The gypsy-like life of putting show booths together, meeting people, getting feedback, meeting one more Cuban in Middle Tennessee, is an exhausting thrill. In many ways, I wish we could do these fairs and festivals every weekend. They energize at the same time that they kick one in the behind.

Fortunately, there has been help on the home front. The Abuelitos, rock stars of the grandparenting world, are here to hold the fort, not to mention to videotape and cheer every move La Nena makes.

Two nights ago, she entertained us by dancing “ballet” after dinner, though I don’t think she’s ever seen ballet beyond the Angelina Ballerina cartoon. Her grandfather taped it all. She also got her grandmother to hula hoop and share her chocolate ice cream bars.

And, as is the trend when they are here, the “espanish” is on fire. Full on sentences in correct tenses. Makes me realize, yet again, just how simple language learning is when it’s just part of the air you breathe.

And, that brings me to this.

There’s an intensive language learning camp in Nashville this summer. They’re teaching five languages, including Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. They welcome folks from out of town and they welcome multi-generational family units to come and learn together. Visitors can stay at the awesome and beautiful and inexpensive Scarritt-Bennett Center. A few people I know are teaching and/or volunteering, so I am passing the word. The technique looks fun and brilliant.

Maria and I will be there. Breathing in deeply.

For the holidays of 2006, Los Pollitos partnered with two other businesses and pitched stories on bilingualism and bilingual goods to the media. A few bit. We’ve also joined hands with a couple of companies who sell Latin-themed goods and uploaded a press release to PR Web –hits, exposure, sales. It was through a Google search that led to a PR Web release that got one of the companies invited to insert goods into Latin Grammy gift bags. We at Los Pollitos got sales and public relations companies looking to represent us. (I do all my own PR. Thank goodness, for it isn’t cheap.)

If you google around PR Web, you’ll see what else we’ve done recently and with whom. I don’t want to write too much about it right now, but I will. It’s exciting stuff.

The cost is minimal. It costs as little as $80 to upload a press release to PR Web. (Now, you have to write a release, or pay someone to do it, which is around $300 to start.)

The benefit is unlimited though, as those releases stay up there forever and you can post them on your own web site and blog. Reporters and people in industries you target receive e-mailed copies. RSS feeds pick them up. My releases have gotten thousands of reads.

For three years, I’ve been part of a group called Mamamade. It started in my mom’s group when several of us were making things and starting businesses and decided to group together to sell to each other and our friends and family. We set up in a private home two years and had amazing sales. We did it all through word of mouth. This past November, we rented a church basement and got some write-ups in the paper. This month we are having our first Spring Market.

I’ve been doing the public relations for it and today one of our members was on a popular morning TV program. Our group will be on another morning show the week of the sale and in a couple of local newspapers, not to mention community calendar listings.

This translates to thousands of dollars in free advertising. Thousands. If you’re on camera, you can stream that video on your site for the next hundred years. It’s the kind of advertising most small businesses cannot afford. All free.

The point: Sometimes, you sell better as part of a group. A good group. The media likes trends (any three things is a trend, they say) and they want some ready-made stories. Mamamade is a great story. It sells itself. I found good partners and will get great press. Good press often means excellent sales.

Who can you partner with?

Happy Weekend.