Guest Blogger: Melissa Richman - The Missing Piece

My entire career I have worked in marketing. It's a career path that has allowed me to show my creativity, while interacting with people. Although most people wouldn't consider the Director of Marketing a sales job, a great deal of what I do requires me to use some of the most basic selling skills. Whether I'm selling myself to a potential client or selling a story to an editor, I need to make certain how and what I'm saying is done creatively in order to help me stand out from the crowd.

Recently, my cousin, who is a medical sales rep, was telling me a story of how she creatively used to sell herself on interviews. On her way to the interview, she would pick up a round cookie cake, have the company write her name on it, cut a slice from the cookie and insert a piece of paper where the slice used to be that read, "The only thing missing from XYZ company is" with an arrow pointing to her name. She said it was a little bit of extra effort and she felt ridiculous walking into an interview with a massive cookie cake, however at the end of the day it made her stand out.

As the Director of Marketing for Thought Transformation, I am always thinking of new and exciting ways to get the company's and Linda's name out there. The best thing about marketing and marketing yourself or your brand creatively is that it doesn't have to cost a lot of money. Instead sometimes it just takes a little extra effort to come up with an out of the box idea. Coming up with creative ways to approach both current and potential clients might be the best approach to close the sale you are working on right now. Want to run a creative idea by me? Please don't hesitate to drop me a line - melissa@thoughttransformation.com.

Melissa Richman has spent her career working with internationally recognized clients on advertising and brand promotion initiatives. As the Director of Marketing and Communications for Thought Transformation in Atlanta and owner of her own public relations firm, Packaged Public Relations, Melissa enjoys working with new and small businesses to develop public relations strategies that reflect the needs of the clients. If you'd like to contact Melissa, please e-mail her at melissa@thoughttransformation.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @melsilas.