Nearly every day, someone asks my advice on the best way to promote their business or themselves. I get the question at speaking engagements, at the office and, yes, sometimes at home. I don't mind at all, because I've always got a good answer:

Write a book.

"A book?" some say -- with obvious horror. "I've never written a book!"

Precisely my point. But let me back up a bit.

When I started EMSI 22 years ago, I soon realized the clients who got the attention of the media most quickly were those who'd written a book. Not just any book, mind you, but one that aligned with what they were promoting. The apple salesmen who wrote about apples were far more successful getting media coverage than those who wrote about oranges - and those who hadn't written anything at all.

Why? Because yesterday's business cards are today's books. They give their authors immediate credibility, establishing them as experts in their fields. Credibility opens the door to journalists, talk show hosts, bloggers and anyone else creating content for hungry audiences. Who will they turn to as an expert source of information when a mysterious apple worm is destroying orchards? Johnny Appleseed, author of Red All Over - The Core of the Apple Industry.

There are some caveats. A poorly conceived, poorly designed, poorly written or poorly promoted book is worse than no book at all. Your book must capably and professionally represent your unique message - and you.

Not a writer? Not a problem. There are thousands of talented freelance writers and editors out there - especially in the wake of all the newspaper layoffs in recent years - who can help. So don't worry about that just yet. The first step is planning, and that's up to you whether or not you will actually do the writing.

• Decide on your book's main idea. The central focus will be what drives the entire project, so it must match the message you want to convey and it must excite you. If you're bored from the get-go, you'll likely never see your project through to the end. A great way to test ideas is by running them through these five questions:

1. What message am I enthusiastic about that I want to convey?
2. Who can benefit from it?
3. How will it help them?
4. Why am I the one bringing this idea to them?
5. How can I make my points unique and different from what has already been said on the topic?

• Pay attention to your own reactions as you test-drive your ideas. Which idea makes you smile? Which excites you creatively? Which hits the essence of what you're about - what you enjoy, think about and create every day? It may be an idea you never even realized inspired such passion in you.

• Consider what you really want to achieve by promoting yourself or your business. Business owners obviously want to grow their business and see it flourish; some people want to build careers as speakers. But often, there's something deeper driving us and we may not even be aware of it. Taking the time to do some soul-searching to identify your real motivation can help you clarify your message and find your book's focus.

A real-life example: When I sat down to write Celebritize Yourself, I planned a how-to book on commonly asked publicity questions.  But, when I ran that idea through the five-question test, I had trouble with No. 5.  So, I asked myself, "What do I most enjoy about my professional life?" The answer was easy: helping people identify and value what's unique about them and their message.  In writing a book about how to get publicity, I realized I needed to explain why everyone has an expertise that should be shared.

It's never too late to write your book. I know it seems daunting, but remember, the first time you do anything, it's often a challenge. Remember how hard it was wobbling down the sidewalk on your first bicycle? You may have crashed a few times, skinned your knees and bumped your head, but you got back on and kept trying.

Call on that brave 6-year-old you and start planning your book!

About Marsha Friedman

Marsha Friedman is a 22-year veteran of the public relations industry. She is the CEO of EMSI Public Relations (www.emsincorporated.com), a national firm that provides PR strategy and publicity services to corporations, entertainers, authors and professional firms. She also co-hosts "The News and Experts Radio Show with Alex and Marsha" on Sirius/XM Channel 131 on Saturdays at 5:00 PM EST.

Report finds poverty in rural areas higher than urban centers

Lyons, Nebraska - Today, the Center for Rural Affairs released a report that challenges many conventional assumptions about where poverty and food insecurity exists in the central United States. The report concludes that rural counties in the Midwest and Great Plains are experiencing higher incidence of poverty as well as greater rates of food insecurity, especially among children, than urban centers in the region. These findings challenge conventional thought and policy debates which often conclude, directly or implicitly, that poverty and food insecurity are primarily urban issues.

"Rural poverty continues to be a serious issue in many parts of the Great Plains region, affecting scores of rural households and families," said Jon Bailey, Director of Research and Analysis at the Center for Rural Affairs and co-author of the report.  "The poverty rates among rural children are most alarming, both in the immediate term and for their long-term development."

The report, Poverty on the Great Plains, is the third in a series of briefs examining data from the 2010 Census. The analysis covers a 10 state region that includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa and selected counties in Colorado, Montana, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

A full copy of the report can be downloaded at: http://files.cfra.org/pdf/census-brief3-poverty.pdf

According to the report, 414,331 people in rural areas (or 13.3% of the regional rural population) were living in poverty in 2010. And that same year 145,065 or 16.4% of rural children in the region lived in poverty compared to 15.6% of children in micropolitan counties and 14.1% in metropolitan counties.

While portions of metropolitan areas of the region are likely to have among the highest poverty rates in the region, the data presented here is county level data that in many cases contains both high poverty and low poverty areas within a county or metropolitan area.

Additionally, Bailey points out that another sign of living in poverty is food insecurity. Food Insecurity is defined as USDA's measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members or limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.

Bailey's report finds that rural people who were food insecure accounted for 12.7% of the population in 2010. And rural children who were food insecure accounted for 23.8%. It is critical for the future of rural residents that the issue of food insecurity be addressed. Solving childhood poverty and food insecurity is particularly important as the physical and intellectual development of children is affected by poverty and a lack of access to healthy food.

"A food insecure household may not experience insecurity throughout the entire year," continued Bailey. "Any time one has to make a choice between adequate food and other expenses, such as medical bills, a household is considered to be food insecure."

A previous report also authored by Bailey found that although rural grocery stores play a crucial role in our rural communities, providing vital sources of nutrition, jobs and tax revenue that support the community, they are slowly disappearing across the nation. In Iowa, for example, the number of grocery stores with employees dropped by almost half from 1995 to 2005, from about 1,400 stores in 1995 to slightly over 700 just 10 years later. Meanwhile, "supercenter" grocery stores (Wal-Mart and Target, for example) increased by 175 percent in the 10-year period.

"The growing phenomena of rural 'food deserts' - the lack of outlets for purchasing food - is impacting residents in many rural areas of the nation, no matter their age or income," Bailey explained. "And combined with increased rural poverty rates, especially among rural children, food insecurity among rural families is on the rise."

"In order to reverse these trends in rural America, it is crucial for rural communities and public policy to find new, innovative ways to create rural economic opportunities and revitalize rural economies," said Bailey.

A 2007 Center for Rural Affairs analysis demonstrated that USDA and Congress have severely over-subsidized the biggest and most powerful farms while consistently under-investing in rural economic development, spending twice as much on subsidizing the 20 largest farms in each of 13 leading farm states as it invested in rural development programs to create economic opportunity for millions of people in thousands of towns in the 20 rural counties with the most out-migration in each respective state - (the full report - An Analysis of USDA Farm Program Payments and Rural Development Funding In Low Population Growth Rural Counties, a.k.a. Oversubsidizing and Underinvesting... can be viewed or downloaded at: http://www.cfra.org/node/603).

According to Bailey, federal contributions to rural development have been plummeting for years - almost one-third of the USDA Rural Development budget has been cut since 2003. And Congress is currently considering making even further cuts to already bare-boned rural development programs. For example, funds for the popular Value Added Producer Grant are in jeopardy and all the money for the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program is currently on the chopping block. The USDA only uses about 1.7 percent of its budget for rural development.

"Addressing poverty and food insecurity, especially among rural children, requires setting profoundly different priorities than are evidenced in the iteration of the Farm Bill currently being debated in Congress," concluded Bailey.

–Determining the right price an increasing challenge for retailers

Port Washington, NY, April 24, 2012 – Price trumps sales and special deals, customer service, and convenience as a factor in deciding where to shop for the majority of U.S. consumers, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research company. NPD's The Economy Tracker*, a monthly monitor of consumer sentiment about the economy and spending, finds that in the most recent survey (March 12) 85 percent of U.S. consumers say that price will be an extremely important/important factor in deciding where to shop in the near future, ten percent more than those who feel sales and special deals are extremely important/important.

How important do you expect that each of the following factors

will be in where you decide to shop in the next 3 months or so?

Expected Consumer Requirements of Purchase

Source: The NPD Group/The Economy Tracker, March 2012

By income, 87 percent of those in the household income bracket of $25 to 50,000 selecting price as extremely important/important, 85 percent in the $50,000 to $100,000 income bracket, and 82 percent in the $100,000 plus bracket, according the The Economy Tracker. Seventy-nine percent of young adults, 18 to 34, 86 percent of 35 to 44 year-olds, 88 percent of 45 to 54 year-olds, 89 percent of 55 to 64 year-olds and 86 percent of 65 and older said that price was extremely important/important.

"Shoppers are now savvier when spending money. They have new ways of gauging the marketplace - they can compare prices on the Web while at home or while standing in a brick-and-mortar store with their smartphones," says John Deputato, senior vice president, advanced analytics at NPD. "We certainly have moved to a time of calculated consumption for shoppers... and price has come to the forefront of the purchase decision."

Deputato points out that the sophistication of consumers when it comes to price, changes to shopping habits, and the soft U.S. economy has made the decision to set retail prices not only more difficult but more strategically critical for both retailers and manufacturers.

"Manufacturers and retailers recognize that setting the right pricing strategy is a competitive advantage in the marketplace, but pricing is more difficult today than it was prior to the recession," says Deputato. "We've been working with the top retailers and manufacturers conducting price elasticity research to understand the wide range of potential impact on profits depending on the possible pricing decisions. Prices can't arbitrarily be set, it takes information and a thorough thought process to come up with the right price."

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*The Economy Tracker Methodology:

The Economy Tracker is based on online surveys completed by approximately 1,500 members of NPD's online consumer panel in each month. The sample is fielded to a U.S. representative sample; the completed responses are weighted and balanced back to U.S. Census targets. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points overall.