Lana Turner was not discovered sitting at a soda fountain counter in a Hollywood drug store while wearing a tight sweater.  That was only publicity hype, but this story lingered on and on for many years.  I guess people wanted or needed to believe this.

As a test for a book I am writing called Terrible Truths About Financial Planning, I asked five planners I know who have some of the worst images imaginable - their images are total disasters - if they would speak on the value of a positive image?  All five quickly said they would be happy to speak on this subject.  As I suspected, they are oblivious about their real image!  Do we all believe that which we want or need to believe?  Is this why we believe myths when we should know better?

Girls did not become so excited they stood and screamed when a skinny and young Frank Sinatra sang.  The swooning young girls you see in old films of early Frank Sinatra performances were "plants" placed front and center and paid to act that way. 

Paderewski, the great pianist, during his early years, experienced young girls who ran to the stage screaming to express how thrilled they were when he performed.  However, his screaming fans were also paid to act that way.

The three above examples were all staged actions, but they continue to be referenced as real and as facts.  These three examples were arranged efforts to show people what to think or believe.  Adolf Hitler (the detestable psychopath) used this technique in his early (or struggling) days.  Managers for Elvis Presley and the Beatles both also paid "audience screamers" or "plants" to "react" during certain evens in the early part of their careers.  Stop believing these myths even when you see them.  When I was a young man, Colonel Tom Parker hired me to help promote Elvis Presley and he said, "Our objective is to influence reality."  Ray Walker, lead singer with The Jordainaires, the Elvis back-up singing group, once told me, "With Elvis it's difficult to tell where reality ends and myth starts."   

Is it true that talent will always win out, rise to the top, or insure a successful career? Or, is this a myth also? Do dedicated and qualified financial advisors fail?  A struggling singer tried out for the country music stage and radio show in Nashville known as the Grand Ole Opry. He was rejected. Devastated, he got into his pickup truck and Elvis Presley drove back to Memphis with tears in his eyes.  A TV sitcom about an affluent black family was first proposed to Ted Turner, when Turner owned and operated CNN. Ted Turner rejected Bill Cosby and Cosby's program concept. A struggling young actor named Archie Leach experienced so many auditions and discouraging rejections that he decided to give-up and try something else. For his final tryout he changed his name to Cary Grant and created a different persona. Was it talent or marketing and promotion efforts that enabled all seven of these personalities to 'turn out' as they did? Or was it both? Where does myth stop, and reality begin? What part does reality play? 

A Persistent Myth Among Financial Advisors
There is a harmful myth I forever witness among lots of financial planners, insurance agents, plus broker dealer executives.  (All of them should know better.)  They believe, if they get an article written by them, or written about them, and then published -- in a planning or financial magazine, -- then their phone will ring off the hook, prospects in large numbers will line-up to enter their office, and their invitations to speak will soar.  This "wish-list" rational is contrary to reality.  This is not even accurate.  This is totally incorrect thinking.  But this myth prevails.

Published articles do not stimulate massive and immediate results like this!  Published articles in magazines, newspapers, newsletters, house organs or e-zines usually have little, or none of the desired effect, unless they are merchandised.  You must merchandise your articles if you want to get any of your "wish-list" results from them.  You have to add the necessary marketing and promotion efforts that make published articles work for you.  Do nothing and your articles do nothing for you.

Demanding that your ghostwriter create articles for you that achieve fantastic results is simply being absurd.  You can threaten your ghostwriter but that is pointless.  Dr. Joan Berry, creator of the Fast Track MBA programs used at American universities nation-wide, says, "The most profitable action you can take is to become aware of your sabotaging beliefs, or myths, and clear them.  When you get free of your fabrications that lead to flawed expectations, you can then better function with reality."   

Do you know how to make your published articles work effectively for you?  Can you skillfully merchandise your published articles?  If you are not sure about how to accomplish this then for God's sake please read on.  Not doing this is like seeing a small fire break out in your home and having a powerful fire extinguisher nearby but being unable to turn it on.

Getting Published In Financial Magazines
Is Not Necessarily Important For You!

Realize that your getting published in most of the endless financial planning and financial industry magazines is not all that important! Many of these publications promote special agendas and are edited by low-paid people who actually know little about the industry they cover. The publishers can not sell enough subscriptions to these many magazines, so they give them away and call this "controlled circulation." A few of these publications are even owned (in secret) by financial products and services companies. Guess what type of advocacy they practice?

These many publications tend to repeat the same subjects and treatments again and again.  You can easily see this predictable pattern if you take the time to notice.  The editorial content largely avoids controversy, substantive issues, challenge, and significant differing points of view.  They do not ask you what you think.  They tell you what you think.  So why bother submitting articles to them?  Your prospects and your clients do not ever read the majority of these.  Most have publishers who know little about magazine publishing or how to monitor editors or their editorial staffs. 

Most of the editorial employees for these publications are not even professional enough to acknowledge receipt of your submissions.  Nor do they show the business professionalism and common courtesy of thanking you for submitting something.  Nor do they ever indicate if your masterpiece will be rejected or published, or when your writing will appear.  These basic courtesies and proper business methods are routine practices at most other professionally produced publications including other trade journals.  Many of these editors publish a feature that is only a self-tribute in every issue.  Some publish a sophomoric-like editor's column that begins with something as limp as: "This month is the time of the year when we freshen our marketing skills by looking in the mirror and asking ourselves some important questions.  So before you look in the mirror read our article on …"    When such editors loose their jobs you usually never hear of them again for the rest of your life.  Again I ask, why is your getting published in these magazines so important to you?             

I've often seen young editors just out of college who never sold even one insurance policy of any kind, yet in my presence they actually lectured famous top producers on how to sell insurance.  In the magazine publishing industry there is an old joke:  "Place the word 'editor' after a person's name and immediately that person becomes the world's greatest expert on whatever their publication covers."  Editors can easily become full of themselves and not only posture and pontificate, but some actually assume a reality that says they are both all-knowing and wise sages.  They ask for special treatment, free passes, and say, "If you let me speak at your program I will give you space in my magazine."  Or, "Hire me for this or that on the side and I will see that you get coverage in my …"  Too many of these editors also tend to publish their friends over and over.  They also use their magazine as an outlet for their articles.  Usually their own publication is their only outlet, ever.

More and more, being published in a financial magazine has less effect than this once had.  Read any of these magazines on a regular basis and notice the self-serving, repeatedly published friends, biases, irresponsibly inflated biographical sketches of the published writers, lack of skilled and knowledgeable editing, etc.  Why do you need to be published in these magazines when you can publish your own articles on your own blog, e-zine, or newsletter, without being treated so shabbily?  Your "pay off" is in the merchandising of your articles, not in the printing of them by these magazines.  If you can write well (And this is an important "if.") then your self-produced copy will have about as much credibility as appearing in their format and vehicles. 

Lew Nason, LUTC Graduate, RTIA, RFC, who founded the famous Insurance Pro Shop became a major sales improvement training success partly by showing financial professionals how to see and accept reality rather than myths.  Jim McCarty, CLU, RHU, LUTCF, RFC, who teaches "show business sales techniques," says: "Nason has some fascinating and, I think, ground breaking, research and lessons on the difference between the realities and myths that you choose to believe and act upon.  The reality is that the value of being published in the countless financial publications is fast changing.  The primary concern of the many financial publications is advertising sales."

How To Merchandise (Or Exploit) Your Articles
After your article is published, you have specific ways you can merchandise or "use" your article to make it work more effectively for you.  Assuming that your article contains content that is interesting or helpful for your prospects, and not talking about a subject like 'how to get more money from your clients,' then you should merchandise your article as indicated in the following.

• Mail copies of your articles to your clients.  This reassures them.  This reveals that you are intelligent, etc.
  
• Mail or send copies to your prospects.  Ask for their opinion on some point or points in your article.  Your objective is to begin a dialogue.
  
• Place copies of your article(s) in your Press Kit, Fact-File or Info Folder.  These are all the same.  This makes these more effective and more impressive.  This reflects your professionalism.
  
• Use copies of your article, when appropriate, as hand-outs or "leave behinds" when you make platform presentation, conduct seminars, speak to the Rotary Club in your area, or make visits.
  
• Use copies of your articles as enclosures when you do direct Mailings, or use your article as your DM piece.
  
• Make stacks of your articles available at your dentist's, doctor's office, etc.
  
• Attach copies of your article(s) when you submit something to others who can be useful for you, convention directors, club presidents, etc.
  
• Place your article(s) on your Web Site, or offer free copies of your article to anyone who asks for it.
  
• Include your article(s) on your blog, or e-zine, or announce it's availability from there.
  
• Send out a news release about your article to publications within your local or regional market area and enclose a copy of your artilcle.  (National media will not publish such a news release, as they do not want to acknowledge the existence of other competing media.
  
• Make copies of your articles available to appropriate organizations in your market area, i.e., civic, social, fraternal, business, religious, -- groups that are appropriate for you.
  
• Make copies available to your building association members, your country club members, hospital waiting rooms, community colleges, the Elks Lodge in your market area, etc.
  
• If you are an Elk then send the article to the editor of the Elks magazine and propose to the editor an original and exclusive version on this subject created especially for his Elks readers. Do this with other appropriate sources.
  
• Remember that it is OK to send an e-mail attachment of your article, and then follow-up by mailing a hard copy of your article, both to the same person.  Or do this in the reverse order.
  
• Frame and display your article(s) in your office, on walls, in your conference room, lobby, or hall.
  
• Carry extra copies around with you, possibly in your briefcase, pouch, or in a file, and recognize when it is appropriate to 'place them' or give them away.
  
• Send copies to appropriate contacts in your greater market area and invite the recipients to use you as an information and reference source.  Include the "correct person" at your local radio, newspaper, TV, etc.  You find out who is your "correct person" by phoning and asking.  Address this correctly and to the right person.   
  
• Always seek opportunities to further distribute your article(s).  Some planners even place them on bulletin boards in supermarkets, bowling allies, golf course facilities, etc.  If you have access to places that sell "big ticket" items, like airplanes, yachts, expensive cars, etc., then see if they will allow you to make available copies of your article(s) at their places of business.
  
• After you have enough articles published, extract or condense from them and assemble these sections into what becomes a booklet.  If appropriate indicate where your copy originally appeared.  Now you have an impressive quality booklet that can be used for booklet marketing.  Size your booklet so it will fit within a regular business size envelope. 
  
• Over time, you can compile your articles and this can become a book for you.  May books are created this way.  If possible you need a theme running throughout all of your articles.  Make inserts or rewrite so that you have a beginning, middle, and end. 
  
• You should be able to think of at least three additional "useful" ways that you can merchandise or "use" your article(s) in your local market area to make them work more effectively for you.  I just gave you twenty ways to do this.