Follow, deliver, be urgent

and reckless

hardly sounds like a

success formula, but 

. . . NOTHING in business is more telling about the character and integrity of an individual or organization than the honoring (or not) of commitments.

1. Consistent follow-through and follow-up

2. Delivery of what’s promised when it’s promised

3. An all-pervasive sense of urgency, and 

4. The reckless pursuit of customer delight

. . . are the marks of true business leadership.

Underpinning those magical business attitudes are respect for others, and a mission to maintain quality and value at every turn.

Besides –that all by themselves– those qualities make for explosively productive marketing and branding programs, regardless of the nature of the business or the goods or services offered.

Humans buy benefits first, attitude of the provider or supplier second, and product or service features a distant third.

Who knew? Not most business owners (who continually insist on marketing features first, and who routinely dismiss attitude issues as ones that impact the bottom line, and that they have little or no control over).

In fact, benefits and attitude offered are the engines that drive the bottom line. They are also largely a matter of choice. Attitude is 100% choice. If product or service benefits are limited, it’s because someone at some point didn’t recognize or flex that 100% choice muscle in the process or decision making about what to offer customers. But choosing a corrected attitude can upgrade the benefits.   

The only problem is that I can just barely think of slightly more than a handful of businesses in my lifetime that actually deliver consistent follow-through and follow-up, delivery of what’s promised when it’s promised, an all-pervasive sense of urgency, and the reckless pursuit of customer delight.

You?

What happens when you put these four yardsticks up against the ways you think and the ways your organization is doing business right now? How do you and your business measure up?

Are your weakest-link areas ones you can correct/adjust/improve or boost on your own, or will you do better to enlist outside help? How big of an issue are the expenses associated with getting expert input? What’s your opportunity loss?

You could well be, for example, losing more dollars worth of business opportunities right now because your and your business’s emphasis are on the least productive points (like marketing features?) which could easily be costing you more than to bring in a professional specialist who can help you stop the trickle before it becomes a flood.

If you go this direction, be careful about who you choose to step in. Make sure that that team or group or individual exemplifies the four points identified above. Yes, there are plenty of earnest and capable individuals (especially) out there who can deliver the results you seek. Do due diligence. Ask for references and ask references for references. Use your gut instincts.

~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“But my sister

(substitute any relative here)

designed it!”

Besides the name, probably the single most important outbound marketing tool any business or professional practice can have is that little mark known as a logo.

A logo may or may not be, or may or may not include, the actual name. That single (seemingly insignificant to many) identifying mark or symbol is what consumes the first tick of the first second of the first ten seconds. It’s what makes or breaks a sale, determines receptivity, and sets the stage for the next step of doing business.

Your logo is your spotlight.

It attracts attention, creates interest, and shows the way to the second second of the first ten seconds (and you already know there’s no second first impression!).

What? You want research? Research this: When was the last time you EVER passed-over looking at a business card logo before reading anything else on the card?

What’s the last ad or website you looked at that you just turned your head away from when the logo popped into the corner of your eye? Think about the logos you remember. Odds are they tell a whole story.

“SWOOSH!” I say to you. That’s it. Just “SWOOSH!” And guess what? You can instantly visualize the logo, and the brand name, and can probably offer some experience with the product. How about a “Golden Arch” or a “Red and White Target”?

“But,” you might say, “but I don’t have a spare hundred million bucks to establish my brand and make my logo a household symbol.” So, should we understand that to mean it’s not worth the effort, that hot-shot logos are just for the big boys?

Okay, here we are, right at the very spot where many entrepreneurs drop the ball on the one-yard line.

A great logo identity is worth a great effort!

Notice, I said “great logo identity,” not “great logo design.” Some of the most beautiful logo designs in the world are NO GO LOGO failures because they fail to communicate anything of substance about the business or professional practice they’re created to represent.

If you can even imagine this:

I’ve seen a bloody in-surgery photograph of someone’s stomach serving as a logo for a doctor of gastroenterology that surely made most people throw up (maybe that was the idea. Hmmmm, throw up, stomach doctor. I get it!)

…or how about a high-energy exercise program logo with the drawing of a sleeping baby? (a bit of a stretch there, y’think?)

Patriotism? Sure, an orange line through a gray shadow for a company doing business with the U.S. Military? (Uh, what happened to red, white, and blue?)

Weirdness? Can you figure what a propped-up tree inside of a crescent moon has to do with orthopedic surgeons?

I’m quite certain you can add substantially to this list just by leafing through your local yellow pages or that stack of business cards in your desk drawer. 

The point is that while many business and professional practice owners manage to find a need and fill it, and work their brains off building their businesses, they miss the opportunity to make the most of their own business identities. Many pawn off their logo design work to the nearest (or pushiest) relative with a C+ in commercial art 101.

Others let (choose to have) someone sell them on using a riveting design of something that has nothing to do with the business or the message that needs to be communicated. Don’t let either of these things happen.

It’s your business. It’s your identity. You will have to live with it for a long time. Make it work for you. Take a pass on relatives, well-meaning staff, your local print shop, your high school art teacher-neighbor, and –almost always– your self!

Find someone who specializes in branding. It’s worth the investment to do it right. Then, there’s that apple with the bite out of it . . .

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Overkill business efforts breed failure . . .

LIKE GREAT MARKETING,

GREAT LEADERSHIP

 DOESN’T TRY FOR A 

HOME RUN EVERY AT-BAT

The best creative marketing talent, plans, and campaigns — and the world’s greatest leaders — are born and inspired not by blood, sweat, tears, and insanely long hours, but by focus.

By adjusting the camera or rifle lens, the stage spotlights, the binoculars, the telescope, the magnifying glass, the microscope, and computerized zoom controls, we increase our visual focus for a moment, a few moments, maybe a few hours.

We do the same by adjusting volume, speaker, bass and treble, balance and other media controls to focus our hearing.

Ongoing mental focus, such as that which is evident in literally every leadership or creative marketing performance, is driven by adjusting and channeling powers of concentration.

It is not the product of (pay attention exam-cramming students!) working deliriously through the night, night after night.

Neither is it the product of entertaining others with razzmatazz and razzle-dazzle. (My father used to say, “Don’t give me a song and dance routine; just answer the question!” My father would have made a good Judge Judy.)

Most assuredly, great leadership and great marketing are not the results of political smoke and mirror acts that we see routinely practiced in virtually every local, state, and (especially) federal government-based and corporate giant-based entity in existence. 

Having a true focus means we can “see” and are aware of the actions and influences on the periphery of our focus targets, but that our minds are keenly tuned to the point of what we’re aiming for.

That demands concentration, but it is not necessarily “hard work.” It is what you choose it to be. And ease comes with practice.

Practice? Like what?

• You’re in New York City? Go sit in the middle of Grand Central Station at rush hour and write a three-page essay about your own leadership challenges and abilities.
• You’re in Delaware? Go sit in the middle of a 1,000-chicken chicken coop and read and digest and summarize two articles on industry issues that affect your business. (No ear plugs allowed. Oh, and I hope you like feathers!)
• You’re in Chicago? 1) Get as close as you legally can to O’Hare Airport (Car windows open! Chilly, huh? Dress warm. Bring coffee.) 2) Read and answer three days’ worth of emails on your plugged-in laptop.
• You’re in San Francisco? (What are you doing there?) Hop on the trolley to Fisherman’s Wharf at lunchtime and –while on the trolley– write (yes, with pen and paper) your own obituary (Now THAT’s an exercise that takes concentration!)
• You’re in Hawaii? Well, we all know about those cliffs over the ocean, and waterfalls, and . . . okay, you’re not reading this anyway. Aloha to you too!  

You get the idea. Challenge yourself (and remember to breathe)

Here’s the bottom line: Wherever you are, if you’re serious about wanting to radically improve your leadership and creative marketing skills, spend more energy learning how to concentrate and focus.

Uh, you DO remember The Karate Kid movies? Well, pay more attention to yourself and stop trying so hard. Working yourself into a frenzy with busyness that you think impresses others, doesn’t. All it does is blockade others by making you inaccessible to them.

If you’re actually trying to be inaccessible, you are not leader material, you will never be a creative marketing star, and you are probably best suited to run for political office or work in some government or corporate-giant dungeon for thirty years.

Hey, it’s your life! (And odds are pretty good that it will only happen once!) Do you really want to make a difference?

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

If your marketing has gone 

online-exclusive, your business

 may very well fold in 24-36 months!

Ah, but there’s still a chance to save yourself from killing yourself.

• FIRST: Get rid of the person who talked you into putting all your marketing eggs in one Internet basket. Even if it’s family, begone with him or her . . . as well as his or her ideas, which are costing you money, wasting your time, and depleting your energy!
• SECOND: Recognize that, in spite of whatever sales spiel you were fed by that person (or agency or group or team) that you listened to, the whole world –and your target market specifically (unless it’s 110% techie products or services)– has not (N~O~T) stopped reading newspapers, magazines, and direct mail!
• THIRD: The whole world –and your target market specifically– has not (N~O~T) stopped watching TV and listening to radio, or shut their eyes down while passing billboards. They have not stopped reading brochures, or responding to special sales and promotions, news releases, and coupons. They have not even (Aaargh!) stopped responding to telemarketing.

If you think for one minute that your entire universe of customers and prospects is maniacally text-messaging and spending every living moment on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube, you are sorely mistaken.  

And anyone who might have bamboozled you into thinking those things is much too short-sighted (and evidently too immature) to take responsibility for moving your business forward.

DO NOT abandon traditional marketing and think that it will be compensated for by a full-commitment plunge into online vehicles and media efforts.

Your website is important. Depending on the nature of your business, your engagement with social media is important. But anyone with even a little marketing savvy and training knows that these are simply ingredients in the total mix.

If you are not using every possible, affordable opportunity to market your business right now, you might as well open your window and throw the money out that you have been spending!

(Ah, and don’t pretend that online stuff is free . . . dig out that old magnifying glass and start discovering those hidden expenses! Prepare to be surprised!)

While most small and medium size businesses appear to have engaged so-called “Web Editors” or “Community Managers” or “Digital Marketing Managers,” fewer than 30% are reported to have a “Marketing Manager.”

Sadly for those misinformed business owners who dominate the 70%, these numbers should be the exact opposite!

Those who pretend to be business experts because they have some computer expertise will be the downfall of many well-intentioned but pathetically uninformed business owners.

“Web” and “Digital” people tend to know nothing of (and care less about) traditional marketing media, and so automatically discard traditional marketing management approaches they think are limited, but which are not!

                                                                                            

Even the teeny-bopper market that most uses handheld electronic devices (and most text messages one another), continues to watch TV and go ton the movies and visit arcades and read magazines and newspapers and attend sporting events and concerts, and open mail addressed to them.

It may appear to be all about hi-tech and emails and the like, but –even this market– indulges in traditional media. How can you confirm this? Run some quick and cheap focus group studies.

But, oh, your “Web Editor” might not know about how to do a focus group study because that requires traditional marketing experience. Okay, focus group some txtmsgs and see what you get!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 If your business return policy

is this UNfriendly, you

may want to rethink it!

Now you KNOW that while I frequently beat up on government incompetence (being as how it’s so-well earned), that I hardly ever jump on any business.

But this email came to me today, forwarded a few hundred times. That fact alone made me immediately skeptical, so I checked out the policy link at the bottom, and came away awestruck.

Customer insensitivity is one thing, but the kind of top management stupidity that fostered this ridiculous policy (in this kind of economy no less) deserves to be heavily publicized.

The boxed text speaks for itself. It’s too bad that some businesses, like BEST BUY, see the need to run roughshod over the consumer public like this.   

EVEN if this customer was “wrong,” he was right!

If your business can’t afford bad word-of-mouth, make sure all your policies are user-friendly and easily explained and supported, and that your people know how to handle situations like this better than this.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Are you and your business

MARCHING or STUMBLING?

You’re a business owner or manager, right? So you rarely know if you’re coming or going, never mind marching or stumbling . . . or jogging for endurance . . . or, for that matter, running scared.

Probability is that these are merely indicators of the degree of rigidity and/or speed you move according to how wildly your entrepreneurial fires are burning. Hmmm, now there’s a thought-provoker.

And it doesn’t help much that we’re living in “The Whiplash Age.” I feel my neck snap back in astonishment almost every day as I hop, skip, and jump through the process of discovering emerging technology methods and products . . . and bamboozling ideas! 

Considering we’ve gone from blackboards and filmstrip projectors to greenboards and overhead projectors to whiteboards and 16mm film projectors to newsprint pads on tripods, video projectors, PowerPoint, virtual meetings, virtual offices, txtmsgs, Twitter, Facebook, and handheld electronic devices (not even to mention the audio metamorphosis of reel-to-reel, then 78rpm/33 1/3 rpm/45rpm vinyl records, to 8-track cassettes, pocket and mini-cassettes, CDs, DVDs, boomboxes, sattelite radio (whew!) . . . and from crank-ups to cell phones . . . WHERE are we going next?

Of course you should answer this for yourself, but you may get some ideas here: http://bit.ly/bDOOVf

What are you doing to keep pace? Is your business keeping up with your market? With your industry or profession? 

Perhaps you’re ahead of yourself? http://bit.ly/bWXxIq

Are you over-spending? Under-spending? Over-communicating? Under-communicating? Are you being taken advantage of by advertising agencies that claim to be Internet experts?

How about Internet specialists who claim to be marketing experts? Just because someone anoints him or herself as an SEO or web design guru, doesn’t automatically qualify as expertise in marketing.

In fact, odds are excellent that Internet savvy techies know next to nothing about marketing.

ASK.

Ask what any of these people know about the psychology of selling, about verbal and nonverbal communication, about how to deal with traditional media rate cards and package structures, about branding.

Ask when they last wrote a branding themeline that established a clear market leadership position.

Ask for examples of major sales boosts that could be attributable to their work.

Ask for specifics.

If you can’t get satisfactory answers to these questions, you may have the world’s greatest Internet expert in front of you, but don’t pay a penny for marketing services that do not clearly trigger your market’s emotional buying motives. http://bit.ly/bwkfdr

Look at it this way: If I haven’t a clue about what makes your customer tick, then I also have no clue about how to attract prospects for you, or create interest in what you have to sell, or know how to stimulate desire for your services or wares.

And if I can’t do those things, I certainly have no idea of how to bring about action or how to prompt and promote feelings of exceptional customer satisfaction. http://bit.ly/bMDGcy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Big sales volume begins

 with courageous owners!

Company management that fails to deliver wholehearted commitment

to sales and marketing efforts to win new business

fails to win new business.

In my experience (with many hundreds of all-size businesses), the problem originates not with inferior marketing or sales. It is the product of the top people in the organization who have personal or leadership defects best characterized as ignorance, incompetence, or naivety.

What else could make people so threatened to justify keeping themselves at arms-distance?

Look at it this way: The marketing people develop a new creative approach for attracting  sales prospects that represents a new, possibly “outrageous,” departure from industry norms.

What they’ve come up with may seem a bit too risque or intrusive to top management, but it is well-supported by both primary (focus group study) and secondary (database evaluation) research that clearly reinforces the potential and appropriateness of the message and format.

Sales management loves it and can easily see the prospects of high impact. Yet something about the new approach makes the boss(es) nervous, and prompts a “Get back to the drawing board!” response.

The daring approach is inevitably scuttled in favor of something more tame and more in line with the boss’s(es’) gray-flannel-suits-with-white-shirt-and-dark-tie mentality.

This new toned-down approach fails. The marketing people are fired and the sales leader(s) –now shrouded in skepticism– are being kept around until less-rebellious replacements can be found.

Does any of this sound familiar? Of course it does. I can name a hundred companies off the top of my head that have failed or are presently failing solely because they have had indecisive, unimaginative, non-visionary, chicken-livered wimps in the driver’s seats . . . start with those that were innundated with bailout tax-dollars!

Weak-kneed, do-nothing, glad-handing, back-patting politicians are running this country at every level of government. Why should private business owners and managers be expected to simply not follow suit?

Isn’t it, after all, a whole lot easier to just not make waves? Isn’t it simpler to merely buy into the “blame game” instead of a “roll-up-your-sleeves-and-make-things-happen” leadership role?

You know what? Beside that we have a federal government with no business abilities or experience, it takes genuine courage to take reasonable risks in business. It takes genuine courage to act out beliefs that are based on facts and deductive reasoning and experience.

It’s a whole lot less work and aggravation to take the low road, to be a wussy spewing out meaningless messages of hope and change, to make mediocre decisions that produce mediocre marketing, which results in mediocre sales.

If you work for someone like this, get your resume updated. (Try www.classicresumes.com)

If you ARE someone like this, get yourself inspired. It’s a choice. Give yourself a day off, dress down, and visit some crowded places where you think your target-types of customers spend time (College or university campus? Hospital lobby? Grand Central Station? A boatyard? A racetrack? A stadium? A nursing home? A church or community event?)

Observe. Listen. Ask questions. Take notes. See what you can learn about the kinds of people you need most to reach with your sales message. Decide what you can do differently. Go back to work and dare to be different. You might surprise yourself!

 Support those who endorse free market competition healthcare and REAL job creation tax incentives for America’s entrepreneurs! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 931.854.0474         Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

The more “expert” that

marketing people 

claim to be, the less

they seem to know!

It’s like the woman telling her doctor that she couldn’t get pregnant because her husband is a marketing guy. “Oh, and why does that make a difference?” asked the doctor. “Well,” she said, “all he ever wants to do is sit on the edge of the bed and tell me how great it’s going to be!”

— ——————————–

Most marketing people have a talent for making enticing claims, but many have no clue about producing results.

Add to this dilemma, that 37 zillion web designers, SEO engineers, and social media gurus elect to anoint themselves as “marketing experts” or “marketing specialists” so they can laugh themselves silly all the way to the bank after handing over some incredulous invoice that looks like the product of a high-priced law firm . . . hourly fees, plus commissions, expenses, and hidden surprise extras. 

I was reminded today (by Southern CA-based author and Internet marketing pro Dan Joubert) on Twitter, of a Fred Allen quote that “An advertising agency is 85% confusion and 15% commission.” Having spent my first dozen years of business in what were then the world’s three most famous ad agencies, I can attest to this “85%/15%” quote being 100% true! 

In my estimation, the only truly worthwhile “marketing experts” out there are those who have started, owned, and managed their own business for at least ten years, and who have a lifelong track-record of being outstanding sales professionals.

Short of those qualifications, you’re kidding yourself if you think some cyberspaceface “marketing expert” group can do your business justice.     

                                                                                          

And that includes (especially) top MBA school graduates taught by MBA school graduates who probably know less than your youngest niece or nephew. Case history studies contain not even a whiff of reality. I could give you hours of documentation on this subject, but suffice it to say that the vast majority (if not all) of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs never got to, or through, college.

Where is all this cynicism headed? To your dreams of having an exceptional marketing program that triggers exceptional sales. To a marketing effort that keeps your investment of dollars reasonable, and your investment of time minimal. 

Here’s how to get where you want your marketing to go:

1. Decide early on to not fall prey to dog and pony show, song and dance, smoke and mirror acts foisted on you by endless parades of “expert” solicitors;
2. Set yourself specific, realistic, flexible, and due-dated criteria –in writing (and the importance of “in writing” cannot be underscored enough)– BEFORE you begin to search out the person or persons to help you pull your act together;
3. Spell out your expectations loud and clear, but listen carefully to the responses and input you get from your narrow-down-the-candidates process;
4. Require weekly “How Goes It” progress reviews and be accessible in between.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Marketing is both an art and a science. Those who are best at it are also psychology-savvy. They are skilled writers and visualizers who know how to attract and interest your target market, how to stimulate emotional buying motives to prompt action, and reward consumer desires with an emphasis on benefits. 

If you’re really smart, you’ll do like carpenters and heart surgeons: measure twice and cut once, instead of working your way through a large chunk of those 37 zillion “experts” for little if any return on your investment.     

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Q. What if it walks like a duck

 and quacks like a duck, but 

 looks like a tyrannosaurus rex?

A. You’ve got trouble. . . 

right here in River City!

And if we’re talking about A~N~Y aspect of your business, you can be sure that your customers will have even bigger problems than you, which is not a good thing.

Take it from experience, the last thing you want is for your customers to be confused, because confusion doesn’t just cost you patronage; it costs you your reputation. All the good things you’ve done, and are doing, get flushed away with one jerk of the handle.

Anything that costs your reputation, costs you sales to existing customers, and costs you prospective customers too. Like winning sports teams, businesses that offer consistency succeed. Attitude consistency is paramount.

From McDonald’s to Charles Schwab, from Hershey’s to Microsoft, from Federal Express to Wal-Mart, consistency of products and services (and of innovation, operations, marketing and sales) is what puts businesses like these over the top.

Consistency doesn’t mean having inventories that collect dust or never trying new methods or line extensions, or always doing the exact same things in the exact same ways. Those are investments in maintaining the status quo — a boring and unhealthy practice.

Consistency means carrying integrity and leadership and customer service to the extreme every day of your life that your business exists. It means maintaining and nurturing one strong, simple, single image throughout all the ways you represent yourself to the rest of the world.

It doesn’t matter if some people don’t like your image or your message. What does matter is that your image and message is consistent and delivered consistently across the boards…in your advertising, marketing, promotional and PR efforts, online and off…all of the time, without exception.

You know that repetition sells.

Repetition sells.

Repetition sells.

Repeating what you do and the ways that you do it, over and over, is the best way to build and strengthen a loyal following. Ask any stage performer, producer, or director.

In that sense, you are no different. You are on your business stage every day (and often at night), and your performance (what you have to offer and the ways you offer it) is being judged by others all of the time, even when you’re not aware of having an audience. 

Look at it this way — you want to get in better physical shape, but can’t make that happen by eating ice cream, candy and fried foods,  drinking heavily and smoking cigars only on weekends and justifying it by taking a long walk on Sunday afternoon.

Like building a healthy life, building a healthy business is a full time commitment to consistency.

If your business walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, don’t make it something it’s not. Consistency sells.

# # #

 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US        or comment below

Tooting Your Own Horn

Starts With Having A Horn!

Simple, right? Wrong. Unless you are or have retained an expert writer and marketing professional, finding the right horn to toot can be a daunting task.

It means first having a Creative Action Plan and Production Action Plan built on Goals that are specific, flexible, realistic, and due-dated. Consider what must be done just to get that far.

Begin your Action Plan with a Branding Theme. (Best are seven words or less that tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending, and that are persuasive!)

Find an experienced pro for this part of the journey, or be prepared to spend much more time than you could ever imagine…and still not have good odds for success.  

Integrate that Theme as the central focus of your Elevator Speech (a persuasive 30-second verbal presentation of what you do/sell/offer, as well as underscoring the benefits of purchase or ownership).

It needs to answer the two questions: What’s the deal? and What’s in it for me?)  

                                                                                                                                                        

Compose an ongoing series of news releases and feature articles that dramatically emphasize and highlight your Elevator Speech. Distribute your releases to hand-picked target media people.

Follow up with strong, respectful, helpful, and pleasantly assertive media relations efforts.

Follow up with more news releases, and more media relations, followed by more news releases and more media relations, followed by more news releases and more media relations, followed by more news releases, followed by more media relations… 

Just as research proves that management training program participants typically fail to retain what they “learn” after only 21 days without some significant reminders and ongoing reinforcement…your news release target market will also fail to recall your “story” within 21 days, unless you reinforce it continually.

In other words, for PR to work, it needs to be an ongoing commitment, not a “one-night stand” or “overnight sensation” announcement.

• You can try this yourself, but be prepared for rejection and misrepresented messages.
• You can hire a professional PR firm, but be prepared to spend $5,000 to $25,000 a month in fees, plus expenses.
• Or, you can find a “one-man-band” type professional who knows how to play the PR game and who will represent your interests for $1,500 to $4,500 a month.

Your PR efforts will produce a level of “BUZZ” (this century’s name for “word-of-mouth” advertising), and that BUZZ becomes your horn. Toot it on your website! Happy Tooting!

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!