If a hotel can become famous for leading ducks across their lobby at 11:00 then certainly your business can become more well-known for some simple ritual that customers like to photograph and tell others about and reporters love to cover.

In fact it’s surprising that so few businesses and other organizations see the power of memory-making rituals that we keep talking about the few that do. And instead of creating a new ritual a sister hotel simply imitated the duck walk. You can do better.

1. Think quirky

As all actors know, a cute kid or animal almost always steals the show.  For example the annual ritual that raised $120,000 this year in a town of just 2,404 is the weiner dog race.  That’s right. Long, cute dogs. People and their pets came from all over the country for the chance to compete.

2. Create community around your ritual

The race is a great example of what the beneficiary of the race, the Lions Club calls a “core belief – community is what we make it.” It has been an annual tradition around which dog owners (and their families and friends) meet to compare notes and catch-up. Hint: the more fervent the community the more valuable your participation can be for your organization.

3. Offer the unexpected

Instead of “just” offering a loaner car like the one you are getting serviced a British Volvo dealership also offers bikes as loaners. The dealership enjoys two benefits  – deepening the loyalty of its eco-minded customers and attracting worldwide media coverage.

4. Reduce your cost of providing that ritual by partnering

Volvo’s ritual was then topped by Fiat in Spain. By partnering with electric bicycle maker Trek it could make the same offer yet without the cost of buying and maintaining the bikes. Trek benefits by getting a warmed-up introduction to possible customers.

The bonus benefits are that many of the people who saw the cyclists heard also saw the message on the bike and many of the cyclists told their friends about their experience.

5. Give a souvenir sample whenever people have to wait – or even pause

For a client years ago I set up an experiment in which those waiting in a movie theater line were greeted by smiling, good-looking college students and offered a free ice cream bon bon on a silver tray. One each. The students simply walked down the line, saying, “Like a tasty bon bon while you’re waiting? If you like it there are more inside.”

The results of that study were so positive the theater chain intermittently continued the practice. (Intermittent rewards create more happiness, perhaps because of the hedonic treadmill effect yet we crave the certainty of constancy – “the ducks will walk across at 11″). When bon bons are offered movie theatre snacks go up an average of 26 percent.

For the owner of seven upscale restaurants in London we did a similar experiment with wine.  Per customer sales went up as average of 23 percent.

Then we suggested that the restauranteur approach his wine distributers to offer them the opportunity to provide their wine, at cost.  Several agreed so he could rotate the kinds of wine he gave waiting guests.

For this sampling ritual, the wait staff, while offering the tray with the glasses of wine, showed the bottle and said the vinter’s name.   That was so successful that wine makers now vie for the opportunity to give their wine for such samplings. They also began offering samplings to delighted diners during their meal.

That way more customers get free wine and often wind up ordering more wine.

The participating vintners get their wines introduced in a relaxed, convivial atmosphere.

Cost-saving Hint: Make your ritual so popular that you can attract partners that want to participate in it.  That way you can offer your customers that ritual more often yet at a lower cost to you.

Conclusion

Most any consumer-serving place can create a small, simple-to-execute ritual that:

• Gives an unexpected experience to customers, one they can brag about – and others can see them enjoying.

• Increases sales.

• Attracts media coverage.

• Demonstrates the value of partners participating so the cost of offering that ritual go down.

See more ways to profitably partner and then create your own, unique, customer-attracting ritual – with the right partners.

Become an opportunity-maker for the member organization that most matters to you. Imagine that your association or special interest group kept innovating to create more value and meaning for members.

That’s what TED has done and we can too by taking three collaborative steps over time:

1. Offer a single major conference  – as most associations already do, of course. Involve the members in choosing topics, speakers and formats, base on core guidelines, chosen by member vote. Create a format that enables members to participate in reach a single – and singular goal.

2. Encourage the launch of local conferences yet don’t try to control them. Instead create ground rules for local leaders to succeed while maintaining the quality of the “brand.”

3. Co-brand a fresh version of your national conference with another respected organization on vital topic that matters to the members of both organizations. Allow the founders of your local conferences to co-sponsor that new conference by enabling their members to view it together in their area.

The team at the TED conference announced this third step today.  See how you could adapt these steps to the member group that most matters to you.

Step One

The national TED conference has grown increasingly popular throughout the past 22 years, with the biggest community of members becoming those who avidly watch the videos of speakers.

Step Two

Building on the strength of that largely online community, TED launched, just last April, local events dubbed TEDx. Rather, in true collaborative fashion, they announced guidelines for these local events and invited people to co-host, design and run them. In just one year local leaders stepped up and hosted over 600 such events around the globe.

Hint: To encourage local events, the guidelines start with the benefits for the local organizers and provides an easy-to-follow toolkit: “In the spirit of ‘Ideas Worth Spreading,’ TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience through events they themselves organize, design and host.

We’re supporting approved organizers by offering a free toolkit that includes detailed advice, the right to use recorded TEDTalks, promotion on our site, connection to other organizers, and a little piece of our brand in the form of the TEDx label.”

In so doing, local communities bonded, learning together and created other local collaborations.  Imagine! In over 25 languages were spoken at these talks with opportunities for translation to spread the messages farther – and make speakers more well-known, thus spurring participation by great speakers.

Hint: the more popular your events become the more people you attract to donate their services.

This is the path to peace – and savoring your life with others. Diverse individuals meeting to learn and share best ideas with each other – and, in conversations during the event and afterwards, to find ways they can accomplish greater things together, than they can alone.

Step Three

Today the third step was announced. A new event is linking local groups to the mother ship of the national group – around a new topic area, yet connected to the underlying TED brand of innovation, new ideas – and solving a problem together.  Local groups will get to meet and share this new event live – with other local chapters around the world.  The announcement was that “On September 20, 2010, more than 150 of the world’s leading thinkers and doers will come together in New York for TEDxChange, convened by Melinda French Gates … and hosted by TED founder Chris Anderson.”

With such member loyalty, interest and clout accumulated by TED it can attract a big-time partner – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Also together they share a Sweet Spot of mutual interest – bringing bright minds together to address a big problem: how to improve health around the world.

Plus smart partners tie their collaboration to as many meaning goals and events as they credibly can.  For example, this conference is tied to the 10th anniversary of the famous Millennium Development Goals.

This is a three- stage template that you could use to grow the value and visibility of your profession association – and make it more meaningful for your members.

In fact any member-based club or special interest group could adapt it to their needs to grow its capacity to make powerful changes while imbuing its members with a sense of meaning in their participation.

Think what the Rotary Clubs have accomplished over 20 years with their single goal, bottom-up approach to wiping out polio.  Imagine local Rotary clubs have rallied around this single cause and have raised about $127.4 million for this cause – plus personally worked on projects to make it happen. That gives their lives meaning and builds extraordinary bonds between members and with those they selflessly serve. That dedication and progress towards a singular goal (key to great collaboration) attracted the Gates foundation as a partner.

Tip: When people bring out each other’s best talents in collaboration around a sweet spot of mutual interest they accomplish greater things together than they ever could on their own – and they savor the experience along the way.

To make your member-based organization a member-attracting tool for major change and a source of meaning in the life of your members what singular goal would you suggest they achieve?  For your organization, how would you adapt this three-step approach that has been wildly successful for TED?

Wary of partnering? Collaborated with someone who didn’t do their part? Yet in a sinking economy more people are exploring ways to attract more customers without spending more. Partnering – with the right allies and methods – seems to be the most efficient way. Want to hear what’s worked and the pitfalls to avoid? Hear Anita Campbell’s bluntly titled interview of me earlier this week, “Business Partnering: Earn Money Without Wasting Time.”

In case you may want to hear it, here’s her list of questions we covered:

(3:27) Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your background?

(5:14) Why do you think partnering is becoming such a popular way to attract customers during this economy?

(6:42) What is a profitable partnership?

(7:20) What would be an example of a profitable partnership?

(10:30) What are the benefits of this type of an approach?

(10:40) What are some additional ways to partner with other businesses? (20:40) Can small businesses partner with big ones?

(23:00) As small business owners we often get asked to donate to causes. Is there a way we can leverage our support to attract customers?

(26:20) Do you have a “what if” dream partnership you think would be successful?

(28:29) Where can people find out more on the web?

Here’s more ways to successfully partner or otherwise collaborate.

Want to attract more customers while spending less?  Hear Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends Radio interview me on February 17^th.  As an avid fan of Anita’s writing and thought leadership I am honored to be on her show.  Other interviews I recommend are of Birthing the Elephant author Karin Abarbanel, Toilet Paper Entrepreneur author Michael Michalowicz and Laurel Delaney of The Global Small Business blog. Find more ways to partner here.

From Jake, the wine bar owner to free samples provider, Aliza Freud, individuals are collaborating on ways to tap the collective intelligence.  They become more successful and savor their work – with others. Avoid GroupThink. Adapt one of their methods to your situation.

Visit Elance, crowdSPRING and elsewhere to ask the crowd for help.

Try another Me2We method, co-creation.  For example, together, make a custom map to serve a hot niche.

From WeightWatchers to Tami’s T-shirts, corporations, causes and soloists are generating more value, visibility and profits by partnering.

Find more Me2We success stories to attract customers, host a successful conference or other gathering,  start a support group or help a cause. Perhaps you want to influence, inspire, forge friendships or discover more about our behavior.

Yes, the economy is still worsening. People are spending less. Yet you can still attract more customers and, sometimes, even more per-customer spending.  How? By offering them something more. You just need the right kind of partners and methods, as Jamie Herzlich points out in Newsday today. (She quoted me along with others including my friend, John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing.)

Here are six quick, SmartPartnering success stories, followed by 14 easy ways to jumpstart a first, profitable partnership. Bet you can adapt at least one to your kind of business  – or club or other non-profit group.

1.  Give ‘Em Another Reason to Visit Your Business

That’s how Applebee’s attracted more customers – many first-time visitors – to their family restaurants one summer, without advertising more. When WeightWatchers designed and branded several low-cal menu items for Applebee’s, followers of their diet program (and those who were thinking of losing weight) had a new reason to eat at Applebee’s. The restaurant’s customers got introduced to a new program – Weight Watchers, by a restaurant they already knew and liked.

2. Deepen Your Customers’ Emotional Bond With You, in How You Support a Local Cause – With Them

A month after Hurricane Charley and tropical storm Bonnie, when a storm the size of Texas pummeled parts of Florida, their “neighbors” in Florida and Georgia were given a small way to help with storm relief efforts.When they shopped at Winn-Dixie grocery stores they could “even it up” at the checkout counter.

That is, they could round up their food bill to the next dollar or more, with the extra change going to the local Red Cross chapter for relief efforts. Many of the retailers and non-profits that worked together forged a second alliance faster (they knew each other better) to create bus caravans for their food-direct-to-Katrina-folks.

3. Coddle Local, Lucrative Niche Customers

Last Valentine’s Day, several neighborhood businesses — including a women’s medical clinic, florist, health food store, clothing boutique, shopper newspaper, museum store, gym, bookstore and beauty salon — joined forces for a month-long promotion to attract and serve women.

The bookstore hosted a series of  “Beauty Inside Out” – themed series of in-store demonstrations and mini-seminars each led by a manager of one of the participating businesses and highlighting a book collection and the local partners’ related products and services.

Each presenter provided a handout that included reference to at least one of the other partnering organizations, plus a joint offer of services with one of them.As well, each presenter wrote a guest column based on their presentation, which was featured in the shopper newspaper, with the author’s follow-up offer and e-mail noted at the bottom of the article.

Of course each column author quoted others in this mutually beneficial alliance.

4. Become Their Top-of-Mind Choice. Offer a Tantalizing “Extra”

Who knows how many people chose to stay at the Ritz Carlton rather than at another luxury hotel because of an added thrill – complimentary use of a brand new Mercedes during their stay? Mercedes and Ritz Carlton forged a smart partnership and became the top-of-mind choice with their kind of (upscale) customers and so can you – regardless of the kind or size of your business.

5.  Trade Benefits to Lower Overhead & Attract Attention With a “First Ever”

That’s how T-shirt designer Tami Minatelli exhibited at nine street fairs last summer without paying for her booth space. A manufacturer of a no-stain suntan lotion paid for Tami’s booth.

She wore their lotion and her T-shirts, with a sign above her head, describing her original painting-on-cotton method and the lotion’s “do no harm” guarantee.Next to burn protection, that’s the biggest concern of people who use suntan lotions.

6.  Boost a Local Cause in a Way That Builds Your Profits

That’s how firefighters in the town of Toluma got a badly-needed but expensive piece of equipment, a deluge gun, without asking their cash-strapped city council for a single dime. And made a local eatery more popular, well-known – and profitable.

Here’s how.

Business was slow all over their town. The firefighters were getting nowhere when they asked for donations from business owners experiencing a weak economy.Yet when they approached the manager of a local pizzeria, PizzaLove, he said he didn’t have the authority to donate money, but he had a better idea.”Here’s what I can do.

We can pick a Wednesday, say four weeks from today for an “Our Community Cares” day here. I make $500 or so on Wednesdays. On that day, after we sell $500 worth, every dollar after that I’ll split 50/50 with you.

So if you inspire enough people to buy a pizza on that day, you can raise more money than you just asked me for “The firefighters loved the “fire-fighting pizza” community challenge.

They prepared banners and asked the local supermarket and gas stations to put up on their outside walls. They had signs and announcements printed for free by the local copy shop with a bright red “donated by” credit line to the copy shop on them.The headline on the signs and flyers read, “Eat at PizzaLove.  Save a local life.”

They visited offices complexes, even those with signs that read “No soliciting.” (Who’s going to kick out the volunteer fire department, right?)

They went to apartment complexes, video rental outlets, grade and high schools. They put flyers and signs everywhere. Once people heard about their cause, handing out flyers was like giving away candy. The local radio and newspaper gave them free coverage talking and writing about their inspirational community story.

When Wednesday came around, the place was packed. They made enough money to get the Deluge Gun. Most importantly it was a fair partnership because everyone contributed, so participants were likely to want to work together again.

Here are 14 low-risk and high-opportunity ways to jump-start your first SmartPartnership:

1.    Print joint promotional offers on your bills and/or receipts.

2. Offer a reduced price, special service, or convenience if customers buy a minimum amount of services or products from you and your partner. Make a much better offer when they buy a larger amount.

3. Hang signs or posters promoting one another on your walls, windows, or products.

4. Mention one another’s benefits when you speak at local events, write an articles or are interviewed by the media.

5. Describe the situation where you and your partner’s products or services work well together.

6. Pool mailing lists and send out a joint promotional postcard.

7. Promote your partners’ products during their slow times, and ask them to do the same for you.

8. Share inexpensive ads in local shopping papers or a nonprofit event program.

9. Give a joint interview, demonstration, or Q & A. session to local media.10. Put one another’s promotional messages on Lucite stands on counters orfloor stands in waiting areas.

11. Encourage your staff to mention how your partner’s products can be used with yours.

12. Give your partner’s product to your customers when they buy a large quantity of your product, and ask your partner to do the same.

13. Use door hangers, posters, flyers, or postcards to promote special offers for one another’s products.

14. Co-produce an in-store or office event, a demonstration, celebrity appearance, free service, or lecture.

The bottom line: when partners serve their mutual market better together everyone wins.  At the very least you get introduced to your kind of customers through businesses they already know and trust.

To find more methods, success stories, the pitfalls to avoid and steps to profitably partnering, read SmartPartnering or Walk Your Talk – or bring me to speak at your conference.

Like to bring more joy to your marriage? Want to increase your income by training others to lead groups, based on your expertise? Learn how  from someone who’s successful at both.

In this interview hear how Susan Page is training therapists and marriage educators to lead “Spiritual Partnership Support Groups”  - an approach she advocates in her newest book, Why Talking is Not Enough: Eight Loving Actions That Will Transform Your Marriage. To attract more trainers she spoke at the Smart Marriages conference. (Hint: as an author, you get more invitations to speak where you’ll meet more of your ideal customers.)

People who wish to lead the groups can get an extensive training manual. In leading the groups (or coaching), they becomes more informed, loyal fans of Susan and her book.  What a profitable, life-affirming way to work with others, eh? Page is a natural at partnering with groups to build a constituency for her books in ways that enable the groups to better serve its members. 

For example, to spur sales of her first book, If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single, this former minister launched her own book tour. She collaborated with churches around the U.S. to offer an evening seminar for their singles, packaging the book as part of the offering.  Participating churches gained a fresh way to attract new members and serve current ones.  Page created what all authors desire – a channel for quantity sales of her book while building a loyal community of readers for her subsequent titles.

Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren attracts mega book sales and a large, active constituency with a cellular and a B2B approach (business to business), providing his peer pastors with sample sermons and church programs. Page, too, recognized the power of B2B . With her books “relationship expert” Page “sells” to the church staff, providing a benefit they can offer two niche “end users” – congregants who are singles and couples.

Each time you offer your constituency fresh value through partnerships you spiral up in ability to attract more credible partners.  That’s why Bono approached Warren, for example, to join the “ONE campaign” to end poverty. And Warren’s church is hosting a rare program in which he’ll interview both presidential candidates. 

You, too, could reach out to the club, civic group or other member-based organization that serves your kind of readers and/or clients. With each new value-building partnership it becomes easier for you to recruit other organizations to cross-refer, co-create or otherwise collaborate on services, events and products that benefit all partners – and the people served by them.

As Page did, you can start with a first constituency-building partnership. For example, I introduced a store designer to a ghostwriter who’s writing a book for him on how to create the storefront that pulls more people in off the streets. When the book comes out at the end of 2009, he is partnering with local chambers of commerce and business journals to present a seminar to members and readers in their communities. 

To promote these seminars-as-book events, the store designer will provide his local partners with customizable promotional templates for print and online invitations. The partners cover his travel costs and profit from the seminar fees they charge.

And they buy the books in bulk from the publisher. You could adapt this approach to your kind of expertise to increase your credibility and in your profession or industry, perhaps becoming the favorite subject matter expert to your key media. Contact me if you’d like an ebook on SmartPartnering.

Start now to grow your constituency. In this interview hear Susan’s proven relationship-building insights for your life and your work. As Fred Small said, “”Susan Page is like the Buddha channeled by Ann Landers!” .

Authors’ alert: Try your version of Seth Godin’s newest crowd attractor that rocketed his book to the top ten bestsellers at Amazon.  And the book isn’t even out yet.

Here’s what happened. About two months ago, he offered his fans the chance to be on the cover of his next book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.  Those who were quick to act might (might!) be among the crowd of faces on the book.

Note:  “Quick” evokes “scarcity,” which spurs us to act, according to Influence author, Robert Cialdini.

To further stoke his visibility and his advance sales of the book, yesterday Godin invited community-builders and marketers to  meet each other over at his “private,”  subscriber-based social network site, aka an online book club.  Of course, even these ostensibly key influencers had to provide electronic proof that they’d pre-ordered a copy of the book at Amazon.  That membership requirement certainly cements a SmartPartnership between the author and Amazon.  Also, Seth’s social network site, aka book club was launched off the free provider, Ning.

Some are offended by Seth’s approach.

Yet, as Ron Hogan at Mediabistro suggests, it is a super quick way for an author to start and grow a book club and boost sales.  Even less famous authors (such as the rest of us) can adapt this approach to entice our kind of readers to buy early, tell others and get to know each other online – thus building an active fan community to buy our future books.

(If politicans and pet stores can start book clubs, why not authors?) Finally, to cover your bases, create a book club page at Mahalo and  Squidoo – and a write up at the still ungainly “steamroller” of an author-credited, wiki service, Knol.

It took a much-discussed hit and continuing stock tumble for Starbucks to finally turn to “us” customers and staff for ideas on how to get back in their good graces. Sign up at my Starbucks Idea and offer your suggestion. It pops up on the site immediately. Then peruse others’ ideas to comment or vote on them. Find one of the 13 categories that most interest you. From the response there’s clearly a pent-up interest in sharing tips. I disagree with mashable’s opinion however and even with savvy John Moore’s view that Starbucks shouldn’t have opened “the customer suggestion box floodgate.”

Perhaps your tip will rise to the popular ideas list or even the top all-time list and be labeled “Under Review,” indicating that the turnaround team at Starbucks may put it into practice. Then you see it labeled “Coming Soon.” Too bad they aren’t rewarding the top 100 contributors. A $500 gift card seems about right. Say the first 50 winners of the “People’s Choice” (our vote) get the $500 gift card and the first 50 contributors of suggestions that are implemented get the $500 gift card. Double winners get a $1,000 certificate, of course.

Consumer-serving companies don’t have to be getting flack to adapt their version of this social media template (first launched by Dell as IdeaStorm). Those riding the wave of loyalty could too. Also, if you serve clients or customers consider crafting your version to get bright ideas from customers – and attract new ones and media coverage as you cultivate an ever more loyal constituency.

Act soon and be the first in your kind of business to do so. SmartPartner with a reputable, non-competing business that your kind of customer also uses. Then you get a double benefit. The winners at your site get gift coupons from your partner and vice versa. Thus you gain a warmed-up introduction to each others’ customers as you tout those gift coupon prizes on your sites. Plus you add another wrinkle to the story for the local (and your industry) media to cover.

Here are some suggestions from the Starbucks initiative, fyi:

• Please inform the baristas not to line up the sip-cup openning with the seam on the cup. The alignment greatly increases the chance of coffee dripping while drinking, as capillary action allows the coffee to travel up and over the edge of the cup then drip down.
thank you

• I think that we should have a place that we can put SPL for splenda, My drink is a Grande-Nonfat 3 splenda Latte I wanted to make a card with that one it so my family will know when they go get a drink for me but it is not an option as an add on.

• How many times does one person from the office volunteer to go get coffee? “Can I get anyone anything?” and twenty people raise their hand with an order. The locations that are central to business locations should have mobile units deliver drinks to offices! There could be a minimum drink order per office to ensure it wasn’t a waste of their time.

• Job share opportunities in management positions. Benefits are:
- retain partners who decide to start a family.
- attract new management partners.
- support existing partners work/life balance & help create a positive, productive environment.

You don’t have to be a powerful politician to increase your influence by partnering. Emulate their tactics. Here’s how:

1. Are You Under Someone’s Thumb?

When your piece of the pie keeps getting smaller, don’t battle others for a bigger piece – making their share smaller. Instead join forces with them and fight for a bigger pie. That advice came from one of my mentors, Harvard negotiation and decision making expert Howard Raiffa. Your best bet to gain more clout collectively, as others are, especially when under the thumb of someone with much more power.

2. Then Forge the Alliance That Can’t be Ignored

With others you can change the power paradigm. Out to prove the power of the right partnership – and look like public heroes – are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell. Faced with a record deficit in Bush’s just-proposed budget, they formed a coalition to “encourage” (read “pressure for”) “direct federal funding for infrastructure investment.”

3. Name Your Group to Label the Situation Your Way

These three powerful politicians dubbed their coalition Building America’s Future.

4. Get Maximum Attention by Moving From Specifics to a General Goal – Not Vice Versa

In announcing the coalition, Bloomberg started with a few vivid specifics then moved to the “obvious” general conclusion: ““We can all look at recent headlines in New Orleans, air traffic congestion in the Northeast or the bridge collapse in Minnesota to realize that our nation’s infrastructure is in need of serious attention. “But those examples only scratch the surface of the problem. The funding to maintain our existing infrastructure, and to improve and expand infrastructure as our nation continues to grow, just hasn’t been the priority it needs to be.”

Don’t let people stop listening before you stop talking. When we feel strongly about our situation and are steeped in knowledge about it we tend to speak in fervent generalities, talk too long and bury our main message – the one that could attract support. Speak English Like it Tastes Good.

5. Share the Spotlight With Your Partners

That keeps all partners invested in the success of “our” alliance. Together you can:
• Makes the message more credible and compelling
• Offer multiple and mutually-reinforcing points
• Attract a wider mix of potential supporters.

When the coalition was announced, Rendell said, “State and local governments have been forced to pay an increasing share of infrastructure maintenance costs, and they now need federal aid.”

6. Hone Your Message

This coalition is out to prove that their pie is, in fact, getting smaller. And less funding is making “our” communities less safe, harming local business and the environment… and so on.

Schwarzenegger gets to deliver the money quote to drive home that point: “America needs $1.6 trillion worth of infrastructure over the next five years yet federal investment has been cut in half as a percent of gross domestic product since 1987. This is disastrous because without adequate infrastructure to quickly and safely move goods and people, our economy and our traffic will stop dead in its tracks.”

7. Time Your Announcement to Gain Maximum Visibility and Leverage

During this long presidential campaign period, reporters need fresh angles to cover. This coalition was announced before President Bush announced his staggering budget and just 16 days before Super Tuesday. Weary pundits and political reporters need a new news hook, related to the campaign. The coalition partners provided one – a “first ever” – to, “educate presidential candidates on the enormity of the infrastructure crisis.”

Photo-ops do have impact. Like politicians, celebrities and other public figures, you can bolster your message by choosing where you announce it. The three political leaders announced the coalition while standing under a freeway overpass in Los Angeles.

8. Piggyback on Others’ Credible Messages

Following up on New York Times columnist’s Bob Herbert’s column, the coalition partners wrote to him, “Mr. Herbert is right to call on the federal government to take a stronger leadership role in meeting our nation’s infrastructure challenges. We recently announced the formation of Building America’s Future, a nonpartisan coalition that will fight for exactly this goal.”

9. Invite Others Who Also Want to Make “Our” Pie Bigger

In this fight for upgrading our roads and other basic infrastructure, the coalition founders are recruiting the professional groups of local and state elected and other government officials, civil engineers and others affected by decreasing size of the infrastructure pie.

Also, morph your structure to go after your goal: After the presidential election, the coalition will become a think-tank.

Remind the holder of the big pie that he will have to fight “us” not just “me”: Schwarzenegger said “I could not be happier to join Governor Rendell and Mayor Bloomberg to shine an even brighter spotlight on this critical issue.”