I got two phone calls last week, within a day of each other, inquiring whether I had any interest in selling my business. One I called back. One I ignored. The difference in my response was so simple, yet it speaks volumes about effective marketing and public relations.

First things first: I’ve got no interest in selling my business. Maybe someday in the future my view could change, but it’s certainly nowhere near my radar screen right now. But the mix of curiosity and the possibility of learning something led me to return one of the calls.

One caller asked for me by name. He had done some preliminary research and had a good sense of my business, what we are about, etc.

The other caller left a voicemail message in our main mailbox. He didn’t even bother to press “1 for Jeff Rosenberg.” Keep in mind, even if you’ve done no research into my business, it’s doesn’t take a degree from MIT to figure out that Jeff Rosenberg is the principal in a business named Rosenberg Communications.

Not very hard to figure out which guy I called back, is it?

(I did learn some interesting things from the guy. I’m not selling my business but I am a bit smarter after the conversation.)

Every business has a culture. But not every business knows what their culture is or how they got it. That’s a mistake no business owner should ever let happen. Because your business culture defines so much of how your business works, or doesn’t work.

Merriam-Webster defines culture: “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.” When you start a business, culture’s pretty easy — it’s you. But as you grow and add employees, if you don’t make a conscious decision to communicate your definition of culture to every employee, and infuse it throughout the organization, you still get a culture. Just not the culture you envisioned — kind of like thinking you’re going to see Atonement and instead ending up in the theatre showing Meet the Spartans. You can try to convince yourself that you’re watching an Academy Award-nominated period piece. But your employees, clients, vendors, subcontractors, etc. are watching some bizarre comedy where everybody keeps getting pushed down a giant sinkhole. (more…)

I’m in my 10th day as a single parent — as my wife is still out of the country. I have changed. I have become Brooke Shields.

In the new NBC TV show Lipstick Jungle she plays a character you’ve seen a million times: high-powered female executive overwhelmed and flustered as she tries to balance business and children. At the end of every day the end is the same. Business deals aren’t quite consummated or, if they are, it’s by luck. Children are in bed (though probably text messaging under the covers to their boy and/or girlfriends), but at least nobody got killed or arrested. And her heels are killing her.

That, after 10 full days of parenting a teen boy and teen girl (the older one is away at school) by myself, that Brooke Shields character, is me.

My wife will be home soon. That’s a good thing — because these heels are killing me.

Public relations used to be about “getting our message out.” Today it’s much more about telling stories that will resonate with certain groups of people — people who have signaled they will care about the story through their affiliations, memberships, community connections, what information they access and where they access it, etc. In other words, public relations is about building relationships with select audiences for clients. That’s because 1) there are so many different ways to get information today and 2) consumers expect and have much greater control over their information sources and 3) numbers 1 and 2 impact each other bi-directionally and constantly, further changing, nearly every day, the communication landscape. (Marketing guru Seth Godin captures this bi-directionality brilliantly and quickly in his new book Meatball Sundae. A taste of the sundae is regularly found in Seth’s Blog, especially and including this recent post called “Dumbing Down.”)

Like any organization, I’ve got a story for Rosenberg Communications that I need to communicate to my target audiences. Problem is, if I’m completely honest about it, I’m having trouble keeping up with the story. (more…)