This is a guest post by Mike Sergeant from Sergeant Leaders.

When I crossed over to PR after 18 years in broadcasting, I assumed that I would have to spend a lot of time ‘selling in’ stories to journalists. I absolutely dreaded it, and I was pretty rubbish at it.

The truth is that, when you’ve spent almost two decades slamming the phone down on PR people, the last thing you want to do is become one of those annoying flacks.

Having been on the receiving end of PR spam and cold calling, making a career out of persuading reluctant journalists to grant you a couple of column inches seems demeaning and depressing.

Plus, as a seasoned media professional, you only have a certain amount of capital (credibility), which can easily be wasted if you try to flog your best newsroom contacts underwhelming stories.

So, like many ex-journalists, I did everything I could to avoid writing press releases and calling flustered correspondents and editors. And a good thing too.

In truth, most career PRs have better contact books anyway. I knew a few people at the BBC; not that many newspaper journos.

But then I discovered I had something far more valuable than a media approach list (which anyone can pay for these days).