Archives For tom church

I want a toffee

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New Year: New Desire

 

New years bring new ideas and new desires. Last year, I felt I had dived into the startup world by creating the networking group London Startups. But, whilst spending Christmas with family in Malaysia, I read about Nick D’Aloisio – a 17 year-old who gained a million dollars investment for his startup, Summly (read my article about it on Huffington Post). Realising then that I knew depressingly little about startups and only knew of them, my resolution was/is to get behind the faces and figure it out: Who are these 17 year-olds having all the fun, and how are they doing it?

If you’re signed up to my newsletter, you’ll see I’ve begun asking startups and entrepreneurs for interviews. Already a dozen or so have come forward and I’m extremely grateful. To my surprise, they’re not all technology buffs like Nick, but a whole range of new companies and ideas: Bikini lines, pop-up camping, condoms, autographs… The nice thing is that they blend technology seamlessly within their companies. With no idea where this will go, the aim is really to discover the who, what, how and why of startups. It’s a journey that guides itself – people introduce me to others, and really, the story will be led by opportunity.

Through the interviews I’m discovering that the story may well have to be more than outsiders’ observations. Otherwise, it’d just be a series of interviews and that’d be a bit boring wouldn’t it? Somewhere along the line, I know I’ll have to get involved. And I am.

Ruby on Rails is a web application framework that I’ve committed to learning outside of work hours. You can follow my painstaking progress on Twitter (@tomchurch). I interviewed an incredible man called Ian, who realised after months of searching that sometimes you just won’t find a developer willing to build your idea for equity. So, despite having three kids and a full-time job, he taught himself Ruby on Rails and built the thing himself (you’ll soon learn what it was). That kind of determination and grit is what I’m looking for in the interviews – learning about the truth behind startups; it’s not all cosy ego-stroking.

The journey, the interviews, the lessons, the progress, will all be shared in the spirit of the internet world we live in. No, that doesn’t mean for free. It means truthfully. Communication Is The Key, the blog you’re reading now, was originally created with a how-to perspective in mind. That’s boring as hell to write, and more boring to read. How many times do you now see things like:

  • 7 Steps to Social Media
  • How to be amazing in no time at all
  • Free everything: Simple tricks that work

I’m guilty of writing such headline diarrhoea - but no more! This blog is now fast, simple and honest. A second commitment to you and to myself is that I only have 20 minutes to write each post; Preventing over-contemplation and philosophical waffle that, let’s face it, is dry as a bone and not what you want to read when you’re short on time.

This is now set to move quite rapidly, so make sign up to the newsletter and learn when interviews become available.

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2012 In Review

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Christmas and New Year holidays provide a great opportunity to evaluate your actions and see what worked and what didn’t. In this blog post, I’m going to review some of the stand out moments and lessons I experienced in 2012 and set out some goals for 2013.

Create more time!

2012 began with Zen Habit’s Top 10 Productivity Hacks. This article made me realise I wasted a lot of time doing things that could removed entirely, automated or outsourced.

Hire a maid

To gain quick wins and build motivation (read: Getting Real – Release Something Now; a blog post by 37Signals from 2005 that I’ve never forgotten), I looked at where I spent time doing unproductive things and outsourced the biggest chunk: I hired a weekly maid. At first I was worried about the financial implications, but saving four hours per week was/is worth it. Hiring a maid is now the first recommendation in my free newsletter.

Ride a bicycle

The second largest chunk was traveling. Not only did the London underground take forever, it also cost an arm and a leg each way. I decided to cycle more and using the cool Strava app, discovered that within the central 6-mile diameter of the city, cycling is the fastest mode of transport. Sometimes, a two-mile (3.2km) journey by bicycle was 20 minutes faster than via tube (subway). I calculated that over three years, cycling would save me fifteen entire days and £4500.

Plan ahead

Finally, the third largest chunk of unproductive time was studying. This was a cheeky observation but true nonetheless. Studying and I just don’t go together. I can’t think of anything worse than sitting in a library, reading a boring list of facts and committing a hundred opinions of other people to mind. I prefer research projects, experiments and interviews – that was what I was good at. And so I wrote my Anthropology dissertation nine months in advance using such methods, and planned ahead such that I could do as much as possible of the latter than the former. The result: I finished my degree is almost half the time it normally takes.

 

Take more risks!

Reading books by entrepreneurs (see book reviews), I was often frustrated with phrases such as ‘move fast and break things’, or ‘learn to make mistakes’ because unlike those with millions of investment, I quite simply couldn’t afford it.

Workshops

However, I had long known that my adversity to risk was a problem, and vowed to change it where I could. The first action was to introduce paid workshops at London Startups (my meetup group). I was scared that this would put people off, but in February, I invited a professional brand expert to deliver a workshop to a group of paying attendees. Eight turned up and I made a profit – hurrah! I then did it again for product development and gave my first personal workshop on Google search engine optimisation later in the year.

Putting the mugshot up

At the same time, I launched this blog - Communication Is The Key - with my mugshot on the sidebar. I had never had such a public online profile before, but the response has been fantastic. At networking events, people have recognised and approached me exclaiming they’re readers of the blog. This opens doors to conversation and opportunities (pay cheques). I also started writing for The Huffington Post although I must admit that I haven’t utilised this as much as I could have done.

Spending money

Within this blog, I’ve made risk-taking a central element. For example, I spent hundreds of pounds experimenting with various Twitter programs and strategies to write the results up in a free eBook; and spent hours creating 20+ WordPress tuition videos giving them away in exchange for a Facebook ‘like’ (read: pay with a tweet). You’ll be interested to know that I’ve also experimented with paying for StumbleUpon traffic (only gained sustained growth for visual stories i.e. pictures), YouTube views (led to organic growth one of three times) and spent over £500 on SEO.

Make More Money!

I won’t bullshit you and say I’m not money driven, a large part of me is and 2012 was about making more of it. Passive incomes, automated cashflows, side incomes; I love it all. Yet, I really don’t feel I got this under my belt this year and is definitely an area for further improvement in 2013.

What I did learn however, is the joy of advertising for free online and picking up a few consulting jobs here and there. Small cash injections that make a big difference to the weekend plans. Using the same marketing technique, I also created nearly a dozen websites (WordPress) for various individuals and companies. As these are simple sites and I have five years of experience with WordPress, it’s a quick turnaround.

Most of you will recognise that this has been inspired by The 4-Hour Workweek and might be interested in the following case studies:

The largest achievement for 2012, in regards to money was securing a job at BR. An award-winning corporate communications agency, I’m learning a tonne and, God forbid, enjoying it.

Take more breaks!

In the hustle and bustle of London, it’s too easy to get caught up in the daily grind and forget that an entire world lies outside. I’m incredibly fortunate to have Europe on my doorstep, and took full advantage this year traveling to the Tuscan hills of Italy to drink copious amounts of incredible wine, and to Barcelona for the thrill of lying on a beach with a city skyline behind. I’m also now heading off to Malaysia to spend Christmas and New Year’s with some family.

Holidays like this are great, but they’re expensive and far between. In 2013, I would like to get in the habit of creating more breaks, albeit shorter and cheaper ones, so that I’m not about to die before I head-off. Taking a note out of Ramit Sethi’s blog, I’ve created an automated system to put aside money each month specifically for this purpose.

 

 

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The difference between a teacher and a guru

Guru

There are plenty of figureheads online, especially in the internet marketing sphere, that define themselves as ‘Gurus’. A guru is somebody that provides step-by-step instructions on how to achieve a certain outcome. They’ll produce online educational resources such as eBooks, podcasts, guides, blueprints (like my Twitter one), training webinars, email courses and more.

Gurus are seen as experts in their field because of their experience and knowledge. A guru is supposed to have tried every tool and method. They’re a self-appointed guinea-pig that you go to and pay for their results. Gurus are meant to save you time and money through their advice. To be a Guru, you have to be successful through what you teach.

Teacher

Teachers mostly answer the Why’s over the How’s. They provide principles and core lessons that act as a guiding force in the long-term. Teachers help you create your own backbone, and are there for support when you need to be pointed in the right direction.

Teachers try to help you make sense of it all. They give purpose and clarity. Teachers learn from the past and shine a light on the future. They’re not bothered by the latest trend, because they know it is just a trend. The lessons of a Teacher last a lifetime and beyond. A Teacher is defined not by their own success, but by the success of their pupils.

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‘Grit’ isn’t always good

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Popular culture celebrates the strong man who never gives up; The man that takes a beating and dies for honour. I’ve explained my views on this before (read – Those Who Refuse To Surrender Are Stupid) but I want to explore them further here in regards to ideas.

Whilst exploring the Christmas shop displays of London, I paused for a coffee and joined the table of another. Conversation quickly struck up and I learnt he had a startup.

Fantastic! I thought. Then I listened to how his startup has been ‘starting’ for the last twelve years, how he sold his house to fund it, lost his job and longterm girlfriend to it and still received no investment prospects.

Unfortunately, this is the ugly side to many startup stories. The side that gets shunned and tucked away. No one remembers the dozens of social networks before Facebook.

Whether or not this man’s idea was good doesn’t matter. When it’s been twelve years and you have only losses to show, it is not, as he said, “…all about how much Grit you have, right?”.

No. ‘Grit’ isn’t always good. If no one else can see the profit in your idea, if no one is willing to stick up their hands and say “hey! If you make it, I’ll buy it!” then something’s wrong and I think it’s time to give up. Especially if it’s been t.w.e.l.v.e. y.e.a.r.s.

Plenty of successul entrepreneurs shout that it’s all about determination and hanging-on in there. Which is true for a lot of the time, but it isn’t a rule that you should follow all the time, just as you wouldn’t take all the must-have vitamins and supplements advertised on TV.

When you should give up and move on is a delicate question to answer. There are many variables depending on the industry you’re in, but by and large if people can’t see the problem you’re trying to solve, it probably doesn’t exist or isn’t big enough (yet).

Now, it is true that you can create a need/problem through advertising (quad-ply toilet roll with flower-embedded sheets, anyone?) and other methods, but it will cost you an arm and a leg – as the man in the coffee shop learnt the hard way.

In answer to his remark, that it’s all about how much Grit you have, I could only muster the balls to crack a joke rather than tell him what I really thought, “If only you were in the de-icing business”.

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720 arguments, 4,160 kisses, 480 sex sessions and 3,650 tweets…

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guerra de cama

What really happens between the sheets: Photograph by Jorge Miente

 

Dreamland, one of Britain’s leading bed manufacturer’s, created a study that reveals what goes on in the average bed:

The average bed will be the scene for 720 rows, 480 sex sessions, 3,650 tweets and 14,600 text messages.

We will spend 38 hours and 50 minutes talking on the phone and just over 70 days checking social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, sending 4,160 emails and 3,650 tweets during the ten-year lifespan of a typical bed.

The classic PR move got picked up in the Daily Mail, the Express, The Sunday Sport and The Western Daily Press amongst a plethora of online only titles.

It successfully turned something incredibly mundane and boring; the bed, into the centre of attention by attributing it to things people love talking about: Other people’s sex lives.

Could you do something similar?

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Behind the scenes of a new campaign I’ve been working on

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Behind the scenes of a new campaign I’ve been working on

Recently I’ve been working with the Industry Trust, increasing copyright awareness. You can read about the campaign here on The Drum, and watch behind-the-scenes of a photostunt we did with Gemma Atkinson.

Look out for the man with the flat cap! Video produced by Terry Church PR (my brother). 

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Find the right journalist and get press coverage

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THE PIX-JOCKEY (self-portrait)

A journalist, by Roberto Rizzato

You’ve got a new product or some news you want to get out there. How do you find the right journalist?

Step 1: Read the papers

Read the papers. Every day for a week, go to your local coffee shop for one hour and read all the papers they have back-to-back. Note down the names of journalists who wrote something relevant. It doesn’t have to be about a product exactly the same, even if they just wrote about your industry or have a section that your product would fit into, that’s fine.

Step 2: Research the journalists

Write down their names and then research them online. Read through everything they’ve written and see whether they fit. Things to look out for are whether they write positively about things, or just slag everything off. Are they sarcastic and critical, or nice and optimistic? Try and find as many as possible that fit your match.

Step 3: Tailor your news to their publication

Now it’s time to get your news in shape. If you have the time, it pays to tailor your news to each individual publication. For example, The Sun uses massive words in bold and blasts the message out there (see an example I worked on). The Guardian, by contrast, tends to discuss things more tentatively with facts. Blogs and online news sites love to talk about rumours (as it means they get the story first) so perhaps you could offer them an exclusive into what’s coming up, or a behind the scenes video. Either way, always write the article in the body of an email, never in an attached word document.

Step 4: Call the journalists

For a major publication, magazine or online news outlet, you must call the journalist. If you send them an email without a telephone call, you can forget it. You must call them in the morning, before 9.45am. What’s going in the papers is decided at about 10.30am, so you have to get in before. If you can call them between 8.30 – 9.30 they are much more receptive.

To get through to them, call the publication’s News Desk. I wrote a blog post here which contains links to the contact information of every single major news desk in the UK. Make sure you call ALL the journalists on the same day. They will NOT publish your story if they’ve seen it somewhere else the day or week before.

Phone Script

Newsdesk: “Hello, Weekday Times newsdesk.”

You: “Hi, please can I speak to Joe Bloggs? I’m calling with some relevant news for them.”

Newsdesk: “Please hold…”

Joe Bloggs: “Hello, Joe Bloggs speaking”

You: “Hi Joe, I read your article yesterday about stereotypical names used in examples and how people with that name get really upset. I happen to be an author of a book about stereotypical names and I’ve got some news. Do you have a second?

Joe Bloggs: “Go on”

You: “Thank you. [Give a very brief 20 second summary of your news], can I send you a news release to look at?”

Joe Bloggs: “OK”

You: “Great. What’s your email address Joe?”

Step 5: Send them the email

Now you’ve got their email address, you can send them the pre-written story. Make sure you send the email within 5 minutes of talking to them on the phone. Any longer and they’ve already had a few other phone calls and forgotten about you.

Send them the email, and make sure it’s crystal clear, includes all the relevant information including where they can go to learn more, and how to contact you. Don’t ask them any questions, and don’t expect a reply.

Step 6: Follow them up with another call

At 3pm, give them another call. “Hey Joe, it’s You from this morning. I spoke to you about my book of stereotypical names? Yes. Just wondering if you got the release and had any questions? Great. Do you know whether it’s going to make it into the paper/magazine?”

This follow up call is almost as crucial as the first one. All experience PRs know that a follow up call increases the chances of getting published ten-fold. If you’re not doing it, someone else is. You may even have to do a few follow-ups. I remember that to get my first ever piece of coverage in a regional paper called the Stirling Observer based in Scotland, I chased them four times. In the end I got a full article on page three.

Step 7: Check to see if you got in

Journalists often don’t know whether or not your story will get published. Even if they write something, that doesn’t mean it will. The editor decides what goes in, and the only way for you to check is to buy the paper or magazine and go through it. Don’t rely on Google Alerts (it misses a lot) or any other kind of online tool for digital versions of printed press.

Once you’re published

If you get published, celebrate like crazy. It’s a wonderful achievement and I’m sure you’ll feel the buzz. Tell your friends and followers, link them to the article and if it’s from a credible source put it on your website, As featured on… Also, send the journalist another email thanking them. Within that email, say that you’ll be sure to get in contact with more news, and perhaps give them the inside scoop or exclusive next time. This is just a way to show your appreciation and keep the relationship open for next time.

More press relations advice

If you’ve enjoyed this article, sign up to my free newsletter below to receive more. I provide communication strategies, case studies, productivity hacks and more. Give it a trial, and if you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.

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Goodbye SEO, Hello Content

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If you want your website on the top of Google results, stop thinking SEO and start thinking Content.

As I have explained in my Google workshops, the search engine giant has one incredible skill: The ability to learn from massive amounts of data.

It updates search algorithms up to 500 times a year and weeds out websites that try to game it. If you’ve ever read about SEO, or any sort of guide to get to the top of Google, you’ll probably be familiar with article marketing (now defunct), comment backlinking (now defunct), forum posting (about to be defunct) and link wheeling.

All these quick-win techniques either are, or will become dead soon. Why? Google has just opened its doors to receive vast amounts of data that will enable it to learn which of these websites are shit. How will it know? People are about to tell it.

For the first time, Google is allowing web-masters to tell it which links pointing to their websites are junk and should be ‘disavowed’. On the surface, its allowing web-masters to do this because lots of people have complained that competitors are creating junk links to purposefully reduce their rankings. This ‘disavow’ option is like a white flag web-masters can fly: Hey Google, ignore this link pointing at me, I don’t know who made it and it’s from a dodgy website!

Yet, think about what data Google is really receiving. Hundreds of thousands of people are telling Google which websites are dodgy, and what kind of links it should ignore. Google is being taught by the very people that tried to game it how to find false backlinks. The quick-win SEO strategies are dead.

Hello Content

So how the hell do you get to the top of Google then? The basic principles still apply: Get backlinks from credible sources such as news sites, blogs and social media. Figure out a way to create interest and get written about. This is called a ‘content-led approach’. Make something, write something, share something.

Forget the idea of creating a site, getting it to the top of Google and sitting back as the money rolls in. That never happened anyway. The web is the most competitive marketplace of all; you have to create interesting content (note – doesn’t have to be of the top quality to be successful), and distribute like mad through credible, human-edited channels.

Oddly, that sounds a lot like what PRs have been doing for the last decade.

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Why you should do more than what’s expected

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What’s the best way to make a good impression?

Do more than what’s expected. It doesn’t have to be a work of art, but over-delivering creates a positive reputation. For as long as you follow Rule #1: Never Outshine The Boss, you’ll be seen as an integral asset to the team.

Think of The Little Shit in the last place you worked. You know who I mean, the one that always cut one corner too many, the one that always complained and thought life was unfair, the one that had so little elbow grease you were surprised they could even move their arms at all – would you recommend them?

You don’t want to be The Little Shit, you want to be The Shit.

Make yourself a value-added brand and you can earn more money. What do I mean? There are companies that provide exactly the same product or service, but some are seen as cool and others aren’t. Why is this? It’s because the cool companies are seen to have character through their positive brand reputation. Think of the various big UK phone operators. Cool Co. isn’t just a telecommunications network provider, they’re a brand that over-delivers on their promise, and that’s why they have higher customer retention rates.

There are so many ways you can do this, no matter what your job is. So you’re a window cleaner that gets paid cash-in-hand; present beautifully designed invoices. You’re an accountant that churns out Excel spreadsheets; make them beautifully formatted with comment boxes that explain what’s what in lamen terms. You’re the Prime Minister of Great Britain; say what you really think for a change.

However, there’s no point putting in 50% more effort and getting zero recognition for it. Ask for feedback, “What did you think?”, “Is this what you expected?”, “Is this good?”. Nudge your superiors into recognising your hard work because the unfortunate truth is that they’re probably just too busy to notice otherwise.

When the pay cheque comes in, or when the deal is done, you can smile and think, I earnt this.

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If you’re not sure, ask

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Yesterday I was sitting in the reception area of a gym, waiting to be shown around. Staff members looked at me, and just walked past, or stood idly chatting to each other. The more that walked past, the more they each thought I was being seen too by somebody else. Normally, I’d pipe up, but I wanted to see what would happen.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes I sat there (and in a reception room, time goes bloody slowly), before someone who had been walking in and out like a yo-yo must have caught a good dose of déjà vu because he did a double take, frowned, and asked if I was being seen to. For fuck sake! he shouted at the other staff.

This made me think of the dangers of assumptions. When running a startup, as I experienced with uHouse, it’s really easy to forget who’s doing what. Internal communication is really important to make sure you stay on the right track, that everyone is responsible for measurable actions and that your goals can be met. If this means having one more meeting a week, so be it.

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