Now I have a little bit of a a bonus story how are we doing on time here I'd
like to spend a couple of minutes and give you this this little bonus story
because I think it's very germane to what a lot of you are going through and
it's I want you to know this is what can happen if you keep at it and you and you
and you give these these these things I just described an attempt at reaching
out to people you never know I hope it'll inspire some confidence in you and
and also and not not the least bit it sure it'll share a little bit of me with
you and the struggles that I go through that are the exact same things they are
literally the exact same things that you go through because I'm constantly trying
to market myself you are in the ultimate marketing exercise right now even if you
have know nothing about exercising or mark market exercises you are marketing
yourself so I want to I want to I want to share this with you so I I take a lot
of I take a lot of training hmm and in the summer of 2015 I decided and made a
commitment that I was going to spend a lot more time and a lot more effort and
train myself and build out these programs to become a coach and a trainer
to you in this format so I said I would spend one entire year and do nothing but
share my knowledge with the world I'm not gonna sell anybody anything and I
just want to foster relationships and build a community get some brand
recognition and and really try to really try to help people whole year goes by
and every week of that year pretty much I put out a blog post and an article we
gave some kind of Circulations some downloads and some things away we have a
lot of free stuff away and then you know in April rolled around May rolled around
and I started taking training and shooting videos I started doing that in
the summer and I was attending a monthly coaching session with one of my trainers
much like I have with you guys that you guys come to my monthly
sessions the trainer says to us he said you know one it was about building out
your brand one of the things that you guys should be doing is you should be
writing for these columns and I was already doing that so some of the online
magazines were syndicating my work but he mentioned the Huffington Post and he
said you know you know I don't know if you guys know this but you can go to the
site and Huffington Post and right there at the bottom it just says please submit
your articles we welcome any in every you know of things of interest so I so
okay I you know I I tried one I took one of the articles that I'd already written
and I put it in the Huffington Post and I filled out their form exactly like you
guys would put your resume into an applicant tracking system I mean that's
exactly what it was and I didn't really expect much I didn't have any
expectations i swimming they got thousands upon thousands of these every
single day had no idea how long it took them to look at him or whether they
looked at him at all so that was over the weekend and then there was a woman
who used to work with Kara and me at mile walk her name is Rhonda bless her
heart I talked to Rhonda on Monday morning and I said hey Rhonda
over the weekend I identified 29 articles and what I want you to do when
you take the kids of school and you get home you to turn the computer on every
morning first thing to do is take the article in the sequences that I've given
them to you cut copy paste put in put in my email and so on write the huffington
post just go there and submit them 30 days goes by 30 days goes by dead
silence I mean dead silence and so I thought all right well I don't really
didn't really have any expectations we spent a lot of time we took a shot we
gave them plenty of time to review these I didn't I didn't really have any
feelings one way or another because I'm not gonna let you know their viewpoint
of my article determine what I think of the value that I could contribute to
somebody like you so I thought to myself this is a Thursday I thought to myself
well um deal I don't know anybody as I looked I didn't know anybody at the
Huffington Post I didn't know anybody who knew anybody at the Huffington Post
so I thought well I'll just email Arianna Huffington how hard could that
be so I go and I find her I find her
which took mere seconds and I crafted an email to her an email with something
like this Thursday night 8 o'clock said you know hi mrs. Huffington you know I'm
a big admirer of you because you're basically amazing and all you know and I
pointed to some things the reason I'm reaching out to you is
because I am a career coach and I offer this kind of value to the world I have a
good platform in a community but I feel like your your platform and your
magazine would benefit your readers would benefit from my insight it was out
of obviously benefit me so that's why I'm reaching out over the last month
I've submitted 30 articles I haven't heard back
you know from anybody but I thought I'd reach out to you to see if it was of
interest here's my social media platform with the links if you have a moment go
here which is my blog where you can basically get a feel for it I would
welcome any insight and feedback you have thank you very much ok Thursday
night go to sleep Friday morning I wake up now every morning when I wake up and
I open up my email box I don't know what yours is like but I have a thousand
emails in the morning and I kind of cringe like this and then they all flood
in and so I glanced down the the column in my out of my max screen and I look
for things that are unique or weird or things that I wouldn't expect and I just
want to make sure that nothing's burning down I look for you know those kind of
things and and so there it was way at the bottom Arianna Huffington Post com
she emailed me back what probably was about three hours later and and said you
know hi Andy thank you so much for reaching out to me
I took a look at your stuff it's fantastic we would love to feature your
voice on the post I've copied Madeline the senior you know editor in charge of
contributors she will you know Madeline please get Andy set up immediately the
next email was Madeline said hey Andy here's your username and password so
have at it you can post as much as you want the
editors eye and the team go through all that all the submissions on the
contributor platform then we look and figure out you know whether it makes
sense for us to promote that to our readers to have fun so I knocked
the workday on Friday I took the same article I initially submitted and I put
it in the put it in the thing it's like put it in the thing and then I went to
bed and on Saturday morning I woke up and Saturdays a little different I came
down I made the coffee like 5 o'clock in the morning I grabbed my iPad I open up
the iPad I turned it on and the mail icons it's sitting there on the bottom
of the tray you know I went to the you know probably went to get some water
whatever I get back I'd grab my iPad and I look down at the it's male and there's
like 9,000 and some odd in the little red bubble you know the little the
little the little badge bubble or whatever that tells you how many emails
you got I thought oh my goodness what the hell happened so I open it up and at
that time and I wasn't as familiar to the world as I am now when somebody
would download something from the mile walk site I would get an email that said
Jane Doe in Jane Doe at gmail.com grabbed your ultimate professional
resume template and I would look at all the names that came in and I wanted to
see what people were we're downloading and it was a quick and easy way for me
to see it and there you know there was only so many of these and I didn't I'm
thinking I said what what the hell happened the only thing that I did was I
submitted this article so I went to the Huffington Post and there it was right
at the top of the business section the top article in 9,000 new people who'd
never heard of me that are now getting help from me at this moment grabbed
something that they needed missed and then it sat there for 10 days and and
and and thousands upon thousands more each day just kept grabbing the template
or whatever it was that we were circulating at the time now why am I
telling you this because if you think about it you got
nothing to lose by taking a shot and you never know what can happen it only takes
one it only takes one one person one company the right company but you often
will not get a chance or swing at the plate if you don't put yourself out
there and you don't send the message nothing bad can happen from you sending
a very polite nice email to somebody nothing bad can happen
and so you know this story it's a little piece of me and and and you know kind of
how and this is you know we're talking about you know July of 2016 I wasn't
selling anything I didn't have any training programs or the coaching
platform or all that stuff to offer people I just wanted to help in and and
was really just trying to figure this out as I was trying to augment my career
make a career change so for you out there those steps that I gave you with
targeting for me I was just targeting this place and it took me a little while
to realize they weren't gonna respond to my submissions so I had to use a
different route so save yourself a bunch of time stay away from the 80s is if you
can afford to or it you know if there's no other way and try to start you know
leveraging the relationships that you have to build a relationships that can
help you get to where you want to go so I hope that helps I hope you enjoyed I
know that stories probably a little long but I've never said that to anybody no
one knows that but you know I go through the same kind of struggles and I have to
figure out ways around that message I sent to Arianna Huffington that sounds a
lot like the boss hunting cover letter so I'd encourage you to check that out
so if you're loving this I know we had a little hiccup there you know hit the hit
the thumbs up we're gonna we're gonna go to the chat here I'm gonna try to find
it on this new screen that we're using and let's you know let's take your
questions for those of you that are watching this on the recording I'll see
you next week
you