Upcoming AFP web, marketing classes
Augusta Free Press will offer two classes in its Building the Machine 101 web-marketing series this week.
On Wednesday, the topic will be Setting Up a Business Facebook Page 101. The 8:30-9:30 a.m. class goes into the basics of setting up a Facebook page for businesses and nonprofits. Continue reading “Upcoming AFP web, marketing classes” »
AFP sponsors 2012 Business Showcase
Augusta Free Press LLC is a major sponsor of the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce 2012 Business Showcase.
The Showcase will be held at the Best Western Inn & Suites Conference Center in Waynesboro on Thursday.
The event is free and open to the public from 1-5 p.m. Continue reading “AFP sponsors 2012 Business Showcase” »
Debut: AFP Web TV
Augusta Free Press debuts AFP Web TV with a segment featuring owners Chris and Crystal Graham talking about the 10-year anniversary of AFP, details on the upcoming Building the Machine 101 classes being offered by AFP Business and the premieres of several new AFP web TV commercials.
AFP produces TV spot for 2012 Business Showcase
Augusta Free Press produced the TV commercial spot for the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce 2012 Business Showcase.
The spot will air on WHSV-TV3 and Comcast. The 2012 Business Showcase is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 9, from 1-5 p.m. at the Best Western Waynesboro Inn & Suites Conference Center. Continue reading “AFP produces TV spot for 2012 Business Showcase” »
Chris Graham: This song is about you
“I hate hearing myself talk.” “I don’t like to talk about myself.” “I don’t want people thinking I’m too vain.”
Got it. Just because you own your own small business, you don’t want people thinking that you think the world revolves around you.
Or maybe you’re just, well, shy.
Whatever it is, you need to get over it.
Me personally, I’m painfully shy. (Those who know me but don’t know this about me can stop snickering … eventually.)
And when I say painfully shy, I mean that I make my wife call in pizza orders and meet the driver at the door – yeah, that kind of shy.
I overcome being shy in a very public job by tricking myself into doing what I need to do to be successful.
1. I hate hearing myself talk. My voice is too nasal for my liking when I hear it on a recording. I also sound a lot more Southern than I think I do in the course of a normal conversation. So yeah, I hate the sound of my voice, too. Funny thing – nobody likes hearing their own voice played back to them. That’s normal.
2. I don’t like to talk about myself. Great, but if I don’t talk about myself in a business context, why should I expect anybody else to talk about me?
3. I don’t want people thinking I’m too vain. You probably think this song is about you, right? I love that song. (It’s not about me.) Talking about yourself, touting your skills, selling your business to potential customers and clients, is not vanity. Consider it a necessary evil.
It’s not enough to be good, damn good, the best at what you do. If you believe in yourself, your confidence will show through in conversations with people, in your business website and in your direct-mail, newspaper, radio and TV marketing.
One other way that I trick myself into being able to do this is by convincing myself that I need to play the role of Confident Chris. For years, Confident Chris was the one able to interview U.S. senators and governors and Division I college coaches when the other Chris had a hard time buying stamps at the post office.
It’s Confident Chris telling you now that if you’re not comfortable selling yourself to the world, nobody else will.
The other Chris says a little more quietly that if I can do, most certainly you can.
Chris Graham is the president of Augusta Free Press LLC, a full-service web-design, marketing and public-relations firm based in Waynesboro, Va. He is the editor of AugustaFreePress.com, The New Dominion Magazine and a former radio and television host. More on Augusta Free Press LLC at www.AFPBusiness.com.
Still downtown: AFP moves into new Main Street office
Augusta Free Press LLC has moved a block down Waynesboro’s Main Street. AFP has opened a new office at 421 W. Main St., Suite D, in The Edmunds Building in Downtown Waynesboro.
AFP will be sharing offices with one of its corporate clients, Awesome Wrestling Entertainment, which stages live-event professional wrestling shows at venues across the country.
“The move will allow us to improve our communications with a top client while also maintaining for us a presence in Waynesboro, which was important to us,” AFP principal Chris Graham said.
Augusta Free Press LLC was founded in 2002 in Waynesboro and has maintained a Waynesboro presence since its founding.
The company offers services in website and graphic design, marketing and communications strategy and book publishing.
AFP has a client list of more than 100 companies. In addition to Awesome Wrestling Entertainment, Augusta Free Press provides web, marketing and PR services to The Mathers Team, a group of construction, excavating and industrial-services companies based in Waynesboro; the Valley Program for Aging Services, which provides senior services including the daily operation of senior centers in a five-county region in Western Virginia; the Waynesboro YMCA, which offers fitness, childcare and aquatics to Waynesboro and Augusta County; and the Gateway Theatre, the home of entertainment programming for the Wayne Theatre Alliance.
More information about Augusta Free Press LLC is available online at www.AFPBusiness.com.
AFP Business News
Augusta Free Press LLC joins H-R Chamber
Augusta Free Press LLC has joined as a new member of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce.
The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1917, works to influence public policy and partners with groups in tourism, the arts, economic development, workforce, technology, downtown revitalization, higher education and law enforcement on behalf of the local business community.
Augusta Free Press LLC, founded in 2002, offers a wide range of media services including web and graphic design, social-media implementation and management, and marketing and public-relations strategy services to clients in the Shenandoah Valley, Central Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Graham to co-star in murder mystery
AugustaFreePress.com editor Chris Graham will be among the suspects in a Murder Mystery Dinner benefitting the Waynesboro Senior Center on Saturday, April 2.
Tickets for the 6 p.m. event – featuring a spaghetti dinner – are $15 and can be purchased at the Waynesboro Senior Center, 325 Pine Ave., Waynesboro, by calling 540.942.1838 or by e-mailing Senior Center director Janice Gentry at janice@vpas.info.
Kathy Johnson of Murder is a Game will serve as the host and inspector for the murder mystery.
The list of suspects also includes Gentry representing the Senior Center, former Waynesboro Disability Services Board chair Charlie Downs, News Virginian features editor Gina Farthing and Augusta County Board of Supervisors member Nancy Sorrells.
AFP Business News
AFP is new WDDI Business Patron
Augusta Free Press LLC has signed on as a new Downtown Business Patron of Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc.
WDDI, founded in 2001, is an accredited member of the National Main Street Program and Virginia Main Street Program.
The organization follows the Main Street Four Point Approach towards revitalizing Downtown Waynesboro.
More information about WDDI is available online.
AFP sponsors Taste of the Town
Augusta Free Press LLC is a Table Sponsor at next week’s Taste of the Town event being put on by Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc.
The 12th annual Taste of the Town is set for Tuesday, March 22, from 5-8 p.m. at the Waynesboro Country Club. The event features 11 local professional chefs.
Tickets: $50 VIP, $35 Couple, $20 Single, $10 age 13-17. Tickets available at the WDDI office, 301 W. Main St. and from all participating chefs.
More information about Taste of the Town is available online.
AFP is major sponsor for Fly Fishing Festival
Augusta Free Press LLC is a major sponsor of this year’s Virginia Fly FIshing Festival in Waynesboro.
The 11th annual Festival is set for April 16-17 on the banks of the South River in Downtown Waynesboro.
The Virginia Fly Fishing Festival is the largest outdoor fly fishing event in the country that offers on-stream instruction. Only here can you learn all the latest techniques from the experts and then walk right over to the river and try them for yourself.
More information about the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival is available online.
AFP backs YMCA basketball team
Well, we didn’t win the championship, but … the Augusta Free Press-sponsored team in the Waynesboro YMCA Junior Division did OK for itself.
Augusta Free Press LLC stepped up twice to get the Blue team on the court in 2011. The business paid for the shirts and also provided the coach, AFP owner and AugustaFreePress.com and New Dominion Magazine editor Chris Graham.
Graham had been on an extended sabbatical from youth-basketball coaching but offered to take on a team after learning that increased participation in Y basketball this year had led to a shortage of coaches to go around.
Employing a triangle offense and a ball-pressure defense, the Blue team won the regular-season championship with a 6-1-1 record. The Blues fell short in the postseason, losing both of their games.
“A wonderful experience,” Graham said of the season on the hardwood. “The Y plays such a positive role in the lives of the young men and young women who grow up on the court upstairs. I’m honored to have been able to play a small role in what they’ve been doing year in and year out for decades to have a positive influence on this community.”
AFP to offer marketing, PR class through PVCC, Artisans Center
Augusta Free Press is offering a class on marketing and PR through Piedmont Virginia Community College and the Artisans Center of Virginia.
The class – being offered on Thursday, March 31, and Tuesday, May 3, at The Stultz Center on the PVCC campus in Charlottesville – is geared to teaching techniques for self-promotion and marketing for small-business owners and artists.
The one-day, three-hour class will offer tips for simple and affordable ways to enhance your website as well as time-saving tips for extending your social media channels. Not comfortable boasting? Learn practical tips to help you toot your own horn without blowing it.
Instruction will cover how to position your PR online, write press releases that catch an editor’s eye and create printed materials for events that will draw your audience in.
By the end of the session you will have a sound foundation to begin putting your public-relations strategy into immediate use.
Chris Graham and Crystal Graham from Augusta Free Press LLC will serve as co-instructors for the class.
The class fee is $45 per person.
Register online at www.pvcc.edu/instructional_divisions/workforce_services/register.php.
