This may be an out of the ordinary statement ... but guess what?

I had a GREAT work week! Yup, you heard right. I mean, who says that?

It started off a little sketchy. One of my clients had some pretty bold news that he wanted to go out first thing Monday morning. I wasn't sure how the press would take it, but let's just say that this super influential journalist in my client's industry who has 1,300,000+ followers on Twitter actually read my email pitch and decided it was worthy enough to tweet about. A tweet? May sound minuscule to some of you, but lemme tell you, this guy's influence and credibility is NUTS. As soon as that tweet went out, views on our press release jumped from 700 (which I was already pretty happy about given our other press releases usually averaged 300 views) to 11,000 views in less than 24 hours. WOA. Amazing!! Needless to say, this translated into a ton of online sales, and not to mention crazy exposure, for my client who was just peachy pleased as could be. Yes!!

Lesson learned: I almost didn't reach out to this industry expert guy. In my mind, sending an email to him was like sending an email to some other worldy being like Dr. McDreamy or whoever. Unlikely that it would even get opened, right? But I went for it, and look what happened! This can apply to any of us. When an idea may sound too far-fetched or if you have low confidence in your abilities, don't listen or give in to those negative thoughts. Go for it, and be bold. You never know when it will pay off.

Second cool thing that happened. PR people often have to deal with spending hours and hours writing a press release with perfectly worded sentences and strategically placed paragraphs that go through layers and layers of approval, tailoring creative quotable quotes from company execs that get tweaked a bazillion times, and then when all is done and finalized, at the very last minute, guess what? More changes! It's probably the worst process in the world. Anyway, the point is to get the finished product, this immaculate document, into the hands of a journalist who will use the info to write an article. Ha, "use" is a loose term here. Journalists often twist things around, misquote, and get the info all wrong anyway. Well, not "wrong" per se, but just not what you or your client intended the article to say ... yeah. Over time, I've learned not to write a press release for your client, write it for your journalist. Write it in his/her language and tone and with his/her audience in mind. Anyway, so imagine my surprise and utter glee when I see my own headline from the press release I wrote copied word for word as the title of one journalist's article. Yeah!! In fact, the first sentence of the article stated, "I hate to steal headlines, but this one from [client's name] was just too good." O. M. G. Nicest work compliment ever.

Lesson learned: Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in "rules." A lot of the time, those rules are old and don't make sense anymore. Such as, writing a press release that's completely stuffy and reads like a computer manual. Don't be afraid to question the rules. Have you guys seen, How To Train Your Dragon yet? (Such a cute movie.) There's a lot to learn from that Hiccup kid.

And finally, the third great thing that happened to me this week: I landed a new client! Whoopie!! This new client is an amazing artist, and while I've never done PR for an artist before, I'm way, way excited to take on this new challenge.

Sigh. I wish every week was a fantastic week. These are far and few between, that's for sure, but when it does happen, don't hesitate to celebrate. I know it may feel weird, it's more natural to complain about work than to rave about it. But, that's why we're working girls, right? To kick butt! Now have a great weekend everyone, and look forward to Monday with vigor!!!