How Do You Communicate?

How do you communicate with your employees, customers, potential customers, and past customers? Are the communications tools you use effective, professional and clear? Are they cost effective? Are they manpower intensive? Are they consistent? Good answers to these questions will make a difference in morale and sales.

Bring Reporters Into Play Carefully

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Who Stepped In It

Bring Reporters Into Play Carefully: You can generate a story in the media, but that doesn't always mean you should. The president of the Virginian Aquarium Foundation's board of directors recently wrote a letter to Virginia Beach City Council that generated a 17" Virginian-Pilot story. The letter and the story risked a rift between City Council and the Aquarium, which has long been (at least until the letter) one of the city's pet projects and well funded with taxpayer dollars. The aquarium leadership could have addressed the issue with a phone call. To parade it on stage in front of the city hall reporter is asking for trouble -- and they got 17 inches of it with good placement in the paper. Talk only if it improves the silence. Before putting media pressure on any entity or person, weigh the consequences of what that publicity could do. Backfires are messy to clean up and can be costly.