It seems so unfair that the preponderance of news about Oakland is so awful, crime-ridden or disparaging. My friends, family and even some clients have a bit of trepidation about visiting our new lovely office in this so-unfairly-unappreciated town.

In an attempt to bring equity to our fair city, I wanted to show off some of the ways I find Oakland so beautiful. And I want to hear about your favorite places,events, hangouts or wonders of Oakland, too. (Either email them to me to post at abliss@allisonbliss.com or post your written comments below).

7/23/10: went for just a one hour morning walk around Piedmont district

Loved that Kaiser, true to it’s clever branding allows an organic (tiny, but lovely) farmers market outside it’s hospital.

Look at this darling greenery-lined alley off Piedmont Ave. Doesn’t it entice you down the path?

There are adorable tea shops along the shopping district

some strikingly colorful floral shops,

And some horrifying fashion, making me smile

Oaklanders take pride in their famed ice-creamery, “Fenton’s”. I wonder why it’s so good?

there are gorgeous neighborhoods, lovely homes with spectacular window boxes, and . . .

much more I’ll post later! Keep an eye out. Send me your faves!

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7/24/10: thanks to the brilliant photographer slash Director of Photography, Rick Wise, for these gorgeous shots of the beautiful Lakeside farmer’s market.

Guest contributor Dale Marie Golden, VP of Alta Alliance Bank presents her vast experience with women and money. Want to know how she learned tough lessons which, in my opinion, vastly qualifies her to help women with money? Call her: 510-899-7536.
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On the topic of women in business and finance, I found it interesting that when I googled “mistakes women make with money” I found there were thousands of “mistakes women make with men,” “mistakes women make when dating,” and the most common was what “mistakes women make with sex.” Either women don’t make mistakes with money or the priorities are skewed a bit.

I think the number one mistake women make with money is that someone else will take care of it. According to The Female Finance Factor, “62% of women manage the family’s checking account.” However, I find the majority of women are still unclear of how the money is coming in and where it is going.  There is also the magical thinking that you will win the lottery or receive an unexpected inheritance.  However, the biggest flaw is the expectation that a partner or spouse that will carry you through the hard times.

Women on average live six times longer than men. Women many times find themselves with no retirement and facing college age children with elderly parents. Now if  your partner or spouse loses their job or dies many women are completely unprepared for the consequences.

So the number one advice I have for women is to take charge of your finances. Know what is happening on the very basic level of your checking and savings vehicles to the more sophisticated nuances of your investments. Indeed, knowledge is power and there are so many resources, including books,  seminars and the internet.

The number two mistake I think for women is the ability to care for everyone but themselves. Women indeed are the nurturers for their friends and families, yet many times they overlook themselves.

Financially, one of the most empowering things for women to do is to save. Yes, old fashioned saving.  It is crucial that women set up a savings vehicle, rather it be a regular savings, a money market, a short term CD or mutual funds. Depending on your risk tolerance each has the ability to have your money make money rather than sitting in a non-interest bearing checking account.

Saving money is actually easy when done automatically. If you set up auto pay to your savings vehicle  on a monthly basis – you will not even that miss that money.  Emergencies do happen and having some sort of savings plan can keep you from paying unnecessary high interest on a credit card. Also if you are a sole proprietor it is a way to automatically  put money aside for taxes and retirement.

Speaking of credit cards, they are a woman’s worst enemy. I know, because many times they have become my demon.  You pay off your credit cards and then in one fell swoop you charge it up again. It is the quickest way to get into debt and the quickest way to stay in debt.  Men and women tend to spend more when using a credit card, that is proven.

However, the mindset of many women is that they will just do this now because they know that big bonus is coming, or that big account is going to come through or finally that client is going to pay you. The majority of the time the big payoff is not as big as we thought and you are left with a bill you can’t pay off at the end of the month and an interest rate that is climbing astronomically!

If you can’t pay for an item now, wait until you can. If you can pay for it now, it’s fine to use your card and build your credit. If you know you don’t have that self discipline, take it out of your wallet and put it in a drawer now!

The fourth largest mistake is taking advice from a well-meaning friend rather than an expert. This ranges from the type of accounts you have at the bank, the type of mortgage to the type of  stock investment. Everyone can find a personal banker at their own bank.  Even the large banks have personal bankers, you need to ask.

One of the many advantages of a small bank is that the officers of the bank will be far more accessible to you. A personal banker knows what is happening in the community in terms of trends and is a good source for financial advice. You might be able to dabble with some stocks on E-trade, however sometimes you get what you pay for and it is great to have an expert help balance your portfolio.

The fifth mistake is women feel they are out of control with their finances. Many times talking about money becomes overwhelming. The best advice is to empower yourself and take control of your money.

You work hard for your money, don’t let it sit and not work for you.

If you know what you make and what your expenses are you are well on the way to not only budgeting, but taking control of where you can cut expenses, where you can save more and thus in the long run make more. Money can be magical, but it doesn’t necessarily come with magically thinking.

Wishing you well on your journey of managing your money. You deserve it!

What keeps you motivated to work so hard & such long hours? Sure, we adore our clients and want to do a good job. Of course we need to pay our bills. But for some of us, it’s our greater life purpose that motivates. In my case, I love animals and use my profits to support great organizations who help them (SFSPCA, PETA, ICRA, etc.).

But today, I get to support a trusted client who needs a good family for his darling dog, Phoebe. Please help if you can, since he’s a wonderful dog (and darling client).

Here’s Doug’s story:

Please Adopt this Great Dog
Phoebe is a very friendly and sweet female black lab/pit bull mix, about 1-1/2 years old and in perfect health.  She has a glossy black coat (very soft ears and head!), with white chest and paws, and a faint white “racing strip” on top of her nose.

She weighs 44 pounds, but is smaller than this would suggest.  She is spayed, has a microchip (which you can register in your name), and is current on all shots as well as heartworm and flea treatments.

I’ll throw in her collar, bed, and a bunch of food and healthy treats, and I paid her adoption fee.

Phoebe loves people and is very smart and very sensitive. She has some aggression issues with other dogs, and needs someone with the time to train her out of it.  I have been working with her on basic commands like Come, Sit, Down, Stay, Leave It, and she has learned very quickly, and is anxious to please.

She is currently enrolled in an obedience class at the East Bay Humane Society which you can complete with her.

Contact Doug at (510) 237-2233 or windrider@douglasherring.us

This week we’re featuring our amazing client “One World Music” to showcase their demo video. We worked with the company’s creative director, Gary Muszinski, as well as stellar video editor and filmmaker Rick Wise, advising them how to strengthen the marketing points to show  the vast benefits of the company’s valuable training for organizations.

Let us know what you think: Would you hire them to train your teams to play and work together more productively? Don’t they look like more fun than a boring powerpoint speaker?

http://www.oneworldmusic.com/media/full_player.php

Love this.

Will Ferrell on healthcare: http://bit.ly/SDvwI

from my old blog: Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Again I got a call to do some publicity for a colleague’s client. Why? Because often people think marketing is just publicity, that getting your name in print will create that tipping point to make a company a huge success.

However, doing publicity without the marketing strategy behind it can be very costly without producing sustained results.

Sure your web traffic can skyrocket from a great article about your company, or your phone can ring off the hook for a day or two. But without solid marketing tactics to sustain that hit, results wane quickly.

For business owners trying to do their own publicity, I found Jill Lublin’s co-authored book on guerilla publicity quite useful along with Bulldog Reporter’s moderated interviews with the media.

But to do PR properly you must devote solid time and effort (gee is there anything worthwhile in life that doesn’t require that?) to build a media list in your industry, submit online to PR distro companies, do some media relations, create an editorial calendar of strategy for what you’ll pitch to whom and when, plus craft astoundingly fascinating pitches that are keyword-rich and command attention with the right kind of follow up. So few people do this correctly.

Many business classes teach students to spam all publications with press releases that are basically sales pitches about their business. What a waste. So, before spending huge sums on publicity, or conducting campaigns that waste time, take a look at your overall strategy to ensure it’s the right one.

A marketing coach or consultant can advise on that direction, and should be able to refer a good publicist when the strategy is sound. Once you know what to do, the actual doing of it is easy. “Knowledge is Bliss” as we say.

from our old blog: Thursday, December 11, 2008

I was inspired to share this beautiful ‘marketing message’ written by my friend Claudia Ruiz, a popular blogger for Columbia’s national newspaper. Claudia has educated me a bit about how drugs have ruined her beautiful country (part of the reason she left) and how her hopes are to help people shift their thinking which just might save the beauty, cultural richness and intellectual vastness her country has to offer. Her beautiful graphic reads: “If I use drugs I support war“. In the first day she’s already had over 800 responses.

Now THAT’S some great marketing!

And if you don’t read or write in Spanish, you can still comment in English and perhaps Claudia will translate it for you so her readers can know what English speaking residents think of her impressive ‘one woman’s fight for humanity’ campaign.

Let her know what you think! After all, knowledge is bliss, ignorance is expensive & fear-driven.

from my old blog: Wednesday, February 4, 2009

In case you’re wondering how to express your love on Valentine’s day: Love is chocolate. Just ask the Buddhist monks who make Intentional Chocolate™.

Intentional Chocolate™ is focused on shifting the way humans relate to food by delivering sustenance that nourishes both body and spirit. Proven through rigorous scientific testing, Intentional Chocolate™ has been embedded with a specific intention of health and well being by experienced meditators, some of whom trained with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Need Justification?
Research found that one ounce of Intentional Chocolate™ per day for three days increased subjects’ well-being, vigor and energy by an average of 67 percent and, in some cases, up to 1,000 percent.

Gee, can I cut out my workouts and eat chocolate instead?
The company’s mission is to use intention to bring greater health, coherence and quality of life to all beings. Intentional Chocolate™ is well being manifested in a particularly delicious form. Share the Love.

Green Marketing
And I’d just almost decided it sounded painfully self-serving reading a company’s promotion who just now started claiming; ‘oh boy, we’re so great: we’re doing green marketing to benefit our planet’. I want to just write to them saying; “what took you so long? Some of us have been doing that for decades.” But gee, how many of us claim an association with the Dalai Lama in our green marketing? Now that got my attention!

What Do You Think?
What do you think about ‘green marketing’ in today’s world? Are you feeling this ‘we benefit…’ is so overused that you just don’t pay attention to it? Or does it have a big impact on your buying decisions? I’m curious because, after all, knowledge is bliss.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

“Getting Publicity: 8 Tips for Businesses”
Let’s clarify how to get publicity and properly write a press release to get better results.

1. First, it’s critical to look at overall marketing strategy to see how ‘media’ fits into the bigger picture. If you haven’t a good website or promotional materials that explain and help you sell your product or services, then publicity can drive lots of callers to you whom you cannot convert to customers or clients. So then, what’s the purpose?

2. If you have the groundwork laid to convert visitors to sales, then the next step is understand that the media is looking for stories. Whether it’s online media, tv, radio or print media (newspapers, magazines, newsletters, trade journals, etc.) their purpose is to educate, entertain or inform their readers. So, you must offer them a story that fits their publication (or website, podcast, or similar).

3. If your pitch doesn’t fit their publication, you’re just wasting their time, and yours, so target your publications well. When I edited some of these print publications, I just threw out any faxes or emails from certain people because I knew they were just spamming me with pitches that didn’t apply to my readers. And who has time to waste like that? So, don’t be rude. Be thoughtful about whom you pitch which story to.

4. Create a database with your media list. Ideally, you want to develop a relationship with your target media, just like with prospective clients, so be sure to track all communications, pitches, responses and notes about all your media relations so you remember to follow up on time, as requested by your contacts. Do not send gifts or samples unless requested. In many cases (like broadcast news) it’s simply not allowed. So, you’ll be wasting time, money and making the reporter feel bad that they can’t use your sample (it’s kind of considered a bribe to ‘get ink’ or get included in the news). Read a few books by media experts to get advice on building media relations, but know that you’ll figure it out once you get a foothold in certain media, too.

5. Don’t ignore small websites or even newsletters. Imagine this: you’re a massage therapist and you’re targeting people with pain. Wouldn’t you want to pitch stories to a newsletter for athletes about how your style of massage can help them overcome injuries or prolong their stamina so they’re better at their sport? The newsletter might only have a readership of 300 members, but virtually all of these athletes might be your ideal target client. Then, why would you (as so many people do) target the SF Chronicle instead?

You’d have a million readers from the ‘Chronicle’ but statistically only 100 might see your article and click on your site. Of those 100 that click, only 2 will be super interested – and if your site doesn’t give them exactly what they seek, like the ability to schedule with you online, they’ll click somewhere else! Then all your time and effort is simply wasted. I often see this strategy of targeting smaller publications overlooked. So, don’t forget the small and targeted publications when you develop media lists.

6. Once you’ve created your media list to pitch your story, draft your press release, which is an announcement of your newsworthy event, story or notice. It’s not an ad! Be certain to have someone else read it to ensure it doesn’t sound like you’re selling something – which is what an ad is. If it’s news, it should include the five W’s: “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Why” and “Where”.

It’s often very hard for people to realize their latest, greatest offering is really an ad, not a news release, (a news release is the same thing as a press release) so best to get professional advice on this before you develop a reputation as one of those ‘spammers’ or a publicity amateur. Once your pitch or press release is ready, you can distribute it yourself (the ideal method) via email or fax – as each media outlet requests – or you can use a web based distribution service like PRweb.com. Costs depend on the breadth of distribution.

7. When you’ve developed your pitch, you can either send in a press release and hope you’ll get called for an interview. Or you can send a ‘query’ to pitch a story to the editor/publisher or section (i.e.; sports, business, travel section) editor.

What’s a query? It’s a 1-2 paragraph ‘inquiry’ to the editor to find out if they’d be interested in having you submit a story to them about your topic. Remember, it’s not an ad, but a topic of interest to their readers. Many websites will offer writer guidelines should the editor decide to pick up your story. But top rated publications usually have their own writers so will not allow others to submit stories. If they’re interested, they’ll contact you to get more information. It’s not proper to call them except in very specific instances, which are too detailed to note. (if you need info on this, call us for a consultation).

8. Be prepared for an interview or to submit your story if it’s a publication that allows submissions. Do not make the publication wait longer than 24 hrs. or you may blow your chance of getting your story picked up. Be sure to submit any relevant general interest stories to online article portals like ezinearticles.com or those specific to your industry. If you get an interview, it’s best to have facts and statistics or other data at hand. Best to plan the most likely questions you expect the reporter to ask and prepare your answers so you’re ready.

Having done perhaps a thousand interviews, I can tell you the one thing that drives a reporter bonkers is to get generic, not-well-thought-out answers from people who are holding back the goods. So, try to be as specific as you can. Have examples or stories that demonstrate your main points in your newsworthy item. Be relaxed. It’s people with engaging personalities who are most often asked to share their stories, so be yourself, be open, and most importantly be vibrantly interesting!

If you need customized publicity guidance for your business or full service publicity to handle all the above, call us for advice. We’ll either have our teams help you or send you to an expert in your industry. Just remember, Knowledge is Bliss, so be authentic, forthcoming and truthful in all your media endeavors. And make it fun, too!