Episode 89 - This Pitch Framework Helped Thousands of Small Businesses Get Top Tier Press Features for Free
Ever wondered how businesses get that coveted spot on a gift guide in Vogue? Or maybe it’s that spotlight on Good Morning America? It all starts with a conversation with a journalist.
But where do you even begin? How do you even FIND the right journalist? And WHAT do you say when you do?
In this episode, I’m introducing you to my award-winning pitch framework–The CPR Pitching Method™.
It’s an effective way to capture the attention, start a conversation, and get your story in major publications with any journalist and editor. We’re talking about everything you need to write in your cold email pitch that could lead to a feature in your dream publication… all for FREE.
We’re taking it back to the starting point of your pitch so you know how to do it properly. That way, we can avoid your email going unread and unnoticed… or worse, the potential of annoying the reporter at your dream outlet.
Tune in as I give you the details of my CPR Pitching Method™– with C standing for credibility, P for point of view, and R for relevance. This is the exact framework that I created from years of experience, and it has helped thousands of small businesses get top-tier press features for free.
Even the smallest, most bootstrapped entrepreneurs with zero contacts can use this framework to get featured in dream outlets. I know this because I have experienced it firsthand, and I have watched small business after small business do the exact same thing.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
The difference between PR and marketing
Nailing down the energy of your pitch
How to establish credibility in one statement
Defining your point of view to an editor
Why relevance is the most important part of your pitch
Building relationships with editors
Tips for email sign-offs
Examples of the CPR method in action
The CPR Pitching Method™ helped small business-owning entrepreneurs from PR Starter Pack members see themselves as a go-to expert with a point of view, instead of JUST a founder, seller, or consultant – a standout mindset that takes you far in the world of PR.
I hope you take notes throughout this episode and maybe even listen to it again so you can really nail down the three parts of the CPR Pitching Method™ and use it to your advantage!
So get ready to press send and get your message. And I can’t wait to see you featured in the headlines.
P.S. If you want your small business to go from invisible to visible, seen, and valued, register for my FREE PR Secrets Masterclass. Soon enough, your credibility and visibility will skyrocket. Register now at www.gloriachou.com/masterclass.
Resources Mentioned:
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community: Small Biz Pros: By Gloria Chou
Additional Resources:
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Here’s a glance at this episode…
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01:04 Background Music
01:15 Gloria Chou: Remember the last time you were scrolling on an online article or you're maybe looking at your competitors being mentioned in the press and you're wondering how is it that they got onto those outlets or how are they invited to speak on the panel when I might have more experience? Or I might have more, more value add or just as much value add.
I'm gonna show you in this episode exactly how even the smallest, most bootstrapping entrepreneurs who don't know anybody who don't have any contacts, how they can get into the outlets of their dreams because that's what I did. I started off not knowing anybody and I really still don't really know anyone. I'm not in the cool kids club.
I never studied journalism but from literally picking up the phone thousands of times and cold calling the most intimidating newsrooms. I'm talking about the New York Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal. I started to pick up on patterns on what made the editor or the operator stay on the phone with me just five seconds longer.
And I took the emails that were, were responded to and I started to look at patterns of what worked and what, what didn't work. And I came up with my three step pitching method that I'm going to reveal with you.
02:18 Gloria Chou: But before we get started, I want to talk a little bit more about pr versus marketing because it's so important for people to know the difference. So when I talk about pr versus marketing, imagine a man and a woman are on a date, right?
The man is telling his date how handsome, smart and successful he is. That's marketing, right? He's saying the right things to the right people.
Now, if the woman's most trustworthy friend tells her after the date how handsome, smart and successful and what an amazing guy that the guy that she went on a date with. That's PR right.
That is the power of pr and that is why Bill Gates famously said that if I was down to my last dollar, I would, I would spend it on pr So how do you as a small business owner? How do I as an early stage entrepreneur?
How can we hack our own pr and take control of our narrative without needing to know anyone without needing to pay agencies thousands of dollars a month? I'm gonna show you right now in this episode.
03:13 Gloria Chou: So it all starts with a value driven conversation. Now, a lot of times people think that you need to know someone or that you need to go into the details about your product or your brand to convince the journalists to write about you.
But I'm telling you that's fundamentally the wrong energy. Why? Because you're not selling to the journalist, they're not gonna buy your product, right? The energy of the pitch has to be one that is value driven.
It has to be one that puts you in the position where you're so confident about what you're sharing. You might be at an early stage. But you still know that you have value to share, that you have insights to share and a point of view about your industry. Why?
Because experts have a point of view and founders who know how to do the transition, the mental shift between getting their product brochure into a newsworthy pitch. That is what's gonna allow them to get anywhere, right? It's a value driven conversation.
So my CPR method stands for C as in credibility, P as in point of view, and R as in relevance. And this is a framework from hacking my own pr thousands of times without any industry contacts. And the reason why this works is it turns your me, me, me pitch into something that is newsworthy, right?
It positions you as an expert, not as a founder or a seller or a brand consultant. It positions you as an expert with a point of view. It allows you to share your insight on a topic people already care about. So you're basically saying, hey, editor, it's not me telling you this, it's what all these other people are already caring and talking about. I am just a conduit of information, right? That is what the CPR method stands for.
So again, CPR stands for credibility, which is why you are in the authority position to discuss what you're gonna discuss. And now this is probably the smallest part of the CPR method. It's probably just one sentence.
A lot of founders get tripped up here because they think the credibility part in the CPR method means they have to go into a huge long thing about their studies and their accolades and their founding story. And that could be further from the truth.
I want your credibility piece to literally be one sentence. I am a founder and I've seen this first hand, I am a mom entrepreneur and I've seen the challenges that moms face, right? That is all you need.
05:32 Gloria Chou: Now P in CPR stands for point of view. Why? Because experts have point of views. So think about what unique perspectives you can share from your data experience or findings. Now remember you are sitting on a gold mine of information because you know your audience.
So whether you're in skincare or if you're in toys or if you're in books, you have information about your audience, their wants, their desires, what's changing their habits, the way that you know, this information is gonna be way beyond what a journal is because journalists are generalists. So use that to pitch your story.
It could be doing a very simple survey among your audience and saying, hey, if you belong to this category, answer these questions and then you can cross compare two different segments. It could be people who are moms or not moms. It could be people who are entrepreneurs in a certain industry and entrepreneurs in another industry.
If you are, you know an author, it could be people who read ebooks versus hardcover books, whatever it is, right? What is the data that you can compile? And it's gonna be proprietary and allow the journalist to be like, wow, this person is giving me information that I otherwise would never have time to do on my own. So that is your point of view, right?
It could be as easy as saying, you know what, I am in the skin care industry and I am seeing three little known ingredients that are really hot and trending right now for eczema prone skin, right?
07:01 Gloria Chou: It could be something like at first, you know, I like three’s. So I like to put in bullet points. It could be, you know, 33 ways to time manage if you are a mom entrepreneur and your kid is staying at home, right?
I recently worked with someone who does a homeschooling curriculum and the point of view that we came up with was three ways to help your ADHD child adapt to homeschooling, right? That is the point of view.
Now, R in CPR stands for relevance, why the story matters now. Now, relevance is probably the most important part of the CPR method because it tells the editor that this matters now and that this is not some recycled pitch from five years ago that needs to be responded to.
So think about what happened this year or in the last six months now, I don't care what industry you're in. We have fundamentally changed so many things about the way we live, whether it's society, whether it's our viewpoints, whether it's the way we buy and consume information and relate to each other. So think about that.
Now, an example, if you are in beauty and wellness, it could be the fact that now that we're wearing masks, it's causing acne. So what are the ingredients or what are the things that we can do to combat summer? Masc me, it could be something about fall and winter and how fall and winter is really bad for sensitive skin and it could cause a lot of dryness. So what are the ingredients? Right?
If you are in something that is more regulated like finance or health care, it might be something to do with a policy change, it could be a new tax policy, it could be something in your state. It could be something that is a research finding. So tie it to something that is relevant.
If you are in e-commerce, it might be something about, about back to school, right? It might be about what things people are buying, it might be something about Black Friday or seasonal gifting. What are the ways that consumers are changing their behaviors in this season? So that's what I mean by relevance.
08:54 Gloria Chou: Now, I will give you an example because I'm all about showing and not just telling. So I worked with Anna who is an early stage entrepreneur and she wanted to develop a video interview app. So she would basically be like the three A’s version of Zoom or facetime and look, it's a saturated market.
There are so many people who are doing interview apps. She was not alone, but she knew that she wanted to go all in on pr and establish herself as the leader. That was the only way she was going to be able to get in front of investors and be able to sell her product to these fortune five com companies who really care about reputation.
So her CPR press pitch was that the credibility part was that she was simply a thought leader in the HR space because she used to be a recruiter and she wanted to use the video app to help companies interview candidates.
So she knew what companies wanted and she knew the pain points that they were facing in terms of, you know, getting people to interview and getting the best candidates, right? Because she used to be a recruiter.
Now, the P in CPR stands for point of view. So the point of view part of the pitch was that there was a huge interview, skills gap between young people who are very well versed on camera, you know, with tiktok and Instagram and kind of the older more traditional job seekers who are not really used to interviewing on camera.
And so this creates an uneven playing field, it creates winners and losers. And so there are and relevance stands for why does it matter now? And the reason why it matters now is because virtual job interviews during the pandemic are literally the only way people are hiring and the way that people are getting jobs.
And so the pitch that we wrote for her was about three ways to ace your first online interview. And it led her to be featured in fast company in an article titled Seven Simple Ways to stand out in a crowded applicant field.
Now, this was huge for her. She was still developing her product. It wasn't beta, she wasn't fully launched, but yet she was able to gain that momentum and be featured alongside amazing industry players in a fast company article. And she was able to use this in order to start conversations with investors.
And then she was asked to speak on career panels and all of a sudden, she was able to be seen as a thought leader in her industry, right, which is hr tech, which is recruiting. Now, this led to so many other opportunities for her, but it all started out with a framework and that is why the CPR method works so well. So think about the ways that you can apply the CPR method to your company, whether it's a service or a product.
11:27 Gloria Chou: Now, c stands for credibility and everybody has credibility. It doesn't matter if you just founded the company yesterday or 10 years ago. Credibility doesn't mean that you have to meet a benchmark for credibility. It just means it's one sentence about whether or not you've been featured and whether or not, you know, if you have had experience in this field, it could be as simple as I've seen the struggles for my industry.
And that is why I'm a founder, right? It could be as simple as that or it could be something like I've been featured in X Y and Z outlets. But again, that's not a requirement, I'll give you another example of the CPR method. So I worked with an early stage founder who needs his name is Vincent.
And he wanted to basically enter a really, really saturated market, which is career coaching, right? During COVID. So he wanted to build a business about career coaching, again, helping people during the pandemic to pivot and make sure that their resume was reflecting their best foot forward. So he wanted to use pr because there again, there were so many career coaches and what we came up with was that we had an idea of comparing 2008 grads with 2020 grads, right?
And their attitudes about whether or not their college degree was a worthwhile investment and basically kind of their general about where things were headed. Now, if you imagine 2008 was you know, during the recession and 2020 was when we had the pandemic. So those two were comparable because those are very tough times to graduate. And so he basically went on linkedin and he did a very casual shout out and said, hey Fam Linkedin people.
If you graduated in 2008 or in 2020 let me know because I'd love to ask five very simple questions. And if you do, I'll give you a $5 gift card. And again, you don't have to offer a gift card, but he did, but he did that and he used Google Forms.
So it doesn't need to be this huge data science thing. You don't need to bring in a consultant. It could literally be a free Google Forms with questions as long as it's not a yes or no answer. So it's probably ranked from 0 to 10, your attitudes about X, Y and Z.
Now he was able to compare the attitudes of 2008 grads with 2020 grads. And he offered that up as proprietary information and he was able to start conversations with top tier outlets like techcrunch and Fast Company and Forbes and Ink.
And he actually got to Forbes and Ink and the Tennessean and he was in Nashville's 40 under 40. He was in the local press and he actually was retweeted. His event was retweeted by the official Inc magazine Twitter. Now that is an account with 2.7 million followers.
So when ink tweeted out his event, it actually caused a temporary crash to his website, right? Can you imagine Inc Magazine actually tweeting your event on their official Twitter. But that's what happened after he was able to have a value driven conversation with the editor in chief of ink using the CPR method.
He literally said, hey, I know that ink is covering a lot about the landscape of hiring and jobs. I have some data that I gathered. Would you be interested in seeing this? And that is the way to start a conversation? And the chief of ink said, wow, this is really interesting. And then it's all about building a relationship.
I think a lot of times founders get tripped up and think we need to know the beginning, the middle and then at the end of exactly how the story will be published. But that's not your job, that's the reporter's job.
It's up to their editorial discretion, how they want to take the story and it's up to you during the point of the interview when they get on the phone with you to answer the questions and go more deep into your story.
But if you stuff too much in a pitch, if you're putting all these attachments in your pitch deck and your founding story, it's just way too much and way too overwhelming. And I think a lot of times it's hard for us as founders to not wanna stuff everything because we are worried that our pitch is not gonna get featured.
And so we just wanna list every single thing about our product and about us and this and that. And you know, you've probably heard the saying that it takes more skill and expertise to write something in a more concise way in a longer way.
15:43 Gloria Chou:
So that is what the CPR method is for. And that is why it's helped thousands of entrepreneurs because it's helped give them a framework to structure the writing so that it's not this autobiography that's unpublished and you're sending it to an editor who by the way is never gonna have time to read more than three paragraphs max.
So how can you in a very concise way, give the editor something of relevance, something that has a point of view and then you can validate yourself a little bit. And so that is why the CPR method is so good. And here's another thing about the CPR method is if you actually see it on paper, when you're actually writing, using the CPR method it's actually in reverse.
So you want to put the R which is relevance first and then p for point of view in the middle. I like the three bullets and the credibility last. So it's called the CPR method. But when you actually write the email pitch, I like to have it in reverse and I'll show you what this looks like. So whatever you're doing, come back to me.
So R is relevance so you wanna start the email with, hey, since people are concerned about X, Y and Z I wanted to share some perspective that I'm hearing from my community, right? So that is why your pitch is relevant. You're setting the stage first, again, every single line you are competing for the editor's attention. So you don't want your first line to be about.
Hi, my name is so and so and I created this product with my partner who I met in business school. That's not relevant to them. What is relevant is what people are caring about, right? If you make, if you are making food, for example, if you make like a line of pantry staples, it could be something about how everyone is really caring about the environment and having a more plant-based diet.We're experiencing this huge shift right now as a society.
So that might be irrelevant, right? If you are in skin care beauty, it might be the fact that people want zero waste packaging and we really want to minimize our carbon footprint while having totally clean and toxin free ingredients, right?
So that is what is, so that is why it's so relevant. If you are in finance or health care or something like that, you might cite a piece of policy, you might say, hey, the Cares Act said this and that and this is newly covered under the HSA.
17:55 Gloria Chou: And so that is why I wanted to share some more insight. Do you see where I'm getting here? Relevance is so important because it's setting the stage and you're telling the editor this is what people are already caring about. I'm just offering some new interesting ways to look at this problem that people are already talking about. So that's the relevance. I want you to put the relevance in the first two or three sentences. Ideally, it's two sentences.
Now from this point of view, I like to do this in three bullet points. The reason why is, is that it's easy on the eyes, right? Bullet points or numbers, it kind of breaks up the email. So it doesn't look like huge paragraphs of text.
And the reason why I like threes is because it gives the journalist or the person that's receiving your email different options. If they don't like the first point of view, maybe there's something interesting in the second or third.
So it at least gives you some options. So for example, for Anna, the one about the three ways to ace your first virtual interview, the three point of view bullet points was hey to help level the playing field for job seekers and for people who are not so confident on video, here are three ways to master the virtual interview tip number one, tip number two, tip number three.
Now, in terms of your tips, I really want you to think about peeling away the layers of an onion, right? So as founders, we're so attuned to like what's so obvious for like as a sales angle for our, for our customers, right? Why would our customers want to buy this product?
But now I want you to sit in the expert position. I want you to be an industry thought leader. I want you to be someone who understands insights. So what are the three things that are either new trends or three tips that can help people? That's not so obvious.
The first layer of the onion, let's peel that away and reveal the juicier parts of the onion, the parts of the onion that's gonna be really sweet and powerful and it's really gonna pack a punch to flavor your meal, right?
That's where I wanna get to. So for Anna her point of view about three ways to master the interview, the top layer of the onion, which is very kind of obvious, could be like having good lighting, right. But that's kind of obvious.
That's not really that interesting, at least for me or for the editor. So how can we peel away the onion and give something that's not so obvious, right. It might be recording with certain types of headphones versus without headphones, right? That's less obvious. So that's probably peeling away one layer of the onion.
So think about ways you can offer three tips or insights or things that's not so obvious, right? That's gonna bring something unique that's gonna give you a little push, it's gonna give you the pitch. That's not like, oh yeah, why would I write an article about this?
Everyone knows about having good lighting, right? So think about that now to conclude the pitch, we went to the credibility part. So we ended the email with saying, hey, I am, you know, a founder of this app because I have seen firsthand how job seekers are struggling to adapt to this new virtual landscape.
I have also spoken about this at the X, Y and Z conference and I'm really happy to answer any questions. You may have to help your readers navigate these challenging times. And I'm also happy to connect you with recently laid off employees who can also share their stories of warmest Anna and then she puts her links.
Do you see the energy of the closing, the energy of the closing of this email is not, I am building this software, it's gonna launch in September. It's gonna be available on IOS. I, I really hope you can feature us because I know, you know, you really love featuring tech founders.
Let me know if I can give you more high quality photos or videos. It's not really about her closing. It's basically this very kind of suave and confident way of saying, hey, I have information that I know can really benefit your audience. So let me know when is a good time to chat, right? That kind of confidence, that kind of attitude, that is the right energy to have.
You don't want to be in the space of desperation where you are begging the journalist to cover you, right? We all know that the pitch is you're asking them to cover you, but you don't want to have that come across in the writing. And so it's really important to know that when you're signing off on an email, you're not begging, right?
You're not desperately asking, you're not asking for permission. You're just saying, I know people are struggling with this and I'm happy to speak more about it. And if you want, I can connect you with other people.
Remember what I said about being a conduit of information now, don't have the scarcity mindset and think that reporters are just gonna skip over you and interview someone else. In fact, it actually makes you more helpful if you can connect them with other people because journalists don't have access to your audience, right?
So it's only gonna make you more valuable if you can say, not only do I have these tips or points of view that I'm seeing, I can also connect you to these people. So it's kind of a double process, you're doubly valuable if you will. I don't even know if that's a word, right? So this is kind of the CPR method in action.
22:52 Gloria Chou: Now, there's so many pitches that I've written that have got featured using this and I, I can't give you all of them. But think about it, if you're starting to think about transforming your product brochure into a newsworthy story, a newsworthy pitch using the CPR method.
You might want to ask yourself questions like this, what are the changes in my industry or what specific solutions or steps can you offer? So for Anna's case, there were three specific solutions, right? For Vincent, it was three different changes in the industry, right?
Another way, another secret weapon, if you will turn your product marketing brochure into something that is a newsworthy pitch is can you make a simple prediction on where your industry is headed? Now? It doesn't mean that you have a crystal ball, but the thing about predictions is that you're not legally liable because no one really knows what's gonna happen.
And I cannot tell you how many times I've seen these talking heads on TV, because they just made a very simple prediction and they were actually confident enough to go out and say it right. So you could say something like, you know, I am in the wellness industry and I think gyms will act, and will actually go obsolete in the next five years.
And it's all gonna be kind of this virtual, you know, on demand classes that you organize with your friends And people are not really gonna go to the gym anymore because they're only gonna work out with their friends and they're just gonna be able to order, you know, a trainer at the top of the top of their fingertips on an app or something like that, right?
Make a simple prediction. Now, think about the seasonal or regulatory angle. So remember when I talk about CPR method R stands for relevance. So why is it relevant to this, this season that we're in? So it could be spring, summer, it could be the end of year, it could be gift guides, it could be new year, new year, whatever it is, right? Maybe there's some regulatory significance.
Now, like I said, if you are in something that's a little bit more regulated, really tap into that because there's always new policies like for example, if you are in finance or if you are helping small businesses secure loans or mortgages, it could be something about the S B A loans or kind of the changes in the loan structure, right?
If you are a financial adviser, it could be about different predictions about what's happening, right? If you are in crypto, I mean, there's just so many policies and every single day we hear something new and think about how you can tie your story to maybe what a big Fortune 500 company is doing because they're not going to go after you.
So for example, if you are selling bracelets on Etsy, right? Something that's totally bootstrapping, you can talk about how Amazon and maybe ebay are having certain certain types of policies that are really not friendly to vendors, right?
Forcing you to pay the shipping fee, forcing you to have a 99.9% satisfaction rate. I actually once wrote a pitch for someone who makes bracelets on Etsy and she was basically talking about how Etsy was actually having quite strict policies that were really anti small business, even though they pride themselves as being a small business platform.
And so she was able to reach out to an editor on Twitter and, and I, I think that I think it was like from Vox or Slate magazine and they actually got back to her right away and they said really, this is really interesting, you know about Etsy and what they're actually doing for vendors on their platform.
Are you interested in talking to me a little bit more about your experience? Boom, right. Here's another thing about not being afraid to use the CPR method and just start the conversation. Linkedin is a great place to actually connect with journalists.
26:19 Gloria Chou: So you can actually do like a hashtag if you're in retail, you can do hashtag retail and follow the hashtag and you'll see a lot of the really amazing prominent journalists who write about retail, right?
Because on linkedin, they're sharing their findings and they always are looking for sources. So it's as easy as you commenting on their post. I actually had a founder who commented on a retail reporter's post about how Facebook was launching their e-commerce. You know, Facebook shops and they started a conversation there, right?
Be something like, oh, I really love this article you wrote, but I actually have different experiences and I actually think Facebook is not so small business friendly, right? That's exactly the conversation that she had that led them to actually get off of linkedin and actually start a conversation.
So again, the pitch is just the start of the conversation. It's not what the story will be. And a lot of times we get tripped up because we feel like it has to be this fully fleshed out long and polished thing.
No, it's just using the CPR method to have a value driven conversation that puts you in the expert position. So it's not about you begging to be featured. It's not about you trying to sell your product to the editor because again, the editor is not gonna buy your product.
And if you're gonna basically give them an ad, then they're gonna either press delete and tell you why don't you go buy an ad, right? So the whole point of the CPR method is for you to bypass that and not have to buy ads. And that is how so many founders use the CPR method to get into their dream outlets before they were launched before they were funded, right? This stuff works.
Now, if you want to see more examples of the CPR method in action, how it works for every industry and line by line, how it actually looks like I invite you to watch my Pr Secrets Master Class, it's the same class that thousands of founders have watched and they were able to take this framework and the examples and buy it.
And every day I get messages from people I have never met and they say Gloria, I watched your Master class and I was able to pitch my bed linen company. I'm talking like bed sheets right into Canadian Vogue or we got into Buzzfeed.
So this stuff works again. It's just a matter of positioning your message so that you don't come off as sales. And with the CPR method, you're gonna have the confidence to pitch again and again, because you're not gonna come off as a used car salesman.
28:41 Gloria Chou Now that is the energy that I can get behind and the energy that every small business can get behind because I know how intimidating it can be when you're doing all the things to press send.
And it's my job to make sure that you have everything you need and to remind yourself you don't need permission and that you are ready to press the send button because everything, everything that's miraculous, everything that is amazing, everything is gonna level up your business is on the other side of the send button.
And that is how Vincent and Anna and Tanisha were able to either successfully sell their companies, raise thousands of dollars, were able to get onto stages with industry VIP S and basically perfect their message where they're no longer questioning whether or not they're ready because they know they are.
It's just a matter of where can I speak next, where can I get featured next? How can I help audiences? How can I share my message?
Because my message deserves to be out there. That is the power that is the energy that I want to remind you to have as small business owners because we need to compete with these $20,000 a month agencies.
And hopefully with today's CPR method training, you're able to get a little quick glimpse of how it's possible for even the most unknown bootstrapping entrepreneur to be able to get into the outlets of their dreams.
29:54 - Outro