First Word

Okay, I'm going to be all "Oprah-like" (without the free giveaways LOL) and share my favorite things so maybe they will become your favorite things. Here we go. Pandora Radio -- I adore Pandora. I pay the extra $30 a year for unlimited listening. I have my channels, and I listen to it almost all day long on my computer while I work. You customize specific channels by artist, and then the "music genome" project sorts by style and creates a channel loaded with similar music. It also connects to artist information and background and tells you albums, lyrics and titles so you can link over to Amazon to buy your favorites. You don't have to pay anything if you don't want to. It's FREE, but if you listen for FREE you are limited in time you are allowed to listen each month. My True Blood DVD Collection, Season 1, 2 and 3 -- I am sure you wouldn't be surprised I own all of the box sets of my favorite show. I listen to show commentaries and enjoy t...

A full-blown public relations campaign can be costly. The average cost of a retainer from an agency averages about $3,000 a month. For a mid-size to large company, that amount is not a big deal ... it's lunch money. For small businesses or individual authors, that amount is a very big deal. If you don't have a lot of money to spend on a public relations campaign, you can do the following: Help a Reporter Out aka HARO -- Three times a day HARO releases queries from top media outlet reporters who are in search of sources for their material. You can submit queries too if you need content or you can answer queries. HARO is free. It costs you time and ability to answer the queries in the correct manner (now that part is a skill). So, here is a tip: always answer the query exactly and don't stray from the question. Hire a Smaller Boutique or Contractor -- Individual public relations practitioners working on their own often cost much less than a full-size agency. Don't ...

A fine line exists between humor that is funny or humor that is just angry. If you use sarcasm in your writing, best to be careful that it doesn't tip over into sounding just pissed off or mean-spirited. I love to use humor in my newsletter First Word (sign up on the 3L homepage ). I sprinkle the funnies in my blog too, but I try to balance what's funny between solid information. If I do nothing but post humorous reflections -- and I'm a serious business woman -- you might not think there is any substance here. So a nice surprise and a funny once in awhile work too; but recently I started doing some research on some humorists to pitch the book Confessions of a Las Vegas Motorcop and noticed that some bloggers out there try to be funny or sarcastic. Problem is some of the posts are just mean or angry. You don't need to be mean to people and call them out in a way to embarrass them to be funny. And if you think name-calling makes you sound funny and you're expressing...

I always assume (assumptions aren't good) that other business owners know the marketing fundamentals as well as I do. So when I open my magic box of various business wands and someone "oohs" and "ahhs" over the sparkly one and asks me, "Oh, what is that?" I'm a little thrown. I think all good marketing Tinkerbells should know their "wands." Now I'm being loose lipped, and I hope somewhat entertaining, but it's true. And what I'm really saying in plain speak is that I expect business owners to know at least some of the basics, and when they "ooh" over these tools I'm using, it surprises me. I don't know why it surprises me, because it shouldn't. I wrote the book Smash (available on Amazon or 3L's site under books) to help small business owners with marketing and PR fundamentals, but seriously, it really does surprise me. First, here are some "down-home cooking" principles of marketing you s...

Did you know some marketing tools exist that cost either very little or nothing at all. Most small business owners in particular will whine they don't have a marketing budget (which I think is fool hearty no matter how much whining about lack of funds you insert into that conversation). What some of these folks don't know or don't take advantage of are the services that either don't cost much money or cost nothing at all. If you own a small business, at a minimum there is absolutely no reason you should use what is sometimes free to market or promote your business. Here are some of those inexpensive tools you should be using. Now your time is not free, but that is a whole other discussion. Blogger.com -- this blog is customized to blogger. It doesn't cost me a dime to have a blogspot . Other blog services such as Typepad cost a little extra and do have more bells and whistles such as built-in analytics; however, if you tie your blogspot site to google/analytics, ...