Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth - The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern)

Starting point is 00:00:00 No one ever gets this tactical in PR. There's just so much theoretical, you know, conversation and examining the big blunders. But like at the end of the day, if you're a startup that wants to get coverage for your company, you need to know, like, actually the steps to take to do it. You mentioned a bunch of amazing companies. He worked with RAM, perplexity. Most products don't have as interesting of a story to tell. How do you help find something that is a nugget?

Starting point is 00:00:21 You can get so in the weeds with your own messaging that you want to set up this massive problem statement. You want to make it a huge trend story. But if you're like very straightforward and you're like pattern match, it's generally actually going to work. So I asked you to bring some examples of pitches that are great and also examples of pitches that could be better. I want to read one to you and then I want to see if you can tell me what this company does. Deal.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Today, my guest is Emily Gerber. Emily is the founder and CEO of Six Eastern, a PR agency that has worked with over 100 tech companies from stealth startups to publicly traded companies, helping them get press, build awareness and level up their PR and comms strategy. Before starting her own firm, she worked at Uber, where she led PR for the business development team and B2B programs. Prior to that, she worked at Box on product communications with a focus on product launches and partnership announcements.

Starting point is 00:01:17 In our conversation, Emily shares so many golden nuggets of advice on how to get press that I lost count. We talk about which publications to target depending on your market and story, how to craft your pitch and your outreach to reporters, how to actually reach reporters, and also how to craft your product story for people to pay attention to what you're doing. Why warm introductions to reporters aren't actually that important. How to find podcasts and newsletters to pitch that might be even more effective than traditional media.

Starting point is 00:01:44 How much it would cost you to work with a PR agency instead of doing it yourself and how much lead time you need if you do that. Also, we go through a few real-life examples of press and outreach, both good examples and bad examples and what we can learn from those. Also, we look at a pitch that Emily sent to me about a podcast guest that is a client of hers that worked and this guest is coming out in the future so we look at what was effective about that pitch and so much more. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow on your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.

Starting point is 00:02:15 It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Emily Gerber after a short word from our sponsors. Let me tell you about a product called Sprigg. Next-gen product teams like Figma and Notion rely on Sprig to build products that people love. Sprig is an AI-powered platform that enables you to collect relevant product experience insights from the right users so you can make product decisions quickly and confidently. Here's how works. It all starts with Sprig's precise targeting, which allows you to trigger in-app studies

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Starting point is 00:04:35 Epo powers experimentation across every use case, including product, growth, machine learning, monetization, and email marketing. Check out Epo at getepo.com.com slash Lenny and 10x your experiment velocity. That's get-EPPO.com slash lenny. Emily, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thank you for having me. So we're going to be talking about press.

Starting point is 00:05:03 A lot of people say that trying to get press isn't really worth your time. It doesn't drive signups. It doesn't drive growth. You could spend your time on other things and have a lot more impact there. And I know that you have a really interesting perspective on second order effects of press and other benefits. So I'm curious to hear what's your perspective on this, the idea that press isn't really worth people's time. And how can press be helpful? Yeah, when we were emailing about it,

Starting point is 00:05:28 talking about some of the articles that you were in, you know, some of the coverage that you got, I was kind of thinking about how, you know, in your case, you have multiple audiences. You have your customers, which in a way are your, like, listeners and the people that are engaging with your content. So in a way, you're a B to C business. But in another way, you're a B2B business.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Obviously, you have sponsors and, you know, you're trying to attract really great guests to come on the show. And so there's a second order piece of the press is kind of validating that you're something that, you know, a software company wants to sponsor. So, you know, internally they're making those decisions. Not everyone might know Lenny's podcast, but they could send around a CNBC article and see that this is something very legit, something that people care about. It kind of just signals that like third party validation that I think is really important. And that ties back to when you look at a SaaS company or something and they're making decisions. having that validation, I think, and that credibility goes a really long way, especially for a

Starting point is 00:06:25 company that might be early stage. You know, they've raised a little bit of money. I think sometimes the buyers are skeptical of engaging with new tools because they're worried they might not raise more funding or it might go away tomorrow. And so the more that you can validate the business through things that's not just you doing personally, the other people are doing, I think the better. So I think, yeah, that's the value from the B2B perspective. And it's not necessarily, yeah, going to directly drive sign-ups, but when that AE is sending their sales emails and they can link to a story, I think that really helps. Also candidates, too, when you're reaching, if it's a recruiter, reaching out on LinkedIn and they only have, you know, 100 characters to make their pitch

Starting point is 00:07:01 linking to that story can be really powerful. So those are some of the second order effects for B2B. And then on the consumer side, it's a much more complex issue. There's like affiliate marketing, which is like this whole world of, you know, paid where you're getting product reviews and that sort of thing. And that's not really an area that I'm an expert on. But we do work with some consumer companies where press is a major driver of growth. So for instance, perplexity, they have invested essentially zero in any paid marketing. They don't have a marketing person even, but they do do PR. And so essentially after their most recent announcement, they saw, you know, a massive spike in growth, a massive spike in signups, pro users, all of that.

Starting point is 00:07:43 And I think in that case, the reason PR works so well is, it, first of all, is something that's very easy to grasp Google alternative. I know how to use Google. I've used Google a million times. Go to perplexity.com. The barrier to trying the product is very low. You can, you know, quickly type in a query, get the answer, and then see the power of the tool. It takes one time to see the power of the tool.

Starting point is 00:08:04 So in that case, I think, you know, just organic press is enough to generate that. There's not like a long sort of process to get the customers interested. So, yeah, like I mentioned very case to case, but, you know, in those, you know, in those instances, it works well. Man, there's so many threads I want to follow here. That was such an interesting answer. And by the way, I love perplexity. I once tweeted a result I had when I was using perplexity.

Starting point is 00:08:26 And it was one of their default questions you could ask about strawberries. Apparently strawberries are not one fruit. Strawberries are a bundle of fruits. And every little piece of a strawberry, those little red things, are individual fruits all bundled together, which blew my mind. I was like, I need to share this. And so I wonder how much of their growth just comes from crazy things like that. Yeah, it's like the kind of tool where your mom's,

Starting point is 00:08:46 could try it and instantly like know how to use it. And so like, yeah, and it's great, it's good for weird questions, like what you chose share. That's like where it comes in really handy. They did a great job just like defaulting. Here's weird questions you could ask. And then, wow, what an answer? Okay. So on the B2B side, I think this is really interesting. When people are thinking about doing the calculus of how is it worth investing in trying to get press for a B2B business related to what we were talking about offline. So when I got these stories and like Fast Company, I got a story in CNBC. I got a story in, um, Entrepreneur Magazine. And I was telling you, I've seen zero growth impact from all these stories.

Starting point is 00:09:21 And you think, like, oh, wow. And like, what had a story in the magazine, like Entrepreneur Magazine, print edition? And nothing comes from it as far as I can tell. And your point, which really stuck with me is the real benefit isn't that first order growth impact. It's, and I've been doing this, is when I'm emailing potential guests telling them, hey, check out my work or my profile in these magazines. And just having those little logos is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, really powerful and that's why you see those logos on people's websites. So is your advice here basically for B2B businesses the most like if the pie chart of impact of press, most of that percentage is just having a logo of an awesome publication on your website and

Starting point is 00:10:03 your outbound emails and things like that. Yeah, the logo is a piece of it. And then also like the storytelling part, you know, maybe they're not going to read eight paragraphs that you wrote about your business. But if it's in the format of an article, I think they're more likely to take the time to do it. One other, I guess, aspect of it is content. So, for instance, the articles that people want to write about you are not about necessarily how great your podcast is, which it is, but more about how you created this business.

Starting point is 00:10:32 And so it's more through the lens of like you're an entrepreneur, you have built this like media empire. And so that's not necessarily the kind of story that's going to drive like, you know, your core audience to sign up. And so contents is part of it too. And so, you know, we work with companies where we get them great stories about their company culture and cool initiatives that they're doing because reporters are interested in that topic. That's not going to help their sales, but it might help with something like recruiting. And so, yeah, I think thinking that's the other piece of it is thinking through the content.

Starting point is 00:11:03 That's such a good point because the story they're going to write about you isn't. This is the best product you've ever seen. This is, oh, look at this interesting journey this startup has gone on. And that's not going to convince your customers. It's going to convince other people just to like read this. publication, but the fact that they wrote about you is really beneficial. And then you're saying in B2C, most of the benefit is actually driving growth. And you've seen lots of examples of press driving significant significant growth. Yeah, I think it can be. And I think this is one where,

Starting point is 00:11:31 yeah, it's a little more case to case because we have some clients where they need to invest heavily in a affiliate because it's like, you know, product reviews are what they need. And or like, you know, they want to be on list of like the best vacuum cleaner or whatever sort of category and it's less about getting them big features. And so there's different ways of doing it for B2C. But yeah, I do think it's like, yeah, there's like two camps affiliate or not affiliate. Can you actually explain this affiliate bucket? Because I'm not actually that familiar with it. I can. However, we actually don't do affiliate marketing. So there's probably going to be a lot of people that have a much more insightful perspective on it. But affiliate is essentially when you work with a

Starting point is 00:12:09 publication to give them a percentage of any sales that come from the piece of the article. And so, you know, if you look at business insiders list of best personal finance tools, it'll say at the top that they're getting commissioned. So, you know, they track the links. They figure out a certain percentage. And then they basically get a percentage of all the sales that come in. And it's very common. I would say most consumer companies are doing this. But yes, there's like entire agencies that are dedicated to that field. Wow. I didn't actually know that was such a big thing. I've heard of affiliate marketing where you get paid for promoting something. I didn't know like business insider did this as a revenue. Oh, every yeah. And I don't want to call out just. I mean, it's a, I would say every, every publication that's doing product reviews for the most part, I believe. It's a, it's a very common practice. Wow. All right. Already learning a lot. Okay. So I definitely want to start talking about how to actually get press for your product. But one quick question about fundraising announcement. So I get some investor in a lot of companies very often

Starting point is 00:13:14 they email me and ask for advice how to get press and most of the time it's a fundraising milestone. When is it worth investing trying to get press and fundraising? Like always worth trying, rarely worth your effort is that this has to be some really impressive fundraising moment. What do you suggest? I also think not all PR people are going to agree with this, but I do think funding rounds you can always get a reporter to cover if you go about it the right way. I mean, we scope out projects that are just for funding announcements. We've never had to not finish that project or we've never, you know, I wouldn't do that if it wasn't possible. So I think there's like a couple of reasons that, you know, it sometimes doesn't work out. But like, I guess just to take a

Starting point is 00:13:57 step back on funding stories, a lot of founders automatically think that, you know, I raise money, so tech crunch will cover this. The reality is, as someone who's, we, actually someone from another agency, I should, at propeller PR, they tweeted that they counted how many funding stories TechCrinch did in a week, and it was nine. So they had written nine funding stories in one week.

Starting point is 00:14:17 And then they counted how many funding rounds actually happened that week by looking at Axis Parada and Fortune term sheet. And it was like 50. So it seems, when you go to TechRinge, it looks like, oh, it's all funding stories. So mine should be one of these. That's like not the case at all.

Starting point is 00:14:33 But I do think, like, if you go about it the right way, you can be one of those nine. And I'm talking about TechRine specifically here only because the reality is they are the publication that's going to be most likely to write your funding story. That's just kind of the way it works. And it's not a bad thing. Like they're actually, they don't have a paywall.

Starting point is 00:14:49 They tend to do a very good job. They understand it. You know, it's a well-oiled machine. And so, you know, if you've done a story with them, it's going to pretty much go how you want to plan it.

Starting point is 00:14:59 So when you go to pitch a funding story, I think the first thing that founders or whoever is reaching out on behalf of the company does wrong is they kind of convoluted the message. Like when we pitch a funding story, we make it very clear, hey, we're reaching out with a startup launch or funding. We're offering this to you as an exclusive, meaning we're not going to pitch anyone else if you take the story. Here's the amount that's raised. Here's the space that's it. Here's the space there in and here are the investors. I think you can get so in the weeds with your own messaging that you want to set up this massive problem statement. You want to make it a huge trend story. You don't really

Starting point is 00:15:33 say what you're trying to accomplish from it. But if you're like very straightforward and you're like pattern matching, hey, this tech crunch reporter is the one that covers fintech. I have a fintech funding round. Here's the reason my fintech funding round matters. It's generally actually going to work. And now it does 100% takes follow up. You're not shooting off one email. You are, you know, respectfully following up. When I follow up, I like to come in with some new information, whether it's something they had tweeted in the past couple of days, new article that they wrote, very respectful. I try to wait like three or four days. If it's not going anywhere, then try someone else do that three or four times with the most relevant reporters. Generally, I think it works.

Starting point is 00:16:11 I think, yeah, I think if you can just be like really concise and direct and say what you're looking for out of the relationship, it tends to be a pretty easy process. And yeah, TechCrunch is one publication, but this actually goes for a bunch. Amazing. I love they're already getting into tactical advice for how to actually get press. So that was essentially for fundraising and the notes I took is keep it really simple. Here's how much we raise. Here's our investors. Here's like one line about why this matters.

Starting point is 00:16:37 I want to talk later about how pitching press is different for customers. Because with customers, I think this is probably the mistake a lot of people make. And we don't have to get into this just yet, but you want to paint the picture of the market and trends and like here's where the market's going and why this is huge and why this is a solution to your problem versus like, bam, this is interesting for this reason. And that's it. Exactly. Okay. I want to talk about publications to Target and what each one is best suited for.

Starting point is 00:17:03 So you're talking about how TechRunch is essentially really good for fundraising. When I think about other publications, there's like Axios and Burge. I don't know if they do press stories like this. You know, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, things like that. So I guess what are the different publications people should have on their list of Target? and then what are each of them most aligned to story-wise? I really love this question because I feel like no one ever gets this tactical in PR. There's just so much theoretical conversation and examining the big blunders.

Starting point is 00:17:39 And it's all so high level. But at the end of the day, if you're a startup that wants to get coverage for your company, you need to know actually the steps to take to do it. So yeah, I really appreciate that question. I'm going to answer it, but also answer it with the caveat that media change. changes so much and so fast. Like, for instance, just a couple weeks ago, TechCrunch decided they no longer accept op-eds,

Starting point is 00:18:00 which is like, you know, it was actually huge news for us because we love doing op-eds in TechCrunch. And so things change all the time, but I will talk about it in its current state. So, yes, TechCrunch, a go-to for a lot of funding announcements, a go-to for some product news, too, even sometimes. I would say the areas where they don't have dedicated beat reporters where we tend to end up not working with them,

Starting point is 00:18:20 or like health tech-related companies, and even Mar-Tech, too. we've kind of struggled to find the right folks to cover those kinds of stories. So, you know, not everything, but generally if you do your digging, you're able to find a relevant beat reporter or a couple relevant beat reporters. And it's not just about getting coverage there. They have tech crunch disrupt. You can apply for speaking at that conference, and that sometimes actually directly turns into coverage.

Starting point is 00:18:43 They have the found podcast, which interviews founders. And so if something, you know, if you have like a really compelling founder story, or topical founder story, that can be an excellent avenue. to go as well. They have the equity pod, which is like investment advice. So there's, it's not just thinking about getting that, you know, one funding story with them. There are other ways to work with TechCrunch. And I actually have heard really great feedback from clients, um, on TechCrunch, you know, driving website traffic the day of the announcement, especially it's, I haven't really been able to pinpoint when that does or doesn't happen. Like, you know, I'm trying to figure out if there's

Starting point is 00:19:16 trends among that. But I have, you know, the clients have sent me screenshots from the day of the announcement and they've seen, you know, a nice pickup from TechCrunch. So I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that they don't have a paywall, but their stuff tends to do really well. So it's a great spot, especially for that first piece on your company. Axios is really strong on the FinTech side, on the healthcare side. They have some really great, like, beat reporters. The one thing I will say about them is they are very deals focused. So 100% would you need to either have funding. If you're, if you're announcing a partnership that has like a monetary component, that they would cover that.

Starting point is 00:19:52 A small, you know, an acquisition, they would consider covering, but they're not going to be, you should never pitch them on a product announcement. And I think, you know, that may, they might just get annoyed. There's a couple exceptions. A couple of the reporters might have little columns where they feature product-related things, but that's just not their bread and butter. And actually, Axios recently launched, or I guess has been launching over the past year or so, local edition.

Starting point is 00:20:15 So they're really branching into local news. And so that can actually be a really nice way to get an Axios hit. you have a region-specific story. So I highly recommend checking that out. Another publication that we work with a bunch is Business Insider. If you struggle to pitch your funding story, but really want it out in the world, they are big on the pitch deck stories. Those are a little controversial. Some founders, you know, they're like, this is not what I want my story to be about. I do not want to share my pitch deck. But if you are in the camp of, you know, you're open to that and you can, you can redact it. It does not need to have all the financials. It does not need to have the growth

Starting point is 00:20:50 metrics, that can be a really great way to get the piece of coverage on your business. And the way that I explain it to clients is you're kind of just getting all your core messages out there in a very direct way. Like, you're sharing exactly what you shared with investors. Like, that's not necessarily a bad thing. And sometimes clients will put in some, like, customer slides, too. And so you can really kind of make it a little bit more like what you're looking for. So, yes, if you're looking for a funding story, tech crunch past,

Starting point is 00:21:20 others pass, that's a good option. They also are huge on like the entrepreneurial journey kind of pieces, like similar to, you know, the CNBC article that you got, but they really want metrics. They really push for metrics or how much you're making, how much you're spending. They love those kinds of stories. So it's not necessarily about how much you raised,

Starting point is 00:21:39 but for people that have really built a business. And then the last kind of, the last thing for Business Insider, they do a bunch of these like lists of top startups, of top professionals and, field. We love doing those. They're generally a really light list and they put out a call for submissions. It takes five minutes and it's a way to get into business insider. There's so many of them. It's kind of become a joke within my newsletter because every week there's like five more and

Starting point is 00:22:02 it's the most like obscure different categories. Like top sports marketing professionals helping TikTok stars. Like I don't know. It's always like a very niche sort of asked, but those could be really great. Then a couple more. Venture B is huge for AI news. We pitch them all the time for any client that we work with that is building AI capabilities has a new offering related to AI, perfect publication for that. Fast company is perfect for anything related to future of work, how people work, really great for design, media. I would say perfect for any company that fits in those categories. They're also really open to op-eds, especially with leadership advice in them. And last but not least, on the list of ones that we work with most often, I would say is Forbes,

Starting point is 00:22:47 especially on the award side. They have the Fintac 50, AI 50, Forbes under 30, all of that. And like, you're not going to get a feature with one of their main reporters until you're a bit further along, but they do have that really strong contributor network, which is much, you know, kind of a lower bar and what they'll accept in a way. Like they're more open to covering earlier stage companies. So that's worth checking out too. So those are my top ones.

Starting point is 00:23:13 I'll stop there. That's amazing. and those are the most commonly requested and the ones you mostly go after. Yeah, they're the most realistic for most startups. There are ones like The Verge, and they're a little more, they're a little more like gadget-focused

Starting point is 00:23:28 and just areas that we don't necessarily touch, but could be good for some companies as well. Got it. And then I was going to say this for later, but there's obviously New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, thoughts on going after those. Yeah, we do get those questions all the time.

Starting point is 00:23:44 I would say it comes up, on calls with founders. I want one out of every five. And really, when you look at, I kind of make a joke sometimes, like, oh, if you want those, just have like a crisis and they'll write about it. Like, fire your CEO or do like really intense layoffs

Starting point is 00:24:00 and, yeah, have some regulatory issue. Uber got a lot of stories there. Yeah, yeah, I can show some examples there. When you look at earlier stage companies that are getting coverage in those publications, that's what's happening. Now, let's say you're a tiny bit further along in your series B, series C, you know, maybe even series C,

Starting point is 00:24:18 and you're looking for coverage in those publications. There's a couple criteria that they're always going to want if it's to write a feature on your company. One is your valuation. So that needs to be something that you're sharing on the record. Two is your like hard business metrics, like usually revenue, sometimes something else. And so oftentimes they'll tell founders that and immediately,

Starting point is 00:24:38 they're like, oh, well, we're not sharing that. So I'm like, okay, well, that's kind of the end of the conversation. Sometimes it can be shared on background, but as a general rule, you're expected to share that sort of thing. So that's kind of a non-starter a lot of times. I totally think it makes sense to build relationships with the relevant beat reporters. And ideally, like, when I say build relationships, I just mean shoot for an intro meeting on behalf of the clients or, you know, they can reach out directly with those kinds of reporters. But they're just not going to write a feature on your company.

Starting point is 00:25:08 If anything, you're going to be one or two sentences in a larger story. of something that they're writing about. And yeah, that's just the nature of their coverage. And then when you look at something like CNBC, like their whole, they're targeting people that want to learn about public markets. And so if you're not a public company, like they have their CNBC Disruptor 50 lists, which is focused on companies

Starting point is 00:25:27 that will soon be at that stage, but it's not going to be a place for early stage companies. When I had these pieces in past company and CNBC, it was such a weird experience where I chat with them for half an hour. And then it just comes out and I have no idea what they're going to write about. could be a complete teardown of everything I'm doing, and you have no idea. How do you help try to avoid that sort of story? I know you have no control. Obviously, reporters can write what they want to write about. Do you have any advice for how to avoid them writing something really negative

Starting point is 00:25:57 about you? Generally, if it's something where that you're being briefed in advance, unless it is, you know, around something negative that's going on, that's not, it's just not their intention. It's just not going to happen. But what is a bigger issue is it not being the angle or the messaging that the company wants. And so part of that, I mean, there's absolutely nothing that we can do. Reporters are not our employees, we're not paying them to write these pieces. They have to like maintain their editorial integrity. And so, you know, I consider it my job to educate the founders and spokespeople that we work with that we cannot change anything. A story says. What we can do is correct any factual inaccuracies. And so, and we do that all the time. If something is, if something

Starting point is 00:26:38 is actually wrong, we can get it replaced. But if they don't like that they were called, you know, put in a category of software that they don't identify with, that's, you know, not, that's not something that we can fix. Another thing that you can do, though, to prevent that from happening is just really ensuring that the spokesperson before talking to the reporter is, you know, going to nail the messages that they want. The more that you can reiterate over and over again how you want the article to be, I think the more likely that it will land in the reporter's head and make sure that the reporter's

Starting point is 00:27:08 report, it really understands what you're building and what your goals are. And all you can do is really use the briefing and the materials that you provide to kind of sway and influence. But there's not much beyond that. You mentioned, so we've talked about all these publications. These are ones to consider going after. You also mentioned podcast and awards is something people go after. Is there a tip you could share of how to find aligned podcast or awards, like how you find a list of here, we should go after these? We mean, we use, we use Google. We just use search engines, basically for finding everything. And the way that we go about it is first figuring out

Starting point is 00:27:41 who their customers are and what vertical they're in and then just doing searches for podcasts that are within that vertical. But it's not as easy as just reaching out to the ones that pop up first. Like the next step is like a qualitative analysis. First of all, do they have vendor CEOs or vendor executives on their show? Let's say your product is sold to product managers. Maybe they only, maybe they only have product managers. on the show. So instead, you don't put the CEO forward and you put the right spokesperson.

Starting point is 00:28:10 What podcasts might be referring to? But this is, this could be for CFOs. So let's say you have, let's say you sell it into CFOs. Don't pitch your CEO for that podcast, pitch your, you know, get a CFO and then pitch your CFO for that podcast. I'm very for companies hiring, um, spokespeople or hiring for the roles that they sell into. It helps us a lot. So if your audience is a CFO, it really helps if you have a CFO. If your audience is a CMO, it really helps if you have a CMO. And that actually, you know, in your earlier stage isn't always the case. And so it's a lot harder to pitch.

Starting point is 00:28:44 So I think that's the second part of the like qualitative analysis. The third is like podcasts really come and go. Make sure like it sounds obvious, but make sure it's one that's like actively producing. Like, you know, when you Google ones, you're going to half of them are not going to be active podcasts. And then the third is like actually, you know, listening to at least part of one episode, making sure the quality is high, making sure it's the kind of thing you even want to associate yourself with. And then just looking at who the past guests are.

Starting point is 00:29:10 Like, is that like the kind of peers that you want to associate yourself with? And then one other thing that you can do is just like, you know, in conversations with customers, find out what they're listening to, find out what they're watching, find out like their media diet. And it doesn't have to be a big crazy survey that you send to your entire customer base. It can be casual. Like we do have, you know, if you're farther along, it's great if you can make that a more formal sort of process, but it doesn't necessarily need to be.

Starting point is 00:29:32 And then in terms of reaching out, I like highly. recommend figuring out who the host, like just doing the research, figuring out who the host is, and then just sending them like a casual note, like I'm a big fan of just reaching out on LinkedIn and saying, hey, love the show. Are you open to guest ideas? I don't even mention what, like, the client or anything, just like kind of opening the door. I just feel like that's so much more approachable and friendly than starting with a big pitch. And I think, you know, so many people start with this very long email introducing themselves or going really deep. And you can, you don't have to do that. And especially because, you know, maybe only one out of every 10 replies,

Starting point is 00:30:10 it'll also save you a lot of time if you just start with something really lightweight. I think that actually works really well. That's what I find is if it's like a simple little message, I'm like, yeah, let me know what you got in mind. Even though most like 99% of time it doesn't work out, sometimes it works out great. And so I find, sure, let's just see what you got. And then usually I'm just like, nope, sorry, not a fit. And you get the reply that way. If you send the initial pitch and the reporter or podcast host isn't interested, chances are they won't reply. but if you just start with something friendly and they reply, they'll feel like a little more, I guess,

Starting point is 00:30:41 like a little more of a connection there. And so at least you'll get an answer, whereas otherwise you might not get an answer at all. Yeah. On the survey piece, I think that's a great idea. And I've seen a few of my sponsors do this where they ask their customers, what podcast do you listen to, what newsletters do you read?

Starting point is 00:30:57 Which is such a simple idea, but I think people don't do that. And just from that, you could figure out, okay, here's the podcast we've got to get on. Here's the newsletters we want to run it happen. I want to talk about how to actually pitch well, but before that, we've been talking a bit about who to reach out to and how to do that. So there's a few questions here. It's just like, how important is to have a warm connection to a reporter? If you don't have that, what's the best way to reach out to them?

Starting point is 00:31:23 Is it LinkedIn? Is it Twitter DMs? Something else. What advice do you have about just before we get into like the structure of the pitch, figuring out who to pitch and then how to get to them advice? Who are your relationships question comes up on a lot of our calls with founders as well. I'd like to pose the question to you. Did we have a relationship before this? Nope.

Starting point is 00:31:44 Exactly. I'm of the belief that it does not matter as much as many people think it does. And I explained this on calls where they ask, oh, where, like, tell me about your Rolodex or who are your relationships with. First of all, media is changing so fast. So sure, maybe there is a reporter that we worked with recently. They might have a completely different beat in six months. They might be at a very different publication. So it's not sustainable to build an entire career on having relationships with certain publications.

Starting point is 00:32:17 And media is changing too. Like now podcasts and substack and newsletters, like it's just changing too fast. And so I think cold outreach done well is just as effective. The only thing that a relationship will get you is, you know, an open and an answer. And so, you know, like any good reporters not going to be making their editorial decisions based on, like, who their friends are. Like, that's just not the nature. It shouldn't be the nature of the industry. And it's not maybe it'll get you like an intro coffee.

Starting point is 00:32:46 But that's about it. It's not going to get you coverage. They're not going to cover your news because there's a relationship there. I think the much harder and more important part is being good at writing really thoughtful notes to the right people. And in a way, now, you know, now we do have a relationship. And so, you know, it can come from a cold email. but now, you know, it's easier for me to pitch you because you know my name and we've spoken and we've worked together. And so for me, I'm a big fan of being like helpful to reporters and

Starting point is 00:33:12 tend to like, you know, just keep it like professional and pitch them on stories. I don't necessarily feel like the, you know, going to drinks or having coffee all the time is like crucial to like building those relationships. A lot of the reporters that I work with regularly I've never met in person and that's okay. But, you know, it can be, it can be great for getting answers, I would say. That's where the relationships can help, can be helpful. And then once you have worked with a reporter on a story, it's true that maybe they'll be more likely to come back when they're working on something related, you know, use you as a source, use you, quote you in articles that are relevant. So like once there's something there, that's great and you should totally nurture it, but it's not

Starting point is 00:33:50 all about calling in favors. Awesome. Okay. And then in terms of how to reach reporters, what do you find most effective? Yeah, I'm, I'm pro like, all platform approach. So sometimes reporters will tweet that they're working on a story about something. And rather than you sending them an email with my pitch, I'll say, hey, 10 words on why this person is the person you should talk to and then send a link to an article on them. And that's my entire pitch. And honestly, it's sometimes more effective than when I write, you know, spend 30 minutes writing a really thoughtful email. So I'm a fan of that. I'm a fan of DMs, short, you know, concise direct DMs, sometimes LinkedIn, although for whatever reason, I feel like that works better on the podcast

Starting point is 00:34:36 on the podcast side with hosts. And then of course, email. Like, we totally email. When I email a reporter, I love to make the subject line just like as clear as possible, like what the goal is and why I'm emailing them. And so let's say it's for a recurring column that they have. I'll put the name of that column and like the person that I think should be included in the subject line. And even that for a reporter is like, oh, they actually know, they actually know I write this. column and they're suggesting a guest for this column. It's so direct, it's so clear. I think just, yeah, saying what your intentions are right away, like are you trying to get a Q&A? Are you trying to get a story? Are you trying to get a funding story? Like I mentioned before, is very crucial.

Starting point is 00:35:17 And keeping it short. I would say my most successful pitches are three sentences and anytime it needs, sometimes it needs to be longer than that. And generally, I feel like my pitch is weaker for that reason. You know, attention spans are short. And so the more concise. you can make it the better. And then just, you know, if one platform, sometimes I'll start with one platform. Like I'll start with an email and that doesn't work. So I'll go somewhere else. But I try to make it very human and respectful.

Starting point is 00:35:42 So using language like, hey, I know your inbox is polyslam, you know, so sorry to annoy trying you one more time here. Another thing that actually can work really well is pointing out gaps in their coverage too and talking about things that they should be talking about. Like, hey, my client's noticing this trend. I know you've covered it from this point of view, but no one's talking about it from this point of view. That can be really helpful because it shows that you are actually paying attention to what they are writing. But in a way that you're like kind of demonstrating that you have some critical thinking going on,

Starting point is 00:36:13 not just I liked your article on X, which is a common practice that PR people kind of use is, you know, I like this and then jump to your pitch. So yeah, giving it a little more thoughtful, pointing out gaps in coverage. And then the last piece is, especially if you don't have hard news that you're having something like pretty controversial to say. So like we work with a lot of AI companies. If nine of them, you know, have one stance on, you know, something happening in the field and one has the other stance. Chances are that one is going to be the one that a reporter wants to talk to because they are getting so many pitches on this topic, but they want to write a balanced article. They need that opposing view. And so we really push our clients to have something,

Starting point is 00:36:55 you know, unique and different and bold to say. And it obviously has to be. And it obviously has to be a strategic decision for the business. Like you don't want to go commenting on regulatory things, if that's not. It sounds like you don't want to, you know, necessarily be a part of that conversation. But there are, I think, instances where it can make a lot of sense to say something that's a little bit bold and controversial. That last piece is really interesting. Is there an example that comes to mind where you had a controversial contrarian pitch?

Starting point is 00:37:23 Yeah. So we work with a company called Clockwise, which essentially, you know, manages your calendar and allows time for focus time within your workday. They move things around for you. And a couple months ago, Shopify got tons of positive press for essentially like canceling all their recurring meetings. And everyone was, you know, very intrigued by this strategy. Press was generally quite positive towards it.

Starting point is 00:37:47 And so we knew that if we just wrote another piece saying, oh, this is great. No one would want to publish that. It just isn't, you know, it had been said in a million different ways. So we looked at the topic a little more critically and we're like, okay, is this actually enough to change meeting culture within a business? And we kind of identified all these other things that we think need to happen in order to really like change the culture in a way that's going to be sustainable in long term

Starting point is 00:38:11 versus just like blanket, like deleting of calendar meetings. And so we ended up turning this into an op-ed, so something that together we wrote and then Pichita publication. And yeah, the title was Shopify's meeting cost calculator does not address the issue of wasted time. And so, you know, it wasn't necessarily saying it was a horrible idea, but it was putting, you know, a little more critical, a little bit more of a critical eye towards it. And Fast Company was interested in the idea. And they posted the piece by the CEO, Matt Martin. And it was like a great thing for us to comment on.

Starting point is 00:38:43 And so, yeah, I think it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily need to be something where you're coming out against it, but just like, you know, proposing something that's a little more thoughtful on the topic. Like just hearing that, it sounds like such an obvious thing to do. basically a reporter is looking for an interesting story to write about if you tell them something interesting that they could put out that's a win-win for everybody so makes a ton of sense let me try to summarize the advice you've shared so far when you're say DMing a reporter your advice so far is basically be very direct just tell them hey I'm looking for what's like an example of being direct is it like I'm looking for a story on this fundraising announcement I wouldn't say I'm looking for I don't know just because I would say um I would if it was a DM I would say

Starting point is 00:39:26 Reaching out from X company would love to offer you the first, the launch story alongside their funding if you're open to it. And usually I'd either say the amount in the investors or the company name is you give them both. You're kind of just giving them the story and they could run with it right away. That's actually an important distinction. And so you could either say reaching out with this, you know, Martec company that's raised $8 million from X investors. really interesting approach. They're taking on ex-incumbent. Do you want the exclusive?

Starting point is 00:39:57 That's kind of how I would phrase it. Okay, awesome. Then try to keep it to three sentences, and you're saying sometimes when you go longer, you actually end up backfiring each time. Sometimes include a link to a story they've written or some other story about the company that might give them some context.

Starting point is 00:40:14 Is that right? Yeah. And a caveat on that is if a competing publication just wrote a bigger, similar feature on that, they're not going to want to see that. Right. And so I would use that like strategically.

Starting point is 00:40:26 Like is it, if it's like an old, if it's a piece from a while ago on a different topic that does share a lot of info, I'll include it. But I'm not necessarily going to include something that might seem like, why would I cover this when this was just written about? Good point. You also talked about how try to like acknowledge their inbox is probably slammed.

Starting point is 00:40:42 And this is, you know, taking some time. Maybe in follow-ups, especially like, hey, realize your inbox slam just thought I'd come back to this. Then you talk about, this idea of identifying gaps in the writing.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Like, hey, it seems like you cover Gen AI. There's this trend that we've been noticing that maybe it would be interesting to cover. And then something controversial or something a little contrarian that would get them, oh, yeah, this could be a really interesting story. Awesome. Yeah. Is there anything else broadly in terms of pitch advice to get the attention of a reporter that comes to mind? And I know this is like a lifetime of experience.

Starting point is 00:41:21 and it's hard to summarize all of it, but anything else. Well, one topic, maybe this would be covered elsewhere, but one topic I think is talking about incumbents that this company is taking on. So a lot of companies want to position themselves as category creators. And I actually hate that. It doesn't work.

Starting point is 00:41:42 It doesn't land with press. And most of the time, it's not totally true. And so instead, it's actually really great when you can talk about how you are doing what X household name does, but better for X reasons. And that works so well. I'll put that in subject lines. I'll put company taking on whatever Salesforce with X approach.

Starting point is 00:42:02 It's so successful because instantly it gives the reporter a frame of reference. And so it gives a reporter, oh, I know what Salesforce does. So I can understand how this solution would be better. And a lot of companies really want to position themselves as the first to do anything in a certain space. They love like the idea of category creating, you know, creating, you know, like these little marketing phrases that they use for the new category. And that's fine, you know, perhaps that works on the sales side. But on the PR side, I would never put that in a pitch.

Starting point is 00:42:35 There's this going to be a meta comment, but there's two, like the two topics that are most controversial in this podcast that I have both sides of opinions on is the power of category creation and jobs to be done. Oh, really? There's a lot of passion on both sides. I mean, sure. You can point to, like, examples of, like, the two companies that have done category creation well. But, like, are you like that it's two out of what, like thousands?

Starting point is 00:43:01 I love it. I'm going to. Poking this hornet's nest. I love it. Okay. But you're saying in your experience doesn't work when pitching reporters. For PR. Yeah, simply for PR.

Starting point is 00:43:12 And on other areas of the business, I can't comment on. But for PR, it's just not a useful tactic. Okay. Awesome. This episode is brought to you by Vanta. When it comes to ensuring your company has top-notch security practices, things get complicated fast. Now you can assess risk, secure the trust of your customers, and automate compliance for SOC2, ISO-27,1, HIPAA, and more with a single platform, Vanta. Vanta's market-leading trust management platform helps you continuously monitor compliance alongside reporting and tracking risks. Plus, you can save hours by completing security questionnaires with Vanta AI.

Starting point is 00:43:54 Join thousands of global companies that use VANTA to automate evidence collection, unify risk management, and streamline security reviews. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash lenny. That's V-A-N-T-A.com slash Lenny. So I asked you to bring some examples of pitches that are great and also examples of pitches that could be better. And I know, yeah, okay, cool. So thank you for doing it homework.

Starting point is 00:44:24 Let's pull them up. And then I'd love to just show people what you find has been really effective. It works great about these examples. And then what somebody could have been better, whatever you want to share about that exam. Sure. Sounds good. I guess since we're on the topic of category creating versus not category creating,

Starting point is 00:44:40 I'll start with an example that's very relevant to that. So we worked with Ramp in their very early days. And one of their first product announcements that we did together was the launch of their bill pay offering. And so at the time, I think they were like a $3 billion company, something along those lines. So big but not as big as they are today. Product news rarely gets, you know, big feature coverage, especially for something along the lines of a bill pay offering for B2B companies. And so essentially the way that we framed the story was a lot, was, how Ramp was now able to take on Bill.com, which at the time, I'm not sure if it still is,

Starting point is 00:45:20 was one of the best performing FinTech IPOs public company that really had still only captured 2% of this market overall. And so by positioning it as allowing them to take on this massive incumbent that was getting a lot of press, we actually were able to get a CNBC story on the launch of this product. Generally, they won't even consider product stories, but they really like the angle of this underdog, like doing something that could take on a piece of market share from them. And the next day, there was actually another story about how Bill.com stock had gone down, and they did make mention of Ramp's news in that story. So it ended up really just like, it was a very powerful way of telling the narrative there.

Starting point is 00:46:02 And, you know, another way, if we hadn't pitched it like that, would have just been like, ramp bring simple, seamless, streamlined ability to do vendor payments and new finance, first of its kind, like, all these things, like, that might be like how you would talk in your customer emails, but if I had pitched it that way, like probably wouldn't have been a story. So if we had pitched it as them, you know, creating a new category of this all in one software, which, I mean, yeah, it could be argued that's another way to tell the story. I don't think CMBC would have been interested. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:46:36 So, okay, another example. We work with a company called Column Tax, which is embedded tax. filing software. So essentially they work with other fintechs to allow people to file their taxes within the tools that they already use. And last year they partnered with a company called Propel that offers SNAP benefits, so essentially for low-income families to receive government benefits, to offer tax filing directly within the app that they've created. And that was kind of one thing that they were doing amidst, you know, many other customers that they had, lots of different threads we could pull on with them, but we decided to really just focus our

Starting point is 00:47:15 press strategy on that one initiative because it allowed us to tell kind of like macro story about you know, turbotax had to pay all these fines for like practices that many considered unsavory around calling themselves free, but not really being free. The IRS is building a free filing system, but it's in its very early days. So the fact that they were having this offering that was like supporting a lot of low-income families. And I believe 40% of the people that filed their taxes with column hadn't filed taxes in the previous years. I hadn't gotten a return. It's like identifying the piece of the story that's most interesting and then like doubling down on that. So we were able to get like a great fast company piece instead of pitching this like macro like here are column taxes

Starting point is 00:47:59 latest growth metrics and they're announcing a partnership with propeller. And so it's like figuring out how to tie it to these like things that people actually care about and like not just like the company's messaging I think is is our job. Amazing. Is there any other examples? Otherwise I'll share your pitch of someone coming on my podcast and what worked about that. I do want to share one more because it's my favorite. I want to share my favorite funding story that I worked on. And so I'm actually going to pull it up because this one is very graphic in terms of how we went about showing the product. So we worked with a company called Gamma, which is essentially like bringing a PowerPoint into something that's much more modern and interactive and usable. So when we did

Starting point is 00:48:46 their launch, they were Seed Stage Company. We were tried to get really creative with how we could display or talk about the company. And so instead of doing your standard kind of company blog post, we actually made a Gamma presentation. And we kind of included all these like fun elements that need it, like, really interesting to reporters. So firstly, it's a visual platform. So we created, actually, I don't want to take credit for this. The Gamma team created this great visual. And we kept it, like, vary to the point.

Starting point is 00:49:13 Every year, half a billion people create presentations in Google slides and PowerPoint. Like, we're not, you know, we're not using marketing language here. We're talking in a very direct way. We're including fun visuals. We talk about, like, you know, Gamma's mission pretty short. Like, this is not, this is not like a long essay on why the company exists. And then we include some customer love. So they're early stage.

Starting point is 00:49:33 So we didn't really have necessarily like growth metrics that we wanted to share. So we tried to make it a little bit more personal and focus on actual users and what they're saying while also showing the product capability here. And then, you know, instead of doing a long thing on each investor, we just bulleted who the investors are, which is like very to the point, easy for a reporter to repurpose. And then the fun part that I really loved is we did a video from the lead investor talking about why she invests. instead of including an investor quote. So it's like a little bit different than what you kind of expect. And their videos are fun because they have like all these interactive elements. And yeah, team photo, make it a little more personal.

Starting point is 00:50:13 And that was about it. But anyways, it was a very successful story. And I believe the title of the TechCrunch article that we got as a result was Gamma brains PowerPoint into the 21st century. Exactly. That's like exactly what we're talking. You know, if maybe they are creating a new category, we weren't talking about it then. We're talking about how it's better than the existing solutions.

Starting point is 00:50:33 And so, yeah, I think it's, I guess, the piece of advice there is feel free to get, like, kind of fun and creative with it and don't just follow the typical, like, issuing press release format. And is that something we can link to for people to check out? Is that just on their site? Okay. Yeah, I actually had to for some reason do some digging to get it, but I can, yeah, I have it now, so I can give it to you. Okay, great. And the way that you use that is when you sent emails or DMs to reporters, you included this link. after they had agreed that they're potentially interested.

Starting point is 00:51:00 Because again, like if I had shared it right off the bat, it would be their prerogative to just publish it essentially or share it publicly. And I guess what important note is everything you say to a reporter in an email is on the record. And so that's why I make the point on not sharing the entire story right off the bat. Got it. So many companies won't have, they're not like a deck product. So they can't do something like this. but the takeaways for other folks here is be just like very human in the language,

Starting point is 00:51:32 keep it like the investors are just bullet points, make it fun, add some visuals, don't just like have blurbs and paragraphs and things like that. Yeah, yeah. I think it's reporters are used to getting the same thing all the time. And so, you know, this one obviously worked well for the format. But I think, you know, we try to always think of like, what can we do that's like slightly different for this one or like, how can we make this a little more fun? I guess the one exception, if the product is very technical and you have a very technical audience

Starting point is 00:52:01 and you're probably going to work with a very technical reporter, it's totally fine to, you know, talk to your audience in those cases and you don't need to necessarily dumb it down so everyone can understand. But that doesn't mean, I mean, you can do that while still using clear and concise language. Okay, so let me share the element of the pitch that you sent me that convinced me to bring this guest on. So this is going to be the chief product officer at NewBank. I had no, like, I barely know anything about NewBank. And so in your email to me, you basically had just two bullet points. And the way you put it is two other, two fun facts about NewBank. Growth has been 80 to 90% organic because of the way they try to make customers fanatical

Starting point is 00:52:40 about the product. And to me, it's like, wow, that's very rare is 80 to 90% of your growth being organic. So that to me is like, that's an interesting story. And then the other tidbit is NewBank is bigger than Coinbase. Robin Hood affirms, Sofi, and Lemonade combined. seriously, so much bigger than people in the U.S. realize, which I 100% didn't realize. So to me, both were just like, okay, this is an interesting story to tell. I think people would be very curious to hear our company like this operates. So now I'm going to start getting all these emails from people, all these couple of points. They're going to combine a bunch of companies and see which they're bigger than.

Starting point is 00:53:19 Or use AI to help them figure this out. Yeah. But I think what you identified here is just like what I get excited. about, is there any advice there of just, like, how to, what you do there that other people can learn from? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think with pitching you, like, speaking to the audience is, you know, it's not just about having, you don't want, like, the most well-known CEOs all the time. You're not looking just for the biggest companies and, like, the most well-known people. You're looking for, like, the things that they can talk about and how the things that they can talk about are relevant to your audience.

Starting point is 00:53:52 And so I tried to index on, like with the first bullet, it was indexing on that. The second bullet was more so like, hey, you might not know about this company. And it's a little bit of a unique one. I wouldn't necessarily always include that. But yeah, to me, the first bullet was really what mattered because it wasn't just about the fact that they were a huge company. It's that they grew in a unique way. And I knew that was like the kind of thing that you'd be interested in.

Starting point is 00:54:13 And how did you figure that out? Is it from emails we were exchanging ahead of that? Is it listening to some podcasts? How did you get to those conclusions? Yeah. listening certainly helps, but I do think like just figuring out, like, if you, if you even just scrolled, like the names of all the episodes that you've done, it would be pretty easy to spot a trend there. And so, you know, you're not talking about product launches. You are not talking about entrepreneurial journeys. You're talking about tactical lessons. And so pitching people based on those sort of things. Like, I don't even think you necessarily need to listen to a whole bunch of episodes most of the time. Maybe occasionally you want to gut check something before you reach out. But yeah, you can tell a lot just by doing like a little bit of research. And then we did have a little back and forth because I will take responsibility. I did try pitching you on a CEO at one point, which I know you don't, you don't have on it as

Starting point is 00:55:02 guests. Once in a while, very rarely. Yeah, and I had known, yeah, actually, there's obviously some exceptions. But I had known the subject matter you were looking for, but I did not spot the trend that you never had CEOs on. So I think my pitch was actually okay, but the spokesperson was not the kind of person that you would want on. So, so, you know, maybe you won't get a right 100% of the time, but you can tell a lot just by doing some searches. And oftentimes I just reply, here's my policy. Okay, it gets in out. Kind of along these lines, something I wanted to ask earlier, you mentioned a few publications to go after and then how to pitch people. Obviously, the way that you're describing takes a bunch of time. How many people are you often emailing, DMing,

Starting point is 00:55:42 per attempt to get a story? Because it sounds like it's not a ton, and so you have time to do these sorts of custom pitches, or is it well, higher than it sounds? I would say for hard news, like funding, the startup launch, those sort of things, less. And I try to really stagger it because we're offering exclusives, and I highly recommend offering exclusives. So the worst thing that can happen is two reporters reply and are both interested, and you have to go back to one and say, never mind. And sometimes that's okay if they left you, you know, it's been a week or something. They hadn't gotten back and they'll they'll understand. So, you know, it's fine to move on without getting an answer. So I would say,

Starting point is 00:56:20 yeah, with a funding story, it could be anywhere from one to six reporters on average, sometimes more. With stuff like, you know, like general, just like outreach, you know, relationship building, trying to get on podcasts, it kind of is a numbers game. And you really have to balance quality and quantity. And that's why I love starting with the first note and not saying much and just saying, hey, you open to guest ideas because it allows you to kind of do more. I'd rather do that. then send a bad pitch and not have it be targeted to the right like sort of like audience. And so that's kind of a way to play the numbers game while still being respectful. But yeah, I mean, you know, with some clients, maybe they get one opportunity for every 20 or 30

Starting point is 00:57:02 things that we send. And so, yeah, we try not to do like blasting. We don't do blasting media. It's not about sending the same person or the same pitch to a single list of people. it's figuring out, you know, which ones do I want to really double down on because they're the perfect target and, you know, you'll keep trying, you'll be really custom, which deserve maybe a slightly higher level note, which deserve like a DM and just kind of like figuring out your strategy from that. Awesome. Okay. Do you have examples of pitches, announcements that were not as effective as they could have been and advice for how they could have been better? Yeah, I have some excerpts that I pulled from press releases where I think there's room for improvement. So, Lenny, I want to read one to you, and then I want to see if you can tell me what this company does.

Starting point is 00:57:49 Okay. Today, X announced their workflow automation product, which combines AI assistance, human-in-the-loop collaboration, and a robust multiplayer experience to help team save time. Absolutely no idea what's going on. It's like, you kind of gain something from workflow automation, and then after that, it's like, wait, what? Okay, now let me read to the TechCrunch title, that they are, an excerpt, from the TechCrunch article. And this is how TechCrunch positioned it.

Starting point is 00:58:18 A new automation startup is setting out to eat Zapier's lunch. It helps people tackle mundane repetitive tasks and goes beyond the triggers and actions popularized by similar platforms like Zapier. So like to me, yeah, it's like a better version of Zapier where they like aren't just doing triggers and actions and there's like a little more substance and depth to it. Like, you know, if you know what Zapier is,

Starting point is 00:58:38 you can kind of start to figure out what they do based on that. Yeah, comes back to your point about referencing an incumbent to help you understand what the heck you're talking about. And you wouldn't necessarily need to do that in like your press release, but I think, you know, they could have been like a lot, like a lot clearer and not use. Because I mean,

Starting point is 00:58:56 terms like robust multiplayer experience, like that makes it sound like a game. Are we talking about just like collaborative, like multiple users? Human in the loop collaboration isn't all collaboration between humans like and work all in the loop? Like AI assistance, that just means they use AI.

Starting point is 00:59:12 So, yeah, it's like, sometimes I push my clients to like, okay, let's talk through what each of these phrases actually means. Because if you can't articulate it, and if you can articulate it, then let's change it to the way that you just articulated it. And it might be more successful. So, yeah, that's a good way to do it. And just, like, read it out loud, like, read it out loud and see if someone understands it. Someone hearing this is like, how could possibly anybody think that was great? How did these come about, these really bad descriptions? I know it's hard to come up with something really short and pithy, but where do these come from?

Starting point is 00:59:46 I just think there's, it's just like a culture within marketing and comms of this is how we're supposed to write. And I just think that's a majority of how people do it. And they think it sounds smart or they think it sounds like more professional or like I just think it's just how people are trained. And so even like, I don't know, like when we bring on someone new, like part of my job is stripping away at a lot of that and getting people like you know everyone's capable of talking like a human being we do it every day um but it's like stripping away that like thing that goes off in your head that you're supposed to be writing in a very marketingy way I would say at least 50% of releases are like that it's not a small it's not a small problem uh I love the advice you shared of just trying to say it out loud hearing yourself what does it sound like you have any other tips for trying to make it something people get and connect to you I know that again this is like what they takes a lot of time to really do well and it's very context specific, but is there any other tricks that you find

Starting point is 01:00:44 help you communicate what you're actually offering? It's talking through, like, the basic questions. Like, what does this product do? Who is it for? Who are your customers? Like, if you can answer each of those

Starting point is 01:00:59 in one sentence, like, what product launch are we talking about here? Like, if you can just answer each of those, like verbally, chances are you're not going to be far away from what you're looking for. Because when I talk to marketers and founders and teams, generally, like in the conversations, I have no trouble understanding what they're talking about. They can articulate it just fine. It's only in the writing that it gets that way.

Starting point is 01:01:20 So I actually don't. I think it's like kind of easier to solve than many might realize. And then also I think there is some skill involved in like removing words, not over explaining. Like you can make things more concise. But at the bare minimum, just like strip out all the jargon. That's like the first step. I love it. So like one way to think about it.

Starting point is 01:01:39 is just thinking about who is this what does it do who's it for who are the customers there there's something else along that you shared there as a bullpoint well i mean if you're talking about like what goes into like you know what's what makes this business interesting like why why should people care um and not over indexing on that i think that's just one part of the overall story is why people should care about this business yeah and then you know like what's new is it growth metrics is it the customer piece is a product like what's what's what makes this timely and relevant right now. Okay, awesome. There's actually this awesome Twitter thread from a couple days ago where the CEO of Product Hunt did this thread where he asked people

Starting point is 01:02:16 share your tagline and I will give you a much better version of the tagline. And he's really good at this. So I'm going to link to it in the show notes where you can give you an example of what it looks like from bad to good. I love that. That's exactly the kind of thing I would love to do too. It's so fun and so easy. It's easy if you're good at it, right? Most people are not great at it. You mentioned press release in this example. You shared thoughts on value of press release, traditional press release versus not. Press releases came about because reporters would be checking news wires

Starting point is 01:02:48 for ideas of what stories they want to write. No reporters do that anymore or a very small percentage. I don't know any reporters that do that anymore. So now it's this thing where you go to one of the PR distribution services, you pay them anywhere between $300 to $2,000. That's literally what it costs. And they put it on the wire. And for the more expensive services,

Starting point is 01:03:12 it does get syndicated to this press release section of some business websites. No one, in my opinion, goes there for their news. I've personally never read an article, like a Yahoo finance article that was a press release syndication. So in that sense, they are not helpful for getting eyeballs. they also require like going back to that like more marketing form of writing they require that you write like that the standard press release format it's it's so formulaic and I think it actually like encourages that more marketing speak the benefit is that you're getting all the nays details in one place

Starting point is 01:03:49 so it's relevant for a reporter however you can do the exact same thing in a blog post and the blog post can be this first person piece of content that's written by either the founder or the product lead or whatever executive that has a lot more flexibility in the style. You can kind of write it however you want. It can still include all the same news elements. And it's much more shareable on social. Like you're not going to share a link to a press release on your Twitter or on your LinkedIn, but a blog for sure.

Starting point is 01:04:18 You can add your own graphics. It's great. And you're also encouraging people to go to something that lives on your website versus like this like black hole of a newsletter. I should be fair. So I think that the reason that people say, that they still do them is that it helps with SEO. However, I've read a few articles that I've said that Google no longer does prioritize press releases in SEO. So I don't know how much that holds up

Starting point is 01:04:42 and that it signals to the market that the company is more serious. So that's a perception thing. I personally think that blogs actually signal a more modern kind of cool company than a press release. But at a certain stage in your growth, like public companies, they do press releases for earnings, It makes 100% sense. There are certain rules around when companies do need to issue press releases. So there's still a use case for them. I just think your average early to mid-stage startup doesn't need them. This mention of logs is where I wanted to go next, actually.

Starting point is 01:05:12 So it's a good segue. But before we do that, is there any other examples that you wanted to share of less than ideal ways of pitching a product? One sentence I found in a press release that a lot of companies want to include that I always try to remove is, well, here, I'll give you the sentence. since exiting stealth in May, we've witnessed a 700% increase in organizations using our product. You're saying that since you were in stealth to now, you saw a 700% increase. So you could have had one customer, now you have seven.

Starting point is 01:05:43 And it's like every company wants to do these percentage growth stats when they just launched. And I've never seen reporters include that in their stories. And so there are ways to give signals of how fast you're growing without being that kind of disingenuous. like one way that you could put something similar is our revenue hit six figures at the end of last year and has been growing about 30% each quarter with 40% of adoption coming from the enterprise sector. So you're giving like color to the growth. And there's like you can kind of play with that. It doesn't need to be exactly something like that. But if you can make it a little more specific, I'm not against doing percentages, but I think there's a way to balance that with something that seems

Starting point is 01:06:23 a little more realistic. Or like we went from zero to 100 to six figures in ARR in X months. Yeah, yeah, totally. And it doesn't need to be huge, especially if you're doing your first story. They're not expecting that you're necessarily going to have massive revenue. And so I think founders might sometimes be concerned that it's not going to seem like big enough or significant enough. Whereas, you know, from working with a lot of companies, it's kind of the case across the board. You mentioned a bunch of amazing companies. You've worked with RAMP, perplexity, a few others.

Starting point is 01:06:53 And, you know, people may feel like, of course you're getting pressed. Those are amazing. They ramp, groove to 100 million AR in like two years. Perplexity is this killer AI product. Everyone's talking about AI. Most products are not that. They don't have as interesting of a story to tell. Is there either an example you could share of a company that didn't have an amazing

Starting point is 01:07:13 story tell that you created an interesting story out of? Or just any advice for like, how do you help find something that is a nugget that gets people excited? So some of the examples I gave, so clockwise, and column tax aren't as big as some of the other brands I mentioned. So that's certainly actually the bulk of our business. I would say 80% of the companies we work with are at a stage where they haven't reached that kind of mass awareness yet. Another really great company that we work with is entropy.

Starting point is 01:07:44 And so essentially they work with like transaction data. They're an API. It's a very technical tool. It's not something that necessarily every reporter is going to instantly understand. But for them, we've actually really leaned into the founder. story. She's this incredible woman who moved to the U.S. and actually struggled with getting her first apartment here because of the way that our credit system is set up, a credit scoring system is set up. And one of the use cases for what she's building actually directly relates to how

Starting point is 01:08:15 our credit system could change in the future. And so we've been really leaning into that angle. And she's just like her personal story is really powerful. And so, you know, maybe sometimes the product isn't going to be something that you can easily pitch, but you can kind of find those other, like, personal angles in or pull on certain threads. And there it connects back to find the publication that cares about these sorts of personal stories because tech wrench, this probably won't.

Starting point is 01:08:40 Yeah, and, but we've been also been, we got her, she spoke at Money 2020, so it's, like, useful for speaking abstracts too. Actually, it's on a panel with column tax, so we got them on together at Money 2020. What a win. No, and we love doing that. It's so fun when you do have multiple companies that you can connect. Actually, that's kind of a good macro point as well.

Starting point is 01:09:04 It doesn't always need to just be about you. If you have an idea for a conference session, reaching out to, you know, colleagues that you've worked with at other companies, peers, people that are building other things that maybe don't compete, but are in a similar space and packaging that up as like, hey, this could be a really strong panel. It's actually way more successful than just pitching yourself. Awesome.

Starting point is 01:09:24 Okay. So you've mentioned a couple times the rise of newsletters and podcasts. So there's kind of two buckets of questions here. One is going after these kind of non-traditional media platforms. And then the other is building your own following and building a following on Twitter, for example. I know you work closely with the CEO of Box. He was really good at this and basically does any press. Elon is amazing at this. Maybe that's why he bought Twitter. He has this huge platform to talk about all stuff. So kind of maybe in the first. bucket talking about when you're trying to decide should I go after traditional media Vox and Venture Beat and Axios and all these guys versus I'm going to go for newsletters like as an example ramp got a lot of benefit from not boring that newsletter with Paki who wrote about them like constantly and loved it and their sponsored post and organic posts so I guess the question there is just how do you think about going after podcast newsletters Twitter news like LinkedIn, you know,

Starting point is 01:10:26 influencer-y platformy people versus traditional press. I think of newsletters and podcasts actually in the camp of, if we're pitching traditional press, we're 100% pitching those. Social is its own ballgame, but I would not leave out newsletters and podcasts from any core PR strategy. Like to me, it's now, you know, just a part of any PR program that we're going to run

Starting point is 01:10:50 because that's just where it's just part of media now. And to me, it's just like a very important part of media. In terms of social, I think doing social well is very hard. So, you know, you gave Aaron from Box as an example. That was all 100% him. I think I helped with one tweet once about a Microsoft partnership that we did.

Starting point is 01:11:09 And it was like my, I was so excited. How to do? Actually really good. A publication ended up writing a story on the tweet about Microsoft and Box partnership because of it. So yeah, so that was fun. But generally, it's not. always something that you can just turn on by hiring an agency. And I've seen like many companies try doing that and not necessarily see as much success as they'd hoped for. So it's like this like,

Starting point is 01:11:37 you know, if a founder is naturally good at that stuff, lean into it as much as humanly possible. Go for it. If they're not and you're trying to outsource it, it can be done to some success, but I don't necessarily think it's as easy as, you know, just posting three times a week on, relevant topics, there has to be more going on there. I think that if the, if the spokesperson or the executive that you're trying to build the presence of is willing to, going back to what I said earlier, kind of push the limit on opinions that they have, be bold, be controversial, then it could be worth potentially investing in. And I have seen it play out where reporters have seen those posts and used and quoted things in their articles as a result. So it can tie to your

Starting point is 01:12:19 traditional media strategy a little bit. They're not necessarily fully siloed. But I would say if you're considering investing in social to just do corporate channels and not think about executives, you're really leaving like a lot on the table. Like corporate channels, it's very hard to build a, it's very hard to build a following to get someone to follow a brand and care about a brand. You have to be like bringing something new to the table because they don't want to, They don't want to read your latest blog post. They don't want to read like a relevant article that you're like social person just decided to put out there. When you have an executive, you're following a personality.

Starting point is 01:12:55 You're following a person. Ideally, there's more flexibility with tone, all of that sort of stuff. And so I think, yeah, I think it's important to think about it from the people perspective and not just the brand perspective. So just to make it clear, the CEO or some execs should be the people tweeting and LinkedIn and not like the company as a brand. Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, yeah, I think that it can be like a little industry specific as well where it makes sense to be investing in the corporate channels. And you certainly can do that sort of thing.

Starting point is 01:13:27 But I also think if you're going to do that, like, have an exact that you're also, like trying a social strategy with like don't just do the plain corporate channels. Yeah, when I think of a brand doing this really well, it's duolingo. They're just like so hilarious and so ridiculous in there. And I don't know if the key is just funny is the way to go. go and that's how you get any attention, but they're so funny and creative in their videos, especially TikTok. It's interesting, though, we're getting to the point where even brands having a personality

Starting point is 01:13:53 on social is becoming its own meme. Like, people are kind of making fun of how all the fast food brands all are like these Gen Z like TikTok. Right, and they're all replying to each other on Twitter threads. Yeah, yeah, it's just like this. Yeah. And so it's like, things change quickly. So like, yes, that was a good strategy.

Starting point is 01:14:08 But like, yeah, you just kind of have to stay on top of it. So you talked about how if this comes naturally to you as a founder, obviously do it. I'm guessing for most people, it doesn't. Do you find that it can work if you're just like, I know this is important. I need to tweet often and share things. Have you seen that work? Or is it just like, it's just probably not going to be something that works great for you? Yeah, I think it can work to some extent. Like maybe you're not going to necessarily be, you know, going viral or getting hundreds or tens of thousands of followers. But I mean, like for me personally, I push myself to post on LinkedIn at least once a month because every time I post,

Starting point is 01:14:46 we get at least one client and maybe a candidate inbound. And so if you test it and you start to see value, like, yeah, push yourself to do it, even if it doesn't come naturally. And that's, I guess, the nice thing about social is it's easy to test out. You can try doing it. You can post for a while, even for a month or two, see how it's going and then adjust your strategy accordingly. But yes, I think for a lot of execs that we work with, it does feel like it's something

Starting point is 01:15:09 that's really hard. Like there's a lot of overthinking, making sure it's right. Like you can get really in your head about it. And I totally understand that because I feel the same way. And so, yeah, if it's taking up so much of like your time and bandwidth, just thinking about your social strategy, then I guess you can weigh if it makes sense to do that. But yeah, I think pushing yourself to try it is a great idea. Okay.

Starting point is 01:15:31 And then Aaron specifically is very good at this. Is there anything that you learn from his approach to tweeting specifically? I don't know if he uses other platforms that works really well. well for him. I mean, I actually think like I just learned so much. So it was kind of, it was my first in-house job. So I had worked in an agency. I hadn't worked internally at a company before. And I think I just like learned so much about like comm's best practices from him in general, like just even beyond social. He was so good at like figuring out how to comment on things happening in the news, having just the right kind of like stance that was both like interesting to the reporter, but like not

Starting point is 01:16:07 necessarily like threatening to the business and like and just like capitalizing on all those moments. And I just like watched how that worked. And I was like this is how good PR is in. And it's like the company that they're the space that they're in is not necessarily one that, you know, reporters are all like writing about. But he was able to insert himself in those conversations really well. And I think also like at the time that I was there at least like just like really valued press and like was willing to put the time in and do the briefings. And so just like getting to hear how he, how he speaks over and over again was, like, really helpful. And then on like Twitter, I think it's just, I mean, it clearly just like comes like naturally to him. And so

Starting point is 01:16:46 it wasn't necessarily something that needed to, you know, like I mentioned how some execs will spend all this time like thinking through it, thinking through to the point where it could get in the way of other things. Like I think that's not the case there. And if anything, like it just, you know, help the business. And actually with his Twitter presence, I would say it's a good example, too, of stuff getting included in articles. Like I mentioned in that Microsoft article, you know, so it helps the PR strategy as well. Amazing. And we'll link to his Twitter account.

Starting point is 01:17:11 This is Aaron, CEO of Box, by the way. I think I mentioned at the beginning and then we just started talking about Aaron. Also, I realize, air he tweets about this sometimes. He actually makes money from Twitter. And now that Twitter pays you for views and things. And they share ads. He makes like thousands of dollars also from X now, by the way, not Twitter. That's so funny.

Starting point is 01:17:29 Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. I think I've gone through every question that I had for you. I'm curious if there's anything else that you think might be helpful to share or cover or leave listeners with. I can leave with one very tactical media opportunity that I love. And okay, so here it is. It's a way to get a Morning Brew feature pretty somewhat easily. So they have this series called Morning Brew Co-Working Series, and they have it for Emerging Tech Brew,

Starting point is 01:18:03 they have it for HR brew, all their verticals. I think there's like a CFO one, marketing one. And essentially, if you go to the series, the co-working series, either at the top or the bottom, there's something where it's like, if you want to be featured, click on this link and fill out this form. And it's about 10 questions. If you keep your answers interesting and fun and not too self-promotional, we've had, I would say, 50% success rate with like getting execs featured that way.

Starting point is 01:18:26 And so all you have to do is submit through a Google form. And it's just like one of the one of my favorite media opportunities right now. Doesn't need to be CEO. Actually, probably shouldn't be a CEO in a lot of instances. But they just, it's basically intended to help readers understand like what the day to day looks in certain jobs. And like, you know, just like get a little insight into the people that are in these jobs. And so I, yeah, I guess I just wanted to share that as like something that you could do today for over 10 minutes and potentially get a story. Although maybe not after you post this, so we'll see if they get like an influx.

Starting point is 01:19:02 We're going to take downmail brew. Funny enough, they have an interview with Zuck today that they published on Morning Brew, so it could be you alongside Zuck. There you go, yeah. Maybe before we get to our very exciting lightning round, it might be fun to chat about how to pick a PR agency. Obviously, you run one, when people are trying to decide who to work with and also when to decide to pick and work with a PR agency versus doing themselves,

Starting point is 01:19:28 what advice can you share when they're trying to make that big decision? I think there's an assumption that bigger, more well-known agencies are going to do a better job. I think a lot of those bigger, well-known agencies are used to working with a lot of household brands. And so their strategies tend to be very reactive, you know, focus in the messaging, you know, maybe you have to turn down a bunch of opportunities, control what people, say that is like the polar opposite in my opinion of doing startup PR startup PR you got to experiment you got to try new things you got to be scoppy you got to be fast like we actually personally like love like you know diving into pitching right away rather than spending several months on messaging

Starting point is 01:20:08 just kind of testing in market right away and so don't assume just because they have the huge logos to your point you're like oh well you work with ramp and perplexity does that mean you know how to work with all these tiny companies that's not necessarily a good thing so don't just go by like the big logos I would say that's my first piece of advice. My second piece of advice is find out what they start doing, like find out what month one looks like with them. If month one is them just doing intake calls and learning about the company and you're a startup, you know, that's still like, you know, really paying close attention to how much money you're spending. You're not going to necessarily want to partner with an agency that needs like a three month ramp up cycle. And so really like

Starting point is 01:20:49 tactically understand what those first few months look like. I think that's something that I've noticed is a lot of agencies not take a while before they get their hands dirty and like start doing things. My third piece of advice would be writing recent writing samples, like to the point of like all those press release excerpts I shared, like, is that how they write? If it is, maybe they're not the right agency. So ask them, that's so easy. It's so easy to do. Just like ask them for a couple recent blogs or releases, whatever they tend to go for and read those. And of course, like wins too. Like you want to see like what kind of stories they're getting, but that's a little more obvious. A lot of people have already talked about this. So I'll just mention briefly, it's important

Starting point is 01:21:28 to like meet with the actual team you're working on, not just the founder of the agency. So asking like who's our day to day going to be. Can we chat with them really quick? One thing I would say don't do is like an extensive RFP process. Like we actually as an agency don't participate in RFPs. A lot of it, the two times I've done it, I kind of had regret it just because of the amount of work going in versus the value that's there. And it's like, it's just, you're asking a team to do a lot of free work for you. And generally, I think the best players are not going to do that. So you're not going to get the, you're going to weed out some of the best players if you're asking them to do a lot of free upfront work.

Starting point is 01:22:03 So, yeah, those are a few considerations. Perfect. And then just two more questions, because I imagine this is what people are thinking about when they're trying to decide, should we find somebody, is how long ahead of time they should find someone before something big is happening. and then just what's a budget they should have in mind for something like this? Like what's like a minimum or a range, whatever you think would be helpful for people to understand. Here's how much you're probably going to be investing here. It can really start times can vary from agency to agency.

Starting point is 01:22:29 I think we can get started like the week that a client needs us too. So maybe I'm not best equipped to answer this. But I would say before an announcement happens, you probably want to kick off six weeks in advance. So when we start with the company, it's like we're working on the blog, we're doing a media training, we're doing the media outreach, we're getting quotes from investors, or coordinating with all the parties, making sure images are being created.

Starting point is 01:22:52 So it's not just pitching and securing the article. So I would say buffer with time to pitch, you know, make sure that the reporter is actually able to cover it. Six weeks is ideal. I would also note that it's really, I highly recommend not having a firm date that you think you need to announce something and going instead with whether a reporter is able to cover your story. We get so many clients that come to us and they have this set date. in their head. But there's not usually a real reason for it. It's like they're planning around it. It's like they have other comms. They want to go out that day. But as you can optimize for the

Starting point is 01:23:25 reporter over the timing, you're going to see such a better outcome because getting the first choice reporter is going to drive way more for your business than announcing it four days sooner. So, you know, leaving a little bit of flexibility for that agency is key. And I've even seen companies like issue a press release for big news with no coverage because they had stuck to a certain day and we're very rigid about it. And they didn't get any stories for that reason. And so I think a good agency would counsel to offer that flexibility. So, so yeah, six weeks, I think is the ideal amount of time. And then budget, I would say the lowest end would probably be about 10K a month for an agency. You can find consultants. I think the best ones would be at least

Starting point is 01:24:08 8K a month. But for, you know, a small boutique agency starts at 10. rates actually start. I'll just be like transparent. I'm very open about our pricing. Our rights are start at 15k on for our retainers. And actually that's like for like a series A companies generally what they're at. And then I mean, I would say unless you are a global business that needs like basically different teams for different like product lines, like which happens when you're like, you know, a Microsoft of the world, that's another story. But if you're just, you know, like a series C startup that's getting a lot of attention, I would I wouldn't go beyond. 30K probably. There are plenty of agencies that go into the 50s and 60s a month,

Starting point is 01:24:50 but that's just like a whole other world. And I'm not like an expert on that part. Amazing. Thank you for sharing all that. What if you're going for just like a one off, just help me get one story? What's like a range there for a budget you should expect? Yeah. I would say between 10 and 20. And you might be able to find a consultant that'll do it for like eight. Amazing. So helpful. Yeah. Emily, is there anything else you want to to share before we get to our very exciting lightning round. No, I'm ready. Well, welcome to our very exciting lightning round.

Starting point is 01:25:21 I've got six questions. Are you ready? I am. First question. What are two or three books you've recommended most to other people? Yeah, so I have one that's very top of mind right now. So it's How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. I'm actually, I leave tonight for a week-long psilocybin retreat.

Starting point is 01:25:42 Oh, shit. we should have done this after no it's another one i know i would have had a i would be getting much more philosophical maybe um yeah so uh so very excited i'm going to jamaica um and i just ever since kind of like researching that field like this the whole concept of like changing your neural pathways is just like very fascinating to me and like just like opening up and like shifting perspectives is something that i think will actually help me a lot just like even in like running a company, like being a better leader. You know, I think we're at a stage at our growth right now where we're hiring a lot and there's like a lot of pressure and I just want to make sure I'm like bringing my

Starting point is 01:26:22 best self forward every day. And so yeah, I'm just, I'm really excited about it. What an amazing answer. This is going to be part of your set and setting this interview. So, but hopefully you can get it out of your mind. No, totally. I was actually, you know, I was like, I was like nervous. I'm like, it's actually really great that this is happening and then I can completely unplug after it. And so yeah, I think it's actually good timing. I'm excited to hear out goes. I'm not a big book recommender. I have like ADHD and reading full books is like very hard for me. And so, yeah, so I'm just going to leave you with that one. I do like, I can do like the occasional beach read or like really focused, but it's not my main format of content consumption. Amazing. All right. Great answer. One's plenty.

Starting point is 01:27:04 Do you have a favorite movie or TV show you've really enjoyed? Okay. So my favorite genre is like post-apocalyptic sort of end of the world. survival. I need to mention my all-time favorite show because it would be bad not too. So Walking Dead is like my comfort TV show. Like I can watch it when I'm going to sleep at night. But my most recent favorite was Yellow Jackets. Are you familiar? I've seen the poster on my TV, but I've not watched it. Nice. Yeah. I discovered it a little late. I think the second season finished and they're working on the third. But yeah, it has like plane crash.

Starting point is 01:27:44 It has like just like shocking moment after shocking moment, like cannibalism, very weird stuff. And it's like one of those shows that like sticks in your mind, which I like kind of like like kind of like like thinking about it afterwards. It's like kind of creepy. So yeah. Wow. I thought you were going for Last of Us, but I now have to watch the show. No, I'm, I'm, I watched Last of Us and I didn't feel like it had enough survival

Starting point is 01:28:08 elements to it. It was like, it was like storytelling in that environment, but it wasn't actually like a survival post-apocalyptic show in the way that I was looking for. Hardcore. Do you have a favorite interview question you like to ask, and you can take this in any direction you want? Yeah. So I have like a new one. We actually just revamped our interview process. I wanted to make it harder. So my new favorite question is if a client comes to you and they're convinced they have something that's pressworthy, like an announcement that they think should be, I don't know, in the Wall Street Journal or something. And you know for a fact that it isn't, like, what steps do you take? What do you do next? And I like that question because they can handle it one from like the client relations standpoint. Like how do you

Starting point is 01:28:50 communicate with the client when they say something like that? But it's also like a critical thinking and like creativity question of like, how do you take a no and turn it into a yes? How do you take what they're giving you and make it into something interesting? And so yeah, I like to kind of dig into that. and they can use like a real example if they want. But I also think like a lot of our job is pushing back in a way. And so that's like also shows like if they're able and willing to push back. That's, I am so curious to hear people's answer to that. Do you have a favorite product that you've recently discovered that you love?

Starting point is 01:29:24 I was very skeptical of Apple Vision Pro and I was like kind of making fun of it at the beginning. And the first time I tried it, I like completely changed my tune. I'm so into it. I'm like ordering one. And I'm very excited for like, actually using it for work. I think it could be a really good use case for just like my day to day at work. After I had tried it the next day, I like messaged a bunch of clients that I thought had like could have relevant applications for it. I'm like, do we have an Applevision pro strategy? Are we willing to talk about it

Starting point is 01:29:52 publicly yet? So yeah, because sometimes, I mean, that's like tying back to the PR conversation. I love if you're willing to like push the envelope on stuff that you are building or are going to do and getting ahead of those conversations. So that's like a lot of conversations I'm having. having right now is trying to convince clients to talk about that. Do you have an Applevision pro strategy? Amazing. And then my other one, which is very self-serving because they are a client, but I do use them every day, is perplexity.

Starting point is 01:30:20 I find it so helpful, even just for like, you know, I'm working on an award submission. I forgot how much a client, how much funding a client is raised, asking them that instead of, you know, opening five different Google links and trying to find the answer. it's just huge for quick information or like writing a bio for an executive, like getting just like the TLDR of like what they've done in their past. Like it's so good for PR use cases. And I actually think marketing and PR is going to be one of the like core sort of like work applications for them. I've also already shared how much I love perplexity. I have the Chrome extension installed.

Starting point is 01:30:57 I probably use it at least once a day for podcast interview, prep along with a bunch of other stuff. So good find for customer. I think they're going to do great. Wish I was an investor. I'm a happy investor. I rarely angel invest and I was. Drink's on Emily someday. There we go.

Starting point is 01:31:15 That's awesome. Good job. Thank you. Okay. Two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to, share with friends or family, either in work or in life? Strong opinions loosely held.

Starting point is 01:31:28 I'm a very opinionated, trust my gut kind of person. But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to change my mind on things and be wrong. I first heard it from an influencer tinks and then I googled it. And apparently, what was it? Like, Jeff Bezos also said it at one point. So I have no idea the origin of the quote. But I think that's a good one. Like you can still like be like really opinionated in life.

Starting point is 01:31:49 But that doesn't mean you always are going to be right. Emily, this was everything I hoped it would be. I feel like this is going to help so many people get awesome for us. Thank you again so much for being here. Two final questions. Where can folks find you? reach out if they want to learn more or work with you. And how can listeners be useful to you? Our website is at 6eastern.com and our email is hello at 6eastern.com. So you can find us there.

Starting point is 01:32:14 And actually I have a newsletter called On Background. It's on Substack. And really like what it's intended to be is a place for like people to find these tactical opportunities. So it has media moves. It has reporters that are working on stories. It has awards that are open. Like all of the stuff that basically an intern, an agency would spend their days researching we put into a newsletter. And so its main audience is PR people, but I actually think it could be a great resource for people within companies that don't have PR teams to stay on top of stuff. So I guess, yeah, to be helpful, you know, feel free to subscribe. And then other than that, we're hiring. So if you happen to be a PR person that got this far in the episode, yeah, always looking for

Starting point is 01:32:55 great, great people to bring on. Amazing. Is there anything specific you're looking for and people are hiring for people that may want to reach out other than they've been in PR. Ideally, some B2B experience. I think doing B2B PR is very different from doing consumer PR. If you work with startups, that's a huge plus. You know how to be kind of scrappy and fast. And also people that just love to be like really hands on and doing the actual work. We're not a place.

Starting point is 01:33:15 We're very flat. So we're not a place where there's much managing of teams. So yeah, it's really much more like a consultancy than anything else. Amazing. Emily, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, it was so fun. Thank you so much. Bye, everyone.

Starting point is 01:33:30 Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny'spodcast.com. See you in the next episode.

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth - The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern)

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