Changing Perceived Value with PR (with Mitch Carson)

Angela Frank: 00:00:00

Welcome to The Growth Pod. Today on the podcast, we have Mitch Carson, who helps CEOs, speakers, authors, consultants, and coaches share their message internationally.

Mitch has worked with clients like Mark Victor Hansen, one of the co authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Chris Okazaki, and Dan Kennedy. Mitch has spoken on stage with Sir Richard Branson, Zig Ziglar, two prime ministers, and literal royalty.

Mitch is a former Home Shopping Network pitchman who knows how to sell anything by crafting a unique message. Mitch, welcome to the podcast.

Mitch Carson: 00:00:29

Well, thank you and I'm privileged to be here.

Angela Frank: 00:00:32

I am very excited. Today you're going to share how we can change our perceived value with pr.

But before we get started, can you share why it's important to care about your perceived value? And does that matter in business?

Mitch Carson: 00:00:46

I would say it matters on a percentage basis, about 100%, because people buy based on perceived value. I'm going to bring something close to home. I don't know if you're married or unmarried. Are you married yet?

Angela Frank: 00:00:58

My husband's name is actually Mitch.

Mitch Carson: 00:01:00

Oh, how about that? So you won't forget mine. That's good. Unless you're mad at him.

So before you decided to say yes to his proposal, if he came to you and said, angela, I love you, and he drops to one knee, you know what's coming next.

And he whips out the box where that ring is encased and it is wrapped in paper from Target, your reaction might go from one of exuberance and smiling and true excitement. I'm going to live the rest of my life with this wonderful man to what a cheapskate.

Or if he's down on one knee and I'm going to go to the other extreme, Angela. And he says, I want to live my life with you forever. You're everything I've looked for. You have the most beautiful eyes, blah, blah, blah.

And he opens up. Tiffany, what is going to be your reaction between a Target vs Tiffany box?

Angela Frank: 00:01:59

Definitely more surprised and delighted with the Tiffany ring for. For sure.

Mitch Carson: 00:02:04

And. Okay, so let's now. Okay, Mitch, how does that apply to business?

It's a perfect application because if I came to you with dirty shoes, I'm on stage as a speaker and I've spoken all over the world, 63 countries in total.

And I took the stage, I might have had this great introduction reel that shows me with all these people that were part of my introduction, sharing the stage with her. And your expectation is, okay, it's going to be this high level guy. He's going to be articulate great. And my voice is clear. I articulate my points.

I have a great hook at the beginning of my speech, but I'm wearing a shirt with a big coffee stain. My shoes are scuffed up and I'm missing one heel on my right foot. My right, you know, shoe is missing the heel. So I'm walking around wonky.

What happens to the perceived value of Mitch at that moment? I had the great introduction. I might have had the good box before I took the stage, so I might.

But the diamond that was inside that you expected to see inside the Tiffany box. I had Tiffany wrapping before I took the stage, but there was a mismatch. We're going to have a problem.

I'm going to have a problem when I go to then telling them or sharing with them how important personal brand is. How important is your perceived value if your wrapping doesn't match the inside?

If the inside of your box is not stellar and it's not VS1 clarity for the diamond. Oh, and it's got to be a minimum of one carat or your divorce is eminent. All of these things matter.

So if I came out alternatively, my rapping was great on the outside, great intro video, great introduction by the mc, which you should never rely on. You got to be careful. You have your own intro reel as a speaker.

So I come out, I learned that the hard way because they can either kill you or help boost you, but the boosting always comes reliably and predictably through your intro reel. So I come out on stage. My shoes are perfectly shined. I'm wearing French cuffs with nice cufflinks. My shirt is pressed nicely.

I'm in a beautiful custom suit. I look the part. I match the wrapping.

Then when I go to make my offer of whatever it is, and it's premium price, you're going to be less reluctant to invest with me because I match comprehensively. My inside matches my outside. The wrapping did not fail because the inside diamond was evident. That's what's important.

And what people say about you when you aren't in the room reflects your value and your personal brand. People say, well, what's your personal brand, Mitch? Well, let me ask my clients. And I'll have to leave the room.

What they tell you will reflect exactly where I am. The position that I am in their mind will come out honestly. It might hurt me. Somebody might say, well, he's got big feet and he's clumsy.

Wears size 13s, which is true, but am I clumsy? Depends on the shoes. All of that will give an accurate balance sheet, snapshot in time of my personal brand value in the marketplace.

That's where people need to start. Assess where you are. Can you change your personal brand? Yes. That's the good news.

The bad news, it may not be so easy if you come out and you were stinking. The same holds true for clients. I very much look at potential clients because it's relational. I'm not a transactional salesperson anymore.

I was at one time. Today I choose to be in a relationship with clients or potential clients. Do I want to work with this person?

Will he or she annoy the hell out of me, or will I be able to help achieve what they're after? And embracing me as their guide, Can I guide them without too much trauma, drama, and pain?

Angela Frank: 00:06:26

I think what you were saying is so important, and it dovetails really nicely with a concept that we talk about on the podcast, which is creating this element of psychological safety around your brand. But you can do the same around your personal brand, where every.

Where somebody encounters you online, you want their image of you or your brand to be reinforced. And so I'm hearing a lot of similarities between what you're saying with that perceived value.

You know, if your hype real is super great and everyone's really excited to hear you come on stage and speak, or they're really excited for your appearance, but then you come out and you don't match up with what your intro real was, there is going to be an element of lost trust there. There's no psychological safety. There's no reaffirming of everything they just heard.

And so now somebody's trying to figure out, you know, is he lying to me like. Or was this person who was introducing them less credible?

And then they're playing this game in their mind, and you don't even necessarily do consciously, but there's lost trust there at the end of the day. And so I love what you're saying. Making sure everything's laddering up to that.

Mitch Carson: 00:07:31

It's a disconnect if you don't match. And disconnect leads right to distrust.

Angela Frank: 00:07:37

So you mentioned a lot of different things that play into perceived value in that story of, you know, somebody who's coming out on stage and they've got coffee stains and a missing heel.

If you were to list off some of the key elements that create perceived value, what are some of the elements to make sure that your setting yourself up to showing the best value possible.

Mitch Carson: 00:07:59

All right, let's. Yeah, we're going to maximize our. Our. Our perceived Value is what you're after.

Number one today, versus when I started in the speaking business, or let's just say business of being a business person, an entrepreneur. There was no Internet. I've just dated myself, Angela, which is okay today. Expect people to check you instantly.

When I was at this podcast movement event where I just shared with you before the call I attended, I was sitting next to a lady who works for the LA Tribune Newspaper group which has multiple newspapers around the country. We sat next to each other and she said, I'd love to interview you and you've got an interesting background. I shared a little bit about her.

Well, I happened to look through the side angle of my eye. We were sitting next to each other inside this lecture and she was already checking my YouTube channel out.

She was going through and I happened to look over and she didn't have her phone completely covered. I didn't want to be obvious that I noticed. I thought, okay, cool. Moment later I looked over, she was looking at my website.

Moment later she was looking at my LinkedIn. So YouTube, LinkedIn, personal website, all of those need to be consistent and congruent. Consistent with my color schemes. Let's talk about that.

So I don't have red and white in one and then blue and gold on the other. They need to look somewhat similar. And what the message is on one needs to match the other because you will be checked out today.

You will get googled. It's a verb. Google is no longer a noun. You get verbed, you get googled and it tickles, it itches, and it may feel good.

You are in control of how you are Googled. What comes up in that search result? Guys, maximize value, which was your question. Get your LinkedIn in order.

Get your YouTube in order if it's an applicable platform for your market.

Your basic page of Angela.com AngelGrowthPod I mean whatever your your website name is, I don't remember the URL at the moment, but whatever thegrowthpod.com website needs to reflect and be congruent with who you are and what your value is and what you bring to the table. And for anybody that's listening, all of it needs to be in parallel. Be mindful of when you drink alcohol and party and shake your booty.

That's permanently exposing you to the world.

People can screenshot that fun element, which isn't going to be so fun when you're being reviewed and evaluated with a potential client that could have surrendered big money to you.

I'll give you an example now that's for the teenager group and maybe young people that then of course want to use that as an, as an enticement to go to their only fans. All of that is fine. I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about the professional world that we live in.

I had a group of speakers that I was training in Dubai about eight years ago. They'd attended my Speak in Dubai event.

35 followed me to Bahrain, the country that is about an hour flight from there, also in the Middle east and we were speaking in front of royalty and at the major university in the big city, the capital. Seventeen of my speakers did not have fully built out LinkedIn profiles in the Middle East. LinkedIn is number one. It is meaningless in Japan.

Nobody pays attention there in that country. So know your culture, know your environment, know who your audience is and the importance of what platform is relevant.

Social media matters completely today. At one time it didn't, but it does today and it's here to stay. 17 of these speakers didn't have fully developed LinkedIn.

They had the default background. They didn't have their education listed. They might have had their name or some didn't even have a LinkedIn profile.

The trust and credibility of my speakers went in the toilet simply because they didn't spend an hour or two building out their LinkedIn profile. Now I had told them about the importance of LinkedIn in one of my pre training sessions. Most did not pay attention to it.

They were too busy about their travel arrangements. I get it. In their presentations, perfect.

But because of that we lost the funding, the public or the government funding, which was about, I think it was seven or $8,000 which would have paid our venue costs and the food that we delivered to all the attendees. So that was an ouch. So I learned a valuable lesson. These people were not. We had to fight to allow them to speak.

Even because they didn't fund us, they weren't able to dictate whether people could speak. The trade off was we have to bypass the funding if we allow them to speak.

So I had to sacrifice eight grand of compensation to let these people speak who they had already paid me for the opportunity. So I couldn't deny them. It wasn't in my conditions. You must have your LinkedIn profile laid out. I learned a financial lesson.

They certainly did because I scolded them about this. Since then they've, they've changed. So if you're a professional, be a professional.

Angela Frank: 00:13:51

I think that story is so powerful because this is the perfect example of you already had the speaking engagement set up. The speakers were already being brought there.

But because there was a mismatch in the perceived value the speakers that didn't have for the speakers that didn't have their LinkedIn profiles figured out, you had to then file light and advocate for their value. And ultimately, you had to take a financial loss in order for them to speak.

And so I think that just speaks volumes to making sure that everywhere people are looking, not only are you presenting yourself in the best light, but everything's congruent and that you're taking the time to make sure that what is valuable to the audience that you're speaking to is present in your personal brand. Everyone understands the importance of first impressions. You mentioned it earlier.

Sometimes your first impression, if you mess it up, is your last impression. Is there ever a point where it's not too late to update your perceived value? Or is it too late if you mess up a first impression to then change?

Mitch Carson: 00:14:54

That depends on the recipient of your message. I can't. I don't have a crystal ball. I just don't. I. Here's the reality. Your personal brand will be updated when you update it.

When you pay attention to it, the attention you get will be more positive than when it's negative and you haven't updated it. Hey, we're looking for connection with people. And look your best, be your best, because then you can fix it.

Okay, let's talk about the dating metaphor once again.

Bob isn't having much luck going out on the dating scene because he's missing a heel and he's met some quality women that would have been great to bring home to mom. He was looking forward to this, was ready to get married. He's got a good career, makes good money, has a car, a house already that's 40% paid for.

He's a good catch. He's 32 years old. He's in the prime. He's already gone through what he's gone through in life. He partied.

He's now serious, but he's got a heel that's missing. He's got a long booger snout that comes out of his nose. His hair is greasy.

Hygiene has never been a priority in his life because he's a programmer and they're focused on programming. His social skills aren't great yet. And you ask that question because this is also applicable to business. How does Bob then become appealing?

You clean up the booger. Okay. You clip your nose hairs. You get a new pair of shoes that are well shined and Cared for you go to a manicure, pedicure person, get cleaned up.

Then when you enter and put on a new shirt that's pressed, you go out into the dating scene in business and in life, people will approach you when you look good. If I got on this podcast and I had a booger, I had a stained shirt, I'm comfortable in my home. I hope this is okay for this. I could have worn a coat.

Might have been a nice touch, but I'm pretty comfortable and it reflects where I am in my life to where I don't have to impress anybody anymore. This was different when I was in my 20s and 30s. Today, as a grownup, let's say grandfather type figure, I can be comfortable with me.

This isn't judged as harshly as somebody your age. Better look the part. I don't have to so much now because people look at me.

Once they hear me talk, they'll realize, okay, he's got some wisdom to share. He can wear a black T shirt and be comfortable in his own home because he doesn't have to impress anybody anymore.

Very different positioning than when I was 30. Very different. I can be because people who are very successful don't have to prove it anymore.

So understand where you are and where you're going to get boxed in life where what is the expectation of your market? What do they expect of you? Do they expect you to drive a Beamer or a Lexus?

Or could it be I drive today because I've already owned all those fancy cars. All the Italians have owned them. Today I drive a Nissan Leaf. I have no one to impress. Some people may, it's an electric car.

I love it, it's fine, plug it in, come back and nobody stares at me. It's a choice. And nobody is going to say anything about this unless I were 35. It might be difficult and I were single.

But today, in the comfortable spot I'm in, I'm able to be in control of what I want to be, how I want to be perceived. And we're all in charge of that. So the answer is you can change it. Just do it.

Angela Frank: 00:18:51

I think what you're saying about the fact that what you're doing is a choice is so important. It's something that I realized working under a sales leader and realizing how curated her entire appearance was. The way that she spoke was curated.

And coming up through marketing, of course, appearances are important, but you think about maybe positioning from a different frame that salespeople do. And so that was the first time when I'm like, wow, I really need to like update my background and make sure that I'm looking nice on camera.

And I learned a lot just thinking about how I'm presenting myself from a sales perspective. And I think everything you do in life is sales and marketing.

Even if you're going to like a family event, the way that you show up and communicate with people, if you're going out with friends, the same thing. And so just being really mindful. And like you said, everything is a choice. It's really like you're having a relationship with your clients.

Even if you're a product based business, they're still vetting you and the value that your brand can provide to them. I was meeting with a prospective client today and they essentially told me that it was unacceptable that I will be on vacation next week.

And that is an immediate flag of how they're going to conduct themselves. And as somebody who is lucky enough to not need their business, I'm saying bye.

So like the way that you show up, the way that you communicate is so important.

Mitch Carson: 00:20:16

Future nightmare. That was a red flag. See you, bud. Or see you, Betty. I don't need to deal with that. No, that you, you vet those people immediately.

Angela Frank: 00:20:29

So I think it just brings back to the way that you show up is how people will perceive your value. Not only in the way that you communicate and present yourself on stage, but in everything you do.

Mitch, you are somebody who has helped thousands of people improve their communication, their sales processes. You help people get guaranteed media appearances. And you've had a very successful career.

And I'm sure what you're doing keeps you very busy, but I'm curious to know what's next for you.

Mitch Carson: 00:21:00

I'm off. I just secured dates.

One of the things I work on is I'm a publicist here in Las Vegas for speakers and authors and CEOs who want to gain tremendous credibility through the ultimate platform of broadcast television through NBC, abc, fox, CBS and cw. Here in Las Vegas, I also work. I work on three tracks. One as a publicist. Number two is I train professional speakers who want to sell from the stage.

Very different skill set than be a keynote speaker or a trainer. I've done all of them in the speaking industry. I'm off to Singapore to teach two different workshops four days in a row on public speaking.

To sell and selling in a virtual environment and selling on a live stage in a with a live audience. Two different disciplines. I'm excited to go and do that. These are all people that have, after they've written a book.

They want to create their own courses and want to speak and sell. So that's what I'm off to. I'm excited. I just secured the dates before the call.

Angela Frank: 00:22:05

Amazing.

Mitch Carson: 00:22:06

So that's my. And that's in November in Singapore. And then I'm going to take a vacation because I can. After that I'm going to go to Phuket, Thailand.

And I don't give a flip about anybody who says that's unacceptable. You on vacation, they're going to get a size 13 on their flat butt and leave them bruised because I'm going to kick them out of my life.

Angela Frank: 00:22:30

I love that. I think Warren Buffett bought a furniture store from a lady and as soon as she stopped working she died or sort so the story goes.

Mitch Carson: 00:22:39

Yes.

Angela Frank: 00:22:39

So I definitely understand where you're coming from with work is what kind of keeps you going.

Mitch Carson: 00:22:47

It feeds my mind. It feeds your heart. It feeds your existence. If your mind fails and starts to decline, your body goes with it. And I'm not ready to decline.

Angela Frank: 00:22:59

Yeah, I love that.

If somebody is listening to you speak today and they are inspired, they want to catch up, maybe come to a future speaking event or just keep up with you online. Where's the best place for them to do that?

Mitch Carson: 00:23:12

Two places they can go to my website, MitchCarson.com which I'm sure is going to be in your show notes.

And if they're interested in getting covered on network television, not a YouTube channel, network television with hundreds of millions of dollars of branding behind it on either Fox, cbs, NBC, ABC or the cw. They can reach out to me at get interviewed guaranteed. Yes, get interviewed guaranteed.com forward/meet with Mitch.

It takes you to my calendar and that is a free meeting which I sell my hourly rate at $1,000 an hour. And I get it. I just don't post it. I it this is a guest.

It's 30 minutes, not a minute more where you get my time to discuss your publicity plan if this appeals to you and you'll be walked through a questionnaire to make sure that we're a right fit before we get on the call. But that is something I offer to your group. Thank you for the time to offer.

Allow me to offer that to your to your audience and if it's something they want to do to elevate their brand, great. And if not was nice meeting amazing.

Angela Frank: 00:24:16

And like you mentioned, those will be in the show notes. So if you're listening and that sounds great to you, it's right there. Mitch. Thank you so much for joining us today.

I really enjoyed our conversation and got a lot out of it.

Mitch Carson: 00:24:25

Likewise.

Angela Frank: 00:24:26

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Growth Pod. I look forward to seeing you in the next one.