The full program

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A few lessons from this program

Have you ever seen a business that’s clearly inferior to yours get constant glowing mentions in the media? Or have you ever seen an entrepreneur who doesn’t know jack get quoted in the New York Times like he’s the professor of your industry?

This program will show you how to stand up and get your share of coverage.

And, if you’re saying, “but I don’t care about public relations. I just want to run my business,” this program will help you see why you’re kidding yourself.

Video excerpt

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About Howard Bragman

Howard Bragman is Chairman and Founder of Fifteen Minutes, a strategic media and public relations agency, he launched in 2005. Before that, he founded Bragman Nyman Cafarelli Public Relations and Marketing. He is also the author of Where’s My Fifteen Minutes.

You can also connect with him on Facebook.

Text excerpts: “The Why’s And How’s Of Publicity”

Why you should care about PR.

10 years ago I kind of think PR was reserved for celebrities. But we live in a different world.

We live in the age of YouTube and MySpace and Facebook and Twitter and what’s really changed is we all have a public image. Anybody who’s got any visibility has some sort of public image and the question is – do you want the best public image you can have or do you just want to leave it to chance? Because you’re going to have that image whether you paid attention to it or not.

No one, particularly in this economy, but really in any economy, should leave this to chance. It’s too important. What do any of us own that’s more important than our public image.

What’s in it for you if you get your PR right.

Your reputation is like a bank account.

People are going to give you the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. People are going to buy more products. People are going to knock on your door. They’re going to respect you more. They’re going to want to hear what you have to say. It’s really not complicated.

Almost anything, any good or service that you’re selling, that’s going to be advanced by having a good image, because everybody knows. We live in cynical times, and everybody knows that advertising is paid for and product placement is paid for. But what they still believe in PR.

It’s what’s called third party endorsement and that has huge value. And, you know, I want to say you can’t buy it but you can buy it if you pay me enough money, hopefully.

Just Google yourself if you’ve never done it and see how much is out there and you’ll go, “Oh wow. I didn’t realize.”

How to communicate your big vision.

Stick with one vision at a time.

I don’t know what it is, but we don’t like people to be too uppity. We don’t like people to get too far ahead of themselves. We sort of allow people one dream at a time and once they reach that dream, we’ll let them go to their next dream.

You need to invest some time in that dream and make people believe it. Otherwise what do you get? You get a muddled message. Then if you’re running for senator and you really want to be president the questions that come up are “How are you going to serve the State of New York when you’re really looking to run for president?” Or, “Are you really going to be what’s best for us right now?” Once you are the senator for New York, if you run for president it’s a different kind of situation Constituents start to say, “There’s the honor that our senator is going to be president.” or “Our senator is running for President.”

It’s okay to have big goals and big ambitions but you have to do them in a linear matter. It’s the same thing with companies that do too many things well. You have to sell one thing at a time or at least one thing per marketplace. You can’t sell everything to everybody at the same time.

Stop your “Twittherea”!

There’s a disease out there called “twitterhea.” It’s like diarrhea of the Twitter.

I don’t care that you had sushi for lunch, OK? Be interesting. Be provocative. Be entertaining. Be on message. And something I have to spend time with my own celebrity clients the same way — stop the Twittering that you went to the post office. Nobody really cares. Tell me what’s interesting and different and fun that happened at the post office if you’re a comedian. Or give me some insights. People have to learn when they have a message, it has to stand for something and that’s not to say that you can’t do something without making it public.

People seem to think in this world of Twitter and Facebook updates that if they don’t post it on Facebook or Twitter that it didn’t happen, that it doesn’t have any relevance, which isn’t true. It may be a small moment. It may be collective. But it may be something you want to take a little time to let people know that you do. And that’s basically a judgment call. What is the pace of your life? If you’re given an award or honor it’s nice to let people know you’ve got an award or honor in an appropriate and humble way.

How to keep getting invited on TV for interviews.

There’s whole books on doing interviews and there’s videotapes and you can learn a lot. And I would say I can make almost anybody better. There’s some people who are never going to be great. But most people with enough rehearsal and enough attention can be better and I think it’s like anything else in life. The more you do it, the better you become number one.

Number two, if I’m going on CNN, I don’t walk in the studio and go, “OK what are we talking about?” and answer the questions spur of the moment. I talk to my producer ahead of time and they say, “Here’s what we’re talking about today.” We have a pre-interview. I have three or four messages in my mind that I want to get out. I may have an anecdote or a way I want to get this story out and then I do it. As spontaneous as it may look for some of the better people on TV, it’s rarely spontaneous and that’s sort of the inside secret.

Why smaller audiences are better than mass audiences.

I grew up in Flint, Michigan, and there’s a very famous radio station in Detroit called WJR. And they would have people advertise on WJR Radio Station, and it would be like Timken Steele Company would advertise. Guess what? They were reaching about 12 people in the automobile industry. You know what I mean? So it doesn’t have to be a mass audience to be important.

How to build relationships with reporters before you need them.

I like to build relationships ahead of time.

If you happen to be in the same city, say, “Hey can we go to lunch? Can we talk? Can I introduce myself?”

I have a client who’s a very important mogul in the entertainment industry and he’s got a book coming out next year, so what are we doing? Well, yesterday we went to lunch with two of the entertainment reporters from the Wall Street Journal. Today, we have a lunch with the editor of Los Angeles Magazine, because I want them to start to think of this guy. I’m planting seeds.

If you say I’ve got an interesting startup company and I’d love to sit down with you, what journalist can tell you “No, I don’t want to learn about an interesting company in the marketplace’?

Yesterday the Journal reporter said, “Oh, I’m doing a story on this that you’d be perfect for, can I call you and ask for a quote?” So I got the end result that I wanted out of it, without being so brazen and up front.

A clever way to find your PR person.

People say, “How do I find a good PR person?” Well if you happen to be in the tech industry, what are the blogs that you read and you like? Who are the reporters you follow in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or Wired or whatever? Talk to these people and say, “Hey. I’m thinking about PR for my company. Who are the PR people you like dealing with the best?”

Two things happen, one you get their insight. You’re going to get the name of somebody they like dealing it. Second they’re likely to say, “Oh, tell me about your company,” and you’ve opened a dialog with that reporter, so two good things happen that way.

Full program includes

• A 3-step process for getting any conversation back to your message.

• How smart companies screw up their vision. And how you can avoid it.

• Why “publicizable moments” are so powerful. Why you might be missing yours. And how to capitalize on them.

Suggested comments

• Do you agree that you need to spend time on public relations?

• What else do you want to learn about promoting your business?

• How do you like the excerpts that I picked for this post?