Episode 39: How to Write an Op-Ed and Contribute to a Top-tier Publication with Entrepreneur Kristy Carruthers
Once upon a time, it was 'okay' for businesses not to do much PR. The customers will come to you anyway. Once upon a time, it was also considered 'acceptable' to pitch before journalists the same way you were selling a product.
Indeed, gone are the days when you can afford to begin your story pitch with 'once upon a time,' for there are other unconventional but tested PR methods to help you get all the publicity you need.
If you're a business founder, you may find this discovery stage confusing, particularly on how you can get started with PR.
The truth is that you need not look no further except at yourself.
Don't be surprised—your story is the best place to start your pitch!
It's unique no matter how boring you may think it is because your insights into your own story are distinct from other people's beliefs and values.
This is a factor that all journalists in top-tier publications always consider—they want fresh and unique perspectives.
The best person to offer that uninhibited authority is none other than you!
That is exactly how this episode, through our guest, Kristy Carruthers, can help you not only identify your story, but she'll discuss how you can assemble all the 'mess' in your narrative and turn these 'messes' into your PR message.
“You can be telling your story, but at the end of the day, it's how that impacts the listener and why they should be interested in it.”
-Kristy Carruthers
Kristy Carruthers is passionate about empowering women to create the life and business of their dreams, for themselves and their families. As an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, and podcast host, she works with women from around North America, to help them start and scale their businesses, and create freedom through entrepreneurship.
Follow along in the story of this special episode as we take advantage of all the elements that make a good story pitch, so you can finally get featured by top-tier publications and you can attract all the customers you want.
This episode is just right for you because we want to continue the story of all your' once upon a time' into the most amazing tale you can possibly tell the whole world.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
The beauty of storytelling pitches versus a marketing pitch
How to take advantage of using relevant data in your pitches
Understanding the value of Op-Ed columns for PR
Why pursuing follow-ups with journalists is always worth it
Practicing the mindset shift to land top-tier publications
If you want to land your first feature for free without any connections, I want to invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact methods thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Gloria Chou's Masterclass: PR Masterclass
Gloria Chou PR Podcast: Episode 32, How to Cold Pitch
Learn more about SHEcorporated: shecorporated.com
Additional Resources:
Join the Small Biz PR Pros FB group
Listen On Your Favorite Podcast Platform
Follow & Review on Apple Podcasts
Are you following my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today so you don’t miss any future episodes!
I would also appreciate it if you would leave me a review! Reviews help me make sure I am providing the content that you need! Plus, you will be entered to WIN a 1:1 pitch writing session with me where I will help you find your press-worthy angle! Click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review”.
Here’s a glance at this episode…
[4:00] The 'Aha! moment' is when you realize that it's not about you, as far as the journalist is concerned or as far as the audience is concerned, and I think that goes for PR. I think it goes for any kind of storytelling in your business period.
[5:05] I think in the stories, it's really connecting with the audience on the level of where I am now is not where I started, and maybe they're where I started. It starts with the mess, and then showing them where you end up.
[8:38] So if you can take that data, and then you can back it up again. I can pull my audience, which is all early-stage women founders, and get some specific data and then back that up with something from national statistics.
[18:24] You have a unique story to tell and a unique perspective that nobody else has. So even if you only have a month under your belt, you're just getting started or a year and whatever it is with this business, you have perspective and story from before that you can bring into it, and I think that's what a lot of us forget.
[23:13] When you follow up, you can change it up, too. It doesn't have to be exactly the same pitch you gave them in the email. It can be, 'Hey, I just read this article that you did. And I sent you a pitch last week, and this is how I think we could use it whatever just so that it's a conversation.
-
Kristy Carruthers 00:00
Don't ask all the questions because I think, and I've done it too. As soon as you sit down, and you say, 'Okay, here's all of the things I want the answers to.' You end up with a list of 20 questions, and they're all great questions, and they would be great things to get information to, but they're not the most important things. What are the three things or the two things, whatever it is, that you really want answered? And then just ask that. Because if it's overwhelming, they're just not going to answer any of it.
Gloria Chou 00:23
Hey, friends, I'm Gloria Chao, small business PR expert, award winning pitch writer and your unofficial hype woman. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people get the recognition they deserve. And that starts with feeling more confident to go bigger with your message. So on this podcast, I will share with you the untraditional, yet proven strategies for PR marketing and creating more opportunity in your business. If you are ready to take control of your narrative and be your most unapologetic and confident self, you're in the right place. This is the Small Business PR podcast. Alright everyone, I'm so excited to have Kristy Carruthers here. She is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, host of the One Step Empire podcast, and creator of the SHEcorporated Magazine. She's my personal friend, and one of my most favorite members of the PR Starter Pack. And you're going to hear all about how she inspired other people with pitching her own story. So thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.
Kristy Carruthers 01:18
Thanks for having me, Gloria.
Gloria Chou 01:19
Now, you came to me about a year ago in your previous company. You've founded so many ventures, but I want to talk about all the different media features that you've kind of done by just pitching and mastering your narrative. So can you share very quickly just list off all the different media placements or podcasts or TV spots that you've done?
Kristy Carruthers 01:42
Sure, yeah. With my current company SHEincorporated, I have been in THRIVE for five times, and then Entrepreneur Magazine, for five times as well. On several podcasts, and I couldn't give you the names of them, unfortunately, but and then of course, I have my own podcast, and then we have our own magazine as well that we've been taking contributors for. So we've been kind of across the spectrum.
Gloria Chou 02:09
That's awesome. And I know that you and your co-founder of your previous company also had a TV spot, right?
Kristy Carruthers 02:15
Yeah, she actually has quite a few TV spots that she's doing like morning shows and that sort of thing. And there's been blog posts and I think THRIVE as well and yeah, a number of placements there as well.
Gloria Chou 02:28
Yeah, that's amazing. And you're a multi-passionate entrepreneur, still very small business. Not really, you didn't come from PR. What made you decide that you wanted to do PR on your own instead of maybe pursue paid media like ads?
Kristy Carruthers 02:42
Budget. It came down to budget. Especially in the previous company, we just ,we had no marketing budget, so we had to figure out how to do it. There's always the promise of that there's such big impact with PR you don't necessarily get hits all the time. But when you do, they can be massive impact, something that you could have never afforded in your regular marketing budget. That's really what started us down that path. I struggled because, of course, I was brand new to it. I knew nothing about PR other than kind of the basics and what I had seen other people do. So my struggle on doing it on my own to start with was just even, well, actually, it was all about I was gonna say it was finding who to talk to and how to contact them. But it was also what to say them. We started out pitching who we were and what we could do right out of the gate in the beginning of the email. And of course, that's not what you're supposed to do. We didn't know that at the time, and we had no success. We had nothing at that point.
Gloria Chou 03:38
I'm so glad that you were able to translate your story from here's what we're about, and then the bigger picture. Now that you've kind of translated your narrative, you've been able to not just push an ad in front of journalists, and you have actually built relationships with journalists. What is one of the lessons that you've learned about your storytelling pitch versus like a marketing pitch?
Kristy Carruthers 04:00
Well, I think, the 'Aha! moment' is when you realize that it's not about you. as far as the journalist is concerned or as far as the audience is concerned, And I think that goes for PR. I think it goes for any kind of storytelling in your business period. You can be telling your story, but at the end of the day, it's how that impacts the listener and why they should be interested in it. That's really the key. And I think that was the moment when we realized and with your CPR method, and with all of the training that went along with that. The most important thing to the journalist is how this is of interest to their readers, and that's what you've got to lead with. I think that really kind of turned it around, and even how I wrote the the articles when I was contributing to Entrepreneur. Yes, a lot of them were personal stories or lessons learned in business, but they're they're angled at why this is important to the person that's reading it.
Gloria Chou 04:52
Yeah. So can you give us an example of how to do that? Because I think a lot of founders think what they're doing is impactful and is important. So how can you do the storytelling in that way where it is relevant to the journalist?
Kristy Carruthers 05:05
Sure. Well, I mean, in the pitch, it's leading with why it's important to them, just like in your method. I think in the stories, it's really connecting with the audience on the level of where I am now is not where I started, and maybe they're where I started. It starts with the mess, and then showing them where you end up. I think that's why a lot of the stories that we did on Entrepreneur resonated because they started with a mess. It started with, 'I'm here, and you might be here too. But this is where you can go, if I did it, you can do it too, kind of thing.'
Gloria Chou 05:43
I love that. You'reinspiring people; you're a part of the solution. Can you give us an example of what you mean, by 'this is the mess'? What did the subject line say? What did the headline of the story say?
Kristy Carruthers 05:55
Sure, well, and that one, specifically that I'm thinking of there is the article that I wrote for entrepreneur, which was basically the story of starting my business journey, and starting six years ago, and being homeless with two kids. That was the mess and having no time, and no money, and all of those things. Then eventually building that forward to a million dollar business, and I have nothing that any other woman founder doesn't have. So it's the inspiration there. Then the connection there is that any, literally, if I can do it, you can do it. You can probably do it better and faster than I did. So I think that was the connection in that story. But I think with with any of the pitches, they're so much more successful when they start out with 'Here's what I can. Here's my story idea. Here's what I want to talk about or my angle, and here's why it's important to you and your audience.'
Gloria Chou 06:48
Right. So it was like whether it's mindset strategies, or time-saving tips or things like that, right?
Kristy Carruthers 06:56
Yeah, and my pitches tend to be, especially for this company, it's stories to do with building your business or, finally taking the lead that sort of thing. Of course, right now, that's especially relevant because it's the mass resignation. Everybody's going out and doing their own thing. So tying that in and making it just crystal clear as to why this particular story is important right now.
Gloria Chou 07:20
Awesome. So obviously, someone's watched a masterclass in the CPR method. So lead with relevance. First, I think a lot of people in the pitch are like, 'Hi, my name is Gloria and here's what I built. Eight years ago, me and my grandma were in the kitchen. ' Like you're saying no, lead with 'This is what's happening.' What about using a statistic or throwing a data set at them? Have you done that? Has that worked?
Kristy Carruthers 07:44
Yes, absolutely. I have actually had pitches and it's all a process, right? The first pitch, you said, No, this is going to be worse than the second pitch, and they're just gonna get better and better as time goes on. I've had pitches come back to me, and they said, 'Okay, we'd like this. But we need some hard data. Can you add some hard data in this and send it back to us?' And I've done that before, and that's more we've gotten a little bit past the pitch and more into the actual story phase. They want to see some hard statistics from legitimate sites, etc. to link to. But yeah, it's super important.
Gloria Chou 08:17
I love that because journalism is not dead, right? They have their editorial integrity because they need to vet and validate their story. So, talk to me more about the data. A lot of times people think, 'Well, I don't have data, and I'm not a data scientist.' Can you just take a report from, like a consulting firm or even Google like a report? Or do you have to have your own data?
Kristy Carruthers 08:38
Well, I think we all have our own data. Really, I mean and I think you're going to want to back that up. But you could do your own. I think you've had people do this, where they do their own surveys. They get their own information. I mean, whoever you are, whatever you do, you have your own group of contacts or your own audience that are special to you, unique to you, for some reason. That's your advantage. So if you can take that data, and then you can back it up again. I can pull my audience which is all early-stage women founders, and get some specific data and then back that up with something from national statistics, etc. Absolutely.
Gloria Chou 09:16
So that's good. So so use both if you can. Now, in terms of doing a survey I get this question a lot. It's, 'How do I find people to actually do the survey?' And how do I know what to ask?
Kristy Carruthers 09:27
Well, and I talk a lot about surveys to with ours because I think all good marketing, any good marketing starts with information. If you're starting with bad information, you're going to have terrible marketing. And you control all the money out in the world, and it's never going to get any better. So, I always say it doesn't even matter if it's an Instagram poll, if it's a Facebook survey. You can send out something formal, like Survey Monkey. It doesn't really matter as long as you're asking for the information. You don't have to have a thousand people to answer you. You need a decent sample size, I would say, to make at least ten, twenty people to make it make sense. Just start seeing trends. But I think with all things marketing and with PR absolutely. You can start with your data. You can keep it simple. I think the key to getting answers is to make the questions really clear and to keep it as short as you possibly can. If you can incentivize people to answer it, even better. Because you think about all the things you get in your inbox that you, you kind of skim by. So if there's a reason for them to take those few minutes to answer your questions, then that's gonna help you as well.
Gloria Chou 10:28
Yeah, I love that you said it can be as simple and casual as an Instagram poll. I think a lot of times founders make up all these barriers and hurdles. It needs to be hundreds of people. It needs to be validated by a third party. And it's like, no, you can literally use a sticker that says 'yes' or 'no' on Instagram. The journalist will accept that because that is technically proprietary data. So have you done that before where you've taken something very casual, like an Instagram poll? And then just like, what do you do? Do you send them a screenshot? Or you kind of just summarize it for them in the email?
Kristy Carruthers 10:57
Yeah, what I haven't done, I haven't used data like that in our pitches, specifically. When I do data like that, it has been generally more for just branding, marketing information and that sort of thing. I don't know that I would send them a screenshot necessarily. I would just quote the data. And if they want the source, I can absolutely give them the source. But it's most people, I think, take that at face value.
Gloria Chou 11:22
Yeah, I think so too. And another thing is, LinkedIn is a great way. I mean, Vincent PhanVam who was one of our amazing Starter Pack members gone on Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc. He was on LinkedIn, and was like, 'Hey, guys, I'm serving this audience versus that audience.' I think it's important to also, like you said, make the question clear, make it very easy for them to answer, and it's better to not have yes or no questions? More like, how do you feel about this on a scale of one to ten? Which is what Vincent did. It was, 'how optimistic are you about the jobs market?' So for someone in cosmetics, how do you feel about this spring-summer trend? Or something like that? I'm just spitballing here.
Kristy Carruthers 12:00
Don't ask all the questions because I think, and I've done it too. As soon as you sit down, and you say, 'Okay, here's all of the things I want the answers to.' You end up with a list of 20 questions, and they're all great questions, and they would be great things to get information to, but they're not the most important things. What are the three things or the two things, whatever it is, that you really want answered? And then just ask that. Because if it's overwhelming, they're just not going to answer any of it.
Gloria Chou 12:24
Oh, I love threes and you know that because I write my pitches with bullet points. The great thing about threes is, if a journalist doesn't like the first two topics, then maybe they'll pick up on the third one. But if you do, like you said, if you do 20 things, you're not really respectful of their time. So it's all about us, as founders, shaving away at the message until we know, what are the things, three things that's really going to move the needle for us? And I do this constantly in my business too. As you know, we're busy, what is the most important thing to do right now? So I think we should always be asking that. Now, you've had amazing success, not only contributing to Entrepreneur, Inc. you're obviously a phenomenal writer. What if someone isn't comfortable contributing, and they'd rather just be interviewed for publication? Do you have any thoughts about what's better? Or should people try to do both, which is contribute and be interviewed?
Kristy Carruthers 13:15
I think it's the same process, basically. But I think most of us underestimate our abilities. We have contributors to our magazine every single month, and I would say maybe 10% of them are actually writers. It's your own voice. You want to write in your own voice anyway. You want to write like you would talk, and that's what makes it unique. Yes, you need to edit and you need to look at the grammar. You need to look at all of the things, but I think it's important to acknowledge that you have a voice that nobody else does. And you don't have to sound like that person in your head that you think you need to sound like. So I think more people could actually write than they believe that they can.
Gloria Chou 14:01
I think so too. No one knows your story, like you write, but then the actual tactical question is, 'how do I know when to pitch for an article that they're going to want me to write?' Do you just pitch thinking they're going to interview you? And sometimes a journalist says, 'Would you be interested in writing an op-ed?
Kristy Carruthers 14:21
In my experience, I've known going in which way we were expecting it to go and most of mine have been actual contributor pieces. Honestly, I would take either. If I could get that contact, and they want to hear from me, and maybe I was expecting to just have an interview and they want me to write something. Absolutely. And you know what, if I'm not comfortable writing it myself and doing the finished article, then you know somebody that knows how to edit. You've got a friend that can check punctuation and spelling and sentence structure and all those things. So I say you take whatever they want from you for this. If they're gonna give you the exposure, and you make it happen. You say 'Yes!' And then you figure it out later.
Gloria Chou 15:07
Yes, say yes, for sure. Even if it's like a mistake. Yeah, I can talk about pet products. Sure. I'm just kidding.
Kristy Carruthers 15:14
Absolutely. Let me just call somebody.
Gloria Chou 15:15
You know, I had someone who was also in the Starter Pack. You have thousands of media contacts. But it was the story that I wanted her to pitch was about what's happening with Asian-Americans. Instead of pitching something about her beauty line, Cosmo wanted her to write about her experience in Hollywood working as an Asian-American makeup artist, and she was invited to write an op-ed, and that was on the front page of Cosmo of comics. Sometimes you think you're gonna pitch a story, and they're just so interested in your own personal backstory that they're like, 'Tell me more! Would you actually be interested in writing an op ed?' For those who are listening there might be people who don't know what an op-ed or a contributor article is. So can you walk us through maybe a typical journey of the timeline and the steps involved for that?
Kristy Carruthers 16:09
Well, for so for the contributor, I mean, it really depends on the actual publication, and they all have their own rules outlined. THRIVE has changed a little bit. They don't take as many contributors now as they did. But there, you would actually submit your fully written article to their platform, and they would take it or not take it. Entrepreneur has a couple of different levels. And you again, you will submit the fully written article, and then they'll come back to you and say, 'Yes, this is great. We want it.' or 'No, thanks. Not interested.' or 'Yes, we want it, but we need some changes.' Timeline takes a little bit of patience. Usually that I've found, as far as the contributed articles, it's going to be a process over a matter of weeks, not a matter of days. I think you really increase your chances as well of getting accepted if you've done your research. And I see that on my site as well. People are contributing to our magazine. The people that actually read our magazine first before they try and pitch me an article, and they've actually looked back through a couple of issues. They've seen that, so they won't talk about finance. They look back and then 'Okay, you've done these three articles on finance, and they say that in their pitch. They're like, 'I know you've done this before. I'd really like to tackle it this way.' That's almost guaranteed to get them on my radar because they clearly have done their homework, and they know exactly what we need.
Gloria Chou 17:30
Yeah, I mean, it takes 30 seconds to do a quick search to see if someone has just covered that. I just released a podcast episode about the 'Five Mistakes Not To Do' and one of them is for me like, I wouldn't pitch a podcast if they just had a PR person on last week. So just do your research, make it short and concise. Use a CPR method, listen to what Kristy said. Now, I want to shift a little bit to talk about mindset. Because everyone that you and I know, in our community, they are everyday, amazing small business heroes, but they're wearing all the hats. They're moms, or maybe it's a side hustle. So they don't have the confidence maybe or the resources to feel like they can pitch. How are you able to feel like, 'I deserve to be on Entrepreneur, even though I'm not like hundreds or millions of dollars backed to VC, fancy company. How did you get yourself to that point?
Kristy Carruthers 18:24
Well, I think you didn't just arrive where you are today with no history. You didn't just walk in the door, and you have no story. We've all done a dozen things before we got here, and whatever it was, that's what led you to where you are. You have a unique story to tell and a unique perspective that nobody else has. For whatever reason, whatever that background was that got you here to your new business. So even if you only have a month under your belt, you're just getting started or a year and whatever it is with this business, you have perspective and story from before that you can bring into it, and I think that's what a lot of us forget.
Gloria Chou 18:59
Yeah, and even if it's not groundbreaking, proprietary, it's fine because we're not looking to give someone something they've never heard about. It's all about adding a new perspective to a topic people already care about. So like for you, it's female founders. It's a great resignation, a very saturated and honestly overdone angle. But you're still able to add your unique perspective on that, whether it's citing a data point from someone else, or using your own data, or maybe one of the things I love to do is actually take a contrarian stand. It's like everyone is saying this, but I actually disagree. That's actually another way. What other mindset shifts have you been able to make to help you to keep going after those opportunities and not get discouraged if someone doesn't reply to your email? Yeah, it's so refreshing to be on both sides because we both have podcasts now. I also get pitched and it's exactly the same thing. Someone will pitch me, 'I'm running with my dog,' oh, this is great and then I get looped into a meeting and then a month goes by. Now if that person followed up with me, I could have probably published sooner. So, it's all about the follow-ups. I've never had a single person in my PR community or even from my own experience, get published without a follow up. So let's really talk about the follow-ups. Now you've kind of destroyed the misconception that, 'Oh, I'm gonna be bothering the journalists. Have you ever had a journalist say like, you cannot follow up with me?
Kristy Carruthers 19:48
Again, I think the more I've seen this from the other side, the more I understand it, and the more it helps me when I'm contributing. We take everything personally. We, as women, I think we tend to do that. We send an email to someone, and we assume that they've read it, and then we come up with an entire story in our head about how they felt about it and why they didn't reply. They probably hated this and they probably didn't like that. Honestly, they may not have even seen it. And we just internalize everything so personal. I think just getting out of your head, and I can tell you when I get pitched all the time, I often will quickly glance at an email. I may not even open it. I may read it, but then I think, 'Oh, this isn't right, right now.' or 'I haven't got time to reply.' And then it works its way off of my radar, and then they follow up with me in a week. Or they follow up with me in two weeks and say, 'Oh, yeah, that's one that I had. That's actually probably somebody good. But maybe I still don't get back to them because I'm in the middle of 20 things. It's just not my priority. Then they follow up the third time. And now for some of us, we wouldn't have followed up the third time because we thought, 'Well, they're obviously not interested.' I was actually interested, I just didn't get back to you yet. So I appreciate the fact that they follow it up the third time or the fourth time. Eventually, I'm going to actually have a moment to say, 'Yes, I'm interested' or 'No, I'm not interested. But please follow up because we're all busy.' And it's not a reflection on how I feel about you. If I don't get back to your email. No, never. Yeah, absolutely. You're doing them a favor. they need us. They need stories. They need people's perspectives, and they're busy. So you're helping them by getting in touch. I love it now when I get people pitching me podcasts because it means I don't have to go out looking for those people. They're coming to me, and I can say 'Yes, this works,' or 'No, that's not gonna work.' But it's way less work for me if they actually pitch me than I have to go search for people.
Gloria Chou 22:18
Yeah, I mean, I'd rather lean on the side of being more persistent than doing something half-ass. I have someone pitching me like in email and LinkedIn, like every single week. It's been probably 12 weeks, and they still follow up with me. I'm like, 'Maybe I'll give this a shot.' I'm not saying it's gonna take you 12 weeks. But there is something to that tenacity, that perseverance, the energy of you saying, 'I know my stuff is good. I don't care what it takes. I'm going to get it in front of you. Because this is really good stuff here.' It's going to help a lot of people. In terms of follow-up, obviously, with email, this and everyone who's listened to the podcast knows this, do not send an email until you've installed an email tracking device, so you know, exactly if your email's being opened or not. Just do that. Everyone who's listening, just do that today. There's tons of ones for Chrome or Outlet. Just Google it. What's another way to follow up? Have you used social media successfully? Do you like LinkedIn? How do you follow up on social media?
Kristy Carruthers 23:13
I don't know that I've gotten a response. I don't know if I've gotten a response specifically for PR on social media. But I think it's compounding because they may have seen the message on social media. They haven't necessarily gotten back to me on the Instagram message, or whatever it is. But eventually, they got back to me in other ways. I think the key and for anyone that's maybe organizationally- challenged like I am, is tracking that and making sure that you're following up and keeping track of when you follow it up and how you follow it up. What I loved about your starter pack is that you have not just their contact email, but you have their social media handles, so that you can get in touch with them other ways, and also research them, and you have their last article. So you can do that. Like it's all there, and that makes it so much easier to have those conversations. When you follow up, you can change it up, too. It doesn't have to be exactly the same pitch you gave them in the email. It can be, 'Hey, I just read this article that you did. And I sent you a pitch last week, and this is how I think we could use it whatever just so that it's a conversation. It's not a formal letter because that's not. It's going to get you into their inbox faster if it's a conversation, and it doesn't feel like a cut and paste form if you will.
Gloria Chou 24:28
You're allowed to like send the same email over and over. But I love what you said about the fact that the news cycle is always changing. Maybe if something breaks in the news, and there is a new perspective, put that in the subject line. Or just put, it takes 10 seconds to write, 'Hey, since this story is developing, I thought I'd bump this to the top of your inbox.' And that's worked wonders for so many people in the Starter Pack. I love what you said about freshening up the angles, not being afraid to follow up and just follow the news cycle. How do you, as a founder, keep abreast of what's going on in the news and get really good at writing subject lines?
Kristy Carruthers 25:06
Getting good at subject lines is really testing and tracking. That's the only way you get good at it because every market is different. There's no winning subject line per se because your market is different from my market. I think the only way you find out what works and this again, this goes for your business in general marketing to your audience and your in your pitches is testing and keeping track of, 'Okay, well, when I use this word, more people respond or more people open it.' 'And when I say this, the people don't seem to like it. Just kind of tweak it and keep track of it and reuse the ones that work. As far as staying abreast of what's going onI try and scan the headlines every day. Just check on my phone. To be fair, I just scroll over to the news, and I check the top ten headlines every day just to have some idea of what's happening. And that's for everything, again, like for social media for whatever I have everything scheduled. If something has happened, I want to make sure that I haven't scheduled something that is completely tone-deaf to what just happened in the world. But then I also set Google Alerts. I love Google Alerts, and I have that again for clients in one of my companies, so they keep track of what's going on in their businesses, as well as people that I want to pitch to set a Google alert, and Google it's free. And they will send you information straight to your inbox every single day or once a week whatever you set it for about that publication, that person every time they pop up on the internet, you will get some kind of notification. So I actually set Google alerts for my own articles with Entrepreneur as well. Because what would happen was, Entrepreneur would publish it and then 20 other publications would pick it up. And people were emailing me and messaging me and saying, 'Oh, I read your article.' I was like, 'Oh, yeah, I was on Entrepreneur.' They're like, 'Oh, we saw it on Facebook news.' I was like, 'Oh, what?' 'Okay, I didn't know, it was on Facebook news. So I actually set it for my own article, and I could see all of the places that it got picked up which was great for being able to then share that on.
Gloria Chou 26:56
Yeah, I mean, from an SEO perspective, the traffic is coming to you. That means, boom, right? Like, what more can you ask for? So obviously, you've made an impact, not only in mastering your narrative, and in saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads. Now that you know how to do this, what do you think is the other impact or the benefit of now what you've been able to do with PR?
Kristy Carruthers 27:20
On a personal level, I think, just the reach and being able to reach so many people with, especially with my own personal story because it's near and dear to my heart. That's what I do. SHEcorporated is helping bootstrapping women founders create their own freedom by creating a successful business. I've had so many people, and I still get from articles six months ago, I'll get people emailing me or sending me messages on social media saying, 'Just read your story, and right now, I'm in a shelter, and I'm trying to do this.' And they feel hope. And that's amazing. I'm crying. So that's personal impact. It's huge, as far as that goes. But professionally, I would say the biggest impact is just the authority. Being able to put on our site, as featured in Entrepreneur is amazing. It's something that money couldn't buy. I couldn't pay for that. I had to work for that. It sends a message to anybody that lands on our site that we're credible. We know what we're talking about, and we put the work in.
Gloria Chou 28:21
I love that, and you're so inspiring. I'm so glad and grateful that our paths crossed. Just seeing you build multiple companies in the span of one year. And now you know exactly how to get invited to every table. You know how they say it's like, 'Oh, like for women, we need to like pull up a chair.' And it's like, 'No, we know how to own every room that we're in now.' Because now you know how to have a value-driven conversation. Now you actually launched your own not only podcast, but your own magazine, and I actually have it right here. You've put me on the cover of the issue. And it's incredible. So now that you have not only a podcast that people pitch you on to get on your podcast, you also have your own magazine. Can you talk to me a little bit about how that works and what types of things you'd like to see if people are pitching to be in your print magazine?
Kristy Carruthers 29:10
Yeah. So in the magazine, the whole reason for the magazine was to give value to women founders, and everything we do with SHEcorporated is about actionable information. I'm a big implementer. I'm all about the item fluff. I don't have time for fluff. Nobody has time for fluff these days. I want things that I can use in my life for my business. So the whole idea was SHEcorporated magazine was to give women founders exposure, and then to also give other women founders, the readers, some valuable actionable information that they can use in their life for their business. So that's what we do. So we have, I take contributors, and we have six women featured each month. They're all different. There's health and wellness. There's finance. There's marketing. There's really anything that affects a woman founder and her life can be in there. They're just full of actionable information from the women whose zone of genius that is in their business, whatever it happens to be.
Gloria Chou 30:12
I love that. So do you have people also making products that are like, 'Oh, I want to be in this product guide gift card? Do they send samples? What have you learned to be the best practices there?
Kristy Carruthers 30:23
Not really. Some people have physical businesses like fitness studios and that sort of thing. But generally, what they're talking about there is still tips and advice and more information stuff. It would be great if people would send me samples of things. Nobody's offered yet.
Gloria Chou 30:43
You have a beauty column.
Kristy Carruthers 30:45
I know. You got my head down. Like maybe, we need to have a gift guide for December.
Gloria Chou 30:50
Yeah, totally. Yeah. And then you can come back on and talk to me about which pitches you like best. But now that you're getting pitches left and right, just give me an example of like, the best, most concise, and easy pitch. What would an ideal pitch be that has very few words in it, but it gets the message across?
Kristy Carruthers 31:07
Honestly, Gloria, it would be exactly what you've outlined in the CPR. It's 'Here's my name. Here's my business. Here's what I think we should talk about and why it's relevant.' And then a little bit of information on the story. Because what's happening right now is people will come. They'll pitch and then I go back, and I ask them for an outline. Then they come back with the bullet points and then we go back to the story portion of it. In that first email, it's 'Here's my name. Here's what I think we should talk about. Here's why it's important. And then some bullet points so that I get an idea of what that story will be, and what their take on that story is, and that's it. Then I can very clearly see where we're going from there.
Gloria Chou 31:50
That's exactly the CPR method. In the starter pack, I think one thing is that when you're pitching, you're not telling them what the story is. You just want the person to receive it to make a decision. Yes, this is for me. Or no, this is not for me. That's it, you're not going any step beyond that, right? Because obviously, the story is going to be negotiated, like when you get on a phone call with somebody, but the point of the first pitch is just to get the person to make a decision. If we can just make it not so complex, and focus on that, I think so many other founders would just feel relieved. Because it's really not about writing the story for them at least not in the first email.
Kristy Carruthers 32:29
No, and I don't want to waste their time or my time. If we can, in that first email, decide, 'Okay, this is the direction we want to go in, or 'This is not. I don't want you to spend hours writing something that I'm not going to be able to use.' I want to spend five minutes reading it. So let's figure it out. First, is this a good fit or not? And then we go from there.
Gloria Chou 32:48
So now you're like an immediate goddess, right? You've been on all the things. You not only have a podcast. You have your own magazine. What is the next for you building upon what you've learned with PR?
Kristy Carruthers 33:03
Honestly, I need to get more consistent with my own contributing. Because this is the problem, and I think it's for newbies, and for people that have been even doing it for a while, is the consistency because we get busy and it gets pushed down the to-do list, right. It's like because getting your taxes done is more important. The second, so we'll do that next week, and then I can't even tell you actually, I've had it on my list I have three stories in the works right now for Entrepreneur, and I've moved them every single day for the last three weeks to the next day because some other really important fire came up that I had to put out. I think it's about me getting more consistent in doing some more contributing and doing some of my own more of my own PR, and that means tracking it. Another trick that I found works really well is setting aside actually blocking business development time, or PR time, or whatever it happens to be so that I know that Friday morning at 10, from 10 to 11, that's when I'm going to sit down, and I'm going to write that thing and that's it's an important date with myself. It is as if I was my most important client. It's non-negotiable. It has to happen, and then you can keep moving it forward.
Gloria Chou 34:15
And that's one of those $5,000 an hour jobs where it might take you a few hours, but if you can get an entrepreneur that's gonna save you tens of thousands of dollars if you actually do the math. That's why I always say in my PR Masterclass, it's one of those like 20% activities that's going to cause 80% of the growth. And it seems like someone needs an outreach assistant. I encourage every single person who's listening to this podcast to hire an intern or an apprentice to just focus on your outreach. Once you've learned everything in the Starter Pack, it's just a matter of sending the emails out. And I actually have the training and the Starter Pack that you should revisit, which is how to delegate outreach. So that's I have someone doing that for me. So definitely keep pitching. We want to hear more from you. I think your story is so inspiring. So you owe it to all of us to keep pitching and sharing your story. So how can people find you and connect with you because you've given us so many tips, but also your personal story is very inspiring. You've given us so much courage and inspiration. So how can people find you and connect with you?
Kristy Carruthers 35:13
Oh, thanks, Gloria. Well, so SHEcorporated, she corporated.com. We have so much stuff going on all the time. We have free business kickstart challenges. We have courses. we have a ton of free. It's all about helping women founders build a business and a life that they love with simple steps. That's really what we do. There's no fluff. It's easy. I just started the company because I built a number of businesses. Every time we build a business, we kind of start from scratch, and we have to Google what we need to do. And you don't know what you don't know. You don't know the right questions to ask, and we make so many mistakes because of that. It seems ridiculous to me that there's no step-by-step way for women to start and build a business. There should be. So well now there is because we started SHEcorporated so that's really what we do. And the website SHEcorporated.com has a ton of free downloads and marketing plan templates and business plan templates. We have free challenges. We've got a community that's also free. And on Entrepreneur, And then we also have courses that we run periodically, and membership too. So, it's a great place to start. And no matter what your budget is, no matter what stage you're at, if you're in those, especially during those first few years of building your business, it's where you can just find everything in one place.
Gloria Chou 36:29
Girl, you're a powerhouse woman. I am so happy to connect with you. If anyone's in our Facebook group, Kristy is in there, so please give her a shout-out. We actually did a Facebook live maybe a year ago with your approval when you were still doing a previous company. So definitely time flies. Time flies. You do so much in a year. I can't even keep up we're gonna have to revisit next year when you've launched like four more companies.
Kristy Carruthers 36:52
Right back at you, Gloria.
Gloria Chou 36:55
Thank you so much for being here. Hey, small business hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire Pop Sugar and so many more, even if you're not yet launched? Or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets masterclass, where I reveal the exact methods 1000s of bootstrapping small businesses used to have their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought-after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig or just reach out to that very intimidating editor. This class we'll show you exactly how to do it. Register now at Gloria Chou pr.com/masterclass. That's Gloria Chou c-h-o-u pr.com/masterclass. So you can get featured in 30 days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free. So get in there and let's get you featured.