MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

Joel Roberts used to be with KABC radio in Los Angeles. He went from radio to marketing, and he now trains people on how to become direct marketers.

His list of clients speaks for itself; it includes Harv Eker (Secrets of the Millionaire Mind) and Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People), and he is also the official media coach for Chicken Soup for the Soul.

The last insight I shared was from Chet Holmes, and he said to focus on the market data - focus on the problem. Chet’s advice is to build the pain until they can’t stand it any longer and they have to take action.

Joel Roberts has a similar but unique perspective.

How Do You Get The Attention Of The Mass Media?

Joel used to be a talk show host, and a lot of people wanted to be guest feature on his radio station. He shared some key insights and points on things that we don’t usually think of, but it’s useful because you can learn how to leverage public relations.

If you’ve ever seen him speak at a live seminar, you’ll understand why he gets a standing ovation -he’s politically incorrect yet funny at the same time.

When The Stakes Are High and the Moment Is Brief

This is the basis of his positioning, because he knows that you only have a snap-second to either get people’s attention, or not. That’s how he became super successful. His experience in radio taught him that it’s all about cliff hangers and building suspense, otherwise people go to another radio station.

He says that the #1 mistake that people make is that they have the temptation to jump to a solution before they have really talked about the problem. He notices this again and again. To illustrate his point, he had 10 people come on stage, pretend they were on his radio station. They had to talk and try to engage the audience.

He humiliated all 10 of them –it was like stand-up comedy. I tried to get on stage to be humiliated, too, but unfortunately, he didn’t do me the favor.

Define the Problem

Joel really focuses on defining the problem that you are trying to solve. You should not talk about the solution before you have talked about the problem.

He also has a very unique way of peeling things back –he thinks really differently, and that’s what I really enjoyed. He gave this example:

Initially, 100 years ago, there was music…and you couldn’t get it on the go. There was just no recorded music. The problem was recording music, and that gave rise to the gramophone. That, initially, was how you had music in your home. Then, you had radio –although it wasn’t portable, you now had music everywhere, all the time. But it wasn’t your music. So along came the Walkman. And then, the famous iPod.

The iPod focuses on the last problem that hadn’t been solved: recording music had been solved; having it anywhere had been solved; having your own music anywhere had been solved…what hadn’t been solved was how to have 10,000 songs –your entire music library – in your pocket. , That was the gap that the iPod came to fill – that was THE positioning.

It was the last problem that hadn’t been solved.

The most obvious lesson is this: don’t focus on the first problems that came before and have already been solved: focus on the very last problem that you haven’t solved. Why? Because the others are so obvious that everyone is doing it.

That’s how not to get attention - a class I won’t be teaching.

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike

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