Josh Elledge Show Notes

Josh Elledge is the Founder & CEO of UpendPR and is about to change an entire industry with the mission to help entrepreneurs attract the perfect audiences through PR.
Josh is Chief Executive Angel at SavingsAngel.com and helps consumers get discounts and upgrades on everything through his syndicated newspaper column with 1.1 million readers and on TV in 75 cities. He’s been in the media more than 1500 times.
Through his new model of PR Josh now turns digital entrepreneurs into media celebrities at upendPR.com

Most passionate about

• I have stumbled into a broken industry when it comes to serving the startup community. I’m referring to the Public Relations industry. The solution that’s been offered to startups is too expensive, there are no guarantees and it’s too risky.
• When I launched my company and needed PR there wasn’t a solution and In fact I really created the solution that I needed for close to ten years but didn’t excised. Our vision is to create an agency that will be able to serve way more than just hundred customers as it was in the old PR agencies, and actually I believe we will get there quite fast.

Your company

• My first company that really did well was Saving Angeles and it was something my wife and I really needed. We were looking for a way to cut our grocery expenses, I was shocked to find how high it was. I tried to find a tool that will help us, and there wasn’t any tool that I felt can work for me. I understood the only way to cut our grocery expenses is by taking advantage of incentives from manufactures and retailers’ coupons and sales and I started to collect the information and managed to cut more than half of our expenses within a very short time.
• Than I thought probably a lot of other consumers can benefit from the information I collected. So we created a membership based website and since I didn’t have money to promote it I started to do PR and it worked!! We are making 6M$ a year from saving angel while we’ve spend less than 500$ beside PR.
• Then I got invitations to speak on TV on one hand and question of entrepreneurs that wanted to learn what I did on the second hand. That was the base for my UpendPR business.

Your customers

• When I started my PR business I thought my customers will be very starting entrepreneurs that want to learn about PR, however in fact most of our customers are companies that already in the market for some time, after their early investment and need a PR solution to really increase the size of their business but can’t pay more than 1000-2000 Dollars a month.

Josh best advice about approaching the customer

• Most entrepreneurial business owners struggling because they keep trying sell so hard, and it may covers the bills, however I believe that in 2017 and beyond the only way to really succeed is to invest in relationships and spend any minute in serving and giving and create value for your customers through building your sought leadership. Than the customers will come to you.

Biggest failure with customers

• When I started as an owner of a small town newspaper I was so uncomfortable to sale, I was so scared so I ended up failing miserably. And after that for the next five years I did sales and marketing for a network of low firms and had to sale every day for a commission based salary. I was very miserable, and then, one day I suddenly realized that it’s not about convincing people to buy, it’s about listening to people needs and finding how I can help them. In the minute I understood that, I started to enjoy my connection with my clients and started to succeed dramatically. I found the win-win formula.

Biggest success due to the right customer approach

• With Savings Angel I was featured in the local newspaper but one day I got a phone call from a reporter and it was from the Grand Rapids Michigan that wanted to interview me about savings angel and that was the first day we earn 800$ in one day “my first good money day” from that day forward my wife and I never had to worry about money again.
• If you are an entrepreneur listening to this conversation and you are not yet there, trust me, you will get there.

Recommendation of a tool for customer focus, marketing or sales?

• I’m a huge fan of Twitter for Public Relations it will save you a lot of money. You have to figure out having a “make friend button” with any one on the planet; Opinion leaders, journalists etc. if you invest a little effort on building your presence you will be able to connect with anyone.

A person who impact Josh’s “customer focus” success

• I can’t imaging where I would be today have I not read the works of Napoleon Hill or Ayn Rand. This is the best books to learn what you should do to create success. This was a big shift for me, and that’s what make me say I will do whatever it takes to build my family’s future and to build a successful business.

The one key success factor that contribute to Josh success

• It is absolutely “grit”. I know that if I begin something today there is no chance I won’t go with that until completion. I learned from my military service and from my failures. At some point you will start hate failing and you will understand you have to invest what it takes to succeed.

3 Key Points:

1. Most entrepreneurs struggling because they keep trying to sell so hard, the only way to really succeed is to invest in servicing
2. The role of PR today is to turn digital entrepreneurs into media celebrities in order to attract their perfect audiences
3. it’s all about grit. If you are an entrepreneur and you are not yet there, trust me, keep gritting and you will get there

Resources Mentioned:

• UpendPR – Josh’s PR company for Digital Entrepreneurs
• SavingsAngel – Josh’s 1^st most successful company of membership based site for getting the lowest prices on everything we regularly purchased at the grocery store.
• Josh’s Twitter Page – get connected
• Free Twitter training – a special gift for REACH O MISS listeners, free training for PR on Twitter (Josh just asks you to reach him out on Twitter, let him know if it worked for you.

More resources for Entrepreneurs

1. Don’t Miss – Customer Focus Strategy & Execution: Market Analysis for Fundraising
2. Hayut Yogev’s Latest post: The three free, most practical steps to researching and locating your market
3. Former interview: With Shaul Olmert co-founder and CEO of Playbuzz who shares his experience of how to win the Leading customers