He grew up in a broken home, his mother a prostitute and a stripper who told him and his siblings that she wished she never had kids because they prevented her from finding her own happiness. At nineteen years old, he joined the military and by twenty he was fighting combat in Iraq. At twenty two, still in the army, he went to his barracks one night and swallowed 120 pills in an effort to put an end to the misery he called life. Just before blacking out from the overdose, laying on the floor of his barracks, he felt an intense urge to live, and so he called 911. He woke up in intensive care, with immense relief that he was given a second chance at life.
No sooner was he back home, there was an incident involving his mother and stepfather. By all accounts, an intruder had broken into his mother’s home in the middle of the night and shot his stepfather in the head while he was sleeping. Andrew, like the rest of the world, believed that it was a random intruder, until his mother approached him and asked him for help staging a set-up so that it would appear that the ex-wife had been the murderer. His mother had created an elaborate plan where she said she would buy a sweater at Walmart, take it to the woods where she would fire off a similar gun, so there would be gun residue on the sweater, and then she’d have Andrew plant the sweater in the vehicle of the ex-wife. O’Brien didn’t participate in her scheme, but rather turned her into the authorities.
It sounds like the makings of a Hollywood movie, but it’s real alright. This is the life of Andrew O’Brien. Since that time, he has gone through a grueling murder trial, which inevitably put his mother behind bars for life. He also went on a worldwide speaking tour helping veterans and their families cope with post-traumatic stress syndrome in an effort to decrease the number of military suicides and to better help family members understand what life feels like for their loved ones returning home from active duty. Today he has his own family, a wife and three kids, and he’s the founder of The Publicity Guy where he has created a unique win-win dynamic for entrepreneurs, brands, and businesses, as well as the thousands of media contributors who write about them. As well, he is speaker on suicide prevention, overcoming obstacles, and harnessing the power of the media without old school press releases, and he teaches an online program for people looking to create their own media presence.
No stranger to publicity, Andrew has appeared on over 70 media channels. International and national media outlets include MTV, USA Today, MSNBC, BBC, NHK World, Al Jazeera, and many other large scale networks. I recently spent some time diving into the life and business of Andrew O’Brien to find out how he’s figured out a way to become the authority on publicity. Here’s the advice he offered for any business owner looking to find and share her voice in the world:
Find Your Passion: After his attempted suicide, Andrew went on a mission to find his passion in life. He said that what he could not do was accept just any old job for the next forty years. He had an intense desire to find something he was truly passionate about so that he would be excited about going to work each day. It was 2012, and he was sampling jobs in different industries, but none of them fed his soul. Then one day he saw a news report which said that 22 veterans a day take their own lives. That’s when Andrew knew that he could find a job where he could make a difference to the lives of others, while also feeding his own soul. And for the next few years, he travelled the world speaking, sharing his story, and helping others who experienced what he had gone through figure out a way to make it to the other side, to appreciate life once again. O’Brien’s says that his advice to anyone he meets, is to find that thing you are passionate about, and then pursue it with everything you’ve got.
The Upside of Adversity: Looking back at his life now, O’Brien says that even though many of the struggles he went through, both with his mother and with his active duty combat, sucked so badly that he would never want anyone else to live through them, it is those obstacles that made him the man he is today. He says that the hard times he experienced, created an intense will to live and a passion for winning. He says that his difficult home life made him want to be an amazing father to his own children. He says that what he has learned from the challenges is that obstacles are always an opportunity to learn and grow. Today when he faces a difficult setback, he sits back and asks himself, “What is the lesson here?” He says that it’s not always clear at first, but there’s always something to learn from the tough times.
Your Story: Today, Andrew is the founder and owner of The Publicity Guy, a firm that helps brands and businesses get media exposure in unconventional ways. O’Brien has hundreds of relationships with high quality writers for Inc., Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and dozens of other platforms. He works with those writers, who already have massive followings, to cover stories for his publicity clients. He then gets his clients to create paid ads in order to get additional exposure for the articles that they are featured in, creating a win-win dynamic for both the client and the writer. O’Brien says that he and his team are passionate about exposing brands and businesses through story telling. He says that what makes a brand amazing often has a lot to do with the story behind it, and many businesses and entrepreneurs never share that story. Andrew and his staff extract and cultivate each brand story, and then generate exposure through media. O’Brien says that his system in one of a kind because he’s closely matching writers who are extremely passionate about niche areas of life or business, with entrepreneurs who have a unique twist that inspires the writer to create a written piece of art that Andrew’s team will turn into viral content, creating exposure for both the writer and the client.
Stop Serving Broke People: Andrew launched his company, The Publicity Guy, in the start of 2016 and today has seven employees and is on pace to do over $1M in revenue for the year. Not bad for a very new company with a very unique value proposition. What’s his secret? He says it’s simple, he no longer tries to serve broke people. In other words, Andrew says that he targets clients who have a budget to invest in themselves and their businesses. He says that too many business owners try to go after every client, and no matter what industry you are in, there are many clients who just can’t afford you. He says to stop trying to cut your fees, and give away your services, and instead focus your time on finding the people that can afford you, because there are plenty of them.
Pivot: O’Brien says that when an industry pivots, it’s necessary to figure out a way to pivot with it. He says that the old way of getting publicity was to spam news outlets with press releases about a particular client. He says that there are still many publicists who still do this and that it’s highly ineffective because it aggravates the news outlet to the point that they simply don’t read the press release at all. As well, says O’Brien, today there are hundreds of online contributors, putting out content 24/7 and it’s absolutely necessary to take an interest in what they are writing about so that when you pitch them, it’s relevant to their passion. One big way in which Andrew is disrupting the publicity business is that when he pitches to a writer, he’s offering something almost as valuable as the story itself, he’s offering the writer additional social followers which he can guarantee because his team works on creating viral posts for the client through paid ads which promote the articles.
He’s been through the ringer when it comes to life, and he’s managed to come out stronger. He’s learned how to share and expose his story to the masses in the name of business, and now he’s helping others do the same. He is Andrew O’Brien and he’s simply The Publicity Guy.