‘Next to doing the right thing the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.’
Industrialist and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller
I love this quote from the industrialist and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller, as it perfectly captures my core belief about PR and why we should all be doing it for our businesses and ourselves.
Hands up (ok I will have to take your word for it!) if you are NOT in business to make money? I would be surprised if there is anyone reading this who isn’t! So therefore we all need to find the right people who will pay us what we want, for what we offer, and have them love and be loyal to us so that they don’t get tempted to use our competitors instead of us?

And wouldn’t it be brilliant if they were telling others about how great we are, and encouraging them to work with us too? People just like them, in their world who therefore need the same products or services that we offer – and which have been shown to work so well for them? Then our businesses grow and we make more money. Am I right?
Another question.
Are you are telling the people you want to work with, what good things you have been doing recently? Sharing your successes with them, what other people have found to be helpful to them through working with you, and your huge depth of knowledge in your area of expertise, so that they appreciate how good you are at your job, they have confirmation that they chose well to work with you, and they are then encouraged to talk about you to other people.
Are you doing that, regularly? I hope the answer is yes. But am guessing (from bitter, and constant experience of the PR Paradox) that they won’t be.
Why?
Because the massive power of third party endorsement – getting yourself talked about – and what it can do for your business, is what a lot of entrepreneurs and SME owners just don’t get. They don’t realise that it is simply the best (and most cost-effective) marketing tool any business, large or small, can use to deliver results that are way better than any other form of marketing.
And there’s the PR Paradox.
Charlie Mullins OBE, ‘plumber to the stars’ and founder of Pimlico Plumbers, attributes his success, like Sir Richard Branson, to the clever use of third party endorsement. He agrees with me about the PR Paradox and wrote in his foreword to my book, A Marvellous Reputation, that: “the very people who need PR most, the small businesses, the start-ups, those working their guts out for a better future from their kitchen tables, are the entrepreneurs who also least understand it and what amazing differences it can make to their operations, and so don’t consider it.
Instead, they consider PR to be the realm of the multi-national corporation, and so continue the cycle of failing to fully reap the benefits of their efforts.” Charlie says about his own route to success: “When I was on the tools as a self-employed plumber I realised early on that the money was in the big houses, and that the people who lived in such places had friends with equally impressive piles.
They needed good tradesmen, but there weren’t too many of my kind in their social circles. What I had to do was deliver a great job, but also make sure that I was noticed and recognised for what I had done, and the rest was down to word of mouth. That is to say, people talking about me!”
Charlie shares my fundamental conviction that everything that’s worth doing in business can have its value enhanced by a PR strategy. Some entrepreneurs do it for themselves. To be honest, and I guess it’s because PR is in my DNA, I have always done it naturally for myself and my business. The simplest form is the humble brag. Just making sure that the right people are seeing what a great job you are doing and talking about you.
Others, usually because setting up and running strategic PR campaigns is time consuming and needs consistency of effort and attention, get experts to do it for them. Leaving them free to do the things they are expert at. Which then givesPRexperts lovely angles to get others talking about them!
From my experience working with loads of business people over the years, in many different genres of work, it takes months and sometimes years to build a good, well-respected profile in the off and online media. But I know it is possible and just needs you to have the ideas, skills, patience and commitment to do it. And I can help you with that.
I have Marvellousity PR groups. Group mentoring, support, and accountability helping you to do your own PR to get your messages heard – with three of us PR experts working closely with you, for a fraction of the cost of a regular PR retainer.
Please don’t get caught in the vortex of the PR Paradox. Join us and let us help you. Here is all the information you need.