Digg it UP - Business

How to Develop Great Presentation Skills - The 5 Sins Of Making Presentations
After many years of studying how people make their presentations, I've uncovered in my mind, the top 5 sins which many people commit when making presentations. Avoid them at all costs!1. Starting like a caged mouseMany presenters begin with a polite, “How is everyone” or “Thank you for giving me this opportunity” Rather trite, don't you think? I am not saying that you should be rude. What I am saying is to get the formalities out of the way as quickly as possible and start with a bang not a whimper like a caged mouse. Give the audience a startling statistic, an "in your face" statement, an interesting quote, a news headline . . . something powerful that will grab their attention immediately!2. Failing to "feel" your audienceIf you fail to take advantage of the time before your presentation, you have lost a window of opportunity to enhance your credibility with your listeners. You should always arrive early to gree

ut in support of
an announcement, an event, a trend story or for another specific
purpose, the release that lays out the news should be the first
thing a journalist sees upon opening the folder. This "lead
release" should be positioned at the front of the right side of
the folder.

How Nonprofit Organizations Can Raise Money Online with a Squidoo Lens
Is your nonprofit organization doing fundraising online?If the answer is no, this is something that you should be looking into. There are many types of online fundraising methods, and a new and innovative way, is by creating a lens on the Squidoo.com website.Most internet marketers are aware of Squidoo.com and many are creating lenses on Squidoo as a way of building links and bringing visitors to their websites. However, one of the original purposes of Squidoo, according to founder Seth Godin, was to provide a way for charities and nonprofit organizations to spread awareness of their cause and raise money, on the internet.What exactly is a Squidoo lens?A lens is simply a webpage on Squidoo.com that is built to serve as a guide on a specific topic. The page contains relevant information about the topic and links to other places on the internet where more information can be found.

Considering how fundamental they are to the publicist’s trade,
it’s always amazed me how lousy almost all press kits truly are.
Your typical press kit is a bloated folder filled with puffery,
hype, irrelevant information and worse. The vast majority of
these monstrosities do little besides kill trees and clog
newsroom trash baskets.

The good news is that creating a press kit that actually works
really isn’t that hard. Let's look at the elements of a winning
press kit, and help you avoid some common pitfalls.

The Psychology of a Press Kit

There are two fundamental rules to creating a good press kit:

1. The press kit exists to make the journalist’s life easier, not
for you to present sales messages and hype. Good publicists are
journalist-centric -- that is, they think from the perspective of
the recipient, not the sender. They take the time to learn what
journalists need and then they give it to them in as simple,
straightforward and user-friendly a manner as possible.
Remember, publicity is not about you -- it’s about giving
journalists what they need to create a strong story.

2. Everything in the press kit goes to support your clincher.
Everything else gets yanked out. (A refresher: a "clincher" is
my term for the one or two line distillation of your publicity
message. It’s the publicist’s version of the Universal Selling
Proposition that marketers use to boil a product’s marketing
message down to its essence.) You lay out your clincher in the
pitch letter that gets clipped to the cover of the press kit, and
the press kit serves to flesh out and support your clincher.
That’s it. If your clincher is that you’ve brought a radical new
way of thinking to your market segment, then a backgrounder about
your "old fashioned commitment to excellence" not only doesn’t
support your clincher, it may actually contradict it.

The Elements of a Press Kit

The Cover: In my twenty years as a publicist, I have never
encountered a single journalist who told me the cover a press kit
had the slightest impact on their decision whether to run a
story. Yet, businesses still spend thousands on glossy, four
color folder covers. Don’t bother. A simple colored folder with
your business name imprinted upon it will work just fine.

Some businesses choose to get stickers printed up with their logo
and place them on blank folders, which is fine too, as long as
the stickers are neatly applied. Either way, don’t obsess over
it -- it’s what’s inside that counts.

Letterhead: The first page of each press kit element should be
on your letterhead. Some folks prefer to get special "News from
(name of company)" letterhead printed, although, again, I doubt
it really matters.

The Lead Release: If your press kit is going out in support of
an announcement, an event, a trend story or for another specific
purpose, the release that lays out the news should be the first
thing a journalist sees upon opening the folder. This "lead
release" should be positioned at the front of the right side of
the folder.

Coal Mines
The deepest Coal Mine in the world is over 5000 feet below the ground in the UK. Many in the United States are over 1200 feet deep, most of those are closed and now few are remaining. There is a mine in Alabama, which is the deepest vertical shaft coalmine in North America, with operations at 2,140 feet beneath the surface. It is hard for the coalmines in Washington State, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Alabama to compete with the incredible economies of scale of the Gillette WY above ground mine. Below ground coalmines can be quite dangerous. There are gases underground and coal dust and if a fire breaks out it steals all the oxygen. Learn more about the serious nature of these mine safety you may wish to visit this site: http://www.usmra.com.Recently the rescue of the coalminers in PA caught the attention of the whole world as rescue workers and heads-up rescuees, worked non-stop to

r you to present sales messages and hype. Good publicists are
journalist-centric -- that is, they think from the perspective of
the recipient, not the sender. They take the time to learn what
journalists need and then they give it to them in as simple,
straightforward and user-friendly a manner as possible.
Remember, publicity is not about you -- it’s about giving
journalists what they need to create a strong story.

The Elements of a Press Kit

Mortgage Marketing Made Easy
Mortgage marketing is just like any other type of marketing. And it requires that you follow some very basic rules of marketing. If you follow these rules your marketing will pay off big time and you will see a very handsome return on your investment.First you need to find a niche market. And in the mortgage world there are hundreds if not thousands of niches that you can target. There are hundreds of loan programs that cater to specific needs of the consumer. Each one of these programs can be a niche for you. You could also go after certain markets such as purchase, debt consolidation, construction, foreclosure bail outs, Chapter 13 bankruptcy buy outs and on and on. You could also target specific occupations. All that matter is that you choose a niche market.Second you need to craft a perfect mortgage marketing message to the niche that you have chosen. That message needs to correlate with what is going through that markets

keters use to boil a product’s marketing
message down to its essence.) You lay out your clincher in the
pitch letter that gets clipped to the cover of the press kit, and
the press kit serves to flesh out and support your clincher.
That’s it. If your clincher is that you’ve brought a radical new
way of thinking to your market segment, then a backgrounder about
your "old fashioned commitment to excellence" not only doesn’t
support your clincher, it may actually contradict it.

The Elements of a Press Kit

By the Time the Financial Numbers Show Red, the Company is Already Bleeding
There are many important imperatives and factors which are not quantified or measurable by the traditional accounting system.Human capital is perhaps the single most critical success factor for companies. But its importance cannot be captured or measured by the financial numbers. One can anticipate the failure of companies by observing the high defections within their middle and senior management ranks. The exodus of these key managers is the precursor to a much more severe problem, which can impact the continuity of execution and administration of the company.Another intangible factor of the financial health is the morale of the staff. Although good morale of the staff does not always equate to good productivity, poor morale certainly spells trouble for the company. A reduction in the staff morale will result in reduction of the flow of constructive ideas and effective operation of the company. In turn, poo

run a
story. Yet, businesses still spend thousands on glossy, four
color folder covers. Don’t bother. A simple colored folder with
your business name imprinted upon it will work just fine.

Finding a Job Under Tough Circumstances
Anyone can find a job. That’s right, I said “anyone”. And I meant it. But the caveat is: I didn’t say what kind of job. You can go out and start flipping burgers, and whine about the tough breaks life handed you when your company down-sized, or you can reach higher, and go for that job you really want, and know you have the experience and enthusiasm for.Reaching higher means being on your toes, in every sense of the words. You’ll have to stretch yourself too- make that extra effort to overcome the obstacles in your way. Nobody said getting the right job would be easy. But it’s there, waiting, if you’re willing to reach.To show you what we mean, I’m going to give you an example of one executive’s ego-crushing layoff. Down but not out, this man took personal circumstances that could have held him back, and built on them so that he stood on a solid foundation and put that perfect job within his reach.Sean Davidson* was a

Backgrounder: This is the element of your kit that provides,
well, the background information to support your pitch. It’s
written in the fashion of a standard news feature (i.e. in third
person, objective tone). This is typically the longest element
in a press kit, often going 2 or 3 pages. As you’re crafting
this, keep something important in mind: if a journalist is
reading your backgrounder, chances are he’s already interested in
your pitch. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t bother with it. You’ve
hooked him and the backgrounder can reel him in. To do so, you
must answer the two questions he has: "Is the claim made in the
pitch legitimate?" and "Is there enough material here for me to
do a story?"

Your pitch letter (based on your clincher) made a claim of some
sort about you, your company or your product. You’re the
fastest, the most advanced, the hottest-selling, the most civic-
minded, etc. Now you have to back up your claim. Your
backgrounder is where this happens. Provide proof, by giving
concrete examples, third party observations, study results, etc.
to support your pitch. If you’re claiming that there’s a trend
taking place, here’s where you provide the statistics to back it
up. If you’ve claimed that you’ve won more awards that anyone
else in town, here’s where you describe them. Don’t stray from
your purpose -- to reel in the journalist by convincing him that
your claim is legit.

The backgrounder also must demonstrate that enough material
exists to support the claim - and that it will be easy for the
journalist to access this information. Journalists don’t have
time to do extended investigation on every piece. Provides leads
to websites, trade journals, experts and other resources to back
up your claim and help the journalist complete the story, you’ll
have a big edge.

To write a backgrounder, do some role playing. You’re a
reporter. Your editor has handed you a pitch letter and said
"write this up". In this case, of course, the pitch letter is
your own. While you’re writing it, try to forget that the piece
is, essentially, about you. Pretend you’re an objective
reporter. Track down resources, dig up stats, interview
experts. Try to see if you can create a credible piece that
proves the pitch’s claim to be valid and interesting to the
reader. If you can, you’ve got a great backgrounder. If you
can’t, it may be time to come up with a new pitch!

Bio: Only include bios of people who are relevant to the pitch.
A bio of your sales manager in a press kit designed to support a
claim of technological superiority is pointless. A bio of your
head of R&D is valid. Keep bios short (three paragraphs at the
most) and include only information relevant to the pitch. The
fact your head of R&D spent twenty years at NASA is relevant,
that she loves golf and has two cats isn’t. The point of a bio:
to show the legitimacy of those quoted in your release or being
offered for interview, and to help the reporter craft a short
description of the person when writing the piece.

Fact Sheet: The fact sheet should distill the entire press kit
into an "at a glance" document. Keep it short, use bullet points
and

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This article shares several key questions you should ask yourself before investing time and money into starting a cleaning business with your spouse.

How do I write a strong press release? What are the standards, if they exist? How do I put it to use most effectively? Should a professional be hired? Discover what it takes to make your press releases really work for you.

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