I saw this great blog post this morning by Chris Brogan (one of my favorite social media gurus) and think it’s worth sharing. Not just because he video blogged while driving out of Boston — yes he was behind the wheel while he vlogged — but because he reminded me of how grateful I am for my current life.

I used to be on the daily commute, driving or taking the train 4 hours each day to my job in downtown Chicago or in the suburbs. I never had breakfast with my kids, rarely smelled the beautiful air in my hilly town and never met the parents of my kids’ friends. That’s all changed since I’ve become an independent contractor working for two agencies, Pipeline Media Relations and Marj Halperin Consulting.

Being in PR and marketing offers many pluses — the first of which is the ability to stay connected out of a home office. The client never knows I’m not in a downtown cubicle. During conference calls, no one knows I’m in my shorts. And after writing or editing content or analyzing research, no one knows whether the work was completed at a local Starbucks or at my desk.

Three years ago, I lost my job and that opened so many doors for me to work from home, to try new things, to learn social media, and to get connected to my community. My independent work was done out of necessity. If you’re at all thinking about following my path, don’t wait much longer because you will not regret your decision.

My family returned from a fabulous weekend trip at a friend’s lakeside country cottage this weekend in Galena, where we swam, boated, fished, swam some more, gazed at wild turkeys, cooked great meals, race walked, antique shopped, read books from an incredible home library and relaxed in a wonderfully comfortable setting. Since returning, I have considered many ways to show my appreciation…and the first and simplest action came from a suggestion in my inbox this morning! I subscribe to GasPedal from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

We’re convinced that if more people sent thank you notes, the world would be a better place. In about two minutes — for the cost of a postage stamp — you can create a personalized, memorable experience for a customer that they’ll tell the world about. This simple trick alone is one of the big reasons Zappos sold a billion dollars in shoes last year.

I’m embarrased to admit that my stash of thank you notes is about two years old. They should have been sent to many generous and kind friends and colleagues many moons ago. I’ve resolved this summer to use all of my thank you notes by September. Perhaps I’ll strengthen a friendship, surprise a prospective marketing and PR client,  warm the heart of my mom, husband and sisters, and put on a written display of thoughtfulness.

That means I’ll have to send about one a week. Do you have someone you know who deserves your handwritten thank you in a nice card? Do you think they’ll like/love you even more when they see how thoughtful and gracious and grateful you are? Do you think your business partners might have fonder thoughts about you upon receiving your note? Don’t you think the world would be a better place if we all wrote thank you notes and muzzled that “I just don’t have the time” excuse?

Give it a try, and let me know how it makes you feel! I feel like  a better human being just placing a stamp on the envelope and walking it to the mailbox a few minutes ago.

That was the question that sparked my interest today, as I read my Inc.com Today’s Small Business Newsletter. It was a post by venture capital blogger Mark Peter Davis who claimed that the all-important elevator pitch, relied upon by business start ups seeking investment bankers’ money, is kaput. Here’s a link to his post.

Entrepreneurs, The Elevator Pitch is Dead

I am not in the VC funding business. I work with entrepreneurs and well-established business people who want to get their messages placed succinctly online and in the media. Before I write any copy, make one phone call or send one email about my clients, I work with them to polish their key messages, and yes, that includes helping them with an elevator pitch. So I had a strong opinion today when I left this comment on Davis’ blog post:

Mark, as someone who spends a lot of time helping clients improve their messaging, I disagree that the elevator pitch is dead. My guess is it’s still alive in the VC industry too. No matter what business you’re in, a business person needs a strong pitch that captures folks’ attention and that’s what an elevator pitch does. It’s also a conversation starter and a way to get a dialogue going by teasing someone to ask further questions.

Also, if you work with the media — bloggers and/or reporters/editors who write for traditional newspapers, magazines, tv or radio — you’ll always need an elevator pitch. The media especially (and the social media crowd as a whole, in my opinion) need that one strong sentence that captures the essence of what you do, how you serve your customers and why it’s important in the first place. In fact, I believe anyone looking for a job should also have an elevator pitch that summarizes their strengths and skills. The elevator pitch should answer questions and get a conversation going.

Something else to consider — this is the era of short attention spans. We’re all multi-tasking as we communicate, so crafting an attention-grabbing elevator pitch about your business or yourself is one of the best ways to get remembered.
What do you think? Do you use an elevator pitch in your daily working life? What would your business be without one? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’ve been in the marketing and PR business for a long time and am now fortunate enough to enjoy a variety of PR and marketing assignments through my friends at Pipeline Media Relations, Marj Halperin Consulting and my own firm, Michelle Damico Communications. Through my many years in communications, my colleagues and friends have commented on my success in reaching out to the media to place stories on behalf of clients. So I thought it might be helpful to develop a series of blog posts that offer tips on what’s worked for me over the years.

Today I’m starting with the humble media list. It’s a task often relegated to the most junior staffers within a PR agency. If that’s you, take your time and do it right. If you’re lucky enough to work for a firm that pays for a media contact data base, take the time to dig deep within the list of provided reporters and their beats. Don’t take anything from a media database at face value.

If you don’t have a media database like Cision or Vocus at your disposal, you can still find the right media through the popular search engines. The same advice applies — take time and learn about them.

Why? During one of my first meetings with clients or prospects, I usually ask how they connect with the media. I learn about their extensive list of contacts, how frequently it’s updated and the source of their media data.

And then I ask about outreach: “How do reporters learn about your news?” They invariably respond that they send out emails en masse to all the reporters on their list. They know blasting emails is not the best way to establish media relations, but they lack the time to create customized, one-on-one emails to their long list of trade and general business media. I don’t even venture to ask whether the look up their favorite media on Facebook or Twitter; I already know their answer: “No time for that either.”

Rather than rush to judgment and criticize the practice of email blasting press releases to the media, I put myself in their shoes and express gratitude that they’ve come to me for help. Establishing media relationships is labor-intensive, requires the use of many tools, and has a very low initial rate of success, especially during your first three months of outreach. It’s no wonder that harried PR people juggling many tasks don’t invest the time needed for effective media outreach.

List-building is a case in point. Just this month, I launched media outreach on behalf of a client. The preliminary research alone to develop a solid media list took at a full-day’s work – and that’s while using an efficient online media contacts database.

Here’s what’s involved, just in list-building:

1. Identifying the key topics, news and trends your client wants to talk about
2. Identifying the appropriate media outlets, and the reporters and the beats
3. Viewing media sites to see recent coverage and assessing the chances that the reporter might be interested in your client (you’ll often find that their identified beat, and what you perceive as their specific interest, don’t often match your PR goals, so dig deeper).
4. Checking out others within the same outlet who seem to cover similar beats – but don’t – you can only know by reading their stuff.
5. Identifying other ways to reach them besides email – are they active on Twitter or Facebook? Do they write a blog or have a personal web site? Are you following them? Why not?
6. Finding mutual interests – whether it’s personal or professional – so you have something in common to get conversations started with the media via social networks

The eventual media list I built included lots of notes, to help me find genuine (not phony) connections with the media, either professionally or personally. Relating to them is one way to show you care, and to also show that you GET IT. GETTING IT is the key. What I mean here is walking in their shoes, understanding their needs and empathizing with their daily juggle of stories, deadlines and fears of their newspaper/magazine folding in the not-too-distant future. So you’ve spent a day or two and have a solid list built. Then what? I’ll have more on that later.

In my years in business, government and the media I’ve come to admire the great managers who’ve led my past organizations and have learned some lessons from the mediocre managers.

Now that I’m in business for myself, I have learned that you can easily measure a manager by the guidelines that just happen to neatly begin with the letter T.

Time – How well does he/she manage their time? Do they meet their deadlines, follow up in a timeline manner, act promptly on the task items before them?  Time is a constant — Everyone must follow its rules, from the lowly intern to the omnipotent CEO. If you fail to meet your time commitments or deadlines, you’ll instill doubt among those with whom you do business or at worst you’ll lose respect of everyone.

Tone – Here I mean your attitude and treatment of others. Are you following the Golden Rule? In this era of social media, helping others is the mantra – provide helpful tips to your followers and fans and they will show their gratitude with greater word of mouth and/or sales.  So ask yourself: “What’s my tone? How do I treat those around me? If you rule by intimidation, you set a horrible work environment for those around you. While a negative, pessimistic attitude will only bring your team down and diminish confidence and motivation.  What’s the tone you’ve set for your work and personal life?

Talking – Raise your hand if you’ve ever sat through a meeting trying to interject, but that one person monopolized the conversation, droning on and on and impeding anyone else’s input. There’s at least one in every group. There are those among us who repeat the same thoughts for impact, unaware that it’s a waste of everyone’s time. In your daily conversation with those you’re closest with, it might be helpful to ask others if you are one of those repeaters. I’m lucky, I have a pre-teen daughter who tells me I drive her nuts when I say the same thing over and over again! She’s taught me a lesson I apply at work: Say it once, maybe twice and others will listen. Say it again and again and they’ll tune you out.

Tasks – This is about deadlines. A real measure of how well you know yourself is how you commit to a deadline. How long will it take to get that spread sheet to the boss? After collecting research, will you really turn around that case study in one day?  As a former radio news reporter, I’ve been on deadlines since college. If I didn’t meet them, I’d leave pockets of dead air on the radio stations for which I worked. So I treat deadlines as ironclad. Whether it’s in work or life, I get this unnerved, anxiety-ridden feeling if a deadline approaches and I fear I can’t meet it (it’s healthy f for me, because it keeps me on track and I almost always meet them).  How about you? Do you respect your deadlines? Do you stick to them or not? What does that do to the relationships with your co-workers or the teams you lead?  I think failing to keep a deadline chips away at your credibility. I don’t ever want to risk that. My credibility is my name and my name is my brand. If I don’t keep those strong, I won’t have a strong business or a strong relationship with my friends, family and associates.

So, those are my Four Ts for being a tip-top manager.  After looking them over, I realize that these Four Ts apply to living a good life as well!  What about you? Do you have some others that you live by?  I would love to hear what you think. Send me comments here or at michelledamico (at) comcast.net!

This morning, I read a blog item from Chris Brogan about how to reach bloggers and it occured to me that most of his ideas for targeting bloggers also apply to traditional media people such as reporters and editors. So I thought it would be worthwhile to share.

These are my “Four Ps of Pitching” and I believe these rules apply, whether it’s a blogger, a newspaper reporter, a radio newscaster, a TV producer or an online columnist.
1.Persistence — it really pays. It’s easy to get frustrated and think a blogger lacks interest. Most of the time, he/she simply has too many things swirling in their universe. If you know that when you pitch a blogger, you’ll be a lot easier on yourself and keep your confidence up.
2.Patience — don’t expect instant gratification. I agree that you must build a relationship with the blogger. I’ve gotten a blogger interested in my tech client because we share similar loves of cooking and I’ve sent her recipes. We started a relationship.
3.Pushy — DON’T BE!!! If a blogger or reporter ever interviews my client, I practice the “never be pushy” rule. I don’t bother them about when their blog item or story will run. If I do want to follow up, it’s usually with a nugget that might be interesting to what they’re writing about.
4. Pressure — ANOTHER DON’T! In fact, when I make a phone pitch, I don’t even ask if they might write about something I sent them. I don’t believe in pressuring someone on the spot. Let your information sink in with them, and follow up with something that’s valuable to get a sense of their interest. Don’t seek a commitment for coverage. Bloggers and reporters work at their own pace and respond to demands of the news (or their editors).

OK. here’s a 5th item, but it’s an “R” — RESEARCH. Don’t waste your time pitching a blogger blind. I totally agree with Chris about the value of doing your homework and learning about these folks. They are people, People! They are not targets. Look at them that way, and you’ll be successful.

I’ve always been about recipe sharing, and since today starts the first weekend of October, I’d love to share a recipe that has become a breakfast favorite, especially on thos Fall mornings when having the oven on in the kitchen feels great. 

While you can find this “Dutch Baby” or “German Pancake” on many  breakfast menus, you can easily make this at home for pennies — ingredients are only flour, egg, milk and butter with a sprinkle of vanilla, powder sugar and lemon juice. This recipe is so easy and delicious, that you won’t hesitate to make it often.

Dutch Baby, courtesy of Joy of Cooking

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a cast iron skillet or any heavy, oven-proof baking dish, melt 3 to 4 TB butter over the stove. In a medium size bowl, mix together : 1/2 c. milk, 1/2 c. flour, 1 egg (I often use 2), 1/4 c. sugar (can be reduced to 1/8th), 1 tsp. vanilla.

Mix all ingredients until thoroughly blended. Pour into skillet. Pour into the oven and bake until golden and puffy — about 20 to 25 minutes.

As soon as it comes out of the oven, sprinkle the juice of half a lemon over the pancake (it will soon deflate) and sprinkle powder sugar and serve.

Let me know if you make this dish anytime soon, and if you have any questions.

In honor of the start of another year of life on October 2, I am launching a blog. I’ve been thinking about it for sometime now and am developing its direction as I write posts as frequently as possible. My blogging approach is that items I write about will reflect “My Recipe for Life and Work.” Sometimes the recipe turns out a stellar dish that gets rave reviews. Sometimes the recipe is a bomb! I hope to share stories about those things that wowed people, as well as those experiences from which I learned something.

And since I’ve been an avid and cook my entire life, I will use this blog to share my kitchen successes, my ideas for making the most of existing resources and being creative, whether it’s with food, work, or life in general.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say about my blog, and will gladly respond to requests, whether you’re looking for a great recipe, or some help with a communications challenge at work or in your career!

Great story in the Wall Street Journal today about tools for PR folks using Twitter. Since I spoke yesterday at a Social Media for Government Conference, I thought those who could or couldn’t attend might be interested in these Twitter tools.

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