(If you don't have time to read this, the net-net is: PRACTICE!)

We've all had one of those experiences of walking away from a conversation and remembering 15 minutes after the fact that we forgot to mention something really, really important. No matter what, that's a bummer; but it really stinks when the conversation is with a reporter. After all, how can you get a good quote if you don't even remember to mention the good stuff?

That's why you have to prepare for interviews. It's one thing to wing it when a reporter calls to check facts about an event; as long as you don't flub the basic details, the outcome probably will be just fine. But if a reporter wants to profile you or talk about your new restaurant -- or discuss a touchier situation, such as a compliance or employee issue -- you really don't have the luxury of forgetting or flubbing. You have to be on your game.

The first step is deciding your main message(s). What do you want people to take away from and/or do because of the story? Obviously, this depends on the media outlet's audience, the focus of the story, and your current goals.

Once you know what you want to say, practice wrapping that message into the answers you'll give to the reporter's questions. Note: Please, please, please do not expect reporters to send their questions to you in advance of the interview. Most won't, either because they haven't thought about the interview that far in advance or because it undermines the conversational quality of the interview.

Plus, it just annoys them.

So instead, put yourself in their shoes. Come up with questions you think they'll ask, and either rehearse the answers to yourself or get a practice buddy. Ask the tough questions, the pushy questions, the wacky questions you doubt the reporter will ask. Try again if you don't feel comfortable with your answers. This is your one chance to fumble.

The trick is discovering a natural opening to bring the conversation back around to your message. This does *not* mean ignoring the questions entirely or parroting back the same rehearsed response. It means addressing the question and then pivoting to your point.

The most important thing: practice, practice, practice! If you do, I guarantee you'll get more out of your next interview.

RIA clients get a lot of questions, information and tips from us. We collect trend information for pitching to media, we collect fun facts for including in our concierge newsletter, we collect various what-have-yous for tweeting. 

Last week, we sent out a reminder that chefs should really be thinking about Valentine's Day 'round about now. Cue chef eye-roll and snippy retort,"Why? That's stupid. We sell out every Valentine's Day and don't do that cutesy shit anyway, Ellen."

Grasshopper, my friend, you still have much to learn.
1. You've got a pastry chef who can use some press.
2. Journalists write about pastry chefs for their Valentine's Day issues.
3. Big journalists are probably starting to think about Valentine's Day now.

I shoulda shot the video of the chef as he processed the information. It was as if fhe had received the call from Columbus himself with news that, in fact, the world is not flat and the ship didn't fall over the edge.

Chefs: Don't just think about press the day you wake up and realize your event isn't selling.

Anyone who reads the blog may have seen an October 13 comment by Leah Zeldes. Leah is a local writer who, apparently, doesn’t get return emails from chefs. Don’t be shocked; it happens all the time to loads of journalists. As a publicist, I hear about it day in, day out.

The old saw goes: Chefs are often too busy to get back to the very people who are trying to write about them.

What struck me most about Leah’s comment wasn’t her comment at all. It was that it jogged a memory of an email Dana Cowin wrote me a while back. I had let her know about RIA’s Chef Registry, a service that connects journalists to chefs directly. She proclaimed it a great idea (and Food & Wine magazine uses the service regularly, so we know they backed up her exclamation).

Especially, she added wryly, if the chefs use it.

Think about it: It is shocking enough that chefs, who pay publicists to get them press, don’t respond to a local writer looking for sources. But what I find truly amazing is that a chef —  really, any chef — actually doesn’t make the time to respond to the editor of Food & Wine.

How wrongheaded is that?

One of the things I love most about RIA is our concierge mailers. Twice a week, we compile news about our clients, add a feature story and then add some fun roundup with quotes from our clients on an interesting topic.

We've done great apple cider drinks, we've got Halloween candy in the queue. It's a fun, free value-add that directly impacts the bottom line of our clients with minimal effort on our part.

We've already written the news for the media. Our software collects the answers for the round-ups. All we really have to do is think of a fun topic a couple of times a week.

Customers love the value add, even if it doesn't take much effort to create.

Every time everyone talks about PR, everyone talks about the chef, the pastry chef, maybe a smattering of sous chef opportunities are sprinkled in here and there. When the moon happens to be blue.

The thing is, young cooks should be getting on the Twitter/FB and Blog stick as much as chefs should. Probably even more, as many chefs are so ingrained in their "I don't have time for any of that silly nonsense called building my business."  Line cooks and sous chefs don't necessarily have the luxury of being so, well, shortsighted.

After all, those line cooks and sous chefs are likely going to want their own place someday and, I'm just thinking, wouldn't it be nice if they had already developed a built-in audience?

Here's one I read:

http://linecook415.blogspot.com/

One thing I have noticed since chefs started using email and social media on a regular basis is that media and chefs now talk to one another directly.  Journalists love the unfettered access, chefs fluff up their peacock feathers when the media shines a light their way. Win-win. 

Actually, win-win-win because of course I appreciate not having to forward emails back and forth betweeen parties all day long.

But one thing that chefs need to understand is a key ingredient to successful relations with the media: They like exclusivity.  What that means is: They like to be the only person writing a certain angle of a story.

What's an angle?  Well, if you have a media person hauling out to a farm with you to investigate a new crop of Iroquois corn that you will be using in a fantastic new polenta, that is an angle.  Don't bring other journalists to the farm, no matter how tempting.  I would say don't even chat about your new polenta corn with them or your relationship with the farm with any other journalists until after the story is written. 

Be aware and safe and you'll have long-term relationships that pay dividends.  Or I guess you can just go ahead and be sorry, get your one pop in the media in several publications and then NEVER BE TRUSTED AGAIN. And by trusted, I mean written about.

Still don't understand? Let's break it down this way: Lots of chefs make chicken. Lots make fried chicken. No chef wants his fried chicken copied directly and served exactly the same way at another restaurant. And no chef would ever want to serve someone else's exact fried chicken preparation at their restaurant. None of that requires any explanation to you. So, really, you already get it.

While I of course am partial to my company's service, Restaurant Intelligence Agency, I am a campaigner against the waste in any kind of PR. Restaurants, in any economy, cannot afford waste. And yet I see it all the time.  Here are some tips and hints for reducing the cost of your PR.

1.  Don't use your publicist as a personal assistant.  Sure, they may be good at the job (after all, publicists are brilliant and multi-talented), but as personal assistants, they are way overpriced.  What qualifies?  Fetching you stuff because it seems convenient, taking dictation, making plane reservations (and restaurant reservations!), looking stuff up on the Internet, etc.  Those are not favors they are doing you because they like you, you are paying for that time. Paying dearly.

2. Learn to type. Really. I recognize that you are not an office worker but you are in business and business runs on email these days. Phone calls and voice mails for anything beyond chit chat or tossing an idea around are collasal wastes of time becuase they interrupt the flow of work, require a bunch of extra chat time, and often need written follow up when key facts are included.  And they aren't searchable when someone needs to refer back to the conversation.

3. Actually be where you are supposed to be for interviews and photo shoots.  The time a PR person wastes when you are not doesn't just include all the time they spend tracking you down because you are too lazy to manage your own calendar...it includes all the time they spend venting about your irresponsible behavior after.  And yes, you are docked for that time, too (whether directly or not).

4. Don't constantly call your publicist to vent randomly about a bad review or a journalist you believe doesn't like you unless you are willing to hear about positive steps you should be taking to make sure it doesn't happen again.  Seriously, get a shrink for that or vent to your better half.  Again, you are paying for the service of listening to your crazy rants.

5. Don't ask your publicist to get journlaists back in the door for a dinner just because you feel they haven't been lately.  If you want media to come back in, make it meaningful, which means make it newsworthy.  Otherwise, it is just a social dinner.  Honest.

6.  Answer your damn email.  Really.  Do you have any idea how much time it takes to keep track of all the work other people aren't doing becuase they are "too busy" to answer their email. And really, Obama can answer his own email.  So can Obama's chef. You can't?  Really?

7.  Stop judging your PR firm on the size of their report.  It makes them do whatever kind of busywork they can dream up in order to fill the report and busywork is just another name for your money getting flushed down the toilet.  Judge on quantity, not quality or you'll get quantity, not quality. 

7a.  BONUS!  Set up a google alert for your name, restaurant name, restaurant address, restaurant phone and any event or promotion you run.  Then tell your PR firm to stop wasting your money clipping reports and sending them to you.

8.  Set up your calendar in Google and be diligent about keeping it updated.  Let your publicist add to it directly, instead of making them chase you down every time a photo shoot needs to be scheduled.  It will save a lot of time.

9. Don't ignore your publicist when she tells you that an event or promotion needs more lead time to have impact.  Seriously, the release is sent out RIGHT NOW because you are excited about an idea you had for a promotion starting tonight is garbage. You are paying for work whose only outcome is that you feel cool.  Whoopie.

10.  Don't EVER tell your publicist to send out a release with a mispelled word just because you think you are right and Food Lover's Companion is wrong.

So, you are thinking of starting a chef's blog.  We are going to start an occassional post on how to do that.  Not a week-long extravaganza, because I tried something like that and then boom! Gourmet closed. It interrupted the series and everything got all fubar.

Back to the topic at hand, your chef's blog.  Let's start here —  a list of four Chicagoa-area chef's blogs I like and why:

Automatic Burger http://automaticburger.blogspot.com/

I like it because the guy is honest.  He is a real person with feelings and fears and just lays them out without drama or anger. People (and media!) want to connect with a real person, not a Velveeta-like manufactured one. Anyone opening a restaurnat should just haul off and copy this dude.

Food on the Dole http://foodonthedole.blogspot.com/
Here's a guy who loves to cook and share with friends and explore food.  I knew Hugh before he started the blog, but Hugh is part of my days now.  I love a guy who has unabashed love for food and no ego ... and shares it with me.  Again, one gets to know the person behind the writing.

Curtis Duffy http://curtisduffy.blogspot.com/
Chefs often say they don't have time to write, aren't writers, don't wanna write.  Well, Curtis does a big in your face to the concept that a blog has to be about writing.  Of course, Curtis likely has some gigantic fancy hotel chain photo budget or someting.  But, well, you get the point, think outside the box, maybe with a recipe and philosophy only. And remember, your blog is about food, not photography.

Pickled Tongue http://thepickledtongue.com/
Another photo heavy site, from another fancy hotel, but with the added benefit of some words every so often. And those words open up to his family, food he does at home and at the restaurant, his opinions about things.  Whatever.  I like how honest he is, and so does the media ... the guy has gotten some decent press for his controversial (and yet still I contend honorable) opinions.

Anyone reading (is anyone reading except my mom, for chrissake), should feel free to share your own fav chef blogs and why.

The Oct. 12 issue of Newsweek ran an interesting story about the growing legions of bloggers writing about their communities "with a zeal most journalists reserve for the big scoop." As further proof of the popularity of these sites, the author noted local online ad spending will rise by $1 billion in 2009 even as the recession causes a decline in the overall ad market.

Of course, for chefs and restaurateurs, this begs the question: Do you know your friendly neighborhood or town bloggers?

Depending on where you live, you might be talking about one or a dozen passionate locals who make it their business to show up at town hall meetings, Google map the latest potholes, or (see what I'm getting at here?) alert readers to a new restaurant opening down the block.

Some regional and city newspapers have even started hyperlocal sites to supplement their anemic local coverage. They now rely on bloggers as their eyes and ears in neighborhoods and towns.

That's why building relationships with these folks is just as important as reaching out to traditional media outlets. As the Newsweek story noted, "Big players still see a future in hyperlocal coverage, a model that virtually eliminates the huge printing and delivery costs that burden newspaper publishers."

I don't know if hyperlocal blogs will be the magic bullet that saves the media, but I do know these bloggers are picking up the slack for journalists who only have time these days to cover the "big scoop." And what their stories may lack in polish, they make up for in enthusiasm and resonance, because they're writing about what's happening closest to home. Don't be short-sighted and foolish by writing them off.

A friend who doesn't work in the food industry, but who has lots of buddies who do, was chatting with me recently when we got on the topic of how some restaurants treat their employees. Based on her friends' insider war stories, over the years she has compiled an ever-growing list of restaurants she simply will not visit, no matter how off-the-charts their reviews are.

She's not alone. Many modern consumers are very conscientious about the businesses they support; they "vote with their dollars" and take pride in banning all manner of establishments that flaunt socially unacceptable and environmentally unfriendly practices.

Through the magic of Facebook, not only do they make a personal decision not to shop, eat at, or even step foot in certain places, but they have no qualms or barriers about waging a campaign to encourage their friends and even complete strangers to join them in their protest.

Now, I'm not suggesting avoiding bad PR is the only reason to treat your employees with respect and within reasonable and legal standards. I'm saying it's just one reason and since I am in PR, that's the reason I write about. People want to feel good about how they spend their hard-earned money, especially at a time when it's in short supply.

So next time you reach for a pot to hurtle across the kitchen, consider who might catch wind of your lousy behavior and manage up.

Yesterday I introduced you to Miss Ardis Krainik. I thought I would share another lesson I learned from her and her fantastically successful reign at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Yesterday's lesson was on the importance of selling when you are busy. Today's, the importance of building new audiences when you are busy.

You see, when I worked at Lyric, we were considered somewhere on the scale between fantastically and monumentally successful. We were an arts organization that ran in the black. I don't think most arts organizations even know what the opposite of red is, in a fiscal sense.

And yet, in the midst of this glory glut, Miss Krainik mounted what she called her "Toward the 21st Century" initiative, spending scads of money to commission a bevy of avant garde, in-your-face operas that her most stalwart-y of supporters were surely going to hate. Those supporters, the ones who bought every ticket and attended every event, loved the dusty old chestnuts like Madama Butterfly and Turandot.

But Miss Krainik knew that they were likely not the future. She knew that the aging opera crowd was, in fact, literally dying off. And even if they weren't, she knew she had to push her opera forward if it was going to succeed beyond the day.

At a time when laurel-resting was certainly an earned right, Miss Krainik pushed forward. Which I guess reinforces yesterday's lesson: When you are up, you actually have to work harder than you do if you are down. That way, you'll never really know how hard you'd have to work if you were down.

Something tells me you needed another reason to work hard if you are up.

I used to work at Lyric Opera of Chicago, back in what I think of its heyday when Ardis Krainik was at the helm.

I am sure I know a lot more about opera now than when I started and I have a lot of great stories about fat ladies singing, about the day Pavarotti was fired, and about "creating art" with David Hockney.  But the lasting impact working there had on my life was in Miss Krainik's unbridled support of marketing and what restaurants can learn from her legacy.

Clearly, opera is more "art" than restaurants. And yet, Miss Krainik approached running her opera like it was a business...and man, did that place hum.  While I worked there, as Sales Manager, Lyric sold over 100% of its seats. Right, I said OVER (we resold seats that patrons returned for a tax write-off).

And it didn't matter that we were selling over capacity, we still sent out millions of subscription and single ticket brochures each year. Customers were pounded and pounded with mailings, telemarketing, whatever it would take to get them to buy. She pushed us to move past the over-capacity mark to, oh, I don't even know what that would be called.

A few people questioned why we were sending out so many brochures when we were the hottest ticket in town. They wondered if it was a waste of money. What they didn't realize is that one of the biggest reasons we sold so many tickets is because we DID send out so many brochures. And we didn't let up just because we were busy, we continued to work just as hard, or maybe even harder, to make sure the gravy train continued running.

A lot of restaurants seem to rest on the laurels of busy nights. "Oh, we don't need PR, the press are calling all the time."  "Oh, we're alright without marketing, we are busier than ever."

And I always think of the lesson Miss Krainik taught me: When you are up, you actually have to work harder than you do if you are down. That way, you'll never really know how hard you'd have to work if you were down.

Lately, a lot of my clients have actually been climbing on the social media bandwagon. I saw one restaurant post food photos on Facebook last night (a group that was sure their clients weren't on Facebook, Twitter, etc. a few four short months ago).

But I still get a lot of push back. The  naysayers say: no time, too busy cooking, or, the really good one...it's stupid.  Interestingly, one "it's stupid" guy recently told his restaurants to get on Twitter, now, because he saw how easily it could sell an event.

So, why is it important to get on social media and start getting the word out?  Because for the first time in the history of mankind, you can.

• You don't have to wait to be discovered.
• You don't have to worry about journalists exposing the nether regions of your personality in print.
• You don't have to sit back and wonder why no one understands your particular genius.

You now have a voice.  Use it.

Every so often I get emails from journalists who need a public platform to vent without the threat of being found out.  I am generally happy to help if it seems the venting will help my clients.

This from a journalist:

The same day I got a restaurant opening press release with no mention of the opening date, I heard this story from a friend. She went with her BF to a semi-obscure ethnic restaurant with great web ratings, driving 45 minutes each way, only to discover they were closed on Tuesdays.

Her bad, should've checked. So she confirmed on the Internet, and then by calling the restaurant and listening to their voice mail, that they are open on Wednesdays.

She went back the following week, same hike, only to see the darkened facade once again. And a note in the doorway saying "We are closed for our holiday."

The moral: He who is too busy, or too oblivious to his customer's needs, to keep his restaurant's voice mail current and informative deserves a special place in restaurant hell: sitting at the table by the kitchen doors for eternity, waiting for the check to come.

Recently, a journalist friend and I were chatting about this blog, and my broader mission to help chefs spend less on, but get more from, their PR. She pointed out that most of my tips boil down to one line: Stop passing up golden opportunities.

Chefs love to be so busy that they can’t possibly get the media what they actually need. They love to think that the media should just work within the chef’s schedule and somehow write the story without crucial information. And they generally have these long tales of woes where they list out all the reasons why they can’t deliver something in a timely manner.

Of course, everyone in every industry except maybe “Toll Taking” has this problem. And the solution, which ultimately leads to success, is to get over it and get ’er done.

That said, I did hear of a diamond of a chef in the rough — one of my clients who definitely gets it, and has two successful restaurants to prove it.

While interviewing him about an upcoming event series at one of his restaurants, she asked him if he had a menu prepared she could use in her article. He admitted he didn’t know what he was going to serve yet. But rather than pass up a golden opportunity to tempt her readers with the delicious details, he told her he’d put together the menu that night and send it to her in time for her deadline. And he did!

So if you are wondering what sent that cold snap into Chicago over the weekend, it was clearly hell freezing over.

One thing I have noticed since living my life online, people love pictures.  They love cute baby pictures, stoopid cat pictures and they love pictures of delicious food.

So I am thinking.  Why isn't every one of your masterpieces online? (You are right in thinking there is no worthwhile answer to that question outside of "they are!")  It is a crazy-easy way to keep your work out there with hardly any effort and virtually no writer's block.

1. Get a decent cell phone with a camera built-in.  No, the quality isn't as good as with a digital SLR but the idea is to incorporate this into your life, not create a new hobby to avoid.

2.  Set up Flickr and Picassa accounts.

3.  Set up a Posterous account, linking your FB, Twitter, Flickr and Picassa accounts to feed there.

And ... are you ready ...

4.  All you have to do is snap the picture, type in the title of the dish (and your restaurant's hashtag) and send an email to your Posterous account.  It will feed the photos to FB, Twitter, Flickr and Picassa. 

If you don't have time to do that, then I guess you are busier than Rick Bayless.  But then again, if you did find time to send those picture emails, there's a chance in hell that some day you actually could be.

I’m not sure if you’ve been reading all week and last, but if you haven’t had time, I urge you to make time — because I spent most of two whole weeks telling you how to save time.

But wait, there’s more!

Whoever is helping you with media requests, Facebook and Twitter should be working together to make the most of their efforts.

If someone posts a picture of a new dish to Facebook from their camera phone, why not forward it to the Twitter folks to post as a Twitpic?

When an awesome article comes out praising your pork belly, don’t let it rot on the newspaper’s web site. Get your Facebook and Twitter helpers to set it into motion, creating longer-lasting buzz through your online network.

This is a partnership, people; all hands on deck. And while we’re at it, all eyes and ears open: Everyone posting to Facebook and Twitter also ought to be watching for comments, RTs and FB mentions. Encourage them to keep the conversation going by responding to followers.

If you need to jump in from time to time, that’s fine. But by training and trusting your team, you’ll save time and money, boost morale, and take advantage of social media’s exponential power to connect.

In PR, three is the magic number. That's because someone, a long time ago and possibly in a galaxy far, far away, decided that if something exists in threes, it is a trend.

So, one housemade hot dog, interesting. Two, fluke. Three, and I am on the phone with a journalist proclaiming a trend, and they're listening.

Well, I am not gonna take credit or anything, but three of my longish-time clients, this very week, have finally started to put a social media strategy in place. 

• One, a longish-time, kinda-public stalwart in the fight against social marketing. 
• One, a dude who once told me that working on websites wasn't real work.
• One, a team that hasn't so much as stuck a toe in social marketing before now.

Really.  I'm just sayin'.

So, what's the big change?  Hell if I know. But there are three and that makes it a trend and that makes it a story. 

The only question: Will that story include you?

My client reminded me yesterday that I predicted the closing of Gourmet magazine last winter. 

It was last February when things were downright dire in America.  My client accused me of over-exaggerating to make a point. Now that Gourmet has in fact closed, my downright dire prediction certainly made its impact.

What I had speculated then that maybe we can all start talking about now is that an enterprise like Gourmet depends on people to support them just because they are "good." And Gourmet was good. It was really good. Good writing, good recipes, good photos.

But it didn't matter. Because good doesn't pay salaries and mortgages and it doesn't even pay for dinners out in good restaurants. And that's the reality.

A lot of restaurants base their future financial projections on the belief that they are "good."  The typical conversation goes like this: 

Q. What makes you different than X, who closed?
A. Our food is better.

Q. Why don't you spend any time marketing yourself on Facebook or Twitter? OR Why aren't you responding to media opportunities? 
A. I don't have time, because I am cooking.  It's more important for me to make sure the food is good.

Now, I am not saying that chefs shouldn't do their damndest to make the best food possible. That is their job. What I am postulating though, is that making the best food possible doesn't mean they are going to keep their job. Helping them keep their job is my job.

So, I am assuming that you are taking my advice and have started to work on delegating Facebook and media emails. Next up, we’re gonna work on Twitter.

Twitter, unfortunately, you kinda can’t delegate. It ends up being all cockamamie when people post as other people. So, sorry to say, you are gonna have to do three things on your own:

1) Put up one or two tweets a day. (It’s 140 characters. For the love of all things holy, you can take the time to type in 280 characters a day.)

2) Answer any and all DMs. (Don’t worry; you won’t get that many until you are as big as Rick Bayless.)

3) Peruse your @replies and respond to a few. (If you have too many to respond to, well, that’s a good problem to have.)

But that isn’t the end of my idea for you, dear chef.

Twitter is all about growing your network, so what you are gonna do is this:

Set up a hashtag — a short word, preceded by the # sign — for your restaurant. Then recruit everyone on your staff who deals with customers to tweet one or more tweets a day, including your hashtag. And make sure you have the staffers tell any customers who are live-tweeting their dinner to include that hashtag as well. If you have a publicist or someone helping you with distributing your news, have them use the hashtag, too, if they post about you on Twitter.

Now, consider the results if three of your employees are tweeting about new menu items, events, songs that inspire them, articles that made them go hmmm ... and more. Every tweet is like another droplet of rain, falling softly on the pond that is your influence, sending out gentle, concentric, overlapping waves. (Pause to reflect on my Jack Handey moment.)

In time, everyone who is tweeting about your restaurant will use the hashtag.

And in time, your network will grow.

And in time, hopefully, you’ll thank me for it.

Shocking news hit today with the closing of Gourmet magazine.  I got the news here:  http://tinyurl.com/yd5kt93.

So, while we have all weathered the storms of watching food/restaurant coverage and staffs shrink in the last few years, what does the shuttering of this institution mean for restaurant PR and restaurants wanting PR? 

I guess from my perspective, I am hoping it mean that chefs will finally begin to face reality and recognize that the era of the media-driven chef is ov-ah.

Sure, there will be the few that pop out from nowhere and take center stage, à la David Chang. But I would like to postulate that moving foward, these new chef media stars will be few and far between and, in fact, the ones that do rise to consciousness will likely experience the kind of wall-to-wall coverage we saw with David Chang.

Because there simply aren't as many journalists writing for traditional publications as there were just a few years back.  And it is obvious to say that there aren't as many publications, either.  So the media just doesn't have the kind of time it used to have to go looking for diamonds in the rough ... otherwise known as you.

So, what's a chef to do?

1.  Embrace the bloggers as much as you worshipped the publications.  Many bloggers blog as a way of making a living as a freelancer, supporting their dining habit, or other reasons that won't result in their closing.

2.  Streamline your PR costs. The chances you'll get that big hit you dream about each night are growing slimmer by the day. I don't have data to back up the statement but my gut is you are more likely to hit it big in Vegas.

3.  Start thinking about how you are going to reach your customers directly, rather than waiting until you are discovered by the media.  You hate it when line cooks sit back and wait to find out what they should be doing next ... and yet, by sitting around and not participating in your own success, that is precisely what you are doing.

Last week’s theme, cut short by my Internet connection FAIL, is basically summed up: “You have to do it, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

By “it” I mean communicating in a proactive way, every day, via a few of the wonderful yet relentless tools we have at our disposal. I had covered e-mail (specifically media requests) and Facebook.

A couple people emailed me privately regarding my suggestion that they delegate these tasks to someone else. “I just don’t have anyone on my staff I can trust to do anything,” one person said.

For realz? You mean to say you’ve hired so many zombies that you don’t have one measly person on your staff that can read an email from a media person — say, for a photo shoot request — then walk over to you, ask if you are available at the time of the request and then walk back to the computer to type, “Yes, thanks, that would be fantastic!!”

I can’t help you. And you clearly need help.

The good news, though, is that three of my clients actually ended up recognizing that 1) they really did have someone on staff they liked, 2) they could pay that person a little to keep the motivation going, and 3) that the person they identified was both perfect for the job and excited about the opportunity.

A fourth client asked me to help solve the problem and I found that client a reasonable hourly person to help out five hours a week.

What it came down to was this: We all like to think that we are better than anyone else at our own tasks. We also all have had a lot of people mess things up, let us down and even embarrass the hell out of us by acting moronically on our behalf.

It blows.

But not having enough customers to pay the bills blows even more. So suck it up, chef, and recognize that one person at least trying to do these things is better than your not doing it at all.

Wanted to apologize to readers who stopped by for some gripping commentary and found nothing.  My Internet has been down almost all week so work has been, well, it has been interesting to manage. 

AT&T promised it would be back on Tuesday (not sure what a promise from AT&T is worth, but there ya go).

Have a safe weekend, all.