Marketing and PR
Growing your market to capture a bigger share of what’s available is usually unwise. Start by defining “your market.” It should most definitely not be “organizations that need our services.” Instead, it should be “the organizations and individuals we want to serve because they appreciate the kind of quality we deliver and understand that the premium paid for it almost always generates long-term savings and satisfaction.” And John can help you capture more of that market by providing services like baseline assessment and identification of the image your firm needs to be most attractive to those you want to attract. John can facilitate the meetings where you develop your plan, then lay out the various techniques to help you achieve your objectives: brand, image identification, website and collaterals development, PR, advertising, social media, and more, scaled to take maximum advantage of the budget you have today, and the one you plan to have tomorrow.
Commercial Communication
Commercial communication takes many forms and uses many media. News releases. Social media (paid, native, unpaid). Articles in prominent trade and professional periodicals. Pick-ups in magazines, e-zines, blogs, and more. Print and electronic advertising. Video. (John has had more than a dozen movies produced and wrote/directed/produced dozens of highly successful TV ads.)
Strategic Planning
As John says, “Without a plan, all roads lead nowhere.” Getting somewhere – to where you want to be – starts with a vision, John believes. Close your eyes. When you open them, five years will have passed and what you see will please you immensely. What is it that you see? What about your service mix? Your client mix? How’s the top line doing? What about the one at the bottom? Now let’s develop a realistic strategy to make it all happen, with benchmarks to evaluate progress. Now that’s a plan!
Sales Strategy and Training
In his acclaimed “Hassle-Free Selling for Project Managers” seminar, John sets forth his selling philosophy: The people you need to reach know you want to sell services that they buy from one of your competitors. How do you sell to them? By not selling. By rolling up your sleeves and joining them in a common effort to achieve improvements they believe in. And by being of service. The approach is especially effective for those who do not like to sell.
Script-to-Screen Productions
John began writing screenplays while he was still in college, when then-Warner Brothers/Seven Arts asked him to, in response to nationwide publicity John secured when he helped found and operate Operation Match, the nation’s first computer-dating company. John wrote "The Brothers Match," a somewhat fictional tale of Operation Match behind the scenes. And then Warner Brothers asked him to prepare scenarios for a 13-episode television series, which he did. The TV series was never produced; neither was the movie. But John learned the ropes and, four years later, he secured a job working for Screen Presentations, a small Washington, DC production house that produced mostly training videos for various federal-government agencies. He took his film-writing talents with him when he opened his own firm in 1971, and went on to write and produce TV ads for various clients. Since then, John has been involved in a wide range of film and video productions; he knows his stuff.
Branding and PR
John has had more than 2,500 magazine articles published, many under the name of a client, or a client’s representative. Why the latter? How many of your client representatives would love to byline an article in a national publication they and their peers read on a regular basis? “Close to all,” is the answer. And could they say positive things about your firm that you couldn’t say? “Absolutely,” is the next answer. Ask John for examples.
Meeting Facilitation
John has facilitated dozens of meetings, SWOT analysis; delineation of corporate core values; creation of mission and vision statements, goals and objectives; development of dynamic multi-year plans and procedures for keeping plans fresh.