Peter Shankman, the founder of HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, is a social media entrepreneur and influencer.

Recognized worldwide for new ways of thinking about the customer experience, social media, public relations, marketing, advertising, and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Shankman often keynotes events.

The New York Times and others have quoted Shankman in advice and “how I got here” stories like this one on how to best work with journalists.

His comments are TED-like so any business person would benefit from them. Here are 50.

1. If you don’t write your own story, you’ll be nothing but a footnote in someone else’s.
2. You don’t control the direction of your company. You are controlled by your customers.
3. Find your weakness. Wrap yourself in it like an armor and it can’t be used to hurt you.
4. Stay healthy.
5. I’ve learned to set up certain life rules for myself which work to keep me on track. Getting up early, always exercising first thing in the morning no matter how tired I am. (and I’m usually doing it at 4am), and eating as healthy as possible.
6. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
7. While others are looking for fire, spend your time and energy looking for wood that’s yet to burn.
8. Contact people at the time of day that they prefer.
9. Two things happen when you’re nice. Number one is that people remember you.
10. Get together with people in the way that they prefer. With Peter Shankman it might be running in NYC at 6 AM.
11. What matters to customers, regardless of their economic background or expectation, regardless of whether you’re a corner deli or a 7-star resort…is the same thing that’s always mattered: TRUST.
12. Being willing to try new things — I’ve started and sold three companies with nothing more than the experience I gained from the last one.
13. Keep an eye on your friends’ mental health. (He mentioned in a public relations group event that, sadly, two of his entrepreneur friends committed suicide.)
14. Dopamine comes from good experiences. It’s why I sky dive; it’s why I do Ironman triathlons.
15. Hire good people.
16. Allow your employees to work in the way that they can perform at their best.
17. If you are ADHD working at home works well.
18. Tell great stories.
19. Be authentic when you answer a journalist.
20. Don’t B.S. when you give comment for a news story.
21. Listen to everyone but be keenly aware of whose advice you take. Be brilliant at the basics. That’s all you need to succeed.
22. The entrepreneur economy is bigger than ever.
23. Ease of use and video are two huge factors that are going to move the needle for communicators in the modern world.
24. Understanding your audience is more important than ever.
25. Understanding your clients and employees is key.
26. Your audience is more important than ever before.
27. Trust is the biggest thing that leads to purchase.
28. Answer fast, like in 10 minutes if responding to a HARO, Help a Reporter Out, a company that he founded.
29. You have to know your audience. That is a major key to getting social media right.
30. Find the best time to call people, for example, that might be 4 AM for me right now.
31. Be slightly better than the norm.
32. We can earn and work from anywhere (now.)
33. Little moments equal massive effect.
34. The little things you do add up quickly.
35. Doing little things is the basis for any improvement you ever hope to have.
36. You can’t make anything viral but you can make it good.
37. I wasn’t just managing my ADHD. I was using it to my advantage.
38. There is no personal or professional anymore. There is simply your brand.
39. Everything you do affects your brand.
40. The pandemic has shown us that workers don’t need to be in the office every day.
41. Be a zombie loyalist. Use great service to attract rabid fans.
42. OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS! (In response to a cool image of him someone posted on Twitter)
43. Be transparent, be relevant, be brief, and be top of mind.
44. No one believes how great you are if you’re the one who has to tell them. You want your customers and your employees doing your PR for you and telling the world how great you are so you don’t have to.
45. I don’t drink anymore because I only have two speeds — off and all the way on.
46. I like to put 10x more help into the universe than I ask for. That’s the best way to live, I believe.
47. Listen to your employees and let them work the way they want to work.
48. Imposter syndrome is a real thing.
49. Doesn’t matter how much success I’ve had, I wake up every day sure that today is the day that I’m found out to be a fraud, and when I’m not, it’s obviously because I’m not important enough for anyone to waste their time investigating me. Over and over.
50. The majority of things I do aren’t normal but they work for me.

Here are two of Peter Shankman’s social media profiles:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petershankman/

Twitter: @PeterShankman

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Michelle McIntyre, a PR consultant and IBM vet, runs her own consulting practice and works for Aircover Communications. @FromMichelle on Twitter

Today at an event attended by public relations professionals, iconic technology journalist and Author Brad Stone gave advice on pitching Bloomberg News. He manages a team of journalists there. 

He also just published a book called Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire. 

He added that previously Bloomberg focused only on public companies; that has changed.

He was asked by the event moderator if he missed in-person events like conferences. He said yes, he has, and not having them has been a challenge. For example, he misses hallway conversations.

Here are seven tips he offered when pitching Bloomberg:

1. Be persistent.
2. Offer something interesting and impactful that a reporter doesn’t already know. 
3. Don’t be sensitive about hard questions.
4. Finding the right reporter is key.
5. Don’t try too hard when you know you don’t have the goods.
6. Don’t sell too hard.
7. Sometimes a pitch is successful just by chance.

In summary, please keep these tips in mind and simply think before you shoot an email off to Bloomberg. You might be surprised at what you accomplish if your timing and message is well thought out. 

On a final note, are you aware of a unique part of the Bloomberg business, the tech side? The company employs thousands of technologists who define, architect, build and deploy complete systems to fulfill the needs of financial market participants globally.

I’m a curious person by nature and when a friend who also does PR brought up Bloomberg Tech the other day I wanted to know more so I checked it out online. I used to think of Bloomberg as mostly an editorial operation. It’s not.

[The orange cup and pink notebook photo is from Canva Pro.]

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Michelle McIntyre is a Silicon Valley PR consultant and IBM vet. @FromMichelle on Twitter. Thanks PRSA-SV team for scheduling Brad Stone as a Friday Forum speaker.

Here are eight modern tips on landing a job from today’s Public Relations Society of America Silicon Valley chapter Friday Forum event speakers. This advice can be applied to sales pitches and deal closing as well.

1. Write well.  
2. Make sure you present well in Zoom, Cisco WebEx or Microsoft Team meetings. For example, maybe your room background is messy or you have a nervous tic. This could hurt your chances of landing the job, getting the consulting gig or making the sale.
3. Demonstrate an emotional quotient or EQ during the interview. Speakers said they can tell how someone will be in a job by email communication and the first minute of an interview. This applies to sales as well. People buy solutions from folks they get along with.
4. Ask an internal reference to back you. If you are applying for a job at IBM, HP, or Google, find a friend at one of those companies to put in a good word for you. The person who hired me at IBM had hired me at a PR agency a couple years prior: She was the hiring manager and my internal reference.
5. Be a hustler! Follow up. Send a note after each interview.
6. Unique avenues to success garner attention. An example is not getting into University of California Berkeley right away but instead transferring from community college.
7. Don’t over follow up. A candidate for a PR job called nine times one morning. This was overkill. As previously stated, this applies to selling. Therefore, be a hustler without being creepy when following up after a sales call or job interview.
8. Try something old school like a snail mail note. This actually may be the most modern tip on the list because most people don’t do this, therefore a handwritten note or card would stand out. Be aware that the hiring manager is likely working at home.

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Michelle McIntyre is an award winning Silicon Valley PR consultant, IBM vet, and a ranked future of work influencer with a half a million impressions on Quora. The moderators and speakers at the PRSA-SV Friday Forum event referenced in this story were Vanessa Yanez, Ellie Javadi, Brooke Kruger and Kathleen Shanahan, all public relations and image professionals with hiring experience.

If you are a work from home professional consider these five helpful tools. I am particularly pleased with my new laptop clip-on ring light and stylish room divider.

Clubhouse – Clubhouse is a social media app that allows you to create a profile, build a following, follow people, and listen to, participate in or run “speaker panels” via audio chat. I call it the “old school radio app” because it involves hearing people speak. You can raise your hand and be called on to speak. I care because it’s hot in the public relations and startup arenas. The negative is that it’s only available via iOS which is iPhone.  My experience on Clubhouse has been fun; it’s a nice change from writing comments, like on Twitter.

Room Divider – Fellow PR practitioner Kimberly Stoddard told me that her new room dividers ordered online helped beautify her Zoom background and block out the moving boxes. She had just gotten to her new place when I first saw them. She said this because I commented that her background Monet art looked gorgeous and natural: I asked her about it. The negative is that they are pretty large, typically six feet tall, so they take up space. I just received an elegant Asian style room divider that created a new office space in the corner of the living room. Another benefit is if you are participating in online meetings from a bedroom, the room divider can block out the view of the bed in the background.

Grammarly is a program that auto-magically adjusts grammar. Fellow consultant, C.J. Lipe said, “When I work with a client in drafting content, such as a blog, article, or newsletter it helps me catch punctuation and grammatical errors. It often gives suggestions or triggers ideas for making changes that may not be so obvious in the moment due to ‘tunnel vision’.” The negative, according to another friend, is that it adjusts the passive voice when he doesn’t want that to happen. He can’t figure out how to turn that off. So maybe it’s a bit too auto-magic sometimes.

Ring Light – My home office has big windows and despite heavy curtains it is hard to adjust the light. What makes matters worse is that I have a sun tunnel. This does not help boost my image during Zoom, Microsoft Teams or WebEx meetings. When I asked for suggestions for laptop meeting lights, I was given two tips, Lume which was $75, and ring. Ring is a style of light not a brand. The one I found online was only $25. It works well. The possible negative is that the large laptop clip is a bit tight. Is this bad for my laptop? Time will tell. Some friends swear by Lume Cube brand.

Canva – Canva is a freemium program that helps a non-technical person to create quality social media graphics. I like it because it is easy to use and I get compliments on the images I’ve created with it. Guy Kawasaki strongly recommended it to me years ago when I started consulting and I’m glad I took his advice. Granted, I think he was Canva’s paid influencer at the time, but that’s okay. He is unlikely to work for a company he doesn’t truly believe in. The negative is that Canva has added a lot of features over the years and is now a bit complicated to use. I do pay $1 for their photos from time to time. I also buy Shutterstock photos. Photos are needed for blog stories.

Stock up on a few new tools like a laptop light and a stylish room divider and give your online and personal brand image a boost.

As an aside, thanks Kimberly Stoddard for sending a photo of you and your new room divider.

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Michelle McIntyre is an award winning tech PR consultant in the Silicon Valley. An IBM vet, she specializes in helping artificial intelligence, collaboration, data analytics and storage companies garner valuable attention. @FromMichelle on Twitter @Michelle408 on Clubhouse * Thanks to Meetup Bootstrappers’ Breakfast participants for generating some of these tips.