Free with account
Getting Press
Paid ads rent attention; press earns trust. By the end of this course you'll have a working press operation — a media list of 30+ real contacts, your News Peg identified, three pitch templates written, and your first outreach sent — all done manually, with zero ad spend and zero PR firm.
No prerequisites — start here.
Nobody trusts an ad the way they trust a journalist who chose to write about you. In six modules you'll go from invisible to inevitable: finding the newsworthy angle hiding in your business, building a media list of 30+ real contacts by hand, writing the 150-word pitch that gets answered, guesting on podcasts that put you in front of your exact buyers, and spinning the Credibility Flywheel — where every hit makes the next one easier. No PR firm. No ad budget. Just the manual way to earn coverage that money can't buy.
What you’ll learn
- Find your News Peg and turn ordinary business facts into stories journalists want
- Build a qualified media list of 30+ journalists, podcasters, and bloggers — manually, for free
- Write the 150-Word Pitch: subject lines that get opened and follow-ups that get answered
- Spin the Credibility Flywheel so every piece of coverage makes the next one easier
Is this for me?
Who is this course for?
Small business owners, freelancers, and creators with no PR budget and no press connections. If you have a real business and a story inside it — which you do — this course is your way in. No fame required, no connections needed.
What do I need before starting?
Nothing but a business (or a serious plan for one) and an hour a week. No paid databases, no PR experience, no existing audience. Everything is manual: searching, reading, writing, sending.
How long does it take?
Six modules, about 30–45 minutes each of learning. Most people finish in two weeks — and the real work is the weekly rhythm from Module 5: one hour a week of pitching, forever. That's when the hits start compounding.
Module 0
Module 0: Start here
Why earned media beats paid advertising for trust, the four edges small businesses have over big ones, and the five-step press process this course teaches — so you know exactly where you're headed.
Module 1
Module 1: Newsworthy Angles
Journalists cover stories, not businesses. Learn the News Peg — the timely reason your story matters now — plus the five angle types that work over and over, and run the angle audit that surfaces stories you're sitting on.
Module 2
Module 2: Building Your Media List
The right 30 contacts beat 300 random ones. Find the journalists, podcasters, and bloggers who actually cover your beat — manually, with free tools — and organize them in a spreadsheet system that makes pitching a machine.
Module 3
Module 3: The Pitch Email
Journalists get hundreds of pitches; yours wins by being short, specific, and obviously written for them. Subject lines that get opened, the 150-Word Pitch anatomy, and the one follow-up that doubles replies without annoying anyone.
Module 4
Module 4: Podcast Guesting
The highest-ROI press for a small business: 30–60 minutes of deep attention from exactly your buyers. How to pitch hosts with topics instead of biography, and how to be the guest every host recommends.
Module 5
Module 5: After the Hit
Getting covered is half the job. Learn the Credibility Flywheel — where each hit makes the next pitch easier — how to squeeze ten assets from every mention, and the one-hour weekly rhythm that compounds forever.
Choose your track
Not everyone needs the same path. Pick the one that fits where you are.
Beginner track
Modules 0–2: the trust ladder, your News Peg, and your first 30-contact media list. Don't write a single pitch until the angle audit is done and the spreadsheet's 'recent story' column is filled — ammunition before firing.
Steady track
All modules in order, one per week. Send your first five pitches in week four, start the one-hour weekly rhythm in week six, and expect your first hit within two months. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Volume track
All modules, then ten pitches a week from day one: five fresh, five follow-ups. At a 10% hit rate that's four hits a month — a press page nobody can ignore within a quarter. Volume is where the flywheel spins fastest.
Your build brief
Everything you write in the build brief prompts across this course's modules collects here. Download it as a designed PDF — and we keep a copy too, so when you're ready for us to build it for you, we already know exactly what you want.
Your answers save automatically as you type — on this device and to your signup email.
Teardown: one weak pitch, one strong pitch
The weak pitch: "Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to inquire whether you might be interested in a story idea about my company, Main Street Bakery. We have been in business for twelve years and pride ourselves on quality, tradition, and customer service. We recently launched a new line of pastries and would love any coverage you might consider. Please let me know if you'd like more information. Sincerely..." — 68 words in and nothing has happened. No name, no story, no reason this matters this week. It opens with "Dear Sir/Madam," which announces it's a mass blast, and it never once says what the story actually is. A journalist deletes this in four seconds.
The strong pitch: "Hi Dana — your Main Street rebound piece nailed what's happening here. Thought you'd like this: our sourdough starter turns 40 this spring. My grandfather started it in 1985, and we've logged every bake since — 14,000 loaves and counting. I'm a third-generation baker with 200 wholesale accounts across the county. Happy to do a quick call or a bakery visit, and I can send photos of the original starter jar from '85. — Maria Santos, Main Street Bakery, (555) 014-2288." 118 words. Name the reporter. Reference her story. The angle (40-year-old starter), the peg (this spring), the credibility (third-generation, 200 accounts), the offer (call, visit, photos), the phone number.
Run the 150-word check on both. The weak pitch is short enough but empty — it obeys the length rule and breaks every other one: no peg, no specificity, no story a stranger could care about. "Quality, tradition, and customer service" could describe ten thousand bakeries. The strong pitch spends its words on concrete nouns: 40 years, 1985, 14,000 loaves, the starter jar. Specificity is what makes a pitch feel real — and real is what gets a reply.
What most people would get wrong: they'd try to fix the weak pitch by making it longer — more background, more adjectives, the full company history. Length is the opposite of the fix. The weak pitch doesn't need more words; it needs a story. One specific, timely, visual fact beats three paragraphs of "proud tradition" every time.
The lesson: the strong pitch works because it answers the journalist's only question — "is this useful or interesting to my readers?" — in the first three lines. Name, proof you read their work, story, peg, credibility, easy yes. That's the 150-Word Pitch, and once you can see the anatomy, you'll never send a "Dear Sir/Madam" again.
Want this done for you?
Rather do it with us? Our PR Outreach Sprint ($1,500) — we build your media list, write your pitches, and run 30 days of outreach.
See done-for-you services