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How To Get Inside The Head Of
The Greatest "Media Tarts" Of All Time
By Kris Mills

You know them. And many people love them. They’re those
charismatic celebrities and business people who are always
doing something outlandish to get their face in the papers.
Look at Qld Premier Peter Beattie or Entrepreneur,
Dick Smith. Both these Aussies have “media tart” stamped
across their forehead and certainly aren’t suffering
in sales and/or popularity polls as a result of it.
Then there’s the king of media tarts himself, Richard
Branson, with his outlandish media stunts like his round-the-world
balloon trips, driving an army tank down a crowded street,
dressing up like a woman and more.
Each of these stunts captures him a huge amount of
media attention and subsequently a huge amount in sales.
The moral of the story is that the media often love
a “media tart”. They love Richard Branson because Richard
Branson sells papers for them.
And Channel Nine’s “Current Affair” program loves Dick
Smith because he’s always controversial and ballsy enough
to take on the giants at their own game and cheeky enough
to stretch the rules as far as he can without crossing
the line.
If you’d like a little of Richard Branson’s media savvy,
outrageousness and cheekiness to rub off on you, make
sure you keep reading.
Last month I went along to Chris Howard’s Leadership
Explosion seminar where we all went through a unique
process of modelling our favourite leaders.

One of the people we modeled was Richard Branson. We
discovered:
- What makes him tick?
- What is his attitude towards life?
- What are his personality traits and which of those has
contributed to his success?
- What values does he have?
- What beliefs have helped him achieve what he has achieved?
- What kind of decision maker is he?
- How does he view the world?
- What are his attitudes towards money, his people and
life in general?
- Why is he so incredibly successful at securing publicity?

And once we discovered those traits we went through
a unique process of integrating those traits in our
own lives.
So what difference has it made?
It’s only early days yet (this is my second week back
at work) but the changes are already very exciting.

We’re in the process of launching my husband’s new
company, Printing DNA (www.printingdna.com) and as part
of the process we decided to utilize some of Branson’s
strategies for:
- Uniquely positioning ourselves in the marketplace
with a controversial point-of-difference
- Building a “fun” corporate culture
- Getting media exposure
- Building our brand the Virgin Way

I can’t share too much on this as yet because Printing
DNA doesn’t launch until late November, but what I can
tell you is that we’ve pre-tested some marketing approaches
and the Branson-esque methods have won hands-down in
these trials. Once Printing DNA launches I’ll be happy
to keep you posted on the very strategies we used and
how they went. Just send an email to the address below.
At Leadership Explosion I chose to model Richard Branson
for his fun-loving and innovative approach to business.
I also decided to model Warren Buffett so I can make
smarter investment decisions. I modelled Walt Disney
so I can further enhance my creativity and vision. And
last but not least, Rudolf Steiner for his innovations
in children’s education because my children are set
to go to a Steiner School next year and I’m a big fan
of his approach.
I’m already starting to see results materialize as
a result of modelling each and every one of these individuals
… particularly in the area of my finances and interaction
with my children.
If you’d love to be a media tart like Richard Branson
or if there’s a leader who has other traits and/or success
that you would like to have, go along to the next Leadership
Explosion event and you’ll learn the exact process for
emulating the success strategies of your favourite leaders.
I found it to be an amazing week and so did all the
people I spoke with who attended.

© Copyright 2004 Words that Sell Pty Ltd.

Author’s Bio
Kris Mills is Managing Director of Words that Sell, an
integrated marketing communications consultancy helping
companies increase exposure and sales. Their website www.WordsThatSell.com.au
contains hundreds of free articles, free ebooks and other
marketing tools to help you get more bang for your marketing
buck. Kris can be contacted via email at Kris@WordsThatSell.com.au
or on 07 3353 1107.
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