Author Archive

photo credit; gainsp2003 on flickr creative commons

CharlestonCurrents.com featured an article from me in their issue on Thursday, 29 April, 2010. I’ve re-printed it here or you can go to the issue to read it.

In the world of nature everything is about opportunity.

This truth was apparent the other day when we heard a thump on the roof of our office. As I looked out of the window a red tailed hawk rolled off the roof with a mourning dove in his talons. They rolled around in the underbrush and then the hawk took flight to the cover of a low growing live oak. There he perched to feast on his meal of opportunity; the mourning dove.

Many reading this will think the hawk cruel for devouring the dove and some might wish for the demise of the hawk. From where I sit, I think this is a lesson in seizing opportunity.

As a small business owner, how hungry are you?

If you are hungry, how do you find your next project? Do you do as the hawk and fly across your territory watching for the slightest twitch or negligence? The truth is that the dove only became hawk food because he was not placing his attention where it needed to be: on being aware of what was happening around him. It’s the same in business. If someone “eats our lunch” in business, it’s because we may have been negligent one too many times.

Be aware

Whether we are in an economic recession, depression or boom, being too satiated keeps us from being aware. Throughout nature, critters have a way to know when opportunity arrives. Spiders sense the filaments of their web twitching; fish feel the vibrations of the water moving as flies land on its surface. Animals have a territory that they diligently monitor, making it their business to know what happens in their territory. We many not need to act on all the intelligence we gain, but it is our responsibility to know. And we must be prepared to respond to our intuition and the cues we gather from our intelligence.

Here are a few tips to keep the business hawks out of our dovecote:

1. Be vigilant to all opportunities.
2. Follow up on all leads.
3. Respond in a timely manner to inquiries.
4. Even when you don’t think you need to, circulate.
5. Remain powerful; not only physically, but mentally. Knowing you are capable is half the way to gaining the opportunity.
6. Don’t judge until you have all the information needed to make a decision.

Photo credit: flickr creative commons laffy4k

The continuing decline in newspaper circulation numbers is  reported today.

In my opinion, this trend confirms the manner in which people are consuming news these days. Those less than 60 years of age are more frequently getting news online; often almost instantaneously through Twitter, RSS feeds and online readers. The rising use of mobile devices will continue to drive this trend.

News reporters and news outlets are on Twitter in greater numbers. There they share their stories and promote their outlets. So rather than as days of old, readers are finding their news digitally, causing the slide in circulation.

Make sure your public relations efforts targeted to those less than 60 years of age are sent in mediums that are being consumed by digital users.

Here’s my follow Friday list—this Friday we’re focusing on writers we love to read:

@CPEats – her local food Tweets keep us up to date
@thepioneerwoman – her images and words are the heartland
@ruthreichl – her Tweets are food/sensual poetry
@IsabellesTravel – her travel Tweets keep us in the know
@TannerLatham –he writes about the real life
@maryalicemonroe – because she’s always sharing something great
@angiemizzell – great local voice
@TLynnNews – she is always in the know about what’s happening in Charleston
@TheGourmetGirl – sharing the best news about food, drink, eating.

photo courtesy of waffrie on flickr creative commons

I live in the Charleston, South Carolina area. A few years ago the old bridges spanning the Cooper River were torn down and a new breathtakingly beautiful bridge was built. The Arthur Ravenel Bridge is a suspension bridge that is a pleasure to drive over because of its architecture and ability to carry a large volume of traffic between Mt. Pleasant and Charleston.

Now as much as I like the bridge, it’s never occurred to me to use it as a component of my corporate identity, logo or in my advertising, but I think I’m in the minority. It seems that 8 out of 10 companies use the Arthur Ravenel Bridge, its towers or other features in their advertising. Now it makes sense for the Cooper River Bridge Run to use it in their advertising, but for a home oxygen supplier?  It makes more sense for the Yarborough Applegate law firm because the letters of their names form an impression of the bridge’s superstructure and it fits for The Bridge 105.5 radio station to use it in their advertising. But I’ve seen the bridge used in real estate ads, restaurant ads and business consultant’s ads. Just get over it!

If you do business in the Charleston area, I suppose you may want to use the bridge to give a sense of place in your logo or advertising, but wouldn’t you rather have imagery that depicts or speaks to how your customers use your products or services?

Your logo is a visual communication between your company and your customers. It should be distinctive. Individual. When customers see your logo, they should comprehend your brand qualities or understand the benefits of doing business with you. It’s lazy to use the most iconic image for your business sector or locale; the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, the Eiffel Tower in Paris or a scale for a lawyer’s office or a chef’s toque for a restaurant.

When developing your logo and corporate identity, use a brand development process that clarifies your brand promise, qualities, benefits and features. Then your graphic designer can use this material to develop the best corporate identity materials for your company.

When your logo is developed, you’ll be glad yours is as individual as you and your company are.

Research is continuing to show that consumers care more about those they identify as leaders in a segment than about celebrity endorsers.

Click to go to the spot in a new window

Television ad campaigns now running that use the power of celebrity endorsers such as Zaxby’s Chicken ads with Terry Bradshaw and Luke Wilson in AT&T’s ads demonstrate that real influence that causes people to purchase products comes from someone who is influential among the people who use the product.

This insight coincides with research showing that women respond to connectedness and relationships.

How does this translate into your marketing plans?

• Understand who uses your products as well as the other Ws (when, where, why)
• Listen to what users say about your products in forums, social media
• Identify the influencers in the conversation
• Develop genuine relationships with influencers
• Invite them to share their product insight with you
• Take their input seriously
• If appropriate influencers like and use your product, ask them if they will share their preferences among their community (with full disclosure of any and all benefits they may derive from that use.)

This may mean that rather than an up and coming author doing book signings at a bookstore, they meet with well established book groups interacting with members. Whatever the interaction is that derives from listening and developing relationships, it must be natural, unforced and authentic.  No broadcasting. Only natural growth of the audience. It’s not viral, it’s long-term, sustained, organic growth you want.

So many have sought to be the next viral product video, but really, when the end of the day comes, do you really remember the contents of a viral campaign for a product?

Clients traditionally have valued the ego boosting jolt that comes of having their business featured in the news media; local television news casts, daily newspapers or radio. With the reports in the State of the News Media study for 2010, we must help clients comprehend the changes in reality.

Insight gained from the State of the News Media is somewhat grim; so grim that Gawker proclaimed in their headline, “There Is Literally No Way to Make Money Selling News.” Advertising has fallen in every sector except cable news ads where it barely eked out growth. All news delivery vehicles are under severe pressure. On the whole, consumers don’t wish to pay for content.

However, there are bright spots such as the growth of community supported journalism which blends journalistic standards and community sourced news such as what we see in Charleston, SC with TheDigitel.com. But community supported journalism sites lack the deep pockets of traditional news sites and are more fragile.

Total U.S. Daily Newspaper Circulation

Weekday and Sunday Editions, 1990-2008

Newspapers aren't the only vehicle will fewer consumers

What does this mean to the practice of public relations?

It means that fewer consumers are watching television news or getting their news from traditional news media such as the daily newspaper or Newsweek magazine. And that news rooms of all types are not well staffed and are frequently sharing news gathering staff with either their local competitors, the local daily newspaper or radio. Ironically, when examining online news websites’ traffic loyalty, frequency, depth of visit and time on site, the longest visits came from visitors to conservative news websites.

Top 20 Websites in 2009

It’s imperative to:

• Create integrated campaigns because audiences haven’t died in traditional media, they are just shrinking at a large rate.
• Do more work to provide all the content a news purveyor needs. This means video clips, stills, fact sheets, sources, quotes.
• Go direct to consumers with Social Media.
• When we seek to place stories; use news aggregator sites to reach a broad group of consumers.
• We must take the role of producing authoritative content in order to get our client’s stories where the consumer is attentive.

We must think of the most direct path to the eyes and ears of our customer’s consumers and place content where they will interact and engage with it.

This article from the NY Times calls attention to one of the largest sectors of growth in the world of entrepreneurial start-ups; those 55+.

More than five million Americans age 55 or older run their own businesses or are otherwise self-employed, according to the Small Business Administration. And the number of self-employed people ages 55 to 64 is soaring, the agency says, climbing 52 percent from 2000 to 2007…

A study by Babson College and Baruch College found that Americans age 55 and above started 18.9 percent of all businesses created in 2008, compared with 10 percent in 2001. The 55-and-overs are playing a larger role in entrepreneurship partly because the number of Americans in that age category is rising rapidly. “

Remembering the different communication styles of each cohort is critical to successful communication. Boomers starting their own businesses may muddy the water, adopting the styles of Gen Y as needed. Pew Research has a very in-depth article comparing generational communications styles and self identifying traits that helps provide insight into how to reach each cohort.

Segment your message and deliver it in the channel to which your customers are most attentive.

Risk management and prior planning allow you to weather a business crisis.

As human beings we my not accept the fact that unexpected things happen. In our personal lives, we manage our risks by taking good care of our physical selves, purchasing insurance for our health, our homes, our cars and our high value items. We even undertake financial planning.

When it comes to your business do you pro-actively manage your risks? If we are prudent we have a line of credit to help even out cash flow issues. We may have a team who offers redundant support so that if one person is out, another can pick up the pieces and continue the work flow. We may even have liability insurance.

However, do you have risk management or crisis management plans in place for your business? If you are a restaurant owner, do you know how you’d react if a patron contracted serious food poisoning and your restaurant was the source? If you are a limousine driver and one of your vehicles was involved in an unfortunate accident, how would you respond? Or if you had an employee who embezzled money from you; how would you mitigate the public’s perception that you should have been more knowledgeable about what was happening in your business?

As the people at Sea World have learned, tragic things happen to businesses. How you respond to the crisis can dictate how you will survive the consequences of the tragedy. Even if the negative event is not a life-ending, how will you mitigate or respond to the public’s perceptions of your firm?

Professional public relations practitioners are skilled in analyzing the types of situations you may encounter and helping you create an outline of how you will respond. Don’t wait until you have a tragedy to plan your response. Outline your response now so you won’t have to guess at your reactions; you will instead be prepared.

I’m not a huge fan of the Olympics and being a Southerner, I don’t often see snow in my locality. So winter sports and the Winter Olympics are a bit foreign to me. For the past five nights, my spouse has watched the TV, thrilled with the speed skaters, riveted by the sliders and misty at the figure skaters. I’ve watched in horror as they have spilled, fallen and run off course. For the life of me, I can’t understand why someone would chance their life by hurling themselves downhill on two strips of thin carbon-Kevlar.

On Tuesday the competitors in the short program men’s figure skating awed me with their power and determination. When the American Jeremy Abbot messed up his program, I felt his emotional pain.

Abbot said,

“I’m going to have to do a lot of digging in the next two days because I’m not going to give up, and I’m not going to leave it here,” he said. “I’m not going to leave my Games on that experience.”

What a lesson for us all! It’s easy to be jubilant in victory. It’s harder to be determined in the face of failure.

If we are in business long enough each of us will fail.  So on reconsideration perhaps I do understand why these Olympic athletes do what they do. In order to win we must risk.  This anonymous poem has held meaning for me for years.  Maybe Abbott knows it too.

The Risks

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool;

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental;

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken,

The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing,has nothing and is nothing;

They may avoid suffering and sorrow,but they cannot learn, feel change, grow, love, live.

Chained by their certitude, they are a slave,they have forfeited freedom;

Only the person who risks is free.

Who has money to burn in 2010?

As a solopreneur or startup in 2010 you must know this: Insightful, well planned and conducted market research is as important as the product you wish to sell. Your tight budget has little room to waste money developing a product that your assumed target won’t purchase. Some assume the cost of research is cost prohibitive; however, actually the opposite is true. Wasting money on an undesired product is cost prohibitive. In real estate or corporate mergers it’s called due diligence and it should be the first step after you have the idea to create a product, extend a line or launch a new business.

Yesterday a colleague and I agreed that we see hesitancy among some businesses to conduct market research. Insights gained as a result of research allow for fine tuning of a successful product and positive message creation. SCORE (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) offers this advice in their Business Plan for a Start Up Business:

No matter how good your product and your service, the venture cannot succeed without effective marketing. And this begins with careful, systematic research. It is very dangerous to assume that you already know about your intended market. You need to do market research to make sure you’re on track. Use the business planning process as your opportunity to uncover data and to question your marketing efforts. Your time will be well spent.”

You should conduct qualitative as well as quantitative research. One on one focus groups conducted by a skilled interviewer yield significant understanding which can be analyzed in light of detailed research conducted by online surveys or pencil and paper surveys.

Businesses that use sound research are far and away more successful than those who make assumptions without data.