Special Episode: Collette Portis With RED Development Group, Inc.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time For Coach the Coach Radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them.Go to brxambassador.com to learn more. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: Welcome to this very special edition of Coach the Coach Radio Stone Payton Lee Kantor here with you this afternoon. What a delight to hear in a little bit. We’re going to get a chance to visit, revisit and welcome back to the Business RadioX microphone with Red Development Group A. Collette Portas. But first, please join me in saying hello again to my co-host and business partner of 15 plus years now. Mr. Lee Kantor, how are you doing, man?

Lee Kantor: I am doing great. I’m so excited that we’re doing this series that’s so important for folks to really understand and learn how to get the most out of their interview and how to repurpose content. As in just the general sense, whether you’re being interviewed by us or by anybody. There are so many coaches out there that are just part of their marketing plan is to be interviewed on podcasts. And if you’re not kind of bringing all the juice out of that interview, you’re kind of leaving money on the table. So I am really excited about sharing different ways that we do it and different ways that the coaches that we reached out to come on and share ways that they kind of repurpose this content and leverage the content. So this is going to be fun.

Stone Payton: Well, to me, one of the marvelous, really fun things about this work is just when I think that I’ve got it figured out. We’ve got it figured out. You know, we put it in in the Business RadioX Academy for our correspondents and our studio partners and our clients. Just when I think when we have cracked the code on this, we turn around and we learn so much more from our guest, from our clients. That’s where all this wealth of knowledge comes from, and it’s just one of the many fun and rewarding things about doing this for a little minute. It beats the heck out of working, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Lee Kantor: This kind of content, I think, is super important for folks to kind of just listen to and learn from. And that way you get the most kind of benefit out of that activity. You’ve already spent the time doing the work. So why don’t you just kind of learn different ways to get the most out of the content? And this is stuff you can implement, you know, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. This is stuff that you can be using this content years down the road if you kind of plan it out, right?

Stone Payton: So what’s been the most interesting approach for capitalizing on on interviews that you’ve done, even if it was outside the Business RadioX system? Lee, like when you’ve done an interview, what’s been one of the most interesting and surprising ways to get the get the most out of it for you?

Lee Kantor: Well, I think something that we do internally that’s important to keep in mind when we’re doing an interview. We try to kind of plan it out in advance and know what we’re going to want to share ahead of time and try to plan that content so that it’s evergreen content. I think when people start talking about something super trendy or hot, that’s hot in that one minute, I think they’re going to regret that maybe down the road because that social media platform or that app or whatever may not even exist again six months or a year from now when someone finds this interview. So try to create kind of evergreen content. I think that’s very important when you’re doing this and when you do that, then you can add it to like what we do is we have an academy where we share best practices with our team and with our people and our clients. So we want to collect all of these things. So if they’re evergreen, it makes them more valuable and then it’s usable down the road. So I would say my big tip for this episode is to create evergreen content and make sure that you’re sharing evergreen content that you can repurpose and use down the road.

Stone Payton: Well, if my big tip, if I have one is don’t lose sight of some of the old school methods for getting the word out about the fact that you are on a on a show no matter or the fact that you are featured in a in a print article or something like that. I think it’s fabulous. I know it’s fabulous that we have all of these digital formats and with the social media platforms and new ones are emerging every day in so many ways to to multiply the effect of of any of your messaging and announcement. And yeah, I got to tell you, picking up the phone and just checking in with people and letting them know that you were featured on a show or, hey, I had an interesting experience the other day, Greg, I got a chance to do an interview. And, you know, we talked about blah blah blah. But you might enjoy it. I’ll send it to you if you want or the same, that same sort of of Typekit that same tone in a in a few emails to your inner circle. So my tip of the day would be, you know, don’t lose sight of some of the old school methods, then they can be they can be very productive.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s a great tip. So why don’t we bring on the guest to get some wisdom from the crowd?

Stone Payton: I think that’s a marvelous idea. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Red Development Group Miss Collette Portis. How are you, sunshine?

Collette Portis: I am amazing. Stone, you know why? Why? Why? Because I get to choose to be there every day. So why should I be anything else?

Stone Payton: A been a man. So now you appeared on the Business RadioX Coach the Coach program. It hasn’t been this long ago, as made. That sounds about right. This year

Collette Portis: It’s been. Yeah, I think it was. This year was either this year or it could have possibly been the year last year. But yes, I was on Coach the Coach and it was awesome.

Stone Payton: Well, your host for Coach the Coach almost always is is Lee Kantor. So he probably had a little something to do with that. But in my experience, the reason that those interviews are so powerful in that program has been so successful is this the caliber of our the caliber of our guests? So thank you for that.

Collette Portis: You are welcome and thank you for allowing me on your show and then being crazy enough to bring me back. I’m just saying I don’t know why people keep giving me a mike, but they do.

Lee Kantor: Now, Collette, before we get into the subject of leveraging content, can you share a little bit about Read Development Group? How are you serving, folks? Give our listener kind of a snapshot of what you’re up to.

Collette Portis: Absolutely. We are a global business development firm and we’re focused on three things. Number one, increasing the revenue of small to medium sized businesses. Number two, helping to build out and put their internal team in the right place and then helping them to build their external team, which oftentimes we don’t think about it as think about those outside of our company that support us as part of our team. And so when we think about them as part of our team, we are sure that when we make decisions and things like that, we’re conscious of them because we understand that they help us to do whatever we’re going to do. And so when we make decisions, we’re always considering what is it and how what do they do? How can they support us? And then how, how do we make it a win for them at the same time? So we’re on purpose about making sure that we evaluate a company to see where they are because oftentimes as business owners, we just guess about where we stand and where out, where our company is. And then we create a strategic plan to help you get the success you want. And then we help you to execute that plan. So we make sure that you get results. So that’s that’s a little bit about it.

Lee Kantor: Now in your world, when your go to market strategy, obviously appearing on shows is a part of it and you do a lot of work networking in real life as well as online. Can you share a little bit about what has worked best for you when it comes to doing an interview like you did with us on Coach the Coach or in any of the other places that you’ve done interviews with? How do you do you have a kind of a set? Ok, this is what I do with every piece of content or do you kind of take it piece of content by piece of content like how do you kind of strategize around that effort of being interviewed?

Collette Portis: Absolutely. So number one, as soon as that content is published, my team gets it out on and on our social platform and they are sure to get it to our media page on our website, which is absolutely pertinent. So if you Google, collect Portis or you Google read Development Group, you are sure to find us. And part of that is because when we get content like this, we’re putting that on our website, which now creates what’s called a backlink, which is great for search engine optimization. And a lot of people don’t understand that that the more that people that you’re connected to in the online space, the further up and the listing for search and engines you are. So it’s easier to find you because you’re so connected to so many people. So that’s what we that’s the first thing we do.

Lee Kantor: So then you so you have a page on your website that lists your most recent or a lot of your different media appearances?

Collette Portis: Absolutely. And either you or Stone talked about even your old or your recent magazine articles that have been written about you or that you’ve written all of that stuff is on our media page because we understand that, you know, social media is like life in the internet world is much like life in that the greater connections we make, the richer life is and that’s really if you want to break. Search engine optimization down. That’s really the heart of it. The the greater the connections you make, the higher you’re going to rank. And so we make sure we put all of that stuff on our media page.

Lee Kantor: And then when it’s on the media page, you’re not just cutting and pasting it there, you’re linking to the actual source of it and the website of wherever you appear.

Collette Portis: Absolutely. And then we have what’s called a link tree. So in our email signature, there’s our Link Tree Link. So our website link is there, our link tree line, because they’re so average and we made sure that the link is hot. And what I mean by that is somebody can go right to that email signature and click on that link and get to where you want it to be instead of just leaving it as regular text. Because every time we send that email, that’s what we’re doing. We’re creating another link back to our website. Another link back to our our link tree. And so on our link tree. You’re going to find an all a lot of the media appearances that we’ve done, the articles that have been written about read, you’re going to find those links inside of our link tree. So we’ve done it twice in our signature. There’s the link for our website and there’s the link for our link tree, both of which have all of those media appearances on them.

Lee Kantor: Now, for those who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about a link tree?

Collette Portis: Yes. So Link Tree is amazing, so if you don’t have it, you should have it. They have a free version, but I encourage you to pay for the paid version because Lee and Stone don’t know this until now, but I also own a branding company. It’s important that your brand is always upfront. It’s always representing for you when you can’t represent yourself. So it’s a nominal fee. It’s not that much, I promise you. I’m not a representative for Link Tree at all. I get no benefit from it. But you want to make sure that your business shows up at its best 100 percent of the time. So the fee that you pay for that small, the small fee in order to brand your link tree is very important. So what it allows you to do is to create a page like a landing page that you can brand with your logo and all of that. So if you look that red, you would see our logo and all in our brand colors. But it allows us to put our website. There are social media links there, any media links so that people can connect to YouTube videos. I too have a radio show. It’s linked on my link tree. So any link that you want to put, you can also add documents. So for instance, if you’re a speaker and you have a speaker sheet or a bio or something like that, you can put all of that stuff on your link tree. So when we get new clients, we always like to brag about our clients. So when we get new clients, one of the assignments they get is to go connect with us in the social space. Well, we just give them the literally they don’t have to try and go find us. We don’t have to try and figure out what all of our links are to send to them. We send them the Link Tree link. They’ve got everything they need right there in order to click and go directly to our pages.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff and that stuff that it seems obvious to you. But other people sometimes don’t understand the value of linking to another person’s website. They think, Oh, they’re leaving my website, but there’s value to being like you said, Google values that, hey, you’re associated with this other place that has a lot of page authority. So then you must be good to say you’re getting benefit from linking to other people’s websites.

Collette Portis: Absolutely. And even more than that, you guys mentioned earlier or you asked me earlier, how is it and why is that valuable and how do we continue to do what we’ve been able to do because it’s really all about relationships? Yes, I’m going to be concerned if someone leaves my website and goes to someone else’s web site that I haven’t built a relationship with. What if I’m on purpose about building a relationship with Lee and Stone when somebody gets to their site and they say, I found your site because we came from Red Development Group? You guys are probably going to say, Oh my god, yes, they’re great over there. Now you’ve built my credibility because statistically people only believe 20 percent of what we say about ourselves, but they believe. 80 percent of what somebody else says about us. So if you understand relationships, you want them to go to your collaborative partner site so that your collaborative partner is building this credibility and people begin to understand that you are not just good for the service you provide, but you’re a holistic provider in the sense that you bring in collaborative partners that can answer as many issues as they might come across so they can go to one place and then people really start to depend on you, and then you start getting the weird text messages like, I get that says, What do you know about trucks? I don’t know. I’m a girl. I don’t know. They’re like, Well, I know, you know someone. I’m like, You’re right, I do know someone. Let me, let me send them a text message.

Lee Kantor: Now you mentioned that part of what you do is around branding. Is there any advice you can share with the coaches out there to kind of further separate themselves? Because coaching is a very, you know, it’s the Wild West out there and it’s hard to really discern one coach from another unless that coach is really putting a specific effort to really create that niche and that that slice of mindshare, any kind of do’s and don’ts when it comes to branding for coaches.

Collette Portis: Absolutely. So I’m going to give you guys a golden ticket. It’s one of the tools that I use for my own companies and for my clients, and it’s called the lean canvas. And there’s one site that we use, particularly called lean stack. And the thing that I love about lean stack, if you’re a coach worth your weight and salt, you will look at that, that thing. And it has videos for every section that Blaine Stack is going to help you determine why you’re special, why the market needs you. What problem directly you can solve for who and who do you want to solve them for? If you can figure that out. Number one who you want to solve problems for. Number two what their top three issues are. Number three, how you resolve those top three issues. And number four, what’s unique about you? Then you sell that. Not the fact that you’re a coach because like you, said Lee, it is a while. It’s the wild wild west out here. You can wake up tomorrow and say, I’m a coach. Or you can decide by five p.m. today that you’re a coach and start coaching. There’s nothing really to regulate our industry. So you have to know how to separate yourself and then begin to use words and images branding to separate yourself and create the culture and create the idea of who you are. It’s about relationship building. It’s about building your what is it? Building your personality for your brand, the feel of your brand? What are your colors communique? What are the images on your website? Communicate. One of the things that saddens me sometimes Lee, is I look at cultures, websites, and it’s almost like we don’t make much effort or we don’t see the value in and paying someone to make sure that we show up our best. My grandmother used to say, Don’t leave that house looking like nobody loves you. And, you know, sometimes I see someone’s brand and I’m like, Oh my god, nobody loves them enough that they are them. They they can do better than that. So that’s why that is important.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share maybe an example that in your career of having been interviewed countless times, maybe kind of the most, maybe an unexpected benefit of an interview you did and somebody found it, and all of a sudden now you got business or somebody heard about what you were up to and wanted to learn more like something that was maybe unexpected from doing, you know, these kind of interviews where there was that benefit because a lot of times people think, Oh, I’m just doing this, I’m talking there. I don’t know if anybody hears me. Can you share an example that demonstrated to you? Look, people are listening in the weirdest ways. And here’s an example.

Collette Portis: Absolutely. I said on I was nominated as I was nominated as one of the exceptional women in my community. And so I was on this panel and they were asking us pretty much about our journey and things like that. Well, what I didn’t know is there was someone in the room that was looking for someone to provide services to two cities and one county. And simply now, if anybody knows anything about government contracting, typically that means you have to find the contract, you have to respond to the bid. You have to wait to see if they accept you. There’s this whole long process. Well, just by me being on that panel and being interviewed, they determined that they wanted my company to serve those three contracts. And so we got them. We were asked. Has said we were told what they need it. We were told what the goals were and we were asked to send them something to say how we could do that. And we were selected. It took I don’t even think it took two weeks for that to happen. And then another instance I was on a not an international panel speaking and I’ve built these relationships over in Europe and in other in Germany and other countries that I didn’t expect to build. But just for the fact that I was on these panels allow me to interact and to be heard by others who decided that I have something of value that they wanted to connect to. And in the light. Another example was I was in. There was an article written about me in a magazine called Voyage Dallas Magazine, and there was another lady that they wrote an article about in that same edition who ended up reaching out to me going, I read your article. It was awesome. Let’s have coffee. Let’s have a conversation about how we do some things together. And so our media is absolutely pertinent to the growth of your your business. And so the opportunity to build relationships?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I agree. And so many folks are doing more and more media appearances. I just want to make sure that they’re getting the most out of each and every one of those. And thank you so much for sharing what you’ve heard today. It’s so important. If you’re going to do spend the time and invest the time in doing the interview, then spend a little bit more time to squeeze as much juice out of that interview as you can. I mean, take a few steps, and if you can systematize it and do it every single time, then you’re really going to have a productive use of those times for those interviews and you’re going to get the most out of it.

Collette Portis: Absolutely. Some of the things that I’ve done with my content as my speaker rail, I’ve used content from my interviews, absolutely evergreen content and being all purpose about, you know, I’m a stickler about, I don’t want to do what’s trendy, I want to do what works and what long and what’s lasting and if it’s if it’s got staying power. I don’t mind doing that, but I don’t want to get caught in the trendy stuff, but I’ve used it again for my media page, social media accounts and commercials for my business, my YouTube channel, and most of all, for social proof, social proof, social proof. It’s proof that you are an expert at what you do. It’s proof that you have value it, build your credibility. And that, to me, I think, is probably the greatest benefit.

Lee Kantor: Well, Colette, thank you so much for sharing today. It’s just been fantastic catching up with you. If somebody wants to learn more about read, can you share the website so they can get a hold of you, maybe up their branding game or get a hold of you for your coaching?

Collette Portis: Absolutely. They can go to read development group dot com. Make sure you put group at the end or you can simply Google Colette Portis and you’ll be able to find me.

Stone Payton: Well, this is Stone speaking again, thank you so much for joining us, I want our listeners to know and I want you to know during much of this conversation, while of course I was listening to you and Lee, I was hanging out at your link tree. If that’s the right way to say that because I went to your email signature, I clicked on that and then I saw that whole a whole variety of things I could choose. And then I chose to dove into the media section and gang. This is a ninja level practical clinic on how to represent yourself. And if you if you choose to leverage one interview to get the next and capitalize on those two interviews to get the next two. I mean, this is such a perfect example. Just on one page in one section of this link tree thing on the red development site, you have all of these interviews and articles, and wow, I am so glad that that you agreed to come hang out with this, and I’ve certainly learned a lot. This is this is fantastic. I think Business RadioX Lee and Stoney Link Trees,

Collette Portis: Mozart and Lee because if you guys did nothing but link to all of the websites of everybody you interviewed. Can you imagine how many links those would be? Oh my gosh.

Stone Payton: Well, we certainly are blessed to have Collette Portis in our inner circle, and I expect that circle will continue to expand and get deeper and wider. Thank you again one more time before we wrap. Best way for people to get in touch with you. Coordinates website LinkedIn, whatever is appropriate.

Collette Portis: They can catch me on just Google Collab Portis or go to read Development Group. Com and Lee and Stone. Thank you so much. You guys are always so great. I always enjoy hanging out with you.

Stone Payton: All right. Well, this is Stone Payton for Lee Kantor our guest today, Collette Portis with Redd Development Group and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.