“The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” Thomas J. Watson
No one likes to fail. So when you start your own small business and it doesn’t work out, it’s a difficult pill to swallow. I know because I’ve had my share of business failures. After sacrificing so much of your time, energy, passion and resources, a failed business venture can make you feel like crawling under the covers and never coming out again.
Many of you know me as an entrepreneur — others as a journalist. In reality, I’m a hybrid. My company, SBTV.com, is an online media outlet for small business news and information. Additionally, I write for several national media outlets and I’m a small business contributor for ABC News. Therefore, I get hundreds of pitches every week. But I also pitch to the media to help build by business and personal brand. I see the process from a unique vantage point. I know what works and what doesn’t. So I decided to share a few insider tips to help you capture the media you desire.
Thanks to the Internet, we can find out with a click of a button if anyone has had a bad experience with a product, a service, a small business or a local professional. A number of websites have sprouted up to provide a forum for online reviews. Some, like Angie’s List (www.angieslist.com), charge users a small fee in order to weed out bogus reviews. Most of these sites, however, including Amazon.com and Yelp.com (www.yelp.com) are free, which encourages anonymous postings. While most of these postings are valid and genuine, there’s a temptation for people with an “axe to grind” to post false reviews knowing they cannot be tracked down.
We hear a lot about classroom bullies. But what about bullies in the workplace? It happens and it can have a serious affect on your small business. Small business expert, Susan Solovic, shares tips on how to deal with a workplace bully.
The dictionary defines a celebrity as someone with fame — renown. In the past achieving celebrity status was enjoyed only by people who soared to the top in fields such as acting, national sports, politics and journalism. People whose faces, names and voices appeared regularly in our homes on television, in newspapers and magazines and on radio.
Traditional media coverage is no longer necessarily needed to build celebrity status. With the advent of technology and social media almost anyone can become a recognized expert — mini-celebrity — in their field. Yes, that means even you can propel yourself to stardom and fame. But it takes hard work, dedication and most of all patience.