Anyway, Stone Cold Steve Austin (one of famous wrestlers with a notoriously bad temper) was chewing someone out. Suddenly Steve stopped in mid-sentence and said "Look at me when I'm talking to you". The person looked at him, then after another minute looked away. Steve repeated his words again, "Look at me when I'm talking to you!". This happened several times.

This little drama got me to thinking, what is it about eyes? When you are talking to someone where should you be looking? Does where you put your eyes have anything to do with advancement in your career?

It has been said that "eyes are mirror to soul", and in my experience this has proven to be true time and time again. I have gotten into habit of looking people directly in their eyes when I speak to them and as I am listening to what they have to say.

Why? Because I can tell more about a person from they way he handles his eyeballs than you can imagine.

Someone who can look me in eye as I speak to them is very sure of himself (note we are not talking about a hostile stare - just someone who can look at me as I speak to them). Combine this with a strong handshake and a favorable demeanor and you have a person who will be very good for any team. These people tend to be leaders and very capable people. They take direction well because, since they are paying attention to you, they understand what's needed to get job done.

Don't get me wrong here. We are not talking about a staring contest. What I am saying is someone who can look me in eye while I speak is almost certainly listening to what I have to say. He is not afraid of me or my position, which is excellent in a team member. I am kind of manager who does not like nor want "yes men" (or women) - I have found them to be useless parasites which should be ejected at earliest opportunity.

Thus, when I meet someone, I am most impressed when they have a firm handshake and can look at me directly. This implies strength of character and a strong will. These kinds of people are rare and they are to be treasured and nurtured when they are found.

In my PR career, I have launched campaigns that needed blast of just a few weeks of publicity and I have also maintained lengthy campaigns that generated media exposure for years. From my professional experience, I can tell you that a single distribution of a media release is rarely effective. Most times, editors and reporters are working on multiple stories at once and need some time to consider your pitch. Although your release may indeed be interesting and newsworthy, editor may simply not have space to use your pitch at that point in media outlet's editorial calendar. So make sure he/she sees it again when that editorial calendar opens up a few weeks down line. Keep in mind also that because media outlets receive so many media releases and story pitches these days, it can sometimes take them weeks before they actually get to something you may have sent their way. That's why it's important to conduct extensive media follow-ups over course of several months to ensure media reception, proper media digestion and hopefully media acceptance of your release or pitch.

I tell my clients, "No PR agency or publicist in world can FORCE media to use their releases, but they CAN make sure that by end of campaign, media has seen or heard about your message in one form or another - which will lead to solid media coverage."

One of keys to determining length of a successful campaign is knowing when you have fired all your publicity bullets; when it's time to re-pack chambers with new ammo; or when you should move onto other marketing targets. Over past several years, here's how campaign lengths have broken down for my clients:

1-2 month campaigns : 9% 3-6 month campaigns: 46% 6-9 month campaigns: 29% 9+ month campaigns: 16%