Make like a marketing scout and be prepared….

Luck favors the prepared… a lesson I keep seeing illustrated over and over again. 

For example, I joined LinkedIn because I needed to contact a gentlemen who has done PR work for a client of mine.  When I Googled the gentleman, his LinkedIn account was the only reference to him so I joined so I cound contact him.  I was wanting to contact him because in my November newsletter, I was writing about "Do your marketing goals include appearing on Oprah?"  I have NO desire to begin consulting on PR and this gentleman did a great job with my client. 

I contacted the PR guy and asked if he had a resource I could share with my readers.  You know, a "The Top 10 Things you should do BEFORE you try to launch a PR campaign" type of piece.  I view these kinds of partnerships as win/win/win.  I provide a resource to my readers so they win.  That makes them WANT to read my newsletter.  (I win)   He wins because he gets his services showcased to a new crop of potential prospects.  Win -Win- Win.

However, there was a catch.  He didn’t HAVE such a resource prepared.  Could I give him until December to prepare one?  Since I didn’t have a December issue prepared anyhow, I decided to move the Marketing Goals and Oprah piece to December and quickly pull together a new piece for November.  The December deadline came and went.  PR guy missed a showcase opportunity because he was not prepared.

The thing is, the piece I asked him to provide my readers was a piece he could use OVER AND OVER AGAIN!  That’s what’s GREAT about planning ahead and being prepared.  By responding to THAT opportunity, he would have had a piece prepared that no doubt would serve him well over the next months if not years.  

Now to provide an example of a STARK contrast, allow me to introduce you to Tamar Weinberg.  Tamar and I had connected via her techipedia blog and as a result, she’s in my gmail contacts list.  When I joined LinkedIn, she got one of  my global "invites"  and now she and I are "linked" at Linkedin.  AWESOME!

Today, I saw that Tamar had replied to a question on Internet Marketing.  Smooth as silk, Tamar offered a quick link to her  "list of the Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007."

Prepared on December 26, 2007…. Tamar created a post that will serve her well over the next year.   Now, she’s leveraging that post.  Instead of spending an hour or more composing a "personal " reply to a general question… she tosses out a well prepared piece and VIOLA!  She’s a star for providing such a resource to a fellow LinkedIn member AND everyone in her extensive network is being directed to the post.  Time spent: 15 minutes or less.  (Assuming she didn’t get sucked into the LinkedIn vortex of social networking!)

(To be read in Napoleon Dynamite’s voice) "Gee, Tamar.  You sure are lucky.  You’ve got a great blog with a lot of traffic.  Geesh…. You’re so LUCKY!"

It’s this kind of "preparation" that makes you "lucky"…. don’t ever forget it.  That blog post took a lot of time and effort to prepare and now she’s "cashing in" on that preparation time.    I have a feeling if I’d contacted Tamar for a resource for my newsletter, she’d have it to me as quick as lightning.   

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