As a business leader, sometimes chasing after "earned media" (which is basically a fancy term for "getting people to cover your successes") can leave you feeling like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick.

Over the past decade, I've written thousands of articles for Inc.com along with many other outlets. Each day, my email inbox is filled with pitches from people who hope I'll cover their work. Sadly, the answer is almost always "sorry, no." So, how do you make your business stand out?

In this discussion, I'll talk about some of the things I look for, offer 7 tips on how to get earned media, and if there's interest, workshop a pitch idea or two with the group.

Bill Murphy Jr. is an author, journalist and digital media entrepreneur. He's the founder of a daily newsletter called Understandably.com that reaches 150,000 people every Monday through Friday, and a contributing editor and top columnist at Inc.com, where millions of people read his work every month.