She rewrote this pitch on the fly – and it worked

Remember when COVID hit, and suddenly almost all your story angles fell flat?

That’s what happened to Carly Martinetti, who represents a productivity software company. She was trying to coordinate a time for an interview with the CEO. She proposed a time, and the client contact responded, “No, he can’t do it then, that’s when he’s blocked off time to spend with his kids.”

And Carly’s like, “Hmm, I’ve heard of people doing that, but I thought he would have made an exception for something like this.”

Carly knows journalists like catch phrases, so she decided to coin the term “windowed work” and wrote a pitch with the subject line: Move Over 4-Day Work Week, Enter “Windowed Work”

Carly briefly outlined the concept and sent the pitch to a writer at Today.com who had been covering work-from-home stuff. The journalist loved it and wrote a story about Carly’s client. Carly then used that story as credibility to get her client CEO quoted in Business Insider and an AP story syndicated worldwide.

Now you may be thinking, “Wait, she just created new messaging and a new angle and went out with it?” Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Carly got to this point in her career by knowing how to anticipate what will work – and what clients will go for – and what won’t.

She’s got a history of this. She won my Inner Circle’s “Best Pitch of the Year” contest by landing 83 pieces of coverage for Ooni pizza ovens, all from one simple pitch. She came up with the idea to run a competition where people could land a job as a paid pizza tester.

Carly says: “If I was sitting around waiting for clients to give me ideas, I would literally never have anything to pitch.”

Your takeaway: You’re the PR expert – not your client or non-PR execs. Trust your expertise and pivot from lame angles to those you know will work.

If you’d like to learn more about how the Inner Circle helps pros like Carly build on their successes, check out more details.