What you target

for your business

may not be healthy!

Think of it this way: You really want a bacon-wrapped sausage smothered in melted cheese on a slice of buttered white bread with side orders of scrapple and syrup, chili cheese fries , Buffalo wings and onion rings with ranch dressing, finished off with deep-fried cream-filled chocolate cookies and a glass of buttermilk . . .

Uh, if that description makes your mouth water and you decide to head out to some nearby junk-food drive-in, make it one that’s very close to the Arizona, Indiana or Pennsylvania Heart Institutes, or the Mayo Clinic, and be sure your health insurance is paid up! “C’mon, Hal,” you say, “nobody is that dumb who would eat like that.” I have 2-words for you: Observe People!

Not only does stupidity find it’s way to the dinner table (or car-hop tray…yes, there are still car-hops!), but it’s also often used as an excuse for not knowing better because the excuse-giver is too preoccupied being a workaholic to worry about stuff like tumors, and fat, and stents, and clots, and cancer. But being smart doesn’t mean being worried. Worry only achieves stress.

Why all of this banter? Because many small business owners and entrepreneurs who do take care of themselves and who at least make an effort to eat and sleep right, fail miserably when it comes to sizing up what’s best for their businesses. Some who do a nice job of being realistic enough to recognize their own mortality seem to think their businesses are invincible.

“Whaddaya mean this is a bad time for a bank loan? Can’t you see that this idea of mine will revolutionize the whole wind-shield wiper blade industry?”

“These services my family and I have been providing have worked like a charm for a hundred small businesses. Now it’s time to go get those corporate giants with the bailout money. Business is business, right? Just because they’re bigger doesn’t mean they can’t benefit as well.”

I spoke recently with restaurant chef/ owner partners who decided to be able to outdo the competition and market “farm to table” freshness, they would get up at 4 am every day and drive around to nearby farms themselves to hand-pick what they would cook for each meal. Considering they weren’t getting to bed until midnight, you can imagine the rest of that story. . .

                                                                     

If any of these examples causes you to think: So what’s wrong with those ideas?, you should maybe consider going back to the opening paragraph and head on out for one of those tasty meals. If you think these are all nut case examples, you should probably join the guy in the last sentence.

If it’s time for you to get with it, and adopt a more realistic attitude toward your business pursuits, then do it! It’s a choice. Behavior is a choice. You need to “stick to your knitting” when business times get tough. Rushing into anything is not generally a productive way to cope with an economy as catastrophic as this.

Use the time and energy instead to plan for when things get better (hopefully after November) and to make the most of what you have right now. Give customers more for their money and bite the bullet. Give employees increased responsibility and recognition instead of pay raises. Give suppliers consolidated orders you put together with other businesses to get better rates and discounts.

Switch your marketing emphasis from high-priced media buys to free social media and news release opportunities and find people who can help you make those work. Dress up and upgrade your website instead of trying to expand or add locations. Stay tuned into your industry, profession and markets on a day-to-day basis. Outsource tasks that take time and attention away from selling. 

 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!

Sounds like a plan . . .

There’s something in your mind that you

want to go after and try to make happen?

You’ve been dreaming about it for, it seems, forever. You’ve been careful about not telling too many others, but those you do mention it to give you the same 3-way response: a “that’s nice” smile, an agreeable nod of the head, and a pointed effort to steer the conversation in a different direction. They humor you. They don’t get it.

If you’re in big business or government work, those responses are enough to douse your fire. You get second and third thoughts and then back away and abandon your idea. You’re too invested in your own job security to dabble with ideas that will preoccupy your mind and lead you too far astray from your 401k and pension plan payoffs when you retire in twenty years.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t much care what anybody says, nor with whether they “get it” or not. You’re going to make your idea work regardless of the odds, the opinions, the financial insecurities associated with developing things to a startup stage, and beyond. Retirement and payoffs –even profits from sales– are the farthest thing from your mind.

The corporate executives and government administrators measure their innovative thinking in terms of whether the ideas they come up with fit into the grand scheme of long-term and strategic plans that blanket the organizations they serve. Entrepreneurs innovate without plans. Entrepreneurs have goals. They seek only the “end-result” of making their ideas work.

The odds for reaching a destination point are dramatically increased when goal-setting meets certain requirements and, once acknowledged, the focus is on each step that leads to the goal —- instead of on the goal itself.

                                       

For goals to be meaningful, they must satisfy all four of these criteria:

 they must be realistic, specific, flexible, and have a due date.

                              

Many people give up on goal-setting because they don’t want to feel like failures if a goal is not achieved. If it’s flexible, that won’t happen. Flexible goals can be redefined and be given new dimensions and new due dates. A goal in concrete is not a goal; it’s just a pile of concrete. Those fear-of-failure folks also need to be reminded that fear is a behavior, and behavior . . . is a choice! 

Those who think they have goals, but don’t adhere to all four criteria, have only wishes. And wishes only work for Disney characters!

Reality dictates that what “Sounds like a plan” rarely ever is, and what trys to pose as a goal without being specific, realistic, flexible and due-dated is simply a self-absorbing waste of time and energy, and often of money. Reality calls for disciplined action backed by burning desire. Reality is the stuff entrepreneurs are made of.

Entrepreneurs, some would argue, don’t plan; they just act. This is often true when it comes to describing the ways entrepreneurs appear to function in their business activities, but when it comes to getting started, and their daily pursuits, those who are most successful will inevitably point to having and constantly adjusting genuine goals to make their ideas work! Sounds like a plan, eh?  

 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!

What keeps small business

owners awake at night?

With appreciation for the inspiration for this post to Meredith Bell info@2020insight.net (publisher of a great free weekly self-development newsletter titled GOLDEN EGGS), based on yesterday’s conversation with Meredith about what keeps CEO’s awake at night.

As recently as three years ago this past May, a respectable study identified worrying about the caliber and extent of employee skills to get the jobs done that needed to be done (I’m paraphrasing here) as the number one reason that CEOs were unable to sleep at night.

But the economic impact on business was nowhere near as catastrophic at that time, and consumers were nowhere near as rambunctious.

Today’s business owners and managers are losing sleep over the inability of their business’s marketing efforts to keep up with the break-neck speed of change in the consumer marketplace (and slightly slower-to-respond industrial and professional service marketplaces). Wasn’t it just yesterday that $137 Kindle electronic readers were $400?

Without belaboring what’s prompted all the consumer scrambling for better greener quality with better warranty coverage at lower prices and faster delivery with improved customer service –because everyone is acutely aware of the maddening pace of information access and exchange– suffice it to say that marketing tools, methods, approaches, and people must rise to the occasion.

The place to start is at the point of word creation. If the words you use to market your business don’t work, nothing else can work.

If the words you’re using aren’t doing the job, it doesn’t matter how dramatic your graphic designs are, how friendly your website is, what fantastic salespeople you have, how terrific your operations are, how low your overhead is, how many awards you’ve won, or how spectacularly your products and services perform.

It doesn’t matter.

What does matter are the words you use to get your prospects and customers to be aware of and buy into all of those assets of yours.

Business owners need to be evaluating their market performance daily, not quarterly or monthly, or even weekly.

In this centrifuge of market activity — unless you enjoy being thrown up against a high-speed spinning back wall, anything less than some form of daily analysis will not leave you enough time to adjust today what did or didn’t happen yesterday.

This doesn’t mean you need to get yourself caught up in some kind of delirium and start behaving like The Mad Hatter. It means you need to keep a sharper eye on the changes that are taking place, even as you read this, and be prepared to make adjustments if and when and as they become necessary . . . not a month later. 

Except for branding themes and policies, marketing words can be changed in a day! If your words are not doing what you need them to be doing this morning, change them tonight.

It’s true that one word is worth a thousand pictures. Not convinced? Consider how many images your mind can produce when you see or hear any of the following words:

• AMERICA
• TODDLER
• GORGEOUS
• STRESS
• FREE
• HAPPY
• HOME
• NOW
• HEALTHY
• NEW
• LOVE
• WATERFRONT
• BIRTHDAY
• PUPPY   

 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!

Do your business messages 

reach out and grab? 

Do they win meaningless awards?

Or do they just lurk quietly in the

shadows, sucking their thumbs?

Time and again , the slick-talking, 3-piece-suit, hot-shot marketing and ad agency “experts” came swooping and swaggering down into small town America from big city America, and stuck it to star-struck, bedazzled small business owners who learned the hard way that all that’s written doesn’t sell!”

                                                                    

Do your business sales messages sell? Have you been blaming the economy, the competition, the weather and your spouse for lousy words that simply don’t cut it?

Do the words and images your business uses to sell your products and services reach out and grab your ideal prospects and turn them into loyal customers? Or do they stand timidly in the shadows of your business entrance, with their thumbs stuck in their mouths, muttering quietly to themselves about how great your company is?

If your words aren’t getting the job done, you have a copywriting catastrophe, and you are paying dearly for it!

If the words you are using to market, promote, publicize and advertise your business are not attracting attention, creating interest, stimulating desire, prompting action, and promoting satisfaction, you have a copywriting catastrophe. And you are paying dearly for it with more money, time, and effort than your business can afford.

First, you have to ask yourself if the person or entity who’s creating and producing your business messages has the right kind of skill, experience, and attitude to put you front and center on the competitive stage you most want to dominate — your neighborhood, your community, your state, region, industry, profession, nation, planet, or cyberspace.

Next, you need to outline or bulletpoint your goal issues. Be specific, flexible, realistic, and have a deadline.

Then go shopping. But battle-hardened advice would suggest that you avoid flashy Las Vegas-style or upscale “boutique” organizations that ooze out of high rent districts in favor of down-home, in-the-trenches wordsmiths with lots of business background (but not necessarily in your specific industry or business specialty), lots of diverse success stories, and a clear positive attitude.

You want a person or team that is more interested in making sales for you than in winning awards for her/him/themselves. You want a person or team that sees the long-term promise of a relationship with your business and is willing to put a meaningful chunk of fee compensation on a performance incentive basis. A bonus for demonstrated results puts a fire under most butts.

Great copywriting will do more than win sales. It can ignite innovative thinking and create revenue streams. It can reassure existing customers while bringing new ones to your door. It can motivate employees and suppliers alike. The right words can renew. revitalize and pump up entrepreneurial spirits. But, sorry, they can’t make your coffee for you. Cream and sugar?

# # #

302.933.0116    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 TXTMSG

Line in the Sand~~~

Are you really sure you understand your target market?

Are you still selling what you’ve always sold the same ways you’ve always sold? Are you using the same best sets of words in the same tone of voice? Still giving the same premiums and discounts and “special” offers, the same warranties and reassurances? Still emphasizing the same benefits and features?

If your answer to any of these questions is leaning even just a little bit toward yes, odds are you have either gotten lazy, have not been keeping up with the times, have not been sizing up your target market the right way, or you’ve been spending too much time in Disneyland.

Let’s eliminate the first and last choices and assume you are being conscientious, but have maybe lost touch with some of what’s going on in your customer (buyer) and consumer (user) markets (which of course are sometimes one in the same and sometimes different). Consider this:

They seemingly cannot

                                       

function for more than

                                    

a  couple of minutes

                                 

without looking to see

                                  

if they are receiving a

                                      

text message.”

                       — Fred Hertrich, Professor of political science, Middlesex (NJ) County College,   describing one of the prevailing winds in today’s college student population – to underscore: 1) the frustration of many teachers trying to deal with rooms full of distracted people and 2) the necessity of today’s faculties to communicate with students electronically.  

(East Brunswick, NJ, Home News Tribune, 8/21/10)

Has the prospective customer or consumer you seek most to influence crossed the line of electronic literacy? “But,” you say. “I’m not selling electronics!” Perhaps, but you are selling to people who are either electronics-literate or not.

Computer savviness is no longer the guide (unless you’re selling to nursing home residents) because everyone knows something about computers. The place where the line is drawn in the sand is:

THE TXTMSG LINE

Most older-than-45 people can and do use cell phones, check websites, visit blogs, send emails, search Bing and Google, and purchase online. Most know how to use WORD and many use Twitter and Facebook. But very few of these folks text message because they grew up in a different world.

Older Americans learned that “correct” and “proper” communication depends on neat handwriting and that spelling, punctuation, and grammar are paramount ingredients. Lax email messaging is about as far as these folks will comfortably stray. Texting is to them like “Emails Gone Wild!” and too “teeny-bopper” cult-like to be able to relate to.

Well, that may not mean anything to you, unless you’re targeting 20-somethings or 60-somethings, who clearly will not respond positively to the same old kinds of messages delivered in the same old ways. It’s not a bad idea to periodically step back and reassess what you’re saying to whom, and how you’re saying it.

Think of it as a

GR8 NU WAY 2 C HOW UR MAKIN UR PT.

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!

“You must be very

  proud of yourself!”

“No, I own a business

and I have a life!”

Self-pride can, and almost always does, get in the way of progress — and even survival!

Self-pride. Now isn’t that like stubbornness? “Stop being so stubborn,” my stubborn mother used to say, “it’s gonna get you in trouble. People care about you as a person and they respect what you’ve accomplished, but no body cares about your honor except you   . . . not even me!”

So, yes, I am the son of a wise mother.

As a management consultant and entrepreneur coach for many years, I’ve seen my share of business and life failures. Research studies always point parental fingers to “being under-capitalized” as symptomatic of poor management and the key reason for business failure.

But rarely does anyone look beyond “poor management” being the ultimate culprit to see what else is lurking in the shadows . . . what else is there to account for business and life failures?

Someone should be looking. Why?

Because at the end of this fraying personal and business lifeline is a very heavy anchor that is best categorized as self-pride. It’s something that happens when you choose to get sidetracked from your business and life pursuits, to deal with some imagined threat to your ego.

You put day-to-day operations off to the side to entangle yourself in a legal suit that you know you’re right about just to gloat in satisfaction at having humiliated an annoying competitor, or to realize a thousand dollars payoff after legal expenses.

How much business is lost in the process of your ego-indulging diversions?

The minute the sidetracking starts, it has a tendency (like An object in motion tends to stay in motion) to snowball itself into an avalanche. And it doesn’t take long (sometimes just minutes!) to get to the point of completely immobilizing growth and survival modes.

In minor role applications, the sidetracking diverts needed attention from goal pursuits, family well-being, and from business and career opportunities and success.

Turning your spotlight inward takes the focus away from where you’re headed, and when it gets dark — you’re bound to trip over or run into some thing. You may or may not get up, or be able to.

In major role applications of this sidetracking, businesses go bankrupt, couples get divorced, children get abandoned, and some people can end up depressed enough to be taking their own lives as their failures become more pronounced.

What to do?

There’s always choice involved. Turn the other cheek! Why not? Is letting go so hard when you consider the consequences of holding on?

When you choose to feel insulted (you’ll know when you feel your face flush or knees wobble or stomach churn or head ache or fists clench), you need choose to stop where you are and stop whatever you’re doing.

Force yourself to take some (at least 3 or 4) really deep breaths, while saying to yourself with each inhale, “Healing energy into my body!” and with each exhale, “Stress and tension out of my body!” Remind yourself again that your behavior is your choice!

You can choose to escalate a situation or simply back away from it because it gets in the way of your success (and presumably because you prefer success to getting sidetracked). Getting (choosing to be) sidetracked is simply an admission that you have chosen for someone else to get inside your brain and control your behavior.

Don’t choose your self-pride over your self!

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!

Entrepreneurship is 

the only solution to 

plummeting economy, 

job losses, and

government spending sprees!

It’s true. American history has demonstrated time and again that the only road to economic strength and stability is the one that leads to the support and encouragement of entrepreneurial pursuits. America’s federal government has underscored this point repeatedly with its own arrogant and misguided business incompetency that runs rampant to the core.

Job losses are continuing at a record rate, and new jobs are not being created.

Job creation is the single most powerful and essential factor in strengthening industry and service sector pursuits, and in boosting the value of the dollar. Job creation is almost exclusively the product of small business. Job creation does not come from the government that uses tax money to pay for useless jobs. Neither does it come from big business that invests itself in maintaining the status quo.

 Job creation is almost exclusively the product of small business.

Job creation is the child of small business because small business is owned and operated by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs don’t know how to give up. They don’t know how to spend their way out of problems. They find solutions, or — by instinct — create them! 

Entrepreneurs live with a  burning desire to make their ideas succeed.

Entrepreneurs alone know how to capture the spirit of innovation in both thinking and practice. And no one needs to look further for the proof of it than the single-mindedness of purpose exuded out of the garages of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, out of the 10,000 attempts by Edison to invent the light bulb, out of the persistence and perseverance of Henry Ford and Mary Kay Ash and Ellen DeGeneres.

Why has nothing but SBA tokenism been offered to small business? Because tokenism is enough to make good press.

Why has nothing substantive been done to drive job creation incentives to small business and to stop breaking small business backs long enough to actually foster new jobs? Because it doesn’t suit prevailing political spending spree goals and because government has ZERO business experience.

America’s 30 million small business owners need to accept the fact that no help is on the way

What needs to happen: America’s 30 million small business owners need to accept the fact that no help is on the way, and start acting like the entrepreneurs they were in the early “pre-cushy” days. There needs to be a resurgence of pioneer spirit and a greater sense of self-reliance that seems — for the lack of necessity being the mother of invention — to have skipped a generation.

It means now is the time to dig in.

It means now is the time to dig in, to plant your entrepreneurial energy firmly into shouldering the growth of your own business, with regard for your neighbor, but determination to go forward without dependency. Government and big business won’t bail you out. And there is no hope for banding together such fiercely independent souls as entrepreneurs into some kind of grass-roots movement.

Without losing regard for others and their struggles, or the virtues of charity, or the good of the communities that support you . . . it is time to act on your own and in your own behalf.  If even a fraction of America’s 30 million upstarts lead their businesses out of the fog, they will create needed new jobs and brighten the economy with the glow of real sunshine instead of a fading flashlight.

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!

Nine “Do Not” lessons

learned from 30+ years 

of sales-winning advertising

I know, accenting the negative isn’t always the best thing, but if you know what NOT to do, it’s a lot easier to figure out what you can and should do. I don’t pretend to know what you can and should do, but I sure can tell you what I’ve found out that doesn’t work (and throw in a few hints about stuff I know that works better!).

Here’s the scoop:

1. Do NOT advertise that you have integrity, or even about what wonderful integrity-inspiring things you or your business have done. When you conduct business at all levels with a high-trust approach and attitude, you will gain or boost a reputation for integrity that speaks for itself!

2. (…and this is really #1): Here is the single most difficult marketing, advertising, sales and PR challenge to face for all businesses everywhere (yes, you did indeed read that right: “all businesses everywhere”)– ready for this? — Do NOT promote how great you are to the rest of the world. Nobody cares. Well, maybe your mother cares, but nobody else does.

3. Do NOT get too cutesy. Readability must come before cleverness in font (lettering) use and treatments (Italics, boldfacing, spacing, underlining, shadowing, using a horseshoe for the letter “U” or crossed swords for “X” or an egg for “O”…etc.). And don’t trust a designer to worry about readability; most have no training or experience in how to design with and around text, especially branding lines.

4. Do NOT emphasize product and service features. Nobody buys features. People buy benefits. Make sure your marketing, advertising, sales, promotion and PR efforts focus on benefits — on answering the question, what’s in it for me?

5. Do NOT buy into fancy dog and pony presentations that stress how the work a creative service provider individual or organization or group or team can do for you will put you head and shoulders above the rest of your industry or profession. Get rid of creative service providers who seem more interested in winning awards for themselves than in making sales for you. Use performance incentives.

6. Do NOT ever accept a media rate that’s printed on a “rate card” or “rate sheet.” Think of it as the asking price for a house just put on the market this morning. Media people who aren’t willing to work with your budget aren’t worth your time and consideration. There are always other ways to market your business.

7. Do NOT try to hand-off advertising/marketing/PR responsibilities to someone who works with you because they articulate well or can write a mean email. And don’t try to do it yourself unless it’s what you specialize in. Remember that there are two success keys involved: writing skill and psychology expertise. Persuading customer and prospect brains is what it’s all about. 

8. Do NOT communicate too little or too much. Ask prospects and customers what they think the right amount of information is. Have someone who’s experienced at it run a focus group for you to get these answers, and to test alternative marketing approaches. 7 target market representatives for an hour works for this purpose. Give each a $20-$25 value reward for their participation.

9. Do NOT “settle” for ads, commercials, websites, landing pages, blogs, brochures, news releases, or social media executions or strategies that don’t feel right! If you don’t feel sure about something, remember it’s your business. Your gut instinct is your best decision maker.   

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!

“Keep your eye on the ball!”

It’s what good coaches tell 

every batter and entrepreneur!

Concentrating hard on everything that’s right in front of you as much of the time as possible is a tall order for every ballplayer and every business owner.

It is a physically, mentally, and emotionally draining pursuit, yet focus has proven time and again to be the single most important quality to possess (beyond having a burning desire), in achieving big-time success.

Of course, having a burning desire is the motivational fuel that usually accounts for having a sharp focus to begin with.

In other words, if you truly want to win the game more than anything else in the world, you will undoubtedly make outstanding plays and you will get hits no matter how great the pitcher is. Whether or not others on your team are as committed — and if those commitments outweigh the opposing team commitments — will determine if your team wins.

When you have your own business, your “team” is your staff of employees. If you lead they will follow. Hmm, heard that before, huh? But it’s true. The hitch is in the words, “if you lead” because saying one thing and doing another doesn’t cut it for leadership. And we all know how far the screaming Little League coach gets with impressionable young players.

Then there’s the other team you’re up against — the competition. And herein lies the one-way, downward chute into oblivion for too many high-spirited entrepreneurs: gearing themselves and their energy and their businesses to the competition. They need instead to gear themselves, their energy and their businesses to the market they target and the marketplaces they’re in. 

Everything else is an ego-based, self-aggrandizing waste of time, money and energy.

Even one-one-one competitors — boxers, tennis players, swimmers cannot enter the arena focused on the competitor and expect to win. Yes, they need to review competitive strengths and weaknesses, and they certainly need to have a fix on the ring, court, pool they’ll be competing in. There’s no discounting the importance of these awareness’s.

But FOCUS has to be on what’s INside, on gathering personal strength and drive, on desire, on gumption, spunk and determination. When business owners and entrepreneurial leaders can bring that spark into work every day and nurture the spark they see in others, they will find it very difficult to fail.

We’ve all read and heard that stuff on calendars and posters and Tweets and the bottoms of emails . . . all the warnings and words of encouragement and lectures and reassurances, and what does it all mean? 

The bottom line seems to be that if you can’t feel the courage for focusing on success somewhere deep down in your gut, and if you can’t know in your heart that you can and will make a difference in this life, maybe you should reassess what you’re doing and not be absorbing all that stress. Because halfway efforts produce halfway results and halfway results produce stress. And stress kills.

Winning in sports and winning in business is never easy because — in the end — keeping focused means that you are really only competing against your SELF!                                                    

 Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Business media coverage

doesn’t start and stop

  with a news release! 

If your business isn’t getting the kind of news coverage you would like, maybe you’re giving too much attention to what your news release says and not enough to those who decide its newsworthiness.

Whether or not your news release prompts media coverage has first to do with how newsworthy (and UN-self-serving) it is. Second, it will only get meaningful placement attention when you (or whomever you designate) give(s) meaningful appreciation attention. This doesn’t mean fawning over or patronizing reporters and editors. It means appreciating their situations and responsibilities.

In the past 90 days, over 30,000 journalists have changed their jobs, their “beats” or their places of work.

 (Source: www.MyMediaInfo.com)

So regardless of how stellar and airtight your perfectly worded and formatted presentation may be, this is an industry where writers and editors may have other things on their minds besides your news release.

                                                                             

In most cases, you will not break through the clutter with an email or printed page and a half of sensational news about your company’s products, services, activities, or ideas. It will take more than that. The word here is empathy — putting yourself in other’s shoes. Maybe you think you shouldn’t have to do that as a matter of business practice.

But consider that media people (as much as we may justifiably bash the network TV anchors and often extremist editorial board behaviors) tend to be sensitive beasts. They are caught in the middle of the need to balance legitimate value stories with the illegitimate ones that will sell more newspapers and magazines and more broadcast airtime to keep enough revenues flowing to pay their salaries.

Yes, of course there are always online avenues of news exposure. Some of these — for example, www.PRWeb.com and online granddaddy, www.PRNewsWire.com, charge exorbitant fees by comparison with www.MarketersMedia.com, but they have higher “Reach” capabilities. If you don’t need to connect the world, consider MarketersMedia.

Combined with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and other less significant players, these news release outlets can be highly productive channels.

In fact, most traditional journalists now use Twitter on a regular basis. (Source: www.MyMediaInfo.com) But, still, for really big news coverage, many continue to look to major media coverage as the difference between news and N E W S.

Okay, so do you think a single news release delivered to the Wall Street Journal from any lower level name awareness than Mr. Goldman or Mr. Sachs is going to get your new Whiz Bang Production Facility on the front page? On ANY page?

Public Relations requires Media Relations.

The best business coverage only happens 999,999 times out of a million because relationships are established and nurtured.

Like every other industry and profession, there are “tricks of the trade” you need to know in order to make your efforts pay off.

It cost money to learn and apply these secrets. Many PR firms charge $10,000 to $30,000 a month to play the PR game for you, but a good PR Coach (who will help you play the game yourself) shouldn’t be more than $1,500 to $3,500 a month (including writing a monthly release or two!).

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931.854.0474 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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