How to put the fear of hades into your competition
Published: Sun, 04/26/20
- William Randolph Hearst
One of the best business bios I read last year was one about the late William Randolph Hearst called “The Chief” — and one of my favorite parts was about how he had politicians frightened of him.
Including even powerful & popular ones like Theodore Roosevelt and, later, FDR.
The reason they feared him?
Because he had a giant media empire and, thus, had a lot of influence. Far more influence, in many cases, than the very politicians who craved his endorsements and feared his disapproval and scathing editorials about his enemies. That’s why, for example, even FDR — extremely popular with the proletariat who primarily read Hearst’s papers — treaded very softly around Hearst, and was not in a hurry to blatantly ignore even Hearst’s dumbest “suggestions”, nor was he eager to have an enemy in the mogul.
Although, later on, the tables completely turned.
(And nearly destroyed the entire Hearst media empire, which is a whole other story…)
But fact is, if you want to build a business that lasts, isn't easily brought down, and possibly even puts the fear of hades into your competition... then aggressively curate your own medias — whether you own them or merely control/use them.
As many as you can, the more the merrier.
But, even more importantly:
Combine & stack them in a way where they feed off each other, enhance each other, and help make each other more profitable, more influential, and more secure. It’s the difference between having a column (i.e., what the run of the mill “influencer” or marketer who just spanks out social media posts all day to sell with basically has), or owning the whole newspaper.
All right enough of this today.
You either get the life-or-death business importance of this or you don’t.
If you do, and want to know Yours Crotchety’s ways of stacking medias, simply be subscribed to “Email Players” in time for the May issue.
The deadline is coming up fast, though.
So if you want it, I don’t recommend being a contemptible procrastinator:
http://www.EmailPlayers.com
Ben Settle