On Rad's Radar? - PR Archives

A Day in My Brain

2012-05-18T14:19:54Z

I was in NYC (Tribeca) this week to spend the day at a Q&A session with Seth Godin. He is a marketing guru and author of a lot of best selling business books. Like these:

Here are some of the gems that I liked.

"A "brand" is the promise of an experience." [Boy, could I riff on that one!] Brand IS the experience. Accept that most people won't like you. Build a tribe that will.

Commit to one marketplace or two. You can't chop all the trees down in the forest with one hatchet.

"It's way easier to sell water to thirsty people than to make thirsty people. It's OK to remind people they're thirsty." The corollary to that is People buy to avoid pain more often than they buy to gain pleasure.

You can try to create demand for your service, like trying to make people thirsty. Or you can find thirsty people and sell them water.

"Define failure before you start. When you reach that point, stop, learn and move on to the next thing." [It's a concept from Seth's book, The Dip]

"The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters."

"People spend their time and attention and money in places that make them feel valued." Are you making your customers feel valued?

What is the world view of your target customer? Does your marketing line up with that?

For a brief few, Seth talked about working for a start-up versus working for Google or Apple or Facebook. A start-up is about growth If you want fast-paced; to make an impact; and to learn, join the start-up. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook are in the "keep it going" mode. You won't have an impact there. You will be a cog in the machine. In our world, working for any of the billion dollar LEC's or MSO's is like working for Facebook, only a lot less cool on your resume.

What is Important to you? Tom Peters says that he can tell what is important to you from calendar. What does your schedule say about what's important to you?

It's all about Direct Marketing and Pay for Performance. (Social media is a tool of direct marketing.)

There is no road map.

It's all about connection and association. Are you connecting people?

We have mass disruption going on today. Every industry including our own is being disrupted by the Internet. Why? The Internet is the first device that is both a Receiver and a transmitter. That's the problem.

Hopefully one of these nuggets gets you thinking.

Some notes made it to this Power Point I created.

Why PR Is Important

2012-04-20T14:51:54Z

On a call today talking about the value of different CLEC's and ILEC's and why some are trading so low and some so high. For the most part, it comes down to Wall Street's perception of the business. Actually, a large part is what the stock traders think the business is.

For example, Cincinnati Bell is an ILEC with declining wireline revenues like Frontier, Fairpoint and TDS. Like TDS, CinBell has been buying up data centers. Via acquisitions and the public relations that goes with those actions, CinBell is changing the way Wall Street looks at their firm.

Public relations plays a big part in stock price, especially when you consider that most people have very little idea about the World of Telecom. Throw in cable and cloud and you have confused not just Wall Street, but even people in our own Industry.

When I work with master agencies and service providers on their online marketing strategy, the discussion is generally around, "How do we make what you do concrete and easy to understand?" or "How do we tell a story that describes it picture perfect so that it can be repeated?"

To take that another step, PR is about who your clients are, who your employees are, and who the company is (in terms of the marketplace). With so many CLEC's, VoIP Providers and Cloud companies, PR is one way to differentiate yourself. For example, if you close a deal with a school system, a government agency, a retail chain, you want to describe that sale - who, what they bought, the benefits of the purchase, and maybe why they bought from you. Like a mini case study.

If you look at something like a softswitch manufacturer, you can tell from analyst calls that Wall Street doesn't really have a handle on what they do - mainly software licensing. And because of all the hype with Cloud, cloud stocks are doing well despite most folks not knowing what the heck the cloud is! Amazing isn't it?

One last point: PR helps telcos out because the PR machine props up the stock price which in turn lowers their debt payments which can be tied to a stock price (or other financial metric).

There are a few avenues for PR: press releases, case studies, social media, executives speaking at conferences, media interviews, and more. So many ways to get the message out and yet so few do it (well).

5 Tips for Speakers

2012-02-08T22:54:00Z

I'm not the best speaker. I'm still nervous and anxious before every talk, even when moderating. But I prepare for every talk - whether I am a moderator, panelist, keynote, trainer, or co-host. Here are some things that speakers do wrong:

1. Relying on PowerPoint. When technical difficulties occur as they often do, speakers are not prepared to talk without the slides, the crutch. Be ready to talk without a microphone and without the projector.

2. Don't read me the slides! I have been reading since I was 4. I don't need you to read me the slides. I need you to tell why that slide was included in the first place.

3. Have some emotion. Tired or hungover is no way to present. Energetic or passionate is preferable, but at least speak up and into the microphone.

4. Respect the audience's time. Yes it is your time to speak - and you have something (hopefully prepared) to say - but remember that the audience likely paid money to be there. It has to be valuable; not just your talking points.

5. Tell a story or be Engaging. This speaks for itself. If everyone is heads down on their phones, take the hint. (They aren't all tweeting about how profound you are.)

Is it tweet worthy? Have you said anything worth tweeting? Not the ultimate test, but certainly some gauge of audience reaction is social media.

In the end, would you want to listen to you?

In a previous post I mention that teaching is part entertainment. That may not be what you signed up for (to be an entertainer), and I am not saying be Jack Benny, but your points will come across better if you present them well.

AT&T Archive Video

2012-01-30T23:42:40Z

From the AT&T archives: "A fascinating animated film explaining the perspective of the Bell System made during the legal challenges of the 1970s from both the government and other phone companies. "

The MackNell Quandary from 1975 about the greatness of monopoly. I guess this was propaganda before AT&T was broken up.

4 Examples of PR for PR Sake

2012-01-30T17:23:51Z

Here are 4 examples of press releases just for the sake of press releases. That is, just to fill the online PR machine with your name and keywords to help your

EarthLink releases software to help retailers focus on core business. Nice headline but the rest of release doesn't really say how EarthLink's one-source solution for telecom helps retailers do that (specifically). A specific case study would have been better for all concerned. It would have been a spotlight on a customer for EarthLink while demonstrating how the retailer utilized the services.

Cbeyond announces a new Master Agent, CMS. There sounds like a template that could be used for any master agent or carrier.

VoIP Supply Announces Results of Customer Experience Survey. I like the guys at VoIP Supply but a press release about how your customers like you? That's just humorous.

Verizon's Bad Month

2011-12-30T20:54:45Z

VZW has had three outages this month. The third outage on its LTE network today (12/28/11). There was another LTE outage on 12/21 and VZ Long Distance in Florida was down on 12/8/11.

Then yesterday VZW announced that it would charge a convenience fee of $2 for not having auto-pay. Just a few minutes ago, it rescinded that idea. The power of social media and a slow news cycle means that VZW will have to wait to implement that one. Even this guy agrees.

There was also some scam that Phone Plus reported with VZW and revenue reported by Verizon Comm. Inc.

Not a good month for the giant's PR department at all.

Overheard in Vegas

2011-03-16T21:16:56Z

Telesphere hired Andy Abramson's PR firm, Communicano.

AireSpring rolled out Meshed MPLS. What's that? It's how you connect the MPLS networks of four carriers to be able to cost effectively deliver MPLS service to anywhere in the US.

TCA now has over 400 members and 100 agents registered for the Certified Telecom Professional program. Agencies - like RAD-INFO INC, Transit Broker, One Point of Contact, ATC - are certifying everyone to get a leg up on the competition. Are you certifiable?

Alteva rolled out a UC Certification program for its agents. (You could have worked with TCA).

TBI launched a wireless division on top of its nationwide ADTRAN contract.

RSS is dead. Blogs are dead. The web is dead.

"Will video go the way of voice mail?", Larry Lisser asks.

Tele-Pacific is now offering EoX - Ethernet over Everything, meaning copper, fiber and fixed wireless.

Event calendar from VAR Guy.

XO launched a Cloud Security Service.

Sprint declares that it's wireline business has been thriving. It has - to the tune of $5B in revenue according to Rob Powell. Sprint wants its agents to sell wireline (think MPLS and Internet Access, not LD), but the contract isn't ready yet - and admittedly some agents are nervous about pitching a company that can only talk about wireline for a few minutes a month - like they had a limited voice and data plan in that division.

Gary Vee explaining Social Media to reporters.

How to pick a small business IP-PBX by Tom Keating.

Did EarthLink Goof on Branding?

2010-12-14T15:22:51Z

Yesterday when I was speaking to a client, I mentioned that new Edge Networks merged with Deltacom to become EarthLink Business. The confused look on his face was not unexpected. Again this morning when discussing the new name, EarthLink is linked to consumer dial-up in the marketplace. How does that translate into a B2B Brand?

Back in the day, Mindspring and EarthLink were excellent marketing companies. But in 2005, in the dark days of Muni Wi-Fi, EarthLink lost its marketing edge.

Maybe it was the beat down from the MSO's over broadband access, coupled with the browbeating of dealing with ILEC's on wholesale DSL in the post-Brand-X era. Either way, EarthLink flubbed the marketing ball in Muni Wi-Fi. At the time, Sky Dayton was CEO of Helio, the MVNO partnership ELNK had with SK Telecom. I understand billing platform issues, but ELNK dial-up users should have been targeted for bundles that just never happened.

For example, Helio cellphones with wi-fi for access on the Muni Wi-Fi with some form of broadband combo (Wi-Fi, DSl, Cable, 2.5G) and of course dial-up back-up service. Gadgets were trialed, but the project was battered. As I understand it, internal silo thinking coupled with silo quotas killed any attempt at bundling.

Needless to say, EarthLink's brand has taken some punches. In fact, that was what made me go HUH?! when it was announced that the new CLEC would be named EarthLink Business.

You think dial-up, but would you think MPLS or Fat Pipe from ELNK? I don't think so. In fact, I think they goofed.

The announcement mentions that they are an MSP now. How so? You were a CLEC combined with a fiber player. Where did the MSP come from? I honestly thought that they were just jealous that Megapath-Covad got so much press this year. Megapath launched as an MSLEC (which I also think is a misnomer because just doing managed router and some network monitoring does not an MSP make).

Plus Managed Services is such a buzz term now - a garbage can term for so many things. Not exactly a branding term. (Well, MSLEC was a shot at blue ocean strategy).

In the managed services offering, you don't offer firewall, security, IDS, or any of the other truly upscale managed security offerings. While you mention taking over IT staff roles, what role is that exactly? ELNK is just doing monitoring at the edge. This can be done via alarm notifications.

Anyway, ELNK had a chance here to pull off a Verizon. That is, create a new brand around two properties that were not exceptional. New Edge was taking a back seat to Megapath in 2010. And Deltacom is a failure. All that fiber and the best that Deltacom could do was sell cheap T1's on price. Waste opportunity. (And I won't even get into how Deltacom screwed the Channel!)

Here's another Goof: keeping the Delatcom management team in place. If you couldn't get it done before the acquisition, how will you get it done now? It goes with the thinking that what got you here, won't get you there. But this seems like the Muni thinking all over again. And ELNK doesn't have a lot of room for mistakes.

Here's what I would have done: rename it something new. I would have had a launch party. The Managed Services product would have been front and center. Video interviews explaining the new name and the MSP approach. I would have had a few partners interviewed about the coming changes.

On top of that, I would have rolled out a lit building list to my channel with pricing for Ethernet and big bandwidth promotions for 1Q2011. Because, as I explain in my new book about Lit Building Sales Plans, lit buildings is where the most profit is. And the key to the acquisition of Deltacom is figuring out how to maximize the profit off that fiber network.

Lastly, I would have had a sales script and marketing collateral for agents and direct sales to go back to all current and previous customers to (a) explain the name change; and (b) upsell the MSP.

That probably seemed like it made too much sense, so they went the easy route and called it EarthLink Business with the Deltacom management in place. But, Rolla, if you want to talk, give me a ring.

Dear PR People and Constant Contact

2010-11-22T23:50:54Z

Dear PR People and Constant Contact, WTH???

First, Constant Contact. Gail Goodman, for goodness sake, please move to an opt-in approach to your service. After being added to anyone's list, the adressee should immediately get an email that asks if they want to be on it. Period. Otherwise, you just support spam and waste a lot of my time.

Why Constant Contact? Because twice today and at least five times this month, when I am added to a list, I get to see the CC logo and this:

It gets tiring to have to keep deleting this stuff. I asked CC about it and I can get a universal unsubscribe, where no one using CC can send me email, but what about the legitimate email lists?

It's 2010 and spam is still a huge problem.

Why is a press release emailed to me spam? Because I did not ask for it. Because who needs a press release emailed to them? We have tools for that: RSS, Google Alerts, newswires.

And because the people who put me on these lists do so indiscriminately.

I don't write press release stuff. Have you read my blog? I write about neat stuff happening or things that affect the Channel or the fact that telecom is broken. Apparently, PR is even more broken than telecom. And so is Constant Contact. MOve to an Opt-in approach. Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing in 1999.

Here's a couple examples of the emails.

"Here's an announcement on a newly released location-based journal and social networking application called [software name to never be mentioned here] that I thought would be of interest. Just out on iTunes last week, it has already been downloaded more than 10,000 times and is being used in more than 50 countries."

"XXXXX Networks Hires Industry Veteran [Who Cares] as Chief Marketing Officer"

HOT INT'L RATES & ROUTES

In the case of the hiring press: that's for SEO. You just need it on the newswire to fill your SERP's. It should be keyword optimized, short and sweet. If you wanted a blogger to write about it, don't send the release, send a note saying, "Hey, Hu just got hired and wants to talk to a couple of bloggers.

And the best is when the company rep keeps pinging me about where the blog post is about their company. Oh, don't worry, it's coming!

BTW, it's not just me. Have you heard of Bad Pitch Blog?

It's time consuming to keep opting out of these lists and deleting. I get over a thousand messages per day -- I don't need more.

Top 3 Ways Not To Interact with a Blogger

2010-10-21T17:11:11Z

I get email from public relations firms all the time. Every time I think I'm off a list, I get added to a new one. I already get a steady stream of email from clients, vendors, peers and friends in the Industry. (Keep those tips coming!) Add in social media noise and most of my day is fielding news, questions, etc. So then I get your press release as an email...

That's the first No-No. With Google Alerts, newswire, and, umm, I write for TMC which publishes all your press releases, do you really think I need you to send me a copy? (For the dense, the answer is No).

At ITEXPO East and West, Todd Keefe of FIRPR and Erik Linask of TMC work very hard to collect the requests for interviews and to schedule them with TMC's writing corps. There are usually way more requests for interviews than there are slots available. Yet every Expo we get no-shows. It happened again in LA. No word from the company as usual. This is No-No number 2. You just took a time slot from someone else. Show some respect. Do you think this disrespect will go unnoticed?

I kind of have a rule that if you piss me off, I won't ever mention your company. Unless you discover the cure for cancer.

This is an extension: don't say yes to an interview and then not do the interview.

Most PR firms have probably not read my stuff. Not even the masthead that says Icover Telecom, cable, data centers, hosting and the CLEC World. I mainly cover anything that affects the Indirect Channel. Since I started in telecom in 1999 as a telecom agent, the Channel is how I view most things. You need to know that because if the story doesn't have a CLEC or a Channel bent, I'm not that interested.

Mobile VoIP? Nope. I think it is a niche play with too many players. There's these things called unlimited plans. They are getting cheaper all the time. Why would I want to use a convoluted app to dial especially with these things called metered data plans. I'll give you if I call International a lot or if I could get HD Voice calling, but even then, ho hum. There are plenty of bloggers that write about mobile VoIP, who actually think its cool. BTW, I own a Blackberry and am not a Apple fanboy, so keep that in mind. These things are just tools to get my job done.

So know what I write about so you can tell me the angle or hook.

Often I do not know the company I am interviewing. This telecommunications industry is huge with companies merging, opening, closing. I try to keep up, but I just can't. (That's also why I just stick to my knitting; it's challenging enough to know everything in just my microcosm). It would be helpful if you could actually tell me what it is you do. A company that blew off our interview today met with me about 2 years ago. The CMO, CEO and CTO. For 30 minutes I tried to wrap my head around what they do to no avail. I'm not an idiot - depsite what some off-line commenters suggest - so if I can't grasp it in 30 minutes, how in the world will anyone else? I will say that the following year they changed their pitch to make it easier to understand but it was still vague. People need concrete. Writers and readers (and prospective customers) do not have time to figure out what you do and how it will benefit them, unless you tell them in clear, concise terms. Want an example? Hatteras Networks. See the blog post today. What do they do? Allow facilities based CLEC's to offer symmetric Ethernet to customers over copper. Pretty clear.

A cloud based provider of a voice platform for service providers is vague.

To summarize the Top 3 Way Not to Interact with a Blogger: send me press releases; be a No-Show; and be vague and have no idea what I write about.

BTW, I like interviewing company execs, even recording the interviews for podcasts, so ping me to talk telecom.

PSS: I am still trying to catch up on the interviews I did in LA, so bear with me. I was in Atlanta this week and in Phoenix next week, so November.

PR Machine in Full Swing

2008-08-26T16:32:06Z

The PR factories are pumping out releases working up to IT Expo West. At least, they changed it from puking on me to invitations to speak with an exec. This came in about an hour ago:

Free phone service wasn't even a thought ten years ago. New technology breakthroughs are lowering costs for providers and increased competition with new telecom startups and the growing number of Voice over IP (VoIP) users is bringing prices down. ..... Would you like to speak to Mr. Exec about when and how free phone service will be a reality as well as Company X's platform?

Dave Rusin asked yesterday where all the innovation went. And I make my clients change the pitch. It is NOT about how low can you go. It is about What Can You Do For Me?

If all you have to say is we are the Cheapest, well, join the club: Net2Phone, Voiceglo, Vonage, Skype, SunRocket, MagicJack, and yadda yadda. And we will start a Death Watch on your company. [I give Vonage until the end of 2Q09].

How about some Innovation? And I don't mean your user portal. Yawn! Remember Vertical's TeleVantage? That was the first user portal and all others are mere copycats. What about "HD Voice" or Klipsch like speaker quality? (I know mainly hardware innovation.

Service wise, it has to be about ease of use and productivity (like Broadsoft Anywhere).

The Jetsons had Video Phone long before we did. Yet BrightMind and other services rely on a video phone (Grandstream in most cases) to negotiate with a similar model. From tests by clients, ease of use isn't there yet.

I think "free phone" is becoming a stale marketing plan, but the reality is even ploys like MagicJack at $20 per year are not sustainable models.

Interns, Mentoring, and Your Company

2008-07-21T19:11:46Z

Dan Caruso writes about how his company Zayo is working with the University of Colorado and Entrepreneurship. Zayo will take interns and develop the entrepreneur spirit. What a great way to promote your company, get some promising talent, and give back.

My question is Why aren't more companies doing that? Talent Acquisition and Retention are a real challenge today. As healthcare costs and gas prices rise, it will be even harder to retain talent. (For those that will ask: because people will want to commute less and/or tele-work that not all companies or positions are capable of handling and when you cut benefits, you lose good people). So why not develop talent? I have often wondered if I could take JA (Junior Achievement) students at the high school level and train them in sales and telecom.

Wouldn't some of your employees want to mentor a promising student?

Feedback on this would be appreciated.

What Do They Do?

2008-06-23T20:55:04Z

What do these folks do? I get PR messages from people. My gripe is that the marketing folks forget to actually say anything that people can understand. Instead they are using the press release for 2 things: SEO if it gets published and proof that they did their job. Read this one and tell me what they do:

NY - June 24, 2008 - Datacenter managers and IT professionals across the U.S. are turning to their resellers and solution providers seeking ways to reduce the ever-increasing carbon footprint of their corporate datacenters. To deliver a strong resource for value added resellers (VARs) focused on datacenter offerings, XXX Systems today announced the launch of its U.S. channel partner program. The new program will be led by Kevin, Senior Director of Business Development, who plans to introduce XXX System to resellers capable of driving adoption of the company's Green IT datacenter enclosures - including its passive cabinets, which can be upgraded to active in the field in less than 30 minutes. The XXX Systems U.S. Channel Program enables VARs, design and engineering firms, and construction management consultants, to offer customers of all sizes the same mature, high-performance datacenter power and cooling technology deployed by some of the world's largest financial, retail and media companies.

"XXX Systems has supported datacenter-intensive industries for over a decade. Among financial services companies, we have an installed base of 30,000 units, making our high-density, active-air enclosures the cabinet of choice. With our new channel program, we expect to continue to provide a high level of customer satisfaction for datacenter customers who believe in, and depend on, our technology," said Jerry, XXX Systems president. "We are pleased to welcome Kevin to our management team as he develops our indirect sales organization."

PR Folks... Listen Up!

2008-06-03T15:53:30Z

I don't know who added my email address to some list and distributed it to every PR firm in America, but please stop sending me your press releases. Lois from HWH PR; Tim from Inkhouse PR; Brittany at SSPR; Shannon from Springboard PR just to name a few.

I write 4 blogs. I get more than enough email as it is without getting "story ideas" from a PR person. None of you have read my blog (which means this post will be a useless rant unless they have alerts on for their own firm). You don't even know what I write about but you send me your press releases. Believe me, I can find my own stories. I'd say thanks for reading, but you don't.

Just so you know, it isn't just me either. Very few writers or bloggers (like Andy at VoIP Watch) need press releases. We have Googe Alerts. And PR news wires. But if you want to catch our attention, send me an email saying that the CEO or CTO wants to do a podcast with me -- or wants to an interview (even by email).