• 12 Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur

  By Paul | Posted Nov 26, 2008 | 5 Comment(s) | Filed in: Business

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  I started PR 20/20 in November 2005 after 21 months of intense planning. It was the most exhilarating and exhausting time of my life.

  Fueled by a powerful cocktail of youthful exuberance, adrenaline and caffeine, I spent what seemed like every waking minute outside of my day job (VP at a traditional PR agency) building a dream.
  
  At the tender age of 27, I left the comfort and security of my career to turn my own vision into reality. I had a sound business plan, an investor, a paycheck, healthcare coverage, a few potential accounts, and the support of an amazing group of family and friends.
  
  Everything seemed so perfect. Then life happened, and turned my world upside down.
  
  In a 20-month span, two of the most important people in my life tragically passed away, and I quickly realized that our personal and business lives are inextricably bound. For me, nothing has been the same since. Work, sleep, life and the future I thought I knew all changed.
  
  These personal experiences have had a direct and lasting impact on my goals for the agency, the people that I choose to surround myself with, and the decisions that I make every day on where to focus my time and energy.

  Fate, Destiny and the Business of Life

  Life is full of joy and pain, opportunities and obstacles. This is what we are given. It is our fate. Many people choose lives of fate, dwelling on what they have lost, and living within the limitations that they believe control their existence.
  
  But life also gives us choice. It gives us free will to create our destiny.
  
  Everything that we are given, and everything that we create, can be taken away in the blink of an eye. That is what unites us. Our mortality.
  
  It is the decisions we make, and the actions we take in the time we are given, that define who we are, and what we will be.
  
  I’ve learned that from pain comes perspective, and from sharing comes healing. So, with that, I offer the 12 life lessons of an entrepreneur:

  1. Fate is what we are given. Destiny is what we make. It is up to you which path you choose.
  
  
  2. Our business and personal lives are inextricably bound. Finding balance is the key.
  
  
  3. We live life in days, weeks, months and years, but we remember it in moments. Seek to create, embrace and cherish them.
  
  
  4. Everyone has a story. Take the time to listen and understand before you judge.
  
  
  5. Loyalty and trust are invaluable traits of friends, employees and co-workers.
  
  
  6. Integrity takes a lifetime to build, and a moment to lose.
  
  
  7. Following tradition and conventional wisdom is easy, and boring. Take risks, be bold and dare to fail. 
  
  
  8. We all need to be inspired. Discover the people, places, events, books and music that inspire you.
  
  
  9. Life is full of noise, interruptions and distractions. It will pass you by if you let it. Take the time to quiet your mind and find your direction and purpose.
  
  
  10. Invest your time and energy in positive people. Negativity will suck the life-force out of you.
  
  
  11. We are all mortal. Money, fame and power mean nothing in the face of death. 
  
  
  12. Nothing great has ever been achieved without passion.

  Finally, one of my favorite quotes of all time is from Steve Jobs at his 2005 Stanford Commencement address. I’ll leave you with that:

  “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

   

   

  Paul Roetzer is founder and president of PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. He blogs here, and tweets there.

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  Follow me on Twitter: @paulroetzer

   

• Readership Is Not the Problem

  By Lyndsey | Posted Nov 17, 2008 | 1 Comment(s) | Filed in: Internet Marketing, Public Relations

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  And the death march continues. Yet, again, we read about more job cuts and newspapers folding:

  • Time Inc. will cut 600 jobs
  • Christian Science Monitor quit publishing a weekday paper
  • Gannett will cut up to 3,000 people, or 10 percent of its workforce 
  • The Tribune Co. will cut the Los Angeles Times newsroom by 75 people
  • The Star-Ledger of Newark will cut its editorial staff by 40 percent

  As The New York Times points out: It’s not an audience problem, but a consumer problem.

  It’s not that people have simply stopped reading the news; most have just stopped reading the newspaper.
  
  With the advent of handheld devices, RSS feeds and news alerts, these conveniences have eliminated the need to sit and read the newspaper cover to cover. People can now get news at just about any location and not just from front stoops.
  
  But as more readers find less use for the printed newspaper, publishers have more trouble attracting advertisers — hence job cuts, slimmer papers and even newspaper deaths. And it is going to get tougher.
  
  As emerging technologies become part of everyday life (if they’re not already), newspapers must find a way to create advertising opportunities for each one of these avenues, such as pay-per-click, mobile ads, day-parting, ads targeted at specific user profiles, and more. They must get creative on how they sell ads: Bundle packages that include print, but attract advertisers with technologically advanced advertising streams.
  
  The audience is still there, and advertisers still need to reach it. Newspapers just need to find a way to connect the two.

  Related Posts:
  

  Blog Series — The Battle for Influence: Print vs. Online Media

  Part 1 — Newspapers without the Paper?

  Part 2 — Views from the Mainstream

  Part 3 — Print Media Is Losing

  Part 4 — Public Relations: The New Fundamentals

  Lyndsey Walker is a Consultant for PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. After five years in the journalism field, she is happy to have made the switch to public relations. 

• 4 (and a Half) Questions to Ask About Optimized Press Release Distribution

  By Laurel | Posted Nov 12, 2008 | 5 Comment(s) | Filed in: Internet Marketing, Public Relations

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  Traditionally, press releases have been used to reach media contacts in hopes of getting your news published.  Optimized press releases are the new guys in town.  They are keyword-rich marketing tools, distributed online and designed to simultaneously reach traditional media, social media and consumers directly, as well as generate inbound links to your Website. 

  As the industry shifts toward inbound marketing, optimized press releases are becoming more common. However, as the concept is still fairly new, there will inevitably be some companies that offer optimized release distribution, but may not generate the results you're hoping for.  Here are some questions to keep in mind when evaluating optimized press release distribution services:

   

  1.  How does the system recognize keywords?

  Including keywords in your release is the cornerstone of an effective optimized press release.  Make sure that you choose the keywords your release is tagged with, and that the system doesn’t just pull out the most frequently used words in the release for you.

  2.  How does it handle anchor text?

  Those keywords mentioned above should appear several times in the release, and at least one time, each keyword should be hyperlinked to an applicable page on your Website, creating an anchor-texted link that will give your site credibility for this keyword, and also generate qualified site traffic.  These are essential to an optimized press release (that's an anchor-texted link) — so make sure that the system is capable of including them. 

   

  3.  How many Websites will my release go out to?

  Clearly, the more, the better.  The more sites it goes out to, the more people will see it.
  
       3a.  How many of those Websites render the anchor-texted links?   
       Not all sites will recognize hyperlinks.  Make sure that a good number will, or else your
       efforts will not be rewarded.

  4.  What are the reporting capabilities for results?

  A good release distribution service will provide you with reports that show all of the sites that picked up your release, how many people accessed it (and preferably weed out the real people from the search engine spiders, or else this number will be skewed), what kind of media it was sent to (if you sent it over a wire also) and how people found your release online.
  
  Outside of talking to the release distribution itself, it’s worth a bit of extra research on your part to see what people are saying about the company in forums and social networks, to make sure that the company is reputable and handles its customers well.
  
  Internally, it’s a good idea to keep track of a few things to see how your site is performing, both before and after the release is sent.  For example:

  •   How did your site rank in search results for the keywords used in the release before you sent the release?  After?
  •   How many inbound links did your site have before the release was sent?  How many new inbound links did the release generate?

  Laurel Miltner is a Consultant at PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. Her favorite color is green. She tweets as @laurelmackenzie.

   

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