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October’s Hot Five Business Tips

Summer is over and 2019 is just three months away – so buckle up… here’s October’s Hot Five  Business Tips.

Since the start of 2018, I have been working regularly with marketing guru and business mentor Nicola Cairncross and I’d like to share some of the valuable “golden nuggets” from our combined 40+ years in marketing, PR and communications.

1. Do something to move your business forward every day

This is one of the most valuable lessons I have learned since starting my own business. From meeting a business contact, sharing a story in a relevant social media post, networking, working on a new business proposal and regularly updating your website – investing time and money in your business on an ongoing basis is important and it pays off if done properly.

Make sure you are open to the next opportunity.  Keep your shopfront (website and social media) bang up to date and relevant. Take the buying journey that a prospective customer would and check that it is seamless.

Things are always evolving, so investing and moving with the changes is part of the rollercoaster of running your own business.  It never ends!

Don’t let yourself off the hook – if you have a weekly call with your mentor – do what you need to do before the call – be accountable.

2. Build your team

Whether it’s working with other experts or asking a business contact or trusted friend for their input into a new idea, it’s important to feel part of a team and to collaborate.

This year, due to my brilliant former colleague, Lyndall, having new commitments, I have delegated differently. As well as existing contacts, I have worked with several different people who each have very specific experience and skills. Some I discovered via sites like People Per Hour.  In addition, a friend shot my videos and a contact of a contact edited them.

This has resulted in additional expertise to the business and it’s also freed me up to do other things. I’ve given talks to other businesses, started writing a regular magazine column and it’s allowed me to devote more time to finding new business.

Because I have been able to stop focusing solely on the job in hand and to ‘look up’, I have a better grasp of the business landscape and what I need to do next.

3. Step outside your comfort zone

At the start of 2018 I said to myself I would be braver and bolder in my business. So I faced some of my demons and made a series of little videos addressing some of the “business pains” that organisations often face.

Making the videos benefited me and my business in so many ways and it also taught me what I suspected – that helping others to achieve their goals is what gives me the ultimate satisfaction.

I also ventured into the world of Facebook advertising and thanks to my mentor, learnt a whole lot about that. I also worked with a talented web developer who has run several businesses. I have applied some of his vast knowledge, not only to my business, but also to my clients’ organisations.

I’ve come to the conclusion that many of us fear the unknown and that often stops us taking that next step. Don’t let it – just prepare thoroughly.

4. Invest in your business

Early in 2018, when business was quieter, I spent time making the videos, advertising and rewriting and updating my website so it was easier to use and more informative.

It took a lot of time and some money, but ultimately it has paid dividends as my website is my shopfront and it subsequently attracted new clients.

I learnt a lot from the process. I found stepping out of my comfort zone on an almost daily basis and having to learn various Apps from scratch REALLY difficult and it often felt uncomfortable having to admit I knew very little when I was used to knowing what I was doing. But it was ultimately worth it. I adopted new ways of working and new skills that benefited both my own and my clients’ businesses.

If you are time poor, you can delegate these types of tasks – just don’t NOT do them.

5. Build credibility

It’s simple really. You have to be consistently good at whatever you do and then find a way to communicate that – by sharing your expertise with others.

Whether it’s through publicity and editorial pieces, Instagram, Twitter or video using YouTube and forums like TED Talks, raising your business profile and credibility through good public relations can help to increase your reach without paying for advertising space.

Editorial space is deemed to be worth 2.5 times more than paid for space as it carries more weight, authority and credibility, so it’s worth thinking about ways that you can share what you know.

Go where your audience is watching/listening/reading and share your information there. Don’t sell – offer help and advice.

If you’re a person who prefers to watch rather than read – you can watch the short video on Building Credibility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October’s Hot Five Business Tips

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How To Get Media Coverage Without Contacts

– Do you want to share your news but don’t have media contacts?
– Do you think you must have good contacts to get good PR?
– Are you unsure how to build good contacts?

If any or all of the above relate to you then this video will help to guide you and give you some top tips on getting you the coverage you want.

Sign up for my ‘What’s Hot in the World of PR’ newsletter and get free resources at https://www.catherinkellypr.co.uk

I’m Cathy Kelly and I’m a former journalist and PR consultant with more than 20 years’ experience of writing for and working with the media. A recent campaign with a client resulted in a film on a prime-time terrestrial TV channel and in leading national and international media outlets including The Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Forbes, Al Jazeera and CNBC among others. We specialise in PR that works.

You can watch some of my other videos here:

FULL TRANSCRIPT

I’m going to be sharing with you how you get good coverage when you don’t necessarily have the media contacts that you need.

So don’t panic if you don’t have the media contacts. That’s the first thing to say, because it is helpful if you have them, but it doesn’t mean that you still can’t get the coverage that you need if you don’t have those relationships to start with.

If you are a business owner, or somebody responsible for communications and you want to share your message but you don’t know how to get it out there, then you’re watching the right video.

I’m Catherine Kelly, and I’ve got more than 20 years’ experience of either working as a journalist or as a PR consultant writing for and dealing with the media and getting coverage on prime time TV and in international and national publications including Forbes, Times, the Telegraph, and various leading trade publications.

One of the best ways that you can actually engage with the media is to hit them with the right story. So your story needs to be good, and you can tap into good tips about how to actually identify a good story and to put it together by watching my first video, “How to write a press release”. You can also access various blogs and other materials from my website www.catherinekellypr.co.uk, and I’ll be adding other videos and materials over the coming weeks and months.

The first thing you should do is to start putting together a media mailing-list and you can insert helpful details such as deadline dates for journalists because it’s no good contacting journalists on a day when they’re really busy and haven’t got the time to talk to you or read your email. So I’ll be sharing with you towards the end of the video ways that you can actually do this and also I’m going to insert links so that you can actually download free materials like the template and you can actually get cracking on that yourself.

So start working on your media contact list. You can start putting together details of publications and journalists through Googling different publications within your industry or the industry you want to target. You can also use free resources like journalisted.com, which details information about journalists and sorts of subjects they’re writing about. And then you can target them with your press release at a time of the week which is actually better for them.

You should also get professional quality photography and actually issue that with your press release because publications and news channels are always short of decent images. And you should always follow up with a phone call to make sure the journalist has got everything they need, that they received your press release. Do they need any other images? They might need a landscape-shape photograph and you’ve sent them a portrait one. Little details like that can make all the difference in getting you the coverage that you need.

Hopefully, now you’ve realised that you don’t need to have the contacts to start with to actually get your message out there. It’s just a case of putting in the time, creating your list, and giving them good stories that they need, and to keep on giving them those stories so that you’re hopefully issuing a press release about once every one to two months, but only issue them if they’re really good stories.

How to Get Media Coverage Without Contacts

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Five Tips For Crisis Communications

Cathy Kelly runs through five key tips to get prepared for a crisis. She also talks practically about how best to look after your team in a crisis situation and how to avoid the mistakes her and her teams made when managing a crisis.

Sign up for my ‘What’s Hot in the World of PR’ newsletter and get free resources including a Crisis Contingency Plan home page.

I’ll be sharing other free resources with you over the coming weeks and months. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep up to date with the latest resources.

FULL TRANSCRIPT
Today I’m going to be talking to you about how you manage and prepare for a potential communications crisis. So it could be something along the lines of staff redundancies, it could be a major health outbreak, or it could be a security breach. But effectively it’s something where you want to contain and control some of the messages going out. A lot of this you can prepare in advance believe it or not.

I am a former journalist and I’ve also got around 20 years’ experience of working with, and writing for the media on major media campaigns. But I’ve also worked in house with various organisations including hospitals and different health trusts. I’ve dealt with some of these situations myself and there’s nothing like first-hand experience to know what you’re talking about and to learn from your mistakes and we did make some mistakes.

So the first time I had to deal with a crisis it was something which came out of the blue for one of the major London hospitals we worked for at the time. We were literally were glued to the telephones dealing with media inquiries and giving interviews for around 10 hours. During that time we didn’t eat enough, drink enough or even go to the loo enough. So we learnt by the end of it that, that’s really not how you do it. In terms of managing the situation in terms of communication materials that we gave out and shared with the media, we did a good job. But we didn’t do a good job of looking after ourselves.

So one of the key things is to look after your team in a crisis. To make sure that you have people being runners and feeding them, giving them drinks, letting them having toilet breaks. It sounds really basic, but those things are incredibly important.

The second time I had to deal with a crisis I was on my day off, and I had young kids, and I ended up having a little incident room in my kitchen, in my house. So I was dealing with national journalists and dealing with a measles outbreak. But because I had frequently asked questions already written and prepared in case that happened. Because I had holding statements and because I had details of journalists, it didn’t panic me so much because I had everything to hand. I also had details of other directors and I had their contact details.

So what I would say first is to look at your communication channels and to make sure that you have as much in place as you possibly can. You need to look at internal communication channels, because the first people you should be trying to reach are your staff, because they’re going to be having to deal with this with you, and they’re also going to be reacting to it, and potentially reading about it, or watching it on the news. So you need to find a way, or find different ways of reaching different groups of staff in the best possible way. This may be through email, through your intranet, through cascade systems within your organisation, with managers’ briefings. All sorts of things that you may have in place. So tap into those and have things written in advance if you can to actually make things as quick and easy as possible for you, so you’re just slotting in the details specific to your incident.

The other things you need to think about are the external systems that you have in place. So you’re effectively going to be using things like social media, your website, and the media, in terms of issuing holding statements and possibly press releases about the incident, which has taken place. So you need to make sure that you have all these things set up in advance.
Towards the end of the video I’m going to be sharing a free resource with you. It’s a media crisis template plan, so that you can apply to your own organisation. So look at maybe areas, which you should be addressing and things that you need to focus on. To make sure that you’re as ready as you possibly can be. Because by being ready you really take the heat out of an incident, because when it strikes, it strikes without any warning. That sounds very obvious, but you need to make it as least stressful as possible for you, because it will be pretty frantic. You won’t have time to think about other things.

One of the things I wanted to focus on a little bit was what should actually go into your media contingency plan. So this will be all the telephone contact numbers for all the people that may be useful for you in that situation. So it’ll be people like your communications manager and director, the different directors responsible for perhaps different parts of the organisation. Key people that you need to be able to contact in a crisis.

You also need to think about your key media contacts, who are the media that you have on side that you trust, that you can use to your advantage and to brief in these situations. Also media who you need to reach who perhaps you don’t have those relationships with. Have them all in your plan so that everything’s to hand, it’s easy as possible for you, and is quick to reach the people you need to reach with your messages.

You also need to split the incidents into different types of incidents. So for example here we have a critical media inquiry with a camera on site. So someone’s pitched up, they’ve heard about something that’s happened, perhaps it’s a security breach, or a potential bomb alert. They’ve turned up with a TV crew, so you need to be able to react to them very quickly. You need to know what to do when that happens. So for each incident you have a page in your plan. So if that thing happens you pull out the page, and you run through the process. You’re not having to think on the hoof, you’re not having to make it up as you go along. It’s ready, it’s prepared for you. You’re taking the heat out of the incident.

You also can maybe look at things like a riot or a major disturbance. Perhaps you might have a death on your premises or in one of your stores. It may be a fire or a bomb alert, or even damage to property. So you have emergency checklist, and you work through those checklists. By following a particular checklist you are reacting to it in a way, which you feel comfortable and in a timely fashion.

Five Tips to Prepare For Crisis Communications