I love that moment when I’m working with a new client, and I can see their anxiety and doubts turn to trust. 

That usually happens after a conversation where I’m guiding them in a direction and all of a sudden, they stop worrying about how much I might bill them and what the ROI might be, and they just start focusing on knowing I’ve got their back.

Sometimes the moment comes in the initial phone call when a prospect reaches out to me for help. They can often tell, from what I’m suggesting—and the relaxed and confident manner in which I’m suggesting it—that I’m guiding them in a good direction.

They might be apt to say, “I want to work with you. Now what?” 

This leads to years of connection and engagement and partnership.

Sometimes, though, that shift from “Hmmm, I wonder” to peace of mind takes a little longer. The client signs on because someone—maybe their marketing director or president—has told them they should. 

There is skepticism until they see results and then they do that relaxing thing, and they feel assured that I am a solid extension of the team.

I had a sort of in-between experience a few weeks ago. A client was referred to me for a press release on a significant investment his business was making in his community. He had yet to meet me until the moment we were on a Zoom meeting together for an interview.

I could see he looked a little overwhelmed and uncomfortable—kind of unsure about how this was going to work, and even whether it was going to work. 

Was it a waste of his dollars? I could tell he was wondering.

I am clear and thorough when I start a new engagement with clients. Before I leapt into my questions for his press release, I took a step back to explain my process—as I always do. 

“Let me tell you how this is all going to work,” I told the new client. “So we can take some of the mystery out.”

I explained that I would ask him questions to gather information, and that I’d make it painless. 

“Then I’ll write a draft to show you what I’ve done, and we’ll work together until it meets with your approval,” I said. “Then, we’ll choose photos, talk about best timing, and I’ll get it out to the media for you. Finally, I’ll track print results for you and let you know when it starts dropping in newspapers.”

He was nodding and looking a little less unsure. 

“Do you have any questions before we get started?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “You just answered them all for me—before I even knew what to ask.” 

The press release I wrote and distributed for this client generated immediate results. It was picked up on MassLive.com immediately and then in the days following in two local newspapers and a business magazine.

I am a warm and compassionate person, and I have a solid process and approach. This makes my clients feel like they are in good hands.

Let me give you some peace of mind. I can have your back too as I help you plan and create impactful content. 

Start a conversation with me today.

Photo by Craig Fear of Fearless Eating.

The post Building Trust, Relieving Anxiety appeared first on Beetle Press.

I love giving my clients peace of mind, and I do this by taking the pressure off them—by sharing their news in a clear, concise way across the best channels. They get noticed. They get feedback.

I get the pleasure of seeing their peace of mind—and gratitude—as awareness gets raised.

I help my clients in two basic ways: I help them share their news with the media via press releases, and I help them roll out storytelling content in their blogs, social media, and enewsletter and blasts—and also in print publications they produce themselves, such as annual reports, campaign and donor reports, alumni magazines, and postcards for direct mail campaigns.

Let me show you how it works.

Media consulting

I consult with clients on an ongoing basis to help them share stories that are newsworthy with the media—like a new business, a new service, a new owner, or a new president. Some of my clients have lots of news to choose from, and I help them dial in on the opportunities that have the best chance of giving them exposure. 

I ask them questions to help determine who might be the best person to focus on for the press release—a customer? A staff member? A donor? We make these important decisions together, and then they connect me to a contact, and I conduct an interview.

I use what I’ve gathered to write a release. We work on it together. I offer recommendations on suggestions on photography we could supply to run with the story. When all the pieces are ready to send—I distribute to the media. 

Then, we watch together. 

And we repurpose. I turn the press release into blog-style, which is more relaxed and less formal, and my clients post the news on their websites and share the links on social media.

Blogs, social, and other content

I also partner with clients in imagining and rolling out a storytelling campaign, and we discuss what channels to use—blog, social media, printed annual report, or all the above, most likely! Once you have created content, your best chance for getting it noticed is to share it as widely as you are able.

In these campaigns, we feature stories about dedicated staff members, generous donors, hard-working volunteers, and customers who had a great experience. 

As I do in brainstorming press releases, I help my clients determine the best folks to interview. Who has the most compelling story to tell? 

I interview people, gather the information, work with the client to refine the story. And then, poof. Off it goes on their website, Facebook page, Twitter feed. 

And don’t I love when a printed piece also shows up in my mailbox. 

I can help you strategize the best ways to connect with the media—and the big, wide audience you have in your community. And I can help you get noticed online. 

Just reach out and talk with me. I’m so easy to talk with, and I’ll make the process painless and efficient! 

We are all busy!

Photo by Craig Fear of Fearless Eating.

The post Giving Clients Peace of Mind appeared first on Beetle Press.

Note: My client Vincent “Vinny” Valetutti has published “If I Were President: 29 alternative ideas for solving global problems” in the days surrounding the presidential election to get Americans thinking about solutions—rather than controversy. Vinny is not a candidate for any office. His book is intended not as a platform for a campaign but instead to raise awareness and offered frustrated voters some food for thought. It is interesting and earnest. I wrote the Foreword for the book, which appears below. Learn more about Vinny and “If I Were President” here.

Vincent “Vinny” Valetutti is my friend Becka’s partner. I met him several years ago when he offered to drive our entire book group to a vineyard in a van so we could all relax and enjoy. Meeting all of us for the first time, Vinny was friendly and pleasant, and also a good driver!

This year, I assigned a student intern working with me in my public relations business to interview Vinny and write a press release on the traveling, thirty-foot-high, mock Sea Level Rise Ruler he created to raise awareness about rising sea levels. When standing next to the ruler, one has a close-up, dramatic view of how high the sea would rise if only five to ten percent of Antarctica and Greenland were to melt. 

Vinny towed his ruler on a trailer and parked it in a lot in downtown Northampton, Massachusetts, so people could visit it and learn more about one impending circumstance of climate change. He later towed his giant ruler to Washington, DC.

Helping get some media attention on this innovation gave me a deeper view into the mind that is Vinny’s. So, when he contacted me a few months after his initial outreach and asked for help with this book, I was interested in working with him. I have since learned much about the man behind the ruler.

Vinny grew up in Westchester, just north of New York City. He was the oldest son of seven children who were raised by an at-home mom and a father who worked alongside his own father in the perfume delivery business. Vinny’s grandfather founded the company in the early 1900s with a horse and buggy.

As a child, Vinny felt different from other children. He was bullied a lot and withdrew into himself. He spent his afternoons and weekends tinkering with toy cars and trucks. As he grew up, he continued to enjoy working with his hands and was always fascinated with mechanical devices and how things worked. 

As a teen, Vinny worked in a bike shop, doing repairs. He once dismantled an entire grandfather clock to see how it worked; in taking it apart, a spring sprung and damaged the teeth on some of the gears for the gong, which he couldn’t repair. Vinny got the time piece back in working order on his own, but the clock never sounded again. At seventeen, he tinkered with his first car, replacing the clutch, his biggest project with that vehicle. 

A mild Asperger’s diagnosis in 2011 helped Vinny understand why he preferred to spend time alone, and why his mind works as intently as it does. He learned why emotions or body language had never played into his psyche. By that time, Vinny had amassed a great deal of experience as an engineer, and he’d worked extensively in energy conservation, aircraft structures, nuclear piping, moveable bridges and with heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in office buildings. 

In his first job after graduation from the Academy of Aeronautics in Queens, he worked for a company called Republic Aircraft, helping to design the moveable surfaces on the wings of the Boeing 747 aircraft. 

During the 1970s, after the first Arab oil embargo, the nuclear industry was planning to build a thousand nuclear plants by the year 2000, and engineers like Vinny were being recruited. He began designing piping systems, but after a partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island in 1979, Vinny’s love of the environment won out. He worked for an energy conservation company that performed energy audits in schools and hospitals and later ran his own firm, which included working for lawyers on accident cases. 

Vinny also spent some years working on movable and retractable bridges—like those over canals—and had a team of iron workers, machinists, electricians, and carpenters under his charge. He also spent time working to solve systemic problems in buildings in New York City. Vinny was the guy who was called when an old city high-rise had significant problems with rainwater leakage, also when there were problems with the air conditioning system in a major public train station. 

As Vinny says, “My brain is wired to figure things out.” This is likely because Vinny absorbs information. He surveyed the Twin Towers ten months before 9/11, for instance, and had intricate knowledge of the building’s structural integrity. So, after having many conversations about the cause of the collapses, Vinny read the structural section of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report to fully understand what happened—why the buildings came down the way they did. That was not out of character for a man who once went to a New York public library and read the entire ballistics section of the Warren Commission’s report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

In 2004, Vinny retired from his work as an engineer and travelled literally all over the world to points that included Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, the Galapagos, and much of Europe. He saw how people live in other countries—lower standards of living, open-air markets—and how the world is changing rapidly, even in undeveloped countries. He once spotted a woman in Africa lugging water in a jug on her head on a dusty road, talking on a cell phone.

Vinny’s career and his travels inform and inspire ideas. As he imagines, he meshes his deep passion for the environment with his knowledge of history and politics, his global savvy, and his lifelong experience as a pragmatic, creative problem-solver. 

Perhaps due to his Asperger’s, Vinny sees the world differently. He doesn’t consider himself a Democrat or a Republican. His lens doesn’t focus solely to the left, or the right, and it also doesn’t land in the center. “I consider myself a realist,” he explains. “Think of a line. At one end, you have the left—liberal, Democrats. At the other, you have the right—conservative, Republicans. In the middle, you would have the Independents, who sometimes go to one end or the other. I like to think of my mind where the line is simply the diameter of a sphere, where I can find ideas anywhere within the sphere.” Sometimes, I also think outside the sphere—kind of like thinking outside the box. I’m a warehouse of spheres, and sometimes, I think outside the warehouse.”

While Vinny attended a Catholic high school for a time, he does not think of himself as religious. He describes himself as an agnostic because he cannot prove there is or is not a god. His thoughts on religion are like his other musings—outside the warehouse. At times, he quotes the bible, recalled from his religious education as a child, as he explains an idea because a word or a phrase has caught his attention.

As he talks, Vinny often punctuates his sentences by saying, “Okay?” As in, “Are you following me?” In our interviews, I always was; if I wasn’t, I asked a lot of questions. This book holds the ideas Vinny described to me. They are his original thoughts on how to solve some of the problems that plague the United States and the world.

“These ideas have been forming in my brain over decades, certainly not just something that popped in the last couple of months,” he says, adding, “I’ve always had ideas, and they’ve changed from time to time.”

Vinny offers the disclaimer that his proposals are not intended as fully formed concepts, and they are not intended as facets of a presidential platform. They are simply food for thought for all of us to create a better world.

I offer the disclaimer that the Janice Beetle Books indicia on the book jacket does not signify an endorsement of the specific ideas within but rather wholehearted support of the author’s innovative thinking and global compassion.

The post Client’s Book Offers Look at Solving Global Problems appeared first on Beetle Press.

I help the leaders of Thornes Marketplace in Northampton, Massachusetts, by writing press releases that focus in on shop owners and also announce new events or milestones. After the release is sent to the media, I repurpose the material as a blog that gets posted on the Thornes website. The blog below was written this summer, after Thornes announced its reopening.

Sharon Cohen, the owner of Footbeats for Women on the main level of Thornes Marketplace, entered her fourth year in business on July 1. It’s a difficult time, but like all merchants in our eclectic shopping center, Sharon is working hard to reach customers and ensure their safety.

Thornes reopened for business on June 8 after putting many new protocols and equipment in place, including air filters that heighten air quality, foggers that sanitize the building nightly, and door monitors at each of the two open entrances to ensure that people entering Thornes wear masks and sanitize their hands. Thornes also installed hands-free door openers on bathroom doors.

Without college students and tourists from out of town, business is slower than is typical for this time of year, but customers are returning steadily. Shops owners such as Sharon, who have also instituted countless safety measures, are happy to see them.

“We’ve revamped the way the store is laid out to promote social distancing,” Sharon says. “Shoppers are saying, ‘I just wanted to shop with somebody locally.’ We’re hearing a lot of that. I think that’s awesome.”

After Thornes—and most retail and other industries statewide—were shut down this spring due to COVID-19, Sharon launched a website at footbeatsforwomen.com, so customers could still purchase her shoes. She made deliveries to peoples’ homes.

Every Friday afternoon, she also began using Facebook live to talk about shoes in stock and offer commentary on trends and new styles. “I pick them off the displays on the wall and talk about them. Customers would text and ask questions about cost or size,” she says, noting she will likely continue that practice. “We tried new, inventive ways to meet the customers.”

Sharon also says when customers try on a pair of shoes in the store, if they are leather and cannot be sanitized, they are put in quarantine for 24 hours, as per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) guidelines.

Thornes itself has the safety of shoppers, store owners, and staff at the forefront as it expands and flexes systems and operations.

“Thornes has done a lot to prepare for our opening, and we continue to stay educated and follow safety protocols,” Thornes Co-President Richard Madowitz says. “We are receiving consistent positive feedback from shoppers on the cleanliness of the building and their comfort. We are providing a safe environment.”

He adds, “We have installed iWave ionizing air filters in all AC air handlers in the building to ensure high air quality, and we’ve purchased foggers that allow us to do extensive sanitizing overnight, while we are closed.”

Masks are available at the two open entrances, which are on Main Street and at the skywalk to and from the parking garage. “Masks are not required for those with medical conditions that prevent them from wearing one,” Rich adds.

All shared tables and chairs on the building’s second and third floors, such as Share Coffee’s seating, have been removed, and directional arrows on the floors separate traffic and promote social distancing, as do stanchions throughout.

“Signage is everywhere,” Rich stresses. “Each store is managing its state-mandated capacity count, and Thornes itself is managing the state-mandated capacity counts for its common spaces without shops.”

Every morning before work, all Thornes staff follow CDCP protocols, running through a COVID-19 readiness checklist before reporting for work.

All shops in Thornes are open daily.

Thornes Marketplace has been the cornerstone of downtown Northampton and at the center of the Main Street shopping district for more than a century. Built in 1873, it holds 55,000 square feet of space for merchants and includes features like pressed tin ceilings and hardwood floors.

The post Helping a Client Promote a Reopening and New Safety Protocols appeared first on Beetle Press.

I am extremely proud of my clients as they respond to the spread of COVID-19 across the world—and the region. While all are taking swift action, I offer a shout-out to those who are using PR as a way to communicate information and offer solace.

Florence Bank is one of many clients responding in a clear and open manner. Early on, the bank created a banner at the top of its website, announcing both updates from the bank regarding branch hours and protocols and also providing links to key information, such as how to access accounts remotely and how to protect from fraud at this time. On social media, Florence Bank is helping customers by providing links to museums so children can take virtual tours, offering links to demos on how to make a deposit remotely, and staff there are also offering fun posts on ways to spend time during this crisis. Great job to Monica Curhan and her team in marketing.

Thornes Marketplace, which had to close its doors early on, put a message on its website for community members—“We will remain closed for as long as is required by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As additional information is available, we are committed to communicating to you in a timely manner. Many of our merchants are selling their goods on line.” Mindful of the potential devastation for all the shops within its walls, Thornes has helped promote those businesses on its Facebook page. This post in particular lets people know which Thornes stores have products available online. Some posts are also playful, such as a sneak peek at Patria, the new restaurant under development on the lower level. Well done, Jody Doele, at Thornes!

As a Valley, we are responding well to the personal and economic devastation, and that does not surprise me. We are compassionate and intelligent folks here. I am certain we will help each other get through to the other, disease-free side. Try to think of the ways that you can support local businesses; one friend of mine is committed to ordering takeout food from a local restaurant at least once per week.

Up north in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, where my husband and I own a vacation home, and where my brothers Jeff and Allan Beetle co-own a restaurant named Patrick’s Pub & Eatery, I am also proud of the response. My brothers, in particular, are committed to keeping the restaurant open for delivery-only for community members who need the help with meals and for the staff, who rely on the employment. Allan spends countless hours each day, gathering feedback, brainstorming new ideas, and nimbly creating new systems that allow Patrick’s to operate with the goal of remaining open to support others. Like other restaurants in New Hampshire, Patrick’s was forced to close the night before St. Patrick’s Day, Patrick’s biggest day of the year. The restaurant offered take-out corned beef meals at the curbside—but donated half of the proceeds to a local food program. That’s my brothers.

The post Proud of, and worried for my nimble clients appeared first on Beetle Press.

What many of my clients with Janice Beetle Books have in common is that they are retired and have a deep passion to preserve something that’s precious to them in the form of a book. Their story might, for instance, focus on a collection built over their lifetime.

Or they may want to record some aspect of their life—becoming a parent, losing someone important, building a career. Sometimes, people want to put down the story of their entire life for their children and grandchildren.

A client I began working with last fall falls into this latter category. Because she is modest and doesn’t want anyone besides her children to know that she has asked me to prepare her memoir, I can’t use this client’s name. I will call her Mary.

While her life has been joy-filled and rich with family and new adventures, Mary has also faced challenges—many of them health-related. She has approached each new problem with humor, grace, spirit, and faith.

Mary’s children know their mother is strong and stoic, and they have learned well from her to be resilient and grateful. But they want the generations to come to hear from Mary directly, so they can experience her and learn from her too.

I am thrilled to be telling the story of Mary’s life.

The early phase of the process has revolved around interviewing Mary about her life and processing documentation made available to me—everything from personal notes to medical records to newspaper clippings.

I am enjoying my one-on-one time with Mary the absolute most. An octogenarian, she has the brightest, warmest disposition, and we have in common that we like to mock ourselves. Mary and I both enjoy cracking ourselves up.

At least once in every interview, Mary says something that gets her laughing so hard she can’t speak for a few minutes. This, of course, gets me going.

Last month, I had a final interview with Mary. Now, I need to review everything I’ve gathered to organize it and place it in a chronology. I also need to evaluate what I still don’t know; what I still need. And then I will interview Mary’s children to hear their stories and recollections of their mother.

Then, finally, I will start writing.

Except for the fact that this project takes time, you can’t really call it work. It is so enjoyable—so delightful to sit with Mary, laugh with her. My respect for her, and the connection I am making with her, will make the process of writing about her enjoyable, and it will be fueled by my own passion to do well by Mary and her family.

My relationship with Mary is one I know I will continue after her project is through.

She’s the kind of person I’ll want to keep visiting so that I can smile and laugh with her!

The post Telling the Story of a Blessed Life appeared first on Beetle Press.

I write blogs for Glenmeadow on topics that range from the free educational offerings it provides in the community to stories about its premier-quality services and staff. This piece posted on the Glenmeadow site in January and focuses on the director of dining services.

The Glenmeadow we know today was being built when Chuck Yanosky accepted his first job here, managing the kitchen. That was 22 years ago, and our former President and CEO, the late Tim Cotz, invited Chuck to come work with us.

Back then, Chuck was the executive chef at Swift River Inn in Cummington. Tim was a patron of the restaurant, and he knew the ski resort was being sold by owner Peter Laird, the comic book writer and artist known for co-creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Tim saw in Chuck the right person to get Glenmeadow’s dining room up and running.

Chuck stayed for over two years and then left in 1999 for a job closer to his family in Granby. Now, over two decades later, life came full circle for Chuck. After working in Amherst, he’d returned to the Swift River Inn, now an addiction rehabilitation center, to once again run the kitchen. And again, last fall, he learned his position was being eliminated. Then he heard about the job available in our kitchen. He contacted former colleagues here, and was hired in September 2019.

“I was lucky to get the job again to complete the circle of my life. How many people can say that happens to them?” Chuck says. “When I was offered the job here last year, I was really excited. It’s such a great place to work.”

Chuck says the people—both residents and his staff of 64—are what make his job meaningful. “The people really motivate me,” he says. “It brings me great satisfaction to see other people succeed and grow in their positions, and get promoted. My success is in the fact that they do well; it doesn’t have to do with me.”

While Chuck hopes there’s a lot that he can teach his employees, as a relatively new member of the team, he also looks to others for guidance. “I work alongside people who have been here for anywhere from 10 to 18 years, which I think is amazing,” he says. “I have a lot to learn from them, but they’re humble enough that they want to learn, too. It’s a great collaboration.”

Chuck has found that food service at Glenmeadow is a collaborative effort with residents, as they are eager to offer feedback about the menu. He says typical entrees include lasagna, prime rib, and meatloaf, and in a month’s time, the same entrees are not repeated to ensure variety.

“Our residents want what their wives used to make at home, not fancy food with special sauces,” Chuck explains. “A place like Glenmeadow is not like a restaurant; you get to visit with your diners and get to know them by name. I love to spend time with residents when I can. That gives me motivation to come to work every day.”

When visiting Glenmeadow to meet with Tim before he was first hired, Chuck remembers putting on a hard hat and taking a tour of the under-construction kitchen and dining room with Tim. He then had the privilege of bringing that kitchen to life by hiring staff, crafting menus, and ordering appliances and utensils.

When he left Glenmeadow in 1999, it was to work at a nursing home in Amherst. Chuck stayed in that role for 15 years, then sought a new challenge. He then helped the Linda Manor Assisted Living in Leeds open their kitchen. “I received a call from someone I’d known in the past asking for my help getting Linda Manor off the ground,” he says. “I kept getting these sorts of calls until my life had gone full circle.”

“I’ve grown considerably since I worked at Glenmeadow the first time,” Chuck says, looking back on his experience. “When I sit down with someone, and they want to talk about a problem, I don’t take it personally, like I used to. I’m really open to hearing what our residents have to say, and I love that they feel comfortable telling me.”

The post Helping a Client Shine a Light on Staff appeared first on Beetle Press.