Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.” I spent an interesting hour at the dentist’s office yesterday and the time actually flew. I found it fascinating and almost entertaining watching the young woman at the front desk. I guess I’m accustomed to being greeted by a receptionist with a smile and an attitude that conveys ‘thanks for coming to see us, not them’.

Keywords:
sales, marketing, hiring, front desk, receptionist, customer service, dental office

I approached her sliding glass window and stood in back of a gentleman whom I assumed she was helping. After about three minutes, I realized he was waiting for the office manager and she could have acknowledged my presence. I stepped up to the window; she did not say good morning; she did not smile; she just glared at me. I started to speak; she pointed a finger at a clip board with a paper to fill out. I placed the completed sheet in front of her, perhaps expecting a thank you or a smile or at least ‘have a seat; the doctor will see you soon’.

I was so intrigued by her manner that I watched her interaction with the other patients. The man sitting next to me started to tell me that even though he had an appointment he had been waiting a long time. He told me he was extremely dissatisfied with the way the place was run and was starting to regret his association with this office. With a bit of humor, I told him I was watching the receptionist and asked if she had uttered a word to him. He started to laugh, and said, “Come to think of it, not a word!”

The next patient to come in was an older woman with a walker. The receptionist was not at her desk so the woman took a seat and waited for her return. She again pointed at the clip board, took the form, threw her sliding glass door closed and said nothing. The next one was the mailman, who I’m sure she sees daily. Again, not a smile or a hello; she stuck out her hand for the mail and handed him the outgoing mail.

Now my new disgruntled friend and I were sort of enjoying this and decided that maybe she was a mute….and then it happened. A good-looking UPS delivery man came in. Lo and behold, there was a big smile and a voice that was able to say good morning! That was short lived. She treated the rest of the patients in her same rude uncaring manner, a total lack of personality.

To me, the ability to positively interact with the customer, no matter what the business, is most essential. Hire your receptionist with as much thought as you would hire a sales person. Some smart person once said “If today you give a stranger one of your smiles, it might be the only sunshine he sees all day.

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There’s a clear way around press release failure and it’s called the pitch. A lot like it sounds a pitch is a fast throw at busy editors about a possible story. If they want to find out more, then you send the press release.

That leads me to a huge pet peeve: Sending out press releases via e-mail to a list of editors. From my experience it’s never – ever – worked. I no longer try it and suggest you don’t either. It’s a waste of your time and all of the editors. Instead:

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Keywords:
press release,press,release,news,letter,small,business

There’s a clear way around press release failure and it’s called the pitch. A lot like it sounds a pitch is a fast throw at busy editors about a possible story. If they want to find out more, then you send the press release.

That leads me to a huge pet peeve: Sending out press releases via e-mail to a list of editors. From my experience it’s never – ever – worked. I no longer try it and suggest you don’t either. It’s a waste of your time and all of the editors. Instead:

1. Focus on a handful of your “dream publications.” For me, I’d like to get into Fortune Small Business, Entrepreneur magazine and the Wall Street Journal. When picking your publications, think of your target audience. What do they read and why do they read it?

2. Pick the section you’d like to appear in. You never know, but chances are you won’t appear on the cover of the publication in your first attempt at placement, instead, focus on sidebars, resource listings and short news sections. Almost all print pubs have them. Look at it as the waiting room for bigger and better stories on the unique products and/or services you offer.

3. Find out who the editor is. Once you have your section, find out who’s in charge of it. You’ll need the person’s name, e-mail address and the most important element of successfully getting placed in the publication . . .

4. Learn what the editor needs. The number one thing you’ll need to know about the editors you’re targeting is the kind of information they want to publish in their sections. There are two ways to do that: You could ask, but then that could open up a can of worms if the editor doesn’t want to get calls – and most don’t. Or, you could compare a few back issues of the publication to find out what they’ve published in the past.

5. Create the pitch. You’ll want to start your pitch by stating your understanding of the editor’s needs. Then list – in clear bullet points – how your news fits his or her requirements. Note: Always leave your phone number in the text of the pitch e-mail to give the editor easy access to you – and your story.

6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 until you get a response. Sound tedious? Maybe. But at least the time you spend on this will reap much better results than sending one release out to thousands of editors – right along with other business people hungry for coverage.

Bottom line: It’s about building relationships with editors. And the only way to build a relationship is to find the need and fill it – consistently and considerately.

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Spanish and English training, on-site language seminars, esl products, translations and workplace English

Keywords:
workplace english,seminars,spanish,translation services,translation,spanish and english training,corporate

Workplace Languages offers customized Survival Spanish seminars, classes (or other languages) to management in a variety of industries. We also teach a very functional workplace English to those employees with limited English proficiency. Our classes and seminars are always taught on-site at the company 24/7.

All classes, English and Spanish seminars are taught on-site at your place of business and the curriculum is always customized to meet the needs of your company. All information is practical and no grammar is taught. Classes & seminars are upbeat; nobody is put on the spot and we understand that you only want enough Spanish, Chinese, French … whatever language it is – to communicate immediately, easily & effectively. We understand that you don’t want to be a language major. You just want to get your point across.

Workplace Languages offer a large number of bilingual training tools to a variety of industries. They are all ultra easy-to-use and are all customizable with content and we can even add your company’s logo. What’s nice about our bilingual training tools is that there is nothing to retain, no classes to attend and no huge time or financial commitment. We have pocket-sized “survival language booklets” that come with a pronunciation guide. And our 24 X 36” color laminated poster has both Survival English for the Spanish speakers and also Survival Spanish for the non Spanish-speaking managers & supervisors.

Successful communication has always been the key to good management. Now, with an ever increasing need to connect with workers from other cultures, the need is even greater for both managers and employees to educate themselves in each others’ ways of acting, speaking, learning foreign languages using as method English or Spanish seminars. The rewards are potentially great if the methods that both parties use to educate themselves are appropriate. Success doesn’t necessarily take a great deal of time, it takes the right training.

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Clients are the most precious assets for a business. Without clients, there can be no business.

Keywords:

Clients are the most precious assets for a business. Without clients, there can be no business. With poor quality of clients, the business will be poor and if you manage to get very good clients and retain their loyalty, your business will only go up and up. This all sounds very exciting. But it is not easy to get very good clients and all the more difficult to retain them. After all, whatever you do, your competition is trying the same and may use better techniques to get business. Are there any innovative approaches to client relationships?

We are talking about direct sales in this discussion and not about selling merchandise to large consumer base. For example if you are a contractor maintaining air conditioners in clients work places. Or a direct seller of computer hardware to business buyers, and all such businesses where your sales to individual clients are large, and you are in direct contact with clients.

The first need is of course client satisfaction. If the client is satisfied with your response time, after sales service and can depend on you, pricing may become secondary. All clients do not buy from a supplier whose sales at the lowest price. If your product cost is a small percentage of clients total expense or if your product is essential for your clients, you are onto something good. How to retain such clients despite all the competition? What are the other factors than client satisfaction?

Relationship is one such other major factor. Do you relate with your clients only professionally, or are very good friends? Both these extremes can hurt. For a long-term business relationship, good friendship is not good for health of your business. Any problem in the personal friendship will directly affect your business. What if you relate to your clients mechanically in a professional style totally devoid of personal touch? You know the answer yourself.

What is needed is a relationship that does not border on personal friendships, but crosses mechanical approach. A fine balance between personal and professional.

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Information about why public relations doesn’t just happen along with tips about selecting an agency.

Keywords:
marketing, PR, Advertising, consulting, marketing campaigns

A. So the blood doesn’t show.

Many people think that once a company starts advertising, editors beat a path to your door. In some cases, that actually does happen, but it’s not the norm. Public relations is a very important part of the marketing mix, but it’s a tremendous amount of hard, detailed work.

Public relations is very different from advertising. One main difference is that you can’t buy media placement. The story is either newsworthy, or it’s not. Paid placement is called advertising. A successful PR campaign provides third-party endorsement of products or services which is something no other marketing element can deliver.

Both marketing elements are important, but public relations can sometimes be a slow build. Results don’t happen in a few weeks or in a month, especially with the three month lead time needed for magazines print deadlines. When dealing with television, newspapers or radio, the three month lead time is not an issue, but competition is an issue.

There have been situations where we’ve had an instant success story. We created a museum event in Philadelphia at a small children’s museum that was an incredible media success story. Every newspaper, ethnic publication and television station showed up for this event. Over the years, we’ve also had a number of press conferences with tons of media coverage the next day. This is expecially true if the news is sensational or the product is very popular at retail.

In one case, we generated thousands of stories for a client, but we were trying to generate an article in a major business paper. Nothing worked. The editor was interested, but he didn’t understand the point we were using as the “hook” for the story. When we finally drove home the point of differrence between mass market retailers and specialty retailers, he wrote the story and it was fantastic. Our story ended up on the front page of the business section minus one column, but it took months and months of work.

Many clients don’t understand the PR process. For example, when I was handling the marketing for a major children’s line of licensed apparel, the client had signed the advertising contract, but not the public relations contract. He just didn’t understand the entire subject and finally asked for a meeting to discuss things. Shortly into the meeting, this charming, grandfatherly gentleman looked at me with a straight face and said, “Why do I have to pay for this, doesn’t it just happen?”

At first, I thought he was kidding, but then I could see that he simply didn’t understand the process, or the discipline. After a rather lengthy discussion, he signed the contract. The campaign was a big success and so was the clothing line.

Some clients don’t have the budget for the entire marketing mix of trade advertising, consumer advertising, sales promotion, web site development and PR. Many will start with PR and trade advertising and then increase their marketing budget over time.

How To Choose An Agency

When you are ready to consider an agency, what should you look for in a PR team? For starters, the chemistry has to be there. You also need experience and media connections. Don’t hesitate to ask for client references. Once you have them, pick up the phone and make some calls.

Don’t assume that the new business people will service your account. If there is one account person that you feel has the expertise you need, consider requesting that this individual be the point person on your account. The agency should be willing to agree to this request in your written contract. Beware of bait and switch, where you are courted by the new business people who will never be seen again after the contract is signed.

What You Can Expect

Some points to remember:

Nothing kills a bad product faster than excellent PR and advertising. Customers may purchase the product once and then, that’s it.
When products are photographed, the samples must be in perfect condition. The camera picks up and magnifies very tiny flaws. Retouching is expensive, so be careful when you select product samples for photography.
PR is not a tool used to force retail distribution. If you try it, the move will come back to haunt you. When an editor asks for information about the retail distribution of a product and/or service, the PR agency had better have answers or the ability to obtain the answers quickly. Reporters and editors always manage to call for this information when they are on deadline so everything is a rush. A response such as we’re planning to open outlets soon in your area is not the correct answer.

Put yourself in the editor’s place. He/she is interested in writing about your product and the readers expect to be able to find the item in local stores, on respected web sites, or in catalogs. If they can’t do any of the above, the editor will not write about the product.

I have had consumers track me down because they wanted a specific product and could not find it at the retail store mentioned in the article because the item had sold out. One Christmas, I was practically running a mail order operation out of the agency because frantic consumers were calling for one specific product that did not have wide retail distribution.

Trade books usually publish one month in advance. Consumer books publish three, yes three months in advance. If you’re hoping for a December magazine story, you’d better start planning in July or August.
If your agency is creative, it will come up with innovative “hooks” for your products or services.

PR is a wonderful marketing tool, but you must understand the basics to understand how it can work for your company.

Diane T. Creston
Creston Advertising

Your Strategic Marketing Partner

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