News Releases 101 Who cares? Why do they/should they care? What do they want and need to know? If you can answer these three questions before you begin to write a news release, you've got a good start. Now all you have to do is make your release stand out from the avalanche of approximately 300 that editors in the Seattle market receive every day. How can you increase the odds that your release will jump out and grab the editors' attention? Here are some tips on creating a release that separates the pros from the wanna-bes:

• Put the date of the release and contact information (your name and number/s where you can be reached 24/7) at the very top of the page where the information is easy to find.
• Grab attention with a boldface, centered headline that has either a strong "news hook" or a cleverly stated special interest angle. For example, headlines on a series of home decorating seminars that received good coverage included, "Well-Dressed Walls" and "Bedrooms: Anything Goes!"
• Begin the first line with the name of the city where your company is located or where the story will happen, followed by a dash and the opening sentence.
• The first sentence should refer to the idea expressed in the headline and fill in some of the details. Begin with the most important information first.
• Each succeeding paragraph should contain further details of less and less importance so that editors can quickly determine if they're interested and then choose where to chop it off without losing essential data.
• End with a paragraph describing your business services, how long you've been in practice, etc. This may not be used in a news story but it establishes your credibility and tells editors whether you're newsworthy and/or a reliable source of information.
• Edit ruthlessly! Make sure every word is necessary. Study the news columns to get a feel for how it's done. Limit simple announcements, such as new staff appointments, to one page. For most other stories, no more than two pages is a good rule of thumb. It's rare that a story is so complex--and interesting--enough to warrant more. The Associated Press Stylebook, available at any bookstore, is a standard style guide.
• When a story continues to another page, include "(more)" at the bottom center. This lets the editor know that there's additional information on this subject somewhere in the stack of releases! At the top of each succeeding page, include a "slug line," such as "Hot Speaker in Town--2," to let the editor know which story is continuing and which page of the release it is.
• At the end of the release, center the standard news symbol, for "the end," which is three pound signs, "###". This leaves no doubt that the release is finished.

For a copy of a sample news release that contains these tips, click here.

© Evelyn Clark, The Corporate Storyteller, is president of Clark & Company, a marketing communication firm in the Seattle area. A public relations practitioner with more than 20 years experience, she was accredited by the Public Relations Society of America in 1986. Her firm's services include facilitation of retreats and communication workshops, marketing and communication management, media relations strategy development, and media training. http://www.CorpStory.com

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Networking Your Home Business within Circles of Influence

When you need an auto mechanic or an air conditioning repairman, where do you turn for help? Sure, some people turn to the yellow pages. But most will turn to friends and family and ask if they know of anyone who can do the work.

The best place for your business to be positioned is to be the business on the tips of the tongues of the people asked to make the referral.

THE 300 RULE

Preachers, funeral directors and people in a few other professions have learned “the 300 rule” through their own personal experience.

“The 300 rule” states that the average person knows 300 people on a friendly level. Wedding planners tend to make reservations for 300 guests. Funeral directors tend to need to make room for 300 mourners. You get the idea.

DOODLING WITH CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE

Imagine your circle of friends, family and acquaintances, a.k.a. your circle of influence. Now, draw your circle of influence as a circle on a blank piece of paper.

Next, contemplate the people in your parents’ circle of influence. Some people who know your parents also know you. Therefore, you will share some influence with the people your folks know. Now draw your parents’ circle of influence on your piece of paper.

Your circle and your parents’ circle will intersect in one area, although the larger majority of the two circles will not intersect. If you are like most people, the two circles on your page at this point looks very similar to the MasterCard logo.

Now imagine drawing a page full of intersecting circles, each circle representing the circle of influence of the people who are within your own circle of influence. Imagine trying to encapsulate an accurate rendering of where your circle and the circle of your friends will actually intersect.

Some circles will share a large area of space, while others will barely cover one another.

Actually, you can only imagine at this point what your piece of paper will look like. The actual layout of the circles imagined in this analogy is simply too overwhelming for the mind to comprehend.

THE BIG PICTURE

300 multiplied by 300 equals 90,000. By using the analogy of doodles in the previous section, the average person can actually network with up to 90,000 people! Even factoring in the overlap, one can still probably network with 50,000 people through their own circle of influence!

Simply amazing, isn’t it?

HERE IS THE SECRET TO YOUR SUCCESS

There are 300 people on this planet whom you have a reasonable amount of influence. Take advantage of this fact. Make darn sure that every person within your own circle of influence KNOWS that you are in business for yourself, and make sure they understand what your business offers.

When your friend is asked to make a referral, they will recommend you.

PASSIVE VERSUS ACTIVE REFERRAL NETWORKING

When people ask your friends for a referral and your friend mentions your business, that is passive referral networking.

Active referral networking is when you can get your friends go directly to their friends and say “Hey, I have a friend who just started a business. If you are in need of what he offers or you know someone who will need his services, would you please give my friend a call or make the referral to his business?”

If you can get even a portion of the people in your own circle of influence to actively refer your business, then you have built the foundation to build an advertising campaign even more effective than the average local television advertising campaign.

Think about that for a moment.

Most people only dream of reaching 50,000 potential customers with their television advertising dollars. You now have the knowledge to reach 50,000 people without spending a single penny.

Stone Evans owns the Home Business Resource Directory where you can find everything you'll ever need to start, run and grow a home based business at: http://www.Home-Business.com This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Networking on the Net

Networking is one of the most effective ways to find clients for any consulting or professional services business. But if you limit your networking to only what you can do in person, you’ll be missing out on a huge number of possibilities.  

Networking is more than entering a room full of people and exchanging business cards. It’s creating a pool of contacts with whom you can exchange clients, referrals, resources, ideas, and information. Networking can happen by phone, by mail, over coffee, and increasingly, over the Internet.

The growth of the Internet has created many new ways to network without ever leaving your home or office. Pick a topic, any topic, and there will be multiple web sites and online communities devoted to it. Almost any type of Internet presence offers opportunities for networking.

In your favorite search engine, type the name of your profession or specialty, e.g. “interior design” or “marketing communications.” Or, if you have a clearly defined target market, you can use that, e.g. “baby boomers” or “biotechnology.” Skip the sponsored links or banner ads and focus on the detailed results. What you will find is the following:

Professional Associations & Schools — Many association or school sites provide member rosters, resource pages, back issues of newsletters, event calendars, and bulletin boards or discussion lists. Not all of these features will be restricted to members or students.

Resource Sites & Online Communities — These include directories of people in the profession, vendors, articles, event calendars, bulletin boards, discussion lists, live chats, and links to even more resource sites.

Publications — Magazines and newsletters maintain sites that offer everything from back issues to complete online communities.

Job Postings — These may appear on any of the above sites, and often include opportunities for independent professionals, not just those looking for full-time employment.

Colleagues & Competitors — Colleagues and competitors may be exactly the same people, depending on your relationship with them. Their sites will tell you more about them and their work, and may offer many of the same features as resource sites.

Potential Clients — Their sites will tell you about the work they do, current and upcoming projects, and even the names of executives and managers.
Also, if you subscribe to an online service offering interactive “channels,” like America Online, CompuServe or MSN, there may be an entire area dedicated to your profession or target market. Some of these resources are available to non-members as well.

Now, how can you use all this information to network? Here are some of the most common ways:

Bulletin Boards — These are web pages where you can view and post questions and comments on a specific subject. Answering a posted question is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise, become known to the people who frequent the board, and get to know others in your field.

Don’t be overly self-promotional when posting, just include a signature line at the end of your post, e.g. “Ingrid Gustafsson, Nordic Design.” If you see someone else on the board who you would like to get to know in a collegial way, e-mail them. But never directly approach for business the people you find there. You might find yourself banned from membership.

Discussion Lists — These are like bulletin boards, but are e-mailed to members of the list daily, weekly, or whenever a new posting arrives. When posting to these lists, you can include more information about yourself in a signature box at the end of each e-mail. Keep it short, but include some reason for people to get in touch with you outside the list, such as, “Subscribe to my free newsletter,” or, “Visit my web site for a free resource guide.”

In addition to locating discussion lists through search engines as described above, you can find them through online community hosts such as Yahoo Groups or MSN Groups.

Live Chats — Many online communities sponsor real-time chats on specific topics. Participating in these chats is an excellent way to meet people interested in the subject being discussed. Chat rooms that require membership are best, because you are more likely to encounter professionals seriously interested in the topic instead of people just looking for a date.

Attending chats featuring a guest speaker can be more valuable than you might think. If you ask a question during one of these, don’t be surprised if people contact you by e-mail during or after the chat to offer you more resources related to your question. You can make exactly the same type of contacts when you are the one who has something to offer.

Articles — Notice who is writing them and who is being written about. These people are likely to be leaders in your field, or at least highly visible. That makes them good contacts for you. Send them an e-mail complimenting them on the article and suggesting you get acquainted for mutual benefit. Make a specific suggestion about what you can offer, e.g. referrals or resources.

Others in Your Field — These may be colleagues, competitors, vendors, or potential clients. Approach them collegially with ideas about how a relationship could benefit you both, such as exchanging referrals, pooling resources, links on each other’s web site, or trading endorsements or articles in each other’s ezine.

If you can’t find a board, list, chat, or site with the exact focus you want, consider starting one of your own. While hosting one of these communities takes time and effort, it will also put you in the center of the network that forms around it instead of on the outskirts.

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com

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Networking Scares Me!

When I started my business, if I knew then what I know now I either would not have started it or I would have become profitable much faster! Everyone who has their own business needs to learn an incredible amount.

Perhaps the most important business tenet is so simple – you make money when you sell stuff. To sell stuff, you market. To market effectively, it’s important to specify a segment of the market to whom to target your marketing message. Then you give them your message and they buy!

Let’s say you have already done much of the preparation. You’ve selected a target market; you did the features/benefits analysis for your product and company and researched where your target gathers. Then what? Once you figure out where they are and what you want to say, then what do you do?

In most small businesses, relationships are critical to your success. In building relationships with other small business owners, you have the opportunity to learn, find reliable vendors and business service providers, share best practices and get customers – directly and from referrals. You find these other business owners by networking. To many, this is a very scary concept. Do not be afraid!

Before showing up, make sure your elevator speech is customer focused. Honestly, nobody really cares about you; they are interested in what’s in it for them. Why should they consider doing business with you or referring business to you from their customers? Practice in front of a mirror with a stopwatch if necessary, and make sure to smile appropriately. Review your features/benefits analysis for a confidence boost.

Then go where your ideal customers gather. If you’re all sitting at a table, suggest you all pass your cards around to each other and do a ‘round robin’ where everyone takes a minute or two to give their ‘elevator speech’ (the 30 second or more speech you give where you pitch your company or service). You may volunteer to go first if you wish – sometimes that just gets everyone going.

Some networking groups allow each attendee to give their elevator speech to everyone in the room. The time for this usually varies from 30 – 90 seconds. One networking group with whom I regularly meet also passes a tray around the room with everyone’s business cards.

If there are no formal networking opportunities at a meeting, all attendees will probably be milling around a room or lobby area striking up conversations with each other. Although this may be difficult, especially at first, just walk right up to a group of people in conversation and listen. Everyone in the room knows you are all there for the same thing – networking – and will usually welcome you into the conversation.

Tips:
# 1 Keep your business cards in your left pocket, easily accessible. When you are shaking hands with someone, you can easily reach into your pocket and get a business card.
# 2 Wear a name badge, and write clearly if it is a sticker.
# 3 Smile.
# 4 Ask others about their businesses first. This is more of a networking rule!
# 5 Have something to say. Take your elevator speech and boil it down to about 10 words/7 seconds.
# 6 After a few minutes, move on to other people.

You may want to ask for help from the leader or organizer of the group or event. Ask them to introduce you to people in your target. If you run out of things to say, ask open-ended questions. “Why are you here today? Who is your ideal customer? What is your biggest business problem?” are a few that work well. You are showing interest and qualifying them at the same time.

After you leave the event, send everyone you met a “Nice to meet you” email. If you want to maximize the effect of your networking, ask if you can get to know them better by meeting one-on-one to learn about each others’ businesses for purposes of referring to each other. Use the phone for your best customer/referral prospects. This is where the real power of networking kicks in. It is very unlikely someone will trust you enough in 5 minutes to decide to refer their hard-earned customers to you!

Networking can get you customers, but keep a longer-term approach. Keep going back to the same groups and presenting a consistent message directed at your target market again and again. When your contacts are ready to buy what you’re selling or come in contact with someone who is, they’ll think of you first!

Audrey Burton is a Business Coach. Audrey is a caring, but practical coach. Audrey’s ultimate goal is to help women entrepreneurs to be happy and successful at work. She keeps her clients focused and motivated by helping them create a custom plan they can be excited about. To sign up for her fr*ee, monthly email newsletter and to better understand how she works, visit her website at http://www.tigresscoaching.com. I teach women entrepreneurs to be happy at work! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Negotiating Right: Get What You Deserve

If magazine publishing worked like any other business, writers would fix their rates, and magazines would run around trying to hire the best writer in the lowest possible cost. Sadly, that’s not the case. In this bizarre business, writers trying to compete with each other not only have to prove their worth once, but again and again, and each time they want an assignment. You’ve got clips. You’ve written the perfect query. You’ll even deliver the best assignment. But then again, you’ll have to ask for more money and negotiate your way into getting what you deserve. If you’re a writer whose sole source of income is your writing, then you have to negotiate. It’s the whole lifeblood of your business. Don’t get paid less simply because you didn’t ask. Don’t worry. You’re not going to sound greedy. You work hard, and you deserve to be paid for it. When a magazine puts “pays $50-$700” in their guidelines, what can you do to be the writer who is paid in the higher range? If you’re a beginner, you probably won’t even think of getting into the high-paying slot. You’d think those places were reserved for the regular and the more experienced writers, right? Wrong! Admitted, regular writers are preferred, and their pay rates will usually be much higher than yours. But you don’t fall into that lower category because you’re a beginner; you fall into it because you fail to negotiate. If you’ve got a sparkling query, an article proposal that the editor simply loves, and good writing skills that leave the editor craving for more, she’s not going to bail out on you simply because you asked for more money. In fact, she’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Not having a dozen clips on your resume does not entitle you to less pay. In fact, if you act like a professional, and give the editor what she wants, money won’t even be an issue.

Spot the Loopholes

Whenever you find a magazine that has a variable pay rate, be sure there’s room for negotiation. Why else would they have such a broad category? A very well known magazine mentions in their guidelines that they pay their writers anywhere from $50-$1000 based on experience and length of article. What I also noticed was that they’ve specified the length of pieces in their columns and departments. So, reading between the lines, I’m thinking—negotiation! What about all those magazines that pay fixed rates? Do you just settle for what they have to give or is there room for something more? If you’re looking to be paid more, there’s a very remote possibility. However, there are other things that you can ask for. For one, there's rights. If you could use one piece in more than one publication, it would get you more money, though indirectly. Even so, another publication means another name added to your list of growing credits. Wouldn’t you much rather sell one piece to ten different magazines, than get paid only once? Other than that, kill fees are a definite must. You don’t want to spend hours on your research, only to have your article removed off the publication list. You deserve payment for the time you put in. Talk to the editor about this before you’ve actually started the writing process. Normally, kill fees are around 20-50%. It’s very unlikely that you’ll get more even if you have a working relationship with the editor. Another issue is payment on acceptance versus payment on publication. Magazines have very long lead times. In simple words, this means that there you could have to wait as long as six to eight months after acceptance to see your article in print. If you’re an international writer, the delay is even longer, sometimes leading to getting payments months after you’ve written the article. Do you really want to wait that long? Can you? What else? Bios. Short blurbs after our names that could point to a Website, have contact information or simply mark us as experts. A few magazines give them, but if they don’t, you could ask for one. Or you could ask for a bigger bio or a photo alongside. This is much easier to do if your article is appearing online. If the editor is unwilling to pay you more, this is your best bet. If your article required a lot of traveling, phone calls, lunches or other expenses, ask the publication to reimburse it. There will usually be a limit to how much a publication will pay, but it should cover your total expenditure on writing the article. Send in the bills, appropriately marked, and you’ll be paid. If this clause isn’t mentioned in your contract, be sure to bring it up. Finally, you want copies of the magazines. As many as you can get, actually. Most publications will give you two-three copies of the magazine or publication in which your work appears. If possible, ask for more. This is especially important for international writers who can’t buy copies of the magazine themselves.

Get it Right

If you’re like most writers, you’re a pro at writing emails with demands no editor dare refuse, but when it comes to negotiation in person or over the phone, you give in a little too soon. You know you could have got more, but you caved in before you could gather yourself to say, “I was expecting more.” Negotiating is a whole other job in itself. (That’s why we have agents right?). But as a freelancer, an agent would do you more harm than good, so you’ll have to take up this profession as well. (You’re already a writer, marketer, promotion expert, Website developer, accountant, …what’s one more job?) When an editor sends over a contract in which you can see the need for negotiation, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and talk to her. It’s easier than you think. Editors expect writers to negotiate. Professionals do it all the time. So, it doesn’t come as a surprise to her when a writer asks for a bigger paycheck. She’s probably even prepared for it. And this is the sole reason why she’ll give in more easily than you thought. Stand your ground and be confident. If you believe you deserve to be paid more for your words, she will too. So, let’s imagine you’ve got an acceptance letter (or phone call) from the editor. Yippee! Do the victory dance, run around and tell everyone you know and then come back to planet Earth for a reality check. Before talking to the editor, you should have a fair idea of what you’re expecting from the publication. Don’t keep your demands too high. At the same time, don’t keep your expectations so low either. The publication’s guidelines should give a rough idea of the upper and lower limits and depending on your article length and research, you should be able to determine a rough amount. A few pointers on the actual process of negotiating: * Don’t be the first to state the figure. Sometimes you just have to, but try to get the editor to propose the amount and you can work your way up from there. * Use phrases such as “I was expecting more” and “That sounds a little low” or even “ I was thinking more in the range of …”. * Don’t argue with the editor. After all, you do want the assignment. Reach a figure that you’re both comfortable with. * If the editor doesn’t budge on the money front, ask for a better rights agreement or a bigger byline. Payment on acceptance is always a big plus. * Finally, never be unprofessional. If you don’t like the terms of the agreement and decide not to write for the publication after all, be polite. Demeaning the editor or the publication will get you nowhere but in the black list.

Get it in Writing

Nothing is final (or legal) until you get it on paper. If your old contract didn’t state the terms correctly, ask for a new one. Check and recheck the terms and only then sign the paper. Writers are often deprived of their hard-earned money simply because they were too nervous to ask. Looking back, I see many times when I knew I could have asked for more, but didn’t. And there are many other writers who don’t either, because they don’t want to risk a relationship with an editor before it’s even begun. Whether you’re a novice, or a seasoned pro, the truth is--you won’t get something unless you ask for it. So next time, give it a try, and you might end up making more than you thought.

Mridu Khullar is a full-time freelance writer from New Delhi, India and has written for almost 70 publications, recently including Chicken Soup for the Soul, Writer's Digest, Women's Health & Fitness, Girls' Life, Wedding Dresses and ePregnancy. Visit her at http://www.MriduKhullar.com

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Nature Journaling: Combining Art and Writing

Bored with life? For a breath of freshness in your mundane existence, try your hand at nature journaling. A proper nature journal consists of a sketchpad and your written observations of the wonders of creation. Let the beautiful and amazing natural world inspire and lift you as you draw and write.

So what exactly is a nature journal? Simply put, it is a notebook in which you record your observations of the natural world. Educators use nature journals to teach science, art, and writing with children as young as kindergarten. The educational opportunity does not end when school does, however, because many adults down through the years have kept nature journals. A well known example is a book called “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady” written in 1906 by Edith Holden. Another famous nature journaler was Thomas Jefferson.

A nature journal is a place to sketch or draw anything from a tiny bug or seed to a mountain view. For best results, use a pad designed for sketching. In some school supply stores, you may be able to find bound volumes that feature pages that are blank on top and lined on the bottom. These make it easy to both draw and write about the things you see.

Drawing may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is a skill that can be learned. Spend some time at it and you may grow to love it. One thing that makes drawing special as a hobby is that you really can’t do it while you are thinking about something else. In order to draw a leaf, flower, or bug, you must pay very close attention to it. The idea is to observe the item closely, then transfer, line by line, what you see onto paper.

Colored pencils or water colors are nice to use for nature journals. Just a little color can really bring a penciled sketch to life. Here’s a tip for those who cringe at writing in bound volumes and possibly messing up some pages. Draw what you like on a removable page, and then keep your best work in page protectors in a special looseleaf. In this way, you not only don’t have to risk ruining a good page: you also don’t have to take all your completed drawings with you to the field.

Don’t stop at drawing, though. Note the parts of the item you drew, when appropriate. For instance, on a drawing of a flower, note the stamen and pistils. Describe the colors and the habitat where you found it. Then, if the muse strikes, pen a few lines of poetry about the flower, too.

You can also devote pages in your nature journal to the thoughts you are having on that particular day, especially as they relate to the experience of being out of doors, observing the natural world. Maybe you will feel inspired to outline a letter to the editor about the need for environmental legislation. Or, maybe you’ll feeling like drafting an article stating the benefits of active time out of doors for the health of children.

A rule that helps with all journals is to get into the habit of dating your entries. This will help you, in the future, to pinpoint the season in which you drew the sketch. You might even want to include the time of day. If you’ve ever journaled without dating entries, and then tried it with dates, you will understand just how nice it is to have things dated. Our memories just are not able to keep track.

About Shery: Shery is the creator of WriteSparks!™- a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks!™ Lite for free at http://writesparks.com. She is also the author of 2 books. Visit her official site at http://sheryruss.com

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Nature as a Source of Inspiration for Writing Child Stories

Nature can be a rich source of inspiration for writing a child book. Here are 7 ways that you can tap into nature to uncover material for your children’s stories and unleash your creativity.

#1: Flora, Fauna and…

This is obvious, but you can use animals, or even plants, mountains, stones, rivers, etc. as characters in your story. They will probably be anthropomorphic, having the characteristics of humans. For example, a river that becomes angry and turns into raging rapids. You can use nature in this way to help your reader see things from a different perspective. For example, you could make up a story about the animal kingdom (e.g. an ant colony). You might imagine what it would be like to become an ant and see the world from that perspective.

Nature may also form the setting for your story. Just remember to describe only what’s necessary to move your story forward and convey your message. Don’t get bogged down in lengthy descriptions.

#2: The Four Seasons

Not the musical group but the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and fall. These could be an integral part of your story, not just the backdrop to it. The fable of the ant and the grasshopper is a good example of how the seasons can propel a story forward and be a metaphor, too. A beautiful example of how you can use the seasons as both a metaphor and a setting is the Korean film “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring Again”.

#3: Cycles

More than just the four seasons, nature is full of cycles: life and death; healing; pregnancy and birth; maturation; etc. A common theme in many children’s stories is the maturation or growth of the protagonist. The hero or heroine of the story overcomes obstacles and becomes stronger or more mature in the process.

#4: The Elements

Did you know that each element has a concept associated with it? Air = Thought, Fire = Desire, Water = Emotions, Earth = Stability. In Chinese philosophy, the elements are also linked to parts of the body. This gives you three dimensions to play around with: elements, concepts and parts of the body. The elements themselves could be anthropomorphic reflections of the different concepts and their interplay could be a metaphor for human being’s difficulties in finding balance between thought and emotion, desire and stability, etc.

#5: Astronomy

The universe or astronomy (sun, moon, planets, stars, etc.) is another possible source of inspiration. The planets can be anthropomorphic characters or can be manipulated by the characters. Characters that manipulate the planets represent a theme often found in mythology and even modern-day stories such as “Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me”

#6: Nature’s Patterns

As we all know, nature is very complex, yet elegantly simple at the same time. Natural dynamics such as evolution and propagation could be an interesting element in your stories. You could, for example, explore how a creature has evolved over time (this could be a good sci-fi story).

On another level, there are also little truisms in nature. Remember when the giant sea monster threatening to devour the Jedi Knights in one of the Star Wars films gets swallowed whole by an even bigger monster? Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi, then says wryly: “there’s always a bigger fish.”

#7: Study and Absorb Nature

If you want to really be inspired, try just sitting somewhere in nature and observing it in all its splendor. You may discover interesting (anthropomorphic) behaviors or larger patterns. You will also become more relaxed and when you’re relaxed it’s easier to be creative.

Conclusion

These are just a few ways you can get inspired by nature to make up child stories. I’m sure you’ll think of more. I think nature is particularly interesting as a source of inspiration because it is awesome and powerful, neutral (with “pure nature” there is no good or bad per se), beautiful and perfect. It’s pretty hard to improve upon nature.

P.S. If you record or write down any of your stories, you can send them to me and I’ll publish them on my website with your name (and copyright) on them.

Paul Arinaga is founder of the Child Stories Bank (www.child-stories-bank.com). The Child Stories Bank provides FREE original children's stories as well as resources to help writers create and get their stories published, and a directory of child storybook illustrators. © 2005=06 Paul Arinaga. All Rights Reserved.

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Motivate Your Market Force

Intro
Want me to tell you something on how you can motivate your market force in 2005. I will do so today. Tell you ideas that will power your marketing and promotions with force, if only you will appreciate their simplicity and common sense. Tell me.

A critical question: How simple, motivational and forceful are your communications and market
thrust? Is it all creativity, hi-tech and strategy, but no force? How easily digestible and real are your promotional messages?

Simplicity and Common Sense

This is a winning combination in today’s marketplace, yet many corporate bodies and professionals discount them. The more complex your marketing, the more forceful, so they think. Not anymore. If you must lead the pack in your business, then keep your product packaging and marketing simple. You must stoop to the level of your consumers and communicate with force. These days, as you communicate and sell, you have to motivate your workforce and your customers. Why? Motivation and simplicity, they are the power, the market forces that will rule business this year. Without them, there is no force in your marketing. Some ideas.

1. Create your own medium

Your marketing costs should not be too heavy. You can keep it low by creating your own medium that is simple and cost effective. Here is what an American company does. It plants corporate messages right on the back of complimentary cards of its employees. The messages are seasonal. It can be on your vision/mission, ethics, quality control, or social responsibility. In not more than 30 words, you tell your story.

2 CEOs : Sweep the floor

CEO’s. How do you communicate with your workforce? Do you limit it to managers? What about the staff at the bottom? They have information no one else has. Kenneth Hendricks, CEO of an American company gives this idea: “If you want to know really what is happening in most companies, you talk to the guy who sweeps the floor. Nine times out of 10, he knows more than the President. So I make it a point of knowing what my floor sweepers know even if it means sweeping the floor .

3. Business Mail

Who handles incoming mails for your company? Is it the corporate messenger? He collects all mails, sorts and distributes? Time to stop else you won’t know when you sink. Besides, you can miss big business opportunities from a customer complaint or suggestion in a letter. Much depends on how your letters are handled. Handling mails can be a manager’s job, no longer a messenger’s job. Some CEOs insist on reading other mails besides those marked for their attention, or with their names. Treat all mails as if they are Letters to the Editor . Every magazine or newspaper worth its salt publishes such letters. Some even give financial rewards for the “star” letter of the week to encourage readers to write. CEOs, you can be the Editor of your incoming mails.

4. CEO Marketing

CEOs go out and sell. Do not limit your exposure only to your air conditioned offices. Go out and sell. When you do so, you power your corporate marketing and improve the bottom line. Do nott stay at head office holding endless management and board meetings. If that is your style, then watch out. It will soon reflect in your balance sheet. Next Annual General Meeting, shareholders will call for your head. You must motivate your market force. Take this advice from Jim Roch, CEO, the Boston Beer Company in the USA….”If more CEOs had to go out and sell their products, day in day out, they would pay a lot more attention to what they were making. When you are out there selling, there’s no place to hide. It is the acid test”.

5. Have an Open Day

Why shield your operations from your customers and other stakeholders. When they look at your business, all they see are corporate head offices, managers, titles, cars, promotions, and maybe your marketing team. And your customers are now wondering who are you? How do you operate? What do you do? What are your pains? Where are you going? They want to see you as you operate, not just bombarded by your marketing communications that maybe all promotions, no reality. Customers want persuasion now, not promotions. And persuasion begins with being real and open.

Educational institutions do that with Open Days. This is the day they throw their gates open for parents and other stakeholders to visit and see how they operate, how they teach, how the students interact with teachers, how they assess the pupils performances, to criticize, offer suggestions and get a feel the rhythm of the school.

You want your customers to measure your business pressure, have an Open Day.

Eric Okeke is a motivational speaker, business writer, copywriter, and corporate storyteller with more than 20 years writing experience . he is one of Nigeria s most experienced financial journalists. His strengths are creative writing, humor, publicity, and storytelling. His E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Motivation – The Driving Force In All Of Us

What is it that makes you get out of bed in the morning, stumble to the shower and get dressed for work? The answer is motivation. This is what keeps us going through life, coping with all the daily stresses, pain and suffering. We are constantly motivated to make our lives better by doing whatever we can to make improvements.

That’s fine for adults, but what motivates children, you might ask. Just think back to the days when you were in elementary school. What was it that made you go to school each day, besides your parents waking you up and making you go? The motivation of meeting your friends and socializing was one of the reasons. The other is that even then you knew that you needed an education to get you through life. The promise of a new bike or the teacher’s praise kept you working at your studies and passing the tests.

The type of motivation we have depends on what you want to do in life. This is the reason we have so many different occupations. It accounts for the people who do the mundane tasks that make our lives better and for those who aspire to greatness by inventing new technologies and medicines to improve the world as a whole. Every person works together to make the world a better place and each one is motivated in different ways. Even if you are working at a job you don’t like, the fact that you receive a paycheck at the end of the month to help pay your bills keeps you going.

The pay off for motivation comes when you reap the benefits of hard work. If you have extra pounds, the sight of a new suit in the department store may spur you to action. You want to fit into this suit for a special occasion and therefore you start a regimen of diet and exercise as a method of self-improvement. When you do achieve a goal, you enjoy an immense feeling of satisfaction. In the end however, the only true motivation comes from inside.

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