[0:05:34] BB: Yeah. Okay. Can you immediately tell from the subject line?

[0:05:37] AN: Pretty much. Yeah.

[0:05:38] BB: Yeah. Okay. What's a good subject line for you, for a pitch, for a pitch?

[0:05:44] AN: There's the obvious answer, right? Which is, if it's an embargo, or it's an
exclusive, just putting that right in the subject line.

[0:05:51] BB: Yup. Put it right there.

[0:05:52] AN: Things that are short, not too complicated, it helps that climate deals is pretty
niche, to an end respect. I mean, climate is getting bigger and bigger, right? The places that
we're touching are ever expanding. What we're following again is this, where the money's going,
where the investment is happening. I can tell pretty quickly from a subject line, is this about
some random peer of a land management announcement that I'm – that yes, personally I care
about, but professionally, I don't need to open? Or is this is this TPG announcing something,
some private equity firm? Actually, putting the company name in the subject line, especially if it's
recognizable, definitely helps.

[0:06:31] BB: Company name, funding amount as well. You want to see that in there too, or no,
you don't really care?

[0:06:36] AN: I mean, if it's a bananas number, that always helps.

[0:06:38] BB: What’s bananas now, by the way? 200 million, 500 million?

[0:06:42] AN: Nine figures these days, let alone 10 or 11.

[0:06:45] BB: All right. Okay. Approval process. I'm curious about this, especially with Axios and
how short it is. We haven't talked about this lately on this show. What is that like for you? Do you
have to go pitch your boss, your editors and say, “I want to do these seven stories tomorrow”?
Or how does it go?

[0:07:03] AN: First of all, if I had to do seven stories for tomorrow, I'd have a heart attack.

[0:07:05] BB: Yeah. Okay. I thought so. Just throwing it out there. I didn't want to downplay your
rigor, Alan.

[0:07:11] AN: I appreciate the confidence, but nonetheless. We used to use Trello. We've gone
to a platform called Notion, that's much more – I love Trello. I miss Trello. Oh, but it's similar.

[0:07:20] BB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[0:07:21] AN: We'll update that, and then we'll have a check-in call at some point in the
afternoon. My colleague, Katie Fehrenbacher, and our editor, Mike Flaherty. That's an
opportunity to touch base and say, this is what we're working on. It's not so much pitching our
editor, because he trusts us, right? We're supposed to be the subject matter experts.

Occasionally, especially if it's a funky – if it's a company with a teeny, tiny, fundraising amount,
right, 500k, but it's a compelling technology. That would be a question of, do we write about
this? Do we care about this? Is there something more valuable? Mike is commonly deferring to
our judgment and be like, “Hey, you tell me. What do you think your readers care about?”

[0:08:02] BB: Okay. That's nice. That's just an informing, updated meeting. Like, I'm going to be
looking at this, writing that, and that type of thing. That is refreshing.

[0:08:12] AN: Yeah. He'll occasionally veto something, right? He'll say, “Eh.”

Meeting Journalist's at Conferences

[0:09:40] BB: Simple enough. Simple enough. I like that. Okay. How about relationship building
with publicists, Alan? Do you want to ever meet publicists in person ever? Mm. What would you
say? You're in Boston area too, just for people to know.

[0:09:56] AN: Yeah. A lot of it is location dependent, right? I’m down outside Providence. The
short answer is yes. Publicists are who I'm talking with most day in and day out, maybe
investors, but probably, frankly, publicists. Yeah, I do want to know the person that I'm working
with, especially if they specialize in this area. I'd say, especially with remote work and now not
being in a city like DC, or New York, or Boston, those meetings most often tend to occur at
conferences, which have almost become the time that's set aside to just meet with people.

[0:10:27] BB: Yeah, that's a good point. Speaking of, and you know what? No one has really
commented on that, or said that. That's where now we meet. When you go to a conference, and
by the way, we'd love to know which ones you're going to. We'll get to that in a second. Are you
then interested in having those set up meetings? Do you want to have the coffee meetings
before the big talk, or something like that? Or are you just like, I'll just see on the floor
wandering around?

[0:10:48] AN: I think it's really dependent. It depends. It's tough, right? Because these
conferences are often so wall to wall.

[0:10:53] BB: Yeah. They don’t give much time. Yes.

[0:10:55] AN: No, but a 15-minute, a 30-minute coffee, especially if it's near where other stuff is
happening. If I don't have to walk two blocks to the coffee shop, if it's near there, then that helps.
Also, too, is it a publicist who specializes in climate with a lot of venture capital clients, or a lot of
startup clients? Then yes, absolutely. Totally makes sense to me.

[0:11:18] BB: If you got one, meh.

[0:11:19] AN: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[0:11:20] BB: Yeah. You're looking for density of clients. That's a good point for people to
realize and see. Okay. Good to know.