Today's perfect pitch session featuring a podcast from maven Margo Mateas touched on a fear that looms over the touch-tone phones of PR people. We don't want to suck, so how do we sell?
Reporters are just as human, if not more so, than we are. Have you ever spoken to a reporter who couldn't communicate a clear sentence or said "um" more times than a Toastmasters member starting out? I always enjoy that because it helps me to conclude this really isn't that hard.
Of course, we can make it seem impossible by a glass-half-empty kind of mentality. "What if they hang up on me?".... better yet... "What if they say "No?" It's dreadful to hear but very common, and it's up to us to recover quickly and move on to our next potential relationship. A word of caution: Don't pitch until you're fully ready. There is nothing worse than a reporter hearing blabber for a minute and then stopping you (and yes, sometimes they hang up too).
You might also want to pitch the script, and I don't mean "pitch" as in "communicate." Throw it away. Work at sounding more like a conversationalist with mutual benefit for both parties.
Does anyone out there have any thoughts on voice mail pitches?