Feb 14, 2018
Brand Journalist & Marketing Consultant, Phoebe Chongchua, shares
three tips to increase insurance sales by becoming an online
authority in your industry. Learn how new media marketing builds
trust with consumers and helps close deals. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. 
Guest:
Phoebe Chongchua Phoebe Chongchua is a multimedia Brand Journalist,
Consultant & Marketing Strategist who makes brands Remarkable.
Using her skills as TV News Journalist, she connects brands and
consumers through powerful storytelling. Companies gain a
competitive advantage when they learn to "Be the Media." Phoebe is
a "Top 50 Podcaster to Follow.” Listen to "The Brand Journalism
Advantage" podcast in iTunes or at ThinkLikeAJournalist.com Note:
“Where The Insurance Pros Meet” is an audio podcast and is meant
for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing
a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the
episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech
recognition software and human transcribers to create the
transcripts so they may contain errors. If you’re going to quote us
in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio.
TRANSCRIPT
Mark Miletello:
Welcome back to the show. I'm excited; we have a special show lined
up today. We have one of the world's greatest minds in marketing
and media and journalism. Our guest is a brand journalist and
consultant who teaches businesses how to think like a journalist
and be the media. I'm going to dive into that because I want to
know what does that mean to us, how to think like a journalist, and
how do we be the media. It's awesome. She launched the brand
Journalism Advantage Podcast in the fall of 2014, and within nine
months she was named a top 50 podcaster by Cision for shows on
public relations, marketing, and social media. She also made the
list of 35 outstanding podcast picks by entrepreneurs on Inc.com.
She's an award-winning former TV news journalist from right here in
San Diego who loves the pursuit of a good story. Welcome our
special guest Phoebe Chongchua to the show.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Hey Mark, how are you?
Mark Miletello:
I have to step up my game. I'm doing great, but I don't even know,
how many shows do you have live out there that you produced?
Phoebe Chongchua:
For the brand Journalism Advantage we have about 400+ episodes to
date. You know that is no easy feat, right?
Mark Miletello:
It's not an easy feat. For the listeners, Phoebe is the inspiration
behind and really my mentor in launching one of the first and
greatest, I believe, platforms for our industry. What's so unique
about you, Phoebe is that you've been around our industry now for
at least nine to ten years. With your background, and now you know
a lot of our background, it's just going to be an unbelievable show
too, so thank you for joining us. It's an honor and a privilege.
Phoebe Chongchua:
You know what, Mark? I think that what you are doing truly is an
inspiration and should be listened to by many agents because this
is what it's all about, getting your voice out there, being heard
and giving valuable information to the agents so that they can
thrive in the industry. There aren't a lot of people out there
doing this.
Mark Miletello:
We're jumping right into this, and I love it, but you know our
industry. I feel like our industry is way behind on a lot of the
social, maybe it's a lot of industries Phoebe. You work with very,
very large corporations, some of the world's largest corporations.
You've worked with Mom & Pop shops, you've worked with anyone in
between. Is it me or is our industry way behind online marketing,
social media, things like that, or is it really everyone struggles
in that area?
Phoebe Chongchua:
I think a lot of brands and large corporations are definitely
excelling in this space, but then there are a lot of brands that
just don't get it, and they're really creating these streams of
broadcasts where they get on a platform, and they think, "I've just
got to hit it with marketing," and that's where they're going
wrong. They're really not telling a story; they're not sharing
their real reason for why they are doing what they're doing in the
industry and how it's going to help people. That's what's most
important, and that's kind of where this whole think like a
journalist mentality comes in. When you think like a journalist,
your number one rule is to find the story and make it a value to
the end user. Who's the end user? When it's media, it's your
viewing audience, or radio, it's your listener-ship. In the cases
of brands, if they can think like a journalist and craft stories
that are valuable to their end users, their core audience, their
future customers, their current customers, they're really engaging
them and bringing that story to them to help them through the buyer
journey and that cycle of making decisions to choose their company,
their product, their service.
Mark Miletello:
We're going to dive into this because I'm going to extract
everything I can in this short amount of time we have together
because you have so much to offer any industry, especially where
the insurance pros meet the insurance industry. I definitely want
to just pause and say thank you for inspiring me to launch this,
coaching me. I don't want to use the phrase that I'd like to use,
but you've polished me, and there's a lot of work to go, but I'm
getting better. I've got to tell you, I've interviewed some of the
greatest in our industry, and you're one of the greatest in your
industry, but also knowing that you're one of the television's and
online and podcast, you're one of the great interviewers out there,
I'm a little bit intimidated.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Oh no. You know what I like about the podcasting platform? You take
up space on someone's prized possession, their smartphone, their
iPhone. You own space on that, and you're plugged into their ears,
and they're listening while they're walking or running. You can be
as real as ever. You don't have to be that broadcast journalist to
get into this. What you have to do is have a message, care about
it, Mark, as you do, and then drill down. Get the information out
of each guest, make it valuable to your listener-ship and they'll
keep coming back.
Mark Miletello:
Well, thanks for the confidence. I needed that right off the bat.
Phoebe, let's jump into this. Let's talk about what you do and how
you have become one of the greatest in your industry and how you
can help our industry. This is where the insurance professionals
meet; you are a professional in the media space, give us a
professional tip right off the bat, something, a piece of
technology, something, a tip that can transform our business.
Phoebe Chongchua:
This is probably one your industry, at least the agents, haven't
heard of, and they might do a, "Huh," scratch their head and might
have to hit the 30 second back button when I say it, but trust me.
If you do any blogging, if you do any writing for the web, I'm
going to give you a tool that is incredibly valuable. I actually
got this from a guest on one of my podcast shows because I ask a
similar question about a resource or tool that they can use, but
I'll tell you what, it's really worth its weight in gold. This is
called a headline analyzer. I'm sure in your show notes, Mark,
you'll put a link to it, but it's basically from the Advanced
Marketing Institute. What's a headline analyzer? This is a little
bit crazy, when I got into TV, we wrote headlines, that bait that
draws you in to watch those, what we call, teases so that you'll
watch the 5 o'clock news or the 6:30 newscast. A headline analyzer
takes your headline that you think it's so awesome and then tells
you whether it really is awesome or not. It tells you if it's
awesome not just for people, meaning the actual humans, on the web
we write for the robots too. We write for the algorithms and all
the bots that are searching the web, so you have to make your
headline work for two things. When I first started writing on the
web a long, long time ago, I thought it was really cool to be
clever, that clever journalist like I was on TV. I realized clever
doesn't pay, you have to be straightforward, you've got to be
hard-hitting, and you've got to make your point, and that's what's
going to make a good headline. Why am I telling you this? As an
insurance agent, you may or may not have a blog, you may or may not
write on LinkedIn. If you are not, you're making a huge, huge
mistake and I'm sure we're going to get into that as we go through
this episode. The headline analyzer will tell you things like is
this hitting emotionally at the level you want? Is it hitting
intellectually? Guess what, in the insurance industry, there's a
lot of space for writing about things that are both going to hit
intellectually and emotionally. I'm sure when you guys go on sales
calls you guys are hitting on both levels, the intellectual and
emotional. What's going to happen if you don't have life insurance,
for instance, and your husband passes away? How will your wife be
taken care of? That's emotional. If you're writing about stuff like
that, but your headline doesn't match the content of your writing
and doesn't work for the search engines and doesn't work at an
impactful level for humans, then your writing isn't going to go
anywhere and isn't going to be seen. That's why I recommend this.
It's very easy to use, you just type in the headline, and it'll
tell you whether you're writing it at the level of a complete
novice or whether you're writing at the level of an expert
copywriter.
Mark Miletello:
Thank you and we will definitely share the link. I'm going to get
your commitment right now that maybe five or ten or twenty shows
down the road I want you back because you've given me since I've
known you, Phoebe, you've given me like ten sites of just things I
would have never known or found. Recently you said, "Mark, you need
to use Grammarly. Your writing needs help." Yup, you're right, I
drag a document over, it proofs it, sends it back to me and then it
needs more proofing, but the point is you have your finger on the
pulse and anyone out there, whether you're an insurance agency, a
management team or a Fortune 500 company, you need to look into
this lady because she is something special, so thank you, your
professional strategy. Phoebe, let's talk a little bit about you.
Let's give the listener a little bit of background about maybe your
rise to success. Can you share that with us?
Phoebe Chongchua:
My background is a television journalist, and I wanted to be a
television newscaster since the age of 12. I really had this
mantra, I don't even know where it came from, but I think in your
industry it's sales meetings. You guys are heavily into creating
what you want in your life and making that a reality. I lived by
the mantra imagine it, and you can achieve it, similar to Walt
Disney. This was something that really drove me. When I wanted to
become that newscaster since the age of 12, I just bee-lined, like
laser-focused, and doubled down on it. You're going to hear me say
that about a couple of things as we go through the tips section,
but that's what got me into broadcasting. My first job was
literally delivering radios for KPBS. I look back, and I think,
"This is crazy," but they were radios for the radio reading service
for the visually impaired. I believe that still exists today. I
would go into homes, and this taught me a lot about the psychology
of humans because I would go into homes where there were people who
were completely blind or mostly blind, and I would deliver a radio
to them so that they could listen to this station that read the
newspaper over the air. Quite an interesting thing, not anywhere
along the lines of what I wanted to be doing, but I took it to get
my foot in the door. From there, I worked hard, long hours and
innovated and iterated into whatever I needed to be to make it to
that next step. Over the course of about four years I ended up
landing a job in TV news after doing many internships for all the
television stations and three networks at that time, so you can see
times have changed. There are a lot more networks in one local
market today. I ended up becoming a TV news reporter for the ABC
affiliate here in San Diego called 10 News. Within just a short
period, maybe two year's time, I was promoted to an anchor. Really
made all the mistakes you could imagine because I was green as
ever, Mark, so believe me, sitting in your place, I know exactly
what it's like except I was on TV very young, very green. I really
do thank the San Diego audience for hanging in there and believing
in me because I made lots of mistakes. From there, I really began
to see my entrepreneurial skills develop, which I didn't even know
that I had in me, but I started to innovate. I created fitness
programs that became very popular on TV, and I created one of the
things that I'm most proud of in my career, which is a resource
festival that became know, at that time in California, as one of
the largest resource festivals of its kind. We attracted 20
thousand people to it in just four year's time. I remember one of
the funny stories is it was held out at Qualcomm Stadium, it was
meant to differentiate the brand, so differentiate 10 News from
watching any other network news, why we cared about the people,
because again we were trying to answer and solve questions for our
viewership so that we would stand out. You could watch a drive-by
shooting on any network, right, so what makes the network
different? If you care about the community, which is the same
message that I teach today. The real highlight was it was held out
at Qualcomm stadium, took up this very large area of the parking
lot. I had the, then San Diego Chargers involved, the Padres, I had
major businesses, about 500 businesses and non-profits coming
together for this one day where we gave the community all the
answers we could pack into a day to help them, and fun
entertainment. There's a thing called a sig alert. A sig alert is
when they dispatch over the air by the law enforcement that there
are big problems, traffic problems in a certain area and it could
mean that there's big breaking news going down. What happened was
Channel 8 heard this sig alert. This is the competition, and we
were in fierce competition at the time with Channel 8.
Mark Miletello:
You know there's a movie about this, right?
Phoebe Chongchua:
Right, so Channel 8-
Mark Miletello:
San Diego newscasters, right?
Phoebe Chongchua:
Yes, exactly.
Mark Miletello:
I won't go there.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Yeah, Anchorman. Anyway, Channel 8 shows up to cover the story
thinking that it was breaking news and I'm telling you, I go, "You
know you've arrived when the competition is coming to your event
that you're trying to brand yourself about in the community."
You've got 20 thousand plus people, you've got it all backed up, it
looked like it was a football game or something. They came to cover
it and then they're like, "Oh, it's only Channel 10's event."
Mark Miletello:
I love it.
Phoebe Chongchua:
What was so cool about that, Mark, and where this ties into
branding for companies, is that we were creating something that our
viewership needed. Our viewership is what drives the business of
media. A lot of people forget that media is a business, and it is
just like any other business. It has to bring in its profit, so we
have to answer to them. We did this by connecting with them and
engaging with them. This was long before the days of Twitter and
YouTube and Facebook and LinkedIn and all the platforms that you
can now, or podcasting, that you can now go live on and create your
own stories and tell your messages. When we did this, it was so
different and so unique that it drove a lot of attention. I still
remember the customers, the viewers, coming in and saying to me
things like, "This has changed my life. I didn't know that this
business existed." We did a job fair and got 340 people hired in a
single day. It was a pretty cool event.
Mark Miletello:
You said so much in there. I find when I work and talk with you
Phoebe, I take notes, so that's awesome. I'm always learning from
you. First of all, you said a quote that when you said it, it just
reminded me, this is the number one quote I heard from my father
growing up. It was a William Arthur Ward quote that says, "If you
can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can
become it." Thanks for sharing that because I hadn't even thought
of that and that's kind of a staple quote in the insurance
industry. That's where that came from, and actually, my father
repeated that often throughout my life. One thing that you did, and
I don't know if you have or have not, but I just recently read Blue
Ocean Strategy. What you were doing and the idea is that we all
compete in this red, bloody ocean of fierce competition. What you
did was clearly before it was even coined that, you performed what
was a "Blue Ocean Strategy." You've become the competition, so now
I get to be the media, I see where that comes from. That's just a
Blue Ocean Strategy that you, just like Amazon, just like Uber,
just like, you broke out of an industry to create a whole new
platform where you brought in connections. The last thing I'd want
to say is, wow, what a great concept where you were able to build a
community event, I bet you got some pretty good business
relationships throughout that.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Oh, absolutely. One of the things I recommend when businesses come
to me, and they say, "We're struggling with this concept of being
the media. How do we be that voice? How do we tell our own
stories?" I look at them, and I think for years, maybe even
decades, a business has been using, what's called a press release.
We heard several years ago; I can't remember how many now, but
Coca-Cola said, "We're killing the press release." You've seen
large companies like GE now, instead of using press releases, they
tell stories. GE is a brand and a big, big brand. A lot of times a
brand like that would not need to engage with its consumers. You're
going to go out, you're going to buy washing machines and other
things that they make, but the fact is when they tell stories about
how certain things are made, or they tell stories that are along
the lines of what the consumer wants to know about, they're
engaging with that consumer in a way like the media does. That's
the point, when you build these partnerships and you be the media,
you have an opportunity to carry that story to your consumers and
bypass traditional media, bypass that press release, that by the
way, most of the time, quite frankly, when I was a news reporter,
newscaster, it ended up in that circular file. You know, the one on
the floor, right next to your desk?
Mark Miletello:
Yup.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Sadly, because it wasn't stories. Businesses were pitching
advertisements and saying, "Hey, television station, do you want to
cover our press release that's an advertisement?" No, that's not a
story. You have to really dig deep and differentiate between what
is a brand journalism story, which literally means just taking the
journalistic skills and writing a story on behalf of a brand using
those journalistic skills. Remember, we started off the show by
saying journalists look for stories that matter to their end users.
Brands need to do the same, what matters to the end user. As an
insurance agent, what matters to that audience? What do you want to
tell them? I know I've sat down with financial advisors, I've sat
down with insurance agents, I've sat down with lawyers, they're all
trying to help make the lives of the people they serve better. The
problem is, sometimes they market to them instead of really
answering the questions that that consumer might have. If they did
answer the questions in an intellectual and emotional way, then
they'd be able to close the sale a whole lot easier.
Mark Miletello:
That's kind of the show with Richard Weylman, that's exactly the
point that he put. Let's talk now about the insurance agent, the
insurance industry. Let's use all of your experience and knowledge
in media and let's pinpoint some professional advice that you would
give us so that we can ... I know sometimes I take your notes
because you're so far ahead of where I'm at in social media and
where I'm at in branding myself or my team. I have to take notes
and go back and think and study on that and ask you more follow-up
questions. What I want to do is kind of slow it down and really
pinpoint a couple of areas, Phoebe, that you would advise with your
knowledge of our industry you've had over the past decade and the
knowledge that you have blending those to teach us how we can
utilize your advice and skills to help us. Can you give us some
advice?
Phoebe Chongchua:
Sure, so there are three things. I want to keep it really simple
because what tends to happen is I have all these great thoughts,
and I'm really an innovator. People hire me to strategically think
for the brand and the business regarding marketing and content
creation. Sometimes I get a little too far ahead of myself, so I
want to break it down and make it very simple for anyone listening.
Whether you are the leader of a very large company or you're a
solopreneur or an independent contractor, wherever you fall in
this, and the industry actually doesn't matter, but in this case,
we're talking about insurance, you need to do three things. If you
do these three things and you do them well, I can guarantee you
success because you will be found on the web, you will be found in
the offline and the online world, and really that's what's most
important at this point. The tips are that you have to build
authority, you have to be the media, and you've got to double down
on distribution and promotion. Let me go into this a little bit
deeper. What I mean by being the authority is you have to be
recognized and seen as that expert in your industry. That's the big
kahuna of it all. That's like, "Awesome." If you're seen as that,
you open doors. When I launched all of this years ago, and I talked
about be the media, a lot of people didn't understand. They
thought, "Why do I have to be the media?" Today we're seeing
everything from fake news sites to real news sites, to brands that
are popping up that are literally dominating and getting more views
than traditional media. Imagine that, Mark, more views than
traditional media. That's crazy to think that's happening. I'll
give you an example of a bank in Denmark called Jyske Bank. They're
a bank, but guess what they are today? They're really the media.
They wanted to get their news and information about their financial
service products to the marketplace, but here's what was going on.
The media just wouldn't have it. They didn't see stories; they saw
marketing. They saw a press release. They saw, "You're in it for
yourself." They said, "Huh, what can we do?" Someone had the
ingenious idea to turn themselves into the media and to literally
set up broadcasts, so today they broadcast both locally and
nationally by the worldwide web. They tell stores about their
products and service, and they give financial information, and now,
you know what? They're quoted by people in traditional media jobs,
by journalists, by producers, and they're actually turned to as a
resource. This can literally pave the way, and you think, "I'm just
an insurance agent. I've got to do my job, and now you want me to
run a media company?" I want you to build your authority. It would
be like saying, "I'm an insurance agent, but I don't have time to
keep my resume up. I don't have time to do my business card." This
is part of living, part of building a successful career. There's no
room for can't; there's only room to get it done. You start by
building your authority, building your expertise. If you have a
website, you can put your content there. The second part would be
the media; you do this by telling the stories that matter to your
end users. Look at who you're trying to attract. If you're working
on, let's say maybe you're going after the agriculture industry,
then tell stories that matter to farmers and make them understand
what they're missing if they're not using your product, but don't
be so focused on your product. Be more focused on what they need
and through that you'll build a relationship with them. They'll
come to know, like and trust you because of the content you're
putting out. Third, you double down on distribution and promotion,
and I have to admit this is where sometimes even I've failed. I've
created a lot of content and I've done what a journalist does,
which is sometimes just broadcast, get it out there, but I've long
wanted to create courses and to make myself more valuable to my
clients by offering something that I don't have to teach in
coaching sessions one on one. Had I doubled down on the
distribution and promotion, that would have helped me get to where
I was going faster. This is an area, we all can find the areas
where we're stronger and weaker. Someone likes to podcast, so they
like to get on the radio and talk, and that comes easier than maybe
writing. You've got to force yourself to work at these things and
really bring to light all three. Be that expert, be the media by
having a story. Another great thing is analyzing other people's
work. For instance, you can take something that's happening in the
insurance world; you can pull that piece of content into your blog
or your podcast and then analyze it. This is what the media does;
they have a, "And that's my perspective," type thing. People will
listen to that for your analysis of it. The third, spend probably
the most amount of time on doubling down on what's working,
whichever social media platform you're growing the fastest and
promote it like crazy.
Mark Miletello:
Yeah, and sometimes we need to hire that done, sometimes we need to
be part of that, right?
Phoebe Chongchua:
I'd say both. You can hire for it, but you need to be part of it.
You need to take the time to go out-
Mark Miletello:
At least understand it, learn it, launch it and then lay the
groundwork.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Yeah, because here's the thing, and this is a really important
point. When you say, "Hire for it," you can hire people to do your
social media, but they better know your brand inside and outside.
Even still, a do a lot of that for brands, but I've still got to
have that person who is the brand weigh in and make comments and
talk and engage. That's important Facebook Live came about in the
last couple of years, that can't be done hired out. That's got to
be you; you've got to jump on, you as that person who's trying to
be the guru, the expert, the authority has to jump in front of the
camera and talk to your audience. If you do it all the time, if you
do this formula, authority, be the media, double down, you will
find success and you'll look back and you'll say, "Wow," in
whatever year it was that you started, say it's 2018 at the time of
this recording, you'll go, "I'm so glad I did that because I'm
making my mark in the online world," which translates to business
in the offline world.
Mark Miletello:
Right. You said, "To go out and gather their information and
analyze it." I think since doing this I've been really doing that
by following your podcast, the brand Journalist Advantage,
listening to different CEOs or different marketing or all the
guests and the talent that you bring on your show. Of course, I
listen to it to learn from you as well, but you pick up something
from all these industries, and you can rebrand that or rework it to
either, number one, content for you, but also not just talking
about the same thing all the time. There are different aspects and
different angles to look at marketing and sales and all those
different aspects of an entrepreneur, the business they build and
things like that. Thank you for sharing that advice. You mentioned
where maybe you lack and I definitely lack on the distribution and
promotion. Sometimes we learn from our mistakes, and that's why I
like to have this question that I'm going to throw at you. We all
have fumbles, we all now and then drop the ball. Can you tell me,
Phoebe, of a time that you've learned from a mistake that you may
have made?
Phoebe Chongchua:
Like my guests say on my show when I ask my, "When it didn't work
moment," there are so many, but one pops into my head. This was
many years ago. I started out when I moved from TV to the web doing
video production, and we still do that today where we create
stories for brands and businesses. I had this one agency come to
me, wanted me to do a shoot with a small business owner. We had to
travel for that, so of course, the expenses were paid. I worked
directly with the PR firm to set this whole deal up. I never spoke
with the client until I actually go there. Once I got there, I
realized she was deathly afraid to be on camera. She was super
uncomfortable. What she probably needed first was coaching sessions
from me on-camera interviews before she would ever be comfortable,
but we were set to shoot. We had a limited amount of time, so we
went ahead, and we shot, and it became painfully obvious that this
was not going to work. I've done thousands and thousands of
interviews, interviewed people like Walter Cronkite, interviewed
Mother Theresa and interviewed people on the streets who are
homeless, even rapists in jail cells, so I have a lot of experience
in this, but I can't make somebody in the time we're there with the
pressure we were under work at the level that they're going to be
comfortable with that's going to present their brand in the way
they wanted. We ended up shooting with, actually, the PR person,
which wasn't bad, but the lesson in all this that I learned is I
made a big mistake in not doing some of the homework upfront, in
relying on the agency to have set everything up. Sometimes we take
a shortcut because it's like, "Oh, okay, it just dropped into my
lap, and it's a good deal for me. Let's go." That ended up costing
me in the end because it took more time, the shoot took longer
because we had to scrap a lot of it. I learned that you've really
got to focus on getting to know everyone involved, making sure that
they really understand what's going to happen and making sure that
they're comfortable with it because very often, CEOs especially,
and this isn't a jab at anyone who's a leader, myself included at
times, jump in front of a camera or behind a microphone thinking,
"We've got it all made. It's all under control." That's just not
the way it is. Everyone can benefit from some coaching, no matter
if you're a professional or not. If you need that first, that
should come before you're actually setting up to do a shoot. I
learned to look at that and do my homework beforehand to make sure
that the person is really camera-ready. Otherwise, the segments
aren't going to go the way they want. It's not going to be a
success. The PR person, fortunately, was there and could jump in
front and he did a great job, so all was well.
Mark Miletello:
Thank you for not bringing up the time I enlisted your help to
shoot my first video. That was a little harder than I thought
because I had some brighter lights than I've ever had pointed at
me.
Phoebe Chongchua:
I hear you.
Mark Miletello:
Thanks for being patient. Anyway, we'll move on.
Phoebe Chongchua:
It's all good, right? That's the key, right, Mark-
Mark Miletello:
You made me look as good as someone can.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Yeah.
Mark Miletello:
You polished me again in that aspect, and wow, did you do ... I've
seen that video of training on the Value Sells presentation. I
watched it last night because I just did some enhancements to the
site. Phoebe, I watched that last night, and I'm thinking, of
course, that's me, and you want to criticize yourself so much, but
the way you filmed that, it took just a lot ... I don't know if
that comes as second nature or you really put the amount of time
into building me performing at two different, one on, anyway you
just did a great job, and I was just thinking that last night. I
guess it's been a few years since then and I forgot how awesome of
a job you tried to make me look.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Well, thank you. It's good stuff; the content really is what counts
too. It's very important and can help people.
Mark Miletello:
That's what I hope about this show is that they realize I'm just a
doer in the industry. I'm a manager, leader, an agent, a producer
and I'm just having fun. Again, you've interviewed Walter Cronkite
and many others, I'm going to make it through this show, and I'm
going to have fun. I do have my mentor on the other side of this
call, so thank you for that, and I really hope you inspire others
the way that you've inspired me, but let me ask you this. If you're
starting and understanding the social media the way you do, how do
you start? What do you do first? How do you grow, Phoebe, in this
day and time?
Phoebe Chongchua:
This goes back to the three tips that I was giving, and I see one
way to success, and that's to develop that niche and become that
authority in it. You must do that. Out of everything that we've
said in this podcast, that's the important thing. Develop your
niche, become the authority in it, then stick with one main
platform. If you're going to write on LinkedIn, write on LinkedIn
and double down on it.
Mark Miletello:
Be the best at it.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Yes, do the information and get it out there on that platform so
that your audience knows where to follow you. Then introduce it on
other social media platforms after you grow the first platform. A
lot of times I come into brands, and they go, "We want to be on
Twitter and Instagram and all these different things," and I go,
"Let's just go one and work that one platform first." Seek to be on
other people's shows because you can gain a lot by being published.
I've been published in books like Donald Trump's The Best Real
Estate Advice I've Ever Received, I've been published in other
books on financial services. I have a lot of work out there on the
web in platforms like realtytimes.com, so a lot around the
lifestyle, home improvement, financial services, industry so that
my work can be seen through their audiences as well. Again, double
down on what you're doing, on the distribution and the promotion,
and don't give up. Keep going, going, going.
Mark Miletello:
Wonderful advice. What I want to do, Phoebe is, and especially this
is a perfect question for someone with your expertise. What is your
professional prediction in ten years? The year is 2028, what do you
predict, if you had to wave your wand and tell us, what does the
industry, the media, the branding, social media, what does the
industry look like? How do we as business people fit in?
Phoebe Chongchua:
If you do something now and you take that action now, you'll set
yourself up for better success down the road. If you become known
as that expert, building that niche, and maybe you're catching on
to the theme here that you have to be an expert in your industry,
but more importantly you have to be known for something. Here's the
thing, if you're in insurance and you decide later to change into
something else, you've got to be known for your skillset. Why does
LinkedIn offer what are your skillsets and how people endorse you
in those areas? Because that's going to translate to other jobs
down the road whichever direction you go. A lot of times people
start off into one area, and they migrate like I was a TV
journalist, and I'm now a brand journalist and a consultant helping
build other people's brands. I think the number one thing that you
have to think about is in 2028, don't get focused on will YouTube
be around, will Facebook still exist in the way it is. The internet
will be here and what will you be known as on the internet? What is
your virtual resume? How does it look there, but more important,
you don't want just your resume. You want to be known as that
person who has deep thought and analysis. You want to be known as
that thought leader, and you only build that by writing, by
talking, by speaking, by getting in front of people. If you want to
be known to your customers, your homeowners, people that you are
working with as the expert, you better be found on the web because
it's basically like this. In the 70's and 80's, if you had a
business, Mark, would you say no to the yellow pages?
Mark Miletello:
Absolutely not, in fact, I changed my name to AAA, Assurant
Insurance Agency so that I would show up first.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Right? Exactly. Remember the tool I talked about, the headline
analyzer? That's where things like this come in. It's all the same,
but it's different at the same time. What I mean by that is you're
still playing the game. Mark was doing AAA insurance, and on the
web, you've got to use a web headline analyzer to make your content
seen and to try to rank above the competition. The bottom line is
you don't say, "I'm not going to be part of it." You don't say,
"I'm not going to be in the yellow pages," in the 70's and 80's
when you're a business and, "I'm not going to do social media
because I think it might go away." You're only hurting yourself, so
take action now, start writing, make it a habit or start
podcasting. Do something so that you're getting your thought
leadership out there to become that authority.
Mark Miletello:
The cheese always moves, the puck, the idea is to skate to where
the puck is going and not to where it is. You are doing that and
have done that. Who inspires you? Give us a professional
recommendation of a book or a person, or article, someone that you
would recommend.
Phoebe Chongchua:
There are so many great people, but I'm going to say this one just
because I've listened to it recently and because anybody who does
follow me knows that I'm a huge fan of Apple. It's Steve Jobs, The
Man Who Thought Different. That might seem like, "Really? Another
Steve Jobs reference?" Listen to this book; it's well done. If you
want to, you can listen to it on Audible. You can get a free link
from me over at my site
thinklikeajournalist.com, but I recommend this book
because what he does is so incredibly amazing. You learn a lot more
about his younger years and how he thought, even when he was a kid.
He, from the very beginning, he just thought differently. I love
the way he brings attention to the product. What you're going to
get out of this is you're going to recognize that it requires a lot
of developing yourself and going deep into yourself to do what I'm
talking about with this authority branding and authority marketing.
I think Steve is an inspiration to anyone who wants to build a very
successful business. If you follow some of his principles about his
deep care for products, services and the way they're presented and
the story that's told, you'll be on the right track. One of the
things that Steve Jobs did is he rehearsed like crazy before those
Apple presentations, which, by the way, the world watches. People
line up all over the place to get into these conferences. He
rehearsed those. He didn't leave things to chance. For anyone who's
a platform speaker, that's so important because a lot of times you
just try to wing it. You think, "I've got this, I've seen these
slides. I'm just going to roll with it." He didn't do that.
Mark Miletello:
Exactly, and it's not just platform speakers. In our industry, it's
the first time you meet with a client. It's very time you meet with
a client. It's rehearsed, it's learned, it's practiced. If I had to
say, and I'm not going to make it number one, but I'm going to say
it's in the top three to five mistakes I find new agents, new reps
making in this industry, is they don't rehearse, they don't
practice enough and they go out and make mistakes. This is learned
skills, so that sounds like a really good read. As I promised, it
was a special show. I cannot believe, I'm just honored to have one
of the greatest minds in the world in the media space, one of the
most sought-after coaches and all those great things. I just want
to say thank you for being a guest on the show and thank you for
all you've done to mentor and coach me. I'm honored and privileged
to know you and to be coached by you and to have you in my corner.
Phoebe Chongchua:
Mark, it's been so much fun, and I'm just thrilled with your
success. You're doing great.
Mark Miletello:
And now you're in the corner of the entire industry with this show,
so thank you for that as well. If you like what you hear on the
show, you can definitely connect. All you have to do is Google
Phoebe Chongchua. She's easy to find. If you want others to find me
and this show, please go to iTunes, rate, and review, and you can
follow me on markmiletello.com. Thank you for listening.