Promoting Your Business like a Pro: 5 Press Release Writing Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Writing a Press Release|Promoting Your Business like a Pro: 5 Press Release Writing Mistakes to Avoid at All CostsA well written press release can earn plenty of valuable exposure for a business or other organization. Unfortunately, many press releases feature faults that make them less effective than they could be. Recognizing and avoiding the most common mistakes, however, is easy enough that it should never be a problem.

A Well Established Tool With Plenty of Uses

The first press release was written in 1906 to alert news organizations about a deadly accident on the Pennsylvania Railroad. It quickly became clear to journalists and others that this novel form of communication could be used for many productive purposes.
Today, businesses of all kinds rely on releases originating from Violet PR and similar agencies to get the word out about important news. A properly formulated press release can make work a lot easier for journalists and thereby improve the odds that a story will be published.

Five Press Release Mistakes the Pros Never Make

At the same time, journalism professionals get bombarded with so many releases that they have learned to be choosy. Only fairly high quality press releases have a chance of breaking through and garnering the attention that businesses hope for.

Fortunately, the kinds of mistakes that are most likely to doom a press release are easy enough to avoid. Some of the issues that are most likely to get a press release buried instead of noticed are:

  • Weak headlines. A journalist tasked with looking through dozens of press releases every day is not likely to spend much time on each, on average. A press release’s headline is its most important asset and should always be treated as such. Concise, informative headlines that make the main point clearly are always the best.
  • Excessive informality. Some press releases try to get too cute in an effort to stand out from the rest. Journalists are more likely to take notice of releases that stay neutral and impartial. It is generally better to err a bit on the side of stiffness than to indulge in informality when writing a press release.
  • Too much fluff. Journalism is about conveying information efficiently and effectively. Press releases that are filled with fluff make the work of journalists more difficult. Generally speaking, it will always be best to stick to the most important facts.
  • Overly promotional tone. Businesses most often issue press releases to spread positive news. That said, whatever positivity a release conveys ought to stem from the facts themselves. Press releases that are overtly promotional tend to put journalists off.
  • A lack of quotes. The idea behind the press release is to make it easy for a journalist to put a story together. Releases that lack quotes force writers to do more work than necessary. While not every press release needs a quote from a CEO, analyst, or other figure, many benefit from having them.

Almost Anyone Can Write a Press Release

Mistakes like these undermine the effectiveness of many press releases. At the same time, just about anyone who is at all comfortable with writing can put together a release that will be taken seriously.

All that it takes to do so, in the end, is to recognize the intended audience for a press release and to account for it. Since the idea behind a press release is to persuade journalists to write a desired story, keeping that fact in mind should make things fairly simple.

The Prospecting Paradox: Maximizing the Passive

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Sales Prospecting|The Prospecting Paradox: Maximizing the PassiveMost salespeople who need to prospect for a living will tell you that it’s a very proactive, immediate results-driven exercise that can be uncomfortable at times. Hard to disagree with that. This is a topic that we get involved with far too often as it’s a common point of frustration for many business owners and sales leaders regarding their selling culture. As we all know, with uncomfortableness comes excuses. Many salespeople also have what we call ‘headtrash’ about prospecting. Headtrash is the thoughts we have that affect our behavior with zero evidence that those thoughts are true. For example, “I can’t call that owner, they’re to busy for me now,” or “I’m going to bother them,” or “They don’t need what we sell.” I could go on and on about this topic. Unfortunately, it’s the slow death of many salespeople because it stifles their behavior.

The Issue

When salespeople have a behavioral problem, they will always have a technique problem. If they have a technique problem it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a behavioral issue, but behavioral issues always lead to technique issues. If you don’t practice golfing, you’re not going to be a good golfer. It’s that simple. Fortunately, salespeople have the ability to eliminate one of those two issues by doing their daily prospecting behaviors. Yes, you read that right, daily prospecting behaviors. Most salespeople prospect for job preservation. Things aren’t happening in the manner they’d like so they prospect a lot some of the time rather than a little all the time. Big difference. In my experience, the most effective business development people engage in two types of prospecting behaviors: Active and Passive. Active prospecting is what salespeople define as typical prospecting actions such as cold calling, walk ins, meeting people at networking events. The results are usually immediate, yes or no for continuing the discussion. Passive prospecting is like fishing. We cast our lines out and wait to see what bites. The two common activities for this type of business development are prospecting via email and asking for introductions to prospects you’d like to meet that you have common connections with. In LinkedIn speak, this would be a 2nd Connection.

Prospecting Tip: Leverage the Passive

I like to share with our team that a good passive prospecting goal is to send out 10 emails each working morning to prospects they’d like to meet and/or to ask for an introduction from other people they know well to someone they want to meet. If the average person works 250 days per year, that’s 2,500 passive prospecting emails that are sent that otherwise wouldn’t be sent. Trust when I say, as a witness myself, this flat out works!

The Goal

Create for yourself what we like to call a behavioral cookbook. What’s in a cookbook? Recipes. When the instructions for a recipe are followed exactly, it creates a predictable outcome. In the prospecting world, a cookbook is a recipe of prospecting behaviors, both active and passive, that lead to a predictable outcome. How does one know it’s predictable? Because it’s been followed and tweaked until the desired finished product (outcome) is achieved. Quite simply, it’s been battle tested. It’s critical to have a goal for a particular behavior as well as tracking towards the goal. You must do both! Have a goal and track the activity that leads to goal attainment in order to fine tune for success. Activity ALWAYS precedes outcome!

Losing hurts more than winning feels good so get comfortable being uncomfortable and proactively create the business life you want by actively and passively prospecting the smart way!

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Mike Jones | The Prospecting Paradox: Maximizing the PassiveMike Jones is co-author, with Ken Guest, of Digital Prospecting: Finding, Nurturing and Closing Sales with Social Technologies, and the owner of The Ruby Group, a licensed Sandler Training center. He has deep personal experience in manufacturing and logistics, and in many other industries, notably professional services.

For more information, please visit www.sandler.com

 

Finding The Perfect Property For Your Business Offices

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Commercial Real Estate|Finding The Perfect Property For Your Business OfficesWithout good offices which you can really be happy in, your business is much less likely to be successful. That might sound like a stretch, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Your offices are where all the magic happens, as it were: the space from which you create products, come up with future goals and ideas, and communicate with clients, customers and partners alike. The quality of those offices will determine the quality of all of that, and that will mean that you are much more likely to want to keep the offices as close to perfect as possible. A big part of that will be finding the ideal property to house your offices, which takes a lot of effort in itself. In this post, we will look at some of the major concerns for finding the perfect property for your offices.

To Buy Or To Let?

One of the early decisions you will need to make here is whether you are going to buy some property or rent it. You might well be in a position where this is effectively decided for you; if you are just starting out with a small startup and a tight budget, it might well be unlikely that you are in a position to buy any property. When it comes to leasing a property, you want to go online or speak to a real estate agent and look into office space for lease. You don’t have to go with the first property that you see that fits your requirements on paper, so make sure you don’t settle for less than you want even if you are renting the office space.

But if you have a decent loan or you are running a well-established business, there is a good chance that you will be able to buy property, and there are certainly benefits to that. For one thing, it is going to count towards one of your business’ tangible assets, thereby adding both value to the business and a safety net should you need it. In either case, going through a notable and trustworthy dealer like PropList will ensure that you can find the right place for your offices, whether you buy or rent.

Space, Size & Location

These three characteristics are some of the most vital when you are looking for the kind of property that is likely to serve well as a house for your business offices. You will therefore need to know what kind of amount of size and scale you are going to need, as well as where you actually want the offices to be located. That in itself varies based on whether these are going to be your main offices or whether they are going to be a subset, but in any case it is important to be clear on what it is that you need for them. As long as you are, you will find that it is a much easier thing to be able to find the perfect property for those offices at least in regard to these three things.

Persistence

Remember that it is often going to take a long time before you can actually end up with the right property for your offices, so you will need to have a good ability with persistence in order to make sure you find the right one. It can take a lot to find something that will suit you for good, so make sure that you are happy to approach it in this way.

How to Go From Disruptor to Industry Leader: 5 Ways Disney and the UFC Think Alike

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Entrepreneurship the Disney Way | How to Go From Disruptor to Industry Leader: 5 Ways Disney and the UFC Think AlikeDisney and the Ultimate Fighting Championship are not as big a mismatch as you might think. In fact, the two organizations share five compelling strategies that connect them by more than a business deal. But when Disney’s 80% ownership of ESPN led to a groundbreaking deal for the broadcasting rights of UFC last May, it was a milestone for UFC. Just how UFC became a viable media property for Disney holds lessons for any company seeking legitimacy and business success in today’s market.

When UFC arrived on the scene back in 1993, it was an upstart — a gritty disruptor in the world of sports. Its fights, while intriguing, were more side-show than serious competition. Seen only on pay-per-view and videocassette, UFC struggled in its early days to find venues willing to put on their show. But in one of the most transformative business acts in business history, owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and CEO Dana White formulated an approach to gain legitimacy in the greater sports world. Their strategy shares five key similarities with Disney:

1. Know what your assets are.

Both Disney and the UFC know what their most valuable assets are, and they make a great effort to protect them. For Disney, those assets are great stories and characters. The Walt Disney Company has a treasure trove of intellectual property that it protects and promotes with exacting attention. For the UFC, it’s all about putting the best athletes in the world into interesting and exciting matches that create anticipation months before a fight. In a sense, the UFC is also in the story and character business, but marketed to a different demographic than Disney.

2. Work to gain legitimacy.

Disney and UFC understand the chief concerns of their primary stakeholders, and work to manage the key drivers of legitimacy in their industry. Disney must consider social trends, industry standards, fan expectations, and government relations. The UFC is no different: It gained social legitimacy by shifting from an “anything goes” format to instituting a standard set of rules, oversight by state sports commissions, and protocols for fighters’ health and protection. Many observers now consider the UFC to be one of the best-managed and regulated leagues in sports.

3. Offer quality entertainment.

Disney and the UFC are both in the entertainment business, and committed to providing quality shows. Disney is famous for its attention to detail in all of its products. For the UFC, quality is measured in the capabilities of their athletes and the excitement of their fights. Just as Disney has a range of movies in the drama, comic book, and animation genres, the UFC has a whole range of weight classes that are deep with potential championship contenders. As a result, the UFC builds a lot of drama into their fight productions, including stories leading up to the events and tension-building campaigns. UFC fans await upcoming matches fought by their favorites with tremendous anticipation. The organization also has a constellation of its own stars, such as Gregor Gillespie, a scrappy grappler currently ranked tenth in the lightweight division.

4. Master market symmetry.

UFC’s and Disney’s products are quite different, but they take a similar approach to selling. Both are experts at market synergy and cross-promote to their markets better than just about anyone. Disney and UFC fans watch the shows, read the fan magazines, and buy related merchandise because of their attachment to the stories that each company promotes. Both companies are cash machines with multiple revenue streams coming from their core customers.

5. Protect the brand.

Both companies protect their brands at all cost. Disney is very careful about who represents the company. Any celebrities in their productions are expected to be in line with the company’s values. The UFC has the same expectation of its athletes, albeit with different codes of conduct. One excellent example of this was when the UFC suspended light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Jones was arguably the greatest fighter in UFC history and a top draw for pay-per-view. But he failed a drug test, costing him as well as the UFC millions of dollars during a 15-month suspension. Jones is back and a top draw again, but he paid a big price by not adhering to the UFC’s drug policy.

Disney clearly believes the UFC is far more than an upstart now, and it’s betting big that UFC will be a highly lucrative addition to the Disney entertainment umbrella. Credit is due to Disney for seeing the value in the UFC, and due to the leadership of the UFC — who took all the right steps in successfully maneuvering and conquering regulatory and societal challenges. These two success stories hold invaluable lessons for other disruptors facing their own challenges for legitimacy in today’s complex society.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Industry Disruptor |How to Go From Disruptor to Industry Leader: 5 Ways Disney and the UFC Think AlikeMichael G. Goldsby is the Chief Entrepreneurship Officer and Stoops Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Ball State University, USA. His new book, with Rob Mathews, is Entrepreneurship the Disney Way. Learn more at www.ELProfile.com.

How living at a Zen Buddhist monastery taught you how to be a better entrepreneur

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article|Entrepreneur Mindset|How living at a Zen Buddhist monastery taught you how to be a better entrepreneurThe short and most Zen answer is that I did not learn how to be a better entrepreneur by living in a Zen Buddhist monastery. Being an entrepreneur is what taught me to become a better entrepreneur. Being a Zen Buddhist monastery taught me how to be in a zen Buddhist monastery.

The long and more interesting answer, is that my nearly 6 months at the zen Buddhist monastery planted powerful seeds in my mind that have allowed me to evolve more fluidly in my day to day trials and errors as an entrepreneur.

It’s easy to come across as zen in a zen Buddhist monastery. It’s quiet, peaceful and others around you look “zen”, so it’s only natural to gravitate towards what looks zen: detached from expectations, quiet, embracing the fleeting nature of life, and being in the moment, yada yada yada.

After 6 months living a monastic life at a zen Buddhist monastery, I thought that I had incorporated Zen in me. I was wrong. Within a few weeks back in the corporate world, I was back to stressing about goals, expectations and achievements. I was feeling frustrated again.

You see, being “zen” in the corporate world is a whole other ball game. The corporate framework is based on goals, expectations, plans, and results. Not caring about expectations does not really fit into this framework. If you don’t deliver, you are out and there is no being zen about it.

So back to square one. I learned that I had learned nothing. Surprisingly, that took me a step closer to zen.

I realized that I had embraced a romanticized version of Zen based on how I ideated Zen in my mind but I had in fact not understood anything about zen because zen is about not ideating things in the first place. I sought out Zen because I wanted to overcome the pain in life, become enlightened and transcend the ebbs and flows of life. Now I see that I sought it out for all the wrong reasons. Zen is not about transcending by rejecting the ups and downs of life, it is about unconditionally embracing them.

Zen has a paradoxical nature. It is. And it is not. It does. And it does not. I learned over the years that being zen is not about crossing my legs and looking like a deep and pondered soul. I learned that being zen for me is about embracing the fundamental contradictions that lay the groundwork for our existence.

As I learn to lean into these contradictions, I open the path for more mental freedom and flexibility. I learn that even though my natural framework tends to polarize things, often there is good in the bad, just as there is bad in the good. I learn how to expand my peripheral vision and look at things through different angles at the same time.

So let’s unpack that. My natural tendency is to feel good if I make more money and shitty if I make less money. With a zen bug inhabiting my neural synapses, chances are that I am not going to get all that excited about making money or suffer all that much about making less money. Zen introduces a degree of relativism that allows me to create and interpret my own reactions to external events. The Zen framework allows me to insert an extra fraction of a second throughout many moments in my day in which I get the chance to introduce or at least steer the narrative of events in my direction.

Excessive relativism is tricky though and the zen framework can easily be used in ways that prevent our growth. In a world where there is no good or bad, success or failure, it is convenient to be able to say, “It does not matter.” For many years I used the Zen framework towards this end. I would shield myself from my own fear of failure by relativizing my goals and purpose. Looking back, I don’t think that Zen is intended that way.

I think that Zen is about bathing, soaking, rejoicing in the painful experience of living. Rather than fighting it, Zen is about embracing our shortcomings and ultimate mortality. But this nihilistic direction is not an end, but a path to re-emerge transformed through this experience as a being who is less stuck in labels and social constructs and more keyed into their own feelings and consciousness.

All of this Zen framework does not make me come across as Zen at all. In fact, I reject the idea of being zen. I don’t see how anyone who really buys into zen can accept or live with the label of being zen, or any label at all. I am an agitated soul. I am anxious, I get frustrated and want to get things done. But there is Zen in me. Every time I breathe and just accept that I am what I am. Then I am free.

About the Author

Gabriel Fairman, Founder and CEO of BureauWorks, has been working on transforming localization business processes into technology over the past 15 years. Over the past 5 years he has focused on developing algorithms that make sense of bigger data patterns in order to predict translator performance based on data obtained through peer reviews. The challenge on building AI towards that end is that translations can be great and still be significantly changed by reviewers. As changes are for the most pasty subjective, there is no direct correlation that can be established to easily determine the quality of translations based on simple data sets. The challenge requires digging deeper into more complex correlations that allow translation quality to be managed through algorithms that can reliably pair the right linguists to any given document. Gabriel’s focus is to think systemically as opposed to through a causality framework in order to solve these harder problems through AI.