Self Improvement Articles

Eight Tips on Dealing with PR Disasters

One of the problems that most small business owners fear is a public relations nightmare. Sadly, this can happen to almost any business owner who is in the public eye in some way. You never know when a comment will go viral – and worse, when it will be misunderstood in some way. If you ever find yourself dealing with a PR disaster, you’ll want to try to implement these tips.

1. Don’t Ignore the Situation

You cannot avoid bad situations. If something is harming your businesses or your reputation, you need to confront it. Even if it’s true and you’re ashamed, you can often overcome the problem by being open and honest and then working to fix the problem. If it’s not true, you will only look guilty if you don’t get ahead of the story.

2. Don’t Think That Your Reputation Will Save You

Even if up until now you’ve had a spotless reputation, a particular type of PR situation can overshadow your reputation – even if it’s false. The only way to fix someone’s erroneous perception is to tackle it head on in the bright light of day.

3. Don’t Wait until the Situation Has Exploded to Deal with It

If you already know something might come out to the public that you don’t want to, don’t wait. It’s not going to help anyone. Do what you can to mitigate any situation before it explodes. If you didn’t know about it and it’s false, you still don’t want to let it keep proliferating without a response from you.

4. Be Sincere and Honest

If you did do something that was not true or it was misleading in some way (even if you didn’t realize it consciously), once your public finds out it’s time to come clean. So many social media stars could have kept their careers if only they had responded appropriately to being outed for their misleading information.

5. Don’t Avoid Communication with Affected Customers and Stakeholders

Remember that you have many stakeholders – from your partner, to your kids, to your employees, contractors, customers, and possibly investors depending on the type of business that you are running. Every one of them needs to have communication from you regarding the issue in the terms that they will understand best.

6. Document Everything

When something happens, if you document it, you can often avoid it happening again. Sometimes a breakdown in communication is responsible for the nightmare. Other times it’s trusting the wrong vendors. Whatever it is, if you go through what happened, you can identify the problems that got you here so that you can avoid them next time.

7. Plan for a Crisis

Take some time to consider the various issues that you can face in your line of work. Make a list of possibilities so that you can plan for any type of crisis that might happen. That way, you know what to do. Plus, by writing it down you will often avoid the problem to start with as you identify causes.

8. Don’t Act in a Defensive Manner

If you’re experiencing a PR disaster right now, try not to behave defensively. If you’ve done nothing wrong, explain yourself with confidence. If you have made a mistake, admit it openly and honestly without being angry that you were discovered or that someone pointed it out.

If you really want to avoid dealing with PR disasters, the best way to do it is to create a plan for your public persona for answering questions in a way that your audience responds positively to, while always being honest. If something goes down, take the blame for your poor communication and try to do better next time.

Marketing Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

Are you a female entrepreneur searching for new ways to market your new business? If so, there are many great ways to do so. Even better, the suggestions mentioned here are very affordable. Remember, unless you’re lucky enough to have an unlimited supply of capital, it’s always best to go easy on your finances in the beginning.

Always Have a Plan

No matter what kind of small business you’re in charge of, it’s always best to have a plan before you put things into action. This is true of every aspect of running your business. You may want to keep an audio recorder or small notebook with you, or find a note keeping app for your smartphone. Once you have a plan laid out, stick to it to the best of your abilities.

Set Optimistic Goals

In order to get work done effectively, it’s best to establish goals that you can work to achieve throughout the day, week, or month. These goals should be things that are attainable. Otherwise you’re just setting yourself up for failure. However, they should also be optimistic and challenging goals that will encourage you to push yourself in order to be as effective as possible.

Know Your Target Market

Research into your target market, before you even open your doors to the public, is crucial to your marketing plan. The more specific you can get, by drilling down categories, the better. Not only do you need to know things like age, gender and income bracket, you also need to know what motivates your ideal client or customer to buy.

Build a Strong Portfolio

As the owner of the business, the way that you present yourself is often the first impression that potential clients or customers get of your organization. Make sure to always have a resume or portfolio available so that your future business associates can see all the hard work that you’ve done in the past. If they’re impressed with how you represent yourself as a person, it’s much more likely that they’ll want to do business with you.

Form a Network

It can be difficult to market your product or business on your own. Fortunately, social networking makes it easy for just about anybody to reach out to potential clients. Make sure that your business has a strong web presence, and establish pages for it on social media sites.

But, social media isn’t the only way to establish a network of clients and business associates. Whenever your business works with another company, be sure to establish a relationship between the two of you.

Keep Searching for New Opportunities

Never pass up an opportunity to market yourself or your business to others. Make sure that you always have your business card with you in case you run across someone in your personal life that you want to form a connection with in your professional life. You never know where you might meet your next customer.

These are just a few marketing tips for women entrepreneurs. Realistically, this is just the beginning. Obviously, you don’t have to try all these things at once. Trying one or two at a time is usually the better way to go.