Monthly Archives: July 2011

Tip #174: Delusions of grandeur

If you say the company you’re pitching will one day be spoken of in the same breaths as major consumer brands, perhaps you want to be sure your company actually makes a consumer product.

Expedia, Amazon, eBay, Monster… soon [[Company]] will be up there with them, as it is changing an industry via the internet with an innovative strategy and proving to be quite successful. [[Company]] is retrieving research from publishers and then deploying the access and usage rights to these published materials to clients in research-intensive industries such as pharmaceutical companies.

Yep. The next Amazon for sure.

Look, I’m not saying that this company doesn’t have a good product or that it is not a fantastic business. But when you pitch, you want to excite the person hearing or reading the pitch with the realistic importance of the company. When you over-promise, you devalue the entire story.

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Filed under Common sense, Email

Tip #173: Modernize your business cards

The back of Bizzy founder Gadi Shamia's business card.

If you’re pitching a mobile product (and who isn’t?), keep in mind that journalists are highly mobile users, too. Make it easy for them to check out whatever it is you’re selling. Put a QR code with a link to the site or the app download on your business card.

More business card tips:

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Filed under Common sense, Relationships

Tip #172: The unlisted PR person

If you email me a pitch, include your phone number in the message.

If you don’t want to put a phone number on your email, put it on your Web site.

If you don’t put a phone number on your Web site or your email, I guess you don’t want to talk to the press.

If you don’t want to talk to the press, what are you doing in the PR business?

Your call is very unimportant to us.

See also: Tip #2, Followup immediately

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Filed under Common sense, Phone