I was in Houston earlier this week and had the opportunity to hear former President George H.W. Bush speak and see Barbara Bush at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. I also had the great pleasure of being part of a Houston FOX TV affiliate’s focus on women entrepreneurs by taping a segment about the M3RACE.
Back in March, I’d appeared on Fox Business’s “Money for Breakfast” with M3 Racer Deborah Brenner. In anticipation of my visit to Houston for a Stepping Out of Line party, Gayla Bentley of Gayla Bentley Design arranged a media opportunity by sending Linda Spalding, a reporter from the local Fox affiliate a copy of the show. The Houston was so interested in following up on their “big sister” cable network, they went one better and decided to do an entire series of segments on M3 Racers in Houston. So far, Houston’s FOX 26 has aired one piece dedicated to Gayla (It’s a great piece. You can watch it here.), taped one with me, and will be featuring M3 Racers Carolyn Morse, Cristina Martinez and Lelani Craig. I’m thrilled that, because of Gayla’s nose for PR, other M3 Racers will be getting great TV coverage and inspiring more women to grow their businesses within this powerful community! We will be sharing with you all the Houston interviews as they go on the air.
Use your participation in the M3 Race as a way to generate media coverage for your business.
Here’s how you can do it:
Get on the M3 message board and find out who else in your local community wants to get their business on TV and form your pitch as a group. Contact your local Fox affiliate (or another local station, if you don’t have Fox in your area) by looking them up here. Show them the “Money for Breakfast” segment and tell them that the Houston affiliate is carrying a series of segments on how women entrepreneurs are growing their businesses and creating jobs in their communities, and the same thing is happening in yours. Be ready with a description of your businesses and all the facts and figures.
Gayla also arranged a book signing for me at a wonderful M3 Racer cupcake parlor called Sugarbaby’s in Houston. It was a fabulous party! Thank you Bridget Gould and Gayle Bentley. There is a powerful M3RACE community developing in Houston – follow their lead by joining a M3RACE MeetUp in your area or starting your own.
Now back to George Bush 41…
My husband Gary shook Bush 41’s hand. We were at the church along with hundreds of people including Mayor of Houston Bill White for an Interfaith Service of Prayer and Hope for the Gulf communities recovering from Hurricanes Ike and Gustavo. As a New Yorker, I had not focused on the extent of the damage in and around Houston -$27billion worth- ranked the 3rd most costly natural disaster in US history. I was aware of the hurricanes because M3er Cynthia Rubio, founder of RadiantRFID (who also came from Austin to attend the party at Sugarbaby’s) had created Radio Frequency ID bracelets that were used to keep track of all evacuated nursing home and hospital patients during Gustavo and Ike. Cynthia was in the Texas command center during those storms and was able to keep track of all the patients who were moved. Hurricane stories were pushed out of the news by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the cascading financial crisis and the 2008 Presidential Election. Mayor White told us about Bridge City, Texas with 3400 households that had lost 3200 of those homes in the storms – the Mayor talked about the work everyone had been doing “seeking common ground on higher ground”. The Bush Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund received the offerings that were collected during the service. My trip to Houston was eye opening, warm and wonderful. I was reminded of the power of community to grow businesses and to support neighbors recovering from disaster.
[...] frequent readers will recognize Deborah Brenner as someone who I’ve written about several times before. She and I first met on the set of [...]