March Newsstand Issue of Fortune Magazine – Catherine Hooper
Did you happen to read the March 19th, newsstand issue of Fortune magazine?? Fortune always has great articles. I really enjoy the magazine. One of my hobbies is small business and they seem to have a steady dose of small business type articles (Is it me or are they morphing into a Entrepreneur type magazine?). Anyway, there are plenty of good articles in the March including an article on Facebook. But the “featured story” that caught my attention was the story on Catherine Hooper entitled “Stand By Your Madoff.” Ms. Hooper is the woman who moved in with Bernie Madoff’s son, Andrew, just days before Bernie was arrested for his ponzi scheme.
I have nothing bad to say about Catherine Hooper or Andrew Madoff. I believe Andrew was caught in something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I also believe its completely possible that he didn’t know anything about what was going on with his father. I only say “completely possible” because I haven’t followed the story close enough and cannot get inside the brain of Andrew Madoff. At this point, maybe only he knows for sure. Until he is proven guilty, we do live in a society where you are presumed innocent until proven guilty…right?? I’m not even sure he’s been accused of anything.
Opinions aside, more than anything else, I’d love to know how a small business of close to $500,000 in annual revenue gets a featured story in Fortune magazine for crying out loud. The story mentions a business her and Andrew Madoff have started. It involves disaster preparedness products and services. Do you know how many businesses would KILL to get this kind of FREE publicity?! Yes I realize the press is trying to use the Madoff name to lure people to read the magazine. Yes, I realize the people at Fortune know that using a title like “Stand By Your Madoff” is intended to bring all those people in who might think it’s more connected to Bernie Madoff that it actually is. Either way, it’s a ton of free pub.
All that being said, do we really believe it’s fair for a company of less than $500,000 to be taking up the space of such prime reader real estate? While this was a complete and mutually driven publicity sucking exercise on both sides (Fortune used the Madoff name for eyeballs and Catherine Hooper used Fortune for free publicity), It still leaves me wondering what the small business guy with sales of under $500,000 (I think there are like 12,000,000 of these) has to do to get noticed. Do small businesses have to be tied to something sensational to get publicity? If you’re Catherine Hooper, and fortune calls you to do a story, what do you do? Is that what happened? Did Catherine know someone at Fortune who got her the opening? Did Catherine approach Fortune? I will say I hope Catherine did not approach Fortune. If she did, I hope it wasn’t with the hope of the kind of story that was actually printed.
I’m Jealous!
At the end of the day, it’s more to do with jealousy than anything else. I ‘m jealous! There, I said it. I’m jealous that Catherine Hooper gets her free pub and all us small business owners get to be jealous.
Certainly Catherine Hooper did little to deserve the stress she’s had to endure over the last several years. This isn’t about her (unless she framed the story with fortune purposefully which I hope and don’t believe she did) as much as it is about the never ending fight for a morsel of exposure for all of us business owners who struggle to get noticed.
How do the rest of us get noticed? Good question. Ask Catherine Hooper (@goblackumbrella) since now I’ve given her BobandScott.com publicity!
March 21st, 2012 at 6:34 am
Dear Bob and Scott:
First, let me say: thank you for the free publicity. It’s a great post and your opinions are far more thoughtful than most of the news media. But I’m not writing exclusively to thank you – I’m also writing to answer some of your questions and to make you feel a little bit better.
The story came about after Pattie Sellers, a very distinguished writer at Fortune, saw me and Andrew on 60 Minutes. Pattie specializing in writing about businesswomen, and runs Fortune’s Most Powerful Women franchise. She didn’t have much interest in the Madoff story, but she is interested in how people, especially women, run businesses under extraordinary circumstances. Pattie emailed me directly to see if I would talk to her. The free advice a friend’s PR agent was not to work with Fortune, as it would be “just another Madoff story.”
Despite the advice, I met Pattie and we had an instant connection. Over the course of the next few months, she had the opportunity to visit me at my office and home and shadow my daily movements. You are totally right to notice that the title of the article is intended to bring in people who think it’s about Bernie Madoff. In working with Pattie, her focus was always on me and Black Umbrella. (If it had been otherwise, I wouldn’t have worked with her.) But, as you know, Pattie has an editor and magazines need to make money – hence the Madoff headline.
So why did she chose to write about a very small business? For one thing, I started not only a new business, but also an entirely new industry, saddled with all of the baggage that comes from Andrew’s last name. That I have any clients at all is a victory. For another thing, Black Umbrella is on track to more than double last year’s revenue this year, and Pattie was able to learn (on background) something about the nature of our private and corporate clients. I’m grateful to have them, and they are the same companies and individuals that Fortune likes to write about – minus a smarmy headline.
All that aside, I want to let you know the real value of publicity like this. It’s not what you expect. I have been profiled on the cover of the Metro section and nationally in the New York Times (resulting in a dozen clients over the course of the next four months), been profiled in People, Redbook, Marie Claire, (less than a dozen clients), and provided expert commentary on preparedness to CBS Moneywatch and Today.com (less than a dozen clients). Most of my business still comes from word of mouth, networking, and hustle. The Fortune article has been brought some new corporate clients my way, and I’m incredibly grateful. But please don’t think that if Fortune writes about you, your struggle is over. It’s never that easy, though as much as we both wish it was.
Your blog is very, very funny and opinionated and I will certainly continue to follow it. And take some comfort in knowing that when Fortune writes about you, it will be with YOUR name in the title of the article. Best in everything you do and feel free to write me back at catherine@blackumbrella.com.
March 23rd, 2012 at 7:28 am
Catherine,
I appreciate the compliment about our blog and although you didn’t have to respond, I’m glad you did. This is the kind of honest back and forth that is great for small business and the kind of insight that small businesses crave. There should be a way where a blog/website can be objective and those affected by the article can give mature and professional feedback. Very cool.
Sounds like you’re getting some free publicity. Sounds like you’re also fighting for a bunch of it…just like the rest of us!
Good luck with BlackUmbrella.com and we probably have more in common that you will ever know.