Volume 6, 2006

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Featured Topic: Promoting Yourself and Your Company

Inside This Issue

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Public relation companies can be wonderful, if your budget allows you to hire professionals. If the campaign is successful, it is worth every penny that you spend. Most of these professionals will tell you that effective publicity is a marathon, not a sprint. In other words, it takes time and consistency.

If you don’t have public relations in your budget, you can be creative and achieve positive results. If you work for a large company, perhaps you need to let others outside of your department know what your team is accomplishing. Or maybe you just need to let your boss know how you are contributing. Let’s look at ways to get the word out.

This newsletter has been a source of publicity for TLC for well over a decade. It takes time to plan. Each year we schedule the theme for all twelve months. Different team members contribute to writing and editing. We are fairly consistent with the electronic publication monthly. The dollar cost is minimal. The time cost is substantial. We know it builds relationships with our public because you respond by email and phone.

A huge PR tool for most businesses is the web site. The measure of success here is to monitor the number of visitors (not hits) and how many pages they review. Even departments in large companies can have sites on their Intranet to let everyone else know what is going on.

Press releases can be another key to getting you or your company noticed. There are always the big newspapers, yet do not overlook the smaller community papers that are hungry for news.

Writing an article for trade magazines can bring recognition to you as an individual. While you may not get paid, the publicity can be very lucrative. That can bring your company business or get you a nice performance review and perhaps a raise in salary.

Speaking for civic and business organizations is another way to bring attention to you and your business. Think of how many organizations there are in your town alone and know that most of them need a speaker every time they meet, weekly or monthly. Don’t just go and give a commercial for what you do, rather give information that can be useful and helpful to the audience. Word will spread and you will be invited to speak at other meetings.

Sending information that you know your client may be interested in is another great way to get in front of your customers. The article doesn’t have to be about you or your company, just something that is important to the receiver. It demonstrates that you listen to them and are aware of their wants and needs. What better publicity can you get than that?

Being members of organizations and volunteering your time is another way to create visibility for you and your company. Please don’t go to these meetings placing a business card in every hand, rather invest in some meaningful conversations where you place yourself as the listener. Then give them a card and they are more likely to keep it.

Be an ambassador for you and your company and the good news will spread. You don’t have to be headline news to get ahead. Be sincere, helpful, and confident in what you do. When you do that, they will "hear ye!"

What Our Clients Are Saying

Beverly, you presented with such great style and clarity, your insights into what constitutes, and the value of effective communication were most instructive and will, I'm confident, be drawn upon to enhance workplace people skills, job satisfaction, productivity, ... and profitability.

G.I. Bowen, III, President of the Association of Georgia's Textile, Carpet and Consumer Products Manufacturers

Promote the Facts, Not the Fluff

Vincent Ivan Phipps

Approximately 46% of the population is very comfortable promoting themselves and their organizations. These people are called extroverts. The other 54% might find that self-promotion, or even promoting their company is braggadocios. This style is called introverts. Extroverts feel it is necessary to tell others about their efforts. On the other hand, introverts feel that others will be observant enough to acknowledge good efforts when they see them.

Here is a suggestion that can satisfy both styles. Instead of promoting yourself, promote the facts. This means that you use supportive, factual, measurable statements to justify worth or skill. I’ll use our team at TLC and myself as an example.

Self-Promotion without factual information:

Vincent is an awesome choice as a speaker because he has delivered to all types of industries and spoken on several interesting topics. His audiences also love his style!

Self-Promotion with factual information:

Vincent has delivered speeches from Las Vegas to London England. His areas of expertise include attitude, body language, listening, and leadership. For 9 years his audiences rate his delivery at 3.79 with a 4 being 'exceeded expectations.'

Organizational promotion without factual information:

TLC is the best! They’ve been doing what they do longer and more effectively than anyone. They have won a bunch of awards and helped people and industries on all levels.

Organizational promotion with factual information:

TLC has been in business for 25 years. They are so focused on getting results that their mission statement includes achieving permanent & positive change. Some of their awards include Small Business of the Year – 2000, voted by the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, and the CEO won the International Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2004.

Notice how both non-informative, promotional statements may be true and might sound catchy, while it is the informative statements that are less conceited and more historically accurate.

If you are too vague or complimentary, people may dispute what you say. If you are specific and clear, you can convey much more and have it scrutinized less.

The next time you are called to promote yourself or your organization, take some time to self-check and re-word your comments to include informative statements. Then watch their eyebrows raise with genuine interest!

I am Vincent. Want to learn how to master this skill? Contact me:

423-622-TALK, ext VIP or vip@talklisten.com.

Before You Put Your Name On It

Have you ever gone to a convention center and visited the maze of vendors at a trade show? Companies give out some pretty crazy stuff. Most people grab all the goodies and then pass them on to their kids or give them out as Halloween treats.

There is nothing wrong with giving items that have your name on them, just stop and think before you put your name on it. Would you want your name on a pen that doesn’t write? A nail file that is going to be filed off the first time it is used? How about a paper holder that bends over with the weight of the paper?

Rather than putting your good name on junk, the money may be better spent putting your name on a nicer item and giving fewer of them away. You can give away the junk without your name on it. Before you engrave your reputation on an item, think about how this will represent you.

Promote means to help the growth or development. Before you put your name on it, make sure it will promote you and your company.

Too Big for Your Britches

When it comes to self-promotion or promoting your organization, make sure you do it in a way to avoid being told you are, "too big for your britches!"

So what do britches and their being too big have to do with self-promotion? We are not too big for our britches to tell you!

This saying dates back to the early 1800’s. "Britches" was another word for homemade pants. When someone was acting arrogant, haughty, or showing conceit, it was said they were so full of themselves that they were too big to fit into their britches. Therefore being too big for your britches became known as having a feeling of great pride and self-worth (but too much!).

The sayings, "stuffed shirt" and "too big for your boots" also originated from this saying. To avoid being told you are too big for your britches, remember the difference between confidence and conceit.

Conceit is when you tell everyone how good you are.

Confidence is when you know you are good and you let your actions demonstrate it.

Dear TLC

There is a vendor who keeps bragging about how much better he and his services are compared to all others. Each time I am to request bids, he is the first to send me numerous emails and voice messages about how much money he can save my company and how great he is. This is becoming annoying and making me not even want to include him in my selection pool. Professionally, I want to be fair but I don’t want to get nauseous from his overkill self-promotion. What advice can you give?

-Grabbing My Shovel

Dear Grabbing My Shovel,

About 46% of the people out there will speak highly about themselves and who they represent. They rarely give details but are usually genuine about what they say. The next time you submit a request for bid, ask yourself, for what am I looking? Include budgets, time frames, content, and specific goals. Send this to everyone within your selection pool, including "Mr. Slick." It is possible he is so confident because he has reason to be. Investigate the validity of what is said by asking for references, checking with the Better Business Bureau, or doing a web search.

September Birthdays

Happy Birthday to our clients celebrating in September:

Featured Service - Accent Reduction

Therese Padgett, Director of Client Relations

You need to understand that I am a "Southern Girl." I had a linguistics professor at Emory University who once identified my accent as mid-western. Whew! I interpreted that as meaning I had NO accent. Then I moved to NYC where I met someone from Kalamazoo, MI and, boy! Did she have what I called a real "Southern" drawl! Maybe she was not from Michigan originally. I had heard that mid-westerners basically had no accent and that broadcasters were taught to imitate such a bland, non-identifiable accent. Regardless, my self-perception immediately changed! Gratefully, I interacted with enough New Yorkers who ou'd and awed over my molasses-dripping accent so that I reclaimed my Southern identity in tact.

When I moved back to the heart of Dixie, I immediately noticed something that really surprised me: TV commercials. I couldn’t believe I was hearing the same commercials I had heard in NYC – with voice-overs! The dialect was now "Southern" and I could hear the difference distinctly. Marketing departments had adapted to its audience by changing the dialect.

Accents/dialects are neither right nor wrong; they just are. They result from our environment and cultural surroundings. They identify us as being from certain locales. So long as we are communicating with others who speak a similar dialect, communication usually flows smoothly. It’s when we interact with someone who uses a different dialect that we encounter problems. Sometimes it can be as if we are speaking a completely different language.

Perhaps English is a second language for you. Or maybe your position requires you to speak with people from other parts of the country and you need to know how to adapt your delivery style. If you find yourself having difficulty being understood because of an accent difference, TLC can help. Call TLC today (888-232-2873) and make an appointment with one of our qualified coaches. We can help you with accent reduction so you can verbally sell yourself and your company!

CEO, Chief Executive's Opinion

Beverly Inman-Ebel, M.A., CCC-SLP

Toot Your Own Horn!

I am just enough of a ham to truly appreciate congratulations in all forms: verbal, written, electronic, both privately and publicly. Coupled with this, I strive to demonstrate a certain degree of humbleness, lest I get too big for my britches! (See Vincent’s article.) So where is the balance?

When I do something noteworthy, I want people to know. My preference is that someone else will tell others so that I can be the recipient of congratulations rather than the deliverer of the news. While that is fine to stroke my ego, in business it doesn’t always work.

A nautical term, "Toot your own horn" can be a valuable lesson here. In boat races, the horn from the lighthouse would sound when the first boat crossed the finish line. That way, everyone knew a winner had been declared. The trouble was that, back then without cell phones, people outside of the lighthouse did not know who won. Because each boat had a unique horn, winners would often toot their own horn in victory to let the other boaters know the identity of the winner.

Our lives are now bombarded with sound and visual stimuli. To stand out from the crowd, sometimes you need to toot differently to be heard. (See article, "Hear Ye! Hear Ye!") If you do nothing and hope that others will get the message from the lighthouse, your success could be left out in the dark.

When TLC won Small Business of the Year in 2000, we were excited and wanted our clients to know. Since it was highly unlikely that our award would make national news, we chose to toot our own horn. We wanted to give something clever, yet not expensive. I had a yard full of plants called "Money Trees." In the spring they have beautiful lavender flowers and by August they are filled with silk pods that are popular in dried flower arrangements. Because we tell our clients that listening to people is an investment that pays dividends, we sent them Money Tree seeds with a reminder to grow their relationships along with their plants to harvest interest.

When I won "International Woman Entrepreneur of the Year" in 2004, I was so excited that I immediately called my family, close friends, and the TLC work family. After arriving back to Tennessee, we realized we wanted our clients to know of this honor. Since part of the criteria was forming good relationships with customers, I wrote a letter thanking our clients for allowing us to partner with them. Some of our clients seemed as shocked as I was; yet everyone who responded was sincere with their congratulations.

What about you? What are you doing or have done that other people need to know about? You don’t have to be a ‘spin doctor’ to make yourself look good. Level with people about what you have accomplished. Don’t rely upon the lighthouse. Toot your own horn in your unique way. Think. Plan. Win. Celebrate. Toot! Live your dreams!

TLC establishes long-term relationships with our clients. If we have helped you or if you believe our approach to change would work for someone you know, please request a proposal or phone 1-888-232-2873. We work with individuals and groups on the following subject areas: attitude, listening, body language, voice, leadership, compliments and corrections, behavioral style, teamwork, effective meetings, public speaking, accent reduction and much more!.

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