Becoming Pitchworthy with KJ Blattenbauer

Teresa Schlup (00:02)
All right, I am so excited for our guest today. So let me just take a moment to introduce her. It is KJ Battenbauer, who is a powerhouse publicist who turns overlooked experts into headline news. She has nearly 30 years of experience and is the go-to pro when you're ready to stop being ignored and start owning the spotlight. Known for her bold yet approachable style, KJ delivers actionable strategies that have been featured everywhere from Forbes to Architectural Digest.

She is also the author of the DIY PR book, How to Be a Media Darling and the forthcoming Pitchworthy coming out in January, 2026, a modern guide to building lasting visibility and authority. You can learn more about her at her website, hearsaypr.com or follow her on Instagram at KJ Blatenbauer. All of that will be in my show notes. You guys can just click the links for ease and comfort.

KJ, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have this conversation.

KJ Blattenbauer (01:03)
Thank you for having me excited to be here.

Teresa Schlup (01:06)
Yes, I have to I've read most of your book, How to Be a Media Darling, and you really grab, like it was one of the books that I was taking notes on first, but I want to say too, in the last probably three years, I've not read that many books. I've started a lot of books, and most of them are things that, excuse me, just I've heard before or weren't anything new or anything groundbreaking. And so to read a book and get into one is huge for me.

in these last couple of years. So thank you for putting that out there. And I'm excited for the new book too.

KJ Blattenbauer (01:41)
Thank you, thank you. If you love that book, and I'm honored that you love that book, I'm honored that it's one of the books that you've chosen to read. If you love that book, you are going to love Pitchworthy because it's half pep talk and about putting yourself out there when you don't want to. And the other half is DIY PR, the basic tenants for free about how you can get your message out there, step into the spotlight and be the expert because you are the expert in your industry.

Teresa Schlup (02:04)
You are the expert and that is honestly a hard thing for us to own sometimes, I think, especially we talked a little bit before we started recording, but as women, it is so hard sometimes for us to own that expert and step into the spotlight. And that's what you help people do.

KJ Blattenbauer (02:21)
I do, I do. I am a firm believer that you create a product, you create a service, you start a business because there's a need you see somewhere, whether it's for you or a loved one, or you just see that it's missing in the marketplace. You put your blood, sweat, and tears, probably all of your life savings into growing this thing, and then you think if you do great work, people are just gonna gravitate towards you. And it doesn't work that way. You you have to put yourself out there.

Not in a way of like, wanna be famous like a Kardashian, but you have to put yourself out there from a place of service and be like, okay, I created this great thing and it's gonna help this audience. It's a disservice and it's selfish of you to not put yourself out there and share with that audience what you're doing. And I think when you reframe it that way in your mind, it's not about you. It's about what you've created or what you're passionate about or sharing that with the world. I hope that it changes the...

the feel for a lot of people, because it has for me. I've spent my years behind the camera telling my clients what to do, telling them to step into the spotlight. You know, it takes a book for me to come out of my shell and start doing what I'm asking everyone else to do.

Teresa Schlup (03:25)
Yeah, yeah, and it is true. Like we do wanna hide and we want to, we hope that our thing is good enough that it'll get discovered and magic will happen. But if we don't tell people what we've created, what we're doing, how it's going to change their life, no matter what it is that we're doing, whether we're roasting coffee beans or we're a dog groomer, it doesn't matter. We are making somebody's corner of the world a better place.

KJ Blattenbauer (03:47)
Yes, yes, and it doesn't matter how you step into the spotlight or what you do, you know, like if you're a makeup person and not makeup person, if you don't feel like going on camera that day, okay, then go on camera another day. But your cringiest moment, it could be someone else's point of inspiration. It can make them break out of their shell. It could change their day. It could change the trajectory of their life, honestly, not even in dramatic way. You could be someone's inspiration just because you chose to step out of your shell.

Why would you not want to do that? Woman to woman, mother to daughter, why wouldn't you want to be the cause of someone's, if I can see her, I can be her? We need more of that inspiration in the

Teresa Schlup (04:25)
We need so much more of that inspiration in the world because as women, like we were saying earlier, we play small. We diminish what we do. We put ourselves down and say, well, it's not that big of a deal. And we hide in the backgrounds, in the shadows, and we should be lifting each other up. We should be bringing each other to the surface. And like you said, when we have that confidence to step forward, it can be that inspiring moment that helps somebody else do the same.

KJ Blattenbauer (04:38)
Right.

Yes. Yes.

Teresa Schlup (04:56)
Yes. Yes. So tell me a little bit about that because you work helping people step into the spotlight doing their, you know, what they do that is their expertise. How do you get them out of that playing small because I know that's something that you struggle with a lot with your clients is that idea of women playing smaller.

KJ Blattenbauer (05:13)
Right, well think a lot of it is part therapist, but also part of why are you working so hard? Why are you investing so much if you're not going to put what you've done out there? Whether it's one of my artists, one of my authors, one of my interior designers, or one of my startups. you again, you created something to share it with the world. The last hardest part is sharing it with the world. And all you're really doing is sitting down. Think about it if you're around someone and they have a dog. All you want to do is talk about their dog and show them dog pictures.

Teresa Schlup (05:20)
Thank you.

KJ Blattenbauer (05:43)
Why are you not that hyped up about your business? If your best friend is next to you and I introduced her, I'm like, Teresa, you need to meet my best friend, Carrie. She is amazing at baking. And I would go on and on and on. Carrie would be like, oh, I bake. And she'd like, brush it off. But I'd go on and on about how she's amazing. She can make anything all day, all day. Like a hype girl that's drunk on Saturday night in a bar bathroom, that's how we should be for each other. But that's also how we should talk about ourselves. Like we talk about our best friend because whatever we're doing,

It's badass and it's special and we should share it with the world and we should take the boxes people put in, the too emotional that you should be spoken or you should be seen and not heard and all those things that we heard growing up. It's kind of time to ditch those things. If we don't speak up about what we're doing, no one's gonna know, nothing's gonna change. And that's just not what we want for the younger generations, our daughters. People are watching and it's time for you to step in and own what you're good at.

Teresa Schlup (06:25)
Yeah.

KJ Blattenbauer (06:40)
Be the expert.

Teresa Schlup (06:42)
Yes, absolutely. And I love that bringing up for the next generation, like my own daughter, she is this incredibly strong and bold woman. She's 25, she owns her own business. She's doing all these amazing things. But I don't think she could be who she was had I tried not to bring that into it. And that's the result of it. When we say be bold, stand up, show up and show who you are, you're gonna get rejection, you're gonna get judgment, you're gonna get all of those kinds of things. You can't avoid it.

KJ Blattenbauer (07:10)
Right.

Right. And truthfully, it's nobody's business when anyone thinks about us, right? Like people are going to watch my videos and half of them are going to be like, oh my God, she looks so tired. Or other people are going be like, oh, her face so crabby, you know? Well, no, I'm passionate. And yeah, I am tired. I'm burning my butt off. know, half the people are going to say I'm too fat. The other half are going to tell me to eat a cheeseburger, you know, which sounds delicious. Maybe I will later. But also, who cares? I'm sharing my message.

Teresa Schlup (07:25)
you

KJ Blattenbauer (07:38)
And if it reaches one business owner who's gonna stop playing small today, if it's gonna reach one person who's gonna reach out to the press tomorrow or start owning their expertise because they are the expert in their industry, why do I care about the comments from the peanut gallery? Because usually those people who are judging or were worried about judging us, they're either not really watching or like the saying goes, I don't take constructive criticism from anyone who hasn't constructed anything.

Teresa Schlup (08:06)
Ooh, that's a good one. That is a really good one. And I will say this too about the people who are judging me. Like that's okay, like they can judge me. ⁓ They have different priorities, different ideas, different goals, different things, or maybe they have none of that and that's why they're judging me. They're doing their thing over there, they're not my people and that is really okay with it. ⁓ But I do, like you said, let's step up and inspire each other because if I, one person, if one person listens to this episode and is like, yes, okay, I'm ready to take.

steps and to move forward. That's all I need. That's all I care about.

KJ Blattenbauer (08:40)
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, 100 % that.

Teresa Schlup (08:44)
So, all right, so tell us, what is it, give me some tips, some ideas of what can we do to help people start stepping into their power and become pitch worthy. Like give me some tips and ideas that you share with your own clients.

KJ Blattenbauer (08:57)
So the first thing that I do is I work on the mindset, right? I have a folder and I call it the power of awesomeness. And every Friday I go through my week and I pull all the nice things people have said about me. Any compliments, anything I've heard, any reviews, a copy of that goes in my power and proof of awesomeness folder.

Teresa Schlup (09:18)
I love.

KJ Blattenbauer (09:18)
And once a week when I'm pulling it in there I read through it or if I've had a bad day or if someone made me feel crappy or if I just feel crappy or if I feel burnt out I go to that proof of us awesomeness folder and I just look at it and it shows you how far you come and every year start a new folder it is Magic on the soul, but it also helps you see you know how awesome you are How far you've gotten what you've overcome what other people truly think about you because if people are taking the time to give you a compliment They feel that times 20

because it's effort on their part, right? So you have to take that into account. You're gonna hear the negative criticism, especially if you're on social media. That's just what people do. They're grumpy, like, misery loves company. They go to social media. But if you keep your proof of awesomeness folder, then you have that. So I would say at least 15 minutes every Friday, proof of awesomeness folder. The second thing I would tell everyone to do is get your house in order.

So your website, your social media bios, including LinkedIn, Instagram, all of that, anything that's external facing, especially if you're like on Howes or Intro or another professional site where you advertise your services, make sure that if I land on any one of your external facing pages, it's the same picture, headshot. It's the same bio, it's the same information. The links work and they link to the right place. It's not.

Christmas time and people should be shopping and my links are all going to the Memorial Day 2024 sale, right? So the quickest thing that kills your expertise is not having the proper external facing persona, especially if you are attracting high ticket, high luxury kinds of clients. They wanna look at something and see the consistency across the board because people are gonna Google you, they're gonna vet you. So I think.

Getting that in order and truthfully, if you took an hour tonight while you're watching reality TV or whatever you do to unplug, you could have that done in a day. You can for sure get that done in a week. And then once a quarter, set a reminder to make sure your house is in order. So if you've given yourself the proof of awesomeness pet talk, and if you've gotten your house in order, the next thing to do is to write down what are the 10 or 12 questions people are always asking me about my profession or my area of expertise, about my product or my service.

Those are your key points. Those are your pitching points. That's what your customers want to hear about. So you take those, you craft your answers, or you take those questions and you enter them into Google. And where Google has like all images shopping, there's also a news tab that no one uses. Click on that news tab and it's going to tell you exactly who's writing about your industry, the outlet, the reporters. You can start building a media list there. And the next step is just to pitch them. It is that simple.

to put yourself out there. And like if you're an interior designer, I have quite a few interior designer clients and they've spent so much money paying to be a part of top 25 of this or the top 10 of Raleigh or, you know, interior designers you need to know, being in that architectural digest pro directory, thinking that that's going to get them traction. And it can, but not for the ROI of what it's costing you. For free, you can literally have a Google doc set up by project of high resolution images.

Teresa Schlup (12:13)
Okay.

KJ Blattenbauer (12:24)
You can link to that and you can be pitching editors with a short paragraph about here's a new project we worked on one or two sentences about why it's awesome and why it would appeal to their readers or the time of season, something like that and reaching out to them. I had one, I have a client, she's out of Kansas City, which is a flyover state. So for interior designers, if you're not East coast or West coast, you're not a big deal, right? Which is a total lie because most of time,

Teresa Schlup (12:48)
It's such a lie. have so many

who are amazing in the Midwest and throughout the middle part of the United States. Yeah.

KJ Blattenbauer (12:54)
Midwest is the best. That's what I like to say.

But so client in Kansas City, she had enough clients. They were busy, but she felt like no one knew her even in her local area. We start with the local publications, pitch her there. Then we moved nationally. Within one week of being in a national publication, she had a wait list of six months of people who just wanted to talk to her. Within a year of working together, she had so many press hits.

They were asking her to do show homes, not where she had to pay to be a part of the show home, where they were paying and getting her sponsors just so they could have a certain kitchen designed by her. It was miraculously beautiful kitchen. But also at that point, her wait list was two years long and they had to figure out a different way. are only so many hours in the day. We went around using the expert sources like that. She does her own virtual appointments. She doesn't have to pay anybody's services fee. They collect that fee for

whatever she can and for one hour of someone's time across the globe, she can charge four times more what she would charge her in-person rate. And so it's just getting creative. PR isn't just about getting yourself famous. It's not about getting yourself recognized. It's about building your business. Invisibility is what's the return on investment is. Invisibility is your biggest asset. No one can hire you if they don't know what you do, if they don't know how talented you are, or if they don't know what expert you're an expert in.

Teresa Schlup (14:15)
Absolutely. So this really brings up something too with that I'm constantly talking with my clients. Cause as you said, I have a lot of interior design clients too. And it's that visibility locally. So many feel that they have to focus all of their time and attention, money, advertising into social media, but social media is not the local aspect. Social media is nationwide. And if that's your clientele, then maybe that's the approach. But locally, there's so many opportunities for

KJ Blattenbauer (14:41)
Hmm.

Teresa Schlup (14:42)
people who that's where your client tells, can we talk a little bit about that? Because that's one of the pieces that I think is really inspirational from your book.

KJ Blattenbauer (14:48)
Yeah,

I want to talk about social media as a whole in general. feel like social media is great because it helps you discover people a world over you might not. It helps me discover great interior designers, artists, musicians, all kinds of really cool dog videos. I want to laugh at all the time. All really cool things. At the same time, it is vanity metrics that don't move the needle. And if ever there was a platform that's going to gaslight you morning, noon and night like a horrible ex-boyfriend, it's meta.

It changes the goalposts every single day, like Lukey holding the football for Charlie Brown. It is ridiculous. We jump through the hoops because we think we have to. But people are so worried about going viral and posting things. And look, if you're an interior designer, that is Instagram porn. It's beautiful things. Yes, you probably have a huge following, but are they paying for your services? Are they just following because they want to see where the pillows are from? And I think it's looking at that. You can have 10 million followers on Instagram. It's not even going to convert 10 % for you.

If it does 10 % like, then you should write a book because it doesn't happen. I think, they think they're going to go viral. It's going to give them all this fault, these followers, which is going to lead to all these sales and all these clients. And the truth of the matter is viral just gets people to follow you. doesn't get them to buy. They're only watching for whatever the scandal or the drama or whatever brought them to you originally. They're going to get bored and move on to the next thing. But if you are in your local design magazine, whether you pay for an ad.

Teresa Schlup (15:49)
It's not happening, yeah.

KJ Blattenbauer (16:13)
but truly it could just be featured, whether you win one of their awards, because you should always be entering for the local awards. That's a third party verified source that sees designers all the time saying, you're a top designer. You're someone to pay attention to. You're someone to look at. You're someone to hire. That's what you want. You want to pitch your local news station. You want to pitch your local design magazines. You want to pitch your community newspapers, your local newspapers, and anything that's regional.

because what you want is people who are looking for beautiful things in your area that are ready to hire you now. And if they're looking at those things with interior design in mind, they've already decided they're hiring an interior designer. No one like dabbles in, ⁓ I don't know if I should hire an interior designer. Like you either know you need one or you don't.

Teresa Schlup (17:00)
Absolutely. And I love that aspect of getting into it. But also what came to mind is that when somebody goes, let's say they're interested in you, they start searching for you, they start Googling for you, that viral social media post that happened a year ago, if it happened, if it did, it's not going to pop up. that that news moment when you were in the news spotlight, that magazine article, whatever those things are going to show up with you. And it's give you that much more credibility, I feel.

KJ Blattenbauer (17:28)
Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, it truly boils down to, they used to call it the good housekeeping seal of approval. If you had a product or service and you were featured in good housekeeping, you got this gold emblem that, I mean, it was before websites, but you got this gold emblem you could display everywhere and they would feature you on their website. Well, before websites, they featured the magazine, but it was instant verification. It was bigger than Oprah. It was the thing you wanted. And that still holds true across any media outlet. If you want to be known in the interior design space,

Start with your local interior design publications, your local design publications, then go to your lifestyle publications. And once you've conquered those, then go bigger. House, beautiful, traditional home, better homes and garden, Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart is looking for people to feature morning, noon, and night all the time. And it costs you nothing.

Teresa Schlup (18:17)
Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, I love this. So other tips, other ideas, anything else that you would say if, know, starting off, we've got a new year ahead of us, we're planning our business, we're planning our goals, how to get out there, what would be your best piece of advice for us?

KJ Blattenbauer (18:35)
to not diminish what you're doing, right? So many people think they have to be, want to be famous, be famous, be a six or seven figure earner before they can even think about PR. they're like, if I just get to X milestone, then I'm ready. And that's not true, you're ready. The people who are the greatest at public relations, who are the most nimble, who have the best stories, are the people just starting out, or the people who are the zero to six or seven figure earners. You created your business for reason. Your brand has a story because it's you.

doing something unique that your competition can't do. And so people are always like, well, I'm going to wait till I'm ready, or I don't want to be famous, or the best one is I don't have a story. Yes, you do. We all have stories. And I'm not saying bear your soul. Like, I'm not asking you to go on The Bachelor and tell, like, what happened to you in seventh grade that made you different than anyone else. Like, I'm not asking you to cry on camera.

All you ask me to is be like, hey, yeah, I used to sit with my grandma and she'd sew needlepoint. And now I have a needlepoint company. And every time someone buys this style, it makes me think of my grandma. And it honors that memory. And so I'm not selling needlepoint. I'm selling family memories and moments. It's things like that. People want to.

hear stories. They want to be a part of a storyteller. we, you know, people go to movies for a reason. People read books for a reason. You like the story arc of things. Every business has a story. Every business owner has a story. And you just have to learn to properly tell that. And then it's just media gold for you.

Teresa Schlup (20:03)
And be open to telling the happy stories too. Like the tearjerker stories, they do have a place for certain businesses, but not everybody needs to have a tearjerker story. And it's just not appropriate in some businesses, I think. It's not the right fit. You're attracting the wrong audience.

KJ Blattenbauer (20:05)
Thank you.

Right.

What?

Right, right. mean, look, pity marketing is everywhere. Woe is me is a thing. It got big during COVID. People got rewarded for it. The world is sick of it. We want hope. We want to see someone succeed. We want to cheer someone on and watch them be a champion. We want to see them rise from whatever knocked them down and get back up. That's kind of that's what the human spirit wants. That's who they want to support. And so I think it's those things like take me along for the ride of your day to day. Show me.

Teresa Schlup (20:29)
with my happiness.

KJ Blattenbauer (20:46)
What's cool? I don't need, can hear about the things that are hard about your business, but I want to celebrate your wins. Are you writing a book? Cool. Is this project amazing? Show me behind the scenes. Show me the renderings. Like take me along for the whole journey. That's what want to see.

Teresa Schlup (20:59)
Yes.

Yes, I would agree with that. We want hope, we want joy, we want happiness. We want to see the good in the world again, because we've seen enough of the sadness and the pity and the woe and all the things. We want to see the good. So, okay, good. So your book, Pitchworthy, comes out in January. Very exciting. ⁓ Tell me a little bit of what they can expect for this book and where they can buy it and all the good things around it.

KJ Blattenbauer (21:11)
Yes.

Done.

Sure,

so Pitchworthy comes out January 13th and I cannot wait. It will be available anywhere books are sold and on January 13th, the Kindle version on Amazon will be less than a dollar because I want to make it affordable for everyone to have access to public relations. ⁓ It also comes in hardcover, softcover, all of the paperback, all of the things, but on January 13th, Kindle version.

less than a dollar. ⁓ It is going to be half pep talk because for so many of us like we talked about before stepping in the spotlight can feel icky. We can be scared. We're not ready. We don't think we're ready. And so it walks you through here's how you get ready. Here's the mindset. You know, like I'm your hype girl. I'm like your best friend sitting you down on the couch. And this is how we're going to go about this because I know you're a big deal and I need you to believe that you're a big deal.

The other half of the book is basic tenants of PR. It's like my first book, How to be a Media Darling, where it tells you what PR is, walks you through the steps, helps you figure out how to DIY. But it's 10 additional chapters of free tools you can use, what to do if the trolls come for you, how to truly go about social media, keeping things in order, putting together media kits, and follow-up pitch samples, all of the fun things in one little book for you.

Teresa Schlup (22:36)
I am excited, I cannot wait to see this book. So thank you so much for that. All right, so anything else before we close out today, this is such a great conversation. You've given us a lot to think about. Anything else that you'd wanna share or let people know where they can find you if they wanna reach out to you personally.

KJ Blattenbauer (22:40)
Thank you.

The thing I want to leave everyone with, if you've heard nothing I've said this entire time, visibility is not vanity. It is your biggest asset for your business and it's something you need to harness now because you can't have revenue if people can't see you and know to hire your business. So the first thing I'd love for everyone to do, get their house in order. Make sure all their external messaging is the same. And if you need someone to look, review it.

Hit me up, my website is hearsaypr.com and you can find me on Instagram all the time at KJBlend.

Teresa Schlup (23:28)
All right, thank you so much, KJ, for joining me. I love this conversation and I look forward to having you on the show again sometime in the future. All right.

KJ Blattenbauer (23:36)
Thank you.