<p>Two years ago I put out my shingle and opened for&nbsp;business as a diet coach.&nbsp; I knew more than half of&nbsp;the hours&nbsp;I would&nbsp;put in&nbsp;were going to be dedicated to marketing&nbsp; I was going to have to get "out there" so people could find me.&nbsp; I set out to figure the best ways to become present to my target audience: women who wanted to lose weight.</p> <p>I eagerly listened to the marketing gurus, read their articles, bought their e-books, and listened to their teleclasses.&nbsp; I was blogging, writing, commenting on&nbsp;articles of others in my field,&nbsp;and spending hours making my internet presence known.&nbsp; Locally I was offering to speak in person at&nbsp;clubs and&nbsp;meetings: the library, churches, weight loss groups and gyms.&nbsp; I had a monthly newsletter, wrote e-books for&nbsp; passive income, became the staff dietitian for a diet website, and expanded my followers on Facebook and Twitter.</p> <p>But&nbsp;despite continuing&nbsp;all this work, doing exactly what all the experts repeated over and over, and maintaining a hopeful optimism, people were not&nbsp;flocking to my site to buy my products or services:&nbsp; Not even to my four&nbsp;&nbsp;blogs for free advice on nutrition and weight loss.&nbsp; I knew I had tens of thousands of customers who needed what I had to offer.&nbsp; I decided I was going to have to do something drastic:&nbsp; appear on local television in the St.Louis market so those tens of thousands of women would know I was out there!</p> <p>I'm not sure I believe in the law of attraction, but I figured I would give it a try.&nbsp; I chose to ignore my fear and do what I had to do to assure a spot on a local television talk show.&nbsp; First, I made the decision that this would be my next goal.&nbsp;I repeated it often, to myself and to&nbsp;others: "I'm going to get on tv".</p> <p>The second thing I did was make a move towards becoming comfortable speaking on television.&nbsp; As a member of toastmasters I had just completed my first ten speeches, earning my competent communicator&nbsp;award.&nbsp; The next level of speeches allowed me to choose an area I was interested in (management, professional speaking, leadership, training, etc).&nbsp; I chose television--there is actually a specific manual for that.&nbsp; I was focusing on making it happen.</p> <p>Just a week later at our breakfast networking group we were encouraged to forego our usual "elevator speech" in order to let&nbsp;the group&nbsp;know what we needed from the other members.&nbsp; I announced I wanted to be on local television.&nbsp; And after the meeting I was approached by three of the women in the group, two of them handing me the same business card of a local PR woman who had gotten each of them on tv.&nbsp; I called her right away and set up a meeting.</p> <p>Barely two weeks after that, she called to tell me she had secured a&nbsp;spot on Great Day St. Louis, a popular morning show that targeted women.&nbsp; I was going&nbsp;to talk about why it is difficult for women to lose weight after 50.&nbsp; This was it!&nbsp; My big chance to be seen by women for miles around; to show them that I knew what they were struggling with and that I could help.</p> <p>In order to practice for my five-minute live interview I signed up to speak at toastmasters the next day.&nbsp; A friend of mine in the club volunteered to act as hostess and asked me questions in front of the group, as if she were interviewing me on tv.&nbsp; I faced her, instead of the audience, to simulate what I would be doing on the show as much as possible.&nbsp; I got great feedback from the group and that boosted my confidence enough to calm my nerves.</p> <p>Now as I type this, I am just back from my tv debut two hours ago.&nbsp; I set out to get on television so thousands of people would see me, and I made it happen in less than one month.&nbsp; Think positively, let people know what you need, and fight the fear.&nbsp; I've heard this advice so much but this time I lived it.&nbsp; Now I have only to sit back and&nbsp;wait, to see if this will be&nbsp;the magic bullet that will have the customers flocking to my site!</p> 2009-10-15T17:14:53Z -1.43108 135 6946 true 14 9076 how-i-got-on-daytime-television 1 2009-10-18T08:33:52Z 2009-10-17T15:34:23Z

After two years of typical networking and marketing strategies, I still wasn’t getting flocks of customers. The next step was going to have to be drastic, if I was going to get enough clients to stay in business.

1 2009-10-17T15:34:23Z