Second Stage companies are defined as organizations that have grown past start-up with typically 20 to 200 employees. Even though they contribute greatly to the economy, they are often overshadowed by the news of larger corporations. We work with many second stage companies, and we’re proud to share their news.

Phimation and its founder David Haviland published a really interesting report about eight emerging trends that are small business. Here are Phimation’s Eight Small Business 2012 Trends:

1) The New Agraria – Small businesses will face an environment more like 1800s farming than the industrial economy they’ve come to know and experience. They need to expect “seasons” and different “weather patterns” in their markets, and take one plot at a time as innovation continues to shift their markets. As a modern difference, small businesses will work in communities defined by interest, instead of geography.

2) Mad World (Massive Adaptation Daily) – With economic and technological change, companies will need to be highly nimble for daily survival. The leading companies will engage employees to evolve in significant ways that create new opportunities and efficiencies.

3) The Almighty Network – There will continue to be a powerful shift between physical and virtual worlds. The Internet will keep equipping small businesses with essential availability, intelligence, capability, and capacity to serve their customers. But it’s not just a one-way relationship. The Network is demanding more from small businesses.

4) Stretched – As small businesses get stretched by current conditions, their leaders will be forced to up their game. The best leaders will respond to the challenges and gain strength. Meanwhile, the same challenges will sap weaker leaders.

5) Lean and Mean — The smartest companies will run lean operations and take a strong growth-oriented approach to the most important parts of their businesses.

6) Investing in the Dark – The best companies will make strategic investments and implement “traction control systems” for their investments by upgrading their accountability and decision-making processes. Leaders cannot see very far ahead, so they’re relying on “improved handling” to ensure their success.

7) Thirty-Somethings – This generation is now significantly impacting small business, as they move into leadership positions. Companies are taking advantage of the new set of capabilities that these young leaders bring to the workplace.
Empathy: Humanity’s Best App – At a time when the world is becoming very complicated, empathy makes the world a simpler place for human connection. While small businesses no longer rely just on physical proximity to connect with customers, they will use The Almighty Network to create emotional proximity.

If you want to read more, be sure to read Phimation’s blog entry about this report: www.phimation.com.

For your tactics
• What are your key audiences looking for next year? Editorial calendars are starting to come out. Trade shows are recruiting speakers, exhibitors and sponsors. Analysts are preparing year end reports. Business award competitions are looking for entries.
• Technology is evolving each day. Look at the interactive tools you want to utilize next year and start making investments. There’s always an opportunity to learn about something new. Take advantage of online seminars and webinars.
• Make a list of the people you want to reach and influence. Map out ways to reach them.

For your measurements
• Take time to analyze the year’s achievements. Analytics are such a great tool to gauge campaigns. What worked? What didn’t work? Why?
If you are looking for some help to assess your communications, we are raising our hand to help. Pencils are sharpened and brains are in high gear.

I used to write for a trade magazine, School Transportation News, and it was such a great experience. As a reporter, I got to meet most of the movers and shakers in the school bus industry who are really making a difference for students. I admired all of the businesses that worked hard to provide technology, services and products to keep students safe on the buses. Schools, law enforcement, governments and student groups also played roles in the news cycle.

The experience really prepped our team to work on the other side – promoting organizations that need recognition in niche industries. In our public relations work, we’re now engaging trade magazine editors in so many verticals – hospitality trades, environmental business trades, healthcare IT trades, technology trades, aerospace-aviation trades and apparel trades. There’s a publication for just about any business category. While their topics are wide ranging, trade publications need good content to keep their industries informed and readers engaged.

Be sure to check out editorial calendars of your industry trades and plan your media pitches way ahead of the long lead deadlines. Consider contributing content and sharing your thought leadership in your unique areas of the industry. Keep in touch with editors and attend events – such as trade shows — where you can get to know them in person.

If you want more information or advice on how to engage them, give us a call.

While social media is tugging at the attention of news seekers, we truly believe they won’t stray too far from their niche business communities. So again, hurray for trade industry publications.

It’s so true that when you give, it comes back to you ten times strong. We are proud of the pro bono work we’ve achieved for many worthy causes and dynamic groups.

In Battle Creek, we provide pro bono services to the Generation E Institute (GenEI) and its Annual Student Business Showcase. The event allows young entrepreneurs showcase and sell their inventions. The Generation E Institute (GenEI) is a non-profit that has developed unique and innovative curricula that help create an entrepreneurial mindset in individuals so they can compete in an ever-changing economy. We love participating with this group and watching the young business people succeed.

This summer we’re promoting the Walker Tavern Wheels, a vintage baseball team sponsored by the historic stagecoach inn based in the Irish Hills. The team has been together three years, and they bring hundreds of visitors to the Walker Tavern Historic site, which is managed by Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources. With state budget constraints, we do what we can to promote this special historic gem in Michigan and a great bunch of baseball players.

In the past, we’ve also provided pro bono services to Detcharter.com, a volunteer group that educates the community about Detroit’s historic charter revision process. The Detroit Charter Revision Commission is sending the document to the State of Michigan for review before placing it on the city’s ballot for a citizen vote in November 8, 2011.

We’ve also provided pro bono services to the New Enterprise Forum in Ann Arbor, the Annual Collaboration for Entrepreneurship in Ann Arbor, and the Michigan Homeland Security Consortium.

For all of these good deeds, we’ve made friends, supported many excellent groups and had a lot of fun. Our advice? If you really want to build good relationships and a good reputation, give back to your community and your industry.

We’re always looking for good causes to support. Have any suggestions for MessageCoach Public Relations or its partner organizations?

We helped a group of technologists who came to Michigan to build a managed services and hosting company. They started with a powerpoint presentation to get their first customers, and now they’ve grown into a multi-million dollar business with nearly 200 employees and several high-tech facilities.

An entreprenuer who built a move management business became so attractive in her industry that a mega commercial real estate company approached the company and acquired it. We helped them with internal and external communication through that transition of change.

We worked with an economic development group to showcase the entrepreneurs in an incubator. Many of those entrepreneurs (technology and manufacturing groups) graduated from that incubator to become viable businesses and employers in the community.

Many entrepreneurs already know the benefits of public relations and how it supports their emerging brands and businesses. When they ask for our help, we analyze their markets, define their messages, map routes to target audiences and execute the publicity tactics. Measurement of these campaigns helps us determine the next steps in sharing their stories.

In today’s digital world, news goes out so many different ways. People have so many ways to find and follow news. Here’s a short list: Traditional news outlets, social media, search engines, customized news wires, traditional networking, electronic networking, and face-to-face/one-on-one meetings (which we believe are still critical).

In traditional media relations, there are thousands of people working for global news organizations, and each person has a specific audience and news interest. Using targeted media lists and good news judgment, we share entrepreneur stories with these influential journalists who need to stay on top of industry developments for their audiences. We help entrepreneurs build these media relationships, both interactively and interpersonally.

We’ve managed so many successful entrepreneur news campaigns. We’ve retained many clients, and our business grows with their emerging businesses. Other clients have grown so much that they’ve graduated to bigger PR firms. Whether entrepreneurs want full service public relations or one-time campaigns, we’re here to help.

We are in business to help our clients grow a business or bring a community together or launch something different. Our approach to public relations is both interpersonal and interactive.  That’s what sparked the trio of words in our logo: “people,” “words,” “technology.”

Support your marketing and business strategies
A strategic public relations campaign starts with objectives that align with your business plan and marketing  strategies. After determining who you want to reach, we put together the news that will travel through a variety of channels. And there so many ways to communicate these days! (Sometimes head spinning advancements.)

These vast choices give us lots of room for creativity. While we are up on the latest technology trends, we still believe in traditional public relations – newsworthy stories, in-person networking, productive press conferences or meetings, and one-on-one interactions.

We help you figure out which of them will yield the best connections to share your news, inform your audiences, gather input, or respond to an inquiry.

PR for Entrepreneurs and Emerging Enterprises
We’re based in Michigan (Detroit and Battle Creek) where we have worked onsite or virtually with both large (Fortune 500) and small organizations. But our sweet spot is promoting innovators or the up-and-coming in a variety of industries. We have a range of clients involved in exciting projects within economic development, entrepreneurship, emerging technologies, and fast growing organizations. It’s been an honor to tell their stories and watch them reach their goals.

We have fun at what we do, even on challenging days. So with this first blog entry, we invite you to take a closer look at us, ask some questions or share some of your stories.