Obviously there's more than one way to get your name in the
headlines. You can offer incredible deals or you can do the
outrageous. You can discover some new and exciting product or
you can be recognized for your services to the community.
But ultimately, after all is said and done, getting good
publicity is really about one thing and one thing only. It's
about finding ways to meet the needs of others. With a little
planning, you can create a machine that allows you to earn a
reputation that can keep you in the news.
It all starts with your product. What exactly do you sell? No,
you don't necessarily sell satellite dishes or web space. That
may be the commodity they walk away with, but ultimately, you
have so much more to offer. You can offer courteous explanations
before the sale, a decent price during and powerful customer
support after. It's the stuff people talk about at the corner.
It's the gossip around the cooler. Everybody wants to know about
that one company that offers so much more than the rest, which,
by definition, makes it news.
Of course, that creates a serious dilemma. If you're offering the
same product at a lower price, and tossing in more qualified
sales personnel and award winning customer support after the
sale, you're obviously cutting deeply into your profit margin. Or
at least that's how it might seen at first glance. But that may
not be how the math works out.
Try asking Thomas J. Stanley, Ph. D. He's made a fortune studying
the minds and habits of the self made rich. In his best selling
books The Millionaire Mind and The Millionaire Next Door he
examines the life and motivations of the truly rich. In The
Millionaire Mind he makes a list of the qualities self made
millionaires felt got them to the top. A supportive spouse,
education, a good, timely business concept and even luck all
made the list.
He also included having a quality staff and good contacts. But
right at the top of the list, above all else, those who have
made it listed overwhelmingly as the number one reason for their
success integrity. Offering a good deal at a reasonable price.
It's about offering a good product and realizing that will
attract more new customers. It'll also bring back more return
customers, cutting down greatly on your need to advertise.
It makes for a great news story as well. Think about it. Greedy
merchants don't make the news, it's the ones that find ways to
help others. That guy who single handedly kept the K- Mart store
open in California so the firemen and cops fighting the record
breaking fires would have a place to go for toiletries and
supplies made front page news around the country. And the locals
will probably remember the kind of person he is for years to
come.
Remember, the press is in the marketing business too. They have
readers or listeners that need to be enticed into loyalty, so
they can show high demographic counts to prospective advertisers.
They're in the business of telling the world the things the world
wants to know.
Which means your bottom line means virtually nothing to them.
Telling the world that you're well on your way to becoming a
millionaire isn't really news. Announcing that you sell diamonds
at slightly less than anyone else in town and you'll hold 30% of
the price of each sale made to newlyweds on account for them to
use towards their first rent or house payment (provided it takes
place within a few months after the marriage) would probably
become a headline around the country and get you a flood of free
publicity. People around town would start talking about how you
had your heart in the right place. And couples would start their
shopping at your store.
No, you wouldn't make as much as the next guy on each diamond
sale. In fact, if you assume diamonds are marked up 100% by
retailers, (which is actually a low figure), giving away 30% of
the final price would actually end up costing you 60% of your
profit. Doing it this way, though, can get you much more
publicity, free of charge and will buy you millions in word of
mouth promotion.
Of course, I sold pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge, which can hardly
be considered an altruistic venture. (Get the whole story at
http://www.Hartunian.com/bridge ) But in the larger scheme of
things it was.
How many people around the world would have loved to be able to
say they owned a piece of the world famous Brooklyn Bridge? It
wasn't the fact that I was making money or that I had a product
to sell that made worldwide news. It was the fact that I was
offering a service at an affordable price that made it something
people wanted to read and hear about.
Some businesses fail because they try to make too much too
quickly. They busy themselves trying to milk the customer for all
they can. If they can stay in business, they obviously have some
kind of product others feel is important, desirable or needed.
But these guys invariably end up having to spend large portions
of their profit continually convincing their clientele that their
product or service is worth purchasing.
If, instead, you can carefully find ways to make a smaller profit
on a much larger client base, you can soon discover stability,
loyalty and prestige follow in suit.
And knowing you have something to say will have editors and
program managers rushing to listen.
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