Funny thing happened last Friday, when I stumbled into a new running store that’s about to open in our area.  It’s a franchise that I’ve known about for six or seven years and I was excited to see they were now going to be about 5 minutes from my house.  I walked into the store to ask when they will open and quickly learned that the grand opening was less than a week away and that part of the festivities was an appearance by 1972 Olympic gold medal marathoner Frank Shorter!

Immediately, I asked if they were doing any PR for the event, especially with a gold medal Olympian on hand. Sadly, they said, they didn’t believe there was anything going on along the lines of public relations. I was surprised, especially considering the Twin Cities Marathon (aka. the most beautiful urban marathon in the country) was a week away! I left a card and asked that it be passed on to the public relations manager for the franchise.  Later that day, I received a call saying they were interested in learning more.  By Sunday night at 11p.m. we had an agreement to assist with public relations for the grand opening.

Granted, this is a one time, small budget agreement, but I walk away from this experience confirming two beliefs.  First, if you see an opportunity - learn more.  Secondly, timing can play a huge part in the success or failure of a PR pitch. In this case, timing was everything - from me walking in the store, to the timing of the opening event and to the timing of the Twin Cities Marathon.  However, had the Twin Cities Marathon not been a week away, this story may never have had legs (so to speak) with the media.  Sure, Frank Shorter is interesting for us 40-somethings and older, but he’s not quite the same hook as a recent Olympian.

Sure, we’d like to believe that there’s more to successfully pitching a story than just being in the right place at the right time, but undeniably, timing can make or break the ordinary and even the extraordinary PR pitch.

Ed Heil is the owner and president of StoryTeller Media & Communications an inbound marketing and public relations agency and video production company based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Ed blogs on topics related to inbound marketing, social media, media relations, news media, video production and crisis communications.