Andrew O'Brien | How to Get Insane Free Media Exposure

Freedom FastTrack Podcast

00:00:27- Chris: Welcome to the Total Freedom Podcast, with your host Christopher Duncan. Today I’m with the publicity guy, Mr Andrew O’brien. Andrew, it is so good to have you here man. Everyone’s talking about you to me from Russell Brunson to Alex Charfen and Dr. Ed Osburn. Dude, seems that we just needed to meet, so thanks for spending in some time.

00:00:46- Andrew: Oh, thank you for having me on; really looking forward to.

00:00:49- Chris: We’d talk a lot about different marketing strategies and I think today’s going to take the cake. Getting publicity has to be the case. So let’s make sure we get a big hook in Andrew. Why should all listeners be listening and care about publicity today?

00:01:08- Andrew: I’ve got a click funnels and Russell Brunson in front of over a hundred and eighty one million people in less than ten months.

00:01:20- Chris [Laughing] Wow! Boom! [Laughing]

00:01:25- Andrew: [ Laughing]

00:01:26- Chris: There you go listeners. If you’re out there, you’re small business owners, still business owners; you’re sitting on the beach listening to this, wanting to be on the beach listening to this, if Russell uses it then that’s good enough for me; A hundred and eighty million in ten months. That’s huge man. I’d love to find out a little bit more about you and really let you introduce yourself to everybody listening because I’m certain that it wasn’t just an overnight success. Let us know a little bit of your story man.

00:02:03- Andrew: Yeah so I started, became a real entrepreneur about three years ago and what I mean by real entrepreneur is I was broke and trying to figure out how to make money [laughing].

00:02:11- Chris: [Laughing]

00:02:12- Andrew: No, I started public speaking and sharing my story. I’ve had crazy life. There were four key elements that happened in my life; prostitution, war, suicide and murder. Raised by a prostitute mother, I’ve deported to Iraq when I was in army. My mother actually, I came home and detentions take my whole life because of depression and trauma. And then my mother actually murdered her husband and I had c’est fight against her in court where she sends her life in prison. My life was crazy. It’s been a very crazy life. I used all of my experiences, I realized I had such a powerful story that people needed to hear. And I have to figure out how to get it in front of them. I started using the media to share my story and I actually became a public speaker and within three years, I was seen on a seventy global media outlets. I had to date; spoken to places like the White House, The Pentagon, all over the world like South Korea, Japan, all coast of military bases. And I actually became the most requested military speaker.

00:03:22- Andrew: I’ve been given over 20 awards from my work including the congressional recognition award from the House of Representatives in the United States. It was all thanks to media so that’s how I got started. I realized that there’s media that can really have a huge impact.

00:03:50- Chris: Wow man, that’s huge! This is such a big shift in media. When you say media I think; it’s our offline but it seems there’s huge way of online media. What’s that shift and how’s that play a big role?

00:04:13- Andrew: Well you see a lot of people want TV and radio because it makes them feel better. So TV will make you feel good about yourself and it’s a great marketing tool as well but the thing is, online media is becoming the place that everybody gets their information. No one watches TV anymore. If I want to know something going on, I just log in to facebook and if people sharing articles about what’s going on in the world; all online. So getting seen on TV is great but someone has to get up their butt off the couch, go to your computer and research you and find you if they see you on TV. Someone read you on the blog or online media publication; all they have to do is click your name in a pretty blue link and it goes directly into that sales funnel and you catch up a lead.

00:04:59- Chris: Right. So is that your sole focus when you’re working with these top people that are getting the online media or do you do some offline as well?

00:05:08- Andrew: No, my main focus when I’m doing my-done-for-you services; we only do online publication. We don’t do TV or radio because our biggest thing is, we want conversions, we want to capture leads; it’s not just media to get on TV to make you feel good. It’s more of a “how to get leads out of this” and so we focus on online publication.

00:05:28- Chris: I totally hear you. I got on TV a couple of times and I’ve felt so great, my parents recorded- I really came down to “did that actually generate money? Direct?” Hmm, it was ok but I totally hear you man. One thing that has really impressed me already is what you’ve done in public speaking. What is your suggestion for people out who have actually got a story and they want to start getting that, how do they start speaking? Where did you start with that man?

00:06:16- Andrew: First thing I did, first thing I always tell people is everyone has a story. We’ve all been through things I’ve had a lot of people kind of talk to me like “Well my life wasn’t as bad as yours” and I was just like “No, it’s not a competition. I don’t want to win that competition”. People have been through much more than I. It’s about realizing the power of your story and then what you want to do is create- what I do is I made the youtube videos, sharing my story and I sent it out to local media outlet so they could watch it. I made it short and simple and to keep their attention, it’s not like a ten minute video. It’s more of a two to three minute video and that sort of gain attraction. I got on youtube in my kitchen on a computer working, I wasn’t even all hi-tech. I didn’t even have a microphone. I just shared my story and I sent in some media outlets and they just jump on it. My second interview was with the local newspaper here in Austin Texas and I landed front page in twenty different newspapers across the United States.

00:07:19- Chris: What was that story?

00:07:23- Andrew: It was surviving suicide as a military veteran and how I overcame all of my trauma.

00:07:30- Wow dude. Well done. Some of these things are just absolutely huge. I’d love to hear about that positivity because when I spoke with Alex just last week, he said to me “Man, Andrew O’brien went from x amount, x amount; really quick in revenue”. You’ve also really done well in your business and this is a lot of where you started. How’s your business growing so fast? What are some of those numbers because you’ve done a lot of these things, that seems so quite a while ago and you’re doing pretty well right now, right?

00:08:13- Andrew: Yeah! I went from broke to like, I have to borrow money from my brother to pay my mortgage so I wasn’t get evicted and literally the next week after I borrowed $800 dollars from my brother, I made $60,000 and since then, this was just in February of this year. I’m sorry; it was March or April of this year. Since then, we’ve broken six figures a month sales. Actually last month, we made our first; a hundred thousand dollars one time sale. So we went from broke to six figures a month to six figure one time sale.

00:08:53- Chris: Wow! And this is in one year?

00:08:58- Andrew: This is a in about six or seven months.

00:09:03- Chris: Wow dude! That’s exceptional. What do you think like, after everything that you have. Obviously, it’s not an overnight success. What made the difference to really have such incredible growth?

00:09:15- Andrew: I signed two very important people at the very beginning. The two people work here at Maddix. I think you spoke on site with them. The second one was Russell Brunson. They were my first two clients. Getting those big names behind me and proving my work to them really boosted my business because it wasn’t just “Here’s what I’m going to try to do for you. Here’s what’s going to happen”. I gave them exactly what I said I would give them and they spread the message out for me.

00:09:51- Chris: So how did you do that? I know Caleb and I know Russell. So Caleb and Russell, you signed both of those as your first two and that both have been in this podcast as well. How did you go from “I don’t have anything to getting them as clients” share that process for us man if you’d like. That would be- it’s huge!

00:10:25- Andrew: What I did with Caleb is I; I called his dad because they didn’t feel like to reach out to a 14 year old directly. So I messaged his dad on facebook and say “Hey, I just saw your son’s video and I see that he’s doing really well. I think the media would love the story. Here’s what I’ll do, I’ll do this for free. I won’t charge you a dime for this and all that I ask is recognition when I make you happy.” So I offered value and ask for nothing in return besides recognition for making him happy. When you’re able to do that, people will give you chance to offer value. That’s not going to cost them anything, “why not?” right? So I did that and then that’s how Russell Brunson found out about me. Russell Brunson reached out. I charged Russell Brunson but I gave him a big discount for what everybody else is paying. Since then, I don’t charge Russell Brunson for my services at all anymore because Russell Brunson has grown my business by eighty percent. He has increased my business eighty percent just because he tells people who I am and what I do.

00:11:31- Chris: Got it man. I want to dive into it. What is it that people need to do to get themself in social media? It seems freaking and horrid but not many people do it.

00:12:23- Andrew: Yeah. Getting media is- one of the four important prices of doing it is; media is great but if you don’t use it the right way, it does nothing for you. The reason I aid that is, Forbes alone has over 1800 contributors. The majority of those contributors write a post a week. Getting on Forbes is great but 1800 people a week also got on Forbes. Getting on media, the actual steps on getting on it is; most important is building relationship with the writers. What I tell people is reach out directly to writers, look into their articles and then send them an email, commenting about how much you love the article they wrote about each topic especially when they said this thing in paragraph 2 or whatever because you want them to know that you really read their work. That’s the first step of getting media exposure to actually reach out and contact them directly.

00:14:49- Chris: You mentioned that media is just one of the steps; I know you got a four step process. Let’s dive into that. I’d love to understand more about what it is that you can do for them especially how they can make sure that they get the most out of social media. Let’s start at the top. What’s the name of your system again?

00:15:10- Andrew: The name of the system is the visibility to growth formula.

00:15:17- Chris: The Visibility to Growth formula, what does it mean?

00:15:19- Andrew: It means, get more visibility and scare your business. Getting visibility is great but if you’re not taking the right steps; being in front of a hundred and eighty million people is awesome but if you don’t have a way for them to buy your services or follow up with you or join your trade, it means nothing. Just means you got in front of a hundred and eighty million people.

00:15:41- Andrew: There are four steps and the biggest thing is; if you think about the average entrepreneur; we have more than one title. My name is Andrew O’brien and I am the publicity guy and that’s what I’m known as but I’m also an author. I’m also a public speaker, I’m also a consultant. So a lot of people, most entrepreneurs have more than just one title. We maybe CEO of our company but a lot of us like speaking on stage, a lot of us are consultants, or digital trainers. We do online courses. A lot of us write books, we’re authors. You want to use the visibility growth formula with every title you use because every time you use it, it’s going to be different depending on the title you’re trying to be recognized in that specific media.

00:16:28- Andrew: The first step is message. You got to understand, what is your message and how to share? A lot of us want talk about how awesome we are and the great was I for getting but what people really want to hear, is that you understand their opinion. That you’ve been there and that you’ve overcome it and you’re going to show them how to do it. So it’s “Hey, I know what you’re going through. I was a broke entrepreneur. I didn’t know how to pay my mortgage. I had to borrow eight hundred dollars from my brother and literally within the next week I made $60, 000. Here’s how I did it”. So what I did right there is I built a relationship with my audience. I made them trust me, “Wow, I’ve been there. I know what that feels like. He understands me. I want to learn more about this guy.” You know what I mean?

00: 17:09- Chris: Right. I think it’s huge that you really got into story and storytelling. I’m going to double background to that. I’m going to take a note here. I want to get through and understand the other parts of the system because that is such a key first step man.

00:17:28- Andrew: The second step is your market. So you figured out your message. You figured out how to make the audience feel supported and protected because they heard your story and they know that you understand their pain. The second part of market is who do you want to be in front of? So if I want to be known as a public speaker for the specific reason, I just want to get on my stages. This is what I’m doing right now because I do want to get on my stages. What I’m doing is; I’m trying to be “Where is my market?” Well my audience are business owners so obviously, the publications I want to go after; I’d place as such as an entrepreneur at Forbes in business and say success magazine, business type publications. Why? Because my market which are event planners, contents coordinators, people that are entrepreneur focused that’s why they’re reading and you have to think; what’s going to give you the highest credibility in that market? Getting on to someone’s blog really is going to give me credibility but If I get on to Forbes, Inc and Entrepreneur, that’s going to boost my credibility with the audience.

00:18:42- Chris: Huge. What’s the next step?

00:18:44- Andrew: The next step is media and that’s just; “How do you get on to media?” “How do you build those relationships?” and the most important part of the step is realizing media is so much more than social group. You should be able to turn every podcasting of you, every blog, and every life scale media publication into an automated lead generation tool which means you complete the podcast and I’m going to do with this podcast right here. I complete this podcast, it goes lives. I run facebook ads to it and I retarget that audience and I get them to subscribe into my tribe because that’s where- all media outlet should be doing for you is a lead generation tool.

00:19:21-Andrew: You also want to make sure that you’re getting on there more than once. Being an entrepreneur once is awesome so now you can put the pretty little logo on the side but media is so much more than pretty little logos. You want to be an entrepreneur five times Forbes, six times Inc. seven times- because the more you have that the more you’re recognized as the expert in your industry.

00:19:40- Chris: Got it. Where do people go to get more information from you? You mentioned there’s a little, facebook, community or group or tribe? Where is that?

00:19:51- Andrew: Yes, it’s just “Authority Unleashed”. It’s on facebook. It’s Authority Unleashed.

00:19:56- Chris: Perfect. Thank you so much. I love it. You’re going to drive facebook traffic to this. That’s amazing1 [Laughing]

00:20:06- Andrew: Yup. Then we have one more step. The last step is magnetism. What I meant by magnetism is not just how do you get on media, but how do you attract that audience that saw you on video to join your tribe. How do you capture those leads? How do you actually get them to convert into sales, into fans? I always say fans are more important than customers. Customers by once, fans continue to return and buy, then wait for your product launches then want to buy and then they send their friends to come, buy from you too.

00:20:39- Chris: Send their friends. Getting fans and actually attracting people to go on be your evangelist and get out there and really share, it can make such a big difference. I know Russell talks about the thousand fans thingy and it is a big deal. So message, market, media, magnetism; one thing that really stood out and this is number one; what a great system because it really is everything that you need but the power of the story. We’d talk about that a little bit but you’ve really crafted a great story and you said that the message section which were from $800.00 - $60, 000.00 and such a great story. Would you be able to expound a little bit of what makes you great story in media?

00:21:26- Andrew: The most important thing is something that makes you stand out above everybody else right? Because a lot of people are doing “here is the very step to become a billionaire”, and they’ve never made a billion dollars. The media is used to all those who want to be professionals, want to be people talking about how wealthy they are, how they’re going to teach you how to run the successful business and they’ve never run one themselves. So what they want to make sure is that you know what you’re talking about, you have proof, actual proof; that’s of course you did it so if I want to go and pitch about “How millennial’s aren’t lazy” and actually are, this proactive people who just need to believe on what they support or what they’re doing then what I’ll do is I go and look out research done out a college and I’ll send a link to their writers saying “look, here’s a proven research by an accredited University”. So it’s providing facts.

00:22:25- Chris: There is a massive amount of non experts showing up as experts at the moment [laughing]. I’m glad you’re talking about facts and getting out there and make sure that we provide that because the story needs be really true but what else is need in the story because you got this- It’s just profound. I don’t know if you know how profound it is but it’s like “He had it here, boom!” That’s the story. It’s just so clear cut. Do you have a different story for every one of your titles because you also mentioned that as well? Do you have a different message, market, media, or magnetism for each one of those?

00:23:03- Andrew: I do so if I want to be known as an author, my goal is to buy my books right? So I want to talk more about; here’s a story that I went through my life that I share in my book where I go, I dive in deeper. So I gave them a little face of it like “I’ve been to prostitutions, war, suicide and murder”. You want to learn more, dive deeper and see the life I’ve lived, go buy my book. That’s the kind of message I want to give right away from or get into the media so I want to make sure that I’m leveraging the right way to get the audience do exactly what I want them to do.

00:23:39- Chris: [laughing] It’s brilliant. You’re so good at this man. I’m just like “Wow!”

00:23:46- Andrew [Laughing]

00:23:47- Chris: I love when you’re sharing that. There’s prostitute, war, suicide, murder and then you have the- it’s that something that’s part of it having that little like really simple easy kind of thing to say. I don’t know; elevated kind of pitch but not really. It’s that an important part or is it something that you’re doing naturally.

00:24:04- Andrew: A lot of us want to send out emails and tell people our whole life story. Especially if we are asked about our business, we can talk for hours about it. The most important thing is making as clear cut and simple as possible to get them intrigued. What I call it is “Open the door”. You just want to open the door. You don’t want to walk in; they’re not going to let you walk in. Just open the door and get them intrigued with enough information, where they want to follow up but not too much where its’ just overwhelming and delete the email.

00:25:21- Chris: You’ve taught so much value on this show already so thank you so much. We’ve got a few seconds questions that I love to ask so I just want a quick shift into those before we double around and talk more about you. One of them is; if you’re starting over from scratch today, like right now and the only thing you’re allowed is your experience. No context, no money, complete scratch, no relationships, only your experience, how would you start?

00:25:51- Andrew: I would start by going out and creating the relationships and what you got to do is go to every conference I could ever get into and start networking.

00:26:05- Chris: Why start with the relationships?

00:26:08- Andrew: Because that’s what money comes from. Money always comes from relationships. Success comes from relationships just like my relationship with Russell Brunson. I don’t charge him forward anymore because he took such good care of me for getting my message out there. I wanted to let him know I appreciated it. A lot of people asking me, “Why do you not charge this guy who’s super successful doing hundreds of millions a year?” “Because I’m making more money by him promoting me than I would charge him.”

00:26:37- Chris: [Laughing] Super smart. Here’s the revert part of the question. If you could go back ten years and you could just have one minute with yourself ten years ago, what is it that you’d say?

00:26:51- Andrew: It’s really simple. All I would say is understand your value because that was my biggest issue. Realizing my value and being afraid of charging what I could charge or sharing my story. That’s just, understanding the value of what you can do in this world.

00:27:14- Chris: The last question is this, what is freedom to you?

00:27:22- Andrew- Freedom to me is being able to spend every minute that I can with my kids and my wife. It’s being able to not have someone tell me that I have to work 8-5 for the next 30 years to do some crap retirement and never make enough money to do the things I’d always wanted to do with my family. Take them on trips. Get to spend quality time with them.

00:27:42- Chris: Amen to that. I’d so love being here with you and learning so many more about you. We do need to wrap it up because we want to keep this nice and short so everyone gets all the information that they need but I think we need to get you back on another time because I’ve got two pages of notes here that I needed to go into as well from getting first and doing it for free with Russell and Caleb King is self started, from building relationships rather than getting to. Prostitutes, war, suicide and murder, we could really talk just on that. Your four steps is huge man. The message, the market, the media, the magnetism, the power of the story, power of opening the door, I don’t know where to start man but I really appreciate it you dropping and sharing it to everybody. What’s one thing that you would love that you haven’t shared already that you think is really important that they know?

00:28:33-Andrew: The most important thing that I would say is always share every media out you’ve been on more than once on your facebook page. Don’t just share once say “Hey, I’m on Forbes! Check it out!” and then leave it alone. You really want to use media to its full potential. You need to be running ads, you need to be really focusing your coward audience and sending them directly to media once they give that instant credibility and builds that instant trust for people who have never heard of you before.

00:28:59- Chris: So badass dude. More value just keeps coming. So where can people who are ready excited about hearing this getting more information from you.

00:29:10- Andrew: I would just tell every man, check out my facebook group. Would love to have you on there, it’s just Authority Unleashed. I’m not going to give you a sales funnel jumping to. Just join my group and I’m passing, dropping value. Every day we have daily videos that go out, Monday through Friday. Everyday giving you more tips and advice.

00:29:26- Chris: That sounds really cool. I’m going to find this straight after we jump off on this today. Dude, I appreciate you so much for getting on here. Listeners, take action on this. It doesn’t matter where you are in your business right now or starting out. I think that things Andrew shared today; let’s get into his group and I highly recommend it. People I trust massively have used Andrew. I could tell just from this call that he really cares. Freedom for him is getting out there and doing good things, charging his value but also looking after his family and it sounds like if you’re in his tribe, you become family so man get in there and Dude, thanks for caring man. Awesome stuff, appreciate it.

00:30:09- Andrew: Thank you. Thank you for having me on.

00:30:12- Chris: [laughing] We’ll get you back man!

00:30:14- Andrew: [Laughing]

00:30:16- Chris: Hey listeners live with Total Freedom, Free your mind! Free your time! Free your life! Subscribe to this show. Please leave us a review and we’ll be back in two days time for another Total Freedom Podcast. Have an amazing day! Do what matters most. Smash it!