Jun

A Chat with Michelle Gamble-Risley, of M Communications and 3L Publishing

Michelle Gamble Risley

Michelle Gamble-Risley is president of M Communications and 3L Publishing (www.3LPublishing.com), which launched in summer 2009. Since its launch this fledgling company has attracted over two-dozen authors with its unique publishing model. In fact, Gamble-Risley and her business partner recently wrote Vanity Circus: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Avoid Publishing Crap as a humorous look at the industry and as a way to educate authors on the industry and to help them understand the value of networking among other marketing tools as an integral part of their success.

You own a marketing and PR firm too. How did 3L Publishing come about?

Michelle Gamble-Risley published her first book Second Bloom in 2009, and it won several literary awards. The marketing side was being affected by the economy, and authors wanted her to publish their books. So she and Michele Smith opened 3L Publishing in time for the release of their second book Smash: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Practical Marketing and PR, which contains an entire chapter on the importance of networking in lead generation.

Why is networking so important to your business?

Several reasons. First, we are not selling “widgets.” We are selling services – and very specialized and high-end services sometimes to individuals. An author is not going to randomly spend perhaps thousands of dollars with an unfamiliar company. Since we network minimally four times a month, our network really knows us – and it’s called relationship building. These “relationships” lead to direct and indirect leads that sometimes become business. Without these relationships, we would not be able to create trust and credibility.

Why do you think it’s important to network at least once a week?

You have to keep your company name out there. Just like in advertising, you need at least six touches to close a deal. Each time we “touch” our prospective business partners – and we call them partners because they become that in the process of working with us – we have one more chance to cement that relationship. Or at the very least, we have another chance to familiarize our audience with who we are as a company and reinforce the brand right to our demographic. Speaking of demographics, you should chose the networking group that is right for you based on those target markets.

What networking group do you invest the most in?

We are avid members of a international networking organization called eWomen (www.ewomennetwork.com). Their founder Sandra Yancey developed a networking tool called Accelerated Networking, which gives each member of the organization one minute to do a 60-second commercial in smaller breakout groups. It is highly effective and enables people to hear about your business without you throwing cards at them. At eWomen the polite thing to do is to ask for a card in the groups. Their annual conference in July is amazing. The energy is unlike any other conference we’ve attended. This group of fantastic women supports each other in business. You have no real sense of competition, but caring, supportive business associates and ultimately girlfriends who are there for each other.

Do you feel networking has created a successful business for you even in this economy?

Without our networking activities we wouldn’t be where we are now. We even wrote our comedy screenplay C-ASS and put an announcement about it in our weekly newsletters. A woman we had met over a year ago, loved our newsletters, and asked to read the script. Long story short, she became our manager, and we have three A-List producers bidding on it – all because we networked and used follow up through our newsletters. Follow up is a whole other discussion … but suffice it to say, you will waste your time without something to follow up.

Where can I find out more about your company and new book Vanity Circus?

Go to 3L Publishing’s site at www.3LPublishing.com or visit M Communications at www.mcommunicationsinc.com.

Posted by Deepak Gupta.