My recent trip to Paris was a feast for all the senses and after indulging myself at restaurants, markets, patisseries and chocolate shops, I went on a day long training session learning how to make sauces at Le Cordon Bleu. When we lived in Paris these Saturday courses were a favourite treat but somehow the sauces course never fitted into my calendar. I admire Michael Booth who upped sticks and did the full three stage course as hilariously written about in his book Sacre Cordon Bleu but for now am happy to just spend a day soaking in knowledge about classical French cookery and learning new skills.
Fish stock in three guises
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I love writing so discovering, creating and sharing my clients’ stories is one of my favourite things to do. While writing is not as scary as speaking in public can be, putting words down on paper can be a challenge. My tip to help you create compelling content is to write down who you are writing for, what you want them to do/think differently when they’ve finished reading and what three messages you’d like them to know. Once you’ve done this, apply the six simple analysis techniques above and you’ll be on the way to writing compelling content. Read more
Promoting your products needs a parcel of tools in order to be successful and one of the two most powerful tools when it comes to getting your product noticed by journalists is great photography. The other is telling a compelling story and that’ll be the subject of my next post.
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So, how was January for you? Were your new year’s resolutions motivating enough for you to change anything about your business or have they fallen off your radar?
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When I meet a new client, the first thing I do is to make sure that I understand what their business is all about so that I can give them the best advice to promote themselves successfully. I’ve been likened to a hotel inspector as the simple questions I ask often highlight areas which the business owner knows aren’t up to scratch and which are often preventing the business from evolving.
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Occasionally it’s the media which makes a mistake rather than the organisation handling the PR campaign. So what do you do in this instance?
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Sometimes though, people in business make communication mistakes which mean that they, their business’s reputation and their teams are less than happy.
Take for example the classic example of Shell and Greenpeace over the disposal of Brent Spar. The science was on Shell’s side but the company’s handling of this crisis and its communication plan dented its global reputation as well as Greenpeace lost credibility.
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Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and wealthy 2013.
Being happy in your work is one of the best feelings in my view and when you’re working on something which ticks all your boxes, it feels great and is usually a success.
Here are some of the PR triumphs of 2012 which made not only those working on the individual projects happy but which brought a smile to lots of people’s faces.
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