Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PR...

* Kevin Keating told the story of the DioLight bulb to more than 300 radio interviewers, The New York Times, Cable News Network, and on UPI -- and got $150,000 from a would-be investor the day after his story appeared in the Times.

* Michael Falco's Watergate, Piranha, and Brute paper shredders have been a media fixture for much of the past decade; received favorable play in The New York Times and Newsday; labeled a status symbol for the '80s in The Wall Street Journal; paired with Richard Nixon in People -- while sales have climbed from less than $200,000 to $5 million.

If you guessed all three men were lucky, you'd be only partly right. All three stepped into the media spotlight, then stayed there far longer than their allotted time. And all three saw sales soar. But what's important is how they did it. For all of them the press was the last messenger targeted, approached only after they had built a network and reputation inside their industry. They used not press releases, but the same one-on-one strategy they'd practiced all along. Nothing else would have worked so well, or probably even worked at all.

Small companies that pitch their stories to a reporter any other way are likely to get the brush-off, or be relegated to the oddball filler slot. If some Gyro Gearloose from Michigan had called CNN with a tale of perpetual light he wouldn't have been able to get past the network switchboard. But Keating had backup for his DioLight bulb -- journal articles and applications stories.

The media are like any customer that way. They'd rather buy from a credible source. They're impressed by experts. And they follow the pack, turning for advice to the same people to whom your customers turn. If The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal wants to write a story on shredders it'll call one of a half-dozen security trade journals -- and probably be referred to Michael Falco.

That's no accident. Falco has worked nearly two decades building his reputation with the trade editors. The mass-media relations came last in his plan, after he had developed the Shredex Inc. dealer and customer bases and courted the security and business-to-business marketing magazines. So by the time he started talking to reporters he knew exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it well.

Like Lee Iacocca, who perfected the role, Falco, Beaver, and Keating all head and speak for their companies. But lacking the Chrysler Corp. chairman's TV and bookstore visibility and marketing budget, they have to take advantage of their size. So they handle the press personally, the same way they've practiced serving other key audiences, the way they'd serve their customers, if they could. Beaver circulates comfortably among the journalists at business conventions, talking with a reporter from USA Today or a New York City book editor. Falco stays in touch by letter. "When I see someone do a story on security or shredding, I'll write and offer my two cents' worth -- maybe they'll do a follow-up." Other times he'll generate his own hook, creating a collector's item like the Dragons Teeth, shipped to China to be hand-painted then shipped back home -- "that only sold 75 units a year, but it gave me tremendous exposure.''

The key is making sure the message is right. Whether Keating is talking about solar street lamps or the dedication of the first lamp plant built in the United States in 35 years, he's always telling customers that DioLight is the lighting of the future. Beaver's core message is simpler still, developed when he was still cleaning factories for a handful of customers in the southern Pennsylvania area. "Measure me by my service," Beaver says, whether he's modeling his company's sow-snoot hats for a newspaper photographer or discussing contemporary distribution innovations with key buyers from the Fortune 500. "This business is where my mission is; if I can't do it here I can't do it.''

Much has been written about how hard it is to grab the attention of the perpetually fickle newspaper, magazine, and TV reporters. But for all the sound and fury, the basic rules are fairly simple to understand, although quite difficult to execute. Treat the media like a customer: figure out what it needs and give it to them.

But all that misses the point, unfortunately. Serving a reporter's needs and serving the needs of your company are not necessarily the same. What matters is the message that gets through to your customer.

I remember one former Inc. 500 CEO who invited me down to his offices to see what he described as his unprecedented service and innovative management. But I wrote about a business splitting at the seams, with squabbling principals, empty desks, and a cash-flow crisis -- not the story he wanted his shrinking client list to read.

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