About

Please read the fine print below: Company: Small solopreneur shop selling workshops Target audience: PR & Comms leaders (whelp!). Global, but skewed to US & Canada Current newsroom: 2 press releases on low cost provider sites. Pros: Ok website, pretty different and weird business use case, lots of enthusiasm for writing, speaking, taking interviews & answering questions. Big believer and advocate leader for earned media, who will throw his jacket on puddles for you. Good person who won’t do you dirty, and in situations where it’s clearly lopsided value, will be very articulate about empathy levels. Objective: Mentions in LLMs, a bit of trust/confidence building, elevated founder profile. Cons: Horrible, disgusting budget constraint (short term), annoying founder who writes way more than he should. Convoluted explanations of the product/service/offerings. Pathetic reach on LinkedIn despite “large” and fake-seeming following. Pretty bad track record of reaching out via DM to a lot of visible leaders in the space. Possible perception of being a dweeb. I’ll be straightforward about it, and it’s pretty sad to say - but I think it’s better to try and fail than to let my assumption hold me back from putting an ad out. I’m looking for an intermediate level, solo, freelance PR operator to get me earned media mentions for my business selling workshops. What’s pitiful about this, is my target audience is global PR & Comms leaders.. So as much as I realize my budget is pathetic, and nobody believes in Earned Media more than me.. And since I’m a struggling bootstrapped startup that’s technically 19 days old today… I do pledge, in writing. And you can take the screenshot to the bank - that whoever works with me and is able to deliver results, at a minimum acceptable price point - I do solemnly swear not to let the precedent set any expectations. And dramatically increase what I pay, to a healthy standard in line with other respectable companies. Which implies I’m not respectable, or worthy. But I’ll wear that badge for now.. I know many will see this kind of post and say, sheesh look at this guy! What a loser.. but I hope to find the edge case who maybe understands and believes in me, and is willing to take a gamble. I’m not saying I won’t pay - I’m saying I know you’re worth so much more, than what I can pay. But regardless I’ll take your rates, and will carry on. Not trying to disrespect you guys when your industry is literally my target market who I want to build respect with. And for that reason I didn’t set a budget. And chose to self deprecate publicly as an act of humility and hopefully not seen as pure desperation. Because I’m not desperate for earned media coverage. But I would love some, and could really use some. And don’t want the fact that I can only pay 3 figures USD to be the reason why I don’t at least stimulate the market with some demand. Or at least take those coins out of my hat to play slots. Hope this gave you a sense of where my heart is at. And wonder if this hopeless case can still find their PR & Comms savior to run into the sunset with, and everything works itself out. PS I expect this to flop, but I figured it’s the only way to approach this scenario - with transparency levels nobody has ever seen. NOT SAYING it’s right, just that there’s no other plausible way it could work out for someone in this situation.