Last week my personal trainer mailed an e-blast detailing end of the year savings. Designed with a clever template from one of the popular mass email services, the e-blast performed the task of delivering the information. However, the graphics were off and the wording did little to capture.
My reply to the email: “This is good. But let us help you navigate the graphics and messaging. Think of it this way. I did a ‘good’ job exercising on my own. I’m generally healthy. I’ve completed two marathons and several half marathons. But with you, the expert, I go from good to great.” He understood and is now one of our newest clients.
As a small business owner, you must have a do it yourself mentality. Small business owners dig in every day and perform double time when staff is not available or non-existent. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to DIY when it comes to doing what we know how to do. If you are an accounting firm, do your own books. If you are a landscape artist, do your own lawn. It is reasonable that a public relations firm would manage its PR. BUT a PR pro should not do its taxes.
Today every college graduate with a MacBook Pro fancies himself a public relations and or media expert. Macs are great, but only in that they make amateurs look like professional amateurs. Quite simply the proof is in the proliferation of small business marketing that is unprofessional at best and customer repelling at worst.
Most small business owners skip hiring someone to help with public relations and marketing not because they don’t think they need it, but because they do not think they can afford it. They make this assumption without actually shopping around. But if the goal is to grow the business, amateur PR is not the best route.
My first bit of advice as you launch new services and products in 2013 is for you look for professionals to help with your public relations and marketing. And if you don't realize that PR and marketing are two very different things that's more proof that you should hire a pro.
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