As long as they are finely-tuned and highly-targeted, direct mail campaigns can be very effective in growing your business. The biggest mistake I see is that people think they can just slap something together and send it out and the phone will ring. Nothing could be further than the truth.

In direct mail, you need to make sure that your message – specifically your Call to Action – is clear as a bell. Tell your customers exactly what you want them to do. This is the only way that direct mail can make an impact.

• Focus on a special promotion or offer a coupon, then tell people whether they need to call you, e-mail you or come in. Tell them specifically what action they need to take.

• Don’t clutter the piece with too many words. Keep it short and simple.

• Make sure you have a tracking method in place. In other words – make sure that you will know whether your efforts had any impact on your bottom line.

Good luck, and let me know if you need help!

This post was originally published at Qvisory.

As a twenty-something in the workforce, you will be questioned time after time. Here are three ways to build credibility:

1. Develop skills that travel.

Most likely, you’ll change jobs 6-8 times before your thirty. You need to develop a set of talents that will travel with you from job to job. Career coaches call these transferable skill sets (e.g. communication, interpersonal, and management skills).  Essentially, the skills you’ve been developing since grade school. Consistently developing these abilities will not only open the door to any job you want, but will make you successful wherever you go.

2. Hug thy naysayer.

Generation Y wants to be liked. We grew up being coddled by our parents, and frankly think we’re the best thing on earth and like to be told so. Not everyone agrees with us however, and a lot more don’t even like us.

While it’s important not to get wrapped up in what others think, you need to build relationships, even with the people bringing you down. Learning to deal with criticism effectively is about knowing yourself, who you are, and what your motivations are for working.

The next step is to develop mutual respect. When comments get heated on my blog, I often email the person and talk to them individually. I say thank you a lot, even when their thoughts make me want to scream. I appreciate that they’ve taken the time to respond to what I had to say. It’s best to engage in conversation when all the players are at the table. That’s how you learn.

3.  Don’t work harder, work smarter.

When a twenty-something doesn’t show up to the office at 9 AM, the rest of the world worries.  But our generation works differently. Make sure it’s in your contract that your performance isn’t based on when you show up to work, but if you get the job done. And if you want to wear jeans to work every day, say so. Be upfront about how you can add the most value.  You’ll work better if you’re able to choose how you are productive, and your results will speak for themselves.

With Twitter and other forms of social media taking the world by storm, the question is how PR people can use these new media outlets to help their clients?

Here are 3 top blogs that deal with the issue.

Lara Kretler’s blog deals with these very issues. She has a really fresh take on many social media issues. For example, in a recent post: ” Who Owns Social Media? (aka PR vs. Marketing vs. Advertising vs. Interactive). This is one argument that you really can’t win because there are good points on all sides. Ultimately, it comes down to who’s doing social media well, who’s measuring it, and who’s showing great results. I don’t think it’s hard to figure out where I fall in this debate – social public relations FTW – and I’m proud to see so many amazing, smart PR people leading the way in social media. Even Charlene Li, whose fantastic Altimeter Group Wiki is shaping up to be a top resource for social media pros of all stripes, includes a special section for social media PR firms. The jury’s still out on this debate but I think as time goes by, we’ll see PR continuing to take the lead on social. After all, it’s all about relationships.”

Over at Your PR Guy you can find information on bridging the PR/social media divide. ” Yes, Twitter is a union of advertising, PR and branding — doesn’t matter if it’s personal or product specific. Tweeting and building your followers and those who you choose to follow is important. Still confused?”  Hi quality posts.

The India Pr Blog has great content and is recognized as a top PR blog. In a recent post Bhawna Sharma says, “One of the ways I have used social tools successfully in my PR job is in the media relations bit – forming new contacts, pitching to journalists, getting fast information about the media, etc. ”

There is some great content out there on this topic. Let Bizzywomen know some of your favorite PR/Social media sites.

I’m going to start something new and exciting soon. As a result, “everyone” has been talking to me. Or rather, at me. They talk. I sit. They have opinions and advice and information, and it doesn’t matter if they have credibility or experience, they tell me what to do regardless. “Everyone” knows better than I do.

And, as a result, I’m paralyzed. I’m scared to do anything. I can’t even get dressed in the morning without thinking about what “everyone” will think.

My paralysis has been especially prevalent on this blog. I feel I can’t write what I want to write because it might offend “everyone.” Swirling through my head are should nots and better nots and other such niceties that make small talk boring.

“Everyone” wants to make sure they don’t show up in my blog. The guy that I’ve been dating tells me with a stern and expectant look that he doesn’t want to see any allusions to our relationship in my blog. Whatsoever. Which is a shame, because I could really be quite flattering to him if you catch my drift. My ex-boyfriend thinks I should make less such references to sex, because it’s not professional, he says. As if sex didn’t exist. As if it wasn’t one of the main forces behind everything a twenty-something does. A fact I guess he’s not thinking about when he calls me at 2:16 am, “just because,” a call which I ignore.

Other people are beginning to preface conversations with, “You’re not going to put this in your blog, are you?” to which I shrug as my stomach tightens, because this usually means they are about to say something incredibly boring, and not at all blog-worthy. Such occurrences are happening so frequently I am seriously considering investing in a high quality helmet to protect my tender head from the many times I’ve had to bang it against the wall. Then there are the brave few who will start a conversation with, “You should put this in your blog,” and tell me how Star Trek is really, really cool. Really.

I don’t want to limit my writing to what “everyone” wants me to subtract or add. I want to write about how many blogs in the blogosphere are so impressively mediocre. I want to write about how if you want to be good-looking and successful and powerful, you should hang out with good-looking and successful and powerful people. I want to write about the nice things too. Mostly, I want to write about how to really change the world, no holds barred.

I shouldn’t, however.

Because if I wrote about those things, “everyone” tells me, two-thirds of our population might have a heart attack at the same time, and the world would fall off its axis, and life on earth as we know it would end. It would be that bad.

I shouldn’t write about the realness of the real world, “everyone” says. So, as you may have noticed, I haven’t written much of anything recently.

But no longer.

It’s not that I don’t care about “everyone’s” opinion. I do. I have the reputation of a do-gooder for good reason; I believe in the goodness of people. I really like people. All of this talk and opinion has made my life much more interesting. Truly. I’ve learned a lot, and for that I am grateful.

Instead, I blame myself for getting caught up in “everyone’s” opinion, for becoming so self-absorbed that I thought I was a BIG DEAL, and not remembering the big picture. Not remembering starvation in Africa and lack of quality education in the U.S. and the fact that we’re all just doing the best we can.

And that’s okay. When life gets in the way of changing the world, you should probably stop and listen. Just don’t let what other people think paralyze you from taking action.

I forget sometimes that you have to fail to succeed. The longer you wait to take action, the higher the edge will seem from the ground. You must take the jump, and trust the parachute will open eventually.

Of course, with an audience comes responsibility and accountability. But to me, being a leader means being unfailingly honest and transparent. Stay true to who you are. The rest will follow.

The Real World.

Currently we are running a contest on our blog where visitors are being asked to vote for their favorite mom entrepreneur company introduction. Pretty easy and straight forward right?

Wrong!

What started out as a harmless contest has now turned into a pissing match between one “voter”, who left what several readers defined as a “rude” and “inappropriate” comment, and visitors to my blog.

OK, so let me bring you up to speed.

The instructions were simple: 1. read the 10 company introductions; 2. pick your favorite; and 3. leave a comment with the name of the company you vote for. I cannot make it any simpler.

So one woman decides she wants to be different, and instead she leaves a three sentence long negative comment about how one competitors product is nasty. She started her comment saying “eeeewwwwwww”.

I have since removed the comment from my blog due to several requests from readers. I was also emailed by the woman who left the comment asking me to remove it because she was now receiving “hate mail”.

So today, in a post on her blog, I find out she received one email from a woman named Karen. Now, I do not know who Karen is and I am not sure what she said so I have only heard one side of the story. Karen, if you are a subscriber of this blog, I welcome you to tell your side before I make a judgement call either way.

Sure, I believe in freedom of speech. And everyone, when it comes to this blog, has the ability to speak their mind. I do not moderate comments. I welcome feedback. However, if you are going to make rude remarks based solely on opinion, then those comments are not welcome on this blog. At least have the decency to be familiar with a product, better yet have tried it, before offering any negative feedback. I prefer comments to be based on fact.

To the blogger who feels she was so wronged because of her inappropriate comment left on this blog, I offer this advice, which I learned when I was young…if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.

Tell me honestly how you feel about this!

Traci Bisson has been a mom since February 2000 and an entrepreneur since August 2000. Eight weeks after she returned from maternity leave, the company where she had been employed for five years went out of business. She decided to try doing her own thing and failed miserably. After another year of working for two different companies (the first laid off the department she worked in and the other was showing signs of going under), she decided to try entrepreneurship again. Raising her two children and growing her company, Bisson Barcelona, has been both challenging and rewarding. Her story has been told in dozens of publications, including the Associated Press, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB.com), Plan Ahead Get Ahead (cover story), Union Leader, The Portsmouth Herald, Our Times and Seacoast Ventures.