Tuesday 19 February 2008

The Secrets of PR for Less Than £50

If I look back at my entire business journey, and all the money I ploughed into advertising campaigns etc., the most valuable marketing activity every time was always PR.

In fact I would go as far as to say that if you only had the budget or time to do just one marketing activity then you could easily build a business using PR alone - it just takes a little more time and tenacity, that's all.

My new PR Louise Third at Integra was a particularly brilliant find. She 're-launched' my personal brand last Autumn - after a nightmare period of being destroyed by the mainstream media post RLD crash - and the coverage I have so far received (see the PR section of my website) has been wholly positive and supportive, with lots more in the pipeline - including the cover article in April's Director magazine to co-incide with the launch of my new book.

She also does lots of work with 'Beermat' entrepreneur Mike Southon and is author of 'PR on a Beermat'.

Louise is now holding a series of short workshops with Daily Express journalist Maisha Frost, the first of which is at the British Library on 13 March from 5pm to 7.30pm. They're designed to help you maximise your chances of gaining coverage if you handle your PR yourself. If you are running your own business, need to pump up your sales and marketing activity, but don't have a huge budget to spend on external PR support, I really would suggest you go along.

It could be the best £47.50 you ever spent!

Wednesday 6 February 2008

The Bank of Abundance delivers...

In my Blog post yesterday I promised to let you know as soon as something manifested.

Well, I opened up my email this morning to find a message confirming a deal - for exactly £10,000 - decided on yesterday.

Spooky, huh?

As they say, you don't need to understand exactly how electricty works to switch a lightbulb on...

Tuesday 5 February 2008

FREE CURRY !!!

I have been feeling very aware (guilty even?) of my Blog 'silence' of late - this usually happens when I am on 'input' mode in my life rather than on 'output'.

But I had a dream last night that I should post the following message to you this morning, so here goes:

I would like to thank Byrne for his comment on my post 'Cosmic Ordering' and for suggesting the book 'Ask and It Is Given'.

Well I sent off for it about a week ago and have been devouring it ever since; it is the most amazing book which has now made complete and absolute sense of everything I have ever read and heard about 'The Universe' in my life to date.

Essentially the book is not just about asking for what you want (nothing difficult about that, we all do it all the time), it is about being in the right 'vibrational mode' to receive the result (which is far more difficult - until you start really becoming aware of your energy and where you are blocked - and then practising change).

The bottom line is that it's all very well to make your cosmic orders but unless you are in the right place (of feeling Joy, Optimism, Abundance, Empowerment etc) you are often not in a position to receive the very things you are asking for.

The book also contains 22 exercises which I have been practising over the past week or so - and already change is starting to manifest in my life. More energy, more inspiration, more feel-good happiness - and in response, a whole plethora of new opportunities are starting to pop up in my email inbox every day !!!

An offer to star in a new ITV series, lots of new requests to speak at events, and yesterday an invitation to an all-expenses-paid private event with a small group of other high profile women about being a force for positive change in the world - which is one of my deepest life affirmations.

Wow - this is all so exciting, and it's happening really fast!!!

One of the exercises in the book is around manifesting material abundance. (Whilst I am not exactly a Church Mouse, nonetheless I do miss the time when money was flowing into my life in abundance - when Red Letter Days was at its peak and making £1million profit a year...)

The game is to create a bank account with a cheque book of your own making, into which £1000 is deposited on day 1, £2000 on day 2, £3000 on day 3 and so on for a year (by which time deposits will total £67million!). Then, anytime you want something you simply write out a cheque for it (which I then place in a special box) - the idea being that you can energetically 'spend' the money safely, knowing that there is an abundance of money coming into the account - instead of worrying about subsequent credit card bills, angry emails from your Coutts banker because you are overdrawn again (!), getting into debt and so on. You know the kind of thing!

So I opened my 'account' on Saturday, finally got round to creating my 'cheque book' yesterday - it is from the 'Bank of Abundance' (they are far more friendly than Barclays)and I have bound it in a golden cover - and this morning decided to write my first cheque. £10,000 to Pinelog for an octagonal garden studio which I can use for relaxation & meditation (Pinelog are the Bakewell based company who make the most fantastic wooden garden buildings for swimming pools etc; I have no connection with them by the way - this is not an endorsement deal! - apart from the fact that one of the friendly men in their workshop sawed a piece of board I needed cutting down free of charge for me a while ago).

Then, in a panic, having written the cheque out, I realised I might not have £10,000 in my account yet!!! (Not a good omen to go overdrawn with the Bank of Abundance in the first week of being a new customer is it? :-) But of course on Day 4 that is exactly the amount of the total deposits.

I will keep you posted as to what manifests...

But, trying to think back to the last time in my life when I was in a place of absolute joy, empowerment and abundance and what then manifested, I was asked by the publisher of my new book to find some photographs from my Red Letter Days years. And a couple of weeks ago I unearthed some fabulous pictures of a 'Mystery Experience Evening' which I arranged for my marketing team back in December 2001 to celebrate my 37th birthday.

There is a photo of everyone drinking champagne in the back of a super stretch Limo on our way to a 'bar crawl' of London - the Met Bar, the Purple Bar at Sanderson, dinner at 'Spoon' and then we finally ended up at Spearmint Rhino! (You will have to buy the book when it comes out in May to take a look at the pic...) I seem to recall that I was also in love at the time.

Very soon afterwards I was nominated for the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year award, I won an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award and as a result of all the publicity, I was approached by the BBC to star in a new business show they were filming called Dragons' Den...

You see, it's not the abundance that brings you joy, it is the joy that brings you abundance.

Yes, RLD also went into meltdown, but at the time I had also made a written (and I now realise incorrectly worded) affirmation that I wanted to 'get rid of Red Letter Days so that I have time to be with my family and to write and be creative'. Which is of course exactly what manifested, given that I am now based from home and that one of the first things to flow post RLD was a publishing deal for my first book, which I have just finished writing.

The Universe works in very immediate and direct ways! A bit like your SatNav works out the 'quickest fastest route'...

Anyway, just to end (and in accordance with my dream!) I need to offer £25 to the first person who responds to this blog which I would like them to spend on an Indian Takeaway this Friday night with my compliments!

To claim your free curry, simply be the first to post a comment in response to this message and then email me at rachel.elnaugh@rachelelnaugh.com with your address to send the money to.

Aren't dreams strange and amazing things?!?

Have a wonderful day.

Rachel