The last few years haven’t done wonders for the reputation of the Coatesville Area School District, where headlines over school fights went viral on social media, the former superintendent and athletic director were caught sending racist and sexist texts, and about 100 teachers have left. With hundreds of students abandoning the Chester County district for nearby charter schools, officials have turned to a strategy that’s more typically associated with McDonald’s or Oldsmobile.The Coatesville Area School …
Times Chronicle : Jenkintown-based business owner reflects on her success
When her paychecks kept bouncing while working as the director of communications at a firm on theMain Line, Leza Raffel, 46, decided to leave her job and take matters into her own hands. At 24 years old she started her own communications company — The Communications Solutions GroupInc., a Jenkintown-based full-service marketing and public relations company — and brought with her three clients from her former agency. “This was a business created out of necessity …
Firefighter Nation : Bucks Fire Chiefs & Firefighters Assoc. Launch Campaignto Increase Volunteer Firefighter Membership
Bucks County is a large and diverse region. It has people from all walks of life, everysocioeconomic class. But, across the board, from top to bottom, there’s one thing everymunicipality has in common: a shortage of volunteer firefighters. To address this challenge, the Bucks County Fire Chiefs and Firefighters Association has recently launched several new recruiting initiatives including a new website, www.bucksfire.org. “The need for volunteer firefighters in a countywide issue,” said Rob Kay, Co-Chair …
Philadelphia Business Journal : Crisis situations a specialty for Jenkintown PR company
JENKINTOWN — Like a lot of businesses, Communications Solutions Group came out of a bad period in the economy — with one larger company foundering, and employees leaving to start new ones. In this case, Leza Raffel started Communications Solutions in 1992, when it was clear the advertising agency where she was working might not weather the early-1990s recession. “The first sign was the paychecks could bounce. Then they had a state-ofthe- company meeting. They …
Crisis Communication Strategies: Plan for the Worst to Achieve Your Best
Business owners often devote considerable time and resources to planning for success, but most don’t even want to think about dealing with a crisis. Yet how you handle a crisis situation, whether it’s your fault or not, can mean the difference between survival and ruin for your business. Careful planning before a crisis is upon you is the key to making sure you have what it takes to weather the situation, so you come back …
Top Ten Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
By Leza Raffel It should come as no surprise that one of the best way to attract new customers and promote new services to current customers is with a great marketing campaign. Before you jump right in, however, it’s important to remember some ground rules that will help ensure your campaign is successful. There are many good business marketing methods, but beware: there are also countless ways to spend money without getting results. If you …
Is Your Marketing Research Program Telling Lies?
Get the Feedback You Need Before Taking Action By Leza Raffel How do you assess your company’s effectiveness or determine what’s working and what’s not when it comes to client service, sales or marketing? The answer seems easy: You ask. But how do you ask? What are the right questions? Will the answers enable you to extract important information and make substantive changes or simply confirm errant assumptions? Businesses that survive and thrive in the …