Silence is Golden… But Boring
As posted earlier this week our visit to Birmingham last weekend provided some inspiration for my Nottingham Evening Post parenting column. Click here to read the column on the newspaper’s website.
If you don’t want to click through, I have copied and pasted it below…
Whoever said “silence is golden,” must have been a parent. There is no sound more beautiful than the clear, pure hum of nothing. Peace and quiet has become my idea of bliss.
It wasn’t always like this. I’m from the generation who put off becoming a parent until well into our thirties. In my twenties and early thirties the sound of silence bored me stupid. I spent my evenings inside Nottingham’s bars and clubs. The louder the music the more I enjoyed it.
Only now, with two small yet high-volume children at home have I come to appreciate quiet.
Last week we took a rare couple of days off work to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
Both children were dispatched to their grandmother’s for the night so myself and Mrs M could spend 24 hours of child-free time at Birmingham’s Malmaison Hotel.
Without the children around we were both struck by how quiet everything was. It all felt rather odd.
For the first time in years I actually heard my watch ticking. How strange to think that life pre-children must have been like this all the time. Before you have children life is full of empty space to be filled with noise. Once children come along there isn’t any empty space left.
It was the first night we had spent away from baby Millie, who’ll be one later this month, and only the third night we’d spent apart from our three-year-old Matthew. We wasted more time than we should worrying about them.
Our worries were eased when I called to check on Matthew. “Give him the phone,” I asked, “I want to talk to him,” only to hear Matthew in the background declare: “No, I’m far too busy with my toys to talk to Daddy.” Charming.
We enjoyed our peace - but we were both pleased to get home and get back to the mayhem. Silence may be golden but it does get rather boring.
Squidoo: I now have a Squidoo page where I describe ten steps to create a snappy press release. Click here to visit and please rate it.
New Business: I’m pleased to be working with Steve and Raun Temprell owners of Woodwards, one of Nottingham’s most well known jewellers.
What I’m Reading: I am currently reading The Google Story by David A Vise. A fantastic book detailing how two nerds changed the world. An incredible and inspiring business tale. It turns out Sergey Brin and Larry Page had never planned on becoming super-entrepreneurs. They developed Google as part of their PhD studies – both planned on becoming academics.
They knew they had something hot so they tried to sell it to Altavista and Yahoo who were the leading search engines back in the 1990s. Brin and Page asked for one million dollars (only £250K each) for Google but Altavista and Yahoo both turned them down flat.
They then hawked it around every other search engine in the USA but no one would take it off their hands for the asking price. In the end they had little choice but to take a leave of absence from their studies and have a go themselves. Three years later they were the youngest billionaires in US corporate history.
Lesson learnt – if you’re passionate about your business then you’re the best person to take it forward.
How the execs at Altavista (who?) and Yahoo must have kicked themselves later. Surely the biggest business slip-up since Decca said “No thanks boys.” to the Beatles.
More Pressman Success: My current incredible run of national newspaper hits for my clients just keeps getting better and better. My client, author Greg Waggett is a really interesting guy who has written a memoir of his time fighting with private security forces in Iraq. In My Blood is a great read. Click here to buy it.
Last week I managed to persuade The Sun to feature Greg’s story. Click here to read it on The Sun’s website. It is a fantastic result for Greg who has been desperate to tell his story and who had been trying extremely hard to get a paper to pick it up for months before turning to me. I couldn’t be happier for him.
The Sun has the highest readership of any daily English language newspaper in the world so this piece will help him reach millions of potential new readers.Last week was my best ever. As well as The Sun piece on Greg Waggett I won features in the Sunday Express for Patients Talking (double page spread) and a great piece in the fashion pages of the Daily Mirror for Bagnificent along with a page five lead piece with pic also for Bagnificent in Business 7.
Gerry Campbell, the founder of Bagnificent has emailed me to say hits on her site have gone “through the roof” so that’s very gratifying and shows the incredible power of PR in action.
I also had page leads in the Brighton Argus, Nottingham Evening Post, The Leicester Mercury and The Derby Evening Telegraph.
I have also had verbal agreement on pieces for other clients in The Sun and The Daily Mail. Once they’ve been published I’ll put up full details here on the blog.
It’s a very exciting time at the moment and I seem to be on fire with everything I touch turning to gold right now (hey, it’s no good being modest when you’re running your own business!)
Free Money: Ei42 is a great new shopping portal which lets you earn cashback on all your internet shopping - even eBay! Click here for details.
Inspiring Entrepreneurs: I now have my own bookshop - in association with Amazon. It is stocked with all my favourite business books and all the books which have inspired me over the years. Click here to visit the Pressman Bookshop.
SEO Tips: My top two tips for search engine optimisation are so simple - if you haven’t done them yet what is stopping you? Tip 1: Google Maps - creating a Google Map listing for your business is free and takes about five minutes. You’ll instantly leap up the results page.
Tip 2: Use the link at the top or bottom of this page to join Touch Local. You can join for free to create a simple listing - which will help - but I recommend creating a full listing which will allow you to include your website url. You’ll find the phone calls and emails soon start flooding in with new inquires. There are some great SEO books in my bookshop.
Pressman Seminars: If you would like to find out how to slash your advertising spend yet gain lots of great publicity for your company, how to plan your PR strategy, how to find an angle about you and your company that the press will love, and how to craft punchy press releases that journalists won’t be able to resist, then come to one of the Pressman seminars.
Seminars take place in Nottingham and run from 10am to 4pm. The cost is just £295 per person with lunch, parking and tea / coffee all included in the price. I will take you through exactly what the press need and want and help you identify what aspects of your company, products and services, are PR-able.
I will work with you on an individual basis to help you create a perfect press release to kick start your campaign. You are guaranteed a marketable release – if it isn’t finished on the day I will complete it for you later and email it to you within a couple of days. If you would like more details email me at steve@pressmanpr.co.uk with “seminar” in the subject box.