21st Century Sales

I recently met with the CEO of a 20-year old business with $10 million in sales. Profits were good because this man was very frugal with his expenses. Sales were slipping, however, and the competition was heating up. He wanted me to create an Internet Marketing plan for his business.

This man told me he had no idea what an Internet Marketing plan was.  "You're the expert," he said. "I want you to use the Internet deliver a "knockout punch" for my business." I probed further... 

What is a Media Release?

A media release (also called a press release or a news release) is information that you would like to share with the media.  The information  relates to a specific issue or event that impacts your business.

Which Media?

The media that a business usually wants to contact may include:

• newspapers
• radio stations
• television stations
• print magazines
• online publications

Depending on the range of interest for your story, you may wish to contact local, regional, national and/or international media.

Why Write a Media Release?

Very simply, the purpose of a media release is to connect with the media so that the media will provide coverage of your story.

Exposure in the media is generally good for business.

Here are a couple of assumptions regarding public relations:

Methods of Distributing a Media Release

Email

If using this method of distribution, send your release in the email message itself, not as an attachment, in a plain text format. Type MEDIA RELEASE in your subject line.

Fax

Waning in popularity as more media outlets phase out the fax machine in favor of digital.  A reminder to make sure your font choice and size is plain and easily readable by fax – Times New Roman or Arial in a 12 or 14 point size are good choices. Don’t forget to include a cover page.

Postal mail

Goodness, who does that anymore?  This method is not preferable unless time is not an issue and you want to stand out.

How to Write a Media Release

What is newsworthy?

What you feel is newsworthy and what the person representing the media thinks is important are often worlds apart.  PR expert Bill Stoler recommends that anyone writing a media release "think like a reporter".

Here are some things to consider when writing your media release from PR Web:

The question, "How do I write a good testimonial?" has bothered me for a long time.  Given I had to write one recently, I thought I'd share what I learned in a quick-and-dirty post on the topic of testimonials.

The question has turned out to be a hairball of related questions.  What exactly is a testimonial?  What's a good one look like?  How can I help folks write a good testimonial for me? 

The information I've had to digest could fill a book. To that end, I decided to write this post in a book format:

We certainly live in interesting times!  As part of my book research over the past few months, I've been speaking to a lot of business people about the economy and how it is impacting them.  It's clearly a topic of interest and concern.

I've been surprised by the number of people who say, "Q4 of last year was my best quarter ever.  Business is great!" 

True, many of the people I speak to have received, or are in fear of soon receiving, the dreaded pink slip.  I feel for them and their families, as they will be faced with hardship this year. 

But how is it that more than half of the people I've spoken to are prospering?  More specifically, what are they doing that the others aren't?  What can be done to stay on the winning side?

This week, two new call center agents joined the team. Welcome Alicia and Angela!

One of the first things we chatted about was their names. You see, most professional call center agents don't use their real names. I thought this was a bit odd when I first hired an offshore call center agent several years ago, but I shrugged it off. We were too busy training for me to pause and ask.

This week I took the time to ask. "What do you call the name you use when you are working?" I asked. The answers I got back included: screen name, pseudoname, stage name and call center name.

All are women, so my assumption was that they didn't want any creepy guys they called while at work to be able to track them down after work. Not necessarily so, as male agents I've worked with also use a different name while on the job.

Today I met with Kevin.  Our paths crossed a few weeks ago at a business networking function. 

I routinely send a brief email note of follow-up to the people who offer me their business cards at these events.  I do this because, after all, the events are about meeting people and exploring business opportunities.  I figure if you don't go to the trouble to at least acknowledge the person, there's not much chance of ever doing business with them.  (Can't for the life of me understand why everyone doesn't do this, but that's a topic for another book!)  Anyway, of the 15-odd personal follow-up notes I spent all night sending off to the people I met at the function, Kevin was one of a handful to respond.  He was curious about this book project and wanted to discuss how he might contribute.

This post is a bit off the wall. I've been thinking of writing it as a resource for quite some time, but until last night, I really didn't think it belonged in a blog about a book-to-be. Then it came to me that there's really not that much difference between finding a customer, finding a job or getting a date.

First, some background. I'm not looking for a job (or a date!), but I'm always looking for opportunities. Even if I was making more money than I knew what to do with and was happy as pie with my "job", I'd still make the time to speak to qualified hiring managers about opportunities. Worst case scenario, I meet an interesting person in my industry who I might be able to help, and two professional networks grow by one. Best case scenario is that I find an even better "job" and take a step up on the career ladder!

My friend David Greer recently joined a start-up. As the new VP Sales and Marketing, David's job is to sell his company's product, a software scheduling solution. Like most start-ups, David's new employer has limited human resources (as in, if you want it done, you have to do it yourself) and financial resources (as in, if you want it, you'd better sell something first so we have the money to buy it with.)

"Where do you recommend I get a list of prospects?", David asked when he called me today.

A couple of the the chapters in my book will be for David and people who are in his current situation. They have a product or service and now they are looking for people to buy it.

This chapter will be on How do I find customers-to-be? (Note, it assumes you've already read the chapter on Who is my customer-to-be!)