Black Publicity Success Doesn't Come Over night

One thing about publicity is that it requires persistence. I meet one client after another who thinks that they are going to get magically discovered by David Letterman and CNN on their first press release. Unfortunately, it just doesn't happen that way.

We had a client who worked his way from an unknown to being known throughout the world. Getting from the beginning of his career to being on national television regularly cost him over $100,000 in publicity work. In addition to the money, he spent countless hours refining his product, working on his press releases and having people make media pitch calls for him. Given his modest salary, $100,000 was a great deal of money, even over the course of 3 years.

There were dark days, periods in which things just didn't seem to work out. Times when he thought he was wasting his money. But he believed in himself and held firm to his dream.

When success finally arrived on his doorstep, the rewards were handsome. Once he became well-known, he was securing $7,000 per appearance for speaking engagements (he speaks roughly 25 times per year) and selling $100,000 per year in books. He could not get a publisher to sign him to a book deal, but he was able to make additional money by selling books during his speaking engagements.

His success story is what one usually finds on the path to success. It just doesn't happen over night.