Complete Guide to Pitching Traditional Journalists Using Your Personal Brand

September 9, 2008 at 11:11 am | In Networking, Personal Branding, Success Strategies | 4 Comments

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Personal PR is how we form relationships with our audience.

It’s time to put on your personal PR hat once again. Many people believe that we need to be wealthy in order to afford the big budgets that PR firms call for. All the press I’ve received has been the result of my proactive and reactive media communications. The only cost of building relationships with the media is time. If you have enough time, passion and faith in your product (yourself), then it’s fairly easy to take time out of each day and connect with bloggers and traditional journalists.

Remember that the term “media” has expanded since 5 or so years ago. Some blogs are designated as “media” sites, while others don’t want to talk to PR and want nothing to do with that type of promotion.

If you’re looking to get on TV or the radio, then the rules are a bit different (relative to print/online). Most people who you see appear on these media outlets are using PR agencies that have built relationships. Through word-of-mouth and ranking in Google, you can claim these opportunities as well, but the chances are far less.

Personal PR – for blogs

I’ve already written a complete guide to pitching bloggers using your personal brand.

Personal PR – for traditional journalists

Some traditional journalists are bloggers as well. Before pitching a journalist or blogger, realize that they are more inclined to support someone they 1) known 2) trust 3) respect. The right way to go about starting a relationship is to “give” first, without asking for anything in return. You will fail 99% of the time if you email a journalist a press release or pitch, unless you are a known brand. Today, I want to talk to you about how to form relationships with traditional media to help promote your brand at a later date. Remember that things take time.

1) Plan. Understand your topic, subscribe to traditional news websites that support that topic and research reporters/journalists who cover it.

2) Locate. Once you’ve locked down the article and know the authors name, locate their contact information. If it isn’t at the top or bottom of the article, then Google their name. Typically journalists will have their own branded homepage with contact information, especially if they’ve written a book (common practice). For instance, if you are a personal finance expert, you may read this article and then respond to one of the journalists, whose email addresses are listed at the bottom.

3) Connect. As noted above, don’t pitch them. All you have to do is comment on their article, while giving your opinion on the topic. As long as you include your contact information, website and a personal brand statement, they can learn more about you if they care.

4) Repeat. I’ll let you decide how many times you should respond to them. Unless the journalist is a regular columnist, I highly doubt they will produce an article a day. Follow them closely and strike conversations now and again. Remember they have busy schedules, so be smart about how many times you email them.

5) Pitch. Once you feel like you have a relationship with the journalist, and understand their audience and writing, then you can pitch to them. If you become close enough friends, the pitch won’t really be much of a pitch because they will probably help you out anyways. Try and make your pitch relevant, timely and concise and if they’re interested, they will seek more information from you.

Best of luck in your personal PR journey!

Listen to John Kotter and Take a Sense of Urgency in Your Life

September 9, 2008 at 1:11 am | In Book Reviews, Career Development, Interview, People, Personal Branding, Success Strategies | 2 Comments

Today, I interviewed John Kotter, the world’s most foremost authority of leadership and change. He is a Harvard professor and author of many international bestselling books. Johnis travelling extensively, touring the world, promoting his new book right now. We talked about this little thing called “urgency,” why it’s important in our lives and the impact it has on businesses.

Can businesses survive today without a sense of urgency? Can you give an example of a company that no longer exists because it was too slow to make change?

Sure, you can exist if you have a monopoly or oligopoly of some sort or another, but for the rest of us, urgency is becoming a much bigger problem or asset. I made a video last year and used a famous example of no-urgency on the part of the staff (not the CEO, he was a different story) and how the firm, for all practical purposes went from #1 to death: Polaroid.

When it comes to personal development, what lessons can be learned from your book on how we need to constantly evolve, in this ever changing global economy?

You have to keep your personal sense of urgency up and you need to learn how to get better and better in developing real urgency in the people around you.

In your book you describe complacency and false urgency. How do you define both and why are they important in understanding your core message?

Real urgency is a thought process that really sees all the big opportunities and threats out there, but, more importantly, it’s a gut-level determination to exploit those opportunities and avoid those hazards now. Those feelings lead to a hyper alert behavior, looking for ways to exploit and avoid.

It leads to an unusual willingness to push the junk off of your calendar so there is time to deal with the important issues. It’s a willingness to get out of the bed each day determinate to make some progress, no matter how small, on the real issues. False urgency is driven by anxiety, fear and sometimes anger. It’s frenetic behavior: people running in circles, meetings and more meetings, preparing for yet another useless PowerPoint presentation. It’s activity, not productivity, and it can leave people stressed out and exhausted.

You have 4 SETS OF tactics for increasing a true sense of urgency. Which do you feel is the most important and why?

It depends upon the situation, but in general probably the first: bringing the outside in. It is astonishing organizations can become disconnected from those outside opportunities and hazards that inevitably create complacency. There are a dozen ways to help reconnect and in the process increase urgency.

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John Kotter is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on leadership and change. Kotter is thepremier voice on how the best organizations actually “do” change. He is the author of the new book A Sense of Urgency, which you can get in audio and hardcover formats.

Kotter, who is Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School, has devoted his remarkable career to studying organizations and those who run them, and his internationally bestselling books and essays have guided and inspired leaders at all levels. The John Kotter Leadership Insights Collection is a specially-priced, six-volume collection offering practical advice, management insights, and useful tools to help you successfully lead and implement change in your organization.

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