and your audience in a different way. And so, Laura, let's talk about -- I want to talk about podcasting first because I know this is your number one passion and something that you're really doing, about using podcasting for exposure from like a brand perspective.
Laura: Yeah. So podcasting is really incredible for several reasons. One of them is that there -- you know that aren't generally gatekeepers, so unlike a lot of other media format where it might harder to kind of break in, it's usually pretty to access someone who hosts a podcast unless they're like a huge podcaster or something, and you know, connect with them, possibly be a guest and also learning from other podcasts is amazing, so I'm not only the host of several podcasts, but I listen to lots of podcasts. But yeah, it's great because you can reach out to podcasters and pitch yourself. It's I think one of the important things to do just like anything, is make sure that you're being professional, have you know materials, have a one sheet, have a you know bio, have a description of what you're offering or what you can talk about on their show that's relevant and make sure that you're pitching you know shows that are relevant to whatever it is that you are offering. But one of the great things about podcasting in particular is that they tend to be very niche audiences, so while I do love mainstream media and I've done, you know television and radio that reach like big, large audiences, actually doing really niche audiences is a very successful way to reach people that are probably going to have a specific interest in whatever it is that you offer. So design podcasts, you know, there are I think jewelry podcasts and I'm also a huge advocate of starting a podcast on something because it's an amazing way, like if you have the time, and it doesn’t have to be as much time as people think, to network and connect and get known in a particular area.
Tracy: Well, yeah. We have a designer in our SOS coaching program as well, an accelerator, who -- she designs Christian jewelry and so she was recently on a Christian podcast and ….
Laura: Exactly.
Tracy: … a huge direct correlation or you know like a lot of the designers that we do design like healing crystal, gemstone kind of jewelry, like that's a great opportunity. I'm not trying to get you a ton of pitches here after this. If a podcast is talking about alternative sources of healing or alternative medicine -- because those are all…
Laura: Totally.
Tracy: It might not be things that you would normally think about because it's not specifically design, but this is, that's really where you're going to be reaching consumers to buy your product.
Laura: Absolutely. So yes, thinking of maybe a little bit outside of how you might normally, but yes, who are your customers going to be, and who might be interested in that. so I've actually, on my sort of mind, body, spirit podcast, I interviewed someone who designs sacred geometry jewelry, you know, so it does definitely fit and I know that they … I mean, when people are on my show because I have such a large audience -- and let me just get some numbers to give people some context for this. So I just passed eight million downloads.
Tracy: That's awesome.
Laura: Thank you. And the bulk of those are from my mind, body, spirit one because that's the one that I've been doing the longest. I've been doing that one for almost 8 years, but for about you know 3-1/2 years, I got to like 3.5 million downloads and then in the time since then, I have gotten you know now 4.5. So basically in 1 year, I got 4 million downloads.
Tracy: That's awesome.
Laura: It jumped from like all of those years combined 3.5 to like then a million, you know, and so it's something that definitely builds, but because you know someone will typically find a podcast and like they'll listen to mine and then they'll listen to like all the episodes, so even if I interviewed someone 8 years ago, that person's podcast is still being listened to. So if you have something that you're selling, I mean it's not uncommon for people to sell that for years and years afterwards, so for them to be pitching podcasts that relate is totally relevant. And I also do affiliate marketing on mine, so for example, I had one affiliate with a supplement where they were on the show, so again, it's a product not a service and you know just in a couple of months for example they sold $5000 of product just from my link just for those two months. So the success can vary but I say get yourself out there on podcasts and find ones that are either related to yours or where key consumers of that podcast might be interested in whatever it is that you have to offer and just do like a bunch of them, you know. Just do at least one a week or several a week if you can because it's one of those things that's like building over time and it really will have a big impact, not just when you do it but then like even years afterwards it can.
Tracy: Yeah because I feel like people are always, we're always referencing podcasts that we recorded like someone wants to do like hash tag research, and we're like listen to Episode 17 and we're on like almost the 200th episode of the podcast, because hash tag research hasn’t changed. And so, it's interesting how the longevity of something like that because you're always out in, you're always out there, and if you can get on like maybe like focus on getting on one podcast a month, that's great brand exposure.
Laura: Oh yeah. I mean one a month is great, if you can do more, wonderful as well. and also you just don’t know what's going to happen, so I have one client, this is like just a fascinating story and I can share this because he's talked about it, so it's public. But he found me from listening to different podcasts and then he found my podcast. From that he listened to all my podcasts and then he booked a session with me so that became a business thing for me, you know. He became a client and then he became a Reiki client and in the session I told him he was going to write a book about spirituality and science and kind of bridging the gap from between tech and spirituality. At the time I don’t think he really felt that was the case but a year later he wrote the book. In October he released it. It's now a best seller and he references me in interviews all the time because I'm what got him into this, so not that that is going to happen with everyone, but that is all from podcasting. That is all from me being --- first of all, me being a guest on someone else's podcast and then hosting my own, so these kinds of things can have like this incredibly huge impact that you might not expect for relatively little effort.
Tracy: Yeah, you become like sort of a name in the back of people's heads.
Laura: You become a name and also there's brand recognition and people start to think of you even if you don't think of yourself that way as an expert, and someone who is someone to reference and go to and so, yeah. I think it's super beneficial and then once you've had -- like if you're hosting, once you’ve had some good names on your podcast, it's easier to get others or if you've been on a certain number of shows, you can then you know you can repost them on social media. You can list it on your website, you know. You can pitch other shows and say I've been featured on these, you know, list them all and suddenly it's like oh this person has been interviewed ten times. They probably have some things --- it all helps you in the bigger picture, you know.
Tracy: 100%. I love it. And I love the podcasting medium more than anything because it's really how we have been able to serve our audience best here because when people are making jewelry or making a physical product or making anything, it's hard to watch something; I used to do a lot of video and I still do a lot of video, but it's hard to sit down and like stop what you're doing and watch something and they can just listen. It's an intimate experience because you're in their head and in their ears. I know my fan base. They're like Tracy I always hear telling me, like, you know, x, y, and z or whatever because it feels like you have this personal connection so it's not even just as a podcast host but as a guest on a podcast. That's what you create with these people and they want to work with you.
Laura: Absolutely and one of the amazing things about podcasts, being a guest as well as host, in both ways, is that it has often lead to more significant connections. So it'll start out with you know a podcast but sometimes I've ended up having much more significant working relationship with someone that initially started out as just like a podcast interview. Because what happens is you get to know each other, you have conversations, and you're like wow, I like this person. People like to work with people that they like, you know. I think we'll just kind of often naturally organically develop and so it's a really great in to some other opportunities as well.
Tracy: Absolutely. I love that. So let's talk about other types of alternative marketing and media.
Laura: Yeah. well I'm a big advocate of just using media in general and one of the things that bigger media will do, not that podcasting isn't big, but like for example traditional media, television and radio, is it really gives a lot of social proof. So if you’ve been featured on you know a mainstream you know network TV channel or with a fairly big show, people are impressed by that. Like literally it just tells people like wow, this is a big deal. So I, as an example, was booked by Will Ferrell for his podcast and that comes out in about two weeks, I don't know when this will be released, but end of March is when that will be released, and I can tell you, you know just when I announced that I was booked on that, I booked appointments from it because they suddenly were like oh, well, I guess if Will Ferrell is talking to you….
Tracy: Then you must be someone.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. And you know I think this is just a very natural human thing. It's the same principle as reviews, like when there are reviews, people like to read reviews because it helps kind of demonstrate what other people have to say about this person and that they're not just full of. So these are things that are very helpful for, you know kind of your website, for marketing, in general for social proof. And once you build some, it's easier to build another. So you know when I got booked for Will Ferrell, one of the things that helped me is that I had done a lot of other media, so I have been on all the major you know television channels. I have a real you know, I've been featured on nationally syndicated shows that you know and local shows and every media thing that you do, even if it seems small, I think it's important to list it and then as you grow, you can remove the ones that are maybe not as significant, and I'm happy to also talk about some tactics for how do you book some of that media to start.
Tracy: Yeah. Let's talk about it.
Laura: Okay, yeah. So one of the first things is it's really important to have professional marketing material, professional photos. If you're wanting to get booked and let's say you have in this case, you know, your own jewelry line, you know, yes have obviously good photos of that but you also need to have professional photos of yourself because they are not booking the jewelry; they're booking you to talk about it, for example. So making sure you have good photos of yourself, professional photos, and materials like a one sheet. Have you guys talked about one sheets?
Tracy: No. Let's talk about it.
Laura: Okay. So a one sheet is like a one page document. It could be one sided or two sided that very simply explains whatever it is that you offer. So it usually has you know photos and graphics, a simple description of you know whatever is, so yourself, if you're like a speaker, it could be a one sheet about you and your services, speaking. It could be a one sheet about your jewelry line. It could be a one sheet about a service that you offer and basically it's just a really quick way for someone to get a snapshot of whatever it is that you are pitching because people are busy, you know because I have several shows, I get pitched all the time, and I'm amazed by some of the material I get where I'm like I don’t have time to read several pages of stuff. I need to quickly you know open this up, see if it's professional. Is this person in alignment with what it is that I'm looking for, and yeah, I'm going to make a decision probably in under a minute, to be honest, just because I'm busy. I don’t have time to spend you know digging into that, so you want to make it really easy for people to say yes. There are some really great templates and tools to make one sheet easily. One of them that I use that is called Canva and it can be very simply. I mean there are templates on there; you just can plug in our own photos, your own graphics, your own text. Things to make sure to include are good, you know, professional photos of you, make it clear whatever it is that you're offering, especially like bullets or simple you know numbers or whatever so that it's like in a glance, and you can be like oh this person is, this is what it is. Make sure you have your contact information on there and there's an example if you can Google one sheets. If someone emails me, I'm happy to share, you know, some examples of what I do. And this is all part of a marketing course that I am just releasing as well with specific suggestions for how to do these things easily.
Tracy: Awesome. Amazing. I'm taking notes. I mean I know what a one sheet is and I have one, but I just like, I like to, I'm like what am I missing and I want to see yours.
Laura: Yeah. I'm totally happy to, yeah, I'd love to see yours as well because you know when we see other people's, it gives us ideas about what we like or what we don't like, so even if you have one, it's good to see what else is out there and then revise it and….
Tracy: I was going to say like design it Canva and make it all like super fancy instead of like, I mean, I would have like a picture and some small graphical design but it's interesting. I love that. Because you can really make something beautiful that represents who you are as a brand.
Laura: Absolutely. And especially with something that's so visual like jewelry, you know, you really want something that communicates the feel and vibe of what is your brand, what are you offering. So yeah, I think that's really great and it's not that hard. And again, if that feels overwhelming to you, hire someone, a freelancer, to make it. You can do that on you know Upworks or Fiverr or whatever. There are so many different options now. Just you know set a budget you know and you can get someone to do it for 50 bucks probably or less, especially if they're international, and look at samples and then see what you get in terms of different people that are connecting to you. But I've also, I have my assistants do some of that and then I also do some myself and you can do either way. But I do recommend that you either or someone use Canva because I think it's such a great resource.
Tracy: Yeah, it's like we recommend it all the time. Canva is so easy to use, way easier than like Photoshop.
Laura: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Tracy: I don't think the phone app is super intuitive, but the desktop version or the laptop version is super easy.
Laura: I think for like, for the phone one if you're doing something simple like just an Instagram post or something, it's good. But if you're doing something more complex, then you definitely want to use the desktop, and the other thing is with a graphic designer if you ever want to make changes, you're constantly having to go to that person to get things modified. Whereas for me, I'm, you know, got a new media thing. I want to put it on there or my numbers of my podcast are up now, you know I don’t want to have to like pay someone each time to do that. I just want it to be really easy to just click and update and everything. So it's great for that. and then I also would love to talk about one of the ways, so that's you know, making sure you have good marketing materials, then one of the ways to start getting bookings that I recommend is… first of all, any contacts that you have, go through them. If you know someone who runs a show, you know, always start with kind of low hanging fruits, and sometimes people just don’t go there and they don’t automatically think to do that, but it's super helpful. I just think it's… if you have any contacts for local media or national media, always reach out to that first. But if you don’t, there's a resource that was really beneficial for me that everyone can access, and it's free and it's called Haro. Have you heard of that?
Tracy: Helparereporter.com
Laura: Yes. So that's a website that people can log in and subscribe to notifications for sources needed for specific industries. So you can get three daily emails where reporters of all different media, it could be radio, it could be podcast, it could be television, are looking for sources for a particular topic and that's a great way to get started. Now, one of the things that I found about it, is you do need to respond and you need to respond usually fairly quickly because sometimes they'll just, they get so many responses, like the earlier ones are the ones that are going to gain traction. But I've used that to get national television bookings and this is the thing, it doesn't require a fair number of pitching and you know you might not get traction right away, but once you do, again, it helps you book others. So once I got my national television one, and this was like on a nationally syndicated show and that even has some international viewing, that's, and I was on ABC. I was on NBC and all these networks through that, and then I could share that with other pitches that I was doing. And I had a reel. I had like clips of me on television so I can help you with that. When Will Ferrell's office contacted me, by the way, I didn't pitch them. They reached out to me because I was known enough in that area that when they wanted a psychic, they invited me. I was their first choice and I asked them how they found me and they said you know actually they found me from a Yelp listing, which is something I also recommend doing, have a good Yelp listing and ratings. But then she said I went onto your website, this is the producer. She said I spent several hours on your website and then I contacted you. So making sure that all these things that you're doing, the media, the marketing materials , everything, anything you've ever done that you know that you have a reel, that you have all that, that it's easily seen on your website and that people can access it, because that will help with continuing to build and book other media.
Tracy: Awesome. I love this.
Laura: I do think another great tactic is influencers and it sounds like you do talk about that somewhat, but that's another thing that I have found is really helpful as well.
Tracy: Yeah. Influencer partnerships are good. In fact, I was just on Yahoo Finance on TV.
Laura: I saw that. That was awesome. Congratulations.
Tracy: Thank you. And you know I think that especially for, it's like we talked about niche podcast before, it's like finding those niche or micro influencers, that they can be really powerful because they have a small and mighty engaged audience that really listens to them and it's not really just about beautiful pictures in a feed. It can be a great opportunity for you to get in and sometimes not even have to pay to play, you know, they're willing to make alternative arrangements for promotion, etc . So thinking outside of the blocks or outside of the blocks? I don't know why I said that. Outside of the Instagram blocks? Outside of the box. But also with people that aren’t necessarily fashion or jewelry influencers but maybe, I talked a little bit about this on Yahoo Finance, but like a mom blogger who is like taking pictures or someone who has like maybe their neck or their wrists are being photographed a lot and those are things that your jewelry can be featured on.
Laura: Absolutely. I mean, and micro influencers too, not just influencers, but people that have a small but loyal following will actually sometimes sell more than someone with a large following, so I think honestly pursuing both is really great and I mean, I'll just put it out there. Like I, you know, I do red carpet stuff and post myself and people want to send me their jewelry, I don’t charge, you know, if I like your jewelry, I'm happy at this point at least to have it and you know it's fun for me as well. But yeah connecting with influencer events, like recently I was booked to do an influencer event and I have another one that I'm doing later this month and the other thing is once you connect with you know an influencer, a lot of time their social circle are influencers, so it kind of compounds on itself. So, it lead to me for example, recently connecting with Tori Spelling who became my client was through another influencer, so these things again, it just kind of builds on itself and you don’t know, but just do it and make sure you value yourself but the value of that promotion is incredibly high.
Tracy: Awesome. Yeah. Such great tidbits, from podcasting to one sheets to alternative sources of media and influencer partnerships. This has been so cool because I think we talk a lot about pitching traditional PR and you know I've always like behind the scenes been like podcast, podcast. But this really helps reinforce like how getting on TV, getting seen and heard can be really, really powerful in growing a product-based business. So, Laura, I thank you so much for being here today.
Laura: You're so welcome. It's such a pleasure.
Tracy: Where can people find you?
Laura: Yeah, so, if you want to learn more about what we talked about, like tools and tactics and tips for marketing and business growth, you can go to my website powershour.biz and that's where my marketing course is. If you want to learn more about my healing and psychic work and podcast, it's healingpowers.net and then the sort of creative side is laurapowers.net, which has a little bit of everything and then I'm on Twitter @ThatLauraPowers. I'm on Instagram @laurapowers44 and then I'm also on Facebook at healingpowers and laurapowers.
Tracy: Awesome. Lots of Powers.
Laura: Yes. Exactly.
Tracy: Alright. Thank you, honey.
Well, I got to say thank you for listening in today, my dear. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Next week, I'm bringing you Episode 200, hello, holler. And if you love what you've been hearing, I would love for you to give us a rating and review wherever you are listening to this podcast. You know, I'm pretty proud that we have kept a five-star record and I love bringing the show to you every single week. It's really like my pride and joy. It's one thing that I absolutely love about running this business is that I get to create this amazing content every single week and so I'm thrilled to just help you out with all those things. So, yeah, give us a rating and review and don’t forget to sign up for the Sales Accelerator master class. Head on over to FlourishThriveAcademy.com/SalesAccelerator. Thanks so much for listening today. If you've enjoyed what you've listened to, please share this podcast with your friends. Post in groups. Just click the little share button whenever you see it. Copy the link to your favorite episodes because we are trying to really make the most impact and touch the most designers as we possibly can and so your help spreading the word about thrivebydesign is just so helpful. Our audience is growing day by day and I just I am really on a mission to help as many people as possible. Thanks so much for listening and I'm looking forward to helping you flourish and thrive.
