If you are an honest, hard-working business professional, who has more than a modicum of interest in helping others get through this whacky world we live in, then I say it is your obligation to let us know you exist and are here to help us.
The secret is, (and keep this to yourself as it seems very few people know this) you have to do something. Here are a few examples meant to stimulate your own creativity:
- Piggyback your story off of a well-publicized current event.
- Call local media personnel and ask them, “How can I help you?”
- Always keep the audience in mind.
- Build your media contact mailing list TODAY.
Do not make this thing harder than it has to be. Simply find more fun ways to grow your business.
Every business professional knows the value of visibility, consistency, and the importance of being positioned as the go-to resource. I would be preaching to the choir if I began waxing eloquent on any one of these important business truths.
But then again, if these truths are so self-evident, why do so many business professionals fail to get the message? Why does it take an uncanny number of whacks-in-the-head for so many smart people to finally get it?
The simple fact is that during a great portion of our adult lives we all assume the role of “AIS.” This is a softer, easier-to-accept term for the highly educated physician’s name for the ever popular and quickly spreading Adult Idiots Syndrome.
I want you to get this and get it good. PUBLICITY is free and it is a good thing for your business. Go get some.
But publicity is not about you or your business. It is all about the reader, listener, viewer, or recipient of your release. If you finally find the time to do your business some good at the expense of pushing a pile of papers from point “A” to position “B,” then I want you to tell the recipient something (anything) they might want to hear.
Like how your company has recently announced the timesaving, vacation-saving, marriage-saving Special Report titled How to Pack For a 2 Week Vacation Without Destroying Your Relationship. (There is not a married man over 30 who will not pay a weeks salary to read these nuggets of interest you jammed into this little jewel.)
When you introduce new and exciting information that your targeted audience can both identify with and find to be of interest, you are on to bigger and better things in the business world. You are now becoming the “go-to resource.”
The media experts will be glad to include you in their programs because you are helping them. And, according to me, that is exactly how the process is supposed to work.
Think of a whole bunch of information your audience wants (needs) to know. (Keep in mind that “wants to know” is more powerful than “needs to know.”) And while you are thinking I want you to begin building your personal media database. This is nothing more than a list of local media contacts along with their address, phone number, email and if you are really getting into this thing, their golfing handicap.
Then begin writing from the heart. Shoot from the hip. Use little words. (But always, always, always be ready to dodge a handful of darts from some professorial guru-types who do not take misused hanging participles or gerunds requiring possessives very lightly.)
Mike Marchev is a down-to-earth motivating sales trainer, author and business coach who specializes in the travel industry. For a complimentary copy of Mike’s 12-Word Marketing Plan send him an email at mike@mikemarchev.com with the number “12” in the Subject Box. His daily column is made possible by AmaWaterways.
