Liz Nable 0:00
Dimity Brazell first recorded her mom's life story in 2018. She was spurred into action following the death of both her father and sister in a relatively short period. And it dawned on her one day that she would never hear their voices again. So Dimitri decided to sit down with her mom and and capture her voice telling her story before it was too late. Dimity and Anne worked together to create a lasting tale. Little did they know, they would create a movement empowering a generation of older Australians to share their life stories with their own loved ones. Five years on a lasting tale has evolved into a professional interview service for people with a lifetime of stories to share. The service has 40 professional journalists recording private audio live stories for families Australian wide, they have recorded 1500 Humble yet heroic live stories of everyday people. A lasting tale now has a free mobile app and works with retirement villages, palliative palliative care providers, libraries and community organisations. They also run specialist life story intergenerational programmes in aged care. Dimity is an alumni of the Mei cohort of the media masters Academy, and she has been kicking massive media and PR goals since she finished the course just a few months ago. indemnitees own words, she came into the course knowing she had to get comfortable with self promotion, but it felt icky and unnatural. She wasn't getting the results her business needed to grow by meta ads alone, and she knew she needed to build a massive trust and credibility in her brand. Before people would part with such a personal purchase and invest in her business to tell a loved one's story. It's safe to say Dimity has done all that and more 1000 times over and her business has exploded since finishing the course. In the last month alone. Dimity and a lasting tale have been featured in women's agenda. The good weekend, Sunday life 89 Local online news services through Australian community media servicing regional rural and remote Australia, the Canberra Times the Newcastle Herald, the Illawarra Mercury, the land starts at 60 online publication, ABC Radio, upper Hunter, ABC Radio Gobind Marie, ABC Radio Shepparton and to GB Sydney and she's booked into an interview on Sunday for ABC Radio Melbourne, completing the media masters Academy course creating an incredible aha moment in DVDs business journey, where she realised she never had to self promote again to grow her business and gain valuable brand awareness because she learned how to get the media to do that for her. This is dividends story. Hello, I'm Liz Nable. And you're listening to enable my business, the podcast. When I first started in small business almost 10 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. You see my background was in the media. I had spent 15 years as a television news journalist and reporter working at several major networks in Australia. And then as a freelancer in the US and around the world. I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and travelling the world chasing stories. It was unpredictable and exciting. Until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted to live where I was in charge of what happened next. And where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's. I also never wanted to work a midnight new shift again. And now I don't have to. There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business. But one thing I already had in the bag was how to get media coverage and free PR. I knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made us and I knew how to leverage those organisations to build my business, get more exposure, and ultimately make more sales. During my decade of building my business, I have managed to get featured in almost every major news outlet in the country. I've been interviewed on television countless times, had personal profiles written up in women's magazines, done point of view pieces for large newspapers, and been listed in top 100 List women in business and in my industry. And I've never spent a single cent on PR. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses, let them in on the secret and they too could build their businesses, leveraging the media and gaining free PR. They could use my insights in the industry and my behind the scenes experience and take their business from best kept secret to a well known brand simply by following my formula. Welcome To enable my business, the podcast. Hello, Gemini. Welcome to the show. Hello, Liz. It's
Unknown Speaker 5:06
lovely to be here.
Liz Nable 5:08
Welcome back. You are wonderful one of our wonderful media masters Academy Alumni from our last round, and you've been kicking massive goals.
Unknown Speaker 5:17
Yes, I have. Thank you
Liz Nable 5:19
all over the media. I'm now today's episode, we're going to talk a little bit about your experience in the media and from the course but also your kind of genuine feedback on your journey in self promotion, self confidence, and being able to sell yourself which I know, lots of business owners struggle with. Can you start by telling me a little bit about your business and what you do?
Speaker 2 5:44
Yes, so I run a audio storytelling business called a lasting tale. And we record the life stories of really anybody, mostly audio people, mostly elderly people, sorry, who have a life story to share. We are engaged normally by the families of the elderly person, so their child, their child, or their grandchild. And our primary kind of customer is they're mostly females like us, and they aged between 45 and 65. That's normally the people that engage us to interview their parents or grandparents. Our last entail has been running for nearly five years. And it started out as a kind of side. business side, I thought, and I've been working on it full time in the last 18 months.
Liz Nable 6:35
I just love I mean, I'm obviously a former journalist. So I love the promisor of your business, you know, telling people's life stories. How did you start the business? Like what what was the moment where you decided, you know, how did you come up with the idea?
Speaker 2 6:49
Right, so about in 2011, which is 12 years ago, my father and my sister both died in a really short period. And I actually realised that I would never hear their actual, the sound of their voice telling their own story. So obviously, I sat on that for a few years, and I went and had a number of children. And I worked as a freelance financial writer and interviewer, which is a lot drier than listening to people's life stories. And then I also started listening to podcasts, which your listeners might remember, it became really popular around 2011 2012. And then I had this moment where I realised that I could listen to somebody on a podcast talking about their business or giving me some insight, and I wouldn't hear the voices of my father or sister tell their own story again. So in 2018, I enlisted the help of my mother and who was aged 85. Then she's about to turn 90 now. And we sat down and we recorded her life story as an audio kind of podcast. And I said, and she was really as she didn't want to do it. She was really nervous. She had some private things that she didn't want to share. And, and I said, No, this party is private mom. But you have to help me kind of promote it and and we worked on it together. So we started, we built a mobile app. And for people to do it themselves, I ran workshops, I really hope people do it themselves. And then I realised actually that many more people were engaging me to go and interview their own loved one as a professional kind of journalist in in a private professional audio life story. So we really grow in that armour, the business, and we now have nearly 45 journalists, interviewing people for their life stories in person all over Australia. And that's really when I came to you, Liz, because I I, for your listeners should know that I'm actually based in Aubrey. So I've got all these 45 journalists and I really am breaking into metropolitan markets Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth. And I've got interviewers everywhere. But it was really hard for me to get the word out beyond kind of being a nice regional storytelling kind of business. So I suppose that's, that's when I came into I need to get these markets, not just their attention, but their trust. Yeah, absolutely.
Liz Nable 9:18
And I remember when you when you signed up to the course and I, you know, discover a little bit more about your business. I found it so interesting, because your business is storytelling. yet. I know when you first started the course, you couldn't see the stories of yourself in that business to share with the media. Tell me a little bit about coming into the course what attracted you to that? And if there was like a, you know, a moment when the penny dropped or like an aha moment you were like, Oh my God.
Speaker 2 9:52
Yes. Yes. Yes. So as you said, I am I am a trained communicator. Last year, so please, running a storytelling business. And I didn't, I knew that I had a story about my own journey about the business. And I knew it was there. But I, for one, I didn't know how to express it in a heartfelt yet kind of way that embraced other people to it. I had a lot of unsold confidence about that. And I actually realised that I also had the stories of everybody I've interviewed, not not their actual stories to share, because their private stories, but the learnings from the interviews, like everything I've learned about life and Australians and, and the general themes of being a good person and being kind and tips that we all want, I just realised I had all of these stories sitting there that the media would love to hear. And I didn't know and actually, I realised that in the first of the first workshop component of your course, when you were talking about everyone's stories, and and where it was, and you gave it synopsis of, you know, we gave our little blurb and you said, Well, the story is here. And I remember with me, you just went like this stories here. He here, here and here. And I was like, ah, yeah.
Liz Nable 11:11
Like the gold mine and stories. And I was like, Oh, my God, you could be pitching to the media for the next 25 years. Yeah, I mean, and that's not to say, there's not stuck. I mean, there's stories in every business, but your business to me, I was like, Oh, this is a this is a media a dream for the media. And once they get their hands on your your business,
Speaker 2 11:32
but I think I didn't see that. Or actually, I think I was a bit maybe like, I didn't want to see it maybe actually is a more correct statement. So I went to your course, because there was part of me knowing that I needed to see it. And I hadn't seen it, or I didn't want to because it can be hard, when you have a personal story to share that people want to connect with you on. And that's what people connect with, because they see themselves in in you, you want to reflect something. And I think that can be a really difficult thing to do. And keep it you know, not be too long, not be too emotional, not emotional enough. Like you've got to be able to make that story of your own founder story interesting to the media, but really authentic as well. And, and it doesn't have to be something as dramatic as you know, multiple brief or something like that, you know, I mean, that obviously works for my business because it happened. And that was the result of it. But it's got to be authentic and true. And I think maybe I knew it, but I didn't want to see it. And I had to have it really pointed out to me.
Liz Nable 12:45
Yeah, and that's not uncommon. I think most of the founders and business owners who come into the course, can't see the forest for the trees, because there's so close to their story, or stories within their business that they don't see where that news angle is all that pitch angle is. And that's my job is to help them see that and to start to see that there's a formula in every story. And stories follow a pattern. And once you see that pattern, all of a sudden, you're like there's a story, there's a story, I could pitch that I could pitch that in all different aspects of your business to which is, you know, a part of what you learned inside the course. And I'm so glad that you saw that early on, because you've had so much success, which is what I want to ask you about. Yeah, talk to me about some of your biggest learnings from the course. And then what you've done since then.
Speaker 2 13:35
Okay, so I have had a few really big learnings from the course I have had great success. It took a while for it to come. I went very quiet after the course. And now I've been featured in good weekend, Sunday, likely to be the big article about 10 days ago, which the sales response to that has been absolutely huge. I'm going to be in a major print magazine in a couple of months. I've just been online at will walk performance agenda just before we recorded this podcast, lots of radio interviews, it's all kind of going on from that Sunday life article. So I learned a few things about that, your course helped me really identify the story that I had. And the stories that I could pitch that gave me confidence to really tighten my brand story. I put myself I put all my logos back on my website. I put media back on as the feature. It also taught me I think this is really important. You said in your course, Liz that we were spending money on Facebook advertising, we had decided to make take that lunch to move into the metropolitan markets. And it wasn't it was giving us some results but we were getting lots lots of clicks away because all businesses are based on trust and and I suppose when you want someone to interview your father who might be ill or elderly, I think you've got a double All trust under question going there. So we were just getting heaps of clicks away, we were spending quite a lot nearly all of our sales and marketing budget, which was pretty tight on on on Facebook advertising, we were going to try it for six months. And you said in your course that PR cost less and gets more results to build trust. And to be honest, I didn't really believe you. I was like, yeah, yeah, so we did Facebook wasn't working for us. So we, we did have a Facebook, kind of we had some, you know, we use a lot of freelancers, we stopped paying him in a very nice way. Because we stopped paying him, we really cut down our spend on Facebook, we had a saving in our budget, and we actually went actually we're going to spend some money on PR. So we did well, I've done your course first. And that was such a great investment. And then we actually decided to put a little bit of our Facebook money to getting a PR consultant in Sydney just because we're regionally based. Yeah. And we really needed to get that. But actually, it was your course that made me take that leap. And so we I work with her now and she, we work together on the pictures. And that's been really, really good. I suppose the next thing is, is that it still takes a lot of work, even though I'm paying a set period per month, and it's not a big PR company. It's just this legend expert. It's just a person like us. But you know, we are still pitching. And I suppose the other thing I learned is that, yeah, it's true. Like actually, if you if you pitch something and say women's agenda is keen, take the call. You have to take their call today say if they say, you know, I'd like to have a half hour phone interview with you tomorrow. Unless I'm doing somebody's life story. Yeah, say yes. I say yes. And if I'm doing somebody's life story, I say no, I'm doing a life story. Can we make it at three? Yeah, absolutely. And don't freak out about the preparation of it. Just say yes, you know, and I think that's really important. And so in the Sunday life article, you know, I had the journalist call me, we had a really great interview about it. Then she said, can you send me some follow up links and some, and some photographs and some extra photographs? And I said, Yes, I will do that immediately. And then I went and did it immediately. And I learned that from your course, like there are some things you can put off mark around doing your reconciliations in Xero, that is actually not as important as getting back to that journalist because otherwise they'll just dump you.
Liz Nable 17:42
Yeah, totally. I think it's so interesting, because what you say about trust, because if you're you know, and I teach this, obviously, within the course, and you know, I probably say this ad nauseam on my Instagram, and that sort of thing is, I'm not saying don't put money into, you know, Facebook ads or meta ads, like you say, if there's no trust there, you know, you're paying $11, a lead or whatever it is, for someone who's a complete stranger to you, you have to warm that audience up with something you need to build trust somehow. And when they see you in, you know, women's agenda or Sunday life, even if they don't take action at that point, and then they're targeted with your Facebook ad. That's a double hit. So they've got, they're like, I've seen this girl, I've saw her in Sunday life, and now I'm being targeted with her ad. And so it's it's not just a cold call, it's not a cold call out, you know?
Speaker 2 18:40
Yes, well, further to that. So so we turned off our Facebook ads for a while. And then we got all of this PR underway. And there's been a lot of self doubt in those two months, I can tell you what, you know, like you're just starting to turn something off entirely in the middle of June and July, which traditionally, elderly people don't love to have interviews in anyway. So it's always quiet, like this. And then and then doing this, there's been some soul searching. So doing that. So then we've had this huge response from Sunday life as you know certainly outstripped any response we ever had from six months of Facebook advertising. Then we've now gone and redesigned and turned back on some of our Facebook ads and put some more money behind it. And yeah, so our leads have gone from like, I don't know, I think like 11 to $3. And I'm not i My partner is also in the business. He's in charge of all of that. I've actually been too busy to have a look at it, but but he's very impressed and the click through rates and everything. It's because they're staying on the site longer, and they're coming, and they're making inquiries more
Liz Nable 19:52
and have you used your media as your Facebook ad and put money behind that Sunday live piece?
Speaker 2 19:58
No, we haven't done On that we've now labelled it as seen. We haven't done that yet. But I remember that from your course. Yeah. And I suggested to my marketing experts slash husband slash accountant slash business partner. And I said, I think we'll listen, we should do this. This is a really good idea. And he hasn't been quite convinced yet. Right. Okay. I feel that after this podcast goes,
Liz Nable 20:26
he will, we'll send you a screenshot of a few other businesses I've seen and insights, and maybe we'll get him on.
Unknown Speaker 20:34
Yes, yes. I mean, I Yeah, exactly.
Liz Nable 20:37
And it's like anything in business. What I've learned about having I've had obviously had bricks and mortar businesses, which I've managed to promote really well during, you know, using media and PR, and then I obviously have this online business now. And I'm in the launch week of my of my media Master's course. People come to me through Facebook ads, and then I but I lead them into my free media masterclass. And the reason why I do that is because no one is going to click on a Facebook ad from me who they may never have heard of before, or worked with or have any trust in and going to buy a significant make a significant purchase with me. They don't know me, like me, and trust me, which is where I build the trust is in the free media masterclass. So they can understand that they're working with someone really professional and who's going to get the results. So very, very similar building that trust piece is super important. To me a little bit about can you quantify, like how much your inquiries or sales or however you measure your success in your business? Since you've had all that media?
Speaker 2 21:39
Yes, I can. Yeah, so we were in Sunday, like 10 days ago. And we've had 16 confirmed sales. And as is a high end, wow, we've had 16 confirmed sales, like booked in everything. since then. And we've got another we've got about another 40 leads hot to medium, we sold 80 of our DIY kits, we got 300 subscribers to our newsletter. And wow, I think that's that's the step so far. And actually, I thought it would all die last week, I thought seven weeks, but actually, we're getting inquiries again. So our next challenge is to just make that the new norm because getting getting 16 Live stories in a week is not our new norm is I mean, that would be great. And obviously, we've got all the journalists to go and do the work to go and do the introduce part about but that is like that is phenomenal for a business like mine to get number,
Liz Nable 22:46
would you say that 200% increase? Or three? I would say
Speaker 2 22:50
that what's what's that like? So our kind of aim for this year is to get three interviews a week, right? And we have not hit that match. Like we've been averaging about 2.8 or something. So I don't know, I'm a really good audio storyteller. So somebody else can do the math on that. Like, that's like two to 16 What's that, like 1000 fold or something? I want a lot. And I'm I mean, you know, that's probably a spy. But if we can keep this going and bring it back down to say 10 a week that is going to launch our business into a very different business to what it has been.
Liz Nable 23:31
And now your job, as you know from during the course is to try and leverage that, yes, average as much as possible. And get it everywhere continuously. So that until you get your next media when we just had one today. So you can use that again today in women's agenda. But leveraging that as much as you can so that it's not I mean, it is a spike. But so you can maintain a new median or median average or something. Yeah, tell me a bit about when you came to the course. How did you feel about self promotion? And and what was the catalyst for you getting over yourself to put yourself out there and not worry about? You know, selling yourself? Or do you still feel a bit uncomfortable selling yourself?
Speaker 2 24:19
Oh, yeah, that's a really interesting thing. I went and did a keynotes. I did a speech at a conference this weekend. And that was I learned a lot about speaking and stuff and finessing my brand message and the stories. I mean, in the storytelling speech, I used to sell more of my business in speeches. And now I just have taken all of that out actually. And I'm not just talking about the stories I've heard and the themes that can relate to us in consideration to the audience. And I just think that's a much nicer thing to listen to as well. You'd learn a lot more out of it and you know, it really connects with people when people can look up the facts of your business later. They can find out the price they can find out the details, and all of that stuff. So I think that that is really important. So is it an evolving beast? Yeah, of course. It's an evolving beast. You know, I think what was really good about the Sunday life article is that as a journalist, yeah. So I didn't like, we pitch them, me and my story, but I didn't have to write the story again. And this fantastic journalist, she interviewed me and she put into her words, what sometimes I feel really uncomfortable saying myself, and I've incorporated some of her words back into my personal pitch about my personal story, because she actually said it better than me, because she was coming to it from an outsider, just like I say, why you should get people to record your parents life story, because an outsider's perspective is really important. So that has given me self confidence to go forward using her words, to explain my own story. But I wouldn't, I would say that every like, doing this a big speech to about over 200 women, which I've never done that many people before. Yeah, like one article in Sunday, life doesn't make you you're kind of really confident person. Like I was really scared. Yeah,
Liz Nable 26:15
yeah. It's interesting, because we were talking about this before we hit record. I'm teaching people how to self promote pretty much through the media. And even I have moments of wondering what people will think, you know, if someone's scrolling through my Instagram, or they think I'm, you know, I think I'm too big for my boots, or they think I think I'm the best thing ever. It's a really hard, I think it's a woman thing, I don't know, because I'm a woman, and I'm thinking about from my perspective, but that's what I see a lot in my business. But what I love about media coverage is that it's not self promotion, because you don't have to say how amazing you are or how great your businesses because you can give that information to a journalist like you did. And someday life can tell the world how amazing I feel like there's so much credibility and value in that. And you can hide a little bit from saying, I think I'm great. Or I think my business is great, or, you know, you should, you know, invest in a, you know, an audio life story. Because someday life is a credible, trusted, really well known media outlet, and they're telling the world for you. And I think that's a really important part of utilising that media coverage. You know, because anyone can go on social media and say, you know, whatever they like about exactly or, you know, I'm the highest grossing, you know, person under 40, in this market or whatever. But to, for for really trusted media out there to say that on your behalf is, is very flattering. So you should be super proud of all that means. Yeah,
Speaker 2 27:51
I am super proud of that. of that one. That was hard, hard work to get. And you know, we are but I am super proud. And I think what is really good is that you have a lot of people have said I had no idea how many people think Sydney and Melbourne read the Sunday life actually. Like even though I've seen the stats, I really didn't know it. And also that, you know, all my mates and friends and everything who were in like comms and marketing and stuff. They're all like, Oh, my God, that's a really great weekend. How did you get that? Did? You know? So I think that's good. So the important thing is to I think we were talking about this before, is to remember to celebrate that win before moving on to getting the next win. So I did when we got lots of inquiries on the Sunday, I said to my husband, I said, I think we should get a bottle of champagne. And he said, he said, No, no, I think it's too early to celebrate. And I said this may never happen again, like this little tie up tomorrow. So actually, this this could be the moment mate. So but we compromised, we made it Australian.
Liz Nable 28:56
You can go on French night. Is there any other sort of key? I mean, you've obviously done really well, you've taken into, you know, you put into practice, everything, you know, you learned in the course. Any sort of key takeaways or any advice you would give anyone who's thinking about their media masters Academy, and they might be like, Oh, my business isn't big enough, or I haven't been in business long enough, or I'm not good enough, or all those little voices in your head. Any advice you'd give them?
Speaker 2 29:27
I mean, I mean, I was pretty honest. In this podcast, we're about where my business was at. So I mean, my business was is pretty light is pretty small, really. I mean, it's not tiny. But, you know, it's not massive. And, and I think that's important to just realise. And also, I actually think it's important to pitch where your audience is. So actually, you know, we're are an audio interview service, that's a premium service that so people need to be able to afford to buy it They need to be interested in the history of their parents. Yes, we've got community programmes and stuff. That's different. But but so I mean, I want Sunday like readers, I want good weekend readers, I want women's genders readers like, I'm like, we're we're pitching publications that we know, have our audience at it. So know your audience, I think don't waste time pitching stuff that you're not going to get anything from. And just actually, I just think I learnt, I think having to face the journalists in your pitching thing. In your workshop, it gets to experience Yeah, we're really it was really scary. Yeah. And so I actually often put my hand up pretty early to do it, because it's like ripping a band aid, I think, was really scary, but it gave me confidence to do it. So my advice would be to really try and make the time to turn up to the live sessions to prioritise that, you know, I mean, you've made the investment in the course. And I think turning up to do those pitches, yeah, it's really scary. But it really gave me the confidence to go forward and think, okay, in my business, where I'm at, these are the steps and it's all different, like, I didn't end up pitching myself to every single person did I because I had a look at where I was based, and where my contacts were. And it's much, much difficult to get face to face interviews and television and everything from Aubrey, you know, I needed to move into Sydney, and I needed to get a bit of extra time, you know, I needed to take extra steps. And the course taught me to take those extra steps. That gave me confidence, I think.
Liz Nable 31:34
Yeah, amazing. Well, you have done so well. I'm very proud of you. I don't mean that. Does that sound really patronising? I am extremely complimentary. You've done so well. And I know that you're going to keep kicking massive goals.
Speaker 2 31:47
Well, that's that. Yes. And that's not just the hope that's the strategy. You will Yes,
Speaker 3 31:54
Messi was just like the Matilda's will tonight. That's exactly right. Oh, I
Speaker 2 31:58
don't I'm not sure this is gonna go to air after that. And I think you've just given her you can think of teaching is that being is correct. Thanks to you, many of you.
Liz Nable 32:09
Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure having you on the show. Thankfully, thank you for listening to this episode of enable my business. If you've loved it, please share it on Instagram and Facebook for your friends. I'm all about listening and learning from you, my audience. So please pop a review on iTunes and let me know how you're enjoying the show. I'd love to hear from you. So if you have any questions, email me at Liz at Liz nabal.com. And if you want to know more about what I do, head over to Liz nabal.com. I truly hope this podcast is a game changer for you. Whether you're a small business owner, franchisee you have a side hustle or you're just starting out. This is where you truly begin to build your own empire and the life of your dreams.
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