Planning For 2011

Changing The Record

Going through the process of working our your own personal or brand message is an important one, but it's  important to change it regularly. Just as it becomes hard to drudge up the enthusiasm to write a press release on another angle on the same old theme, it's just as difficult for a journalist to read yet another one of your offerings which sounds like old news wrapped up in a new bow.

I'm not talking about revamping the whole brand here, just taking a different approach to stop things becoming stagnant.

It's vital to keep your message fresh and compelling, to give you and your brand energy and vitality.

Here are some ideas on keeping that freshness:

• Plan for a change in your PR every quarter, you and your staff will welcome the change and the new challenge
• If an angle works particularly well, there's no reason why you can't come back to it at a later date with a fresh new approach.
• Diarise dates where you and your team (or a mentor or buddy) can brainstorm new angles and ideas or use someone like me to consult with and give you bubbly easy to initiate activities and angles that will add a new lease of life.

Snow Pause

I set out this morning full of good intentions. Glove, check. Thickest coat, check. Lots of layers,  check. Hat, Check. Got a lift to the tube station. Lovely. And then find the Jubilee line is down. Bang goes my plans for swimming, meetings and my weekly Italian class.

Trudge half a mile to a coffee shop and text a friend who works from home. The end result is two hours of brainstorming and motivation over steaming hot cappuccinos and toasted tea cakes. I've got great ideas for my PR business...workshops I want to start next year, and an idea for a conference I'd like to run. She's at a crossroads in her own business and appreciated the time to think things through.

Sometimes it works out well when things don't quite go to plan.

Getting The PR Mindset

It sounds a bit evangelical but I have had a bit of an epiphany. For years I have been teaching people the nitty gritty of how to do PR...all the nuts and bolts of how to write press releases, put together a media list, pick up the phone and contact journalists etc, but I have ignored one very important step...the fear of putting yourself out there.

It's something that binds many of my clients together and I can see manifest itself as procrastination, perfectionism and getting distracted by bright shiny ideas.

I have seen clients suffer from it when they see a hostile comment written about their product or service in a forum and their reaction is to want to curl up and die.

Why are we so scared of stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight? If we have the passion to start and the motivation to grow our own business, why do so many of us hesitate when it comes to really putting ourselves on the map? Why do so many of us accept the status of being the best kept secret around, even though we know that our products and services are, quite frankly, fantastic?

What is it that holds so many people back? It's something I've decided to investigate and I'd love to hear from you on what holds you back from coming out into the limelight...email me here. I would really love to hear from you.