Colin over at canuckflack.com uses a story about a cranky (and prolific!) letter writer to make a good point: There are was to maximize the odds of getting a letter or op-ed published. If that’s part of your communications plan, it’s smart to know the rules.

He’s got links to several good tips on this subject. Go read ‘em, or I’ll regale you with campaign war stories of my endless days knocking out 10 “citizen letters” an hour for Big Corporate Interests. Ah, youth!

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To the chagrin of some of my more high-minded colleagues, I maintain that we’re all in the sales business, and the sooner we embrace that, the more successful we’ll be.

• Work in PR? You already know you’re in the business of selling ideas.
• Work in public involvement? Well, if your project has a predetermined outcome (“we’re building a freeway, but need to talk to homeowners in the way”), then you already know you’re selling ideas with a little bit of process on the side. But if you’re lucky enough to be doing genuine public involvement rather than the get-out-of-the-way-you-pesky-citizen kind, then what you’re really selling is a context, a process and trust in that process.
• In the planning or A/E fields? I’ve already talked about what you’re selling (hint: It’s not always what you think), but it’s worth repeating.
• Work in the public sector? You’re selling projects, processes, or both.

Having laid out my thesis, here’s a round-up of sales-related links useful no matter which of those categories you fall into.

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Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine makes the great point that this word-and-link stew we’re all creating via weblogs is just the first step in a growing value chain.

Key concept: linking as a social gesture. Sure, you might link to something because it’s informational or (as some of the more cynical among us think) because you believe it will boost your Google rankings. But there’s more to it than that. Linking is a way people connect the dots with what they believe in, what interests them and what they find worthwhile. You can bet Google (which, like God, knows every sparrow’s fall and every link’s destination) is figuring out a way to monetize this.

Key backdrop: The potential for a slow-mo market failure in the information economy, which we may already be seeing signs of. I hate to quote the same blog twice in one post, but after I started writing this, BuzzMachine had much to say on this topic.

Why does this matter to PR? Read on…
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Marginal Revolution has a quick take on the biggest threat to newspapers today: ebay.

At 50% of a typical daily’s revenues, you can see the problem: ebay has aggregated buyers and sellers into a massive, highly efficient market. Sign of the times: Those delcaring bankruptcy used to be asked to value their property based on what similar stuff sold for in the classifieds. Now, those who want to discharge their debts often hear “what would it sell for on eBay?”

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I co-moderate a great list of small-shop communications practitioners on yahoo. Well, in what may be the first quasi-pitch to my media, um, blogging, um, ego empire, one of my co-moderators has asked me to highlight a membership drive.Read on, and see how you can join our merry band — and how we can all learn a lot from each other in the process.

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A discussion on SmallPRAgencyPros, an e-mail list I co-moderate, turned recently to a well-trod topic: How does a small PR agency develop new business?

It’s always surprising to me how many professional communicators get that glassy-eyed look when it comes to business development — a process that is, after all, mostly about highly focused and effective communication.

Think about the advice you’d give to a client in a similar situation. I dunno about you, but I wouldn’t tell a client to spend money on advertising or direct mail — I’d tell them to figure out the areas they were damned-near unbeatable at, then hammer away at those areas because that’s where the money’s going to come from.

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