An excellent article on Entrepreneur.com about how to pitch rich people.  From Bill Bartmann.

If you’re looking to ink a deal with a really wealthy individual (there are plenty of wealthy women, but I’ll make this example male, because that’s the universal pronoun), here are five rules to put you way ahead of your competition:

Rule No.1: Respect time.

Rule No.2: Don’t tell him his business.

Rule No.3: Give him the facts.

Rule No.4: Take notes.

Rule No.5: Anticipate his needs.

We lost a great one. Billy Mays, the master of the pitch passed away from heart disease in June 2009. At the tender age of 50; it’s a tragedy.

RIP Billy, you will be missed. I had the pleasure of working with Billy, and meeting him first time, one day earlier in 2009 at a trade show. You can read about my experiences with him here and watch some videos too.

Here’s a video where I talk about what made Billy such an amazing, powerful brand, and how his pitching skills taught me a thing or two.

There’s an article in the BBC today about how the Best Job in the World tourism campaign might be the best PR stunt ever?

In a blaze of publicity, more than a thousand media organizations around the world this week reported that the job of “caretaker” of Hamilton Island in Australia had been given to a 34-year-old ostrich-rider from Hampshire, Ben Southall.

Given that part of a PR executive’s job is to sell a product without paying for advertising space, then Tourism Queensland’s “best job in the world” competition has been a PR triumph that has left those whose day-job it is to devise such campaigns green with envy.

While we agree that it was a great stunt, and it did work. You have to take it with a grain of salt. The exotic location didn’t hurt, right? I mean, who in the world didn’t want to apply and go live on a tropical island for 6 months and get paid to do it?

Hand is up in the air here! I wanted to go!

Here’s the point. It was a great PR stunt. It was a great pitch. Masterful really.

But what if it was The Best Job In The World…

In Cleveland?

Forget the press. Forget the viral nature of it. Forget the kudos. Nobody would have paid attention to it.

The lesson is… Your pitch is only as good as the quality of your product/service.

This is the new blog for the Your Pitch Sucks book, co-written by Jim Kukral and Lisa Picarille.