Unabashedly my favorite

Can you believe we are already doing our FOURTH cohort of New Media Mastery?

It was the second course we ever built and it’s unabashedly my favorite because I get to spend eight weeks doing something I’M REALLY GREAT AT: Coaching people on media strategies and story. 

I’ve been at a crossroads of “should I or shouldn’t I?” with hiring PR firms and publicists a few times. I tire kicked but never hired one for any of my book launches or my first startup launch. And I’ve regretted it every time. I didn’t necessarily have the $10k on me, and you can never guarantee results when you hire a media person. Plus, as a twenty-year journalist, I know how to do this stuff right? Add to that the biggest reason I probably didn’t hire anyone: As a journalist, I’ve seen that 85% of PR people are TERRIBLE at their job. I REALLY didn’t want to throw away $10k on someone terrible. 

So I didn’t. And then I didn’t get as much press as I would have liked or thought I deserved. And so I always wondered “What if…?” 

When it came time to launch ChairmanMe I did it all differently. We hired Sutherland & Gold (who I knew was incredible from decades on the other side of the table from them) and put ourselves completely in their hands and they absolutely CRUSHED it. I got a comprehensive slew of media, a no-BS distillation on our story, practice on our talking points, and a launch strategy that got us magazine coverage, blog coverage, national broadcast coverage and more. 

It was humbling for me as a journalist: PR is a science and the people who are great at it are great at it. I only had half of the equation and it wasn't the PR half. 

And that’s why years later, we built New Media Mastery: Me and Lesley Gold who did that incredible launch for us. We put together both halves of the media brain: The hardcore journalist who owes you nothing and the PR person who is gonna move mountains and ninja all over the place to get you what you need as the client. 

But I never wanted anyone agonizing over that hard-fought $10k or $50k in the case of a startup launch like I did. It’s just $2k. And even if you go on to hire someone, this course will teach you to vet and manage them. 

The course is always slightly different based on who signs up. Sometimes we have more small business owners, sometimes more solo-practitioner type of entrepreneurs who are interested in the thought leadership aspects of the course, sometimes authors and filmmakers and sometimes we’ve had folks from the music industry, the fitness industry, the private wealth management industry. 

This time around we have almost all venture-funded startups in the cohort, which will be fun because that’s very much Lesley and my wheelhouse. In fact, several major Silicon Valley venture firms have decided to pay for their companies to attend this time around. Why? Because at $2k/head it’s an enormous saving over the $50k+ it costs to hire a PR firm. And everyone needs to save money, get scrappier, and find ways to differentiate themselves at this moment in time. 

It’s also great because it’s a July cohort and those are always smaller. That means way more 1:1 coaching from me and Lesley during office hours, which is basically a weekly extra $1,000 value. And how much fun will it be to get to co-learn with so many incredible new up-and-coming startups? 

I cannot wait to dive in. We still have a few more slots if you are interested. In times of uncertainty, I always think it helps to take control of something. Your story, your brand, your content strategy, how you interface with the world. . . . these are all things you can control and this course will help you control. 

I find that PR is one of those things people continually put off until it’s too late, or the moment it could have transformed their business has passed, so I encourage you to sign up now if you want one of the LAST SLOTS. It technically starts today but until office hours Friday, you haven’t missed anything yet. It’s only two hours a week!

If you are interested, but really really cannot put another thing on your summer plate, we also have the October cohort for sale and that one also has a handful of startups already in it!