John Hyatt is a staff writer at Forbes. He covers billionaires with the focus on finance, deal-making, money and politics, and white-collar crime.

During the episode, John talks about the scope of his reporting surrounding the wealthiest people in the world, his take on personalized pitches versus mass pitching, outlines more of the focus of his beat, and more.

Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Click below to listen to the full conversation and read below for highlights from the interview:

Reporting on Billionaires

[0:03:22.0] BB: Okay. John, how is your inbox?

[0:03:25.3] JH: It’s fine, I typically get anywhere from 10 to 15 pitches per day.

[0:03:29.6] BB: Now, when we last talked about that, I was like, “What? That’s it?” Do people
not know you exist? Because how are you not getting like, 300 gazillion, which is like the typical.
What do you attribute that to, perhaps?

[0:03:41.2] JH: Well, hopefully, it’s because people realize that I’m not going to write about their
tech startup or their, you know, puppy rescue charity or whatever they might be trying to feed my
way.

[0:03:52.3] BB: Do you get then any pitches that are ever, I want to say, appropriate or fitting?

[0:03:57.1] JH: Yeah, definitely

.
[0:03:58.6] BB: Tell us about it.

[0:03:58.6] JH: Definitely. The most sort of appropriate pitches I get are either wealth managers
or white-collared lawyers or introductions to entrepreneurs who have started multiple companies
or one really valuable company, who either are billionaires or maybe will be billionaires one day.
So, I do get relevant pitches.

[0:04:20.3] BB: Okay, because when we last talked here, I had asked, what is a publicist ever
saying, “Hey John, you want to talk to my billionaire client? They got stuff going on.” I mean, that
doesn’t sound like a pitch you would get but do you ever get a pitch like that?

[0:04:36.7] JH: Yeah, sometimes. I mean, some billionaires are very out front and want to be
speaking with journalists and they want to see their names in the news every couple of days,
picking stocks or talking about macro-economic trends but of course, you also have a whole
group of people who are very quiet and under the radar and who would prefer that nobody knew
who they were or how wealthy they are and those are the people that we have to do a lot of
research into their assets and their wealth.

[0:05:06.3] BB: And to check and so forth. Do you then, you mentioned with the wealth
managers, find people of that caliber let’s say, or that circle who are working with wealth
important for any of your coverage? Is that a valuable source for you?

[0:05:21.4] JH: They certainly can be, although, I think oftentimes, if a PR firm is pitching a
wealth manager or an advisor to us, it’s because they would want to talk about the work they do
and you know, the types of clients they work with, which you know, with a high level can be
interesting but it’s typically not something that’s going to go into a story.

I think the sort of ideal source is somebody who can feed us an information about one of their
clients and that type of relationship typically isn’t developed through an intermediary like a
publicist.

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Advantages of Proper Subject Lines and Sources

[0:12:03.4] BB: Yes, okay. We kind of glossed over it with the pitches because you get so few
John, which is shocking to me but hey, word is out now. So, maybe you’re going to be getting
more pitches but of the ones you open, could you define for us the subject lines that get your
attention if any?

[0:12:21.9] JH: Yeah. I mean, any time billionaire is in the subject line, that catches my attention
because, well, you know I’m a wealth reporter at Forbes and we’re always looking for stories
about billionaires or that involve billionaires.

[0:12:32.9] BB: Okay, so drop that, drop that in there, okay, good.

[0:12:35.7] JH: But of course, you know I’ll be annoyed if I get a subject line that says you
know, “Billionaire” pitch, and then the topic is you know, some SaaS tech company that I’ve
never heard of. That’s a no-go. I think, so you know –

[0:12:49.6] BB: Has that happened before?

[0:12:50.8] JH: Yeah, I got a funny pitch the other day. It was like I’ve written a bit about the
Winklevoss twins. These are the guys who got it, making the Bitcoin, and you know, wrote about
a lawsuit involving one of their companies that they’ve partnered with and I got a pitch basically
sort of using that story as a, “Hey, I saw you wrote that, thought you’d be really interested in
speaking with this financial adviser who has nothing to do with crypto or billionaires.”

That was pretty funny but what I’m really looking for is you know, pitches that are relevant,
pitches that are introducing me to people who can talk about the things I’m interested, which is
in my case, you know not just billionaires per se but you know, I tend to focus more on crypto,
investment management, sort of white-collared crime sometimes. I like try to do investigations
with my colleagues, so –

[0:13:43.2] BB: Yes, you did mention that last time and you know I was laughing because
you’re like, “Yeah, white-collared crime.” Love it, like I don’t think that’s a pitch you’re going to
get but yeah. Can we go into that for a second? Like what is it about that that’s so intrigues you?
I mean, it’s interesting.

[0:14:00.0] JH: Some people go into journalism to you know, do investigations and I don’t know
if that’s why I went into journalism but it’s certainly a fun part of being a reporter and so you
know, people who have insights on you know, trends or individuals who are involved in
potentially sketchy activity, I’m always interested in that and you know, like what kind of sources
are those, like lawyers, you know, executives who have insights on market trends.

I mean, oftentimes, sources are especially helpful when they’re speaking on background. That
allows them to be a little more open and candid. So, you know, I really appreciate executives
and experts who are willing to just chat on background not because they’re just trying to get
their name out there necessarily but because they care about getting important information out
into the public sphere.

And you know, it’s always I think useful for them in the long run to build relationships with
reporters because then when their cool company announcement comes, you know I think
reporters will be even more inclined to write about them, that’s right. 

Rapid Fire Pitching Preferences

[0:16:48.6] BB: Okay John, well, I have a quick – what do we call this here, rapid-fire question

session here for you and let’s see what the answers are if you're ready.

[0:17:08.8] JH: Yeah, let’s do it.

[0:17:09.4] BB: Okay, Video or phone interview?

[0:17:12.5] JH: Phone.

[0:17:13.2] BB: Oh, why, by the way?

[0:17:13.7] JH: Less distractions.

[0:17:15.0] BB: Just less distractions, yeah, okay. Bullet points or paragraphs in pitches?

[0:17:18.3] JH: Bullet points.

[0:17:20.0] BB: Short or long emails? Pitches.

[0:17:22.6] JH: Short.

[0:17:22.5] BB: And how short?

[0:17:23.9] JH: A couple of sentences?

[0:17:25.2] BB: A couple of sentences, that’s a short pitch. Okay, images attached or Dropbox
zip file?

[0:17:31.1] JH: Preferably no images but if it’s really necessary, attached.

[0:17:35.6] BB: Okay. Email or XDM or whatever DM we’re getting now, whatever.

[0:17:39.9] JH: Yeah, either/or. I don’t really have a preference here.

[0:17:42.2] BB: Either/or. Okay, not a lot of people say the either/or. Okay. One follow-up or
multiple?

[0:17:48.5] JH: Just one.

[0:17:50.8] BB: Direct or creative subject lines?

[0:17:52.0] JH: Direct.

[0:17:53.4] BB: Press release or media kit? Kind of NA, right? For you.

[0:17:57.1] JH: Press release. I don’t really know what a media kit means in this scenario.

[0:18:01.1] BB: I know, like it could – could you imagine? “Hey John, here’s my billionaire's
client media kit, their bio, their photos, them at their ranch.” That would be an odd media kit.
Like, a media kit is usually all the little doodads in it and it would have all the press releases and
all the images and all the product dimensions if you had it. Like, you know?

[0:18:19.9] JH: Wow, okay, interesting.

[0:18:21.7] BB: But that’s why I say, NA for you because who is going to send you a media kit
on their billionaire? Nobody, I don’t think

[0:18:26.7] JH: Yeah, probably no one.

[0:18:27.9] BB: Probably no one. I would hope, no one. That will be the day. Anyway, what time
do you usually read pitches if you have a ton?

[0:18:35.6] JH: Just intermittently throughout the day.

[0:18:38.4] BB: Okay. You covered this a bit but just to emphasize, sources you particularly
like?

[0:18:43.9] JH: Billionaires or people who do business with them.

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