Tag Archive for 'tips'

Talk About A Bad Subject Line

Published
by
Robynn
on October 28, 2008
in Media Relations Tips
. 0 Comments

I’m sure you know how important it is to make your email subject lines stand out, especially considering that some journalists receive up to 800 emails a day - yes, 800! But the following subject line is not a good way to attract attention:

*********************************************[Company competition winner] Found! SHE’s one in a million!******************************************************

The journalist who forwarded this to me simply said “talk about a bad headline”. Yes, indeed, let’s talk about it.

Firstly, putting your name in stars doesn’t automatically deserve royal treatment from the media.

Secondly, who cares? I know that sounds awfully harsh and cold. It’s not that no-one cares about the winner, it’s that no-one knows the winner (except those people that do, of course). Journalists are looking for stories that can add value to their readers and give them something of interest or something newsworthy. Yet another competition winner is simply not newsworthy.

There are other angles that this company could’ve taken though. Considering that this press release was sent to a marketing journalist, they could’ve looked at the successful elements in the promotion of the competition. What created the biggest response, what made the competition stand out, why is this important to other marketers?

There are always various angles to any story. The trick is to match a relevant angle to the right audience. If you can get that right, the journalist will be happy to look at your content, with no stars and funny formatting needed.

Popularity: 35% [?]


The Art of Communication - It Starts with Values

Published
by
Robynn
on July 11, 2008
in Communication skills
. 5 Comments

I’ve attended two of Dr Demartini’s talks this week and I thought I’d give you some quick feedback before his third Cape Town talk tonight - in case you’re still um-ing and ah-ing about where to spend your Friday night.

Our relationships with people, whether personal or professional, can often be filled with so many misunderstandings and misperceptions, which prevent us from communicating effectively. On Wednesday night, Dr Demartini spoke to us about how to empower relationships and master the art of communication. Although it sounds pretty serious, he had us in stitches of laughter with his sometimes subtle, sharp innuendos and other-times overt, candid stories and illustrations. He certainly entertains as much as he teaches and inspires!

The Nature Of A Good Relationship:
In talks I’ve done for companies about media relations, I’ve covered the fact that a good relationship simply means that you give someone something that they really want, and then they’ll help you get what you really want. It could be giving someone money for a service you need; or giving journalists good, relevant content to fill their magazines, helping you get publicity. It’s all about giving and receiving. But when it comes to communication, we need to be aware and artful in how we “give” our message, so that we can “receive” the response we’d like.

Value Determination:
It comes down to awareness of your own values and those of the people you have relationships with. By values, I don’t mean the high ideals of honesty, ethics, liberty, etc. Rather, Dr Demartini talks about your priorities and the things (or people, activities, goals) that are most important to you. These are normally the things that you spend your most time and money on, how you fill your space and spend your energy.

For example, a stay-at-home mom probably has her priorities fixed on her kids and will spend her money on school books and kids’ clothes before even thinking of luxuries like a gym membership. A training athlete values his fitness so much that he couldn’t imagine not going to gym or buying the latest technology in running shoes and wouldn’t even notice the 50% discount on kiddies sneakers. Another clue to picking up on people’s values is to listen to what direction they steer a conversation.

Whatever is highest on your values is where you have the most order, motivation and inspiration. On the other side, you tend to procrastinate on the things that are lowest on your values, which have the most disorder and chaos. Every single person’s values are different and they act as lenses through which we view and filter the world around us. If you expect people to live and react according to your unique values, you’re living in a fantasy and setting yourself up for disappointment.

However, once you recognise different people’s priorities, you can start to communicate in a way that builds lasting and meaningful relationships, whether it’s in business, social circles or family.

Gosh, there’s so much more to this - Dr Demartini speaks really fast so you can imagine how much he covered in his 1hour 30 minute talk. Have a look at this video clip so you can hear him explain how you can determine your own values.

Art of Communication:
The art of communication is in communicating your values in terms of the values of others. Ask yourself, how can I phrase what I want so that it serves the other person’s values in some way? What’s important to me and what’s important to them and how can I link the two?

Tonight he’ll be giving a 1hour talk, followed by the screening of the movie The Opus. His talk, entitled Activating Vision, will cover how you can be the difference and live an inspired and amazing life.

It’s at the BOE Conference Centre (next to the Clock Tower, V&A Waterfront) at 19:00. Read more details on www.going4gold.co.za.

Popularity: 22% [?]


Must-Have PR Book - A Perfect Press Release

Published
by
Robynn
on June 19, 2008
in Public Relations
. 4 Comments

Almost every PR person comes across this problem at some stage or another: their client wants every major national media to cover their little ribbon-cutting ceremony; or they insist on adding their own flowery adjectives and industry jargon to your neatly-crafted news releases. This book will help.

A Perfect Press Release... Or Not?A Perfect Press Release…Or Not? by Jennigay Coetzer is a highly practical book, which jumps straight into useful advice right from the first paragraph. Although it’s mostly a “how-to” type of guide, it also offers some strategic advice to senior PR practitioners. Importantly, it is written so that any CEO or business person can understand what a press release should be, what it should never be and why.

I highly recommend that PR consultants and agency owners give a copy of this book to each of their clients as part of some essential media training. It will go a long way to streamline the press release approval process and possibly prevent a lot of frustration (and no, I’m not being paid a cent for saying this).  :)

This book should also be prescribed reading for all PR interns and junior staff as a quick way to cover all the basics and best-practices, along with Encyclomedia’s free Media Pitching Tips Revealed email series.

Popularity: 20% [?]


How To Really Irritate a Journo in The First 5 Seconds

Published
by
Robynn
on April 4, 2008
in Media Relations Tips
. 7 Comments

It’s simple. If you start a phone call with “Hi, how are you?” you are looking for trouble.

Perhaps you’ve heard that public relations people are sometimes referred to as PR sales people? This is not because the poor journalists aren’t savvy enough to know the difference, it’s because people in our own PR industry are creating this perception - often unwittingly. In fact, some are so unconscious to the effect that their sloppy PR habits have, that they get upset and exclaim “how rude!” when an exasperated journalist doesn’t want to hear another irrelevant PR pitch.

I think I need a quick disclaimer here: I am not saying that journalists should be excused for being rude, there is no excuse for that. But after hearing some of their stories, I can understand why blood pressure levels rise as often as they do. 

Ok, so getting back to the PR/sales person comparison. Here’s what you can do to avoid a negative impression when making your call:

- Introduce yourself upfront.
Only untrained telemarketers selling dodgy products start a conversation with a bubbly “hi, how are you?” in an attempt to “build rapport”. The only thing this does is build scepticism. First say who you are and what company you’re calling from. No-one wants to make small talk when they don’t know who they’re dealing with; journalists generally don’t want to make small talk at all.

- You don’t need to be everyone’s best friend.
Get to the point and then be friendly, in that order. Once you’ve built a good relationship with a journalist, then you can chat away about your weekend plans and the weather. But up until that point, simply give the journalists what they need in a professional manner.

Please, for your own sake and for the sanity of the journalists you’re dealing with, understand why “hi, how are you?” just doesn’t work. Then pass on the tip to all of your colleagues too (despite its obviousness), because somewhere out there some PR people are unknowingly sabotaging all your hard media relations work.

What’s obvious to one is obviously not obvious to everyone.

Popularity: 9% [?]


How To Banish Bad Habits and Achieve Better Results

Published
by
Robynn
on March 7, 2008
in Success Tips
. 2 Comments

In his fantastic book, The Success Principles, Jack Canfield says that “whatever habits you currently have established are producing your current level of results”.

Now add to that the fact that, according to psychologists, 90% of our behaviour is habitual. From the way you get out of bed in the morning, to the way you eat your cereal, to the way you change gears in your car - these are all habits that you’ve created and you do them automatically without much thought involved.

Habits like these are incredibly useful, because what’s really happened is that you’ve repeated a particular activity so many times that you’ve stored it in your subconscious mind, which frees your conscious mind to concentrate on any other activity or thought.

As an example of this, remember when you first learned to drive a car? With all of the coordination and concentration required, it was very difficult to try and hold any kind of conversation at the same time. But after consistent practice, once the actions became habitual, you could then easily have a conversation with passengers, listen to the radio and perhaps even notice the billboards as you drive past.

Out with the bad, in with the good
Of course, the problem comes in when you have habits that don’t serve you. Because you’re doing many of these automatically from the subconscious mind, you’re not always aware that you’re doing it. So the first step to making any positive change is to first recognise what habits aren’t really working for you or helping you create the results you want.

But this is the easy part, right? With a little introspection you can spot the things you know you should change - like procrastinating on certain phone calls, arriving late for meetings, forgetting people’s names seconds after meeting them. But once you’ve decided what habits you plan to change, it’s important to come up with a support plan to keep you on track - and this is the hard part.

How many New Year’s resolutions have you really kept past the end of February? The truth is that habits aren’t too easy to replace, unless you understand the techniques of how to create and maintain new ones. In Jack Canfield’s book, he explains that research now shows that if you repeat a behaviour for 13 weeks, it’s yours for life. It’s a heck of a lot longer than the 21 days I always thought it took, but now at least I understand why my good intentions always fizzled out after those first 21 days.

Action steps to change your habits
So what are the tips to make sure you follow through for 13 weeks?

  • Choose to focus on one new habit at a time. Don’t water down your efforts by trying to achieve everything at once.
  • Put reminders everywhere - post-it-notes on your PC, reminders on your cell, notes on the fridge, etc.
  • Ask a colleague to remind you every day and keep you accountable for following through.

“The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him - and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that will help him achieve the success he desires.” - J. Paul Getty (Widely regarded as the richest man in the world by the late 1950s.)

Popularity: 8% [?]


Ten Excellent Networking Tips

Published
by
Robynn
on February 28, 2008
in Communication skills
. 14 Comments

Having just attended two networking events in an equal number of evenings (PR-Net and 27 Dinner), I had the opportunity to practice some of the tips I learnt from Colette Carlson’s “Communication secrets to change your life” seminar last weekend. I’m still learning and some of these tips take a bit of practice (they don’t call it net-work for nothing), but I’ve found them to be incredibly useful:

1. Wear your stripes

Make sure to introduce yourself at every opportunity. Let people know who you are upfront. Don’t lose an opportunity by simply saying “Hi, I’m Robynn”. Rather say “Hi, I’m Robynn Burls, the owner of Encyclomedia, the online media database for the PR industry. And you are?” Now people know who you are and it opens the opportunity for them to ask you more about what you do. 

2. Introduce yourself to the loners - you’ll be their hero

No-one likes to be standing alone at a networking event, it’s embarrassing! It makes you do stupid things like pretend you’re checking email on your cell (and we all know you’re really only trying to look busy).

Make a point of walking up to the person and introduce yourself. The loners will be so grateful to finally be involved that they won’t be able to forget you. Remember, the objective behind good networking is to become memorable in the minds of others.

3. Bring outsiders into the conversation - more hero-factor

When you’re chatting in a group and you see that certain individuals are being side-lined, pull them back into the conversation by saying “John, what do you think about that?” By giving him the opportunity to get back into the group, you’ll make yourself more memorable to John.

Also, when you are talking, be inclusive and connect with everyone’s eyes, not just the person who asked you a question.

4. Lost and alone? Start a conversation

It’s always tough, if not a little daunting, when attending an event alone. Don’t get stuck in a quiet corner playing with your phone. Walk straight up to the busiest area, normally the bar, or around the registration table. Remember to smile, it makes you look more approachable - people like friendly people. Find another person and casually comment ”I don’t know anyone here. How about you?”

There you have it, you’ve started a conversation and it wasn’t so difficult. The fear of doing something is always far worse than actually doing it.

5. Embarrassing silence? Prepare ahead

We’ve all experienced that dreaded lull in conversation where you nervously take a gulp of wine, hoping someone will think of something to say by the time you’ve swallowed. Now you can use this silence to your advantage. Depending on the type of people attending the event, take some time out beforehand to read some recent blog posts or newspaper articles related to their field of interest. Find something quirky or humorous (no front-page dreary news stories please) and keep it at the back of your mind.

The moment people start fidgeting and looking around, you can add “hey, did any of you read Dave Duarte’s post about Nokia’s hilarious “position art” campaign?” If someone says yes, then invite them to tell the group about it. Not only have you saved the conversation, for which everyone is enormously grateful, but you’ve also given someone else the opportunity to tell a story. This once again makes you more memorable in the story-teller’s mind.

6. Ask unusual, but appropriate questions

Aim to create conversations that connect. You need to be a little strategic and use the short space of time that you spend talking to someone to build rapport (find common ground). Talking about the weather or the view is only convenient when you can’t think of anything else meaningful. Don’t waste an opportunity, rather prepare some questions ahead of time. Remember, there’s a bit of “work” in networking.

You could say something like “tell me what you do on weekends”. This is a clever question because it lets the person speak about their passions. People find it easy to talk about things they’re genuinely passionate about, so you can easily accelerate the conversation from there. If someone says they like to go hiking, then simply say “oh, tell me about that”.

7. Focus on others

It’s better to be interested than interesting. It’s a funny thing, but research has shown that the more you get a person to speak about herself, the more she will remember you as being interesting.

8. Make notes of people’s interests

When you get home after a networking event, make a note of everything that you can remember about the people you met - how many dogs and cats they have, what their children’s names are, what their hobbies are, etc. You could put this into a spreadsheet and categorise it by event or industry. Preferably synch the spreadsheet with your phone so you can quickly check the details again on-the-go.

The next time you meet the person, try asking how the wife’s rowing regatta went and see how his face lights up!

9. Give before getting

Once you know what a person’s interests are, take it a step further than simply bringing it up the next time you meet. Use the information to help you connect and build a relationship. Use Google Alerts, Amatomu, Muti or Afrigator to search for new content relevant to the person’s interests. Then send a quick email with a link to the article or blog post saying that you thought he or she would find it interesting.

Wow, now you’re making a real impact in the person’s mind. Try to help others get what they want and you become a trustworthy, memorable contact.

10. Close a conversation with class

When at a networking event, it doesn’t serve you to spend the entire evening chatting to one individual. The objective is to meet as many people as possible who can help you get your ideas, interests and agendas heard (whether that’s making a new bunch of friends or finding potential clients).

So when you find yourself stuck in a long-winded conversation, take advantage of a natural lull. Confidently say “well, it was really lovely meeting you Fanie, I hope we get to meet again soon. Enjoy the rest of your evening”. Then you’re free to shake hands and move on back to the bar where you can start again and meet someone new.

Popularity: 30% [?]