Hi and welcome to the latest issue of
'Nita's Helping Hands'! I'm glad you're here!
My real estate classes start next week and I'm a bit
nervous since it's been so long since I've been in school
(not that I'm old, of course!)! I'm also a member of BPW
(Business and Professional Women) of Oldham County, on
the steering committee of the Bluegrass Independent Film
Festival (you've GOT to attend this year if at all possible;
it's amazing!) as well as working a bit over 40 hours a
week and being a Mom! Needless to say, I'm very busy
but I love it!
We also received news that my 20 year old daughter (who is
in the Army Reserves) is being deployed for a full year. I
thank God every day that she's being deployed to Washington,
D.C. instead of to the Middle East. She leaves in about
4 weeks. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.
I've put together a great issue for you and I hope you find
lots of useful information. Remember, if there's ever
anything in particular you would like to see in future
issues, please just let me know. I want to make this
ezine exactly what you want!
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Quote:
"I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in
this world are the people who get up and look for the
circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them,
make them." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish
playwright & critic
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Tip:
The best way to cancel a credit card
This advice came from someone who works for one of the
major credit card companies:
Many credit card companies let you cancel your credit card
by phone. However, always get a confirmation by email,
letter or fax. Write down the customer service agent's
name, as well as the date and time. If the credit card
company gives you a confirmation number, keep it with
credit card statements.
The key is to always make sure that the confirmation
states that the credit card was closed at YOUR request.
After one or two months, get a copy of your credit report
to verify that the credit card account was closed at your
request.
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Guest Article:
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times...
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By Jeff Crilley, Emmy Award winning TV reporter
The fax machine in our newsroom is constantly spitting out
news releases. And most of the time, I read what's being
pitched and wonder if anyone involved bothered to watch the
news before pressing "send."
I remember in the days following Hurricane Katrina seeing
hundreds of news releases that had absolutely nothing to do
with the disaster. I wanted to pick up the phone, call the
poor PR person who was faxing us and shout "Turn on your TV
set!"
On the other hand, there are countless days each year when
it's so slow in newsrooms across the country, we journalists
are lighting candles to the news gods praying for something
interesting to happen.
If you want to crank up your PR machine, you need to know
that the news biz is actually no different than every other
business. It's based on supply and demand. On a busy day
when the supply of news is plentiful, there may not be much
of a demand for your story. But pitch the same story to us
on a slow news day and we are all over it.
Holidays are great times to try and get your story covered.
As a general rule, any time government offices are closed,
it's a slow news day and the media will be anxious to cover
anything that even resembles a story.
TV, radio and newspapers still have to put out the news,
whether there's anything newsworthy going on or not. The
week between Christmas and New Year's is notorious for being
the slowest of the year. Time and time again, stories that
would never make the news during a normal news cycle
suddenly become interesting when no one else is feeding us
news.
On the other hand, every once in a while the media will get
a hold of a big story and you'll have a feeding frenzy. Last
year's hurricanes, the start of the war in Iraq and the
Sept. 11th attacks are all examples of the kind of mega-
stories I'm talking about. When we're in one of these kind
of feeding frenzies, TV and radio stations will devote
entire newscasts to the story and the newspaper will
publish a special section on one event. It seems no other
story even matters.
When the media is totally focused on one subject, don't
even waste your time with another story. It won't make air.
Each station is trying to out "team coverage" the other and
before you know it, there's no news time left for anything
else. They'll even cancel sports and weather if a story
becomes big enough. I remember when I was doing nothing but
soft news, sometimes people would call with a great story
and I'd have to tell them to call back when things returned
to normal.
If you see these news typhoons coming, you have only two
choices really. You can wait until it blows over and then
pitch your story or you can take advantage of the media
madness.
For instance, it doesn't matter how poorly your team did
last year, on opening day every baseball team in the country
is World Series-bound. Hope springs eternal, right?
Well, a disc jockey in Dallas named Alan Kabel knew he
couldn't fight the media attention being given to opening
day for the Texas Rangers, so he came up with an angle to
complement the coverage, and suddenly it was whole new ball
game.
Alan sent out a news release announcing that in a show of
support for the Rangers, he and his morning show co-host
would be sitting in every seat in the ballpark on the day
before opening day. Pure publicity stunt, right? You bet
it was. But you know what? It was so timely no one could
pass it up. To use a baseball analogy, Alan hit a grand
slam. Every TV station in town showed up to cover his stunt.
Alan knew the TV folks would be out at the ballpark that
day anyway doing a preview of opening day and all of them
would be looking for an angle. It was either get video of
Alan going from seat-to-seat in the 50-thousand seat
ballpark or interview the head groundskeeper on field
conditions.
He had the right story at the right time. If he had tried
it on opening day, the game itself would have overshadowed
his stunt. Two days before -- he would have been too early.
The day after opening day? Too late. When it comes to news,
timing is truly everything.
Jeff Crilley is an Emmy Award winning TV reporter from
Dallas. He speaks at no charge on the subject of publicity.
He's also the author of the first PR book written by a
working journalist. His book, Free Publicity, is available
at bookstores, Amazon or through
http://www.jeffcrilley.com
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Quote:
"I am grateful for all things, including adversity, knowing
that there is opportunity for growth in every challenge." --
Bob Proctor
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Tip:
One way of thwarting keystroke loggers is storing your
account number and password in a secure password
protected document that you store on a diskette or memory
card. So instead of typing your account number or user name
and password, you just copy and paste them. The keystroke
logger can only record your mouse click instead of the
keystrokes. Normally, I use a Microsoft Excel file that is
password protected. All my bank accounts and passwords are
stored there and I just copy and paste them from Excel. My
password is always a combination of upper and lowercase
letters and numbers. And since they are stored in Excel, I
only have to remember one password for opening the Excel
document. I also keep the diskette or memory card in a
locked place.
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Quote:
"Think of your life as a canoe and your decisions and
actions as your paddle. You'll get where you're going one
stroke at a time with the decisions and actions you make."
--D. J. 'Eagle Bear' Vanas
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Tip:
So what if you don't have a list, website or product?
I'm so excited I can hardly type...
If you want to make massive amounts of cash on complete
autopilot without your own list, website or product, then
this 'secret weapon' from my friend Ewen Chia will shock
and thrill you and it's less than $10 right now!
Ewen has created a revolutionary *turnkey* system that
puts truckloads of money into your bank account instantly
without you lifting a finger!
I know it sounds like hype but it's not - this has to be the
easiest way for the ordinary guys to make real money for
once...check it out yourself while it's still available!
This is not some mumbo jumbo stuff, it's much more
powerful and simple than that...and when you see the site
for yourself - I guarantee you'll be as excited as I'm!
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Quote:
"You have to expect things of yourself before you can do
them." - Michael Jordan (1963- ), NBA basketball player,
Businessman
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That's all the handy tips and tricks for this issue of
'Nita's Helping Hands' -- I hope you enjoyed it and found
some useful information. As always, please e-mail me if
you ever have questions, concerns or would like me to
include information about certain topics.
Stay warm, always remember to count your blessings and
most of all, be happy!
I'll 'see' you in a couple weeks!
