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Expert Failure

Do You Suffer from Expert Failure?

by Cidnee Stephen on March 21, 2011

Expert FailureI’ve had an interesting couple of weeks thanks to two very interesting events I was able to attend. Firstly I had the absolute pleasure to hear Malcolm Gladwell speak last week. He was talking about a concept he calls “Expert Failure.” He was suggesting that once you feel you have mastered your area of expertise, you stop seeing the warning signs of what might be breaking down or what might possibly go wrong.

Secondly I had the honor of being a judge for the ACE Regional Exposition. Here, I had the opportunity to hear the success stories of some of Canada’s top student entrepreneurs. One in particular caught my attention. He was a polite young Mexican who is currently studying for his Business degree. While he is completing his degree here in Canada he also owns and operates the second largest online bookstore in Mexico with annual sales exceeding $1 million dollars. As he shared his story, I was astounded how much he knew about the day to day operations of this business that runs in a completely different company, and I realized this is someone so far from expert failure that we could all learn a lesson or two from this astounding young, hardworking man and the principles of Malcolm Gladwell.

#1 – LISTEN
Gladwell shared a story about General Hooker and the Battle of Chancellorsville in the American Civil War who had his scouts trying to tell him the enemy was getting set to invade. He didn’t listen to them and as a result his army was caught by surprise and he lost of battle that he should never have lost. Our young little student learned early in his career that his customer can tell him better than anyone what information they require and what trust factors need to be in place before they will buy from him. In Mexico, adults are very uncomfortable purchasing online. It took him years to build enough trust with them, as well as to train them to place their orders online instead of over the phone. He continues to maintain this high level of customer intimacy.

Lesson Learned – When is the last time you surveyed your clients or received feedback? With the onslaught of Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc, it’s never been easier to have a real conversation with your target audience. Survey them, poll them, interview them – find out what you can do better and what they need from you to feel comfortable doing business with you.

#2 – REVIEW, REVISE, RE-IMPLEMENT
As this young Mexican presented his story, he more than any of his young competitors shared an incredible amount of measurable results. He learned that his first website wasn’t effective in attracting clients, so he changed it. It was better, but his analytics told him it could be better yet. So more changes. He is constantly looking at patterns, and preferences, revising his approach and quickly implementing changes. He does the same with his costs – looking at the amount he is buying from his suppliers, negotiating better rates, so that he can maintain his competitive pricing for his customers.

Lesson Learned – How often do you measure the effectiveness of your marketing? Do you look at your costs and ways to minimize these? Do you review the results, split test ads, revise your approach and quickly implement the changes? Do you look at the stats of your website every week and consider ways to add to your content, change your content to make it better?
Sometimes we get so busy that we assume that the future will only be better, and then find ourselves in yet another valley; scratching our heads, wondering how that happened AGAIN! LISTEN, LEARN, MEASURE, IMPROVE. Don’t become a victim of expert failure.

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Writing an Effective Press Release

by Guest Author on February 25, 2009

We’re happy to welcome Mark Macias, author of  “Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media” as a guest poster today.  Mark Macias is a television journalist living and working in New York City.

You will never be the first person to call a reporter or producer with a story idea. Every day, viewers and readers bombard the media with poorly written emails and long drawn-out voicemails requesting coverage for events that are usually not news worthy. Sadly, this dilutes the credibility for everyone else trying to pitch a legitimate news idea. People frequently complain the media is unresponsive to their calls and emails, but there’s a reason for this discourse.

It’s not that reporters and producers don’t want to listen to the public; it’s impossible to field calls from every person, especially when one rambling caller can quickly eat up 20-minutes of time. Making matters worse, it’s easier for a reporter to hit delete on your email or voicemail than to review your entire message. Unfortunately, you can never shape or influence the media’s coverage without getting over this initial hurdle of making contact.

Every journalist is constantly measuring the value of a story during that first interaction with you or your business. Most experienced journalists believe they can tell within seconds of listening to a pitch whether it is a story or not, and they are usually right. Their attention span is limited over the phone, which is why you must be concise, comprehensive and coherent with every pitch. The quickest way to lose credibility with a reporter or producer is to ramble on for several minutes before explaining what your story is about.

There are no written rules for that first encounter with a reporter or producer, but just like life, there are unwritten rules to making sense of random chaos. There are ways to navigate this media maze so your emails and phone calls don’t get lost in the shuffle. There are also better hours and days to pitch reporters when their time is less pressing and their attention is more focused. But before you even make that initial contact, you must first learn how to effectively identify, pitch and communicate a news worthy idea.

Newspaper and television reporters should not be approached the same way when it comes to writing email press releases. The two mediums face different time constraints with their stories, and that will dictate how long or short you should make your pitch.

Let’s begin with television where white is always good. The more white space on the email news release the better. No one wants to open an email and see eight, long, single-spaced paragraphs. Your initial pitch should never have more than four paragraphs. This is a stereotype but television moves so quickly that no desk assistant, reporter, producer or news manager will take the time to read a release that resembles a novel. They might make it to the second or third paragraph, but they are not going to read three pages of single-spaced sentences.

Here is a formula that seems to work with my peers and me. Try to think of a catchy headline to put at the top of the release, then follow-up your pitch with one paragraph explaining the story. The second paragraph should tell the reporter why viewers would be interested in your idea. This might seem like a challenging task for the rookie publicist, but by applying the five W’s you will be able to narrow down the focus of the story. The third paragraph should be devoted to explaining what you bring to the table or why you are the person to tell this story. If you have more statistics, articles or research for the reporter, tell him in the email you can provide it upon request.

Why not give the reporter all of the research at once or send it as an attachment? It can be intimidating for any reporter to open an email and see several attachments because he won’t know which one to open. When time is of the essence, no one wants to waste time opening useless attachments. However, if a reporter asks for a specific request, you will know which attachment to send.

Many publicists make the mistake of trying to cram everything into one press release. The purpose of a release is to get the reporter or producer interested in the story. You are only trying to make them aware of the idea, and pique their interest. Don’t worry if the release doesn’t answer all of the questions. If it is a good story, the reporter will give you a chance to answer those questions later.

Your approach should change when pitching newspapers but you should still start with the same principles cited for pitching television: begin with a catchy headline, apply the five W’s to narrow the focus of the story, and explain why you are the person to tell the story. Your email release should be more in-depth, depending on the topic and news outlet you are pitching, but it should not exceed one page. You can add credibility to your idea by attaching recent journals or studies that support your idea, along with a paragraph that explains what knowledge the attachments will provide.

If you aren’t getting responses from your pitches, you might want to reconsider your entire approach. Perhaps your story idea isn’t focused or you are pitching to the wrong reporters. Maybe you haven’t properly identified why your story is newsworthy. Take the time to re-evaluate your press release to see if you are communicating the essence of your story. Remember, public relations is not advertising, but there is a home for every story. It’s just a matter of finding the proper niche and tailoring the pitch directly for that niche.

You can learn more about Mark and get more great advice by going to: www.BeatthePressBook.com

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