When Reno's Louis Navellier appears
as a guest host of CNBC's televised
"Squawk Box" on Oct. 16, viewers will
see the polished president and chief executive
officer of Navellier & Associates,
Inc. and Navellier
Management, Inc.,
talking about some
of his stock picks
and providing his
thoughts on the day's
economic events.
What they won't see is all the work
that Janice Rushing put into getting
him there.
Rushing, public relations director for
Navellier, spends much of each working
day keeping in touch with producers and
editors at most of the biggest business
media outfits in the nation.
She lets television producers know
when Navellier will be in New York or
other media centers and works with them
to get him onto business news programs
at CNBC, Fox or Bloomberg TV.
She schedules the two or three radio
interviews that Navellier undertakes each
week and encourages him to use spare
minutes in his day to talk with reporters
who are staring at a deadline.
Navellier gives those reporters the
insight he gathers as publisher of two
investment letters, manager of private
investment funds and head of the
Millennium group of mutual funds.
Rushing has worked for 13 years to
get to the enviable position where
reporters knock on her door to provide
exposure to Navellier and the family of
funds that bear his name.
In an interview last week, Rushing
said the key to her success has been the
ability to put herself in the shoes of
a reporter.
"They have deadlines. They need to
fill a space," she said.
When she came on board at Navellier
in 1989 she was one of the first
employees at the employee-owned company
Rushing spent days at the public
library, poring through business newspapers
and financial magazines.
She began compiling a list of media
contacts and made sure each reporter,
editor or producer started receiving one
of the newsletters produced by Navellier.
"You've got to have something,"
she said.
When reporters' interest was spurred
enough by the newsletter to bring an
inquiry, Rushing made sure she handled
their calls personally and got interviews
arranged quickly.
And from her first days on the
job, Rushing preached the gospel of
publicity.
"Press is almost as important as
client," she told Navellier and others in
the company. "If you had to pay for all
that press, it would cost a fortune.
Publicity and performance
proved a good
combination at
Navellier. The
company had $50
million under management
when Rushing came
on board in 1989; today, it oversees about
$5 billion.
But Rushing's work isn't over.
These days, she makes sure that
Navellier isn't over-exposed. Her rule of
thumb for national television appearances
is that her boss doesn't appear more
than once a week. (She is making a small
exception next month when his guest
host shot on CNBC will come within
five days of an appearance on Fox.)
She keeps up with the numerous comings
and goings in the media business,
making sure her thick book of contacts is
up to date.
And she persists in getting more
exposure for Navellier in publications
where he hopes to be seen.
By the way, this isn't all that Rushing
does all day. She also arranges more than
50 seminars and presentations a year for
Navellier across the country.
"I travel a lot," she said. "I love my job.
I get to meet an extraordinary number of
people."
Oh, and about the preparations for
"Squawk Box":
In the days before Navallier's appearance,
his staff will provide CNBC producers
with a list of about five stocks that
Navallier would like to discuss during the
program. In exchange, he'll be asked to
sign statements concerning his interest
ownership or otherwise in the stocks.
