How To Get Six Figures of Free Press with Josh Elledge

Founder and Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngel.com – Josh Elledge

Josh has a cool site all about saving money – we discuss saving – but also how important MAKING MORE is! Josh goes into detail on how he landed a ton of amazing press spots – and how he was able to turn them into new site visitors and eventually paying customers.

How to Get Millions In Free Media

Go to JoshElledge.com and SavingsAngel.com for more info!

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Announcer: Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire podcast - with your host, Jaime Tardy. Real talk and real advice from real millionaires, with a sharp focus on you - the Eventual Millionaire.

Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Tardy and I'm super excited today to have Josh Elledge on the show. He owns SavingAngel.com, he calls himself the chief executive angel, and he's on a mission to help 100,000 families save each and every month. I'm so excited to have him on the show. Thanks so much for coming on.

Josh: Thanks, Jaime.

Jaime: Your site is really cool. I wish I'd had it when I was getting out of debt. I paid off $70,000 and there was nothing like this at the time.

Josh: Congratulations on that. I didn't know that about you.

Jaime: It was a long, hard time - especially because we didn't have coupon clippings, we didn't have this stuff that you did. So what year did you create the site and why did you even create it?

Josh: So I launched Savings Angel in January of 2007, so we've been around for a while, and the reason why I launched it was just completely out of necessity because I think we were kind of in a similar position that you were in -we had debt, I was actually working in marketing and I was working at job where there was a lot of instability and I knew that I could lose my job any month and so my wife and I became very, very protective of how we were spending our money because we knew we were living above our means and you just can't live like that - it's not sustainable, you can't live like that. So we started researching all the experts and it started with reading -The Richest Man in Babylon? and from there it went on to Dave Ramsey and that whole ilk. As we were going through our spending plan, looking at how we were spending our dollars, I got to that line item for groceries and I've never really thought about this before but, for whatever reason, and I'm sure you've talked to other people who have experienced the same thing, I could not stop thinking about it. I don't know why, I just obsessed over that line item because we were a family of five and we were spending $800 a month and, if you asked me what that was for, I couldn't tell you. I had no idea - groceries, food, toilet paper, I don't know! So I started reading all of the experts. I'm sure you have heard that there are people out there who have worked out a system where they're able to get groceries for penny on the dollar. We put them on TV and we laugh at them - the extreme couponers - and they are ridiculous. I have a technology background and I looked at what they did and I thought "There has got to be a better way." I am all about democratization of stuff. if there is information and it's not available to the masses I want to change that system and so I created a website where, rather than have to be become an extreme couponer, we do all of the extreme work for our members and then we just share with them. So you can just login and we'll tell you, scientifically, where the lowest prices on everything are and you can end up getting groceries for pennies on the dollar and it ended up really taking off.

Jaime: That's insane. And of course you came out the year after I paid off all my debt - thank you very much!

Josh: That's just like what my wife and I were talking about last night - I was in the navy and I was stationed in Adak, Alaska, way up in the Aleutian Islands, and we were courting and we were engaged for a year and we were separated. This was 1994 - one year before the internet, basically. So we didn't have chatting and all of this stuff. It was long distance and so we spent hundreds of dollars every single month on phone bills.

Jaime: We're all just too early! I love that - and I remember doing the couponing. I don't do couponing very much anymore but at the time I was hardcore into it and I spent so many hours to save $3 on something so I wish that had existed back then.

Josh: There's the law of diminishing returns so for me, for couponing, I spend 45 minutes a week and that's where I draw my line. I don't spend any more time than that. I'm only going to go after the highest value coupons. I really don't mess around with newspaper coupons myself anymore, although a lot of our members do, I really just want to make sure that I'm using my time wisely because, again, I think when you watch the extreme couponers on TV what you don't realize is that they spend 30 hours a week doing that. So if you spend 30 hours and you save $700 I don't think that's a good return on investment but if I can spend 45 minutes and I can make $60 an hour then that's worth my time and I will do that even though we're doing okay financially. I have to share this because this is just fascinating - most people think that couponers tend to be people who are just down on their luck, they're lower income, but the fastest growing segment of couponers over the past couple of years have been people who make six-figure incomes, a lot of men - people who are generally doing very well but they don't like leaving money on the table. So if there is a system out there that can automate this for them then that's what they're looking for, because they don't want to do old school couponing like maybe you did or I know my mom did - she would sit on the floor on Sunday morning and just clip all of these coupons and just use maybe 5% of them. Again, it's so much easier today - and that is sometimes a hurdle that we've faced, when people find out "Wait a minute, this involves coupons? Not interested in it."

Jaime: I had the binder and it took me forever to do all of the stuff and I do not like leaving money on the table but I see extreme couponers and, to me, it's not worth my time when my time is extremely valuable but the fact that you're saying a lot of people nowadays who are doing really well are doing couponing - well, you do couponing, because you're the guy, you have to.

Josh: It's in my blood. If I go into a grocery store and pay full price it would bother me to no end. I just could not do it. Even Walmart, I can't go in and pay Walmart prices. I don't have to but I just know how easy it is to be able to save an extra $30 for, honestly, just half an hour's work. Again, it's because I know what the systems are and I know to use that site for this, so I've got it done into a system. That's what we do - we handle that for people - and the fact that you can get free stuff every week, I don't care how rich you are, rich people like getting free stuff.

Jaime: How has your mindset changed? It's been quite a few years, we're talking about seven years, at the beginning you were in debt so tell me about your mindset from then until now.

Josh: I love this question so much because this was so transformative for me. I guarantee that there are other entrepreneurs out there who are facing the same issue which is this - like any other entrepreneur, I know how to work my butt off. I consider myself to have a crazy work ethic and I know most entrepreneurs do. We have no problem there. We are willing to do the things that other people are not willing to do so that will have the things that they will never have. So I think I have that down. Anyone who's listening to your show must be into success philosophies - if they're enjoying this conversation right now, that's what they're in to. They believe in changing what's up here and, for me, my background wasn't necessarily one of an abundance mindset - it was a scarcity mindset - so I needed to change that and I needed to learn what rich people knew and so I spent years and year doing that and I feel like seven or eight years ago I had that down pretty good. So I had those two things down but there was one area that was missing and that was that you need to be a good steward over what you have. That's kind of a religious term - define it in whatever way you want but you need to take care of what you have. To get a little New Age-y on you, imagine that money is kind of an energy and this energy comes into your life and it says "How are you going to take care of me? I'm money and I've got lots of other money friends - how are you going to take care of me?" If that money senses that you're going to go "Hey, I've got this money! Whoo!" and it's just water through your hands - again, I know this is kind of esoteric so just bear with me - but I've tested this and I've experienced this first hand and money doesn't tend to stick around for people who don't respect it and don't use it wisely. So when I make $1,000 I look at it as having a responsibility to use that money wisely. That doesn't mean that you have to give everything away - as a matter of fact, I think for us to be mindful of how we use those resources, so if I do have things, causes that I believe in, and I do, I know that every month I want to make sure that I am giving because it's a part of who I am and it's a part of my identity. It doesn't have to be a part of everyone's identity but I know that there are so many benefits that I personally get out of giving that it is just a priority for me - and, similarly, I want to make sure that I'm investing in myself, that I'm investing in my future, that I'm investing in my family and all of these things require mindfulness. When you do buy something, and people probably do this without really thinking about it, but we like to take care of things - well I really believe that that is a big responsibility that we have. If we want to buy something - and this is interesting too because I've been broke and I've been not broke - the difference is, when you're not broke and you have a lot of money, you have the opportunity to invite more experiences and more things into your life and if you're not ready for that and you're not ready to take care of those things, like you got rich too quick and you didn't work on your mindset first and you didn't work on the stewardship principles, it's just really hard to live at that level which is why, in my opinion, you see a lot of people who get rich too quick and end up not staying there. You really have to develop a certain type of maturity, not in the sense of placing "that's good" or "that's bad" level on it, but there is a certain type of responsibility that you're willing to accept, almost like a calling - "I will accept the calling to be wealthy" - and if you accept that calling there are some responsibilities that you're going to want to exercise.

Jaime: I love all of this and I talk about this in my book too. I think the interesting thing, especially hearing from someone who's data driven - you said you were in tech - and then you're talking about esoteric stuff, which I love because we think that they have to be complete opposites which they're not, but I also hear, all the time, people going "Well aren't millionaires greedy?" They are some of the most giving people I've ever met, which changes their mindset of thinking they have to be greedy in order to keep the money. What you're saying is the complete opposite of that.

Josh: Where do we learn that millionaires are selfish and greedy? Who taught us that? Well I can tell you that, by and large, most of us learn those things from watching Scooby Doo and stuff like that. It's this greedy land developer who comes in and tries to bulldoze the orphanage so that he can make more money. It's complete fiction. Everything you and I enjoy - look around your office, look around your car - these were all created by innovators who were largely motivated by a couple of things. They were likely very mission-oriented and I think you ought to be mission-oriented but you also need to be a little money-oriented in the sense that you are willing to accept that call to do more. Remember that book, way back when, "The Prayer of Jabez", I remember reading that book and just saying "Okay, I am willing to accept that responsibility and enlarge my territory so that I can bless the lives of others." I think that's a good reason to say "Okay, universe", whoever's out there for you, "go ahead, bless me. I have it in my mind; I know what I'm going to do with that." And, you know, it works. I don't mean to get emotional but at some level you hear these things and you hear what other people say and you say "Oh, yeah, I agree with that," and you kind of nod your head but imagine how happy one gets when they're able to live their life's mission and that's what I get to live with every day and I'm so grateful for that. I'm sorry, I don't mean to go down this path. I wasn't expecting to. Gosh darn it, you're like Oprah, you're making me cry! But at some level you listen to what these success teachers are saying and you really accept it as truth and oftentimes it takes the experience for you to say "Oh my gosh, they really were right. I tested it, it works, I have the evidence." I'm telling you, Napoleon Hill, all of these success teachers, what they teach is absolutely true. That's how I live and as I've lived that I've been blessed and when I haven't lived that I've experienced a lot of pain and heartache.

Jaime: This is amazing. I think that's one of the things that's huge. I think there are definitely millionaires that are greedy but, like you're saying right now, we need to make sure that the people who have integrity and morals and want to give can change their mindset so that they do have the money so that we have more people that are givers that actually have. Sometimes we stop ourselves, thinking money is bad or whatever it is, but if you can be one of the people who can pull it in, it's huge. I know you're getting excited too.

Josh: I'm getting excited because I really want to share this because this was huge for me - I was taught when I was younger that money did have inherent value, like either money is good or money is bad. I'm sure you've heard this before but money is absolutely neutral. It has no value to it, good or bad. But what it is, it's an amplification of who you already are ' so if you have selfish tendencies and you don't love other people and you are skeptical of other people and you just don't have the inherent love of other people then guess what happens when you have money? You're going to do that, but you're going to do it ten times more. We spend a lot of time working on our minds but if you also work on your heart and you become just a good person then, when you are blessed with money - and you're blessed with money by blessing yourself by exercising a lot of the great success principles - it will amplify the good in who you are. That's not going to change. You do need to make sure that you have a good foundation because sometimes you can get very distracted - money can distract you, there's no question about that. This is why sometimes I think there is this belief, particularly in religion, that if you are poor then you're humble and if you're humble then you're good and you've got a good relationship with God. I'm sorry that I keep invoking religion here - I'm not super religious but I love some of the teachings - there's great personal development in the Bible, by the way ' but I think that, if you have a foundation and you're a good person, that's not going to change with money. Don't allow yourself to get distracted by all of the things that are out there. If you have that in place then you'll do just fine as a millionaire.

Jaime: I love this. So take me through it - you started this in 2007, you weren't a business owner beforehand - take me through the growth. Oh, you were a business owner?

Josh: Oh, yeah. I failed at six other businesses!

Jaime: Okay, take me through that - that sounds interesting!

Josh: Let's see, my first business was, like a lot of other people's, in middle school, selling candy, just finding different ways that I could earn money. I would buy a bag of candy and then selling them for $1 apiece, make crazy profit margins. I got called into the principal's office and got in trouble. I remember when I got to high school and they were talking about some fundraiser thing and they were like "And you can sell these candy bars to your friends at school," and I was like "Wait a minute - you can sell candy to your friends in high school? I love high school! You can make money in high school!" So that was kind of my initial kick into that, and I had done all kinds of other things as well. I joined the navy for five years - I was a navy journalist - and when I got out of the navy I got married right away and my wife and I owned a mobile DJ company and from there - I'm going to forget some of them - but I studied family therapy in school but got out and started a career in internet development because, again, in the late '90s, if you knew how to develop on the internet you were a hot commodity so it was a great time to be in internet development. From there I started my own internet development company, I started a small town newspaper, started an internet service provider and just did a lot of internet marketing. I'm sure I'm leaving some out but eventually the internet marketing led to Savings Angel. So your initial question was what happened in that first year - I have a secret and my secret was that I was able to earn a full time income by the end of my first year and that's pretty atypical for most business owners. Most of us are struggling and we're struggling because we can't build the audience that we're after. I had a background in media - I've worked in radio, I've worked in newsprint ' I owned a newspaper, for goodness sake - I worked in TV, that's what I did in the navy. I've always been a fan of media, and news media in particular, so I used all of my skills and started networking my way into newsrooms, I started networking my way to anybody who owned a traditional news publication and I explained to them what my mission was and what I wanted to do. I never talked in terms of marketing but I talked in terms of "This is what I want to create," and they felt my heart and they knew what it was that I wanted to do and so, of the 20 different news agencies that I sat down with before I even launched, 18 of them said "We will support you. Let us know what you need," because they could tell that this was a train that was moving and either they wanted to participate or they didn't. We're talking TV, we're talking newspapers, lots of newspapers, lots of ad magazines, basically just anybody who had a voice. I remember doing my first segment on the radio and I made $300, which to a lot of people is chump change, but when you're just starting out and someone gives you money for the first time you're like "My gosh, this thing works! They're willing to pay me money for this?" We worked our guts out, my wife and I, so getting that first $300 for a two-minute segment on the radio was so exciting. So for month after month after month it continued to grow on itself - I got better and better placements, I would take an opportunity that I had and I would parlay that into a larger opportunity and get into bigger markets. After a while it was just a system. A lot of people struggle and they fight with their customers - "I need more leads! I'm going to do this advertising, I'm going to pay Google AdWords just that I can get more people on my page." I have never paid any money in advertising and yet I've been able to generate over $8 million in free advertising because I know how to work with the media. There's a real opportunity right now for digital content providers.

Jaime: Okay, now everybody is like "Tell me more!" How do we do that, especially in this day and age? Because we're talking about 2007 and people will say it was easier back then. So tell me more about that.

Josh: It has never been easier than right now. Look at the years between 2006 and 2012 - in 2006 there were 52,000 journalists. In 2012 there were 38,000 journalists. Every year the number of journalists continues to drop by about 6%. What this means for digital content producers is that there are traditional newsrooms and there are some newsrooms, I would say more digital-oriented newsrooms, that are doing awesome. Huffington Post, Mashable, Buzzfeed, Vice - these are all very, very smart, nimble digital operations that are doing very, very well. So you have traditional newsrooms - TV stations, newspapers - and they're all looking at what these guys are doing and they're like "Hey, we want to be like Buzzfeed," and you see that, you see some of them doing it in a very uncomfortable manner, but they all know that they need to be more into that style so they are looking for partners. Now, what I don't want you to do is I don't want you to bum rush newspapers and say "Hey, look at me, look at me! Let's do this! We're going to be rich together!" Don't do that; that's not how you talk to a journalist. I have actually worked on a course that I've created and I'm so excited because this is a subject that has just been so in my heart over the last couple of years because sometimes those of us who have created success look at our success and we say "How come me and not this other person' This other person has a great idea and they're a good person - what's the difference?" and I know that, for me, the difference was simply exposure. There are very few problems that a lot of customers can't solve for you. If you have money coming in and you have customers coming in, you can fix a lot of problems. So at MillionsInFreeMedia.com I created a solution where I provide mastermind training and I teach people step by step. There are over four hours in video training and then I do a lot of mastermind work and I offer a free webinar where I can go into more detail and answer questions and I really, really, really want to help entrepreneurs experience the same success that I did. For me, you've got to have a good product and I had a good product and I think there are so many good products out there - but think about the number of products that have died along the wayside, bloggers that could have been superstars but they just didn't get the number of readers that they were after so they quit. That's sad! I mean I think of all of these amazing people and all they need is just some little spark and we add that spark to them and then, voila, they're off creating awesome stuff in the world. So that's what I want to do with this new product that I started.

Jaime: It's funny because you don't know my story but I blogged for about six months and I was about to quit and then CNN e-mailed me and then I was on CNN's homepage and Yahoo!'s homepage. It was kind of crazy and I was like "Oh, somebody actually cares, what a surprise!" I've been on Yahoo!'s homepage six times now. It's amazing what you can get in terms of networking ' I know the journalists over there now - by being able to push through and figure stuff out. Give me your one or two best tactics or tips that we can give people right now so that they can get a little bit of a taste of this.

Josh: Absolutely. Here's the thing - I've paid a lot of money to public relations people.

Jaime: Me too.

Josh: I know how to work that system pretty well but I felt "Okay, I should probably pay somebody to do this work to offload it so that I can focus on this part of the business," and I've spent $23,000 on PR people and what I've found out - and I learned this the hard way - is that nobody can represent your business. If you're a business owner, nobody can represent your business as well as you can. This might be a skill that you don't necessarily have - you're not good at being in front of the camera - but I would urge you to consider learning that skill, and that skill is going to come from practice. I'm talking to the business owner that's struggling or would like to take their business to the next level - I want you to learn this skill. If you go right back to Michael Gerber and E-Myth and ask yourself "What is the number one job of the business owner?" You might love making pies and you might be the best pie maker in the world but that's not your job. Your number one job is to grow your business - and if you're not growing your business, who is? So getting in front, working, building relationships with people who can snap their fingers and make you a thousand-aire overnight - not necessarily a millionaire overnight, but at least a thousand-aire overnight! I think it's really important to build those relationships and it takes some work. Like I said, you can't just go in and bum rush a newsroom and say "Here I am! I'm ready!" You need to build relationships and those relationships start on social media, they start with letting them know that you're a viewer, it starts by letting them know what content certain journalists have and most journalists will have a beat that they're into so you need to make sure that you're talking to the right people and so I find Twitter to be one of the most effective ways of starting that relationship and then it eventually builds into something where you can then really make some good inroads with e-mail and start a dialogue back and forth. I started talking about PR people - for you to hire a PR person, let's say you're a small business owner, for the most part it is going to be a major, major over expense. For most small business owners, you cannot afford what you need and PR people cannot afford to give you what they could give. It generally takes a couple of months before you can even enroll them into your vision of what you want before you can help them build up their belief and then, for them to pitch you effectively, it just takes a lot of time and I've been in those relationships with PR people before, where I've spent a lot of money and ended up getting results that I could have got in a fraction of the time. I do want to share my most valuable tips that I can think of that someone listening right now could really get started with. I want you to be very good at interviews and being the interviewee because, if you can, you will be invited back. It's one thing to get you on TV, any PR person can get you on camera, but if get on camera and you choke - and I've seen so many people do this, where they are just a very gifted communicator but, for whatever reason, you get three huge TV cameras and all of these crazy lights on them, they freeze - and that is natural, that's going to happen, that's normal, but we want to make sure that you practice that and you shine. If you have to get twelve flashlights and shine them in your face and get a bunch of cameras set up and get your kid on the other side of the camera to ask you a bunch of questions, that might be one way to help, or mastermind with a group of people, like we do at my website, where you can take turns and critique and give honest feedback, that's another way to help. I would say if you were to boil down some of my most important steps, that's it right there, because I have talked to so many producers who have taken the risk of putting someone on air and they don't do well or they come across just a little stiff and that's enough for a TV producer to say "I'm sure they're a good person and they were great to talk to before we put them on air but we put them on camera and they bombed. We'll never have them back." I don't want that to happen to you. Why? Because if I can make you a regular contributor, where you can be invited back week after week after week after week, that's where the money is and that is where you can fulfil your mission in such an amazing way, because the news media will be your megaphone, whatever it is that you believe strongly in, they will help you share your message if it serves their audience. There you go, that's the good stuff.

Jaime: Thank you for giving us the good stuff. It's exactly what I've been told over and over. One of my millionaire mentors at the very beginning, when I only did audio, said I needed to do video and I didn't want to do video but one of the reasons why I got the book deal was because I had been on CNN and they saw that I was good at press so the opportunities start coming. I've gotten way better - I was horrible at video before - and you get more comfortable and the more you do it you just get better and better so you've got to practice, just like you're saying. We have to start wrapping up - I could ask you a thousand more questions but I can't - so I'll ask you the last question, it's what's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of $1 million?

Josh: Go back and binge listen to every single episode of Eventual Millionaire.

Jaime: I love you!

Josh: How's that? I actually mean that quite seriously. If you're already listening, then you're probably already committed to personal development but I am who I am today because of the things that I exposed myself to. Asides from networking, which, again, I have come to learn is one of the most valuable skills that you can get good at, it's developing and building a love for personal development in whatever way that works for you, whether it's finding great videos or finding great podcasts that you can listen to. I don't know if you've ever experienced this but sometimes I'll be sitting there and I feel like I just need some chewing gum for the brain. I'm like "You know what? I'm looking at Jaime's latest episode and it looks like an intriguing subject. I'm just going to listen to it." I do that a lot with TED Talks. TED Talks never look that interesting to me and then I start watching them and I'm like "Wow, that was freaking awesome!" So treat it like taking your daily vitamin, treat it like your daily exercise. I promise you that when you listen to something, if it's a good show, you will generally never walk away with regret, wishing that you hadn't wasted your time with it. If it's good for me and I know it's a quality program or book or it's been recommended to me by others, afterwards I always say "I'm so glad I read that." Even if you only learn one thing, that one thing could be a major light bulb moment or it causes you to research something else and it just leads you down a path where you could be like "And then I talked to this person and it meant a $50,000 business deal." I can't tell you how many amazing, fortuitous things that some people would just chalk up as dumb luck - no, it's taking inspired action and you get so many ideas for inspired action when you're around inspired people and those are people like you, those are people like the authors that I love, the podcasts that I listen to and the blogs that I read. Just fill your life with inspired people and you too will be inspired.

Jaime: Exactly, Josh. You're preaching to the choir. You actually have a podcast too - where can we find you online and learn more about you, your podcast and everything?

Josh: My podcast is generally the number one podcast in the shopping category and I teach people how to live more abundantly. It's called "90 Days to Abundance" and I focus most of my time on making sure that you are spending your money wisely and I don't do it in a very boring way - I focus on very, very tangible, specific things that you can do this week. It's stuff that you can take, listen to and take action on and immediately get $20, $40 or $50 of value in a week. I love helping people get early wins because if I can help them get an early win, where they're like "All I did was listen to this podcast and told me about this restaurant where you can get free meals for your kids." I'm like the hookup master.

Jaime: "Josh's podcast equals money."

Josh: That kind of hookup. Hookup in the sense that I always know where the hookups are - that kind of hookup!

Jaime: That's a good way to end the show, perfect! I love it. So by downloading your podcast people will save money and they'll be happy and love you, Josh, and that's the whole point, right?

Josh: We talk about other ways that you can earn money on the side so maybe you're not a hardcore entrepreneur. My audience tends to be people who are not necessarily hardcore entrepreneurs but they just want to move ahead. They're like "You know what? If I can listen to this podcast and after a couple of months," or after 90 days, as I say, "I can give myself a $4-600 per month pay raise," there you go!

Jaime: Who says no to free money? Not anybody that I know!

Josh: Not even the wealthiest people say no to free money.

Jaime: Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Josh. I really, really appreciate it. I hope you have an amazing day too.

Josh: Likewise. Thank you so much. I love your show. I'm honored because I was listening to your program so long ago and I was like "Maybe one day I'll be on it!" Truthfully I did, obviously, have more than $1 million in assets and had a business that was doing well but I guess this was part of this courage too, reaching out of your comfort zone and reaching out to people, because I think a lot of us are in that trap of "Who am I to start teaching on video?", so step outside that comfort zone and it's amazing what will happen.

Jaime: I'm honored too. Thank you so much for coming on. This was awesome, Josh. Have a great day. Take care.

Josh: Thank you.

Announcer: Thanks for listening. You can find out more great information like this on EventualMillionaire.com.

Tags: 90 Days to Abundance, Finance, free media, Josh Elledge, millionaire interview, money saving, podcast, press spots

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Debt Freedom, Entrepreneurship, Millionaire Interviews

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