Learn The 'Community' Formula For Successful Public Relations (No Agency Required)

Last September I wrote about my friend Wendy Lipton-Dibner, who went on the record with her goal to achieve a best selling book with an impact-driven book (not a celebrity tell-all, etc.) and without manipulating the process. I promised to report her results. She succeeded. On October 24, her book Focus On Impact hit #25 on the nation’s list of top books on business, and #8 for top business books in paperback.

For our next conversation, however, I asked her ideas on how to get other businesses and press to promote your message, products and services without an agency, and especially as a startup entrepreneur. Her solution: Create a community of collaboration. Build a five-point structure of collaborative impact that includes your business, one other business, consumers, a non-profit organization and press media. She has used and recommended this process with success to build and grow multimillion-dollar retail and service businesses throughout the US, Canada, UK and Australia across an array of industries from healthcare to hair care.

Lipton-Dibner initially developed and copyrighted the COMMUNITY formula for her organization Professional Impact, Inc., for use in her Move People To Action programs, but it is also available from her newest website, FocusOnImpact.com. She initially developed the strategy to grow businesses offline, but notes that it has proven highly effective for acceleration of online businesses as well. Here’s how the formula works:

C. Choose a complimentary business in your community whose customers represent your ideal demographic. Hint # 1: A business is complimentary to yours if their products or services would be useful to your market (and vice-versa). Hint # 2: Their business should have an area large enough to place at least 30 folding chairs with 6 feet of empty floor space around the perimeter of the seating. Hint #3: They must have parking for at least 30 cars.

O. Open a conversation with the manager/owner to offer your help bringing in customers. Hint # 4: Start here: “I’m a local business owner and I’d like to offer my services at no charge to help you get more customers to your store/business. Is this a good time to talk?” (If necessary, request an appointment to speak with the manager or owner.) Hint # 5: Continue the conversation, “I’d like to spotlight your business by holding a small gathering here one evening after business hours to serve your existing customers, re-engage people you haven’t seen in a while and attract new customers to your door.”

M. Make the offer easy by offering to take care of all details from marketing to follow-up. Hint # 6: Continue the conversation, “My goal is to make this easy for you. I will put together a fun and interesting program, create marketing copy, manage all promotions locally, online and in media and set up everything for you on the evening of our event.”

M. Move them to action by helping them see the benefits of your collaboration. Hint # 7: Continue the conversation, “The most important thing to me is that this benefit you, so will you tell me a bit about your ideal customers so I can craft this program to attract everyone you want to reach?” Hint # 8: Ask questions about their favorite customers, what keeps them coming back and what s/he thinks customers would most enjoy for refreshments. Hint # 9: Identify metrics so you have a way to measure the successful outcome of this project. For example, the number of customers who visit their store per week before and after your collaboration.

U. Unify your messages in a collaborative title that spotlights their business and, at the same time, gives a hint about your unique offerings. Hint # 10: Consider the name of their business, their tagline, their products/services and find a creative way to fit their branding with yours in a title that will attract people to the program. For example, if you offer financial services and their business is a shoe store, you might title your program, “Walk in Style on Your Path to Financial Freedom.” Nominate a local non-profit organization to benefit from the program. Hint # 11: The key is to choose a local charity you both want to support and build the event around this charity. Charge a nominal fee for the program that will be donated to the charity and understand this event is not as much for fund raising as for raising awareness of the organization’s impact in your community. Hint # 12: Craft a letter to the non-profit that is signed by you and the other business owner, outlining your plan to come together to support them through your event.

I. Invite local media to tell the story of two local businesses coming together to serve the community and support a local charity. Hint # 13: Local media are always looking for unique stories in their local viewing area. Help them by providing the “hook” that will entice their viewers to tune in to watch by evoking an irresistible curiosity to know more. Hint # 14: Include media representatives in the event with opportunities for branding, onsite interviews with community members and follow-up interviews post-event. The key is to paint a clear picture of this as more than an event – this is a story of the community coming together to support each other in growing success.

T. Transform lives through a program that is designed to make an immediate and lasting impact on everybody involved. Hint # 15: Set the time of your event for 30 minutes prior to your presentation so you can greet attendees, treat them to refreshments and allow time for them to enjoy the venue. Remember to have a sign-in sheet to collect contact information for follow-up. Hint # 16: Set up the space with folding chairs for attendees to view your presentation. If space allows, place three tables for: (1) refreshments and branding for your business partner, (2) informational brochures/flyers for your non-profit partner, and (3) your branded collateral. Hint # 17: When it is time for your presentation, focus on three goals: (1) shine a bright spotlight on the business, non-profit organization and media you’ve brought together for this event, (2) provide practical, how-to steps to help attendees solve a particular problem that relates to your own business expertise, and (3) use ethical influence to move people to action so they will implement your advice.

Y. Yearn to create measurable success for the people you serve through this initiative. Hint # 18: The secret to growing your business through this initiative is to put your full focus on creating measurable results for every person whose life you touch in the implementation of this program--your collaborative business partner, his/her employees and existing customers, the non-profit organization and the people they serve, the media representatives who cover the event and their audience, and most of all, the people who attend the program. When you focus on impacting others’ lives, you’ll see measurable results for your own business.

The COMMUNITY formula has been proven to work most effectively, ironically, in a down economy, when businesses are scrambling to get new customers, media are actively seeking upbeat stories and non-profit organizations are desperately seeking funds and awareness for their cause.

In all, the more you focus the spotlight on others, the more recognition you receive, too, as an impact-driven organization that genuinely cares about the community and values positive benefit to others over income, Lipton-Dibner maintains. This is the strategy she has used for each of her own businesses as a serial entrepreneur and has also recommended to scores of other organizations. The effort will come back to you many times over, she says. As Lipton-Dibner frequently reminds entrepreneurs, “When you Focus On Impact, the money (and the public relations) will come.”