A guest post from Andra Watkins of Positus Consulting.

You DO want to grow your business

You want to grow your business. It’s what everyone wants, regardless of the season, ebb and flow of the economy or challenges presented by pesky competitors.

One of the keys to growing any business is knowing how and when to ask the right questions of key people. Sometimes, a focus group is the only way to get the biggest group of participants, but at POSITUS, we like to conduct individual interviews whenever possible.

By hiring a third party to individually ask a customer, vendor or employee key questions about your business, you are communicating several things to them that matter. Let’s take a look at each one of them.

Ask!

Your input is important to me. It is so important to you as a business owner that you hired someone to contact people individually to get that feedback. You’re conveying that the interviewee matters to your business by underscoring the crucial nature of their opinions and insights.

Your time is valuable. Individual interviews can often be conducted by telephone, and they can be timed for the convenience of the interviewee. By taking this approach, you’re communicating that time is precious; that you want to make giving feedback as simple as possible for the participant.

Your confidentiality matters. Lots of folks won’t participate in focus groups because they’re intimidated or they feel they cannot reasonably convey what they have to offer in front of a group. As a research tool, individual interviews with a third party allow each participant to speak freely and candidly in a completely confidential setting.

All of your comments are welcome – even the critical ones. By giving a participant a one-on-one forum with an impartial third party, you are underscoring that you want all relevant feedback – the good; the bad; and the ugly. The beauty of a third party is that the information can then be distilled and worded into relevant, meaningful input for dynamic business change.

I want to keep your business. Customers always like to feel special, and seeking out their opinions one-on-one is an ideal way to underscore that you want to keep their business for the long-term. With key customers, individual interviewing can be the key to keeping them in the “key” position for the life of your business.

You have been an instrument of change in my business. Getting one-on-one feedback is worthless without follow up. Once the information has been reviewed and crafted into specific strategies for growth and change, show people AND tell people how their input made a difference. Announce the changes you’ve made. Thank people personally. Be transparent about what you’re doing, helping everyone to see the value of their individual contributions.

Research is like concentrated dynamite

In every case where POSITUS has helped a client achieve double or triple digit growth, individual interviews have been a non-negotiable component of the strategic process. They are more affordable than a focus group, and the input gleaned is like concentrated dynamite. On more than one occasion, we’ve taken an entirely different strategic growth stance based solely on individual feedback, and that information is what helped the business explode with new growth.

And, isn’t that where you really want your business to be?

…But a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, …suggests that while the news landscape has rapidly expanded, most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media—particularly newspapers.

The study, which examined all the outlets that produced local news in Baltimore, Md., for one week, surveyed their output and then did a closer examination of six major narratives during the week, finds that much of the “news” people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information. more

Last year as ad revenue declined, we saw our area newspapers shift to more local content. The shift was happening all across the country.

The research from the Pew Foundation tells us that we are right to have some concern about the changes.

Pew notes, “The local papers, however, are also offering less than they once did.” That is because there is less ad revenue. Newspapers can only print what they can pay for. As one area editor shared with me his publisher said, “That’s a great story idea, but if we don’t have ad revenue to support an additional page, we can’t print it.” However, in the meantime, random column inches here and there contain uninteresting blurbs like the one in today’s Post and Courier, “Shed damaged by fire, no one injured.” That’s a news story?

The Pew study also confirms that the web is the first place of publication and an alert system. In addition there is another interesting tidbit in the study that we PR people have known, media releases are often the source of much of the information contained in the newspaper.

The takeaway from this is:

• Newspaper journalism is important as the foundational source for most local news
• Original stories have declined
• Well crafted media releases may be used to place news because there are fewer journalists with less time and column inches to give to originally sourced stories.

So, it is the job of public relations professionals to craft news worthy well written items for our media colleagues use and consumption. There is an even greater chance that your firm’s news will end up right where you want it to be.