Under 30 Rock Star Business Series

I wanted to pass this along to you guys as the opportunity to get in on the biggest training series that I have ever offered is quickly coming to a close. I have teamed up with the guys from Under 30 CEO for a 4 week intense bootcamp on putting together an online brand through Social Media, SEO and Internet Marketing. It is geared towards young professionals, but we have people of all ages and backgrounds involved. We are offering only 200 seats and most of those are gone at this point.

Here is some of what is going down:

• 4 Live Interactive Training Sessions
• Week 1 – September 14th – Creating Your Voice With a Blog
• Week 2 – September 21st – Creating Your Presence with Social Media
• Week 3 – September 28th – Rock Star SEO and Internet Marketing
• Week 4 – Advanced Strategies to Blow Your Brand Up Online
• Unlimited Q&A after every session
• Private Members Forum
• Secret Twitter HashTag
• Access to the training 24/7/365 a Day After We Go Over It Live
• Limited to the 1st 200 Serious Young Professionals
• 100% Money Back Guarantee

Here is a quick video on what my role is in the training:


So there you have it, a nice solicitation to join me in a very cool course. If you have any questions, please email me at rollettmarketing@gmail.com and I will do my best to steer you in the right direction.

Thanks guys.

Sign up for the Under 30 Rock Star Course Here.

-Greg

New Video - Advanced Google Options for Personal Branding

As part of our super secret new site launch, we have created a really cool series of videos on technology and its impact on branding, building your business and creating your character. Today is the first video we are releasing to showcase some of the powers that are now in your hand. This video is all about the Google and how recent changes in its search results can impact your online brand and how people get information about you, your company or your brand online.

And here is that mean opt in form to join the 3 Days - 3 Actions Video Series I mention at the end. It's a really cool series where I think you are going to not only learn a lot, but also take the knowledge and put it into action to help propel your brand or company.

If you would like a sneak peak at RockStarLifestyleDesign.com, you can check it out here. A full post on what is going on will come soon. You can also learn about that 3 Days - 3 Videos series by clicking this blatant link to it here.

Please leave some feedback on both the video and the new site. I know there is some recycled content on there, we wanted to put some of the best posts from here over there as well as test out some of the formatting. Original stuff is coming soon, promise.

-Greg

Make the Most of Your 30 Seconds of Fame

(Greg, Patrick and Chris on the set of the Daily Buzz)

Last Friday I had the pleasure of hanging out in the Daily Buzz studios on the Full Sail campus at 6am. I was up early with Chris and Patrick getting ready to talk about Rock For Hunger and some of our initiatives including Talk 4 Hunger and my personal RFH project the "Homeless Lifestyle Design" course.

Over the last few weeks I have been fortunate to be on a bunch of live news stations talking about everything from Personal Branding to Advanced Online Job Seeking to Digital Dirt and Rock For Hunger across a bevy of networks including the CW (Daily Buzz), ABC and FOX. On these live-on-air opportunities I have learned some very valuable lessons that have increased my confidence and appearance on the networks and helped to spread the message that I want to connect with the audience. These tv segments are quick yet can be very powerful to collect new leads, get sales or increase exposure about you or your company (and it looks great on the resume). Here is a list of my 6 biggest takeaways from being live on the news.

Match your style to location. When getting dressed make sure you look at yourself in the mirror while sitting down, or outside or in a crowd or whatever environment you will be in. Knowing your settings is crucial to looking natural and authentic. In one interview on FOX I had a suit on and the jacket was a little large...and you could totally notice. Had I knew it would have risen so high I would have stuck with just a shirt and a tie. Knowing where you are going to be for the interview is key to looking great on camera.

Guide the interviewer. Most quick tv interviews throw softball questions at you and they know little to nothing about you or what you are going to say. Generally we hear:

• Tell us about your organization
• How did you get started?
• Where did the idea come from?
• Tell me about those programs
• How can we get involved or more information
  

The key is to guide them to get to the main point that you want to portray. With Rock For Hunger, we have been doing a brief explanation of how we started and go right into the program we are trying to promote, getting the interviewer to lead into questions about the program.

Rehearse your points. This is one that should be common sense, but you need to have a game plan and know your stuff. When the lights are in your face and the teleprompter is distracting you, the more you have rehearsed and played it out in your head the better off you will be. I have my personal branding and Rock For Hunger elevator pitches down so well that I can deliver them with any distraction in my way because I deliver them often and I practice them before every big speaking gig.

Know your timing. News stations are on top of things and know to the second how long segments are going to last. If you know how long you are given for your segment you can begin to tailor your message to fit the allotted time. Trust me when I say that you have way less time than you think. The FOX News segments I did lasted close to 2:30, then you look at the Daily Buzz where Chris and I split less than 2 minutes.

Ask for drops (or plugs). Drops are what the news anchors say coming into and going out of commercials. For the job fair we promoted in April we were on the news Monday - Thursday for a total of 10 minutes. However from 6am - 9am before every commercial break the news plugged the event and told the audience about the story / interview coming up. This is vital as it helps to brand what it is that you came on the show to talk about. If you have the opportunity, ask the anchors or producers to say your name, your company and what you are talking about. For instance on the Daily Buzz before commercial break we had the anchor say,

"Get ready to rock...for hunger with Greg and Chris who are going to be talking about how they use music to help the local community. Check out Rock For Hunger after the break."

This is very effective for brand awareness and keeps butts in the seat waiting for you to come on their screen (or at least hit the DVR), but you need to help guide them if at all possible.

Call the viewer to action. Stay on topic, stay focused and deliver a call to action. The news is going to direct the viewer to their website so you may need to throw in your own call to action to get people to your site and skip the middleman. Be respectful and thankful, but by being on tv you have the opportunity to speak to the very market that can buy your stuff, support your cause or come to your event. Don't forget the mission and purpose of the press opportunity.

Now that I have had some great press opps I hope to share some really valuable stuff with you guys including:

• How to get on tv
• The responses and affect of being on tv
• Direct response marketing of tv advertisements

If you have any questions about live tv interviews, please ask and share in the comments.

-Greg Rollett

You Don't Have To Be Creative To Be a Rock Star

(photo by juicystyle)

Over the last week I have given 2 presentations to a group of homeless and severely low income individuals in Orlando on how to leverage the Internet to find a job. The courses I taught were not about jobs. They weren't really about careers either. I was talking about confidence, realizations and actions to create the life you want now, as opposed to the life you are supposed to have given your circumstances.

Be honest now...the best personal brands on the Internet are:

• Marketers (Dan Schawbel)
• Social Media Gurus (b/s terminology btw)(Chris Brogan, Robert Scoble)
• Writers (Penelope Trunk, Tim Ferriss)
• PR Peeps(Brian Solis)
• Entrepreneurs(Jun Loayza, Ted Murphy, Guy Kawasaki)

The best personal brands on the InterWeb are not:

• Construction Workers
• Nurses
• Doctors
• Lawn Care Companies
• Pizza Makers
• You Get My Drift

But why not?

After getting to know the crowd I let it fly and started thinking of ways that blue collars, trade professionals and small business owners can capitalize on being an industry rock star, something that is more valuable than the marketing rock stars, the gurus, the egos of the web.

If small businesses and trade professionals jump on the personal and business branding bandwagon NOW - they can control their own destiny and grow their business or reputation.

Is your construction company in the dumps? What are you doing in your marketing to help you get that new contract in the area? Are you really doing everything you can and relying on every resource that you can? Are you expanding your network? Looking for joint ventures? Looking to consult other companies across the globe? Looking to be the first to know about new funding, local development and government regulations?

Here are some things that I told the class to do:
Secure your name online. Sounds obvious, but I can count on a few hands how many local Orlando businesses know what is said about their company online and I can count on 2 of those hands the companies that know what to do with what they see. If all you do is use Google, do a few searches, then you have done more than 95% of your competition in the small business market (*NOTE - that 95% data is make believe, I performed no "real" survey but it's pretty damn close).

Write down 3 things that you can teach someone right now, without having to do any research, but the skills you have in that big ol brain of yours. (Print this and write them down)
1.
2.
3.

Write down 2 things that you can do better than anyone you know. This one was a shocker. Even if you do not know everything about a field, you probably know more than someone who is just getting started, or you may have a secret that even the pro's and experts can utilize. (If you printed this in the last step, then this should be easy!)
1.
2.

I asked the group to write down who their hero is. Then I asked why. This will tell you a lot about the qualities that you CAN see in yourself with the right refinement. (No excuses, your printer is awaiting your print job!)
Your hero is:
He is your hero because:

Lastly, I asked them to decide where they want to be in 6 months from now as well as 1 year from now. The point was to start acting, talking and educating yourself like you are that person right now. Why wait till someone gives you permission to be the best insurance salesman? Why can't you learn from the best and implement innovative strategies now and close more business and be the best you can be today? (Again, you should print this article - its not too tough - and write your answers down)
6 months from now I will be:
1 year from now I will be:

Here is a quick recap of some things that I learned from this group of non-20-something, non marketing, non creative and poverty stricken local Orlando folk, who have never heard of a blog or Twitter before last Thursday:

• I am creating an online portfolio of every construction site I have worked on. I always take a picture at the end and at the beginning. I have pictures of tools, machines, cranes and people.
• I subscribed to every blog on AllTop that had to do with Cooking and Food. I am commenting and hopefully will learn from them and bring that knowledge into a job interview with a local catering company.
• I used that Google Reader thing and got channels for Google News about Orlando Hotels.

That is awesome!

How can you be the Rock Star of your niche?

-Greg Rollett

This is Officially Personal Brand Week

It seems like this subject should be drilled down your throat by now. Especially if you are reading blogs, participating on Twitter and working to build your network on social media sites. Personal branding is something that has exploded on the scene and something that IS going to become as important as a resume for hot industries and those that are dependent on having the best people.

Companies that are serious about getting out of whatever rut they may be in, need the best talent, the innovative minds, the go-getters and the conversation starters that will ignite energy into a state economy. That talent is being found through network associations, Google searches, blog conversations, Twitter jabs and current career and lifestyle development.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with MyFoxOrlando on the subject and had a great time explaining what I have been preaching for almost 2 years now! Here is the video:

One of my good online buddies (who I found through networking, duh) is launching his book today. It is called 'Me 2.0' and is all about the art of personal branding. It's hard to search the web in the social media and Gen-Y sector without running into this guy, he's like the Ryan Seacrest of Gen-Y. With postings on Mashable, Cheezhead, Brazen Careerist - a Personal Branding Magazine, Award Series and more "quality content" on the web than anyone I know - Dan Schwabel is now a published author.

I don't need to sell the book for him. He is an amazing figure and has great advice. If you want to generate a personal brand that will put you leagues above the competition, buy the book, say hi to him on Twitter and start reading his blog. It's as simple as that.

Congrats Dan. You have grown a great deal and deserve to hit Amazon #1 today.

Cheers to personal branding - or why I'm the Gen-Y, Social Media and Music guy - or so says my business cards!

-Greg Rollett