PLEASE SAY HELLO TO THE NEW TRG AFFILIATES!
We are all pleased to call them part of our group.
Carol Beckham
Georgia
Planning, governance and alliance management for telecoms, software development and IT interests both regional and national; issue resolution and guidance for telecom and IT leaders.
Guy Blumberg
New York
Assessment, restructure and advanced planning for sales, marketing and fund raising efforts for both for-profit and not-for- profit organizations.
Bob Chirles
Virginia
Leadership development and strategic planning for teams that support complex government entities; advising leaders of multiple interests on how to work together toward common goals; assisting elected officials in assessing and resolving difficult community issues.
Daniel Clemens
Maryland
Support to individuals and organizations seeking to place media/press messages; enhancing the ongoing message development and press-relations of business and association leaders; Provide executive training related to press and media relations.
Richard Storey
Virginia
Short term “turn-around” for professional societies and trade associations with difficulties, as well as the provision of advice regarding, and adjustments to, the governance and marketing of societies and associations both regionally and nationally.
Eric Zimmerman
Virginia
Focus on contract & real estate law as an attorney, now broadened to provide business advice related to Long and Short Term Planning and Group decision-making, leading to enhanced governance, positioning and allied plans.
Studio Cypher
Indiana
Three working Partners: Will Emigh, Nathan Mishler, Ian Pottmeyer
Facilitating revenue stream discovery, including enhanced Internet use and software customization with a special / unique focus on fully engaging “gamifyed” user experiences.
Check out all their complete bios on our newly updated website!
New on our Website:
New TRG
Leadership Tools
Our newest Leadership Tool, the final part of a four part series pertaining to planning, is now up and can be easily accessed through our website under New From Regis: Leadership Tools.
Please email any subject ideas that you'd like to see at infotrg@regisgroup.com or call us at 800.977.3447.
Look forward to hearing from you!
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The Regis Group, Inc.
102 North King Street | Leesburg, VA 20176 |703 777-2233|
April 2011
Planning Notes
“How to Write a Press Release that Might Actually be Printed”
By Daniel Clemens, TRG Affiliate
Your organization has come up with a product, program or event that you’re sure is worthy of the public’s attention.
To spread the news, you craft a press release for distribution to all the relevant media outlets. It’s a mini-ordeal to create a solid press release, especially while trying to do your real job, but you envision the exposure it will bring your organization, so you roll up your sleeves and just do it.
The release contains all of the key details, along with some punchy prose -- after all, you want it to seem “writerly” -- and the requisite buzzwords your marketing folks insist on. You show it to the boss, who wants more boilerplate and a few extra names added, and you let it fly.
And then ... nothing.
Nothing printed or broadcast or posted by any news organization. Not even a phone call or e-mail acknowledging receipt.
What happened? Was something missing, or was your message off the mark? Are you wondering how the people on the other side of the wall -- i.e. the newsroom - reacted when they read your submission? Or even IF they read it?
As a reporter and editor at The Baltimore Sun for more than two decades, I wrote very few press releases. But I read thousands, and rewrote the vast majority of them. I also interacted with countless press release writers, all of whom were eager to learn the secret to writing releases that actually might get printed or that might lead to coverage.
Here is what I told them:
1. Make sure your release includes the 5 W’s and 1 H: Who, What, Why, When, Where and How. The “Why” is critical and often absent.
2. Make sure the 5 W’s and 1 H are all correct. It is surprising how often key details are inaccurate.
3. Write clearly, and directly in everyday English. Avoid the jargon or “official language” of your organization or industry.
4. Include reliable contact information. including a direct phone number. Make sure somebody who possesses the answers, or knows where to get them, is readily available.
5. Be ready for requests for additional information.
6. Write a headline that is direct, with no hyperbole. The quicker it’s clear just what your item is, the quicker the journalist’s thought process goes to, “Hmmm, I wonder whether I should print this ...”
7. Send the release with plenty of lead time.
8. Follow up with a phone call.
9. Don’t bury the lead. Make sure the first words the reader sees get to the point and are enticing.
Years ago, there once was an editor who adopted an unusual approach to reviewing the mount of press releases that arrived each day. He sat at his desk with the releases in a pile and a wastebasket between his legs. He dropped the releases one at a time into the wastebasket and read them on the way down. If something caught his eye before the release landed, he retrieved it and put it in the “save” pile.
Don’t let your releases be doomed to the bottom of the wastebasket. This a skill like ALL the many skills you have learned to make your career a success. The idea is to not allow this to be either a mystery or a drama, but rather the next part of your day-to-day business life.
Daniel Clemens worked for The Baltimore Sun for more than 20 years. Since 2009, he has served several organizations as a media, communications and content consultant. He has enjoyed penning press releases that resulted in coverage by local, regional and national news organizations.
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Focus on the Future
Guest Predictions:
Mayor Carolyn A. Kirk
Guest Predictions is a regular feature in which we ask leaders in a number of professions questions that affect us all.
Carolyn Kirk
Carolyn A. Kirk, the first woman popularly elected as Mayor of the City of Gloucester, MA, is currently serving her second two-year term. Prior to being elected Mayor, Mayor Kirk served two terms on the Gloucester School Committee. Mayor Kirk came into office during turbulent times in the city. Her experience as a management consultant enabled her to implement the need for reforms, and regain fiscal control. She is now focused on addressing the City’s aging infrastructure. Gloucester 2020 is the economic development plan for attracting jobs and investment to the City with emphasis on the fishing industry, the maritime and visitor-based economy.Mayor Kirk spent 20 years as a management con- sultant, specializing in customer relationship management, and financial services. She was employed by Fleet Financial Group and IBM Global Services as an Executive Consultant in the 90’s. before starting a consulting practice which allowed her to spend more time with her family, and launch her political career. She and her husband Bill have two children, Sam, 13 and Baylee, 10. A graduate of the Boston College, Mayor Kirk was born and raised in Clinton, NY and moved to Massachusetts to attend college.
Q: What changes in your professional environment in the past 3-5 years have you found to be the most beneficial?
A:
In many ways, municipal government is the slowest to adapt to change. We are just now migrating to online payments, but there are still hundreds of taxpayers who like to visit the collection window at City Hall and hand their check to a real person. Technology continues to bring about the most beneficial changes.
Q: What changes have been the most troubling to you?
A:
As unemployment has risen, and the recession has taken hold, there is much resentment towards workers in the public sector. In Massachusetts, we are subject to collective bargaining with unions, and at the municipal level, we just do not have unilateral authority to make wholesale change. The battle over public sector unions being waged recently in Wisconsin and other states has been long-simmering.
Q: How will globalization affect your professional area in the near term?
A:
The greatest impact will be on commercial development in the city either through foreign credit for projects or real estate acquisition.
Q: What significant challenges might be anticipated in your professional area in the next few years?
A:
Balancing municipal budgets is difficult. Expenses are rising faster than revenues resulting in cuts in services to education, public safety, and public works. We need to constantly redefine the role of local government, and focus on core services. Local government needs to be more nimble but we are constrained in many ways making progress slow.
Q: What are the greatest challenges confronting young professionals in Western culture today?
A:
Young professionals need to remain connected to the face-to-face world. Old fashioned networking remains the best way to advance a career. In the world of social media, you don’t want to be just another Facebook friend or Tweet.
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Marc Chinoy
President's Letter
"Opening the Door... WIDE"
With a big, HELLO, this month’s newsletter formally welcomes our new Affiliates to The Regis Group!
Each is more than accomplished in their areas of expertise, and together they significantly expand the range of the offering of our TRG team to our friends and clients.
In this happy moment, there is a bonus for all of us, in that we share a similar perspective on the need to focus on the person behind the role in business, making certain that working outcomes actually work on many levels.
So... with a tip of the hat and a large smile, please meet the team. At this moment even better introductions are posted on website under WHO WE ARE > Team. You’ll hear much more from each of them here, on The Agenda and face to face with you, as that becomes possible.
Best wishes.
Marc
BizSpeak!
Puzzle Spider
As promised (threatened,
offered, asserted), this
and all future BizSpeaks!
found in The Agenda
will be floated (invented,
imagined, devised)
by YOU, the readers.
BizSpeak! Winner of the Month: Nathan Mishler Partner, Studio Cypher:
“PUZZLE SPIDER”
Definition:
Having an endless hunger for information/methods faster than anyone can possibly supply or comprehend them in real time.
Related Terms:
Whirling Dervish;
Data Devil;
Baggage Carrier
How it Sounds:
“Milty just could not let ANY of our work SLIDE OFF INTO COMPLETION, he was constantly SPINNING a PUZZLE SPIDER’s web of weird connotations and abstract concerns.”
Close follow-up from Dan Clemens: "Goat Choaker" - By anyone’s measure this message was too long and overly complex, “I stopped reading here!”
Old, but, Oh, So Painfully Familiar came from Guy Blumberg: "Need it Yesterday” - Who gives a rat’s patoot, if by all the laws of physics this is totally impossible! We just NEED IT!
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