There has been a lot of talk of Doing the Work lately.

Seth Godin recommended Steven Pressfield’s excellent book on procrastination, Art of War. Turns out, Pressfield also has a new e-book called Do the Work. You can get the Kindle version for free here on Amazon.com.

I’ve read both books. Here’s a line from the Amazon description:

…Do the Work, a manifesto by bestselling author Steven Pressfield…will show you that it’s not about better ideas, it’s about actually doing the work.

It doesn’t take a lot of work to superimpose this statement onto the world of public relations…

…Where press releases are blasted…

…Anonymously…

…To hundreds, sometimes thousands, of beleaguered media folks…

…This process generates sad and terrible results…

…Most journalists don’t even reply…

…And PR people get depressed…

…They wonder why the journos aren’t responding to their releases…

…They wonder why they aren’t obtaining earned media for their clients and their companies.

The reason is they are not doing the work.

You are not doing the work.

You are not building relationships with journalists.

You are not helping journalists.

You are taking the easy way out blasting them by the dozen.

You are not putting in the effort. To learn what it is that turns them on. To know what will interest their readers.

The vast majority of the press releases I get every day don’t even apply to what I do or cover. And most media is in my boat. Think about that!

Do the work. Build relationships. Listen to the media instead of blasting poorly constructed releases.

Tell stories.

Call or email your journalists individually.

Trust me, when you obtain “helpful status” the journalist will listen to everything you have to pitch.

But you have to earn that status.

You have to do the work.

Do the work!