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How to Get Chased by the Press

Cameron Herold is the CEO Whisperer. He is the Founder of COO Alliance, where he helps people, who are 2nd in command, deliver value to the organization. He’s the former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and took that company from $2 million to $106 million in just 6 years. Cameron has written books such as Double Double, Vivid Vision, The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs (co-written with Hal Elrod) and Meetings Suck.

Today, he talks about today’s education system, raising kids to become entrepreneurs and some great points from his book Free PR: How to Get Chased by the Press without Hiring a PR Firm.

What We Discuss with Cameron Herold:

What got him to write a book and write in his voice
His book-writing process
Dealing with academic struggles and insecurity
The power of sharing stories
The need for transforming today’s traditional education system
Cameron’s leap into the entrepreneurial world
How to not be stuck in the system
The evolution of entrepreneurship
The birth of the book Free PR and how it came about
The media climate today
How you can keep people talking about you
Empowering kids to cold call to get over fear and rejection

[01:45] The Beginning of His Book Writing Journey

Cameron describes initially being dragged into the book writing process.

His first book, Double Double, which he wrote nine years ago, was born out of a number of CEO clients that he coached who asked him for more content to give to their teams.

His books serve as cheat sheets to help entrepreneurs and their teams systems that are simple to execute. He’s writing his books as if he’s speaking from the stage, writing them in his own voice. Cameron talks about what got him to write his other books.

[05:15] Cameron’s Book Writing Process

Writing his first book, his ideas weren’t flowing well. So he wrote a table of contents and for each chapter, he wrote down bullet points. He then recorded himself and got the audio transcribed.

[07:15] Not Being Valued as a Kid in Class and Dealing with Insecurity

Although he knew he was intuitively smart, his test results wouldn’t reflect this. At that time, he was running about 15 business ventures around the school.

He felt the education system was just pointless and it took a massive toll on him in his 20s. He felt insecure and thought that school has “hurt” him in a lot of ways.

School isn’t supposed to be for everybody.

[13:08] Traditional School is Not for Everyone

The education system now is trying to adapt, partially because of pressure.

Kids are being forced to learn and even to those that the system did work for, it won’t serve them well in their careers.

[15:00] Cameron’s Leap into the Entrepreneurial World

Cameron had his first company when he was 20 years old with 12 full-time employees. He was running a house painting business in Canada where he hired university kids to paint houses.

That summer, he made $20,000 in profit in just 4 months and doubled this the next summer. He got his own house and paid for his university.

Over the course of four years, he had hired 120 university kids to become franchisees whom he coached and trained. One of them was Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk’s brother.

[17:05] The Waves of Entrepreneurship: You Don’t Have to Be Stuck in the System

In 1998-2000, it was the first in history where being an entrepreneur was “cool.” Parents gave it a thumbs up and mass media celebrated it. Before that, entrepreneurs were seen as greedy.

Today, kids learn deep skills from playing video games. They collaborate, do problem-solving, figuring stuff out, recruiting friends. They’re buying, selling, and trading.

Kids are learning deep skills from video games that, in some cases, are even more than what they’re getting in school.

[20:50] The Birth of His Book Free PR

This book was written with the goal to show people and codify how easy it was to get covered in the press.

So many companies are being lied to and told that they had to hire a PR firm or spend money on marketing and advertising.

[24:00] The Media Climate Today

Every morning, every journalist wakes up and thinks about what they’re going to write about today. All of the news desks are being bombarded with press releases and emails. So most of them spend all day saying no.

All of the media outlets only make money from advertising, not from circulation. The only way they can sell advertising is if they have a lot of viewers, listeners, or readers. Giving them a good story helps them stay tight with their readers.

These days, no one picks up the phone anymore. This is, therefore, your easy avenue to reach out to them.

[27:44] How You Can Get Covered by the Media and Keep the Buzz Going

Make it about the reader, not about you.

How you’re going to amplify your stories is very powerful. It’s not just about being covered. It’s about sharing that and amplifying that.

[32:00] Empowering Kids to Call and Ask People Who Have Done It

Kyle MacDonald took a red paper clip and traded it for something and then traded that something for something else. After about 17 trades, he ended up trading for a house. Along the trades, he traded a snowglobe of Kiss for a lunch with Alice Cooper.

Start teaching kids to go out there and learn from the people who have done it, not just sit in the classroom.

Encourage your kids to cold call. Help them get over their fear thinking they can’t do something on their own. These are huge life skills you could be taking away from your kids because you’re so afraid somebody’s going to grab them.