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Lisa,
So you want to become a Consumer Advocate.
People from all walks of life contact me that want to
become a Consumer Advocate. Some tell me that they've helped
family and friends with their problems and have been told they
could be very successful as a Consumer Advocate. Their
question is how do they do it?
Consumer Advocates are made, not born. You just don't wake
up one morning and decide I'm going to be a consumer advocate.
It takes dedication and a lot of hard work.
A large percentage of people that call themselves Consumer
Advocates on radio, television and newspapers are far from
being real Consumer Advocates.
How do they become Consumer Advocates in newspapers? They
are generally a regular general assignment reporter whose
editor assigns them to write columns and answer questions for
consumers. The problem with this is they lack the knowledge
and expertise to cover a broad range of subjects, which leads
to misleading and/or inaccurate information. The same holds
true for television. I have met TV and radio personalities
that are called Consumer Advocates. Again, the only
credentials that they have are that their assignment editor
decides that they want a piece to run on the daily news show.
They do accomplish some good; however, most of their stories
are more comic relief to show how tough the reporter is than
real consumer information. If these alleged Advocates did not
have a research department, producer, writers, etc. a good
deal of them would have trouble returning the wrong size shirt
to a department store.
A true Consumer Advocate advocates on behalf of issues that
they have knowledge and expertise in. This knowledge and
expertise does not happen overnight.
I happen to advocate on behalf of consumers and consumer
issues. What I do took many years of reading consumer laws,
studying consumer issues and working for a law firm doing
investigations on both criminal and consumer related legal
issues and getting as much knowledge as I could. Knowledge is
the key. Let's suppose that you wanted to advocate for cancer
patients. You would have to become somewhat of an expert on
all issues that the cancer patient could encounter, and/or be
concerned about. The same would hold true if you were
advocating for the handicapped or any other group and that's
just the beginning.
Being an advocate requires continually educating yourself
on a daily basis to stay current with everything related to
the group you're advocating for. I myself read up to six
newspapers a day and read dozens of press releases from
government agencies relating to consumer issues plus much
more.
Once you feel that you have enough knowledge and expertise
to advocate for a specific cause you now have to learn
self-promotion by convincing newspaper and magazine editors to
do stories on you. The same holds true for radio and
television.
There's a great deal more involved, to which I will devote
a chapter in my book.
I will however give you a list of questions to ask yourself
before making a decision to become a Consumer Advocate.
Do I have extensive knowledge at/or near an expert level on
the subject I want to advocate?
Do I have the time and financial resources to devote to
advocating for one to three years and make little or no money?
Ask yourself how you would handle being on live television
and/or radio?
Can I speak before large groups of people and answer their
questions?
Do I have exceptional telephone skills to be able to talk
to corporate executives and public relations firms?
Do I have the ability to write so that the average reader
can understand what I have written?
Can I sell? Yes, selling is very important; you have to be
able to not only sell yourself but your ideas as well.
Do I have a strong knowledge of searching for information?
Do I have an advanced knowledge of computers and word
processing programs?
The above is just the beginning. There's a lot more.
Oh, one more thing-luck and lots of it!
Tim
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