July 6, 2012
How We Make Things Happen
Our latest overview presentation on our purpose, work and how we make things happen.
Tell Your Story: How We Make Things Happen
View more presentations from Tell Your Story Brand Communications Inc..
May 25, 2012
Tell Your Story Welcomes Intern Bailey Madden
Hi! I am happy to report that I am Tell Your Story Brand Communications’ newest team member. Every once in awhile, I’ll share my point of view on different topics in the world on the blog for your (and my) enjoyment. Now, I’ll tell you a little about myself…
With my college years quickly coming to a close, my life is about to be thrown for a loop. Not only will I be done with college, but the idea of a “big girl” job will not be so far off. After graduating with a double-major in Public Relations and Communication, I hope to gain a public relations or marketing communications position working at an agency or in-house for a corporate brand.
In my spare time, I love to run and exercise – especially when Chicago decides beautiful weather is appropriate. Due to being a bit of a bookworm, I suppose reading is where my love for writing came from.
My public relations experience all started when I was selected to be a consumer marketing intern at the reputable GolinHarris international public relations agency. Completely overwhelmed and intimidated at first, I quickly learned the ins and outs of public relations by working on several clients in the food industry. At GolinHarris, I wrote media materials such as press releases, pitches, fact sheets, and corporate announcements. I even got to do some writing for a corporate web site, which was awesome. Needless to say, I fell in love with public relations as a whole and never looked back.
So, this is what brings me to you and Tell Your Story, i.e., a love for public relations and a desire to show you what I can do. I hope to bring everything that I’ve learned both in work experience and class work full circle so that my work produced here is the best that it can be. That being said, I’m excited for this opportunity and cannot wait to get to work.
May 8, 2012
Tell Your Story Welcomes Intern Emily Higgins
Hi! My name is Emily Higgins and I am a new intern for Tell Your Story. This is the first step in building my post college career and I’m very excited about this opportunity to assist George, Amanda and the Tell Your Story team in the unique and personal way they promote their clients’ brands.
I am currently a senior at DePaul University where I am studying for a degree in Communications and Media. However, where I started is far from where I am now. Over the past three years, I’ve had a variety of experiences, beginning with attending the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) my freshman year.
I packed up and moved south in hopes of branching out and experiencing something new. Over the course of that year, I had many incredible experiences including the legendary football atmosphere, getting a taste of a very different culture, and had the opportunity to get a first-hand experience at the 2008 Presidential debates between Barack Obama and John McCain that took place on campus.
Although Ole Miss was everything I had imagined and more, I found that you can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl. I yearned to be back in the Midwest where I missed deep-dish pizza, Lake Michigan, fellow Bears fans, and shopping along Michigan Avenue— some of the things that make Chicago the best city in the world, and made my decision to transfer to DePaul easy.
In my spare time I am a volunteer at PAWS Chicago, a local animal shelter, where I help promote the idea of adoption and goal of creating a No Kill Chicago for stray and abandoned pets.
My major in Communications and Media at DePaul has piqued my interest in business communications, and I am eager to express my creativity and enthusiasm through my work at Tell Your Story!
Feel free to email me at [email protected]
April 9, 2012
Telling Your Story: The Importance of Media Training
Telling Your Story: The Importance of Media Training
You’ve carefully crafted your message and now you’re ready to spread the word. Now what?
Unfortunately, the ‘now what’ can be a purgatory for many companies, nonprofit organizations, and public figures’ messages. After identifying what you want to communicate it’s time to figure out how to do so. This is where one of the most vital services a public relations advisor offers comes into play. Media training can greatly add to the effectiveness of a PR campaign and is a must-know for any spokesperson or representative interacting with the media. So what is media training and how can it help you?
Media training often consists of a classroom training session where participants learn strategies to help them successfully communicate during on or off-camera interviews with reporters. There are few people who are completely comfortable being interviewed, which is why it’s so important to prepare yourself or your spokesperson to feel relaxed in a Q&A setting. Media training will teach you how to get your message across to your audience, will provide you with the confidence to answer unexpected questions, and can help you to keep an interview on-track so that your goals for the news segment or radio show are met.
February 14, 2012
Happy Valentine’s Day from Tell Your Story
January 25, 2012
How to be innovative?
How to be innovative?
You need to be curious, not satisfied with the status quo, be a problem solver, and not really be a great manager! Great “one question” and answer from the Chicago Business Marketing Association.
December 20, 2011
We Love Holiday Letters!
We wish we received more holiday letters. Who wouldn’t? We love them. That’s why we put our own letter together highlighting how far we’ve come in the past year.Back in December 2010, we first incorporated Tell Your Story Brand Communications Inc. with a purpose to “make things happen for people so they can be happier and more successful.”
Too lofty of a purpose for a tiny, little agency? We don’t think so.
We’ve been inspired by “purpose-driven branding” thinking from Eduardo Conrado at rel=”nofollow”Motorola Solutions and Roy Spence, author of It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For. We saw them both speak in May at the National Business Marketing Association Conference in Chicago. If you ever get the chance, hear them speak.
We believe that thinking about your own personal purpose and the purpose of your business leads to inspiring work that really helps people grow professionally and personally. And we’ve put that thinking to action for several clients this year.
For Daymarck, a medical coding company in the home care industry, we help them communicate how they want to improve healthcare in this country by enhancing home care – one medical code at a time. We attended two of their trade shows in July in San Diego and in October in Vegas. We are an integral part of their team spreading the word and helping them grow.
For transportation company OnRamp Transportation Services and its service company Equinox, we developed emotionally-relevant communications (visual and verbal) communicating how they exist to help independent, hard-working truckers succeed in the rough world of driving a truck. We traveled with them to Dallas in August (Great American Trucking Show), to Ohio in July and to Indianapolis in September helping them share their story to the industry.
For drywall and plaster installer, Trinity Drywall, we hit on a key attribute they posses that is valued above all else by their customer, the general contractor. We helped them emotionally talk about how they help contractors “push the job” by eliminating “obstacles” that are ever-present on a job site. We traveled to their location in Fort Worth in February to meet with executives and nail down their messaging to the marketplace.
For DuPage Medical Group, a Chicago area physician’s group, who is looking to attract the best and brightest doctors from across the country to practice there, we developed an independent-minded and pointed advertisement appealing to the traits and wants/needs of this target audience. Didn’t have to travel far for that one.
For ifbyphone, a short cab ride away from our downtown Chicago offices, we conducted a social media audit in November and gave recommendations on how they can spread the word of their technology and point-of-view through various traditional PR and social media channels more effectively.
And in the pipeline for 2012 (cross your fingers for us) is a well-known career site and service, a major office equipment provider, a Chicago-based novelty candy company and many more.
As we continue our story into 2012 and beyond, we’ll always try to stay true to our purpose of making things happen so we can all be happier and more successful. If you are ready for a tiny little agency with a big purpose, give us a ring.
Please have a very Merry Christmas and wonderful Holiday Season and New Year.
The Tell Your Story Team
P.S. Enjoy this video of holiday lights taken in a suburb of Chicago in Wilmette, IL. As George’s son states, “It’s amazing!”
December 20, 2011
Winter Truck Promotion
Quick examples of winter promotion work we are doing in the trucking industry. Why get your spouse a Lexus when you can get them a truck?
