MANAGER MINT MAGAZINE Issue 04 | Page 22

Almost never do these practitioners take the time to even glance at the writing of the reporters they’re pitching to see what they cover. And even after responding to hundreds of messages with “just like my masthead says, I write about small businesses doing innovative PR,” the practitioner will argue, “But this is a great company. They are unique. They deserve to be profiled in Forbes. So will you please interview our CEO?”

“All I’m asking is for you to upload [?] a single article. We will write it for you.” They aren’t passionate about the company or story. They may not even understand the company’s story. But if they’ve found a writer for Forbes or Inc. or Entrepreneur, they latch on for dear life to the “get.”

I’ve called several of these agencies out, though not by name or in public. In one case I found their client on LinkedIn and forwarded the email string I’d gotten multiple times from his team in spite of responding each time that I don’t write reviews. Each time, the sender ignored my response and replied weeks later with “Can you believe it’s nearly Easter? I haven’t heard back from you yet. So how about that review?”

Conversely, I see early-stage entrepreneurs spend investment dollars and personal savings hand over fist to achieve visibility through agency PR. This is a phenomenon that particularly grieves me, as the people who execute on the PR are often junior executives marching through steps to pitch hundreds of editors, badly. As a columnist I receive at least 20–30 of these pitches every day. In the weeks before a tradeshow I may receive hundreds.

The problems: