Sarah Palin – The Celebrity Effect Lesson for Entrepreneurs

The Sarah Palin Effect – Use of Celebrity

The only thing about Sarah Palin that helped John McCain during this election was her celebrity – the same thing that he accused President Elect Barack Obama of using. But what the McCain campaign discovered is that the use of celebrity works very well.

This is why no matter if I voted RED or BLUE, I decided that attending a lunch with Bette Midler (Small Business for Obama) was the best use of my time and energy.

Clients, customers, patients, prospects are all tuning into Access Hollywood, Extra and Entertainment Tonight. Added in the last few years, E News Daily, The Daily 10 and TMZ. All of the shows feature celebrity news. Even CNN, has a nightly segment dedicated all to celebrity news. If you are not using that phenomenon in your business you are missing out.

Lesson: You should have a celebrity representing your business. It can be you or your partner. If you are too shy, get a cartoon made of yourself so that you can be another person. Create a mascot that can be the celebrity or “rent” a local newscaster to represent your company. People buy People not products or things.

For years, I stayed in the background at FreshStart Telephone, no one knew me. Then, I started our newsletter full of pictures, as well as making our customers celebrities. Showing pictures of them winning the prizes, paying their bills and happy to have our service. It changed our business. Use of celebrity, increased our referrals by 32%. Everyone wanted to come in and meet T.T. and Shameka from the radio commercials, plus see if their picture made the Winners Wall or newsletter.

Even better – my little celebrity, daughter Devyn, I get more questions about what is going on with her than anything. Using a celebrity works!