102. Profit of Kindness: Interview with Jill Lublin

In this interview, you will hear from the renowned publicity strategist, international speaker, consultant, and four times bestselling author Jill Lublin on why being kind is more important than people realised. She shared with us her view on Return on Investment, where all things are transactional, versus if we can focus on Return on Kindness instead. Simply put, when you are a kind company, you get better publicity and having kindness in business, it actually brings you more business. I can’t help but think a little kindness can go a long way with our customer relationships as well!

Decades ago Marianne Williamson wrote her international bestseller and highly influential book Return to Love. Jill’s Profit of Kindness is also a book written to remind us about humanity and divinity as something we need to come back to. I hope you will enjoy this conversation as much as I do!

Jill A. Lublin is an internationally renowned speaker on the topics of publicity and networking. As an author of her best-selling books Profit of Kindness (Red Wheel Weiser), Get Noticed…Get Referrals, and co-author of the best-sellers Guerrilla Publicity (Adams Media), and Networking Magic (Adams Media), Jill is a master strategist on how to capture the attention of the media and increase your visibility in the marketplace.

Interview Highlights

What her new book “The Profit of Kindness” is about?
Why it better to focus on the “Return on Kindness” Principle instead of Return on Investment
How to discern someone’ authenticity – are they consistent on stage and off stage?
Sometimes we want to work with people or coaches that can lead us to the edge of growth, which may be challenging, but that is different from working with people with who we are not comfortable.
Understand your own skillset and gaps, so that when you work with others, they can fill in those gaps.
The path to success and accomplishment will become clear, but not immediately and we may stumble and fell.
Don’t get too attached to how you think things need to be, because sometimes they will inform you how they need to be.
Patience for an entrepreneur can be tough but things tend to unfold in their own natural ways
“When” and “How” do we decide to quit our projects and change our direction.
Many paths have projects that didn’t take off because there is so much happening in the marketplace. Pick something you are passionate about so that you can stay long enough to see it through and stay in the game.
Entrepreneurs are often highly creative and dynamic, we are not good with monotony and that’s why it’s good to delegate things you don’t like to do so that they get done and you can focus on what you do best!

You can find Jill’s books and courses here, and you can also connect with her at:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jilllublin
http://twitter.com/JillLublin
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jill-Lublin/1143437802

Video

Transcript

Sze Wing: Hi, everyone. I’m really excited to introduce you to my guest Jill Lublin all the way from the USA today. And I’m so pleased that she has agreed to come on to be my guest on my podcast. So hi, Jill So great to be here with you. Thank you so much. So a little short introduction. Jill is an international speaker on the topic of Radical Influence, Publicity, Networking, Kindness, and Referrals, and she’s also has bestselling books and which we are going to talk about her latest one. And as many of my listeners know that I’m also writing my own books. So definitely I’m so honoured to actually have her to be interviewed. And I’m really excited to ask her with my questions. So, and her latest book is The Profit of Kindness, which went on to be number one in four categories.

Sze Wing: Jill is a master strategist on how to position a business for more profitability and more visibility in marketplace. She’s a CEO of a strategic consulting firm and has over 25 years experience working with over 100,000 people plus national and international media. So she teaches a virtually publicity crash course, as she consultants and speaks all over the world. She also helped authors to create book deals with major publishers and agents, as well as to obtain foreign rights and deals. So if you interested in a publicity crash course, you can go through the link and I will have the links at the end in the details. So first of all, welcome to my show. Thank you so much Jill. I feel honoured to be here with you. Wow. Really happy to have you here. So first of all, tell us about your new book because I looked at all the books that you have written early on, and I felt this one have a slightly different approach, or I don’t know, because it talks about kindness.

Sze Wing: And so why don’t you tell us about what prompted you to write this book and what’s the book all about?

Jill: Thank you. So the Profit of Kindness is actually it is my fourth book and it’s really about how to use kindness in the marketplace. So I go over seven, what I call “return on kindness” principles. So everybody’s always concerned about ROI, right? You also need to be thinking about, okay, and those are return on kindness, principles, things like patience and flexibility. That’s true. Two of them, you know, that are so important in these times. What prompted me to write it is actually my 85 year old friend who, you know, we’ve been friends for over 20 years, a wonderful relationship and a very dynamic and terrific woman. And, you know, as she’s gotten older, I’ve been helping care for her and all kinds of things that are involved in that, like running over, if she falls and take her to doctor’s appointments.

Jill: And one day she looked at me and she said, Jill, you are so kind, I think we should have a new currency. She said the currency of kindness, that’s where it all started. That’s where the Profit of Kindness got born.

Sze Wing: Sometimes sort of life experiences, we learn about gratitude. We learn about what really matters, how alert about kindness, like giving or receiving, but in your previous books are very much focused on business marketing, how to make things work, how to make things happen. You know, it has a very different energy to it. So how did you manage to combine the two strengths to get it? Because I don’t think they as a whole, how the person, I don’t think they separate, but as an author and as a business woman, you know what I’m trying to say that sometimes we juggle, how do we combine the two and make it really compliment each other?

Jill: So here’s what I’m going to say. It’s interesting because kind companies get lots of publicity. Now I wrote the book guerrilla publicity, right? And here’s what I know perception is everything. When you are a kind company, when you’re known for that, when you’re doing commercials about that, which you know, many companies are right now, there’s a huge healthcare company, dignity health, doing a human kindness campaign. Now they’re using these words right. In their campaigns, right? So here’s the deal. When you’re a kind company, you get better publicity, that’s just all ties to there actually. And so guerrilla publicity is about how to get more publicity, and profit of kindness is being more profitable by being kind. And they tie very much together in a nice bow, from a public perception standpoint and they stand alone and by themselves too.

Jill: The truth is they’re all business books because using kindness in business brings you more business. That’s just what happens.

Sze Wing: I really liked the fact that you got inspired by your experience with your friend and it come from a true place and it’s a sort of self reflection. But in your experience, a lot of people in some way know that and learn fast because they know, oh, spirituality sell, or kindness, we just throw the word gratitude out there and see if something just stick. Right. So, you know, you walk the path and you have done your work, looking at the books. So how did you discern when someone is coherent, like a real deal? Because some people can just tell us all these words together and try to get publicity, try to stand out from this crowd. But how do you, your approach to discern what is good information or how do you, how do you navigate in this? Because you work with different clients, work with different businesses and I assume you can’t work with everybody. So you have to pick. And how do you decide to pick the right one?

Jill: So, you know, I think picking people you work with in business is a bit like a relationship, right? You have to court, date and see if it’s a good fit. Not everybody has to be my perfect match to be a great match, whether I hire them. You know, sometimes I hire people because I’m afraid of in a way like that makes me a little nervous because it brings me to another edge of myself, particularly coaches, you know? I believe a lot in investing in coaches and education. I think that’s really important just like I’m a coach for some, I need to be coached. Right. And I think that’s important. So, the discernment, is there a consistency in their life and the way they speak in how they act? UI look for that first, right.

Jill: Is there consistency? Are they the same? Because I’m a speaker and I’ve also done publicity and helped a lot of speakers, authors, consultants, coaches particularly, are they the same through all of their environments? Right. So if they go onstage and they’re one way, and then comes off stage and they’re really different. Well, that’ll tell you something right away. So look for many of those, what I call the big signs and the small signs, right. Because for me, it’s all one, you know, that’s not to say, of course, when I’m speaking to thousands of people, I might have a bigger energy than when I’m speaking to you right here right now, because you have to amplify your energy and do certain things. However, watch for that kind of consistency, I think that’ll cue you in.

Sze Wing: I love that because the onset stage personality, it’s quite important and if not comparable, I resonate with that because I remember when back in dating days, sometimes you go out for coffee with the men and they treat the waitors really poorly or uncomfortable in that environment or whatever that you just picked up on just not consistent with how this person presenting himself or herself to you one-to-one or like in a fancy restaurant versus in a really just a corner cafe.

Jill: And I think, you know, that picture paint a better picture to onstage and offstage personality. Yeah, exactly. And all it’s all the little things, you know, pay attention to the little things. And I think that’s, that’ll show you a lot of who person is. And the other thing, you know, I’ve always laughed because people will tell you who they’re with. I don’t want to work with difficult people. I want my clients to be wonderful, to work with to be easy to work with, to be joyful, to work with. You know, that’s not to say there’s times where we’re working through some things. Right. But I want great people to work with. So I just think for all of us, we have to decide what works for us right.

Sze Wing: That really sparked my interest because when you are hiring or working with clients of both directions. And you mentioned that you don’t want to work with difficult people, both again hiring or working with, but then you also mentioned earlier about sometimes you want to work with people you may be scared of. I mean, in the sense that it challenges as opposed that what you’re referring to with hiring coaches that may like, you know scare you. So how do you like, okay, so tell me a little bit more, dig deeper about this, you know, difficult versus challenging in a good way. Sometimes difficult can be marked as something actually you need to deal with.

Jill: Well, exactly. So you know, what I pay attention to? Where does my heart race a little bit, that includes if somebody is talking to me about working with them. But more so when I’m choosing coaches and or people I’m going to work with if I feel when I meant a little bit afraid, what I’m saying is I am challenged. Yes. I have to raise up a level. Yes. One of my coaches said that, you know, he’s a toe ahead of me in the water, right. I mean, I’m accomplished. So is he, and there are so many things he knows. So I also want to fill in the gap where, where my I have blanks. So it might be in the area of financial support. You know, it just depends what you need in terms of where you’re at and where you need the holes filled in.

Jill: And I think that’s a good way to decide, you know, do they have those skillsets? I do have two kinds of coaches. One’s really good at like sales and marketing. And that’s how he thinks another one’s more financially rooted and grounded in that he wants to see my numbers. And I don’t know. I can’t do my, you know, when I, when I first started with them, I used to laugh. Cause I told them, I didn’t know my P and L, prop that stands for profit and loss, just for those of you who don’t know.

Jill: I wasn’t afraid of business, but I was afraid of the financial aspects. I didn’t have a handle on how to read a financial statement on how to create a forecasting for my business on my expense versus, you know, everything else. And by the way, it’s still not my most profound skill set. I mean, I am great at publicity. I am great at messaging. I am great at helping people get book deals with major publishers and agents that I know how to do. Right. But what I also know as a business woman is that you get team to do the rest. I have a bookkeeper and a CPA. They know how to do that. That’s their skillset. So make sure, you know, just like people hire me for my marketing knowledge, get the people around you who help you with the things that you don’t know as well.

Jill: That you’re a bit deficient in. That’s really important. That’s why it makes my heart race because I don’t know these things as well as I could. And I don’t need to know them. Yeah. And like the same, like I love to write and interview people, but I’m not very good with the designing. I know what I like visually and I can give direction, but I’m not going to spend hours on doing graphics. And even though like, you know, I’m one of those solo mama entrepreneur, I know that I cannot do it all. And just like what you said, what you’re good at or enjoy rather than doing it. Pick your battles to win the war. I used it with my work. I use it with my babies that’s right. You, you sit in your family and your relationships. Right. We use them everywhere because some things are worth fighting for, and some things are worth delegating.

Sze Wing: I wanted to go back to a little bit because, at the beginning, when you met someone to help you with your financial side. This is so actually what I got really curious is that now look at you, you’re have 4 books. You are accomplished and that people look up to you, but tell me where did it all begin? Tell me the story before you become you. Because I love people to look at an accomplished business person like yourself. They, they look at it there and they want success here tomorrow or yesterday, but they forget that you must have a story or long way before you written four books. When you wrote four books, it’s not like four days.

Sze Wing: So tell us a little bit about your background story that’s okay.

Jill: Absolutely. So, you know, I came to my business in a circuitous way, like many of us do. And actually I dropped out of law school because I hate it. And that surprised me because I really wanted to go to law school. You see, I thought being in law school would be a way that I could help people, but then I got to law school and for my creative mind, a very difficult place to be. So I dropped out, which made me feel honestly like a failure. At that point I started as a secretary in the music business and I loved that.I was able to get right into the world of music and entertainment and then kind of worked my way up and actually found my true calling, which is publicity and promotion ended up as a director of permission promotion and publicity at multiple independent record labels.

Jill: And what was wonderful about that is that’s where I learned the power of perception and publicity. Right then I opened up my own agency and my own consulting firm. And then I got, I call it, tapped on the shoulder to write my first book, guerrilla publicity. And from there I started speaking and then I changed everything from a PR agency into a virtual publicity course. And now I’m able to help a lot more people, a lot more affordably because most people can’t afford big fees of PR agencies, you know? So I wanted to find a way around that and help a lot more entrepreneurs. And I managed to succeed, but you know, along the way, like all of us, you know, ups and downs and all arounds and learning how to run a business, learning how to manage people.

Jill: So like everything in life, you, you find your way. And for me, the path became clear, but not immediately. And I stumbled and fell. And I still times where I’ll start a project and it falls flat. Maybe it wasn’t the right time. Like for instance, kindness circles. When the Profit of Kindness came out, I really wanted to do something called kindness circles. Well, it took me a year and a half since the book’s been out to start them. Now I am doing them. I’m doing them monthly. They’re completely free. And then in November, I’m doing kindness summit. Now I wanted that to be a full day program and of course, because of our world circumstances, it will be a three hour program and it will be virtual and that’s fine. So this is the thing, you know, don’t get too attached to how you always think things need to be, because sometimes they will inform you how they need to be.

Jill: And it depends on what’s needed. I would rather do a three hour virtual event than not do anything this year to celebrate world kindness day. Right. But . You know, my book was written almost two years ago, so I’m just getting to that. Now. I wanted to come out the gate with it, but it was too much. And sometimes, you know, you can’t do it all at once. I think patience for entrepreneurs is, well, that could be tough. But certainly that’s been one of my roads is learning more patience that things unfold sometimes in their own natural ways.

Sze Wing: So that’s perfectly dip into what I wanted to ask you, because you walk the path for the last 25 years. So some listeners is still transitioning into owning the business or being here for just a few years.

Sze Wing: So I wanted to ask you about some tips that you learned the hard way or easy way, and you mentioned patience, but that’s the other thing I actually have been thinking about regarding this, because many people ask for the tips, but so sometimes I wonder when we face a situation, say, you couldn’t do the life event, you have to do virtual, but sometimes, maybe things don’t go our way. Maybe we don’t get as many clients. We don’t sell as many products. The publicity campaign didn’t work. Sometimes we faced the decision that should we just fold it? Should we just quit it and say, I need an other re-iteration for my business. Maybe I should go back to law school, you know, those big cross point. And I assume after a long journey as you may have couple of those. So what do we do when we ask those big questions?

Jill: Preliminary, I asked him, I asked it two, maybe three years ago. I was, you know, when you do something and I love my work, but I, I like also like new things, new projects. I never expected to actually write a fourth book that kind of showed up. And why I knew what was right is because immediately when all this started happening the publisher who took the book made it happen really fast. Right. And so to me, that was a sign. So I do watch for signs. I follow a certain amount of intuition and guidance. Now. I was a very goal oriented person and interestingly enough, I had given up certain goals. Like I just try not to stay too tight and too structured. And I like to see what showing up now that took me a while to get to that place, you know?

Jill: And see what feels right to me, what is in alignment with my purpose, my vision, my general philosophy. But certainly let me just tell you, I’ve had many false starts, you know, try programs that didn’t work or didn’t engage people. Sometimes I wonder why people aren’t opening my emails and, if it’s not a high enough open rate. As my coach says, I hate to tell you, but they’re not reading all your stuff because there is so much noise in the marketplace. So if you’re going to pick something, pick something you’re passionate about that you can stay with for at least a long enough term to see it through. And I do think that some of my success you want to know what’s true has been that I just stayed in the game, know including the times when, by the way I wanted to quit, I wanted to get a job.

Jill: I thought to heck with this, this is too hard, you know, why don’t I just get paid and get benefits and reap the rewards that way. And that of course has its own issues and own problems. I kept going and there were times believe me where I didn’t know how I was going to pay my staff. I didn’t know. I’ve been there. I really have, I didn’t know maybe what the next project was, or maybe I was just bored at different times, and these are all different timeframes, you know, because writing a book’s exciting and when you get the books exciting, but there’s all that stuff in between the monotony. Let’s be honest. If you’re a business owner, you’re going to do some things that are monotonous and boring.

Jill: Now, you know, entrepreneurs in particular are creative generally and dynamic typically. That’s hard to do, but one of the things I’m big on is as much as you can start delegating the things you don’t like to do, just to take that away and focus on the things you do love to do, and that are the most revenue generating. Listen, I have people that I pay in the Philippines, for example, $7 an hour. They’re very happy. And they’re wonderful and great on my team. So there’s all kinds of ways that you can create in this environment, wonderful ways to get things done, affordably and inexpensively, get team and do the things you want to do and not spend a fortune. So that’s a beautiful thing. We were very lucky.

Sze Wing: Well, thank you for sharing that because, you know, from the outsider perspective, is that all you have the success and they want to hear sometimes that maybe five years ago you were questioning the same thing, because sometimes we looked at people’s success and they are super human.

Sze Wing: They all there and we’re here. And we like, how am I going to pay the bail? And we don’t want to tell anyone, this is shame of the fact that we didn’t manage to get on top of it. And so there’s a lot of weird dynamics that we can talk about it all day, because we love the business and love helping people. But to wrap everything together, really, I definitely want to know more about your publicity course because you created it so that people may not be able to afford the big agency fees. Can tell us about the course and maybe the website or how to get in touch with you. If people interested to learn more about that.

Jill: Thank you. So I created a virtual publicity course. This is a no-nonsense get it done.

Jill: And we were actually get your publicity done in the course it’s live, it’s interactive with me. It’s a small group and a wonderful breakout rooms, and you don’t have to leave your home to do it. That’s what’s great. Frankly the other thing people love is that it is just very practical and tactical where I spill all the secrets and give people a real system to get their done and to do with the right way so that you get real results. It’s interesting in this pandemic, what I’ve done is I actually lowered all my prices and that’s been really great. So for my pandemic pricing, here’s what you do. You go to publicity crash course.com and put in the code, stay visible, all lowercase, stay visible and that’ll give you a great code for a very affordable investment to get your publicity done.

Jill: And then if you want to talk to me about publishing or bigger projects, please email me at support@jilllublin.com.

Sze Wing: Well, thank you so much today to chat with you and hear from you, and you got four wonderful books and people certainly can grab them with you from your website. So thank you once again.

Jill: Thank you for having me.