How this journalist whisperer can help you give a shout to journalists

Jim James: 0:00

Hello and welcome to this episode of the UnNoticed Entrepreneur. Today, I have the benefit of talking to Brett Downes. Brett Downes of HARO Helper. Brett, welcome to the show calling us from Cardiff in South Wales.

Brett Downes: 0:12

Thanks, James. And it's good to be on. How are you?

Jim James: 0:16

I'm very well, thanks. And I'm excited to hear what you've got to say because, in your LinkedIn, you call yourself the "Journalist Whisperer." So, tell us, how do you help entrepreneurs to get noticed?

Brett Downes: 0:28

Yeah, the Journalist Whisper was, was a bit of a punt on my path I spoke to the LinkedIn expert. And it was for something to stand out and put it on there about six months ago. And it just haven't had the time to take it down. But it's good in a way cause it, just like you say, it gives you a little bit of notoriety, not in a bad vibe way, but in a just slight something slightly different, isn't it? So, in terms of getting close. I'm sorry, I've lost my train of thought there. What was the question? Sorry.

Jim James: 0:54

The question was, how do you help entrepreneurs to get noticed all the way from South Wales?

Brett Downes: 1:00

Yeah, so we're a conduit. So, we're there, we're there, we're there in between men for people that want to get themselves published on, you know, well-known articles such as Forbes, Cosmopolitan, and websites like that really. So, we're, we're a ghostwriters. So, we put, we put words in other people's mouths in, in a good way. So essentially, if people don't have the time, or don't have the expertise, or just they want someone to do it for them. We will approach journalists on their behalf, pretending to be them, and get and provide their expert comments in the hope of getting them published on, on their forementioned articles.

Jim James: 1:41

So, there's a couple of things in there that, aren't there, Brett? So one is the pitching, and the other is the writing. Do you want to just tell us what makes a great pitch because journalists get a lot of inquiries every day? What makes a great pitch to get them to say, "Yeah, that's a good story."

Brett Downes: 1:55

Yeah. So, you've got different journalists who have different approaches, who prefer different approaches. So, in this time and time and age, journalists are very time-poor. So, one of the reasons they use the platform that we take advantage of is because they don't have time to reach out to say 50 experts, and ask them the question about something in particular. So, they'll post on this platform. They'll post the question once, and they'll get 100, 150 responses from people like myself and competitors and also other entrepreneurs. So, the way to stand out is, is to be, is to be quick, because they're going to get, they're going to get 100, 150 pictures. And some of the pictures are going to be, and they're going to be quite similar. So, it's first come, first serve sometimes, especially if it's a generic, broad question. A subject line is very important because, of course, that you know, if they're waiting for a hundred, a hundred emails, then the subject line needs to stand out. And one thing we advise people that, because we give advise as well, we don't just do it for people that got some startups, or people that don't use our service, don't have the budget or want to try themselves. Answer the question first. Don't, don't waffle on, don't tell them how great you are, even if you are super great, it's giving the answer they're looking for, but giving it in a punchy, concise manner without being too salesy. So, you're there to provide the advise, not, not, not you know, fluffy on telling them how great you are, because essentially the journalists are looking for advise in the article, as opposed to the person who has given it. And, I think that depending on, on the journalist. So, we research the journalist, and we'll see what they've used before, whether they like stats, whether they like long comments, whether they're, they're very much sort of structured in their answers or they'll, they'll either they offer a balanced approach, or they'll all, they'll use lots of different opinions. So it's just, you know, being quick, being concise, answering the question, and doing your research because like I said, you competing against a hundred, 150 people. So, the way to stand out is, is to give a great answer, essentially. And that's, and back that up with stats and your expertise at the end of the approach.

Jim James: 4:06

Now, Brett, you've mentioned the platform there. Do you want to tell us which platform you're talking about?

Brett Downes: 4:10

Yeah, it's called, helpareporterout. com. It's, it's known commonly as HARO. So it's essentially just, I think, it's been going since 15 to 20 years by a guy called Peter Shankman. There are alternatives to that, which, which, you know, but HARO is the main one for us because it's US-based and 90% of the articles that are written or published on .com sites. So, there are other outlets available, I guess. But it's fairly much. It really helps the journalists like I said, just now it gives them the, it just helps them get, you know, 50 expert answers quite quickly as opposed to chasing down experts in different fields, things like that. So it's, it's a very helpful platform for them, which would take an advantage of.

Jim James: 4:56

Okay. So, that's HARO. What about if people are not looking at American sites, maybe they're looking at Asia for example, or other languages? Do, do you know of other platforms that help of the similar nature?

Brett Downes: 5:09

Yeah. So there, we recently wrote an article about alternatives to HARO. It's like eight or nine. It's probably more. It's more each, each, every, every few months. There's of, there's few more coming out. So for example, for in Australia there's a, there's a company called Source Bottle and that's primarily published on Australian sites. There are other ones called Press Plugs. There's Just Reach. Just Reach Out is another one. So, they are slightly different versions of it, not they don't all follow the same model. But you know, I can, you can mention some in the show notes in terms of something that guys can look up, people can look at to see the alternatives to what we use. We actually trial them out on a, on a month to month basis just to check how well they work for certain clients. Like we have two or three clients based in, based in Asia, which they're happy to have links on, on American websites. But also they benefit them greatly to have links you know, a little bit more regional or national to them, as opposed to all the way over in United States.

Jim James: 6:08

Now Brett, you've also got a service that sounds interesting, which is helping people to shortlist the HARO requests. Because I get those HARO requests three times a day, you know, and there's too many. So, how do you help people to filter those and organized their outreach?

Brett Downes: 6:24

Yeah. So it's a software service we're developing. So, we have two types of clients, really. We have the ones who don't have the time, or they have the budget, or don't have the expertise and use us to ghost write for them. But then essentially, it's the other end of the market, whether it's startups, whether it's local businesses, whether it's people that want to try the service themselves, you know. Some people don't want to help it, and they'd like to muck in and do, do, do with themselves. So this essentially, the newsletters you mentioned essentially deciphers them into a spreadsheet, simple in a spreadsheet. It doesn't win any, any design awards, but it's, it serves its purpose. So, if you were looking for a website of a certain authority of a certain age, or has certain amount of traffic to the site, or wherever it links to your website or links to your social. You have options and filters, you know, for example, when you searching for a hotel you'll search location, the price. You'll search local amenities, it's similar to that sort of setup where you can cherry pick the websites you are going for, because we will write 3000, 4,000 pictures a month for clients. But you know, you're not going to have that time to do it yourself. So, you might write one or two a day. So essentially, it's, it's been able to cherry pick the ones which, which would best serve your business, and also the ones which will be, which would be more helpful. There's some websites that will use your comments, but won't link. So if you, if you don't want that, then you just filter that out. So, if you're writing one email and you want to get the biggest bang for your buck, so that's essentially serving the, the opposite end of the market. So that's, we use it ourselves for, you know, for when we're going to pick in for different clients, but it's very much a service for entry level or for someone who wants to, wants to give it abash themselves.

Jim James: 8:08

Yeah. Or even for another agency, I can see that being useful if you've got multiple clients and you want to sort that by keyword, really, really helpful that service as well. So, Brett you mentioned there about links. Can you just explain how that works because obviously you would like to be quoted in an article? But my understanding is as well that journalists and publications don't want to lose the traffic, so they don't want to link from you from their website to your website, for example.

Brett Downes: 8:36

Yeah. This is one of those, it's like an old wives tale. It's, it's kind of like a leaky bucket. So if you poured, if you poured a gallon of water into a bucket, a bucket has all the water. So, you know, having links out of that bucket would be like poking holes in it. So, people feel like they lose a link juice, but it's not anymore. It's it's if you're linking to websites associated with what you articles talking about, or associated with the content that you're publishing, then it just passes on that authority without losing it. So, if you recommended, if you recommended another expert to me, I wouldn't think any less of you that would just make me feel better of that expert. So it's, but like you mentioned it, just at the start of that question, there's some people that believe that, that happens so they won't linked out. So the spreadsheet, helpfully filters out those ones who are still, you know, a little bit behind that kind of initial marketing curve. Which ones you want that's, yeah, you can filter out the guys I think they'll lose equity, so you wouldn't pitch them, and you will waste your time not getting a link.

Jim James: 9:37

So, that's another consideration, isn't it, Brett? What about hashtags, because there are like hashtag journal, journal requests, for example, any sharing you can give about how people can follow hashtags to find out what journalists are looking for?

Brett Downes: 9:49

Yeah, the, the two, the two biggest ones are HARO requests and PR requests. So, you can just follow them on Twitter, and essentially you would, you would go on there. And the journalist might be asking a question similar to what they ask on HARO, and then you would DM them or reach out and then you provide a comment on client. These ones are HARO texts to run on an editorial calendar. So essentially, if you provide a quote, it's probably not going to be live for about five or six weeks later, if someone's using Twitter, hashtags, it's, it's a trending topic usually. So that will probably get published the same week. So, that's one of the differences in terms of, if you want links now use that platform. But again, that's competitive. So it's, you've got lot of people going for that. The, there is a, for the tech minded of people, they are, you can use platforms such as Zapier and if this, then that, which actually brings that into a spreadsheet for you. So, essentially if you're, if you're an insurance company and you didn't want to wait for those requests every day looking for insurance quotes, you could set up the a simple, simple synchronization that downloads insurance call-outs daily to a spreadsheet. And then you could just look at that once a day, and reply to that. So, there are little ways where you can, you can automate and make your time more efficient. And we actually have, I actually have a, a template for that if someone wants to use that. So in terms of, if people reach out to us and they don't want to use our business, I don't say, "Okay, thanks. See you later." It's very much , there's a, there's a tips how to do it yourself. So it's an article that we've written, for cheat sheet. But then also if people want that. If they want that formula for their Twitter, we give that way as well, because it's like you say, it's not, they're not, not leaving us or go into a competitor, they just can't afford it or they just want to do it themselves. And you know, there's enough, there's enough business to go around the world. So we don't essentially, you know, cut those off despite our faces, our job is to help people. And essentially, you know, people will refer, refer people to us later down the line if we've provided them with good service. It's not all about short-term, essentially. It's, it's building a relationship like we do with a journalist, you know, client or no client customer, no customer journalist or not, it's building that rapport with people. So, what was it, you know, don't burn your bridges on the way up, because you don't know who you meet on the way down.

Jim James: 12:10

And that's it. Look, speaking of burning and also trending issues, of course, for all of this, you know, the, the Ukraine issue is something that's on everybody's mind. And more and more companies are having to address and taking positions on Ukraine and Russia. From a sort of PR point of view, and what HARO's asking for, can you give us some observations, Brett, about what is trending? What companies are doing or should be doing with their PR?

Brett Downes: 12:42

Yeah. I mean, there's probably a question for greater mind in mind, but in terms of HARO, especially, it's, I mentioned the editorial content, but anything trending or anything current news, popular culture, you'll always get those questions and journalists asking for expert insights in the article. So, we find in, in a good way that lots of people that reaching out trying to help companies in Ukraine, take refugees in, thanks to that. And I think one of the things that people who feel helpless at the moment to you know, Ukraine's a long way away from where I am. So, you can't just go over and help someone else like your neighbor. It's I think money is, is one of the driving things, because money does help the world go around, whether it's helping up housing people, whether it's pride in providing aid relief or, you know, even bulking up the army. So they can defend themselves that lots of companies that are taking donations or there's a company called Atras. There's a gentleman called Tim Sulu, who's like the chief marketing officer. Essentially, he's, he's the voice of that company anyway, you know? So, in excess is a Michael Hutchinson, for example, it's everyone knows Michael Hutchinson. He's a drummer, he's not even the lead singer, but he's, he's very much the front of that company and he's Ukrainian. And so one of the things he's, he's done is that, you pay to use their platform, which checks back links for your company, but anything you pay to that company. So, the service they'll, they'll double it and send that money as aid relief to Ukraine. So, you know, people are using the service anyway, some people will not donate an extra money, but maybe they've doubling their subscription, or they like, all-out pay for. I pay on a monthly basis, but I'm going to pay for a year because they give you double a subscript, subscription and people will pay that money anyway. So it's, it's going to a good cause, obviously. And it's obviously there's somewhere close to his, you know, that's his homeland and I think his parents. So, wanna, maybe so, still reside there.

Jim James: 14:36

So Brett, are you suggesting to clients that they, that they take a position right now on Ukraine? Are you finding clients, asking you to write position pieces?

Brett Downes: 14:45

No. Sorry. We, we, we tend to stay away from political questions, unless the client explicitly asked us to do it for them. Because our part of our onboarding is getting to know the client, the company. So we can write in a tone of voice, which you shouldn't tell the difference if they answer the question, or have I answered the question. We would just, we would just, you know, send it in a, in a punchy, more concise manner. If they do want to get involved, then we let them, and, you know, everyone has an opinion on the war and it tends to be all in the same direction. It's, it doesn't seem very partisan. So, if people want to do out, they can, but essentially it's, I think I would, I would, I would advise people to sort of do it on their own platforms as opposed to use me for that. Because it's, you know, it's, I think getting publicity for your company, getting backlinks for your company is obviously good in terms of business. But then it could be tainted with someone's taken advantage of the situation to get, to get themselves. So, I wish, maybe to find journalists that are writing about it, then reach out to them personally yourself. So, I'm not doing myself out of a job, you know, I'm not cutting. I think that, that's something that you wouldn't want someone to mimic you or send it on your behalf, I think. You stand by your own views, then it can't be taken out of context or misconstrued, because what I wouldn't want someone to come back and say, "We didn't actually say that our, our agency said it." And, you know, that's why I think in terms of personal, controversial, anything sort of on that landscape, you're not doing it for your business, you're doing it, you're doing it out of duty. You're doing it out of personal preference. So, I would advise you to, you can use the platform to find the information, but I wouldn't use a company to post on your behalf.

Jim James: 16:34

Right. Interesting. So, the pawns of being authentic really there, Brett, about, about your own self, your own voice. Now you're an entrepreneur, and you've got your own business, HARO Helpers. How are you getting noticed as an entrepreneur? What, what tools and strategies are you using?

Brett Downes: 16:50

It's quite strange fairly, because I'm a ghost writer. I'm, I'm trying not to get noticed as much because I'm, I'm pushing you, you know, I'm pushing you to the front of the queue. I'm making you walk the plank, and I'm the one you know, pushing you over. But in terms of getting the company noticed so much, we use a variety of platforms. I'm from digital marketing background anyway and I find that we will use referrals is a massive source of business for us, because we do a good job. And those clients will recommend other people, or they love other businesses that use for us. We use PPC, we use social media, especially The Journal, The Journal Request hashtags things. So, we don't push our business as much on there, we just offer advise. Lots of people use that during a request are private business owners or small company. So we would just throw out some tips to help them, ,you know, get more success. And in terms of other things that we use, it's direct email, we use LinkedIn, so kind of run the whole gamut of digital marketing, really. If we find that referrals is probably the bulk of our business and we don't want to get too big as a company, and I'm happy with kind of the status quo. Because it's, once you start running, you got like 14, 15 employees when you start getting to like, you know, triple figures, it takes the fun of what I do and it instead of a hobby and a career, and it turns into a job. So, it's essentially the leaking bucket thing really is just, we'd rather keep the amount of clients we have right now, and just add a couple every couple of months or so, rather than keep getting new clients, keep getting new clients and keep losing clients. It's the churn and burn. And also the longer a client is with us, the better, you know them. The longer you're friends with someone, the more, you know them, the more you can speak for them. So essentially, the longer you're with us, the more value and the better we, the better we provide information on behalf of yourself to, to journalists.

Jim James: 18:44

Brett, thank you for sharing that really honest and genuine approach to your business as well. If he wanted to find out about you, how can they find you?

Brett Downes: 18:51

Yeah, so, we're called harohelpers.com so it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. We help you with HAROs, whenever we do them for you, or we help you get more success in pitching yourself. Same, same on Instagram and Twitter as the hashtag is @harohelpers.

Jim James: 19:08

Brett Downes joining me from just down the road, Cardiff, South Wales. Thank you so much for joining me today on the UnNoticed Entrepreneur show.

Brett Downes: 19:15

Thank you, Jim.