Last Updated on April 29, 2023 by Artem K.

As an SEO Freelancer at LinksHero I can tell that it becomes harder and harder to get traffic to websites.

PPC ads are getting more expensive while competition is growing…content production has alsodramatically decreased the entry barriers – only 5 years ago creating an infographic was a big deal (and it also required quite significant money investment), whereas now you can easily those things in Canva.As a link builder (link-building is a top priority for off-page SEO), I also see how much harder it has become to get those valuable links (e.g. you send 20 emails and get 1 link back).Given all this, I was curious to learn from the man with the proven record.

…and we invented a software where you could prepare your last will…the software had been named:

“Game Over”

Meinrad Müller

A man that, as it turned out, done quite a lot of pretty crazy (in a good way) remarkable things…or shall I call them PR tricks?Who is the man?Meinrad J. Müller.

Quick Background

Meinrad and Me under projector light.

Meinrad started his shredding business (has nothing to do with helping people lose fat) back in the day, when internet wasn’t even a military network – it just wasn’t there.Alpenland GmbH, the company he founded, initially consisted of a truck with a massive shredder machine inside it.As I understood, it was connected to some kind of generator/power supply inside the car, because it required a lot of power.They would then go around different places in entire Germany and shred all those papers that would otherwise take people 6 months to shred themselves (e.g. accountants, universities etc).As you might imagine, shredding business can be quite tough to advertise, but Meinrad quickly learned how to make free PR to work for him at scale.And instead of feeding ducks in the park (as he said himself), he shared his way of doing things with us at a local Berlin meetup (thank you GTEC and Mindspace) – “PR – Do-it-yourself ! Now! the guerilla way, WITHOUT MONEY”.As you can tell, such a clickbait grabbed my attention and I found myself at the meetup.I quickly realized that I found gold (or a bitcoin as a 21st century alternative) and did something I never did before for any meetup – turned on my voice recorder (I also had to delete some files, because my phone’s memory was so short).I then got the entire 77 minutes transcribed and put into 42 real PR Lessons.

How to Absorb This Treasure

These gems that you are going to find below are in 98% of all cases are exact words of Meinrad. The other 2% are my corrections and tiny additions which help to fix the flow, when it got lost during the transcription.Ideally you want to go over it from start to finish as is, but…I tried my best to create some sort of titles that would help you to navigate.Now, this thing below is by no means an “#X step” how-to guide on how to do PR, but…it’s not that far from it.In fact, I personally think that this is how ALL the guides should be given.Why?These kind of guides, full of real life examples (a.k.a. case studies), illustrate a number of important lessons.They also give you an idea of how YOU can replicate this same strategy, without actually giving the exact steps.What does it cause?Brain function!And, guess what, the more you train, the stronger you become…in no matter what (reminds me of a saying – the more I practice, the luckier I get).

P.S. You will see that the text is transcribed – phrases can be broken in pieces. Also Meinrad has a thick Bavarian accent, so make sure to keep it in your head, when reading these :).

On How to Sell a Mousetrap…

Meinrad: Ah, does anyone know what this this is?Audience: It’s a mousetrap.Meinrad:It’s a mousetrap. No USB, no WLAN. No, nothing.How would you…let’s say I’m the owner of a magazine, going to households, 100,000. Ten million copies a month…How would you sell this device to the press?How would tell the press to write about this device? Any ideas?Audience:Killing it softly.Meinrad:What?Audience:Killing it softly, I dunno.Meinrad:What the most people do naturally, they write about the technical features: solid wood, biodegradable.Audience:They need to go through the problem.Meinrad:Yes.Audience:They must.Meinrad:They write about the quality of the … Will the mouse be impressed by the quality of the device? The mouse is impressed by the quality of the cheese and that’s ideology, which is very simple. So why I call somebody ask me to perform started, why do you call it guerrilla? You know what a guerrilla is? They are fighting some sort of war, but not following the rules. Or sometimes the more effective than moderate solutions. My idea is, you can do it yourself when I’m proving I did it, so you can do it.

on Starting His Company…and When No One Called

Meinrad: Anyone sitting at the back, the seats at the front are same price. So, I started with a company. You know what five folders are? You maybe have five folders at your company as well? My accountant one day said to me:”I have a problem. I have 2000 old five folders in my basement. What to do with them.” So he expressed a problem and I’ll tell you one thing; listen to problems. Whenever somebody expresses themselves in a problem, it’s an opportunity and I say “Why don’t you use a shredder?” He said: “it will took me a half a year.” You know, those little shredders you can buy everywhere, this was my idea: if my accountant has a problem, hundreds of thousands of accountants must have the same problem. What did I do? I bought a used big truck and I bought a big shreddering machine in middle. The machine was about double as long as this one, this high, weighed about 2 tons and it was needed to have 380 Watts of electricity. Most accountants and lawyers, they don’t have 380 Watts, so we produced with a huge ship diesel engine, we produced our own electricity. So I have this machine and I said “Paul that’s a great idea” and I started advertising with papers and nobody called. This was really frustrating, investing lots of money and no people reply.

The Biggest Sales Pitch You Can Do…

I was really desperate, so in my desperation, I think something. I call up the newspaper and calling a newspaper, I tell you one thing: this is the biggest sales pitch you can do, talking to an editor in a newsroom and convincing them you are having a great new story he should not miss having his readers. This kind of visibility I was very slim those days honestly and he wrote a nice article and from that day on the business started. It was catching on in the business community.

Advertisement is Just an Advertisement…

Because one thing you remember: whenever you put an advertisement out there, on the TV or on the internet, it’s just an advertisement. But when it’s written in the paper by a renowned institution like spin cycle, people believe it. People believe what’s written in the papers. So the company grew, grew next scrap, next scrap, next person. In the end we have 40 people working for us and you see? I hired even somebody in my office to call the papers. I gave him a script, tell him “On Monday we are in Stuttgart, on Tuesday we in Frankfurt, on Friday we are in Berlin.” We called up the paper and that “Come to us! Look at us! You will find very interesting.”

What PR Really Is…

So, what’s PR? If you have children, I have 2, they started crying whenever they wanted something. You know? This was like “Please, give me this toy!” They cried until they got it and this is what I suggest to you: you need to cry out loud for help and that’s calling the editors. It’s PR. Now I can use some examples. I read in the papers Microsoft is planning to have an own magazine, only for Microsoft dealers and I found out who is the editor for this very first magazine. The first number 1 in ’98. I found out the editor and I called him and I tell him “Listen! My companies success is solely based on the beautiful products of Microsoft.” And he said “That’s great!” You see? And he put me on page 1, on the page 11 previews. You know? Actually, you are helping the editors to make a nice paper if you are delivering them nice stories.

Horse Racing & Too Much Focus

They have 2 horse races here [in Berlin]. These horses, what do they have on the side [of their eyes]? How do you call it? Blinders. Why do the horses have on the left or the right side of the eye have such a blinder? What’s the reason?Audience:No distractions.Meinrad:They got not distracted by the noise from the sides. So most people behave like having a blinder: they are so focused, you know? That’s most theory in university they are telling you: be focused. Somehow it’s killing your marketing. That’s me with first laptop in the year ’90 sitting on the lake having a small beer. (Meinrad points at a slide with him sitting with the laptop having a massive beer in his hand).Why did the journalist visit me and take a photograph? One day in the morning, 7 O’clock, one of my truck drivers, he was in Breville, he called me and he said “I just lost my drivers license.” Sitting in the truck and two customers in Breville on Friday. He was having some beer on Thursday evening and all my truck drivers, they slept in the cabin, in the truck. You know, the big trucks they driver seat and then the cabin. In mornings, at 7, he started the truck and police knocked the door. He had to come out and he got a 1.3 because of his many beers on Thursday evening. And I said “This is a great idea!” I made a software which calculates the alcohol … How do you call it? Formula … Or whats the alcohol concentration of your blood going up if you have a beer, or wine, or whisky or whatever, depending on your age, size, weight, whatever. It showes a curve upwards and the curve going downwards is 3 times longer until all the alcohol is vanished from your blood. I made the piece of software and it says “The German Bierrgarten software.” You know, you sometimes, you have to use stupid names because press…they use stupid headlines just to attract the customers.

Continue Drink Driving – We Got You Covered

Our fire brigade, which was collecting money to buy a new … What do you call those machine where you can cut a car into pieces, you know accident, what’s name? This big cutter, if somebody’s squeezed in the car, they can cut the car into pieces to get the victims out and they were collecting money to buy such a machine and I said “You have my software.” And they made a nice headline ‘Continue drinking, we cut you out of your car.’The main thing was, this had nothing to do with my paper shredding, remember? This is not my paper shredding business. This was a side effect, like in the pool billiard, going around the corner.

Free Paper Shredding at School

One day, one schoolmaster called. He said “We have tons of old exams in our basement and we don’t want to throw it to the wastepaper. We want to hire you to shred our old exams.” And I said “Well, it’s so much tons, so maybe the sum is so and so.” And he said “Oh, we don’t have the money for that.” I said “Sir, send me 10 leatherheads of your school. I will type addressed police on them and send it to the Uni Press, to the radio stations, to the papers and we will do a free paper shredding at the school.” Whenever you have something, you can make somebody happy offering your services to a limited group for free for a limited time. This took me maybe 3 hours, 2 truck drivers and it brought me a half page in the paper: free PR.

Help an Immigrant

So, that formed in the year 1988. We have many immigrants already in 1988 coming from Yugoslavia and I said “We need to have a nice platform to match the immigrants and the locals.” And I said “Contact initiative for friendship.” You could register as an immigrant and you could register as a local and meet for a beer or for a coffee. Has nothing to do with our paper shredding, but it was located on our webpage. For the people came to our website and they saw our main business. That’s billiard, playing around the corners. They wouldn’t write about me, about my own business many, many times.

Vacation Extender

So, how many vacation days startups normally have? Zero, right? How many vacation days does a regular employee have?Audience:25.Meinrad:How many? Audience:25.Meinrad:25. Someone might have 30, whatever and you want to spend them wisely. You know? You have many, in English it’s called bank holidays, when you have a bank holiday on Thursday, you take the Friday off and you can go from Thursday to Sunday to Paris or London or whatever. This software was calculating the most efficient way taking your vacation.So you could turn your 30 days into almost 58 days, depending on the state you are living in. It has nothing to do, look if you put our advertising for our paper shredding on the bottom of the page of the software.

Helmut Kohl Data Eraser

Ah, this is a very nice story. Who remembers this chancellor before Merkel started her eternity. Anyone remember Helmut Kohl? When did he lose election against Shroder?Audience:98.Meinrad:98? Good. What he did for his personal pleasure, he destroyed the content of all hard drives in his office. A chancellor is the employee of the people, right? Is he entitled to delete the contents of his hard drives. Audience:No.Meinrad:He is not. So, if something like this is flowing through the papers and television and radio, note we have to sense there could be a chance for me to get PR. I made a software which was deleting the content of hard drives. Took me two weeks with the help of some people and also good encoding, but we managed to have the software done and…[we send the software to] C’T magazine and they tested it and then [said that the data was] unreconstructable.Then we named the software ‘Helmut Kohl data eraser’. You can download it on our website.

Pulling People Like a Dancing Bear

So I was pulling people in the middle ages, they have doctors going with their horse carriage from town to town and what did they have to attract many visitors buy their medicine? They had a dancing bear and I use this dancing bear method. We have something, people come to see the dancing bear and then they buy the medicine. This is a dancing bear. You see? Many papers writing about our software.

Law Changes ->Free Goodie

One day, I got a letter from government, saying “From next year on, it’s illegal to have office equipment not fitting the German standard.” The EIN dorm, the desk must be a certain height, the chairs, everything and the screens must have a certain frequency. The frequency is very bad, today we don’t have all these old tube monitors anymore, but something very bad and you could not actually measure the frequency. So I made a little software tool which was measuring the frequency the picture was held.

Ride The Wave

So I called this ‘Ride the wave.’ If you feel something in the society, or in your area or whatever, people talking about already, jump on this wave and we make the software, whenever we had something to give away for free. Send 7000 emails to all press people from sports magazine, to politics to car makers. You know from the 7000 we have 50 reporting on it.

How The Fall of Berlin Wall Can Help Your Company?

Ah yes. It was a very, very funny time in the year ’90 after the fall of the wall. I said “How can I use the fall of the wall for my PR?” Well when you leave this evening, you may think about, you may be more alert ‘Whats happening around me? How could I use this for my company?’ The fall of the wall has nothing to do with my paper company and I called some mayors of East German towns. East Germany to West Germans was like Siberia. We didn’t even know the names of the towns, but I found actually, we could start dialing to East Germany, what was impossible before. I said your old state owned companies will go broke. You need new factories, new employees. I’m going to help you. Because I had planned, 3 weeks vacation in USA and I hate vacation, my wife loves it, but I hate it because I need more action.So we had planned 1 week Washington, 1 week New Orleans for the Carnival and 1 week Florida. How can I make vacation and business in one [go]? I called up the German Embassy in Washington and I said “I’m going to have a meet up, like this, but 200 people at the High Court hotel in Washington, next to the White House, where I was telling about 2 hours how beautiful it is to invest in East Germany.” The second man, after the Ambassador had an mission. Speak like Christoff “today!”. I invited everyone to beer and cookies or whatever and we had a nice 2 hour presentation ‘how nice it is in East Germany’.

“Where Is the Loudspeaker?”

So, if something happened, in your head you must think “Where is the loudspeaker?” Call the press, I called the…Tribune. You must visit this day and report about it. Sometimes I went there in person and I could. Berlin is such a big opportunity. So many money association, national European association. So many important newspapers. Go there without any appointment. “Hello I am ____ and I am doing ____ and I have a story for you.” They don’t kick you out.

Last Will PR

So, one day I saw a old man, maybe aged 90, he was destroying 4 boxes of old files. He came to our truck. He said…”I am 90 and I try to make a clean table” and we invented a software where you could prepare your last will. Last will, only 10% of all people do have a written last will and the 90%, the others this leads to the double fighting of their children, relatives, whatever and the way the software to prepare the last will and the software had been named ‘Game Over’. Sometimes already the name is a guarantee for papers to print about it.

The Stupid Software That’s Complicated & People Love It

One of my first actual software we had was a so stupid software, but I measured a software by the number of downloads. 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 downloads and everyone coming to our site saw our original service and then could download something. If all of you maybe can program, you can make many things to give away on Facebook, on Twitter today, but you need to feed the people with cheese. It’s the most important thing of the mousetrap. Not the quality of wood or quality of the iron. We had a software, which said how long you have to save in your account files, your personal files or whatever. There is a certain law in Germany, we have to have them for 5 years or 6 years…5 pages of pdf would have been sufficient and I told my people:”Make it a very complicated software, because people like complicated software.” They have more value than 2 pieces of pdf.

PR Idea That Has No Price & Infinite Value

In the year ’91, there was a discussion about merging East Germany and West Germany, we need new postal zip codes. East Germany, we had 4 digits, West Germany, we had 4 digits. Now we have 5 digits and my idea was: if they are going to change from 4 to 5, they must print a book. That was my idea 2 years in advance and I called the German Telecom and the German Post Office. “We don’t know.” Finally, I found the right guy and I said to him:”I want the back page. The back page of this.” There’s 44 million free copies, to every household. Out of this 44 million are only 2 million companies, so 42 millions are for the birds. But anyway, I reached any company in Germany. How much would you pay for that?Meinrad:How many? Any ideas?Audience:A lot…Meinrad:A lot, your guess is right. That’s correct. It was in today’s terms, it was 500,000 euro. For one advert on one page, but this book was on the shelves for 10 years in the companies offices, so it paid off very well. So I’m not saying PR only. If you are regular advertising on many channels you have advertising has not that trust value like PR. If people read your PR and see your ad, that’s building a connection and you become even more trustworthy.

Recommendation Letter PR

Come see this. What’s this? Ah ja. Who of you got a recommendation letter from his employer? You know? Talking to courts, to judges in court, they say 20% of all court cases related to personnel stuff is because of employees are not happy with their level of recommendation. I said “How we can make, how can you systemize this within?” I went to the bookstore, bought 10 books ‘How to draw a recommendation letter.’ And this was confusing me. But I thought one book, which was written by a lawyer, female lawyer and later I called her up. Said “Madam, could you make a list of questions and a list of all possible answers in a recommendation letter?” Which she did and then asked my programmer make a very complicated software. Actually it’s an Excel file, but we have then, on the screen, you have questions:”How was his attitude towards customers?” Very good/good/satisfactory, whatever. Then they add according lines to pop up. I started giving it for free and then people called me “Why it’s free? Where’s the catch?” That’s how some customers are. Meanwhile it’s 250 euro and people do buy it still online.

Become a Good Person…a Helper…a Giver…

So, what does this has to do with my paper shredding where I make the money? Nothing. Be in the minds of your target group. Become a helper, become a good person. Whatever you do, whatever your product you have or service you have, think out of the box. I beg you, buy a box or whatever, put it in your office. It should remind you: step out of the box… So here, getting trustworthy, ‘doing well by doing good’ a very famous American phrase. ‘Doing well by doing good.’

The Similarity Between K-9 and Journalists

So, what does these two have in common with a journalist and this is a police dog. Police dogs, they have got a training for 2 years and they work for 4 years and then they retire. They are not shot at age 6. If you are lucky you can get one. Lets say you are getting a used police dog and all you know is sit, come, lay down. You know 3 orders, but the dog knows 100. What your dog thinking of you?See? The journalist, he knows his trade and he know what you want, you want print my text and you don’t know the trade secrets of the journalist. He wants a story, he wants something new, he wants something fantastic and if your product you are having is not fantastic and is not new, don’t send a technical description and call it priorities.

Why Journalists Want Your Story

So, tons of PR that gets over the years, you made 200 tools, all by my company name and dash, I could have an 8 week seminar explaining all those little goodies. I call them goodies, the press mention someone is subscribing to the Berliner paper. I’m a subscriber, morning at 7, get to my door, I have the paper and the paper have all one big problem that membership, of the subscribers declined, because they can find the same thing on internet. So the papers must be interesting. Somebody keeps his subscription running. So whenever you give the journalist, the editor something funny, or something outstanding, he’s increasing his number of subscribers, or at least he’s preventing them from canceling the subscription.

Give Something Valuable for Free & Become Their Friend

This is a very true story. You are in the business normally of making money. You buy your beer, you pay your rent, your car, for a wife or husband. It’s all costly, right. And the world assumes you are a capitalist. And you felt like a capitalist. So, by giving something for free to the world, you become their friend. Once they are your friend, they will buy whatever you have if it fits to them.

You are Not Your Customer’s Enemy

What happens to your Google ranking through PR? Sure, the Google ranking goes up, when you are mentioned in the big papers. It’s one of the biggest keys your company, your name is mentioned in the big papers and they go into big papers if you have enough goodies the papers find worthwhile printing. It’s all about being impressed. You know this lion seems not to be hungry. The lion is not fighting or eating. Same thing happen with your customers. The customers should not assume you being your enemy, taking their money away. You must become a friend and it’s so easy today.

30 Empty Pages in the Morning

When I started my business, there was no Twitter, no nothing. All of my stories are written in this book. It’s the last I have. They’re not on sale, but you can have the PDF for free. Yeah, I’m having some business card here, send me an email and you get this 250 page, in German only. If you want, you can translate it, but it’s very to use google translator to translate jokes.Audience:Make a new joke then.Meinrad:Sorry?Audience:Make a double joke.Audience:New software! To make better joke.Meinrad:Ah, that’s good idea. You know, you make a huge database for accounting. Again, have nothing to do with my business. If you have a sausage, the dog will jump, right?

The press will jump for your story, because the press every morning, they believe the morgenpost consists of 30 empty pages and then 6 in the evening, they start printing. So what you put on these empty pages? That’s your chance to jump in “I have something you could print and it’s very, very good for your dear readers. But if you don’t, call them. Just, you know I love email. Press a button and send a thousand emails are there. It’s more effective to collect the phone and call them, whether it’s Chinese, or English or German or whatever, if you can talk to anyone in Berlin here, “I have a story for you” and that’s what I say. What you call those … In the bell, what’s name of this bell? I have some ammunition ready before the enemy appears. I always have some ammunition ready. Actually yesterday I got the paper. It’s called ‘Events Magazine’ and it only goes to event companies. How many event companies we have in Germany?Audience:10,000?Meinrad:20?Audience:10,000?Meinrad:Or even more.

PR = Patience

A 2 page article, I wrote half a year ago. So a PR does not work like a circular waiting machine. 5 euro, cigarette out. In PR, you talk to them, I talk to her 3 times, some emails and I forgot about … In a half year later, how do you call it…what’s the English? Audience:Invaluable.Meinrad:Invaluable article appeared.

South Germans Are Smarter Than North Germans and Here is Why

I will tell you why this article appeared. Who remembered this guy?Audience: Minister.Meinrad:Yes. He was. Minister President of Bavaria and he was on the election, how do you call it? Action party. He said “People from South of Germany are much smarter than those of North Germany.” Can this be true? Beside of being true you know? He said “People in Bavaria are much smarter than those in Hamburg or Berlin.” I said “Well, how can we?” In the press, in the paper, everybody was fighting him, because of this. Again, there’s a huge phase through the society, because somebody said something. I said “Wait a minute. I have a solution.” The oranges and the how do you call it? Lemons, they coming from Italy, from Sicily, over the Alps on the trucks. And the first territory in Germany, is Bavaria and they are put in other, smaller trucks. So the South Germans, the Bavarians, they get the oranges and lemons earlier than those people in Berlin, so they have a higher, vitamin C concentration, which is decreasing over the days. So I made a really nice PR story: that’s why Bavarians are smarter due to fresher oranges and lemonades.

And actually I did this for a friend of mine and the friend of mine, he is importing oranges and lemons from Sicily and he said “I never get PR.” I bet it’s very difficult, because you have 400 competitors, doing just the same as you, why should they promote you? This day, he invited to the radio station on this website, you can have videos and from this idea, a whole company started. You can see the pictures. After we had this nice PR, he invited me to Sicily to visit his plantations and he said “We don’t get any Italian workers anymore for picking oranges. We have to hire people from Tunisia. They’re coming on the boat for 2 weeks and then go back to Africa.” That same thing happened in Germany. Germans, they don’t like to pick for Asparagus, they have people from Romania, from Poland or whatever, so I invented a system, it’s called: working vacation. From morning, from 8 to 12 you pick oranges, in the afternoon you go to the beach…Audience:How many people went?Meinrad:To there? The company’s still running. We have our pen, paying tourists, 50 people a year. By plane to…and then they all set up.

Enthusiasm, Not Product Description; Intimidating Competitors & Not Being Late

So, what my idea was, go into the heart of the user and the heart of the user is his…

If he opens the … He see the morning, he sees all house, with most used files and if your company is there, you are in the heart and mind of the company. So, with influence by giving, a press release must be enthusiasm, never a product description, lends high wave color quality. It’s not a press release, this is a product sheet. It’s a mindset you have and developed over the years. At the end of each press release, it said: free for your dear users, you may download this and that. PR will intimidate your competitors. I have so often so many cases, in the newspaper, or magazine, or a pc magazine, reported that they are the certified of light and you can be first to sense this. And the second guy says “Print about me too!” They say “no, this story is over”, you know? Sometimes you must be first. You can intimidate your customers by being the first in your own, running PR. You can actually block the competitors. Who knows him? You see? This guy visited me and had a 2 page article, telling bullshit and lies first, but they need something to write about. Never seen a magazine with 2 empty pages on it. Never.

So you see? You can measure the quality of your PR only by the number of downloads caused, because 11% of PR result in the last slide…for your readers. You have to give, if a journalist will be getting 100s of press releases a day. 99% delete, delete, delete, deleting. But if one says “I have something special for your readers and the paper, or the website getting more popular.” Because they are offering something. A tool, whatever. You are much in advance to your competitors.That’s the king of PR you can do, is talk to the news agencies, you know? Associated press. DPR…and if you talk to them, to the multipliers, you get 100 copies a day. I was talking to the DPR, the German press agency where they often if they printed an article, it was printed from Hamburg to Bavaria. 150 times, one day. So even in Korea. We didn’t get any customers from Korea, but it looks good on your website, you know? You are international company. Ah ja, but you got on Japanese around Dusseldorf, you have big Japanese community, because lot of customers come here.

An Ugly Cat & Self-Esteem; Go to the Market!

What does the most ugly cat in the world have? Because the cat can’t see herself, right? The most ugly cat have self-esteem. What we think “It’s my website, it’s my product, it’s not really nice, I can’t go on the market.” Go on the market. Go on the market if it’s half finished.Writing letters to the editors. Who’s reading a newspaper daily? Zero, I thought so. But you know, hundreds of thousands still do and those who do and those guys have any money, they need to run to the office in the morning, they come to the office at 11, read the paper in the morning and we need to target those people, write letters to the editors and you find reason enough today to write.

Open Ear & Berlin Unification

Who’s reading German here? Read at least the first article … This was after fall of the wall and we thought of trouble, we see East Germany Communist. The Communism system. Ah ja, Communist system. After fall of the wall, I open a office exactly at the…offices, just across the street and we sent letters to the customers: finally, good news from… So only for today. Politics is a great source for, ja. Whatever you are making, you are changing society in one way or the other. If you are in healthcare, or whatever you are, you are changing society with your work. So you have a right to tell idea. See this NeuwesDeutschland? Who remember the Communist paper? Ja, they are still active. I put, I had in these days I said “We changed our name from SAD to PDS.” And I added there. “Paper shredding, where you need, now.” And they published it too. Idiots. And next to it, paper shredding.Is this an irony, you know? You have to have an open ear for irony. Irony and satire is great guarantee to get you in the papers.

How Meinrad, a political nobody from Bavaria, got into Washington Times

In the papers, here again, Washington Times. How to get me, a political nobody into the Washington Times? The airplane is landing, direct a taxi, taxi driver takes me to the Washington Times, up the stairs, where is the editor? Here editor, I have a story to tell you. Don’t be afraid, no appointment, no nothing. They don’t kick you out. Show you are confident and tell them a story and decorate the story. Where is it? Doing such good work to the world. Who remembers this? On the left and right of me. They are no longer among us, but I am still and I got their honorary medal of Camera for my PR, because they didn’t know it’s PR.Meinrad: How old are you, would you be in the year 1990.Audience: I was 18.Meinrad: So you didn’t quite get it, what was going on after fall of the wall. The Communist economic system would not survive in the Capitalist world. Everyone was sure about that and I said “We must help the people are going to be unemployed.” And I sat down, and I phoned an association. Association for helping economic growth in East Germany. I invited East German mayors to become member of this club. Within 4 weeks I had 22 members from Galen to…and they be member of this club and I’d be the only non-official member of this club and this club was doing not PR for those citizen communities. What does this have to do with my paper shredding? Nothing. But information was on my website. See? Be the dancing bear, pull the people onto your business. So, Whatever you do, tell the press.We hired people in China to write hand-written letters. Students in China learning German. They wrote 8000 letters by hand to our potential customers.

Don’t Be Quite…Just Tell Everyone

Instead of doing it only and waiting what happened, tell the press to have additional effect. In Germany, we have a saying: if you are bowling, what it’s called bowling alley? Everybody can count what are you doing. Right? If you are in business, don’t hide, tell everyone you are here, because they will find out anyway, so better if you tell first. Most students can’t tell the difference between fake content and real news necessarily. If you’re reading the internet, Facebook or Twitter, what’s real, or what’s fake news, better fake news than no news. So, get your company into the press. Even in the type online. Most respected paper…did the Beta erasement program Helmut Kohl. In Austrian paper, also we had an anti-virus spray in 1999, it became popular there are viruses on the PCs and nobody knew a little bottle. Unfortunately can’t see, a little bottle, like a BO spray and put a label on ‘Anti-virus spray’. 9 euro, 90. But the press reported about it, because you can’t be stupid enough.

Deutschmark -> Euro; Find Your Customer Before They Find You; Give

Big papers column, journalists are looking around. What’s happening in Germany? Can we invite this guy for an interview? It’s a software in the year 2001, the Deutschmark changed to Euro and we made a tool which was running from your hard drive and changing your documents from Deutschmark to Euro. The golden rule: find your customer before the customer finds you. When a good customer googles, he finds your competitor as well. Though, if the customer knows you long time in advance and build up a constant relationship, even if he is not buying, only knowing about you, you have a relationship already. PR is about building trust. One day, somebody called a building company and said “We have 30,000 free folders, used folders. We’d like to throw them away and I said “Don’t throw them away, we get them from you, I call the university and we parked our truck in front of the university and 4 Saturdays, the students came and each one got 10 to 20 used, free folders and the press reported on us. It’s invaluable, what we have here. Ah, this was my greatest TV appearance. A friend of mine invented a device to clean your blood and he said “I never get PR.” It’s a very complicated device, 15 pounds per unit and I managed it, to get 4 minutes Sunday evening into TV, free. 6 million viewers, but this is a story I need half an hour to tell about this was done, even the doctors, they can see the reportings on this. Everybody was reporting on the…go to the website.

Doing PR the Right Way Is Like Being a Cuckoo Bird

Here again, let others do the PR for you. You know how the Cuckoo bird, how do they reproduce? They’re laying eggs into others nests, right? That’s true PR.

Mayor PR

Anyone of you living in a small before moving to Berlin? In small towns, you have trucks coming around every 4 weeks, collecting chemicals, oil, styrofoam, whatever. How you call it? It’s all gone and I said, we make every 4 weeks, a free paper shredding, how does it sound? I’m making money through paper shredding, but I’m offering free paper shredding. Our customers normally are companies, but we got many calls from private individuals. “I have 3, 5 folders. Can’t you come?”. I’m “Madam, I can’t come. 500,000 euro modern truck going to you because of 5 folders, I have to charge 1000 euro.” I called up the mayors of major towns and said “We are coming on Saturday morning from 10 to 12. We park in the front of your mayor’s office and you, mayor can inform your people of your town they can bring 10, 5 folders.” So the mayor was doing the PR for me. Think about that. How could your business, whatever you have, could be used for PR purposes? Helping other people.

Make the Editor Laugh

Ah ja, in the computer, he says “If any key to continue … So we can debate on any key.” And sent this any key at least to 200 editors. They start laughing. If they are laughing, they write about you. An any key, you know? CE net, most respected paper. Be brave, be the first to cross the bridge. Don’t be shy. Any key, mayor, Handelsblad, most respected paper in Germany, you know? We had a software to measure the emotional intelligence. Focus, they call me and they said “Can we have the software for our website?” I said “Well, 5000 euro. Okay.” Don’t be shy, if somebody asks something from you, tell a price. What’s 5000 euro for Focus? Nothing.

Pure Nonsense Works

Ah, business magazine. Whenever you go Germany, we have 7000 specialized magazines. Who knows there is even magazine going only to event managers? There is a database available, I can show the name. You have about 7000 papers very specialized. The catholic hairdresser, or whatever. Very specialized. Ah, this is a very tiny spoon. I said “I wish I have a air condition in my office.” Okay, why not make air condition into your computer? Anything can be plugged into USB, right? Why not air condition? Its not working on 300 watts a minute, 3000 watts, but at least made a nice screen with a fan on and with the key 123, you could change the speed without all of the loudspeaker we have the wind noise. Pure, pure nonsense. 45,000 downloads. I called. Who knows of the magazine CT? CT magazine? I called them with the plug “I have to tell you something.” And he was laughing after I told him the story and I said “Would your readers laugh too?” “Well, I put it into my new setup today!”

Knock Their Door (They Will Never Knock Yours)

You have to take action, not wait somebody come to you, no, you go. You knock at their door. DCT, I-business, CT software we can leave for free. Free goodies generate big ideas. Software. We had a little device you could put in, you know? Remember those data storage disks? Who knows this disk? Any of you? These little discs? How do you destroy them, what is on here? Well, we have a little device, with a little magnet in there, a really strong magnet. You put it in for a half a second and everything was erased. I said to myself “What name should this device have?” Well, lets call it Disk-net and it appeared in the computer bay, it appeared in the next week with a letter from a lawyer. We are, how do you call it? Audience:Infringing.Meinrad:Yeah, infringing Sony Corporation copyright, because they Disk-net for a music device, which I didn’t know and this lawyer was asking for 5000 euro penalty because we infringed Sony copyright. I called him up. “Don’t run to your lawyer! Call them up.” I’m “Sir. We are living midst Bavaria in the forest. We didn’t even know a Sony Corporation exists.” And with him, half an hour, nice talking. He reduced the price from 5000 to 1500. We paid the 1500 and he was gone. But, the PR follows. I made a PR, 40 man, Germany fighting 400,000 men, Sony Corporation.

Getting Sued PR

Whatever you do, tell your price. Who remembers the Moorhuhn game? This guy, this company, they’re no longer existing, but I am. They sued us because we used this little bird, because we invited people to the first Moorhuhn party. I bought the chicken in Scotland to invite journalists for a roasted chicken, you know just to have fun and we are their logo, but it was a PR. Who know buttermilk? Our programmers, my office, it’s 2 guys. They love to drink buttermilk. I put on the website: “software, powered by buttermilk” and this company sued us for using their company logo, instead of being happy about the joke, right? But it was PR again. Oktoberfest, 175, here it says 175 years after my 3rd beer, I was walking home and I thought 175 years I went home and my enthusiasm, night at 12 o’clock, wrote an article.Company 5 years in business and they printed it. See? 5 years.

Final Lesson

You are of valuable institution person, because you are creating something, when compared to many millions doing nothing. You are very special people in this industry. So, tell the world you are here!