According to Ziprecruiter, as of Aug 5, 2022, the average annual pay for a “Motivational Speaker” in the United States is $68,271 a year. That works out to be approximately $32.82 an hour. Or the equivalent of $1,313/week or $5,689/month.
Want to be a public speaker? Here’s what to expect…
How Much Money Can You Really Make Speaking?
While ZipRecruiter is seeing annual salaries as high as $148,000 and as low as $21,500, the majority of Motivational Speaker salaries currently range between $33,500 (25th percentile) to $118,000 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $145,500 annually across the United States.
The average pay range for a Motivational Speaker varies greatly (by as much as $84,500), which suggests there may be many opportunities for advancement and increased pay based on skill level, location and years of experience.
Newbie speakers will talk for free or for travel cost reimbursements. Meanwhile, celebrities and well known industry experts charge up to an profitable six figures per engagement.
But some speakers are making far from the average. Here’s why…
The Net Worth of These Motivational Speakers is Insane!
Here’s a look at how much the top motivational speakers are worth…
1. Brian Tracy – $15 million
2. Suze Orman – $75 million
3. Robert Kiyosaki – $100 million
4. Dave Ramsey – $200 million
5. Daymond John – $350 million
6. Tony Robbins – $600 million
7. Magic Johnson – $620 million
Some of the dollar amounts they charge per speech will surprise you. For example
Simon Sinek now charges $100k per speech. Gary Vee does too…
Sam Par breaks down the world of public speaking and the surprisingly lucrative amount of loot that can be made via the business model in HubSpot’s episode of The Hustle. Check it out.
In 2012, Jack Conte and his wife, Nataly Dawn, were known as the indie band called Pomplamoose. They were bringing in roughly $400,000 per year in revenue from tour dates, merch, and on ads viewed by their 1.5M followers on their YouTube channel.
But then a mental breakdown a few years ago changed all of that…
After spending three months producing an elaborate music video for their song “Pedals, (it’s pretty impressive for a self-production). But the production came at the heavy cost of maxing out all of Jack and Nataly’s credit cards.
The Conte’s sunk their life savings into making the video popular on YouTube. So far the video has 2.3M views, but the confused couple received almost nothing for their efforts from YouTube…
They spent $10,000 and three months to make just the 1 video go viral on YouTube. He soon realized that, even though he receives an average of one million viewers on his YouTube videos, he’d only make $160 in ad revenue. Kind of a shitty reward for the time and effort they were putting in.
Jack knew there had to be a better way…
So he came up with an idea for creators to get compensated directly from their fans and cut out the middle man.
That’s how he came up with the idea of launching Patreon. He sent a sketch of his idea to his former college roommate, an engineer, who started coding for it that night. They launched soon after, with Jack being Patreon’s first official creator. Within two weeks, he was making six figures…
Wait, What is Patreon?
Basically it’s a membership platform that helps creators to get paid. Creators perform an artistic service and return, their fans and supporters (aka patrons) use Patreon to support them by means of payments. This way, creators can spend more time creating content instead of looking for funding.
There’s a few business models that content creators can use on this crowdfunding/membership platform.
Patreon’s Business Model Enables Creators to Charge For:
Community (monthly memberships)
Educational subscriptions
Gated premium content
Pay-what-you-can donations
Jack founded Patreon in 2013, today they have 3 million monthly active patrons generating $100M+ per month on the platform.
At one point for example, author and psychologist Jordan Peterson, was said to be making over $70k per month on the platform just in donations alone.
Patreon currently takes between 5% and 12% of creator earnings (plus a payment processing fee). The pandemic helped increase revenue with over 30,000 creators flocking to the site within the first few weeks of the pandemic. Videos and podcasts are the biggest categories on the site.
Along with all their success, the company is facing an intense amount of competition coming from Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Only Fans, Substack, and Clubhouse (is that thing still alive?). It seems every platform these days is doing their best to lure creators by allowing everyone to make money versus just the big creatives.
But for now, Patreon has proven their business model helping participants in the creator economy to get paid more. The result of the couple’s efforts so far has resulted in an estimated $8 million in cash.
The companies’ market valuation is currently hovering at $4billion. Which is a pretty awesome accomplishment that a broken husband fed up YouTube created a rival platform that turned him into a millionaire.
Did you know that only 9% of b2b companies rate their digital promotional efforts as highly effective? So chances are that’s you (and me, and everyone else too for that matter)…
So than what do we do when our marketing isn’t working? When no one is clicking our stuff, liking our posts? Just crickets…
According to marketing expert Adam Erhart, 90% of businesses ARE NOTposting near enough content (what he calls the minimum effective dose to trigger the algorithms) for anyone to notice.
Don’t you skip this part, it’s way more important than you think.
Erhart explains that most businesses dabble in too many things and totally fail to find their sweet spot online.
Here’s why….
In a recent video, Adam Erhart breaks down where most businesses fail online and covers 7 effective strategies to finally take your online presence by storm in 2022 (or skim the full summary below for the highlights).
WATCH:
Adam Erhart’s 7 Effective Marketing Strategies for 2022
#1 Most Businesses Don’t Post the Minimum Effective Dose:
When competing online, you’re not simply competing against your competitors, or even simply inside your industry for that matter. Instead, you’re competing with Youtubers, Twitter, CNN, Fox, Disney, Pandora, and millions of other sources of content distractions all fighting for the same attention.
So like Adam mentioned, as simple as it sounds, 90% of b2b businesses simply aren’t creating enough content on one single platform to stand out from anything else. A couple posts a week isn’t going to cut it.
Not even close…
Most companies “try social” or will spend $100 on ads and won’t see any sales and thus conclude…”the platform doesn’t work.” Spoiler alert, it doesn’t work that way.
If you’re not standing out, it’s almost always the case that you haven’t created enough content or a minimum effective dose to stand out on a particular app (let alone all of them). This is where 90% simply fail.
#2 The Marketing Rule of 7
Okay, so then how much content and how many touch points does it take to stay in front of someone long enough to get them to buy?
Fair question…That’s where Adam’s “rule of 7” comes into place.
The rule of seven works roughly like this; if your product is inexpensive, say $1-$20. You will likely have to get someone to see your message 7 times before they will open their wallet to grab their credit card. Higher ticket item? Plan on 14 or 21 touch points.
The higher the ticket price the more times you will likely need to be in front of your prospect. Just like a sales person doesn’t close someone usually on the first call, it’s even harder for a marketing message to close a sale to cold traffic post.
The average digital touchpoint to close a sale online is typically between 17-29 touch points!
That’s why volume is so important and again why 90% of companies are not producing enough.
But it’s admittedly a bit more complicated than just social posts, you will most likely need to create a subscription to create what Adam calls the “Mere Exposure Effect”.
Here’s what that means…
#3 The Mere Exposure Effect Explained…
The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for things that are more familiar to them than others. Repeated exposure increases familiarity.
In short, it’s the familiarity effect. The more often people are exposed to your brand the more they will trust you and willing to buy from you (or recommend you to others).
Post enough to reach a minimum effective dose.
Keep increasing the volume until you see results.
Implement the rule of seven until you discover how many touch points it takes to generate a lead.
The most effective way to get to the rule of seven is by getting your customer to join your communication list (email, newsletter, podcast, youtube).
Then finally continue to nurture them to create the Mere Exposure Effect.
#4 Go Deep on a Subject, Not Broad
Rule #4 is short and sweet. There’s billions of people on the planet, you can’t and don’t want to serve them all.
In fact, the broader your content, the easier it is to fail.
Instead, focus on making better connections with fewer people. The easiest way to do that is to find people that see the world the same way as you and who have the same goals.
Find them by sharing your beliefs and values in your content. Share your story of how you overcame the gist hurtle your customer is experiencing (as it relates to your product or service).
Sharing is caring…
#5 Develop Your ICA (Ideal Customer Avatar)
Get clear on the demographics, geographics, and psychographics beliefs, values lifestyles that make them who they are. What are their fears and frustrations, goals and aspirations?
The easiest way to develop your core message is to write down the top 5 things your customer wants to achieve and the 3 things that are stopping them from achieving their goals. Choose the top obstacle to focus your story around.
That’s where you will identify your brand story. Adam refers to this as knowing your customer’s miracles and miseries…
#6 Know Your Customer’s Miracles and Miseries
Dean Graziosi always says; “customers don’t buy from you when they understand what you sell, they buy when they feel understood.”
The miracles are all the things the customer wants and desires. Their miseries are all the things stopping them from getting what they want (as it relates to your product or service).
Knowing what’s stopping your avatar from getting what they want will allow you to position your service as the bridge that can help them overcome the misery gap to achieve what they want and see you as the hero.
This is where conversions take place.
#7 Sell the Benefits – Not the Features
When it comes to marketing, it’s not about the features, it’s about how those features will get the customer what they want. The real value is in the benefit.
People don’t buy based on logic, but rather emotions. That’s why promoting features doesn’t work, it doesn’t engage people at an emotional level. But connecting the feature to the outcome will overcome that.
Follow these 7 steps to take your marketing to the next level in 2022.
Airbnb was the stupidest idea for a business. The idea was to rent an air mattress in someone else’s occupied apartment. A Literal air bed and breakfast. I mean, who would pay to sleep on the floor of the apartment of a complete stranger?
Turns out quite a few actually. While no longer air mattresses, today Airbnb has over 150 million hosts who’s properties accommodate more than a half a billion guests a year
You Won’t Believe How airbnb Got Started!
Today, Airbnb is one of the most successful short-term rental businesses in the world today. Since its formation in 2008, it has experienced massive growth, starting out with just a few friends renting extra space in their home to an international multibillion-dollar corporation.
Here is the insane inside story of how 3 guys turned that into a $31 billion company.
The story is crazier than the idea. Watch founder, Brian Chesky explain the crazy story of how 3 college kids created one of the world’s largest companies on the stupidest for a business to LinkedIn Founder, Reed Hastings, at a Y Combinator event.
Taco Bell is the largest Mexican restaurant on the planet by volume. Here’s how they did it…
Taco Bell has been dominating Mexican fast food since the 1960s. They own over 7,000 locations consistently generating over $10 billion dollars in annual sales.
Watch the full story how or read the summary below.
First and foremost, Taco Bell wouldn’t be a thing without it’s founder, who knew how to spot a potential opportunity when he saw one.
A cook who served in WW2, Bell returned home to start a restaurant in San Bernardino CA. Inspired by the McDonald’s franchise, Bell copied the model. Literally, Taco Bell used to be called Bell’s Hamburgers, they originally sold cheeseburgers and hot dogs.
Until one day Glen added tacos to the menu, altering the course of taco history…
2. Taco Bell Single Handedly Introduced the World to Tacos
The second reason for Taco Bell’s now icon status, was their role in introducing tacos the American market.
After 14 years in the restaurant business and having gone through 5 different restaurants and concepts, Glen launch Taco Bell in March 21, 1962 in Downey CA.
At the time, most Americans had no clue what a taco was. When ordering, most customers asked for a “tay-ko”, simply because they simply had never heard of a taco. Kind of like the whole gyro “guyroh” thing…
And they obviously fell in love with them. Putting Taco Bell on the map.
“I always smile when I hear people say that they never had a taco until Taco Bell came to town”. – Glen Bell
3. Pepsi Gave Them a Shit Load of Money
Another reason for their success was their partnership deal with Pepsi.
In the 1970s Pepsi was expanding and looking to invest in new markets. They bought Pizza Hut for $315 million, giving them access to sell their sodas to customers dinning in the largest Pizza Chain on the planet up until that time. Pepsi wanted to saturate the Taco consumer market too. So they gave Glen a handsome $125 million for the right to sell Pepsi products at every Taco Bell.
Pepsi’s infusion of cash enabled the franchise to massively scale. They went from just under 1,000 locations in 1978 to nearly 7,000 by 1998. Meaning, almost every Taco Bell you’ve ever visited was started between the 80’s-90s Pepsi infused growth period.
4. Absolutely Bat-Shit Crazy But Catchy Menu Items…
While declaring to serve Mexican food, no one buys into that claim when it comes to Taco Bell. That’s because they have become famous for coming up with bat-shit crazy menu items.
The fourth key to the mega taco franchise model was their dedication to marketing. Especially standing out in crowded markets through their off the wall menu item.
Items like the Cheesy Gordita Crunch, the Mtn Dew Baja Taco Blast, their most successful product launch; the Crunch Wrap Supreme, and most recently the Doritos Locos Tacos. Or finally the rather nachos fries.
5. Taco Bell Excels at Marketing to Drunk People too…
Despite how much you want to hate them, Taco Bell continues to stay relevant across generations. They have a consistent track record of being customer focused and keeping their cost low. Something they have been promoting in their ads for decades…
One of their most successful marketing campaigns was “the forth meal of the day” commercials. After noticing a high influx in sales late at night (wink wink), the Bell starting promoting a “4th meal of the day”.
WATCH:
On a more serious note though, probably the biggest reason Taco Bell has been so success over the years has been their commitment to their original mission; “thinking outside the bun”. Mission accomplished…
Host of Dropping Bombs podcast and CEO of LightSpeed VT dropped a knowledge bomb on a recent episode of Dropping Bombs podcast. Host, Brad Lea commented on the importance of developing a personal brand for C-Suite Executives.
When talking about the importance of creating a personal brand, Brad stated:
“People don’t follow brands they follow people. So your personal brand is ultimately what’s going to tee up doing business.”
In short, Brad believes everyone should develop a personal Brand for their business, no matter what business you’re in.
With over a half million social followers and hundreds of thousands of monthly podcast downloads, Brad knows a thing or two about how to leverage a personal brand.
Here are Brad Lea’s tips on getting starting creating a digital brand presence.
Brad Lea’s Step By Step Advice to Create a Personal Brand:
Let the world know who you are
Get on the big 6 social media platforms and put yourself out there; share your thoughts, opinions, values, beliefs. Don’t just repeat what everyone else is saying.
Don’t be afraid to be polarizing, not for the sake of confrontation, but for the sake of confronting the elephant in the room as it relates to your industry.
But that can often be scary, that’s where tip #2 comes into play…
Don’t be afraid of what other people think
The biggest reason Brad says executives are not active on social is they worry too much about what other people think. Especially on social media where anyone can leave a comment or offer a difference of opinion.
Remember, not everyone will agree with you but that doesn’t matter. You’re goal is to connect with those who do.
As Brad says” “if you never feel the hate, you never feel the love.”
Now for the last and final tip.
Continue to push out content over time
While the actual amount of time will depend on your individual business and circumstances, for a small to medium-sized business, a strong content marketing strategy generally takes between six and nine months to yield real results.
These are just a few of the tips Brad Lea shared in a recent podcast episode. Watch the full clip below.
WATCH:
About Brad Lea:
Brad Lea is the founder of Lightspeed VT, the most advanced training platform on the market. Soon-to-be billionaire and host of the Dropping Bombs Podcast, Brad Lea built LightSpeed VT into a multi-million dollar global tech company from scratch.
As its Founder and CEO, his vision led to LightSpeed VT becoming the world’s leading interactive training system, a system that he’s proud to share with others. In addition to being a CEO, Brad is also the author of The Real Deal.
Brad has helped generate millions for countless companies and individuals, including heavy hitters Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Grant Cardone, Tom Hopkins, World Series Poker, Top Chef, Chase Bank, and so much more. He’s also been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine, GCTV, and is a regular guest on several top-rated podcasts such as The $ales Podcast,Success is a Choice and The Inner Changemaker.
Ford Motor Co.’s luxury division on Thursday debuted the Lincoln Model L100 Concept at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California. And it’d totally badass…
Lincoln debuted the new futuristic product branding scheduled for 2040 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The new Model L100 concept pushes the boundaries of Lincoln’s “Quiet Flight” design to create connected experiences that reimagine the ultimate vehicle sanctuary of tomorrow.
WATCH the video explaining Ford’s plans to dominate the future of transportation design…
WATCH:
At the product launch, Ford’s Executive Chair, Bill Ford, said;
“Lincoln has been one of the most enduring and stylish automotive brands in the world and in many ways, it is perfectly positioned for a second century defined by great design, zero-emissions and technology-led experiences. Lincoln has always been special to me and my family, especially my father and my grandfather. If there is one secret to Lincoln’s longevity, it is the brand’s ability to balance its core values with a desire to innovate and create the future.”
“Concept vehicles allow us to reimagine and illustrate how new experiences can come to life with the help of advanced technologies and allow our designers more creative freedom than ever before,” said Anthony Lo, chief design officer, Ford Motor Company. “With the Model L100, we were able to push the boundaries in ways that evolve our Quiet Flight brand DNA and change the way we think about Lincoln designs of tomorrow.”
A Riddle
I can be your most powerful ambassador
and an efficient way to attract your ideal audience,
but I am often skeletal and without heart.
I’m a touch point for your customers,
accessible 24/7 across all time zones,
but you cannot know when I will be seen.
I’m used to vet board members, job candidates and vendors.
I am both the most used – and most ignored – part of your personal brand.
What am I?
Ponder this riddle for a bit, and we’ll come back to it…
Successful corporate brands are using Customer Experience (CX) experts to help them understand how customers are responding to each touch point along their Customer’s Journey. To explore how the discipline of Customer Experience might apply to personal brands, I asked for input from a fellow member of the National Speakers Association, Dan Gingiss, who teaches his clients and audiences how to create remarkable experiences that become their best sales and marketing strategy.
Dan shared with me that the discipline of Customer Experience explores how customers feel about every interaction with the brand. The Customer Journey, he explained, starts well before purchase and continues beyond the lifetime of the product. With each interaction or touch point with the brand, the customer’s opinion of the brand may either be reinforced or adjusted positively or negatively.
How can we apply that to our personal brand? A key concept from Customer Experience is that everything counts – every touch point with the brand shapes our opinion of the brand.
Most of us understand that how we dress for business (yes, even when we’re just seeing people on Zoom) is part of our personal brand, as is how we appear in our online meetings. Our offices and virtual backgrounds are also part of our brand because they are part of how we appear when we attend a virtual meeting. We can plan for how we show up in these business settings.
We understand that what we say and how we act at a meeting or in an office setting is part of our brand, as is anything we have published.
But we often forget that a huge part of what others consider to be an important part of our personal brand is something we seldom pay any attention to. Yes, you’ve probably guessed that the answer to my riddle is your LinkedIn profile.
In my one-on-work consultation with senior leaders, it’s not uncommon to hear comments from clients like:
“Well, if I had known that they were going to be looking at my profile, I would have polished it up.”
“Oh, I set it up X years ago and haven’t looked at it since.”
“Why is that skill in my profile? I’ve never used that skill!”
“Our company just bid on our biggest project ever and noticed that each of our leaders’ LinkedIn profiles were visited by the other company. We were all embarrassed that our profiles are out of date.”
Why are we surprised that people making judgments about us by looking at our LinkedIn profile? It is a touch point that is accessible 24/7 and ranks highly when our name is searched on Google. People assume it is up to date and a fair representation of who we are. And yet, very often, it is neither.
Here’s a challenge:
Today, read through your LinkedIn profile from top to bottom as though you are learning about a stranger, and ponder these questions:
1. What did you learn about this person?
2. How does their profile make you feel about them?
3. From your reading, can you determine their purpose, business passion and principles?
4. Does this person seem like someone with whom you’d like to do business?
If the feeling you had about this stranger was not strongly positive, it’s time for a serious overhaul of your brand online. If you are a C-suite executive or senior leader who would like to improve your online personal brand, LinkedIn profile, and presence, I can make it easy for you. Based on my knowledge of how LinkedIn works and how people respond to what they see there, I can ensure everything is ready and your profile conveys exactly the message and impression you’re aiming for. Let me help you attract the talent you want to hire, increase your visibility and influence, and steer your career. Contact me through my website: www.carolkaemmerer.com or profile: www.linkedin.com/in/carolkaemmerer.
To your success!
About Carol Kaemmerer: Named one of six top branding experts in 2022 by The American Reporter, I’ve helped countless C-level clients over the past ten years to use LinkedIn to frame conversations, impress customers, and introduce themselves before their first conversation takes place.
Contact me through my website https://carolkaemmerer.com for:
• Executive one-on-one assistance with your online brand
• Professional speaking engagements on personal brand and LinkedIn
• An autographed copy of my book, LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive-2ndEdition
• My self-paced, online course
• To receive my articles in your email mailbox monthly
My award-winning book, LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive-2nd Edition received BookAuthority’s “Best LinkedIn Books of All Time” award, was named one of the “Top 100+ Best Business Books” by The C-Suite Network, and is an International Book Awards winner. For your author-inscribed and signed book or for quantity discounts, order at: https://carolkaemmerer.com/books
Content is king, everybody knows that. But what the hell does it mean?
The phrase “content is king”, came from an essay published in 1996 on the first page of Microsoft, by the soon to be self-made billionaire, Bill Gates.
In his essay, Gates publicly predicted what was predicated for the success of any person or business that wished to grow a business online.
Spoiler alert (it’s content). Here’s why…
Content is King – Summary From the 1996 Essay
“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet – just as it was in broadcasting.
“… the broad opportunities for most companies involve supplying information or entertainment.
No company is too small to participate.
I expect societies will see intense competition- and ample failure as well as success-in all categories of popular content.
Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products – a literal marketplace of content.”
How to Compete in a Marketplace of Content?
It means that brands are turning to story telling to get the attention of their customer. It means that in order to rise above the noise we can’t be more noise.
You don’t want to promote content for the sake of creating content (God knows the world doesn’t need more content).
Don’t interrupt the content your customer is searching for. Create the content they are searching for.
List out the 5 biggest obstacles your customer faces (as they relate to your product or service). Then create content to solve that problem.
At the end of the day you just need to build a list of people that share the journey of solving that pain-point to achieve success…and up-sell to that list your solution.
It’s that simple, that hard, and that unavoidable.
“I like it, I love it, I want some more of it!” – Billy Ray Cyrus
If you’re into this topic get the full story below.
Want to learn the strategy to operate as a media company? We created a comprehensive overview, where I can teach you how to operate your business as a media brand in 32 pages.
Learn how to compete in a market place of content. Click the link below.
Whether you’re a newly formed start-up or a well-established brand or thought leader, you’ve probably thought about or dabbled in public relations.
No matter how great your marketing strategies are, there is nothing more credible than an effective PR campaign. So if you’re at the stage where you really want to build your business brand, then it’s time to start seriously considering hiring professional assistance.
The TallGrass team consults with hundreds of clients each year in various phases of their marketing and PR strategy and programs. Some are at square one; others have worked with firms in their past or current companies.
But in order to make PR work, it boils down to three things: definitive goals, managed expectations and the right experts.
Know your goals and your bandwidth
Every new client at TallGrass participates in a strategic planning session – we won’t work with a client unless we do. Your PR firm should spend the time to understand your business. From your product roll-out schedule to growth opportunities, revenue models to target markets, asking the questions and understanding your business is critical to create messaging and stories that resonate. It drives the strategy to achieve your goals.
If you’re unclear about your goals, your mission and your 118/elevator pitch, get clear – fast. Without these guideposts, your PR team can’t begin to understand the parameters of what you’re trying to accomplish (and neither can your company!). A great firm should be able to ask the right questions, form a strategy and guide you in the right direction.
Not only do you need to be clear on your goals, but also your company needs to make PR an organizational commitment. Today, PR professionals outnumber journalists three to one. Requests for contributed content – content originated from your company or a “hired gun” content writer – are more and more common. PR will take time – yours and your firm’s. Are you prepared to drop everything for an interview or draft a thousand-word article?
“Make sure you know what to do with the results,” says Deane Barker, partner at Blend Interactive. “If you get a ton of speaking opportunities, can you fulfill them? How will you vet them? If sales leads come pouring in, do you have a process to manage them? Can you do anything with them? What results from PR is a raw asset that needs to be refined to have business value. Can you do this?”
If you want to be in the NYT, sleep with Paris Hilton
I’m kidding, sort of. Managing the expectations of our clients with the appropriate media outlets and journalists is an important part of what we do. Who wouldn’t love a placement in a major publication? But being everywhere is just as important. Having an arsenal of great coverage provides credibility and establishes you as a thought leader.
“It’s always nice to get a major media hit or article placement in a major national publication like USA Today. However, the real value is all of the smaller placements in industry magazines (print and digital) that focus on a target-specific audience,” says Shep Hyken, customer service expert, author and speaker. “While getting a spot on the ‘Today Show’ was great for my ego, the interviews and article placements in the industry publications were great for my business.”
Equally challenging and important in managing expectations is how to measure your ROI. Having a baseline of coverage from which to measure is great and can be helpful to define “we want X number of placements.” But PR is just part of the overall marketing mix.
“Don’t look at the ROI, it’s hard to measure and nearly impossible to see direct revenue,” says Mitchell Levy, Thought Leader Architect of THiNKaha. “What you are looking for is increased awareness leading to more opportunities for you and your team to engage with your future advocates. Those opportunities, if handled properly, will lead to significantly increased revenue.”
You’re hiring an expert for a reason
Companies can dabble with DIY public relations. But “it’s difficult to be consistent with pitching your business while you’re trying to run your company, too,” says Susan Solovic, small business expert, entrepreneur and author.
Just as you know your business inside and out, a PR professional can find the gems of your value proposition, messaging, product, service and company to tell your story.
But you have to be working with the right people. The ability to have open dialogue and to try a variety of tactics, to be flexible and agile creates a winning strategy.
“What worked in the past may not work in the future, and you want to be working with folks that you like, trust and are willing to try a number of techniques to be able to deliver the results you’re looking for,” Levy says.
A client once said to me, “Great PR is the ability to take chicken shit and make chicken salad.” Well said! You’ve hired an expert for a reason – now let them take the lead and let them do what they do best.
Jennifer Fleming is President of TallGrass PR, a global B2B public relations firm. She’s been known to follow shiny objects. Follow her at @jkfleming.
