Biz Tripping Part 2: How to Get Invited as the Special Guests

How do you get invited to be the special VIP guests rather than just calling to schedule a "tour" like everyone else?

There are some places where you might actually have an "inside contact" - someone that can introduce you to someone, who knows the person who handles PR. If you have one of those contacts, then by all means contact them and get the ball rolling! If you don't, you might consider doing two of the things I have done. The first thing I did was go to HARO aka http://helpareporter.com/ and submitted a query.

Here's how I filled out the Query form (exactly as show on HARO)

Sarah

Cook

Founder/Owner

Raising CEO Kids

Support@RaisingCEOKids.com

Support@RaisingCEOKids.com

password (optional - choose one of your own)

Query Details Media Outlet: http://RaisingCEOKids.com

Summary: Biz Trip for Kids on the East Coast - Interviewing Biz Executives & Entrepreneurs

Query: We are looking for companies and entrepreneurs that would be willing to allow three young entrepreneurs to come and tour their company as well as interview the CEO or executive team to learn more about business and entrepreneurship. They are ages 13, 11 and 6. We will be blogging about our trip and will share our experiences on social media as well as our website.

Due Date: The sooner you put the deadline the more quickly it will go out via HARO. You will also want to check the box marked urgent if it truly is urgent. HARO may then include it in their Urgent HARO tweets (URGHARO).

Targeting: Selecting categories for your query allows people to know who you are looking to talk to. I used business and finances for my primary category and then used lifestyle and fitness for the secondary category, but I could just as easily have used travel as it was a "business trip" query.

I did not include a State as I was looking for responses from the entire east coast. The replies started coming in right away and we ended up having a jam-packed two-week trip to the east coast! Another idea that I have used is to connect with PR representatives on Twitter.  They are often the ones that start the planning as well as do the implementation for trips like this. You can find PR contacts on Twitter using a free service called http://followerwonk.com

Once you are logged into Twitter you can search any active bios on Twitter using the bio search. I typed in "PR Hershey" and found all of the PR people that handle different aspects of Hershey Park, the manufacturing plant, tours, blogging relations and more. I did the same thing for "PR LEGOLAND" and I got exactly who I needed to talk to!

Where would you like to take your kids on a Biz Trip?  Who do you think you need to talk to?

Either use HARO or a PR search on Twitter and get your trip planned today!

One final note: Be respectful of the time and money these companies are putting to host your family and be sure that you give them plenty of good feedback and media attention by writing the blog posts you promised, putting up the video and audio interviews, and ALWAYS be sure to send hand-written "Thank You" cards signed by you as well as each of your kids!