Writen by Ken Lizotte
Looking for a novel way to market your professional expertise without spending huge amounts on advertising or PR services? Try writing about your key concepts and specialized knowledge in an article for publication in a business magazine. Publishing your ideas offers a special kind of business promotional opportunity that contributes specific value to your targeted market as a whole. In effect, you are hawking and teaching at the same time, the best of all possible worlds.
Publishing articles allows you to display your service or product offering as a unique and proven commodity. You become an "expert" who has thought a particular issue through. Your resulting wisdom suggests you've more to offer than simply another knee-jerk solution to a business problem. Instead, you've carefully dissected the problem so that your advice can be customized and your prescriptions long-lasting.
There's another reason to publish too, one less obvious but nonetheless powerful in terms of what it could do for your client relationships and project outcomes. The very process of writing will force you to organize and clarify your assumptions and recommendations, challenging you to refine your ideas and arguments. This means that when you must "sell" your services, or speak before a group on a related topic, you will find yourself articulating your concepts more clearly, confidently, persuasively. Writing about something can make you feel more like an expert than you ever thought you were!
Questions That Matter
What questions matter before you start? What should you determine in order to carve out a sensible and ultimately successful publishing campaign? There are two principle questions:
1. Does my article directly advance my business objectives? What aspect or value of your business do you want people to know about? What's the most profitable product you sell or the service or product you most enjoy? What segment of your business would you like most to grow? From your answers to these questions, design article ideas that display what you most want to promote.
2. What publications do the people who actually hire me read? Who typically hires you: CEOs? HR Directors? Training Directors? VPs of Sales? If CEOs, locate publications read by chief executives. If HR Directors, HR publications are those you want to approach. Locate your target publications by cruising the web or browsing publication directories in your library. When you've found 15-20, you've got the beginnings of an effective "target publications list." Don't skip this step: Be sure your writing projects will be encountered by the category of professional who hires you.
Securing Article Assignments
After answering the questions that matter, you're next faced with how to do it. Here's a tip first on how NOT to do it: Work long and hard on an article, mail it out to an editor you've never spoken with, do nothing more, wait forever. This strategy is doomed to fail with so many reasons out there why an editor might not accept your article this way. Most have nothing at all to do with either you, your article idea or your writing. Here are just a few:
• The publication to whom you submitted does not take articles written by outsiders EVER as it is entirely staff-written.
• An article similar to yours was just published the month before.
• An editorial assistant at the publication, just out of college, had been assigned to screen all "unsolicited" manuscripts and has little or no understanding of your field. She wrongly assumes your piece would be too hard for the publication's readers to understand (as it is for her!) and forwards it to a circular file. Her more experienced boss, the editor-in-chief, never gets the chance to review it at all.
Instead, then, of shooting in the dark, try this four-step process for getting your article accepted:
1. Study publications carefully on your target publications list so that you understand the kinds of articles they're looking for and where in the magazine they typically place them.
2. Call each publication directly and ask for the editor in charge of the section you wish to submit to. Example: if a technology-related article, ask for the technology editor. Check the publication's masthead for the current editor's name. Note: If an editor's email address is publicly available, you can use that first but if you don't get a response in a week or so, do a follow-up call.
3. Be respectful of an editor's time. Do not "push" your idea, just pitch it quickly so as to make it available. Treat an editor call as you would a prospecting call—plan it for 30 seconds or less—then say your piece and keep mum and let the editor respond. She will immediately let you know if it's right for her or not.
4. Be ready then and there with more ideas. It's not the end of the world if the editor doesn't snap at your first idea. It may however be the end of a potentially beautiful relationship if you haven't got a back-up idea waiting in the wings. Editors, after all, are eager for good ideas and often don't know where to find them. Speaking with someone with your front-line experience is a principle way they manage to do so.
A Few Follow-up Tips
If you do not reach an editor directly, always leave a voice message outlining (briefly again) your idea, and ending with a courteous, "Thanks for your time." When you do get a "go-ahead," ask for such particulars as editor's preferred article focus, word length, and deadline. Scrupulously adhere to all these parameters and try not to bug your editor as you work on your piece with a lot of annoying questions. Instead, endeavor to make your editor's life as trouble-free as you possible (at least in relation to you!).
Finally, if you do NOT get a go-ahead on any of your ideas, thank the editor and say you'll try him/her again at another time. Then keep studying the publication and do pitch a new set of ideas when you feel you've better figured out what its readers are looking for. The editor in all likelihood is indeed interested in hearing form you again.
By following my guidelines, you can break down the mystique and barriers that have up to now prevented your ideas from seeing print. Once you do, you will enjoy a remarkable, little-used visibility channel capable of setting you apart from the pack. You will begin encountering prospects who light up when they meet you, exclaiming, "Yes, I've heard of you! I've been enjoying your articles and really like what you have to say. Please tell me more about your services." When this happens, you will have arrived at the Promised Land!
Ken Lizotte CMC is Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of Emerson Consulting Group Inc. (Concord, Massachusetts), a firm that transforms consultants, entrepreneurs, executives, managers and other business leaders into "thoughtleaders." Phone: 978-371-0442. Email: ken@thoughtleading.com
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