Improve Your Media Promotion Skills
       Leverage Olympic Momentum






The more you know about dealing with media the better you will be able to raise your company's visibility during the ramp up to the Olympics.

Many business owners aren't aware that there is an easy and affordable way to harness the Olympic excitement already being directed at our region.





Considering that it costs more to operate a business in an Olympic region, it's important to capitalize fully on any excitement and interest you can direct back towards your company.

Many business owners don't realize that newspaper, television and radio can provide free promotional value for their companies. All styles of media are constantly looking for experts to document and give credibility to Olympic stories that are already being published and broadcast around the world.

The challenge lies in being able to approach media in a way that ensures they will report positively about you and your company. To do so you first have to convince them to regard you as an expert and a reliable source.

Unfortunately, many business owners are concerned that dealing with media is too risky, so they mistakenly avoid media at all costs -- what a mistake.

They erroneously consider media to be untrustworthy. Well, get past this impediment because for the most part it's a myth. Media can be trusted, but if you deceive or try to manipulate them they'll either ignore you, or worse, eat you alive.

Granted, there are situations where media has an agenda that is opposite of yours, and as a consequence it doesn't matter who is right or wrong or what you do -- they will mold the story to fit their agenda. The key for you is to make sure you know their agenda and then decide how, or even whether you should approach certain media companies at all. Choose your alliances carefully.

Before you take it to this level though you need basic media relation skills. Learning how to contact and deal with media is like learning anything else. You need a good teacher and you need to practice. But be warned, you can not practice on media. It would be like training a lion by getting into the cage with it on day one. You need to know what you're doing before you pry open the jaws and stick your head in its mouth.

You should also prepare your partners and employees to speak with media. Investigative journalists are trained to seek out the answers they need to support their story, and they can be quite thorough in doing so. If they don't get what they need from you they will keep looking until they find it.

Quite often when we see aggressive investigative journalists attack the CEO of a large corporation what we don't see is the deceptive and manipulative tactics executives use to hide the truth. In a small and midsize business world, dealing with a "crisis-situation investigative journalist" is similar in some respects to how you would deal with an "unaccredited journalist" looking for a juicy Olympic related story. The difference is that the unaccredited journalist might "manufacture" the crisis, with the intent of blowing a nonevent out of proportion. You have to be prepared to turn it around to your advantage.

Journalists will sometimes try to get you to say something you don't mean or shouldn't say. Hence the infamous "taken out of context" quote. In Olympic regions journalists find it very easy to manufacture crisis. They simply pick up on a sore spot and look for someone in the community to make the situation worse than it really is. You should be aware too that if it serves your purpose you might want to go along for the ride. For example envision that you own an environmental waste management company and the government or Olympic organizations are circumventing standard protocols. Tell your story right and you'll be on the front page regarded as a hero, but drop the ball and the community will vilify you.

You need a combination of crisis and media promotion skills in order to turn a situation that could be hurtful, into a story that paints your company and region in a good light. Saying "NO COMMENT" or getting snarky will simply make it look like you're hiding something, or cause the journalist to find someone else to corroborate their perspective. Neither will do you any good. You have to be prepared to turn a situation around and leverage it for all it's worth.

There is no way around it. If you want media to relate your story,
you have to deal effectively with media.

Consider the following . . .

Do you consider yourself an expert in your field?
When the media quotes you regarding stories about your industry it raises your visibility, and if you do it properly it heightens the respect people have of your company. It positions you as an expert and someone people trust.

Do you believe everything you see or hear in media?
Regarding truth in media -- everyone has an agenda. Truth is subjective.

Why do your competitors seem to receive so much media attention?
It's not a coincidence that your competitor is quoted constantly in the media. Some companies understand very clearly the mechanism and work it effectively.

Media Promotion skills can be learned.
The best way to learn is from someone with experience. Training immerses you in hands-on situations that will prepare you for all eventualities. It also inspires you to develop solutions specific to your business.

It pays to hire a media training expert with international experience in small and midsize business strategies. Don't fool around. The Olympics comes around only once and you will not have a second chance to get it right.




If you think that learning to deal with media is unimportant and that you already know everything you need to know, you will miss out on great opportunity.

Email or phone us today for more information