How are your marketing efforts going right now? Creeping up slowly, staying the same or creeping down slowly or fast?
Is your business growing not just in revenue, but in profits? Because turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash flow is king.
I still believe a good way to increase profits is via the power of PR. Because that commands authority. Positioning yourself as an authority to speak on XYZ. That then builds attraction. That will then mean people will be attracted to you to then buy from you or follow you, rather than you acting all beta chasing them for their business, right?
One of my former clients, had the phone ringing off the hook when the client got on TV 6 times in one week. Can you imagine how much that kind of air time would cost if you’d spent it on TV advertising? Millions. Millions in ad spend. Hundreds of thousands or millions on the creative too. That would certainly have chipped at your profit margins. But get PR wrong, and you’ve wasted money if you’ve not got the right PR team. Get PR right and you’ve basically won the lottery. It’s the gift that keeps on giving as people don’t remember that one advert you spent £7,000 on to get a 3-inch section of a magazine, but you get invited back on air or get accepted back on again if you’ve got authority and can speak with gravitas. All while increasing your profile and the awareness of your brand.
Ok, so they definitely DO remember an advert if you have kept repeating the advert every day, for months or years on end. I mean: “it does what it says on the tin,” “just do it”, “every little helps” – we all know the companies of these slogans that were repeated on TV adverts don’t we? (Everyone in the UK, that is).
But most firms don’t have that kind of budget. And anyway, remember my former client TD Direct Investing (now called ii as they did an M&A), whose Chief Investment Officer went on TV and radio as an expert for 9 months and the firm made an extra $1.4 billion in assets under administration during that period? That was due to the extra media exposure of 100 TV and radio interviews that I secured for them and how I worked with their social media agency to get that content out there digitally too. I mean did Ronseal make that much extra revenue in 9 months with their Ronseal TV adverts? I don’t know how much extra revenue they made, but what I do know is that they spent a lot more on advertising than TD Direct Investing did which means TD Direct Investing will have increased their profit margins in comparison if I were to make an educated guess. Remember what I said, revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash flow is king.
Now if you work in a multi-billion dollar corporation or even multi-million dollar maybe you have the budget for TV ads. If you do, then yes they work and you should definitely think about having them.
But if you’re like most of the UK, where 95% of people work for a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), then you probably don’t have the budget.
You could argue that an even better use of budget is to learn how to do it yourself. Because even if you can afford to hire a PR, then knowing how to do it yourself, will mean you can direct and manage your PR division or PR agency better, because no PR will then be able to blag you or pull the wool over your eyes. This is important as PR is an art, not a science.
Take my late father as an example, he learned how to build a house from scratch age 16-21. By 21, he set up a building and construction firm with builder Brian Conroy. In their 20’s they hired a lot of tradespeople to do it for them. That meant they could train them to have superior building skills to their high standards, and just as importantly, no tradesman could ever take either of them for a ride.
Can you imagine when office-based professionals who didn’t train as builders in the last twenty years certainly, then leave their job to go on to buy a house as a business venture renovate it and then sell on, thinking they are property developers? But low and behold, after months or even a year of hard graft, they make no profit or only a few grand for a year’s work or even a loss! That’s why there was even a TV series featuring these types of people, to warn people of the pitfalls, as so many were making a loss or grafting all year for a few thousand only!
I mean look, that’s the same as the world’s richest men right. Mark Zuckerberg started coding. Bill Gates started coding. These men have the knowledge so no coder can take them for a ride at Facebook and Microsoft! So even though Mark and Bill won’t be coding daily anymore, they just know.
That’s why the ‘Level Up in Broadcast’ Training, Coaching and Consulting online programme I launched in December 2020, is key for any spokesperson so they can never be taken for a ride by a PR, and, so they can learn new skills to get themselves on air, literally two hours after making a phone call! I show you how.
It’s for PR’s too, to qualify in gaining world-class broadcast PR skills to seriously impress their clients and keep them retained for longer, and much, much happier.
I will listen to your struggles fellow PR’s, and advise you. I’m a former national TV journalist not just a degree-qualified PR who’s represented 22 FTSE 100 firms, NASDAQ, NYSE and Korean Exchange listed firms, A-list celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs and doctors.
Every single PR and spokesperson on my new course has got on air, since they started being coached by me on the ‘Up in Broadcast’ training, coaching and consulting online programme . (except one as she’s decided she doesn’t want to go on TV now, so that one doesn’t count).
So like I say, I’ve been training PR’s in how to get their clients on TV and they tell me “no one picks up the phone so I can’t really my spokesperson on.”
I will show you on this free live Masterclass how you can swerve that curveball and what to do in the long term to be getting yourself or your clients on TV and radio regularly, in my next free Masterclass:-
Register here to for the invitation.