Posts Tagged ‘blog’
The 20 Million Dollar Lesson I Learned From Mr. Rogers
Sunday, February 28th, 2010This is a lesson in persuasion. No NLP tricks, no clever word word play, just a sincere, direct approach to persuade a hard nosed politician. Back before Fred Rogers was well known as “Mr Rogers” he had a passion about his beliefs.
There are so many lessons in this 6:50 minute clip on so many levels.
I’m interested in what you took away from this?
Question, Do you deal with people in any way?
Sunday, February 21st, 2010I’m in a series (not by design) on selling, and building relationships with clients and customers. As things always to to go, when I focus on a subject, then amazing things just drop (not! It’s the law of attraction working) into my lap for topics.
This was delivered by fellow marketer Tellman. I almost passed it by… glad I didn’t.
If you deal with people in any way, shape or form sells or otherwise, waste (again, NOT!) a mere 16:23 minutes and watch this video. Then go out and have an awesome day. I bet you, you’ll smile at somebody Monday morning, if not before… Really!
As an aside, now that you have watched the video, by the way you are really great and have something special for a lot of people… really… No I mean it!
Anyway here’s the story, a few years ago, Dean Hankey stayed with Sharon, Muffy and I for a few days, while we were working at a conference in Toledo. I mentioned to him, how I never got used to people not being real friendly here. In Dean’s wisdom, he said “Really?”
Yet I noticed that when Dean, a true total stranger in town, and I went to various locations around town, people would smile at him and he always had a kind word and often even engaged in conversations with these off Standish people… Dean didn’t have to say much for me to get the point, that “I” was the unfriendly one, not them for the most part. Oh sure your going to find that non-smiler here and there, but it’s YOUthat determines for the most part the mood that will transpire.
Lesson learned from the Dean. I now speak to, smile at, and often engage in conversations with total strangers, what a way (although not the main purpose) to network and get into interesting conversation with people who may at some point become a friend or client, or better still the ultimate, best of both.
As Rev Robert Shculler is noted to say, “God loves you and so do I!” … Really we both do! Pass a few smiles along today and everyday.
- Rick
As always you comments, thoughts and suggestions are always welcome…. Really! 
Value
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Photo credit: http://walmartstores.com/
In public relations, attempting to gain publicity for ourselves, business or product and in marketing those same things it is vitally important they we be the ones offering the value.
Most I’m sure are well failure with W.I.F.M. the most famous station call letters in history. If not WIFM actually stands for, “What’s In It For Me?” and this is the question every media outlet and every customer and client asks when they hear or see your “pitch”. If they can’t see the value of your offer, then your simply dead in the water every time.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times, where someone with lessor quality gets the media attention or the sale, and in most cases both, because they offered a better value then the other person. And, that value is not always price related, so I’m not suggesting that the person with the lowest price “wins” every time. If that were true then nobody would shop any place other then the dollar stores and WalMart.
Value can come in many different forms. Perhaps in attempting to get media attention for instance, your story presents more mass appeal to the medias customers then another story. The same is true however that if you are all set to have a story run and your states Governor suddenly gets indited, chances are no matter how much possible value you have in your story, the Governor’s story has more. That doesn’t mean your story will get bumped altogether, it may get moved or delayed… or yes it’s possible it will get buried and never see the light of day.
In the case of selling you, your product or service the same my hold true. If for instance a customer or client is all set to buy and they suddenly find out they have to replace a major item, no matter how much value you have offered you generally will lose to what is most pressing at the time.
This all sounds rather un-motivating but, I think it’s important to know why things fall through sometimes. There is an answer however. The answer is to keep your pipeline full, never let it empty, never put all your eggs in one basket, some would say. When the deal falls through, or is delayed for whatever reason you should always have enough other resources that it doesn’t sting for as long, or at all.
I know I have been guilty many times and I’m sure you have been in the same place, where your depending on that one “deal” and something happens. It can really knock you for a loop, unless you have plenty of other resources already in your pipeline, when you do, you simply say “next” and give it little thought.
So offer the best value you can (price dropping is not offering value, it’s the act of a desperate sales person) but more importantly have plenty of leads already in place.
Give me your feed back on this and what you would like to disscuss hear… it’s important to our continued growth, I really need to know where you are coming from, so I can offer YOU the best VALUE for your time spent here.
Persistence!
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
PT Barnum
What works best in marketing and PR? When you think of all the hundreds of effective ways to market your business and build your image for you, your product or service, one thing keeps coming to mind… persistence!
80% of what is done in marketing, is a total waste of effort and time. PT Barnum, was once quoted as saying “I know half of the advertising I do to promote my circus works and half doesn’t, I just don’t know which is which!” I don’t know who first invented the coupon in direct marketing, however if Barnum had known of it, he sure wouldn’t have made a statement like that. Today testing makes it a bit easier to determine what works and what does not, but we’re still faced with doing the work to find that information out in the first place. If we continue to just sit around and think about what might work, have a fear of trying this or that, we will get no results at all.
Most give up way to soon, seldom is a complete direct mailing campaign fully completed, I personally have a half dozen web sites that are only half done, or need to be improved.
Persistence however is the key, keep it going, keep taking Action, keep moving forward. If you have true passion, you’ll try it, if it doesn’t get the intended results, make a change and try it again, until it works or you discover it was a bad idea to start with. Making small tests when possible is always the safest way to go. But keep in mind running out of steam is not the same as failing.
Just some thoughts, your comments are always welcome.
The Head Trip!
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
T. Harv Eker And His Millionaire Mind Intensive – Does He Really Know How To Help People?
In order to have success at anything, business, family, relationships, you have to have your head together.
Over the last few months I have studied a lot of this head stuff in preparation for some changes in my own personal and business life. A friend and associate of mine Scott Lowry of the Lowry Group turned me on to T Harv Eker.
I was impressed enough by the information he offers that I got Harv’s permission to add this video from a series for you to see what it takes to get the garbage out of your head so you can excel in all you do. Enjoy and learn. I would love, simply adore your comments and feedback.
http://theprexpert.com/eker_videos/vid1.html
Why would anyone want publicity?
Monday, December 28th, 2009
Regardless of what kind of business you are in, you should want, and strive for, as much publicity for your business and your products or services, as possible. After all, it’s “free advertising” that is essential to the growth of your business and with things tight right now, the more you can get for free the better off your bottom line will be, right? It’s important that your publicity efforts should be well thought out, and pre-planned for maximum results.
An effective way to plan your media attention is to have a PR calendar made up for the coming year. The first thing is locate all the holidays you can use as a hook for a story. Don’t forget all those non legal ones that happen everyday.
Here’s a sample website for such events, http://www.sldirectory.com/cal.html
Get a pad of paper and a pen and start brain storming, how your business or service can fit into these daily events.
- Rick Allen, “The Publicity Expert”
Inter copyright 2009 Rick Allen
A systematic approach to writing a media release
Monday, September 28th, 2009
The number one problem in getting into the media is getting the media that you’ve sent these publicity stories to, is to get them to use them, publish them or get them to put you on television or radio in the case of broadcast media.
So, the biggest thing I see in having people send me their PR materials is that it is not being done correctly.
This leads us back to the “right way ” of writing a media release, and then submitting it to the right people, in the right place. Timing is also important and I’ll get into that in the future… now is not the right time.
A systematic approach to the format is the only way to be seriously considered when writing a media release. The media will only accept materials that fit their standardized format. Any thing else given to them will almost always result in it not being used by them, unless it is the slowest news day of the year.
OK, so a media release is formatted for ease of reading. It must have vital information in the right place, simply because the media is always on a deadline, they will not and do not have the time to go looking for the basic information to consider using your release.
If the information is not where they expect to be, they will spend little time looking for it. A typical editor or news director gets anywhere from a couple dozen, in the smallest of media outlets, to hundreds on a daily basis.
Another huge problem that I see over and over, even from large corporations is that the media release is printed on letterhead. A media release should always be on just plain white paper in standard business letter size (for the USA it is 8.5 x 11) the paper needs to be plain white. Other then the formatted information for a standard media release the paper should contain nothing else.
In some cases, you can send a short cover letter addressed to the person you want your material to be considered by… This means that you send your story to the city editor (by name) of the newspapers; the news directors of the radio and TV stations; and the managing editors of the various trade publications. However this is something I seldom do. This is the only time you should use a letterhead or anything other then the plain white paper.
For a handy white paper that you will want to keep by your computer, on the correct systematic formatting of a media release go to: http://ThePRexpert.com/white_paper/request.htm
Inter copyright MMVIII Rick Allen
Business Blogging 101 Part 3 – Driving traffic to your business blog
Monday, September 28th, 2009Business Blogging 101 Part 3
Driving traffic to your business blog
- Rick Allen, “The Publicity Expert”
How does SEO play a part in your business blog and bottom line profits?
Your blog is only valuable as a marketing tool if people see it and respond to it.
SEO, or search engine optimization is vital for the… click here to continue:
Business Blogging 101 Part 3
Welcome to Unabashed Self-promotion
Monday, September 28th, 2009This will be an exciting site. In the near future it will become filled with tips, hints, tools and cutting edge publicity, public relations, social networking and frankly unabashed ways to create self-promotion and position yourself as the “go to expert” in your field. – Rick, “The Publicity Expert”
