Get Noticed Through Effective Communication with Jim James

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, book, authority, alastair, journalists, curation, entrepreneur, curate, articles, pr, bit, reader, podcast, finalist, listening, talking, alistair, called, insights, listeners

SPEAKERS
Alastair McDermott, Voiceover, Jim James

Jim James  00:00

Over time, you might lead the conversation as an authority. But what we’re not trying to do is to dominate the conversation. Because that’s, you know, unacceptable. So first of all, listen, then start to identify where your core values match the conversation that’s taking place within the audience.

Voiceover  00:19

Welcome to The Recognized Authority, a podcast that helps specialized consultants and domain experts on your journey to become known as an authority in your field. So you can increase your reach, have more impact, and work with great clients. Here’s your host, Alastair McDermott.

Alastair McDermott  00:35

Before I introduce today’s guest, I just want to let you know about authority labs. It’s a coaching group, and tight knit community for independent consultants and experts who are looking for coaching, accountability and peer support on your journey to authority. The next authority labs cohort will be starting in September. And so if you’re a consultant or expert, you’d like to build your authority, grow your income, have accountability and support around you, then this might be the right group for you. You can sign up for the interest list at the recognized authority.com/group. So today, my guest is Jim James. And Jim is the champion of the unnoticed. He is the CEO and founder of East West PR. And he’s on a mission to help entrepreneurs to overcome being overlooked and to get noticed. Jim, thank you so much for being with us here today.

Jim James  01:26

Alastair? Thank you. Thanks for the warm introduction. I appreciate that.

Alastair McDermott  01:29

Yeah, that’s actually the second go that we’re having at recording this. So thank you for your patience. So the first thing I want to talk to you about is is about books, and I know that you, you do something really interesting, which is you have two books now. Can you tell us first about the first book, but how you created it? And you have some recent news related to that book as well?

Jim James  01:50

Yes, yes. Thank you, Alistair. And look, it’s a pleasure to speak to you. So first, second, third. I’m happy to do as many times as I can with you on the mic, because I was learned from you as well. The unnoticed entrepreneur book is a curation of articles, from interviews that I’ve had on my podcast, the I noticed entrepreneur podcast, which is talking to entrepreneurs, and people that develop technology for marketing. So Martic entrepreneurs. And the whole gist of the book, as is the podcast is to help entrepreneurs to overcome being overlooked and to grow the brand. So that they go from being a person with a company to being a brand that other companies wanted more do business with, or buy into or to buy

Alastair McDermott  02:37

really interesting. I love the fact that you’re curating from your podcast. And that’s something that I intend to do a bit more of as well. So yeah, I know that recently. It was, it was shortlisted. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jim James  02:51

Yeah, amazingly, Alastair, you know, the book, as you rightly point out is curated by me. And I was very intentional about that, because most authors are writing a book and it’s their own thoughts and, and perfectly wonderful that they can put all those down. What I wanted to do was to make a book that’s effectively a masterclass, it’s 50, experts sharing what they know, which if they listened on the mic would be 20 minutes, but he’s now like, 1000 word article. So what I, what I’ve done is to segment and sort these articles so that the reader can can navigate more easily what they’re looking for. But the idea is that my job is to interview interesting and insightful people that can add value to the entrepreneur, and then to, you know, give the reader the opportunity to meet these experts, which, under normal circumstances, to get, you know, 50 phone calls with people from around the world, because I had them from India, I had them from Singapore, from Australia, from America, it just wouldn’t happen. So the concept really has been to curate the articles and the insights of 50 others. And my role is to structure it. And to make sure that the reader, the entrepreneur, the business owner, has some consistency of experience, and also has some takeaways. And you know, that’s a slightly different role than someone who is saying, This is what I think what I’m doing is saying, Hey, let me introduce you to what 50 Experts think. And here’s my, you know, my collation of those. So, combined, the reader can get not just by ideas, but the ideas of 50 people. So it’s kind of an efficient way as well, to make a book. And you know, you’re publishing and you have the, you know, the book and The Recognized Authority podcast so you understand the importance of being an author. The challenge for most of us with being an author is the time you need 80 to 100,000 words. You need to do that. They out and so on. And you also need a consistency of thought that will carry across more than just one blog or white paper. So it’s quite a big piece of work. And that often holds people back. The beauty of the curation approach is if you like it’s publishing light, I mean, Li t. So what I’ve been able to do is to publish the first book. And then this week I was in London, at the British Business Book Awards organized by the think fest events company, a fabulous event up in Marylebone. And the I noticed entrepreneur book was shortlisted and made into a finalist. So it’s really, really grateful to all those entrepreneurs and technologists that have shared their insight because, no, they’re the finalists, I’m just the curator. But for all of your listeners that maybe have got a community of people that they could talk to and gather up ideas. curation of an anthology is really a great way. And I think that the the sort of award to be a finalist demonstrates the, this approach can be as valid as authoring the whole book oneself. The other thing about the book is that I’ve self published it. And at the finalists event on Monday, most of the books were, were published by independent publishing houses, or some of them quite large, like Penguin, for example, I felt a little bit of a fraud. Aleister, I have to tell you, because I was surrounded by people who had some amazing looking titles. But I was sitting next to a judge. And she’s saying, Actually, it’s not about the size of the publishing house, the the, you know, the integrity of all the layout, and so on. It’s about whether the book delivers to the reader, whether the book delivers on the promise to the reader. And that was a useful insight to me, because, you know, we think about branding and circulation and placement on Amazon. And so we said nicely to be a finalist, you’ve obviously got a front cover that presents a story that people want to dive into, and that the contents of the book deliver on the cover. So my cover is very simple. And I designed it myself in Canva. Obviously, I’m not winning any awards for the design cover. But the point was that I got a book to be a finalist and for really less than $2,000. And that’s a fraction of the cost that most people would be charged if they went to a book coach or a big author. Now, book coaches and book publishers are fantastic. And they play an absolutely valuable role for authors. But my slightly sort of off off beat in a curation plus of publishing, put me at the same on the same table as people that had invested a lot more time and money than me. And I think that’s kind of a liberating, concept, really Allaster third, as long as you’re delivering to the reader, and in my case, you know, the insights of 50 experts and entrepreneurs from around the world, then you can still be a winner. So it’s not about scale. It’s about creativity, imagination and positioning, kind of a long winded answer. But I hope that that maybe illustrates the opportunity that’s out there for for sort of creating a book being a being an author, but doing it yourself at a low cost.

Alastair McDermott  08:17

Yeah, it’s absolutely fascinating. And congratulations, I mean, even getting shortlisted, I know you’re up against hundreds of other books. Yes. Thanks for getting shortlisted like that. It’s fantastic. It’s really interesting, like the curation concept is, it’s something that I think about, and I think that it’s a viable way to get started in particular, when you don’t have a deep expertise in a subject, but start curating around that subject. I think that it’s a great way for people to get started with that.

Jim James  08:46

There are a couple of lessons I’ve learned through doing the curation that maybe I can share as well, when you Oh, I’m really sorry, I interrupted you there. So that’s one of the problems have not been the same, isn’t it?

Alastair McDermott  08:57

Yeah. So I mean, I just think that creation is is is fantastic. And I, you know, I’d love you to share any kind of tips around that. I think I because I know that a lot of people listening to this will be experts in their own right, and will want to become authorities. And so there’ll be thinking about their own developing their own intellectual property and their own ideas and things like that. But I think that this can I think that this can go hand in hand with that, I think that you can curate and also be a creator. So yeah, please do like what what what insights did you gain from the curation process? What What can you tell us about that?

Jim James  09:35

Yeah, I think first of all, as you rightly say, if you if you are curating, you can still be in fact, you need to be the expert in the domain, or else you don’t really know what to curate. Okay, so that’s the first point. In the same way that if you’re the editor of a magazine, you need to know what those articles are, in order for the reader to have a consistent experience and you If you just have random articles in the magazine, the readers will go where he’s why many of these websites that are just RSS feeds actually don’t have much traffic because they really have no consistency to the editorial thought. Second point is, from a production point of view, one of the ways that I sort of managed the sort of the particular problem of editing other people’s work is I created a Fixed Duration to the podcasts. So I chose 20 minutes, your average book needs about 80,000 words, as you know, 60 to 100,000 words. And in 20 minutes, you can get 1000 to 1400 words, depending on how quickly people speak and how much editing you need to do. So what I did was I did the math, which is unusual for me, because I’m not a mathematician. But I said, Well, okay, if I need 80,000 words, I need, you know, 50,000, minimum plus my own words, to get it across the line. And so I need 5050 interviews of 20 minutes. So if you just do the maths on it, then it gives you a structure to pursue. Now, what that meant was that each article had a similar length and a similar waiting. I learned this the hard way, because when I first did interviews, I would interview people for an hour, hour and a half people just Garan talking. And then you went back and tried to find common sense in the narrative. And you’d cut this cut that by limiting people to duration, I chose 20 minutes, you can do eight minutes, there are people that do the one minute marketing, for example, it doesn’t really matter, I don’t think how long you choose. But honestly, the longer it is, the less focused the speaker becomes, I chose 20 minutes, because that’s a good duration for people to pay attention, both the listener and the speaker. So I think by doing this structurally, you make a lot less work for yourself. The other thing that I’ve done, Alastair is to focus on one central question, which is, you know, how do you get noticed? So, if you focus on one particular topic, and you have many guests, because you’ve got a consistency to the topic, you can have other guests, I’ve listened to other people interviewing with very open questions. What do you do? How do you do it? So on the who, what, where, when and how. But if you ask open questions, you get open answers. And if you want that, that’s great. But it makes it a nightmare to edit. Because what happens is that later on, people come back. So I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that. But if you ask people the same questions in a structured way, inevitably you get structured content back. And so it makes the job of editing much simpler. Now, what I was able to do, then Aleister was to structure the 20 minutes, and I use the script to take in the audio, and the video, which is recorded on Riverside. And then descript makes a transcript. And then my VA in the Philippines took the transcript and with a, a journalist in the Philippines, polished it into an article. And then we collated those into a platform called dabble writer online. And I was able then to review all these articles that my VA had uploaded, and then it sought and so on. And once I had my editorial input, we were able to then export that and send that to our publishers in India, who were then doing the layout. So between Somerset and my shed here in in Somerset in the southwest of England, Manila, and Bangalore, we’ve been able to make books that have gone global. So that’s the kind of the work process. And hopefully, that’s useful, Alistair because, you know, as you know, descript is sort of a $20 a month devil rider is $8 a month, you can get a VA for, you know, eight to $10 an hour, depending on the ones you want to go for articles cost 20 to $25 to be written. So you can start to see how the mathematics of this work. And then you can get it on to KDP, you know, on the the Amazon. And then my VA is doing the uploading onto Amazon and so on. So it’s only me, right? But I can curate the insights of 50 people from around the world at a very low cost using using technology and with some structure in the process and the content.

Alastair McDermott  14:40

Yeah, that’s really interesting. And so there’s a couple things you said there. So, for example, the limited duration means that you’re going to have more focus, and that’s really interesting to me, because I do a longer form. It’s not super long for him but the average length of this podcast asked is 45 minutes and 20 seconds, because I have a spreadsheet with a running count on that. And some, some of my episodes will be good bit shorter, but that’s the average. But it’s really interesting that that limited duration focuses the down. And then the open questions meaning open answers. And I can see where if you want to edit this into an article and you want to pull out the specific answers to specific questions that that having having those fixed questions would be really useful. And that’s something actually I’ve been talking about on this podcast a little bit before. In some actually, in some in some episodes I have yet to release. So you wouldn’t have heard any of those. But I’ve been talking to people about using podcasts for research, which I think is a really great, great way to use it. And effectively it’s the same thing. It’s a slightly shorter format. And it’s also using several kind of structured questions and then several open questions as well. But but that all really ties in together. So I really like how you’re doing that and the curation thing. What What I like about the curation as well is you also have a built a built in network for distribution, because you have all of these people who’ve contributed, who are interested in getting getting their, their words out. And showcasing Hey, I was in a book, particularly I was in a book that was that was shortlisted for, for an award. And you know, that’s like, so that that built in network, I think is it is a really nice feature of the curation as well. So yeah, there’s there’s a lot there’s a lot of different moving parts there that that make this happen and that are really smart.

Jim James  16:40

And so Alastair, I love your point there about the the network effect, and I’ve already got 50 people ready to resell the book, right to buy and to become ambassadors for the book. But curation of the content isn’t just for the book. Obviously, what we’re doing is we’ve got the podcast, which is curated, and the articles that come out, go into medium, and to LinkedIn, and so on. So, you know, curation is if you like taking lots of other people’s content, I guess in the old days, they’d call it making an anthology. It’s just that it could be formatted as a book, as a podcast as a video series, in training and so on. So, curation just as a as a style, I think as an approach, I think is wonderfully open, armed if you like, and as an authority, what you’re doing is you’re positioning yourself at the center of a network, rather than just saying, This is what I think you’re saying, Hey, this is what a community thinks. And I’m able to bring that community together and to lead conversations, sometimes with other people taking ownership of the conversation, sometimes me, but I become then if you like the custodian, and I think that’s a really good role for someone who wants to be an authority to play. Yeah,

Alastair McDermott  17:51

the whole I think it’s really smart, the way you’re approaching this with, with the whole network effect. And, you know, being, you know, using using that, I think that people are really important. And I think it’s very hard to develop yourself as an authority without connecting with other people. And, you know, I know that like, I like to help people move away from a dependence on referrals and word of mouth. But it’s not that I think that networking is not important. It’s just that I don’t like begging for referrals. And it’s kind of a little bit different. And it’s a whole different ballgame for me, in connecting with people, when I connect with them on LinkedIn, to say, Hey, I’d love to have you come on my podcast, it’s very different from connecting with a view to potentially selling to them. And so I think that that part of it is what’s the difference for me, in in the two different models, the two different strategies. But Jim, I want to talk to you a bit about PR, and maybe about how the listeners to this show can can use PR, but I just want to give them an example because like you’re a master of PR, you’re an old school, public relations guy. I want to talk because tanam gentleman square is very evocative as an image for people, in part because of the really vivid picture of that tank and that the guy standing in front of it, but um, you had your own experience with nearly getting arrested on Tiananmen Square. So can you tell us about that?

Jim James  19:20

Okay, wow, that’s an interesting segue. Okay. 1989 Tiananmen Square and actually I, I was in in Mexico City when I saw that come out of the newspapers. date myself a little bit as I was backpacking. I went to China Aleister I think this is what you’re referring to in 2006. To start the offices of East SPI I’d opened the offices in Singapore in 1995. That’s why Alastair is referring to me as kind of an old school because when I started PR, we, we literally used to have 35 millimeter negatives or Have spokespeople that you’d gotten send to a publication. I mean, it was, you know, not quite old bits of lead typesetting. But we were pretty close. So that’s why I’m old school. In China, I noticed that there was an opportunity for importing a classic car. So I purchased a Morgan sportscar, took it into China as a company car and had this idea to get public relations to get some media coverage. And that was to drive it into Tiananmen Square. So for those of you that know, Tiananmen Square, this huge big open space, and I had met a guy who was a photographer, one day when I was actually doing my shopping my groceries, and he loved my car. My Morgan had a four seater roadster in British racing green with tan leather and had those wonderful chrome spokes beautiful looking car. And this photographer, Mr. Chen, his name was said he would come along for the ride. But what we did was rather than going to Tiananmen Square in front of Mao, we went around the back and we drove into the Forbidden City, which is forbidden to do. Just say, because we didn’t ask for a permit. And no one knew we were coming. We just drove in. And this was what 2011 And no one had ever seen a Morgan sports car because the first one ever imported. And so we drove in. And before any police could come Mr. Chen and his photography friends, jumped out the car, and started snapping pictures as fast as he could. But of course, we got mobbed. As you can imagine, people thought it was like being dropped from outer space. And then of course, the police came and then we talked to him about the car while the people took more pictures. So we kept them going. So we got to like a good 20 minutes of photography time. And needless to say, of course, that photo shoot nearly got me into prison. But we said we would go and I was just a white guy. And I was just a foreigner. I didn’t and I was a bit lost. And I was very apologetic and everything. He drove off with the camera loads of great shots, which of course then appeared on an auto car, China, you know, and front cover and inside and so on. And with that I managed to launch the business. Yeah.

Alastair McDermott  22:21

Like, that’s, it’s a bit of a stunt. That’s what, that’s what I’m referring to when I when I say your old school P or I’m not referring to your age, really. But you know that like that is like that is amazing. And I actually looked it up to see and you got some you got some good press. But you found a as well at the time, like Yes, got into you got into something like the major Bracci seems like that.

Jim James  22:47

Yeah, I BBC picked it up. And I was covered in the Financial Times as well. And yes, and I was on CGTN in China. And then I had people at ITN come and talk to me about importing cars, gloves. Also, then, as a result, I was hired by Lotus to become the CEO for Lotus Cars in China for for six months as an interim. Wow. So yeah, so it sort of spawned. I wouldn’t say an industry, but certainly a business, which is great. Yeah. And it got me go, I didn’t harm anybody. I mean, I would never recommend doing a stunt. But I think, you know, in terms of this show and your listeners, Alastair about being The Recognized Authority, I think that one of the qualities of an authority is they, they stand out. And conformity rarely helps anybody to stand out. And so you have to be willing, in my view, to take a little bit of a risk doesn’t mean to do anything. That’s not politically correct. It doesn’t mean to do anything that’s illegal, but to do something that shows that you’re passionate about the subject, something that the illustrates that you know, about the subject, you know, so I think, you know, driving classic car into, you know, one of the oldest palaces in the world, the juxtaposition of, you know, this British car with this amazing Qin dynasty temple and big backdrop, you know, that just showed that I knew how to create great PR, right? So no matter what industry people are in, if they can think of something, a big idea where there’s maybe this juxtaposition of, you know, what you do with something that’s in Congress, that creates a moment that creates an interest and then you can leverage and build on that Alistair, and don’t get obviously I don’t encourage anyone to try and take on the Chinese police. That’s not a great idea. No, you know, so you don’t anything illegal or too rash. I mean, taking calculated risk, but yeah,

Alastair McDermott  24:56

but I think what you said there is important being willing to stand out. And I was talking to Chris Do recently. And he was arguing about something similar. You know, and we were talking about, you know, sharing the secret sauce and, and being willing to share. And he said, Look, if we don’t share if we don’t, right, how else will people discover us? And you know, you have to be willing to do something to stand out. And yeah, and part of that is the content that we produce. But I think there is an element of a little bit of a maybe educated risk or something like that. And it’s not, it’s just about putting yourself out a bit. And I think, and that’s one of those kind of trigger phrases for me put yourself out there, cuz I think it’s very loaded. But it

Jim James  25:45

used to be something,

Alastair McDermott  25:46

we’re willing to do something. Yeah,

Jim James  25:48

that’s right. I mean, used to be if a girl puts herself out there, that was constantly derogatory phrase, wasn’t it, you know, you’re not supposed to do that kind of thing. But, but this idea of, if you want to be an authority to take some initiative, if you like, I think that’s part of what it’s about isn’t it is taking initiative, not just taking a risk, but showing some leadership in some way. But if you look at someone like Banksy, for example, in it, they’re anonymous. But they’re obviously an authority. So for those listeners that for whatever reason, aren’t happy with being, you know, known for who they are, you can have, like authors have pen names, for example, you know, Banksy doesn’t turn up to anything, you know, it’s possible to be an authority and to be anonymous. You know, it’s not that you have to have publicity for yourself, necessarily, if you’re not comfortable with that. But you may want the benefits of that go with being an authority in terms of work, respect, recognition, and so on.

Alastair McDermott  26:46

Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about practical elements to PR for people like who are listening to the show? So do you have any recommendations or an approach to getting getting more noticed? So a lot of the people who are doing this, they’re already, you know, writing blog posts and, and LinkedIn posts and things like that. But do you have any? Do you have any tips or recommendations for them?

Jim James  27:10

Sure, absolutely. I think that the first sort of idea, really, is to make sure that you are in line with what your audience is currently thinking. The, the main point that many people make is that they start talking about themselves before listening to what other people are interested in. And it’s the the social equivalent of going to a party and not even asking someone else’s name, but just kind of saying, Hi, my name is Jim, let me tell you about the time I drove into datamined square with my car with my classic car, you need to listen first of all to see if people are even interested in China or even interested in a car, right? So first of all, really great conversations start with listening. And there’s a chap called Oscar Trimboli. In fact, in Australia, who has a whole deep listening exercise around that, but to start with listening. So when I work with clients, I asked them, first of all, to look at what their current clients or audience is reading, writing, watching. And, and if you like checking the zeitgeist of that. And then the second part is to look at what you have to say, as an individual or as an organization, and to see how you can add value to the conversation. And as we say, you know, advertising sells, but PR tells, and what we’re trying to do really public relations is position ourselves, as someone who’s a contributor to the conversation, over time, you might lead the conversation as an authority. But what we’re not trying to do is to dominate the conversation. Because that’s, you know, unacceptable. So first of all, listen, then start to identify where your core values match the conversation that’s taking place within that audience. And then the third part is to start with your content creation. And this is where, for example, Aleister, the picture superiority effect comes into play, people create a lot of content, which only really they are interested in. And they create content that is easy for them to create, maybe it’s text, or they just outsource writing. But picture superiority effect, as you know, says that, you know, a picture’s worth 1000 words. And a movie is 24 to 28 frames per second. So you just imagine, right? I heard someone that the other day says with like, 100,000 words or even more. So there are many tools that I cover on the unnoticed entrepreneur, for example, that will help the entrepreneur to create compelling content that the audience might want to engage with. Research shows as well that content in order to go viral, has to be easy to understand, and has to be new. Okay? So there’s lots of research on things like the cascade theory, which I talked about in another in another world, but this idea of If you have content that you share is great, but what we really want is content that other people share on our behalf to go viral. And it only does that if it’s new, because then someone says, Hey, you know, I didn’t know this before. But it needs to be easy to understand. And the reason for that is even when people to share, they won’t take a risk with sharing it unless they understand it themselves. Okay. So the things that go viral are, by and large, within the zeitgeist already. And they’re things that are slightly new, not entirely new, but a little bit of a new take on something, but are something that the audience can understand in order to share, which is why puppy and kitten photos are so, so popular. So I did some research on the cascade theory, there’s a guy called watts, who has pioneered this, I spoke to a professor in America about it. And they talk about content needing to help people to go from zero to one. So most people receive content, and it doesn’t change their attitude to the subject matter. You want them to go to a number one, and when they go to a number one, they’ll take action with that subject matter. So in order to get people to take action with your subject matter, in other words, to share it, it needs to say something that moves the conversation on and it needs to be in a format that they go, hey, you know what, I understand this. And it’s kind of cool. So at a very basic level, what we need to be doing is listening first, finding where we are kind of in alignment or where our core values are then creating content that will help to move the conversation on in a way that other people find easy to understand and make themselves look good for doing so. So that applies to social media, it applies to journalists, because the journalist wants something new. And the journalists on something that makes their magazine newspaper blog video looked better than it did before you came along. So you have to think in a way, am I really adding value? Or am I just talking about myself? And so PR often people go, Well, I buy an ad, but the ad doesn’t have any interaction, it may or may not work. But PR the journalist won’t won’t pick up the story, if it’s not new, and if it’s not, in some way engaging. So that’s kind of a little bit of a blueprint. Yeah, I

Alastair McDermott  32:16

love how deep you’re going on that.

Jim James  32:18

Is that okay? Yeah, I hope I’m not hope I’m not overcomplicating it, because it’s easy to say just ring the journalists and tell them what you’re doing. But they get so many of those. And there are like 60,000 journalists in the UK, for example, there’s no shortage of journalists. But the journalists also have no shortage of demand. So, you know, I always encourage people to follow from a practical point of view, Alistair, if you’re going to talk to a journalist, follow them on Twitter, find them on LinkedIn, look at what they write about currently. And you can use platforms like notifier.io, for example, you can also use Google Alerts, but make a shortlist of the journalists that are talking about what’s within your jurisdiction within your remit and start to follow them for a while, not not in a kind of spooky going away. But you know, what are they writing about? What are they interested in? Because the best pitch is where you write to a journalist saying, I read your article about x in this publication why my expertise is this, and I’d like to share this with your readers. And I think that this is why that’s important. And I can provide you with a video and infographic, an animated logo, whatever it is, okay, so that’s where, really from a practical point of view, you can use tools like there’s one called Media matchmaker, for example, now in the UK, Rachel tap has just been on my show. And she has a matching service. There are other platforms like proudly, for example, which has got a database of literally millions of journalists world wide. getting ahold of journalists, contact details is not the difficult part anymore. It’s knowing what they want to write about and how you can take your narrative to help their narrative for their readers to grow in the conversation.

Alastair McDermott  34:17

Yeah, I think that’s, that’s a really great approach. It’s a really great way to look at it. I know that myself, I’ve used Help a Reporter Out HARO, Oh, yes. In the power. Yes. And one thing that’s difficult about those tools is just the amount of people who are using them. You have to be very quick to reply to any kind of requests. Otherwise, it’s pointless. Read it in three minutes or don’t bother.

Jim James  34:43

And that’s Yeah, yeah. And as you rightly say, they promised they Help a Reporter Out is that they’re all on a deadline almost straightaway. And so it does work. I know some people that get something a lot of them are very American focused. I’m not sure You know, for your listeners, if they’re in America is great. There is one now in the UK. You can also do a hashtag journal requests on Twitter, for example, which is another one. And there’s one in Australia as well. There’s a company called tell them, tell them media for those listeners in Asia. Tell him media has the best platform for media inquiries and media contacts in Southeast Asia. They’re fantastic. So different places have that. But it doesn’t replace a relationship Allister. That’s, that’s really the point, right? These are great tactical, I might get in and might not get out. And you know, you to build a relationship and to become an authority, you want the journalist to be calling you. Right? So over time, the reason you want to be an authority is because you’re not chasing people. They’re coming to you. And, and really, that’s when you know, you’ve made it if you like Alistair and PR, because then the journalist is saying you’re an authority, what should I be thinking about in this domain? And then you’re really setting the conversation?

Alastair McDermott  36:09

Yeah, absolutely. That’s what you want is you want people looking for you. Because then search engine optimization doesn’t matter if they’re searching for you by name, if people are looking for you by name, if you already have those relationships, then yeah, none of the the other elements of you know, what’s your ranking, like? Or all of that, that doesn’t come into play? When people are asking? That’s right. 100% agree. Okay, I got to have to start to wrap this up because of time. I know that, you know, there’s a few questions for the last few some of these already. last recording, which didn’t work out. So let me go through those again with you. First thing is about authority. What’s the number one tip that you’d give to somebody who wants to build their authority,

Jim James  36:49

I think the number one tip is to be passionate about what you want to be the authority in. Because to be the authority, you have to show up consistently over time, and you have to often be repetitive. And if you don’t have a passion for what you’re talking about, you’re not going to have the endurance to get to the other side of this journey. So the number one tip is not a practical one. It’s kind of almost a motivational one, Alistair, that you’ve got to be passionate as you are about helping people to become an authority or as I am about helping entrepreneurs to unlock the value in their business through communication. So the number one tip I would say is, choose something that you’re passionate about. Don’t just be passionate about what you’re doing, but choose what you are passionate about. And then you will become an authority over time.

Alastair McDermott  37:39

Yeah, absolutely. That’s that’s a really great point. I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. Let me ask you, is there a mistake or business failure that you’ve experienced that you can tell us what you learned from?

Jim James  37:51

Oh, yeah, I think we have a whole show dedicated to my failures, don’t we stay there? Too long. Yes, I built what I called the agency in the cloud, which was all the features and functionality for a PR agency. And this was back in 2003 2004. And I tried to launch it actually in Singapore and China. And today it is Zoho. It is salesforce.com. It is scission. But I built it a long, long time ago, to be honest, before, most of them were even started. My mistakes, though, were that my timing was bad. Secondly, that I underestimated how much money people would spend for a subscription for a service. I was in the wrong location. Because in Asia, people needed multiple languages. So I couldn’t get any scale. You know, I need a boss or Indonesia tie in design. Whereas in America, you could do one language for 250 million people. So the unnoticed entrepreneur, which is me, you know, I’ve been building this, but I’ve I’ve had failures like agency in the cloud, and a few others. But that would be one where actually the product. I think it was the right solution, because they’re available now. But I got all the other elements wrong. Really Alistair? So that’ll be that’ll be just one of them. I wouldn’t want to bore your, your listeners with too many of my stories.

Alastair McDermott  39:24

It’s It’s fascinating to hear that and I know a few people who have been just a little bit too early with with some things and, and timing is important. And and part of it is look, I think, but it does come into it as well.

Jim James  39:38

So salutely Timing does. Yeah.

Alastair McDermott  39:41

So is there a business book or resource that’s been important for you or that you’d recommend?

Jim James  39:46

Yes, I think the Richard Gerber the E Myth is very good. Have you heard of that one? You must have.

Alastair McDermott  39:53

Yeah, it’s Michael Gerber. I

Jim James  39:55

think Michael entrepreneurship. Yeah.

Alastair McDermott  39:57

Yeah, the the E Myth. I think the version that’s out there is the E Myth revisited. I think that’s that’s what it is, which is he’s

Jim James  40:05

updated it. Yeah, I think he’s updated it. But I think that that would be one. Can I have a second one? Of course, because you’ve already heard of my first one, scaling up by Vern Harnish. Have you heard of that?

Alastair McDermott  40:20

Yeah. Yeah. Also mentioned on the show, both of those have been mentioned. I think the E Myth is the single most mentioned book on the show, which is really interesting. And for me, it’s one of my favorites as well, which is quite interesting, because I don’t actually like the way that he wrote the book. But I think the messaging that’s in the book is really important. So

Jim James  40:38

I think the concept, which is very simple, and that’s not meant as an insult, but it was a great insight that you know, you can be a self employed practitioner, and that you’d be a manager, or you are an entrepreneur. And I think that’s a very useful way to think of oneself. I think the definition of being an entrepreneur, though, has changed now. It could be a solopreneur, and so on. But But anyway, so you asked for the book, that would certainly be one because it came early on in my career as well.

Alastair McDermott  41:08

Yeah. And scaling up is is really interesting as well. And I read that I read it last year after, after getting it recommended by a few people here as well. So yeah, very good. Okay, so what about fiction? Are you a fiction reader?

Jim James  41:26

You know, isn’t it terrible? Alistair? I’m not really,

Alastair McDermott  41:29

you know, is, is it? Do you not enjoy reading? Or is it that you don’t have time or

Jim James  41:34

I love it. I love reading fiction, in truth, I love it. But by the time I’ve got my deliverables done and looked after my children and the dog, I get to bed. That’s the one time I get to read. And I manage about two pages, and I’m asleep. So you know, I love to read and I honestly, one day when all is said and done, I really look forward to getting, you know, not into the pool, because I’m not the right color for that I’ll go somewhere with some woods in a forest cabin or something and dive into some lovely books. Yeah, but so I wouldn’t be a great person to recommend anything, I’m afraid.

Alastair McDermott  42:17

Okay. Okay. And what about what about TV? Do you watch any TV or movies or anything?

Jim James  42:21

I know, I’m gonna sound terribly dull on time.

Alastair McDermott  42:25

Yeah, sound terribly focused as what you sound like. Yeah, no,

Jim James  42:28

I haven’t. You know? No, I you know, it’s it’s terrible, isn’t it? i There are so few hours in the day. That, you know, I don’t have enough hours to do what I what I mean to accomplish. I love love watch a movie with my wife on a Friday night and the girls and a pizza. But no, I’m terrible. I’m Thai. I’m sorry. I don’t I don’t want to come across as being terribly dull.

Alastair McDermott  42:58

Well, I don’t think that anybody would think that after, after listening to you talking about PR, so. And I really liked the way her DP went on that. So So obviously, you are definitely keeping your energy for that part of the equation. But yeah, it is Friday. So So I hope you have a good movie lined up for tonight. Yeah, do so. So let me let me just ask you, if anybody wants to learn more, where can they go find out? Where can they find the books? Where can they find your podcast?

Jim James  43:27

Where they can find out what adult person I am. I just want to say it’s not that I’m working all the time. Honestly, like at six o’clock or five o’clock I turn off the crew i i like to to exercise and kind of non sort of Brain Stuff. So yes. So just to clarify that that. Why don’t want to call Jim Jay. He sounds thoroughly dull, but our loves when he told my children. So I do a lot of that as well.

Alastair McDermott  43:51

I think you have your priorities. I like that. Yeah. Well,

Jim James  43:54

as long as as long as they want to be with me. I want to be with them. So yeah, they can find the unnoticed entrepreneur at the unnoticed.cc. And that will take them to everything to me to the book, the merchandise, the podcast, and any consulting So also, I’m available obviously on LinkedIn. But if you go to the i noticed.cc. Alistair, that’d be a great place to start.

Alastair McDermott  44:21

Cool. And we will link to the unnoticed SEC in the show notes as well. Well, Jim, James, thank you so much for being with us today.

Jim James  44:29

Alastair, thank you so much for letting me come back. Not once but the second time, I appreciate because it meant I get a chance to think about my answers. Next time I come back. I’ll think about some books and some movies. So I don’t affect quite quite so. Well. No, thank you. And thanks for all of your work as well. On The Recognized Authority is fabulous.

Alastair McDermott  44:48

Awesome. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks for listening. If you gained any insights or tips from this episode, please leave a review. It would really help post out. And it’s very easy to do. Just click on the review link in the show notes on your device and it will bring you straight to a page with options for the device that you’re listening on. Thanks, it really helps. It’s much appreciated.

Voiceover  45:15

Thanks for listening to The Recognized Authority with Alistair Mackenzie. Subscribe today and don’t miss an episode. Find out more at the recognized authority.com