You’ve poured your heart into your business. Now it’s time for the right people to know who you are.
In this episode, Samantha sits down with Rob Garcia, a renowned visibility strategist based in San Diego. Rob’s journey from a high school and two-time college dropout to earning a PhD is nothing short of inspiring. He has carved a niche in helping experts amplify their presence and become industry leaders through strategic media exposure.
We delve into practical strategies for coaches and consultants aiming to elevate their visibility through crafting compelling media pitches, understanding your unique media angle, and building a strong, consistent brand.
He also shares insights on overcoming imposter syndrome by focusing on tangible results and leveraging personal stories to connect authentically with your audience.
Whether you’re transitioning from corporate to entrepreneurship or looking to pivot within your current business, this conversation offers actionable advice to help you stand out in a crowded market.
Tune in to gain valuable insights and strategies that can propel your business visibility to new heights.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- Meet Rob Garcia and learn how he transitioned from military service to becoming a visibility strategist. (00:36)
- The concept of creating a business “out of thin air” (05:41)
- How you can make headway, even with imposter syndrome (07:37)
- Practical steps to enhance visibility through social media and media appearances (10:23)
- The significance of branding and maintaining consistency across platforms (13:15)
- Crafting pitches that resonate with podcast hosts and journalists (20:19)
- How you can Integrate personal stories into your visibility strategy for deeper connection with your audience (28:27)
QUOTES
“You can have these skills, but until you have a brand identity to tie it together, you’re not going to have an effective business.” – Rob Garcia
“Our brand is our values. And the more storytelling you can put into that, the more memorable you are, and also the more you energetically attract the right people.” – Samantha Riley
“As you niche down more, your business is going to perform better, because now you’re not serving the world or trying to market to the world. You’re marketing to a very small, direct group of people that will love what you do.” – Rob Garcia
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ABOUT ROB GARCIA
Dr. Rob Garcia, known as “The Warrior Strategist,” transformed his life from humble beginnings in Eureka, California, to become a distinguished business strategist and media expert. Overcoming early challenges, he served in the U.S. Air Force, which laid the foundation for his resilience and strategic mindset. After his service, Dr. Garcia earned his doctorate and founded SHIFT Magazine, a publication dedicated to personal development and business growth. As the CEO of Garcia Global Media, he has been featured in over 255 media interviews, including appearances on Fox News and in Homeland Magazine, showcasing his expertise in elevating brands through innovative media strategies. His journey from adversity to prominence exemplifies the power of determination and strategic vision.
WHERE TO FIND ROB GARCIA
- Website: www.garciaglobalmedia.com
- Website: www.shiftlifedesign.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-robert-garcia-san-diego/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robleegarcia/
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:02
Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design. I’m really excited because today we’re going to talk about visibility, we’re going to talk about media, but we’re going to come in from a bit of a different angle, and I’m not going to reveal what that is just yet. So you need to stick around. And today, I have invited Rob Garcia to join me. So Rob, welcome to the show.
Rob Garcia 0:27
Thank you so much, Sam, this is an honour.
Samantha Riley 0:31
And whereabouts in the world are you today?
Rob Garcia 0:34
San Diego, California.
Samantha Riley 0:36
Oh, love San Diego. I was just talking about that, I swear, only about an hour ago, to someone. San Diego is such a great place. Alright, let’s dive in, like, let’s really set the stage. Because you are a visibility strategist, you help people get featured in the media, but you come from a military background. And I want to talk about this first, because I think there’s so many people in my world who are experts. They may be coming from corporate into a business, or, as you and I were discussing before in the green room, there’s a lot of business owners right now that are making these small pivots because their business doesn’t feel quite right, and what they can do is kind of throw the baby out with the bath water. Feel like they’re newbies, feeling like they’re starting new, but they’re not. They’ve got all of this experience. How did you specifically go from being someone that was in the military to moving into this position and kind of owning who you were? Here’s a big one off, right off the bat there.
Rob Garcia 1:47
Try and keep it short and interesting. So basically, I had all the characteristics of an entrepreneur, even early on. I’ve always had troubles with focus and attention span and classrooms and like, work settings, and I’m not a cubicle guy, so I knew that I was going to be working for myself. A lot of entrepreneurs just have that little light bulb in the back of their head. They know they’re their own boss. They know they have a good idea. They really want the freedom of doing their own thing. There’s no income cap. They can make as much money as they want. They have freedom, but they’re not quite sure how to go from point A to point B. So in the early days, I worked a couple jobs to get stability while I was figuring out side projects and entrepreneurial things. I started writing some books. I started figuring out how to publish a magazine, things like that, like little income streams, like consulting calls, ebooks and courses, just going back to my educational background as a professor. And as I did that, I started a company, a skateboard company, and that evolved into a lifestyle company, and me becoming, trying to become a life coach, and something was just not quite right in alignment. It was kind of fun, but the reason I did it was because so many people were coming to me and asking me questions about life, and I didn’t have the business acumen to properly run either company. And so finally they, you know, went their way. And I don’t know if it was the universe or just whatever, but the skills that I had developed all fell under PR and visibility, but it took a while, and this is where, this is where it gets interesting for your audience, because you can have these skills, but until you have a brand identity to tie it together, you’re not going to have an effective business. And so it took, I finished grad school. I’ve gotten a doctorate in education, but you can’t just put your shingle out and say, Hey, do you want to hire a PhD? Or maybe hire a phd.com? Is going to my next business venture. Who knows? But I needed to do something with it, and I just couldn’t quite figure it out. And then that’s when it hit. Podcast started to come out, and I had a very wildlife story. I went from high school and two time college dropout to PhD. And so podcasts start interviewing me. And after about the 25th one, I’m like, I can teach people how to do this, how to apply to podcast, media. And then I started getting, I got on TV. I started getting a few friends on TV. And then all of this over time, developed into who Rob the Warrior Strategist became, a visibility strategist, not a PR person. I’ve never worked in industry. I’ve never had any PR experience whatsoever. Completely self-taught. Entrepreneurs are amazing at self-learning, and they have access to everything out there. And this is for the person watching this who’s thinking, wow, I could do this. You have YouTube, you have Amazon books. You have all these great ways now. You have ChatGPT. You have all these ways to develop your business acumen, to become who you need to be, and to become highly skilled. And I’ll tell you, Samantha, when you become highly skilled and you can produce really, really powerful results for clients, the money follows. You have no problem getting work. That’s the climb for an entrepreneurship is when your talents get to such a point that your clients start finding you, you start becoming legendary, you start becoming, you start getting what I call phantom leads, where strangers will pop in your Facebook inbox and say, Hey, I saw that video, or so and so told me about you, and that’s incredible. We need to work together. And I have no idea who this person is but after a while, if you’re visible enough, and you really present yourself well, and you’ve got these results, people will find you.
Samantha Riley 5:41
Absolutely, absolutely. So you’ve, essentially, you and I were talking and, before we hit record, you said you created this out of air, this business. Can you tell us what you mean by you created this out of air?
Rob Garcia 5:58
It means that I had to design a business based around my skill sets that, I don’t want to say it’s never been done, but it’s very unusual, because I’m not PR in the traditional sense. I’m not reputation management. I’m not a marketer, I’m not a branding, you know, brand manager. I’m actually an elevated status as a visibility strategist, because I do campaigns like Napoleon for like three months for clients where I map out, okay, this week, this is our objective. This is what we’re going to do. These are the resources. These are the media platforms. And as a visibility strategist, my job is long term with somebody, so I prefer three month campaigns versus somebody just wanting PR for a month or something more effective.
Samantha Riley 6:45
Yeah, love it. Love it. So people, there’s probably a bit, a heap of people listening right now that are like, Okay, this is singing to me. I definitely want to be more visible. Maybe I’ve been in my business for a long time, and I know what I’m about, or maybe I’m making this pivot, and I can see how getting more visibility will help move me into this pivot. Let’s talk about imposter syndrome, because this is such a big thing that holds people back, this mindset of but who am I to be doing this. What is the, where do people need to start? And I don’t even know, this is kind of weird. I don’t even know you need to move through it, but I’d love to hear your take on this. How do people overcome that hurdle?
Rob Garcia 7:37
The number one way to put imposter syndrome at bay is to create a result. And I discovered that in the early days, because if you’re creating a result, if you’re in your industry, doing things in your industry, you can’t be an imposter. You’re actually doing the thing. So whatever, whatever it is, if you don’t have feelings of imposter syndrome, you’re a sociopath like you should have doubts. Okay? Yeah. But you also have to realize you never want to get rid of imposter syndrome. You just want to work at the root cause of it and becoming that person. I’ve had lots of people, oh God, lots of PR people do not like me, and one person actually wrote and said something on Reddit that really stuck in my line. You know, what do I get? These comments that just, they just get you. And this person said, you can’t read three books and be good at PR. It’s like watching Law and Order and calling yourself a lawyer. And I read that just in amazement, because it was directed right at me. And then I started thinking to myself, I’m like, I just got my 36th client on TV. I’m three pages at Google, and I have 255 interviews in media, okay, actually, I did kind of read three books and become a lawyer. So I don’t know what to tell you.
Samantha Riley 8:53
Yeah, and you know on that, and this is what I always say to people, not one of us, you know, on the day that we were born, when we came into the world as fresh little babies, knew anything about what we’re doing now, we all started exactly the same way and the own, and so when people do that, I kind of think, well, hang on a minute. You had your first day too, and what were you meant to call yourself? Nothing? When you had your first day, like when you have your first day, you are that thing. So I’ve always thought that’s kind of a weird way to look at things.
Rob Garcia 9:30
You have to empower yourself and I just brought on interns, and the first thing I told them was, you guys aren’t interns, your team members from day one. I don’t want them feeling like they’re interns, like they’re temps, like they’re not important because they’re young, they’re in their early 20s. They’re at college, San Diego, state. And I want them to be empowered. I want them to understand, hey, you’re a journalist, you’re a PR specialist, you’re a communications expert. And these are the terms that I refer to them, not only for their self esteem, but so they can actually feel like they’re doing the thing.
Samantha Riley 10:04
Alright, you talked about, you know, you’ve got to take the action to get the runs on the board. What are some logical or very tactical steps to take at those first steps of action in getting more visibility?
Rob Garcia 10:23
As far as visibility goes, you have to have a social media plan in place. Automation should be your goal over time, but that’s more of a mid game strategy. At the very least, branding is everything, and it’s better to have two really good posts on Facebook a day, versus 10 of them that are just hot garbage. How you come across to your audience, how you look, your aesthetic, is everything. And Sam, I was looking up your stuff, and everything I’ve seen, this is why you’re successful. Because everything I’ve seen, you have a certain standard that you hold yourself to that’s immensely intimidating. It’s great. So social media, obviously, use dramatic spacing in your writing. Use emojis. Use like higher grade photographs. Use Canva to put graphics and design elements on your photographs. Lately I’ve been turning out the best content I’ve ever done. And what I do is I go and Chat GPT, and I start off with write a long form content talking about this, this and this, generate hashtags for virality, and use dramatic spacing, esthetic spacing, and then a call to action at the end. And it will just generate perfection. Then I’ll ask you to generate an image related to it, pop that in Canva, put some design elements on it, and then 10 minutes maybe, and I’ve got a post people are going to be commenting on all day. So visibility, you need, this is some really specific advice, but you need the right platform, depending on your business model, nobody ever thinks of this. So if you have a goods based business for selling products, Instagram, Tiktok, and Pinterest. If you have a service based business, then you need to have conversations. That’s going to be Facebook, Tiktok. And Tiktok is more for the boost, Facebook and LinkedIn, and people need to focus only on the social media platforms that will best serve their business. And then Twitter is for either of them, using hashtags and engagement just to get more people directed to your website. So these are all things I think about when I do visibility strategies for people and then, so that’s social media. The next thing, podcast interviews and TV. It’s very easy to get podcast interviews. In fact, you can go to a Facebook group called Need a Guest, find a guest podcasts, pop in your description, and people are going to interview you all day long. So that’s a freebie. Go into your search bar and Facebook and type in the word podcast, and now start writing down every single person that appears in that search. Same with LinkedIn. Now you’ve got podcast interviews forever, and then to get on TV, all you have to do is write an eight sentence pitch. Use Chat GPT if you don’t know how to do it, and look up the four stations in your area in America, we have Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, and just type those in and the word contact or submit, and you can direct, submit yourself to any news agency.
Samantha Riley 13:15
Love it. I want to go back to branding, because I think that this is like, I see this as the foundation, and it sounds like you do too, because you did the search. This is what journalists are going to do. They’re going to do the search. They’re going to have a look. When you use the word branding, what specifically are you referring to?
Rob Garcia 13:39
I’ll say this at the risk of sounding sexist, I feel like women are light years ahead of men as far as branding goes. And when I first started, this is a perfect example to your question. When I first started, I go back and I see primary colors, I see ugly fonts, I see design elements that like clip art, that stuff that looks like children made it, and I’m not, I’m not ashamed of it. It just means I didn’t understand what branding was. And most people, when you bring up branding, they say, Oh, I have a website and a logo, I have a brand. And I’m like, No, you have a website and a logo that’s unbranded. A brand is the personality, the culture of your company. It’s the values, it’s visually represented in several areas. It’s your positioning, your messaging, and then you get into actual design, and that’s color palettes and sophisticated fonts and design elements. I hired Jillian Sandoval just to take me on a branding journey, and that’s why my stuff looks so much better these days, because she will show up with wild designs that are eye-catching and beautiful colors and gradients and things like this. And as I get into, more into design, I’ve improved quite a bit, but I still, I just don’t quite have that eye that some people have. So for somebody who’s just getting started, and they want to know about branding, they need to understand that it has to be aesthetically pleasing. And at the beginning, you should take a branding course. I took justice lava del Rivas branding course a long time ago. She offered it to me for free. I said, No, I’m going to pay the money. It was about a grand. And I went through every module, and I bought one of her books. It was fabulous, and it just, it helped me to rock it upward as far as what my design aesthetic was. And veterans are notoriously bad at this. They have horrible design, they have awful looking websites. They have awful looking branding in the early days. And it’s just good that you, at the very least, watch some YouTube videos and just learn about branding aesthetics. And some people on Pinterest and Instagram are amazing, and you’ll just pick it up just by looking through Pinterest.
Samantha Riley 15:52
Yeah, totally. I went to a Steven Bartlett event last year. He’s the host of Diary of a CEO podcast, and one of the things he talks about is painting the back of the fence. And what he was referring to was that most people will paint the front of their fence because the people in the street will see that it looks good, but very few people paint the back of the fence to finish it off, because they think, Oh, no one sees it anyway. It doesn’t matter. And this is something that, I come from a dance background. So we’re taught to paint the back of the fence from where three, you know, from when we’re three years old. So this was kind of easy for me, but when he explained this, this painting the back of the fence, I was just like, that is how we need to think about our branding. It needs to be consistent, and we need to be okay to say actually that’s not quite up to the standard. That needs to be fixed or it needs to be altered. And it’s taken me quite a while to train my team to understand, we paint the back of the fence all the time. We have to show up like we are elite, and an elite athletic team, not just people that are doing a job, and now they actually catch each other out. So, you know, a task will come through, and one of the other team members will go before Sam sees that. I’ll see it in the Slack channel, before Sam sees that. Can we just fix that, or can we do that thing and it hasn’t come easily. It’s something that I’ve had to train my team to do, but it’s something that you can train yourself to do, to have that eye to say, is that consistent? Is it up to the standard that I want to be showing? And I think that’s a really good lens to look through.
Rob Garcia 17:37
So perfect example of branding and incorporating logos. Logos mean things, and a lot of people will just find a cool font that they like or design element, but my actual logo is right here, The Warrior strategist. And it’s symbolic for my business type. So what you have here is cross rifles, you have a crest, and you have chess pieces. And people look at that and think, Okay, what does that mean? And what does the warrior strategist mean? Well, the chess pieces represent strategy, the planning, thinking ahead. The rifle represents execution. And it doesn’t mean the violent way. It means taking action, direct action. So in my case, I do one day of strategy a Week, and then I do five days of execution, one day of rest, and hence, that’s the warrior strategist, and that’s how this logo all comes together. This all means something. These aren’t just random items thrown together. That is good branding, because people look at that now like, okay, that means something.
Samantha Riley 18:36
And you know, even more, if they like, they’ll hear this and go, Wow, and they’ll remember you for that. But even people that don’t know what it means straight away, and they ask about that, it makes it memorable, and you start to understand the values, and then that ties it back to what you were saying before, that our values are our, sorry, our brand is our values. And you know, the more storytelling you can put into that the more memorable you are, and also the more you attract energetically, the right people.
Rob Garcia 19:07
Right, exactly. It speaks to your audience. So, for example, a veteran’s going to see this, and they’re going to, they’re going to feel very comfortable knowing that, you know, they see the military themed stuff, it came together pretty well, Sam and it’s, it’s a testament that it probably took three years before I figured out Rob the Warrior Strategist is a brand identity. I was just calling myself Dr Rob, and it really wasn’t flying, and everyone thought I was kind of pretentious. And then I finally just figured out Rob the Warrior Strategist makes sense as to what I do. Because I was a, I was before I really niched down even further to visibility and PR, I was a business strategist. But that’s very general. It’s very vague. And as you niche down more, your business is going to perform better, because now you’re not serving the world, trying to market to the world. You’re marketing to a very small direct group of people that will love what you do. But brand identity is everything, you need to figure out how you’re represented, who you are. Are you likable? All these things factor in. It’s my own evolution.
Samantha Riley 20:19
Yeah, yeah. What makes a pitch stand out to a podcast host, to a journalist? What is it that we need to really embody when we’re thinking about pitching?
Rob Garcia 20:34
You need to put yourself in the shoes of the reporter or the journalist that’s going to read it, and if you were that person in that job, would this excite you to the point of, yes, oh, I need to do this story. And so a few things will stand out. I have about seven angles I’ve developed when I’m pitching clients. Some of them are, you’re directly tied to a current event, something really good or really bad happened to you, and you’re going to go on camera and talk about it. You’ve got a result, which means, let’s say, start a business at six figures in two months. That’s a result. Achievement. You wrote a book, or you’re a single mom that got a master’s degree, something like that. Live demonstration. So maybe you can come in with a dancing dog, or cook something, or do martial arts or Bachata dancing, or box a kangaroo. All of these things, if you have an unusual story, that’s what’s really gonna, if it’s something that, if it’s something that’ll provide good entertainment for the audience, I always think of the words, value to audience. And here’s a really, really good tip for people watching this. You never want to make it about your business. You want to make it about the angle, coincidentally, with a person that’s in that business. And so what I mean by this, especially with coaches. So I always tell coaches, don’t pitch TV and say, Hey, I have a coaching business. You know, you should feature me, no, come up with a unique angle about mental health or about stress, or about, you know, better living or transformational things you can do to be a better father, and then the coaching is secondary, but they’ll bring you on as a coach, and now you have all this credibility because you’re being interviewed as a coach. But see, the segment’s not about your coaching business. It’s about you speaking as a subject matter expert, and you happen to be a coach. That’s secondary. You always think of the audience in mind. Will a producer, will a reporter, look at this and think, Oh, the audience would love this, or this has so much value. And when you’re doing your pitch, always put a mention or a reference to the audience. This is what I would provide for your audience. This is what I would share with your audience. Your audience will love this, because they’re going to learn this, this, and this. Always say your audience, and now you’ve just caught their eye and their ears go up like a dog because you’re thinking like them. You always have to think like the producer or the reporter, and you always have to think they have to make stories every single day. And going back to imposter syndrome, if you don’t pitch yourself, they’re going to run the story about the water skiing squirrel. You’re better than that squirrel.
Samantha Riley 23:21
I’m never going to be able to forget water skiing squirrel. I love that. While you were talking that through, I immediately, this is the way I think. I immediately thought of the worst pitch I’ve ever had and the best pitch I’ve ever had. And I want to talk about this really quickly, to give caught like, to give it real life example to what you were talking about.
Rob Garcia 23:44
I want to come back to that too. Go ahead, please.
Samantha Riley 23:47
Yeah, I had someone reach out. It was actually only a couple of weeks ago, and say, and I think the subject line was, like, her name, like, this person will be amazing on your podcast. And then it was a tiny little email that said, wasn’t even addressed to me, didn’t mention my podcast name, just said, I know that I would be amazing on your podcast, because I talk about entrepreneurship. And I just sent back, no thanks. And I normally kind of leave them, but I think I should send a couple of follow ups. And I was just like, Oh, I just don’t want this in my inbox. And I said, Oh, no, thanks. We’ve already covered that topic. Because, like, seriously, entrepreneurship, are you kidding me? And she sent back a snarky reply that said, Well, you could have done some research and gone to my website, and you would have seen exactly what I talk about. And I was like, oh, whoa. I am a busy person while I’m too busy, like, you know, doing great interviews like this, I’m not going to be going and research you as the guest. Like, are you kidding me? Whereas and I’ve had amazing pitches, but even yourself, when I put out that I was looking for guests, you straight away, it was nice and snappy. This is what we can talk about. This is what I can add to your audience. We moved that to the DMS. We had an exceptionally quick conversation, bang, calendar link, sent, done, booked in. I’ve moved on, and obviously we’re having this great conversation. So I wanted to give those two, those two examples, so that people can really understand through the eyes of us as the host, as the producer, as the journalist, we want to provide the best value to our audience. It’s actually not about us.
Rob Garcia 25:29
Here’s where she messed up and I saw three things. Oh God, this takes me back. So first of all, she made it about her, and you automatically were like, I don’t have time for this. When you’re going to a person asking for a favor, you’re not, you don’t obligate them with extra work, first of all. Secondly, besides the fact that it was about her, it was a terrible pitch because it was very general. It wasn’t specific, it wasn’t personalized, wasn’t addressed to you, and it’s, it’s a very easily copy pasted pitch that she sent to hundreds of podcasters probably, probably approved her, but she’s, as a magazine owner myself, I remember the two worst pitches I’ve ever gotten. And it’s people, it was two men that they were both oddly similar. They just sent me the laundry list of all their, you know, features and blah, blah, blah, and demanded coverage for free. And I turned them both down. Both were very successful, and I turned them both down. It felt really good, because they had made no attempt to get to know me. They knew nothing about the magazine. They just thought, Hey, Rob, must be desperate to put us in the magazine, because we’re so great. That’s not how it works. You have to build rapport with the person. Every pitch I ever write is custom, and I will have a sentence that’s personalized. Hey, I saw your article on tactical Beagle Vest. It was really good. Or I saw your article on this and that. You know, I really like your writing. But if you can write something very specific or something in their background, Hey, I saw you. You know, went to college in Oklahoma, so my friends went there, blah blah, a one sentence, personalization sentence will get you in there. It’ll build rapport. It builds trust. Secondly, you need to be able to talk about what it is, what segment you’re going to talk about. Because just saying, if I didn’t come to you, said, Sam, you didn’t know me, let’s say and I just said, Hey, I’m gonna talk about PR. You should have me on the podcast. I’m amazing. You would hurt yourself laughing, and that’s a terrible pitch, because it doesn’t talk about value to audience. It doesn’t have any type of preview. You’re just gonna bring some random guy on who’s gonna babble about PR, and has no developed concepts? So this will bring me to the next step, pitching. Actual pitch writing. A perfect pitch is eight sentences long. It’s got segment idea, hyphen, and then a very short sentence, right to the point, brevity. Your pitch is not your life story. You don’t need to tell them about your dog. Just tell them about what it is you’d like to talk about. Have the personalized sentence, hand addressed to their name, two good photos, and then this is what I do for my clients that works very well. I include two links to either a past press release or an article I’ve written about them. Here’s more information, media contact, you know, phone number, email, and that’s it, and that is a perfect pitch for anyone.
Samantha Riley 28:27
Love it. Love it. Love it. How much, you mentioned it’s not about your whole life story. It’s about specific pieces of information or something specific that we’re talking about. How much does your personal story play into visibility, and how does it come in?
Rob Garcia 28:46
So one final thing is that 85% of pitches are abysmal, and from what I hear from journalists and reporters, so if you write good ones, you’ll stand out. Just want to get that out there. As far as personal story, okay, your personal story should be mentioned if it’s part of the segment. And my own personal story was extremely tragic and very inspiring, and it’s always been 95% of why I get interviews. At this point now it’s gotten more into business success and PR and stuff, but I was raised by a drug addict, single parent. I moved 16 times in my childhood and failed in high school, two colleges. I’ve been in poverty for most of my, like half my life, and yet, besides that, I got six degrees, founded a magazine blah, blah, blah. That personal story got me almost all my interviews. And if your personal story is very compelling, tell it. Don’t be scared of judgment. Don’t be scared to open up, as long as it’s not uncomfortable for you. You know, I don’t want like domestic violence survivors to, you know, open up about their story if they’re still healing from it, you don’t have to unveil all your trauma. But, you know, tell it to a point that you feel comfortable with, but people, the more you open up, the more vulnerable you are, the more people are going to identify with you. It makes you seem human. It makes you seem likable and endearable. So I definitely say, if you’re, you know, if you have a compelling story, tell it. Get it out there.
Samantha Riley 30:25
For people that are listening, they’ve heard you’ve got a magazine. Where can they go to find out more about that? How can people stay connected with you?
Rob Garcia 30:35
I just launched my new company, garciaglobalmedia.com, so that’s the main one. They can book a free 15 minute consult with me. They have questions, and it’ll just be a friendly conversation, meet and greet. The magazine itself, the website. The website’s down right now, but I can still give out the URL at shiftlifedesign.com we’re fixing some things with the domain, but I took a year off at a family tragedy, and we just relaunched the magazine. Had our first issue out in a year, and we’re getting ready to pop out the next one, and we’re super excited about it.
Samantha Riley 31:07
Love it. Let’s finish off with, what is one thing that people can go and do straight after listening to this episode to get them one step closer to getting a media opportunity?
Rob Garcia 31:23
Figure out your angle. That’s the biggest thing. And they’re like, I listed out several of them earlier in the program. But if you can put yourself in one of those baskets, it’ll make sense. And you just, you just start pitching with that angle and try and stay with the same one, if you can. Subject matter expert is usually the most popular. Achievement is probably second like writing a book, making a magazine, you know, hosting an event, something like that. I got somebody on the news because they were the victim of an elder scam, and somebody scammed them out of some money, and they were in their 60s, and the News caught it like that. So it’s important to understand your angle and what makes you newsworthy, for sure.
Samantha Riley 32:12
Love it so much. You’ve dropped so much gold and value here, I know that it’s going to have a lot of people’s minds ticking over with the opportunities that are available and that’s what we’re here for. So thanks for coming and sharing your story and your value today, Rob.
Rob Garcia 32:28
Thanks so much. Sam, this is great.
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