Experts

Getting Started In Freelance PR

Getting Started In Freelance PR

Garth Beyer

Get Access To Experts

I wish I could say it was a rough start for me to get into freelancing, but it wasn’t. That’s not to say the work wasn’t absolutely overwhelming, because it was.

Getting clients is easy when you know what you both want, know how to woo, know how to communicate. Doing the work, though, can be scary. That’s why I’m sharing this piece of advice with you: you don’t need to be an expert, you only need to have access to experts.

When I started freelancing I didn’t know much of what I was doing, but I tried because I had access to some trusted professionals I would run my work by before I handed it to the client.

The lack of knowledge isn’t a valid excuse not to start anything anymore. The lack of resources and connections might be, but, you are able to change that aren’t you?

You don’t need to be an expert, you only need to have access to experts.

 

Stay Positive & Go Start Something

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The Necessity Of Being Dynamic

The Necessity Of Being Dynamic

Garth Beyer

Dynamic Personality

Even as a freelance PR strategist, I never tell anyone I work alone on assignments. I always have a team. I always reach out to friends, experts, and alike. I ask for help, I have a couple other PR folk review my press release before a send it back to my client. PR is always a team-based activity whether you go at it as a freelancer or on an agency.

There’s a personality necessity I learned very, very early on that’s benefited me endlessly. I’ve also seen the lack of this personality be the downfall for other PR folk. You won’t make it the PR industry if you lack the ability to be dynamic.

If you’re being hired or doing the hiring, your team’s personalities will never align perfectly, nor should they. I like to think of perfect examples this way:

  • She can be pretty pushy, but she’s damn good at what she does.
  • He procrastinates and most of the time turns in assignments at the end of his deadline, but he always turns in absolutely brilliant work.
  • She’s an introvert, for sure, and you’ll be nervous if she understands what you’re asking her to do, but her work always proves she knows.

Madison Magazine mentioned a freelance writer of theirs who never makes deadline, but they know she always turns out the best work. (Naturally, they just give her a deadline that’s a few days before their actual deadline. It works.) If MadMag cut this freelancer, the quality of the magazine would suffer. So it goes with many many agencies and teams alike.

Be prepared to be dynamic with others, for we all have flaws others will work to overlook.

 

Stay Positive & Make It Easier For Them By Shipping Remarkable Work

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All Talk No Action, Serious Advice

Garth Beyer

I had a professor who wouldn’t let anyone pitch their story until they talked to two others about it. The writer could talk to their friend or an expert on the subject, it didn’t matter.

Call it help or assistance; I just call it conversation.

Talk to a friend, a family member or call an expert about whatever it is you’re working on. The who doesn’t matter. And I don’t consider talking as inaction. Conversation is very much an action

I would never have gotten as good as I am without talking to people about what I was working on, and I’ll never get as great as I want to be unless I continue to talk to others about what I’m working on before I see it all the way through.

All talk and no action is a great way to start.

 

Stay Positive & Just Be Sure You Don’t Stay There

A Subtle Reminder That Experts Will Still Fail

Garth Beyer

So I get in the elevator with the mail carrier today. We’re both excited it’s Friday, but I mention that it’s raining (which doesn’t suck, but I’d prefer sunny weather. Who wouldn’t, right?) And he says to me, “It’s better than snow.”

“That’s true,” I respond.

Then he said, “Gotta think positive.”

He said that to a man (me) whose motto is Stay Positive. It was a subtle reminder that while we can be experts on anything, even experts fail. And that’s a good thing.

Garth’s Biff With Social Media “Experts”

Garth Beyer

What do cracked clay vases, my grandma, the sowing machine and specialization all have in common?

They are old, antique, and are either stuck up in the attic or in the grave.

 

You can no longer become “successful” by focusing on one area of life. Painters can’t become successful without knowing different construction and electric techniques. Teachers can’t become successful without knowing parenting and counseling strategies. Fitness trainers can’t become successful without knowing basic psychology lessons and communication skills. It simply can’t be done. Success can’t be reached on one path.

Every boss, every consumer – the entire world expects the very best of you, the very best in a variety of ways.

Well, you can see why there is some contradiction in being called a “Social Media Expert”. What is social media? How many branches of social media are there? Do you think it’s even possible that a person can be an expert in every one of those branches? If so, I wouldn’t want to be refereed to as a social media expert, I would prefer to be called a billionaire.

Sure, Peter Shankman makes a great statement on social media experts “being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best-bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.”

However, I think Shankman has it wrong. The goal is still to make an amazing sandwich, but Social Media experts not only take the bread out, but all the other ingredients, and put it together and try to make an amazing sandwich. The problem is that the sandwich always sucks because they can’t be the best at every process of sandwich making. I repeat, there is no such thing as a social media expert.

Sympathies to the original “Twitter Sandwich”

The point is, that we can all say we are experts and professionals in social media, but the truth is the only thing we can all say that we are is journalists. We can write about social media all we want, it simply makes us more of a journalist. This post just made me more of a journalist if I may say so.

 

Stay Positive and Spice Up Your Sandwich With Variety

Garth E. Beyer