Tag Archives: Communications

Kicking off December with Thanks to You

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This is a great time to say thank you for following my blog and participating in great conversations that (I hope) have helped you realize your PR goals and your business dreams.

This year has been tough for nearly every organization seeking to boost sales or increase awareness through traditional media such as print and broadcast, or word-of-mouth platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In 2011, professionals were faced with a double whammy: shrinking marketing budgets and trying to follow and adapt to an ever-changing media landscape. We’ve all had to learn a lot of new rules and tools to stay on top of social media marketing.

As my way of saying thanks, I’d like to share a few timesaving tools and resources that kept me on top of my game this year:

1.    PR Daily: A fantastic eNewsletter for PR and marketing professionals following traditional and social media trends and topics.

2.    LinkedIn’s Answers: Saves countless hours researching an infinite number of topics or challenges. Why start from scratch when you’ve got experts eager to help on any topic for any industry.

3.    Google Docs: Invaluable for collaborating on projects. Edit or create documents on a Google Doc and use Google’s chat tool for instantly discussing or improving upon your changes. It’s simple and elegant.

4.    Join.me: Share your computer desktop view with others remotely for presentations or collaboration. Others can view your desktop presentations or follow as you navigate web sites by simply clicking on a link to Join.me.

5.    Highrise Contact Management: Following-up with the reporters you pitch, or the prospects you’re trying to reach is easy with Highrise. It helps you track all emails and phone calls and sends reminders about the tasks related to those contacts. An easy way to create, organize and monitor all your customer info, emails and notes.

Give these free tools a try and tell me what you think. And if you would like to review your PR efforts this year, or want to discuss your 2012 strategy,  don’t hesitate to contact me through the form here on my blog or at michelle at michelledamico dot com.

Wishing you happiness in the Season of Giving and lasting prosperity in 2012.

Enjoy these photos as a gift from my personal collection. 

Gifts from an ice storm, by Michelle Damico

 

A visual feast is often the next best thing, by Michelle Damico

 

Your passion will take you there, by Michelle Damico

Tell me what you do (in a minute or less)!

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So tell me, what do you do?

When customers and prospects visit your website, Facebook or other digital properties, do they see a memorable message about  your business and how it helps people or other businesses? In an elevator or at a cocktail party would someone understand your business value proposition in a minute or less?

If “NO” is the answer to both questions, you should consider creating or simplifying your business message or starting from scratch with a message framework.

It sounds easier than it is. Creating one short soundbite explaining what you do and why it matters to your target audience takes time, perspective and a willingness to dig beyond your mission statement and product/service description.

It also requires a kind of objectivity that’s difficult to practice when your business is your baby. The message development process can take hours, days or weeks, depending on your own and your customers’ experiences. My approach is to take it in baby steps; the first three are fact-finding steps.

  • Know Your Audience — pinpoint their problem, and consider all the ways that problem keeps them worried or makes them lose sleep.
  • List all the ways your product/service solves that problem. If you have a long list, put the top three in priority.
  • Describe the most important features that you offer a customer and how those features specifically address that problem.

The final fourth step has more to do with your customer’s feelings or emotions. We all establish personal connections to a business. I choose a neighborhood printer versus going online for my letterhead and business cards because the manager of the Minute Man Press in my town makes me feel important. As a small business owner, that’s a good feeling and one that will keep me coming back.

So once you’ve done all your fact-finding in steps 1, 2 and 3, consider the emotional response from your client when you do business with him/her? Does he feel more secure? Trusting? Smart that he’s spending his money wisely? Protected because you’re watching out for her business?

Navigating this process requires your own review of how you’ve helped customers and the anecdotes they’ve shared about how you made a difference. It’s also best to conduct this messaging process with the help of a third party, someone who can be objective, who doesn’t live and breathe your business, and who can provide a different perspective of your business and your audience. The anecdotes you gather become the supporting points that bolster your message. These “proof points” also serve as conversation-extenders, since prospects want to hear about other customer experiences for a better understanding of how you’ll help them.

So let’s get a conversation started — What do you do?

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Four Ts to Being A Tip-Top Manager

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Agile Information Management
Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

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!

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