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The late Andy Warhol predicted that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. With the proliferation of media and the desirability of having your product or service televised, you could find your place in the sun as a company spokesperson. Are you ready for that?

YOUR PUBLIC BEST by Lillian Brown is "The complete guide to making successful public appearances in the meeting room, on the platform and on TV" (its subtitle). Ms. Brown knows her subject well; her list of credits includes being a radio producer, voice coach, chief TV makeup artist for CBS News Washington Bureau, and personal makeup artist for five presidents, among many other distinctions.

Her advice covers personal appearance, voice improvement, public speaking, handling the media, and TV appearances.

If getting your point across convincingly is important to you, Ms. Brown's tips will be, too. Her list of most frequently asked questions includes: "What colors are best to wear in public?" "At my age, can I change my voice?" "What can I do to avoid stagefright?" Following are some of her insights on these matters, to help you on your way to becoming your public best...

Don't trust your color analysis.
What colors are best to wear in public? Never wear black, red or white, advises the maven. The two extremes of the color spectrum are black and white, and both the eye and the camera have difficulty bridging the distance between the two. White faces in black suits, for example, are not photogenic. Red is domineering and harsh. Wear blues, grays and jewel tones on the platform or on TV. No matter what colors are flattering to you according to your color analysis, they could be publicly insulting. Ladies, keep jewelry to a minimum; men, avoid the red "power" tie- it will reflect red on the white of your eyes. Look on your tie selection as an enhancement of your eye color.

The public will also judge you by your voice. You know you have a problem when you pop the "p" on a microphone, or when your listeners eyes wander or glaze over after you've been speaking for a while, or when you look mature, but your voice sounds too young! Fortunately, none of these symptoms is irremediable.

Exercise to shape up
Ms. Brown gives lots of exercises for voice improvement such as how to breathe so radio or TV listeners won't hear the audible gasp for air through the sensitive mike you must address. Also, imitating your favorite singer can teach you to pronounce your final consonants which is essential to clear diction.

Perhaps you'll never be faced with a media stakeout or press conference, but you may be called upon to accept an award, or to participate in a panel discussion. Stage fright may urge you to run, but hold on. Through preparation, logic and on-the-spot reasoning with your fear, you can conquer this instinct. Rehearsing your talk and visualizing the setting beforehand can prepare you for a great performance.

Here's_a tip for a dry mouth: "Drop your jaw and rub the underside of the tongue against the inside of the lower and upper front teeth. This activates the lubricating saliva glands, relaxing the back of the throat and giving you the moisture you need in your mouth." (p. 122)

We recommend YOUR PUBLIC BEST as an excellent consultation on this subject. Ms. Brown's 30 years of experience will help you be your public best.

YOUR PUBLIC BEST, by Lillian Brown. Copyright 1989. Newmarket Press, New York, NY.

There is a growing focus in business on:

• healthcare
• security
• efficiency and
• internet.

Which of these represents the area of greatest potential financial trouble for your business? For your customers?

What should your company do to avoid the dip in profits that will result if it does not change the way it is addressing this area of challenge?

What specific advice can you offer customers to help them continue to grow in the face of these challenges?

"I'll grow you if you'll grow me" - Strategic Marketing Ideas for Mature Businesses

by Anne Yeiser

Stop being driven by the competition and start teaming up with customers you can grow! That is the message mature businesses need to hear according to Recompetitive Strategies by Mack Hanan. Stop trying to plan FOR customers- they can only be planned WITH. Find ways of integrating your growth objectives and strategies with theirs!

These methods have worked for many Fortune 500 companies whose profits were declining, according to Hanan who is an internationally recognized consultant, author and lecturer on marketing, sales and business growth.

Growth followed by maturity followed by decline is not inevitable in the life cycle of a product, says Hanan. In the recompetitive model, maturity is followed by rebirth of growth, and the good news is: "The profits from recompetitive growth can, and most of the time do, exceed the profits from new growth, in their rate of return and very often in volume as well."

Hanan's insights are based on his consultation and research for large manufacturers and retailers, but they will be appreciated by any size firm seeking a new burst of growth, whether selling services or products. The only mature businesses which he has found not eligible to recompete are those with obsolete technology or "old school" managers.

Recompetitive Strategies states that efforts to restore competitiveness to old products usually focus on:

• enhancing the product (usually unnecessary),
• selling harder to current customers,
• expanding sales to new customers, and
• entering allied markets.

Hanan calls this "rouging the cheeks of the corpse."

The mature business should instead undertake:

• market concentration
• asset base shrinkage, and
• product redefinition.

Market concentration means focusing on the customers who contribute the most profits. The ones willing to pay a premium price are those whose profits are being increased by their relationship with the mature business. It is crucial to understand their business and why yours is prospering theirs. They and new customers whose businesses can be grown are the mature business's "growth niche," according to Hanan. "Competitive maturity begins with one market-narrowing question: Whom can we grow?" The number of customers forming the growth niche may be only 20% of the total customer base. The remaining 80%, not to be ignored, are not a primary focus.

Asset base shrinkage, the second rule for becoming recompetitive, refers to the downsizing of product lines to those which best contribute to improved customer profits and those which still can be profitably mass marketed.

Product redefinition means replacing the tangible product or actual service with a financial product-- the profits it offers the customer's business. "[Profits] are the only true tangibles in any business transaction," says Hanan. "When profits instead of products are offered, price can be detached from product benefits and attached to their dollar benefits." This is how prices may be justifiably raised.

Hanan also outlines how to internalize customer data in order to merge into problem-solving partnerships with customers, how to re-train and reorganize for "consultative selling," how to price profits (not products), and how to identify customers who will be growth partners.

By permission of publisher from RECOMPETITIVE STRATEGIES, by Mack Hanan ©1986 AMACOM. a division of American Management Association, New York. All rights reserved.