Speak to my accounts department

After 5 years of running my business hands-on and creating invoices at the end of each month, I have finally let go (a little). This is the first month that my accountant will create invoices, send them directly to the clients, and track the payments - I don't have to do a thing. 5 years of creating invoices in a spreadsheet, checking them, exporting to PDF, and emailing them to my clients are finally over, and I'm feeling a little hollow.

Letting go of pieces of control is scarier than I thought, but I know it's the correct thing to do and I trust that my accountant will do it better than I ever did. For a small company that relies on regular payments, outsourcing this small part of the process is potentially dangerous but we have created and tested the systems and processes so I'm expecting success.

Aside from the peace of knowing that someone else has taken over the responsibility, I now get to tell people to speak to my accountants department which is not only novel - it creates much more free time for me to focus on other parts of the business.

May the delegation continue!

Journalists attend events? You lie!

There are journalists out there who are known for being absent minded (let's keep it polite) when it comes to attending events or even interviews. Yes, everyone has missed a meeting before, but it seems to happen with journalists more frequently.

Most PR's attribute this to the 'power' that journalists feel over their PR counterparts whose job it is to get the journalist to the event. While it's the PR that prepares all the background info, invitations, prepares spokespeople, writes speeches and press releases - all the journalist has to remember is to arrive (preferably on time). The perceived 'power' is an excuse that PR's hide behind and is rarely the reason a journalist doesn't attend an event.

Here are a few tips that you can use to improve an events 'hit rate' with journalists:
- Make it interesting! If the event seems boring and the speakers you're putting forward don't have value to offer then the journalist is likely to decide to go for a beer instead of coming to your event
- Pick your journalists! Having 20 journalists attend your event is impressive, but not all of your events will appeal so broadly. When you are doing a focused event only invite those journalists whose focus it is. By doing this matching accurately you are more likely to have a higher hit rate and the resulting coverage will be more valuable.
- You're competing with beer! While it is their job to cover the news, if the prospect of having a few beers with their friends is more enticing than attending your event then you are in trouble. Learn how to compete with beer and you will stand a better chance of getting them there.
- Reputation! It is all a process, and both you and your client need to build up a reputation of providing value at events. Each event depends on the last and impacts on the next.
- Always have alternatives! Having the journalist attend the event shouldn't be your only focus for achieving coverage. You must be able to offer all the journalists a variety of alternatives to attending the event while still delivering you the coverage you want. Pre or post event interviews, video conferencing, an event press release. Having the journalist at the event should be a bonus not a prerequisite!

16,000 email reminders is not going to get the journalist to attend the event, and not having them at the event is no excuse for not getting the coverage.

Note to PR's:
While the above can help, if your event simply isn't press worthy then you probably aren't going to get anywhere no matter what you do, and you will probably damage your reputation by trying to sell it as something that is news worthy

Note to journalists:
If the event doesn't interest you then rather be blunt and tell the PR you won't go. Saying you will attend when you know you won't is going to waste the PR's time and give you a bad reputation

The Long Tail

Just finished reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired Magazine. It is a phenomenal read for anyone wanting to understand the economics of online business and how unlimited supply is creating unlimited demand.

I studied economics at university and this read was enlightening to say the least. If you're thinking or starting a business it is a must read. There is a new world of business and it's inspiring.

The new business dawns

It's a week away - our first official day of business. Daunting yes, but oh so exciting.
There seems to be an insurmountable pile of work that needs to be done before then, but I think it's more in my head than in reality, and no matter what happens, next week will arrive and the cogs of business will begin to turn - and that's when we'll know what we're made of.

We have a winning formula, it's now simply a matter of making it happen!

How to peel a Mango

I have just returned from a weekend in Stellenbosch that consisted of exquisite dinners, even better wine tasting, a beautiful wedding on the Saturday night, and one of the most entertaining phone calls I've had since Thursday. I couldn't believe it, back-to-back amazing phone calls. What did I do to be this lucky?

Weddings are always great fun, and it was with excitement that, a few weeks ago, I booked 2 flights to Cape Town on Mango to attend a close friends nuptuals. In all the excitement I mistakenly booked the Joburg to CT leg for Friday morning instead of Saturday morning as had been planned. When my better half realised my mistake I quickly phoned Mango to find out if we could change the flights, and much to my dismay, Mango wanted to charge me R500.00 per ticket to make the change. The option of taking the Friday off work and keeping the R1000.00 as spending money was more enticing than changing the flights so we stuck with our original Friday morning flights.

On Friday morning, as we were packing the last bits of luggage I got a call from a lady at Mango and the brief conversation went like this:

Mango: Good morning Mr Crusoe, you have 2 tickets booked to fly back to Joburg on Sunday at 1:30pm
Me: Yes that is correct
Mango: That flight is really overbooked and I wondered if you would mind flying back on the 10:30am flight instead of the 1:30pm flight?
Me: Yes we can do that if you want – it will cost you a R1000.00 for each of us
Mango: Excuse me...
Me: If you pay us a R1000.00 each then we will be happy to take the earlier flight
Mango: I'm sorry, we can't pay you to change flights
Me: I wanted to change our outbound flights and you wanted to charge me, so why can't I charge you?
Mango: Sorry we can't pay you a R1000.00 each
Me: Well I guess we'll stick with our 1:00pm flights then
Mango: Fine
Me: If you get your managing director to phone and ask me then I'll re-consider
Mango: Thanks for your time
Me: No, thank you!

I was grinning from ear to ear for hours after that call. Mostly because it isn't often that the tables get turned and you can use a companies system against them. I truly hope this lady reports the call to her boss but something makes me seriously doubt she will care enough to bother. Pity, it would have been another fun conversation.

Cold calling hell

The last 5 minutes of my day were spent trapped in the following telephone conversation:

Crusoe: Can I help you?
Kind lady: I'm from XYZ employment agency
Crusoe: What can I help you with?
Kind lady: We specialise in IT staff and I'd like to place some of our candidates within your company
Crusoe: You said you place IT staff?
Kind lady: Yes
Crusoe: We aren't an IT company
Kind lady: What do you do?
Crusoe: We're a media communications company
Kind lady: What's that?
Crusoe: It's not an IT company
Kind lady: Do you want to hire any IT staff
Crusoe: Not today thanks.
Kind lady: Okay thank you
Crusoe: Anytime dear

I chose not to pick a fight with this lady over where she got my details and why she didn't know what my company did because I was overwhelmed with pity for her. She is trapped doing a job in which she has absolutely no interest at all. I wouldn't be surprised is she got to work in the morning and simply dialed a random seven digit number to get her day started.

Hell isn't a place beneath the crust of the earth where everything is on fire and nasty little gremlins chew with their mouths open - it's having no passion what so ever for the job you are doing. If you're job is anything like this kind lady's then you need to get out. If you happen to be in the IT industry then you can give her a call and she'll find you a job in media communications.

Client sensitivity

While I would advise anyone in business to be sensitive to the needs of your clients, I've recently learnt that there are circumstances where you must remove sensitivity from the equation and put the needs of your company first.

This will mostly happen during times of change. Companies that have stability in their income, staff, and offerings will at some stage need to move the company forward so as not to be left behind. The objective is to reach the next level of stability without encountering too much turbulence within your staff, culture, and cash flow.

Staff, culture, and cash flow are all internally manageable, but your clients aren't that easy. In order for you to move forward you must realise that your clients will need to move forward and quite often they won't like it. As long as you can clearly communicate and demonstrate that the next level of stability will be worth the move you will be fine, but if clients are stubborn you may need to leave them behind - more often than not they will catch up at a later stage.

Putting your clients loyalty to the test is dangerous but can be worth it.

Things journalists want you to know

Dealing with journalists can often be quite a daunting experience, even for the most seasoned PR proponents. If you are thinking of undertaking some form of media strategy that involves dealing with journalists, then the following might help you out.

Things journalists want you to know (but won't tell you):

1. Journalists don't know everything
Contrary to popular belief, journalists don't actually know everything about an industry. They may regularly write about an industry and may even be experts on specific topics within an industry, but there is always an opportunity for you share valuable information with them that will enrich their articles and help them stand out in their reporting. By being a source for new information you become an asset to a journalist. If you have an interview with a journalist, the more relevant background information you can supply them, the more empowered they are to conduct the interview and write the article. This works in your favour.

2. They like to express their own opinions
Journalists are opinionated. While they have a responsibility to report on the facts, journalists will tend to deliver stories that are aligned to their own opinions. As such, rather target those journalists whose opinions will reflect positively on your company. If your message supports and adds to the journalists opinion then there is a better chance of receiving positive media coverage and creating an ally for the future.

3. They face peer review
Peer review in the world of journalism is incredibly important and can have an impact on a journalists careers path. While you may not have an opportunity to improve a journalists grammar or spelling, you can have a direct impact on their level of writing and the depth of their articles. Spend the time to work out what makes a journalist a great journalist and then do everything you can to help a journalist be great. Providing scoops, inside stories, info no-one else has access to, sought after interviews. These are only a few of the things that you can do to help a journalist do great work. If you give them crap they will write crap (if they even bother to write anything)

4. They are human
It may sometimes be a stretch of the imagination, but journalists are in fact human beings. Most have hardened exteriors from years of dealing with PR people, but if you understand the human element - their pains, their stresses, their frustrations - then you will begin to understand what makes them tick and you can tailor the way you work with them to suit their human side.

Understand these points and you will have taken your first step in the right direction.

Association of brands

There is a special place in my vocabulary for people who park (drive) with no consideration for others, and I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. Although this car isn't branded, it amazes me how many branded cars we see on the roads that are being driven shockingly. The drivers obviously don't care that they represent a company and that the people they upset in traffic could very well be customers. What would happen if the brand managers knew how all their hard work was being undone by the company's driver? Next time it happens I think I'm going to phone and find out. I urge you to do the same.

A similar situation occurs with South Africa's infamous taxi's. Why would a marketing person want or allow their branding to be splayed all over a taxi? This is a vehicle with a driver that knowingly, and without care, breaks the law on a regular basis, and has little or no respect for other citizens or life in general.

When I see a company's brand on a taxi my emotional state is definitely not one of love. It isn't wise for any company wanting me as a customer to try and push their branding into my mind at the exact time that I'm screaming and cursing with blood pressure through the roof. Association is a massive component of branding, hence sports stars being paid millions for endorsements - associating their skills and popularity to a specific brand. The emotions that ordinary citizens display towards badly driven taxi's are definitely not the ones you would want to have associated with your brand.

A special thanks to our very own Peas on Toast whose parking (as shown above) inspired this post. Peas, the parking is impressive, but at least your VW Beetle isn't branded with the name of your new business venture :)

Inside out PR

Went to meet a potential client yesterday and instead of selling him on the value of having a public image and a high media profile, I found myself warning him to not even consider embarking on a media strategy.

The reason was quite simple, he couldn't embark on a media strategy without having an internal communications strategy already in place and working well. It is imperative for any company considering a media strategy to have proven their communications ability internally first. Any communications strategy should be developed from the inside out.

The bedrock of an effective communications strategy is alignment of message, a situation where your staff & management (internal), your stakeholders & customers (semi-external), and the market (external) all have the same understanding of what your company does. If you don't have this you will forever be running on a broken leg and any external communications are going to cause more confusion than they solve.

In order to get this alignment you have to start on the inside with your staff and management. Once they are both representing the same message and projecting the same vision then move onto your stakeholders and customers and only then should you consider implementing and external communications strategy.

I'll put up a post soon on some ideas on the tools you can use for internal, semi-external, and external communications. Need to give it some thought and structure first.

Honesty for the brave

I heard a great definition of love today which goes something like this, "If they know the worst thing about you and are OK with that, then you know their love is real."

Imagine adopting this level of honesty within your company. Allowing your customers to know the worst thing about you and hoping they love you none-the-less. It's a brave strategy but the benefits could be phenomenal. Imagine a world where your customers love you in spite of your worst characteristics.

A few things would happen if you adopted this strategy:
- You could very well forge the strongest bonds with your customers
- By admitting to your weakness/flaw you can focus on fixing it openly with your customers
- You increase the chance that your customers will love you to the max

It is definitely risky, but by trying to hide your skeletons in the closet you are more likely to have a PR disaster in the future and lose the trust of your customers.