How to get free press coverage in three steps

Executive overview

Journalists need good content every single day — you are doing them a favour by pitching a story. Most businesses have at least five pitchable angles they've never identified. The phone, not email, is the fastest path to coverage.

Treat PR as a subset of sales, not marketing.

Know your angle

• Every business has at least five distinct story angles.
• Angles include: founder origin story, hero's journey, learning/mastermind journey, company mission, and the "boring" product reframed.
• The product itself is rarely the story — the surrounding narrative is.
• For each angle, prepare a headline and five supporting bullet points.
• Think: what would the Forbes headline be for this angle?

Know your target

• Different outlets serve different audiences — Forbes print, Forbes online, Inc., Entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal, and niche podcasts all differ.
• Position the same story for each outlet's specific audience; don't spin it, reframe it.
• Matching angle to audience increases the journalist's likelihood of saying yes.

Pick up the phone

• Cold email is buried in hundreds of daily press releases; phone calls stand out.
• The only pitch needed: "Hey, do you have two minutes? I think I have a good story for you."
• Call 20 journalists every morning between 9–11am when they're deciding what to cover.
• Rejection is not a no — treat it as a maybe and call back on a different day and time.
• Photographers are an underused entry point: their names appear on every published image, and they almost always say yes to "I have a good photo op."
• Persistence works: 17 calls over six weeks led to the Canadian Associated Press bureau chief flying in for a full-day feature — resulting in 170 newspaper placements in a single day.

Building an in-house PR team

• PR is a sales function; hire accordingly.
• Ideal traits: comfortable on the phone, resilient to rejection, curious, optimistic, good phone voice.
• They need to spell and write five bullet points — not write full stories.
• Avoid hiring writers or journalists for this role; hire someone who can convey energy and let the journalist write.
• Conduct first interviews by phone only — assess how they sound, not how they look on Zoom.

Amplification and branding

• Press coverage has compounding value only when amplified: share PDFs, links, press pages, and social posts.
• Create branding and visuals that are photo-friendly and press-friendly.
• Systems work, but only if you actually use them.