TCC Podcast #269: Public Relations for the Everyday Copywriter, Pitching Yourself with Authority, and Overcoming Rejection with Lindsey Walker

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Kira’s website
Rob’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
The Copywriter Club Accelerator waitlist 
Lindsey’s website
Mai-kee’s website
Episode 229 with Selena Soo
Episode 151 with Patsy Kenney
Episode 150 with Brigitte Lyons
Episode 152 with Mai-kee 

 

Full Transcript:

Rob:  One of the most important activities that you do as a copywriting business owner is marketing, and that can take a lot of forms, everything from cold pitching to social media, and almost literally 100 other activities. Continually marketing yourself and your business is the thing that attracts clients to your door. If you want to succeed long term as a copywriter, you can’t ignore this activity. Today’s guest on The Copywriter Club Podcast is publicist and PR expert, Lindsey Walker. She knows a thing or two about attracting attention to your business. We met Lindsey when she reached out to pitch a guest for our podcast, and while that particular person wasn’t a fit, when we heard Lindsey’s story, we knew that she would be. Stick around to hear what she shared about getting people to pay attention to what you are doing in your business. But before we get to all of that, let me introduce my guest host for this episode, Mai-kee Tsang. Hey, Mai-kee.

Mai-kee:  Hey, Rob. Lovely to be here. I’m not Kira, but she’s here with us in spirit.

Rob:  Nope. Kira was with us on the initial interview. Yeah, it’s just you and me to talk about all of that.

Mai-kee:  Exciting stuff.

Rob:  Yeah. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ll remember that Mai-kee shared how she pitched 101 podcast in 30 days way back on episode 152. It’s a really good episode. I’ll remind you again at the end to listen to it, but make a mental note because you’re definitely going to want to check that out. Then one more thing before we jump into our interview, this podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Accelerator. That’s our program for copywriters who want to lay a solid foundation under their business and get all of the pieces lined up for success in the coming new year.

It runs for 16 weeks, covers everything from business mindset and figuring out your X factor and your unique mechanism to creating products and pricing and services and working with clients and all of those things, as well as marketing yourself and attracting the right clients into your business. Do yourself a favor and visit Thecopywriteraccelerator.com and get yourself on the wait list right now. We’ll be opening the doors again in just a few weeks. Okay. Let’s hear from Lindsey and how she got her start as a publicist and a PR expert.

Lindsey:  I have always loved all things communications. I grew up with my grandmother. She would always have the news turned on on someone’s news station. I fell in love with journalism. I’ve always written in my journal poetry, just things like that. Initially, I thought that I was going to be a writer. But in my senior year of high school, I got the opportunity to participate in this program called the Minority Journalism Workshop, and I will never forget it because it was so instrumental in just where I am today. We had the opportunity to pick between careers and I had just finished reading this fiction book and the lady was an account executive in the book.

She was a publicist, and so I was like, “You know what? It sounds interesting. Let me see what this is about.” Oh my gosh. So awesome. I got a chance to learn so many things about publicity and how to work with journalism, put together releases and press conferences and all of those things. I majored in it in college. I did a ton of internships and I just started my own business as a freelancer once I graduated because I wasn’t able to find a position back at home. But that’s pretty much how I got started in the industry.

Rob:  Tell us a little bit more about that, what you were doing as a freelancer and basically just what it was that you were doing to find places to publish, to do your work, all that kind of stuff.

Lindsey:  Yeah. What’s so interesting is that I landed my first three clients. I landed two of them from Twitter, I landed another one from LinkedIn. I just put it out there that, “Hey, I’m a freelancer.” I used my portfolio from the internships that I’ve done and people, they gave me an opportunity, they gave me a chance, and so I was able to get them placements. I used those first freelance clients to buy my LLC and to have my company name, which at the time we were PR Mentality. Then it just grew from there with getting more retainer clients the more that I got results. I was also connecting with other people in the industry so that they could mentor me, and I really, really just went all in with making sure that I serviced the clients that I had very well so that we could grow.

Rob:  I know this is journalism, and we usually talk about copy, ad copy, marketing copy, that kind of thing. But tell us the kinds of things that you were writing and where you were publishing.

Lindsey:  Yeah. For me, I’m on the opposite side of the journalism table. I write the media pitches and then the editors will decide if they want to write and do the story. I target outlets like the New York Times, CBS This Morning, Fox, Refinery29, Essence, Black Enterprise, those types of publications based upon what my client’s overall message is and what their overall goals are, and I’m able to put together and package a pitch that I know that the editors will be interested in. That’s how I begin to identify those targets, the editors, the writers, and then based upon what they’ve been covering, what they’ve been publishing, I’ll reach out to them to garner their interest.

Kira:  Lindsey, let’s talk about what your business looks like today, structurally. How many clients do you typically work with? Are they mostly retainers and how many team members do you have?

Lindsey:  Yes. Our clients mostly are on a retainer basis. Right now we’re taking between eight to 10 clients on roster. On the team, we just hired someone. I think now we’re up to a team of four, four or five. No, it’s four, including me. Okay. We have two account executives which help me to work with the accounts and help me to manage who we’re pitching to and what the status of things are. We have a virtual assistant that really helps handle the backend of getting our email sequences and our marketing together. Then I’m now testing out the role of actually bringing on a copywriter to have someone to help us build out those email sequences as well. Those are the roles that we have.

Rob:  Lindsey, as you’ve grown your business, how did you step through who was the first hire, who was the next hire? How did you identify what the need was and then find the people to bring them into your business?

Lindsey:  Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s important to note I’ve been in business for nine years, and eight out of those nine years, really about seven and a half out of those nine years, I was a solopreneur. I did all the things myself and I got to a point where I figured out I just cannot do and be all things and do and be them well. Right? One of the first positions I created a role for was virtual assistant because I’m like, “If I could just get someone to handle my copy, my content for social media, handling the backends of email marketing, then that would help me to focus a little bit more on client structures.”

Then as we started to get more clients, it was just like, “Okay, we need to hire out for the actual account executive positions so that we can take on more clients.” That was pretty much the thought process, but definitely a virtual assistant was the first hire that I made because I knew, number one, that I would be able to afford it, number two, I knew that if I got someone in that role to help me bridge certain gaps, then I could get things coordinated to be able to truly get the types of clients and marketing done that we needed so that I could hire out for those other positions.

Kira:  How has that transition been for you from being a solopreneur for seven or so years, and then starting to transition to building team and stepping into your own abilities as a CEO? How did you do it? I know it’s not always easy. Do you have any advice for copywriters who may be working on a similar transition?

Lindsey:  Yeah. Number one, make sure that you get your workflow in order. Take a step back in your business and truly figure out the pros and the cons. What do you love doing? What do you wish you could stop doing? What do you just absolutely hate? Right? Then based on that, make sure that you have a flow and a standard operating procedure for each and every one of those items that you were able to list out. For each and every one of the services that you provide, you should have a standard operating procedure for that particular role, for that particular service. For me, it’s definitely … Honestly, it’s challenging.

I learn something new every day. I’m learning how to be a better leader. I’m learning that leaders, you’re going to make mistakes. No CEO is perfect and you have to figure out what your flow is as a CEO. You have to figure out how you want to lead and you have to figure out what that looks like within your business. One of the other key things that I would say too is that it’s not a one-size-fit-all thing. There’s not truly a blueprint for figuring out how to be a successful CEO because that’s different. We’re all wired differently, right? Because we’re all wired differently, we’re going to have to figure out, “Okay, this may have worked last quarter. It may not be working so much this quarter,” and don’t get married to figuring out a work-life balance as much as you are just married to figuring out what’s working for you and how you can show up and be the best person that you can be.

Rob:  I’m really curious, Lindsey, about what a typical client engagement looks like for you. If I were going to come and say, “Lindsey, I want to be in the Wall Street Journal or I want to pitch podcast,” or whatever that is, how do you work with your clients in order to get them better PR?

Lindsey:  Yeah. One of the things that we do first is we may sure that we build out your strategy, the strategy, figuring out where we’re going, how we’re going to get there. What are your goals? Are you planning on an upcoming launch? Is your launch mapped out in a timely manner? Does it make sense for the media? What are some of your marketing messages? What are some things that are going to capture the media’s attention? Once we have that figured out, then we move to, okay, we know what the strategy is, so let’s figure out who are going to be the key players?

Who are going to be the key decision makers? And figuring out how we’re going to be able to utilize their platform and how we’re going to be able to connect and get you on this podcast or get you in Wall Street Journal. What’s going to be the key players and what’s the part of your key messaging that’s going to capture their attention? We start by making sure that we have the strategy, by making sure we’ve identified the people. Then we write out your media pitch. From there, once the client approves it, we go straight into beginning the outreach process, and typically it takes us … We ask that we engage with clients for about six months, minimum.

Kira:  For any copywriters listening who may want to move into a similar role and maybe start focusing on publicity and building a similar model, are you open to sharing just roughly how we should think about structuring payments on a monthly basis with our clients and just ballpark numbers of what that could look like? Then I know you just shared what you do for them, but over six months, how does that break down month to month as far as deliverables?

Lindsey:  Got you. Number one, when it comes to copywriters getting positioned for publicity, you have to remember you’re not just a copywriter, right? You don’t just perform this service, but you are the brand. Think about the clients that you service. Who’ve been some of your best case studies? What are some of the results that they’ve been able to garner through working with you? Maybe you help to write this stellar email copy sequence, you help them to map out their final, and they were able to have a 50K launch in three days. Right? That’s phenomenal.

You’re going to take that and say, “Okay, well, this is something I could pitch to Business Insider. This is something that I could pitch to Forbes. This is something that I think would be of interest to X, Y, Z podcasts.” You want to hone in on what makes you unique, who are the clients that you serve, how have you helped them, and then what are some industry trends that you’ve seen, whether it being the industries that you serve or what are some trends that you’ve seen as a copywriter? Really, really being intentional about paying attention to what you offer from the standpoint of what’s my brand, right?

From there, working with the publicist looks like … Engaging again, for our firm, it’s six months. The deliverables could be anywhere from starting out with month one, we develop out your press plan, your target list, your media pitch, we start pitching. You could get placed within the first 30 days. Then from there, it’s a matter of figuring out what’s working, what isn’t working, who’s interested? We typically like to set our goal for garnering about two to four placements a month at minimum for our clients, and that’s under a 2,500 a month retainer service.

Rob:  This is a good thing and a bad thing, but a lot of copywriters like to do everything ourselves. We DIY our entire business. But this seems like one area where it really makes sense to get some professional help. Maybe talk a little bit about that. Why some of us maybe should reach out beyond what we’re capable of doing on our own. Obviously, we can write pitches. We’re copywriters. But it seems like there’s a whole lot more beyond just writing the pitch in order to actually get a placement that you could or somebody like you could help us do.

Lindsey:  Yeah. The thing about that … I’m so glad that you mentioned the DIY thing because it’s real, right? With that, you want to look at it from a different mindset. You want to look at it from the standpoint of, am I being the bottleneck in my business? Am I being the bottleneck in my marketing strategy? Could I reach more people if I had a dedicated person to pitch for me in various podcasts? Right? Because you’re absolutely correct. You can write the pitch, right? You can write it and get it out there. But if you are spending time pitching yourself for podcasts and various interviews, are you working within your business to best serve your clients?

You have to think about it from that standpoint. Then also, even though you know how to write the pitch, do you know the strategy behind the pitch? Do you know why you should be featured in these publications? Do you know what they’re looking for or are you going to spend time in a DIY capacity trying to spend the wheel figuring out, okay, I’m pitching, I’m pitching, I’m pitching, and nothing’s sticking? Right? I think that that definitely should give a little bit more clarity in terms of why it’s necessary to have someone on your team in a publicity capacity, and/or to work with someone like myself in more of a coaching capacity so you can at least have someone guiding you through the process as you’re going through it.

Kira:  Yeah. I would much rather work with you, Lindsey, a professional on PR rather than DIYing it. But let’s say I have to DIY it for whatever reason. It’s hard to figure out the right message, and even as I’ve thought about The Copywriter Club and how we could possibly get PR, I just struggle with, well, what is the right message? What is the right hook? Are there any questions that we could think through that you’d recommend we think through as if we are DIYing it or just taking our first step towards gaining some publicity?

Lindsey:  Yeah, absolutely. You want to think about three main points. Number one, you want to think about who it is that you serve. You want to think about who you serve because that’s going to help you to identify who you should be reaching out to from a publicity standpoint. Number two, you want to figure out what inspires you to do what you do. Why did you start The Copywriter Club? Or why did you start X, Y, Z lot services, right? What inspired you? Because nine times out of 10, you started your business because you saw a need that was not quite being fulfilled in your industry, right? You want to think about who you serve, you want to think about why you started, and then number three, you want to think about the results that you have been able to get. What’s been the outcome of your services for your clients, and start there.

Rob:  How much of this is based on relationships that either we would have or you as a PR person would have? The reason I ask that is I know that you’ve helped get people in some of these really big publications. Think even CBS This Morning, those kinds of things. If I were to pitch CBS This Morning, even if I’ve got a great idea or whatever, I’m not even sure that anybody would open my email. How much of this is really the relationships that are already there, or can you break through? And if you can, what are the things that we need to do to break through so that people will start connecting with us?

Lindsey:  Absolutely, you definitely can break through. I’ve been blessed enough to be in a position to where I’ve built my relationships along the way. I didn’t have relationships starting out. I didn’t even have a relationship with CBS This Morning with the placement that you mentioned, but I knew that I had something that they were interested in. If you are trying to break through, from a media capacity and standpoint, number one, you need to make sure that you do your research. Know the writer, know the editor, know the reporter or the producer that you are pitching like the back of your hand.

Know what they like, know what they love, know what they’ve covered, know what they haven’t covered, know why they covered certain things. You have to do your research. Number two, you have to make sure that you’re following whatever their pitching protocols are. For instance, maybe they just like being pitched over Twitter or LinkedIn, or maybe they want you to email them and follow up right away with a phone call. You have to make sure that you are aware of their pitching protocols. Number three, you have to make sure that you’re being patient throughout the process because getting publicity takes time.

Kira:  Can we talk more about the time and what you mean by that? How much time? What does a follow-up look like? What is normal in that space?

Lindsey:  Normal is in the eye of the beholder. It depends. It varies according to what the media’s working through, what their deadline is. I always tell my clients, if you are releasing a book, a new product, a new service, you want to give yourself a three to six-month window to properly pitch and wait on the results. For instance, right now, journalists and editors are working on holiday gift guides. Honestly, if we’re talking about print publications, they’ve been working on Christmas and fall holiday gift guides since August. Right?

If you think about that, we’re now in October. You want to give yourself that proper lead time so that you can make sure that you’re maximizing opportunity. In terms of following up, I have a rule thumb. I’ll follow up with an editor three times, and then if they do not get back to me, I’ll move on to another publication or to another editor at that publication.

Rob:  You’ve given us a lot of great advice of things that we should be doing or we could be doing or ways that we should be thinking about our business if we’re interested in getting PR. Let’s talk about some of the mistakes that you see people making. Maybe it’s copywriters that you see making, but even from other businesses industries, what are the big pitfalls that keep people from making a splash when it comes to PR?

Lindsey:  Yeah. Number one, they’re not clear on the audience that they need to reach out to. They’re just reaching out to everybody. To CBS This Morning, to CNN, to Fox, to the New York Times without knowing who the appropriate person and audience is. It’s not enough to get a contact or to look at a contact us form and fill it out. You have to be it clear on your audience. Number two, another mistake that a lot of people make is they may send out a pitch one time to one publication and they’re like, “Okay, well, I’m waiting,” and they never follow up.

You always, always, always have to make sure that you are following up. Number three, the other mistake that people don’t make is they’re not paying attention to their subject line, they’re not paying attention to the different angles that they could be pitching to various publications because every publication is not going to be interested in the same email in the same way. You want to make sure that you are providing the writer with content that you know is going to be a no brainer for them.

Kira:  Okay. I love the idea of holiday gifts and really planning ahead and plugging into the calendar, the PR calendar. Are there other big events throughout the year beyond holidays that we should be aware of so we can plan ahead and plug into those occasions?

Lindsey:  Yeah, I would say any month within your industry. For those that may work strictly with HR clients or those that may work with corporate or those that may work with beauty and tech and all the things, each month you can pitch yourself for something. If April is Financial Tax Planning Month and all of that, you could pitch from the angle of how I’ve been able to save as a copywriter and make, I don’t know, six figures in the last five months of my business, or whatever the case is. You can look on … They are resources. If you go on Google and you Google National Day Calendar, a calendar will pop up that will tell you what the different holidays are within your industry.

Rob:  Let’s say that I’m listening to this interview, Lindsey, and I’m really interested in what you’re doing. I’m thinking I don’t want to write websites or I don’t want to write sales pages, but maybe I could write PR pitches or maybe I could help other people do this. What would be the best way to break into the industry? Should I look for jobs in-house or with agencies? Or is this something that I can just start freelance? What would your advice be to somebody just starting out?

Lindsey:  Absolutely, and that’s a great, great question because honestly, I’m playing around with the idea right now on if we want to just bring a copywriter on board and have them provide us with pitches per month. If I were to give advice, I would say, absolutely, you could go freelance or in-house. It just depends on how you want to structure things within your business model. But I would showcase the work that you’ve done so far. Any type of email copy, any type of website copy landing pages, if you have that, any type of sequences, you can use that to build out and to pitch a PR firm or a freelance publicist and say, “Hey, could we partner together because you put me on a retainer?” There’s so much that you could do within the space.

Rob:  As you think about those different options then, can you maybe give us some of the advantages or disadvantages for say starting in-house versus starting freelance?

Lindsey:  Yeah. Freelance, you would be able to get your hands on a plethora of other industries on way more industries than you would if you were just in-house. In-house may just stick you to a contract, but you may have to sign a non-compete or something like that. Its pros and cons and everything, it depends on what works best for you and how you want to work. You may enjoy working in-house, getting a steady retainer from a corporation or an agency that for sure is going to be able to provide you with the income that you want. Or you may say, “I’m going to freelance, I’m going to work for various clients, and then I will figure out how that’s best going to serve me and my business model.”

Rob:  Okay. We’re breaking in, as we like to do, to talk a little bit more about the things that Lindsey’s been sharing that I think maybe deserves a little bit more attention. Mai-kee, I like to let the guest go first, and since you’re my guest here, let’s start with one of your thoughts. What has jumped out to you as Lindsey’s been sharing her advice?

Mai-kee:  So many things. Do we have a couple hours?

Rob:  We can make it work.

Mai-kee:  Probably not?

Rob:  Yeah, we’ll make it work.

Mai-kee:  All right. Definitely the first thing that popped out to me was about positioning yourself as a copywriter, because if you’re in The Copywriter Club, you’re surrounded by a lot of copywriters, right? This is our community right now. How about every other copywriter out there? There has to be another way that we can position ourselves for publicity. Right? I would invite you to consider thinking beyond your working title and consider venturing into the identities you’re representing as a result of being visible as well. As our friend Mike Kim like to say, you are the brand, right? Just I encourage you to just really look into that. When Lindsey mentioned about our sense of positioning, just to venture into different places where you can position yourself better. That’s number one. Number two-

Rob:  Okay. Let me start because-

Mai-kee:  Okay. That’s a lot to unpack.

Rob:  … I think that’s a really good point. As you pointed out, there’s a million copywriters out there, and if you’re only calling yourself a copywriter, you’re making your client do the work to figure out is this the copywriter who can solve my problem? Is this a copywriter who’s good at writing for aeronautics or medical or coaches or whatever? You’re exactly right. There’s definitely ways to do that with your niche and with your expertise and with your deliverables. But you’re also talking about even going broader, right? Going into maybe personal beliefs or things that you like doing, that kind of stuff, or am I reading more into that than what you’re suggesting?

Mai-kee:  Oh, no. That’s the right reading. Just think of it as an intersectional approach to your positioning, where you just acknowledge the accumulation of your experiences, your skills and your identities that do make up your unique positioning, your X factor, if you will. Right? Ever since I started thinking of visibility that way, I started noticing that we all know that we “shouldn’t compare” to other people, right? But in essence, we do. Just as human beings, we do compare ourselves to other people. But when we venture inwards and we start acknowledging what we are made up of, that just falls away, and then we stand more grounded with who we are and what we’re here for.

Rob:  Yeah. I love that. Bringing in all of the pieces that make us unique, and not just saying, “Oh, I’m a copywriter and I can write you a copy?”

Mai-kee:  Yes, exactly.

Rob:  Perfect. Okay. You have more than one thing. What else jumped out to you?

Mai-kee:  Yes. I’ve got two more things. Hopefully, we can cover that because I want to make sure that we get into the bullet points set you got as well noted. Another thing was I love that the question was asked about how much do relationships actually matter in the PR world? Right? Am I just buying access to these relationships? That is one of the biggest things that comes to mind when we are considering, right? It was really great to hear Lindsey confirm that you can break through without those relationships.

Of course, it can help, right? But it’s not everything, which is I think it’s pretty reassuring, right? For those of us who are just starting out to venture into different forms of publicity and visibility. The reason why relationships matter in essence is because there’s trust there. If it doesn’t already exist because you are coming in cold to someone who you are reaching out to, just build it by being true to your word and have your results support that truth.

Rob:  Yeah, I like that too. Obviously, if you already have a relationship with somebody at a newspaper, at a publication, at a podcast or whatever, making that work for you, getting them to read a pitch, having them take an interest in your business puts you so much far there ahead than anybody else. When it comes to, I’m doing air quotes now, but doing PR, a lot of it really is just that relationship building. I think a lot of us think, “Well, okay, I’ll run my business for a couple of years, and then at year three, I’ll be ready to do PR,” and that’s the wrong way to look at it.

If you’re building relationships as you go, you’re doing PR and then you can lean on those relationships to make it work. Like Lindsey pointed out, yeah, you can do this on your own. There are PR professionals who have their own relationships that maybe you can lean on when it’s the right time, either way. But it is the kind of thing that if we’re strategic about just building friendships and relationships as opposed to networking, pitching, all that kind of stuff, it can pay dividends down the road.

Mai-kee:  Absolutely, and it’s a lot more humanistic in that way, when we see it through relationships and not just networking and pitching cold everywhere. Right? That brings me to my final point as well about pitching. We’re going to go deeper into pitching later on, of course, but 1000% what Lindsey said about following their pitch protocol. Because if we don’t, then that tells the person on the receiving end that we don’t respect their process, and we’re also showing that we lack attention to detail, or maybe that we are coming across as if the rules don’t apply to us. None of that will help you build the bridge for a relationship. In fact, it could burn it down, especially if it’s your first impression because they don’t owe you anything.

If you leave a bad impression by doing something as simple as not following their protocol, that can really damage your chances in the future, and people talk fast, as well. Of course, we all do PR with the goal in mind of something in return for our businesses, right? Just a quick side note, when it comes to a launch, for example, anything that’s time sensitive that you want this PR opportunity to support, give yourself ample time, right? Give yourself grace and patience because we are not always able to influence the release of our features. Right? That’s why follow their pitch protocol and also give yourself that ample time there because we need to respect that it’s their platform and not ours.

Rob:  Yeah. That is such good advice. You have your own podcast and so you obviously get pitched for that, and-

Mai-kee:  Yes.

Rob:  … we see the same thing. It drives me nuts when people pitch us things that aren’t a good fit. We’ve published on our website. Maybe it’s not the easiest page to find, but if you want to pitch our podcast, if you want to be a guest or write for The Copywriter Club, we do have a process. It’s very easy to apply and almost nobody follows that. It would be so much easier if people just did exactly what we asked them to do, because we’re basically giving them pointers on how do you make your pitch stand out so that we’ll go, “Yeah, we definitely-”

Mai-kee:  Wow.

Rob:  “… want to have this person on the show.”

Mai-kee:  You’re literally giving them a roadmap like, “Here’s how to pitch us successfully,” and this will be- I’m going to look for that page later and re-pitch you both.

Rob:  Yeah, you can criticize and see if we’ve done it right. But I think the larger point here though is that I mentioned maybe being in the Wall Street Journal or something like that. If I want to do that, well, I can’t really go outside the Wall Street Journal’s process, right? I’ve got to the connections and follow the process in order to do that, and the same is true for being on anybody’s podcast or getting your message out on guest blogs or whatever it is that you do. Follow the process, and if they don’t have one, follow just a normal pitch process where you’re not being crazy, you’re not making demands. Be human, like you said.

Mai-kee:  Yes. 100%.

Rob:  A couple of other things that I just want to touch on before we move on where Lindsey was talking about their strategy for determining who they would reach out to and where it would be, and it struck me that even I have done this. When I’m thinking about, okay, yeah, I’d actually like to be on somebody’s podcast, I’m starting my thought process oftentimes with the people or the platform where I want to show up as opposed to the strategy behind it. Why do I want to be in these places? What’s the message I have to share with that audience?

Lindsey just reset that for me, and she’s talking about it’s, yeah, you need to start with what’s the message? What do you want from this PR, from this opportunity, from this speaking gig, from this podcast, whatever? Then once you identify what that is, maybe that’s a match for the person or the platform where you want to show up. Maybe it’s not, you need to find something else. But I appreciated that because I think we oftentimes get those flipped around and we start with, well, I-

Mai-kee:  Yeah, we skip that.

Rob:  … definitely want to be, yeah, on this big podcast. I want to be on Mai-kee’s podcast, and who knows if I have anything to share there that would be valued.

Mai-kee:  Well, I’m sure you have plenty to value, Rob. But we can speak after this. Yeah, I completely agree with you there. Yes, it is great to have these opportunities, but how much of it is efficient for our business and not just an ego stroke? We all have ego, right? It’s okay to want those opportunities, but it needs to lead to something in order to optimize the opportunity and also do right by the audience you’re serving as well, and of course the host too.

Rob:  Yeah. Perfect. Then last thing I just want to mention, and this is maybe a smaller discussion, but I loved when Lindsey asked the question, “Am I the bottleneck in my business?” Where you’re specifically talking about should you get help with PR? If you are the person that’s keeping you from getting PR, then absolutely you should. But even broader, this applies to hiring a VA, hiring a junior copywriter, getting help with almost anything, marketing, funnel building, whatever, design, if you are the bottleneck that’s holding back something from happening, it’s time to reach out and get help. This is maybe something I need to start putting on a sticky note for me. Am I being the bottleneck here? Because I think often times we could get a lot more done if we could just get out of the way of the people who want to help us in our business.

Mai-kee:  Oh, yeah. If it wasn’t for you and Kira, when I was back in the Think Tank in 2019, I would’ve been the 100% bottleneck. I am probably still a little bit in my own business, but I’ve definitely taken off quite a load because actually I made my first hire since then and she has been incredible. Just being aware of where we are bottlenecking, and where can we start to release a sense of responsibility for ourselves and be able to trust someone else? Because it’s also trusting other people and also being willing to let go of control, which can be terrifying.

Rob:  For sure. Okay. Well, again, when we’re talking about bottlenecks, PR, getting your message out in the world is maybe some place where a professional could help if you’re getting in your own way.

Mai-kee:  All right. Thanks so much, Rob, for sharing your thoughts. Now let’s get back to the interview to see what Lindsey’s advice is when we’re really starting to think about getting PR for our businesses.

Kira:  When is the right time to start thinking about PR for our copywriting businesses? Okay, that’s my first question. Then I have a follow-up. I’ll come back to the follow-up.

Lindsey:  Okay. Yeah. The best time, honestly, I always tell people if you’ve at least been in business for one to three years, I would strongly suggest that you add in publicity as a part of your marketing strategy because it gives you the opportunity to build credibility, to build thought leadership and to build visibility and SEL with and for your business. You want and make sure that if you’ve been in business for, again, that one to three-month window, you start thinking about some of the things that we’ve been going through and talking about and how you want to be positioned in media.

Kira:  Okay. Let’s talk about a copywriter who maybe is in those first few years, and really could start focusing on PR, is a brilliant writer, but has not focused on that part of the business. Oftentimes it’s a mindset, challenge and block, and we talk to a lot of copywriters who are just like, “I don’t know what I can share or teach or why I should even build my authority.” Do you work with your client on that mindset piece, or what would you recommend there?

Lindsey:  Yes. That would be something that if someone comes to me and they’re like, “Hey, I know that I need this, but I want to work on my mindset piece first,” I would suggest that they go through our coaching program first where we really work on the mindset aspect, we work on the why, and we also work on step-by-step what the ins and outs are. If you wanted to take the route of having a publicist to look at everything from the inside out in your back office, and then saying, “Okay, let me go and take these until I’m able to afford a retainer or something like that.” Or if you’re just like, “It’s a little shaky,” because sometimes we do get those clients that are like, “Yeah, Lindsey, I know I need you, but I don’t want to be out in the forefront,” and I’m like, “You hired me. You’re going to be out there.” Right? We will offer that in terms of our meetings and consultations and things like that.

Rob:  Yeah, that last comment just got me thinking, is there a way to do PR where you’re not in the forefront, where you’re able to step back or do you really have to put your whole soul and body into it?

Lindsey:  Yeah, I would say in this day and age, you have to be in the forefront are in some capacity. Even if you are not the point person, you couldn’t have someone that could be like your spokesperson, but they’re going to be out in the forefront, right? Let’s say if you just decided to get a face, right? For your business and for your brand, that face would be the one that would be speaking out on your behalf. I guess if you wanted to “avoid” being in the front lines, you could do it that way. But because of the age that we’re in right now with social media and all things digital, you’re already putting yourself out there anyway.

Rob:  Okay. Then the question I really want to ask is obviously things like podcasts or articles in a place like Business Insider, those are obvious opportunities for PR. But what about other kinds of PR that’s not necessarily print or news related, maybe events or other things? What other almost out of the box ideas are there that we could be considering to be getting publicity?

Lindsey:  Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned events, because how many copywriters are partnering and saying, “Let’s put together this digital summit, let’s put together this virtual event, let’s get together and connect with …” I don’t know. Maybe if you have one of your clientele being a real estate person, maybe if you have them being someone in beauty, connecting with them during their open houses or doing one of their shop events and saying, “We’re going to partner together and we’re going to talk about why you need copywriting for your business and we’re going to invite the media out.” There are a ton of different ways that you could think outside the box, even doing like a virtual popup subscription box where maybe you have all the things that a copywriter would need, or putting together a virtual kit. There are definitely some other outside of the box things that you could do for sure.

Kira:  I love to talk about the pitch, the actual pitch. We’ve talked a little bit about how to think about it and approach it. But when it comes to actually writing a pitch, what are some ingredients? What do we need to think about when we’re writing our own pitch?

Lindsey:  Yeah. You definitely want to think about, again, what’s the overall message of the pitch? What do you want to convey in your messaging? Number two, you want to give background story? This is where a lot of people, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t think I have a story,” or … No, think about what you’ve done, think about how you got started in your career, think about what led you to becoming a copywriter. Maybe you used to sit in English class and just write short stories and you got in trouble for that. That’s something that people want to know. That’s something that’s of interest. Again, like I mentioned earlier, looking at the outcomes that your copywriting business has gotten for clients. Those are definitely things that are a part of your background story. Then you want to drive home what are your talking points? What do you have to share with the outlet that you’re pitching?

Rob:  Yeah. Continuing in this line of thought, what are the stuff that we absolutely should not mention? What should we be leaving out that maybe we’re tempted to put in?

Lindse