___

___

___

Every business owner today is looking, more than ever, for ways to gain a competitive edge and stand out. Yet we’re reluctant to spend money. So if you can find a way to get publicity for your company, it’s like free advertising.

___

___

Today, we specifically talked about getting on the radio as an expert. Barbara, you have some great strategies to become a regularly featured expert on a few high profile radio shows.

___

___

It’s like anything else when you’re doing communications – you have to have a topic and someone to listen to it. What I’d like to cover is how to get a topic that will get a radio station interested. What is hot? Because when you’re contacting them, you need something that will grab them and their listeners. One way to do that is to diagnose the pain. What are people really having trouble with and how can you help them? I’ve found that there are three easy ways to find out what the hot topics are. Think of yourself as a newsmaker, a trend setter, and a talk tracker.

___

___

I really like that – newsmaker, trend setter, and talk tracker – the three easy ways to get up to speed on your topic.

___

___

Yes, and once you put yourself in the place of someone else, and give yourself some authority in your own mind, it’s easier to assume that position in front of people on the radio or even in your conversations with your clients on a day-to-day basis. Let’s talk about what it means to be a newsmaker. For me, the easiest way to be a newsmaker is to follow who’s making the news. One way to do that is with Google Alerts. Google has this service where you can sign up to track what’s going on with a specific keyword. So for any topic you want, you ask Google to track it for you. Then Google e-mails you a digest of sites and blogs where conversations are going on around your topic. It might be a survey, the results of a test, press releases and blog entries. There will be a summary, too. So you can look at those and collect each one of them so you have an idea of what’s going on right now.

___

___

This is how you begin to be the expert who knows what’s going on. You can use Google to get all of these notes and have your finger on the pulse of whatever your specialty is.

___

___

Exactly. That makes you really attractive to a radio show host or even media in general over time.

___

___

So, Barbara, now that you’re a newsmaker, how do you find receptive radio stations?

___

___

There is a site, Radio-Locator. If you go there, you can type in your zip code or your city and it will give you all the radio stations within the radius that you select. So that would be a good place to start.

___

Visit Barbara’s web site, Wired PR Works where she has 500 articles on marketing and public relations. The articles are free and she’ll tell you more about getting free advertising!

In the Expert Session, Barbara shared so much more. She gives a tutorial on setting up Google Alerts, tips on alerts you might want to set up and an example of how to do it. Even better, she doesn’t use “techie talk!”

She also talks about:

• how to be a trend setter

• how to tap into the virtual water cooler to listen in on conversations about your industry

• what you need to promote yourself to radio stations

• the most important words to tell a radio host that guarantees you'll get more calls

• what you should have in your promotional package

• and much, much more in four tracks of about ten minutes each

The Expert Session is available as a digital download for purchase. Click here for The Bigg Success Show Expert Session with Barbara.

Thank you so much for reading our post today. We’ve all heard of “child’s play.” Check in next time when we discuss child’s work. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00269-112008.mp3

Related posts

Increase Your Sales without Spending a Dime on Advertising

How Opportunity Often Presents Itself

You can be good, fast, or cheap. Pick any two.

So you can be good and fast. You can be good and cheap. Or you can be fast and cheap.

So why can’t you be all three?

Because you can’t deliver all three. More specifically, you can’t defend all three. It costs money to be good; it costs money to be fast.

If you’re trying to compete on all three, a competitor can come along who only competes on two. Let’s say they’re good and cheap. Their cheap is cheaper than your cheap because they’re not trying to be fast. So now you’re only competitive on two of the factors – good and fast.

“Good, fast, and cheap” is really just a way of discussing the three components of value:

• Quality
• Service
• Price

6 strategies to beat your competition

Defensive strategies 

#1 – Improve quality, keep price constant
If quality increases but price doesn’t, you increase the value your customers receive. You focus on trying to make your “good” better so you gain business.

#2 – Improve service, hold price constant
If you improve your level of service, while keeping your price the same, your customers will perceive it as a better deal. You focus on making “fast” even faster. This actually applies to anything having to do with customer service, not just speed. 

#3 – Decrease price, keep quality constant
If you can decrease your price without sacrificing quality, you’ll increase the value to your customers. We all love a good deal, right?

#4 – Decrease price, maintain service levels
If price falls without sacrificing service, your customers will realize they’re getting a better deal. More people will buy more!

So here’s the caveat to these four strategies – you have to make a profit to stay in business. These defensive strategies give you a competitive edge, but they all cut into your profit margin.

So what you’re trying to do with these strategies is increase profit by increasing sales enough to compensate for the lower margin. It’s risky! Because if you don’t get it right, you’ll work harder (because you’re selling more) for less money (profit).

Compounding strategies

#5 – Improve quality, increase price
If you can improve your quality, but increase your price, you’ll hold value constant. Your customers are still happy, because they’re getting the same value as before. They’re paying more now, but they’re getting a better product.

#6 – Improve service, increase price
This is the same as #5, only here you’re delivering a higher level of service.

These final two are designed to increase your sales and at least maintain your profit margin. Therefore, your profit should go up. Of course, we’re assuming that you’re able to maintain your customer base, even at the higher price. 

As you consider these strategies, think across your whole business. You may find it valuable to use different strategies for different products or services.

Our bigg quote today is by Michael LeBouf:

Create value for your business by delivering what your customers value.

Next time, we’ll answer a question from a member of our community about getting started on a project. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Related posts 

Don’t Make This Costly Mistake

Do Your Customers Trust You?

Growth: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Keep Your Employees Happy And Watch Your Profits Grow! 

(Image by egahen79)