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00:00:00well thanks Alando and thank you all of you um for joining us today we have um I think this is
00:00:17going to be my favorite you ought to know um it's the monster pitch and three of your moderators
00:00:21that are on this call today Lauren Steve and Emory actually all sold the Tim McGraw trip that
00:00:27we're um that we're all charged with kind of getting in front of our clients so we have them
00:00:32moderating we have the the famous Larry who is always with us producing these amazing segments
00:00:37and then we have Carrie Tilleri um in Boston who has a lot of experience selling some monster
00:00:43programs so very excited to kick it off and with that I'll turn it over to your producer and host
00:00:49Larry Julius thanks Tina I I agree with you this is going to be be an awesome an awesome you ought
00:00:56to know um so I'm not capable enough however to slay these monster pitches alone today so I
00:01:03enlisted the help from a Beasley GSM who oversees Boston's 98.5 the sports hub the sixth largest
00:01:10billing radio station in America here's here's Carrie Tilleri Carrie welcome hi how are you
00:01:16happy to be doing doing doing well hey Carrie you know this right you don't get your job without
00:01:22without knowing a thing or two about pitching right the sports station pitching all right I'll
00:01:27stop with the puns probably not Carrie will be serving as the voice of the audience today by
00:01:32asking the tough questions creating clarity and sharing her experiences pitching and uh Carrie are
00:01:39you ready to take on the monsters I'm ready let's do this yeah um joining me and Carrie in just a few
00:01:46minutes will be Lauren Hedwin from Beasley Philadelphia Steve Geltman from our digital direct team and
00:01:51Anne-Marie Bell from Tampa but let's start in Cambridge just across the river from our Boston
00:01:57studios at MIT which of course stands for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and it has
00:02:05been ranked since 1861 as the best engineering school in probably the world I know in America but
00:02:13no doubt that means the world and MIT and its graduates are responsible for some of the most
00:02:18magnificent marvels of our modern world including the batteries that power our phones and our laptops
00:02:24radar those Texas instrument calculators that all the nerds in my high school had strapped to their
00:02:31to their belts GPS that keeps me from getting lost every time I drive to to to uh to Boston to to the
00:02:41stations technicolor um digital spreadsheets email and of course where would we be without the world
00:02:48wide web that was an invention of MIT but perhaps the most important innovation as far as us at Beasley
00:02:55is concerned it's a transistor radio something responsible for the gargantuan growth of Beasley
00:03:01Media Group during during our formative years so the one thing I don't think MIT had much to do with
00:03:08is the modern elevator that was invented by Alicia Otis in 1853 but MIT has a lot to do with the elevator
00:03:19pitch you know a compelling and engaging sales presentation that is short enough to deliver
00:03:25during an elevator ride and MIT has made the elevator pitch practically a varsity sport as part of the
00:03:33university's annual hundred thousand dollar entrepreneurship competition now I first became aware of that
00:03:40competition in 2010 when it was featured on a segment of the NPR program This American Life and I was amazed
00:03:48in just 60 seconds about the length of a radio commercial a person could explain the features and the benefits of a very
00:03:56complex product in a very complex product in a manner in a manner that was easy to understand
00:04:02impossible to ignore and sexy enough to attract the interest of of buyers so here's an example of a pitch from
00:04:11that show that I heard in 2010 that was designed to find investors for a biomedical gadget for use during minimally
00:04:19minimally invasive surgeries and if you don't think that sounds sexy just just just listen
00:04:30this year Harrison Ford turned 67 putting him at a high risk for prostate cancer if tomorrow
00:04:36he was to be sadly diagnosed with this disease he would discover that he has two main treatment options
00:04:40either undergo surgery to remove his prostate rendering him impotent or do nothing but be protected
00:04:45or be comforted by having sex at hydrange systems we don't want the indiana joneses of the world to
00:04:51have to choose between life and sex that is why our team of biomedical engineers at the johns hopkins
00:04:57university has designed and created the apex the apex is a probe-like device that is used during
00:05:02during minimally invasive freezing procedures to protect the sex nerves surrounding the prostate and
00:05:07maintain patient potency the prostate cancer treatment market is worth 3.4 billion dollars the apex will
00:05:14start generating revenue at the end of year two and is so transformative that the acquisition of
00:05:19hydrange systems at any stage will allow for a quick return on investment so men and women don't let
00:05:25prostate cancer be your temple of doom invest in hydrange systems and we'll let you stay as active as
00:05:30indiana jones so that was a 60 second elevator pitch and i think it did everything we expected it to do
00:05:40it took the very complex and made it made it simple so imagine how yes i'm going to say it imagine how
00:05:47potent a well-designed pitch could be to gain the attention and interest of your clients and prospects
00:05:54whether it's on a zoom call at a b and i meeting in the middle of a retail store or or perhaps even in
00:06:01an elevator so to help us elevate our pitches we've enlisted the help of esgi amarolo the co-managing
00:06:09director of the 2022 mit 100 000 entrepreneurship competition we're going to look at some actual
00:06:17examples from previous competitions to help us understand not only what it takes to craft a good
00:06:22pitch but also how to make a good good pitch a great pitch so welcome esgi hi larry how are you
00:06:30great great how are you i'm going to be here today we're we're thrilled to have you so if we could
00:06:36take a minute so the elevator pitch is only um one part of this hundred thousand dollar competition so
00:06:46can you explain a little bit about how the the entire competition works who can compete what are
00:06:50the steps what are the prizes and you know what are the stakes absolutely it's a year-long engagement so
00:06:57basically we have three separate competitions you can enter them separately or together but the idea
00:07:03is that you're able to start with a pitch and be ready to earn the 100k by the end of the year so
00:07:09we have three different competitions one's called pitch the next one's called accelerate and the other
00:07:13one's called launch the pitch is the first phase of the 100k and it's usually takes place in september
00:07:18and that's where participants practice the initial pitch and the winners move straight on to the accelerate
00:07:24portion accelerate is the second because it takes place in march and the purpose is around prototyping
00:07:29your product and people are given a lot of mentorship expertise and those semi-finalists can
00:07:35also move on to launch in which case they are qualified to earn the 100k um in terms of competing
00:07:43anyone can compete as long as they have one currently registered mit student at the undergraduate or
00:07:48graduate level and the one catch is that teams must not have accepted any equity funding so whether
00:07:55they've sold equity to outside the team or if they've received non-equity external funding we have
00:08:00some limitations around that the prizes is what's exciting um in in pitch we hand out five thousand
00:08:07dollars to first place and accelerate we hand out ten thousand dollars and in launch we have different
00:08:13places place placements of course but hunter k is received by um the first place and and really the
00:08:19participating teams what's what's really important about this is that participating teams get a lot
00:08:24of mentorship from venture capitalists from serial entrepreneurs they get a lot of media exposure and
00:08:30feedback on their business plans and their pitches so it allows them to build relationships in the
00:08:35entrepreneurship community within boston within mit and well beyond so a couple couple of very big
00:08:43companies actually started at pitch you know some of them are a household name some of them most of us
00:08:49probably never heard of uh one of them is akamai which is responsible for about 40 percent of all
00:08:54traffic on the internet started with just a started with the elevator pitch at the competition but one of
00:09:00the companies that we're all familiar with is hubspot which in i think 2006 started with at the at the at
00:09:09the pitch competition so i mean the the stakes are pretty high for uh on this initial 60 second uh the
00:09:18initial 60 second pitch right i mean that the stakes couldn't couldn't be bigger so as you today we're
00:09:25going to just focus on the pitch that's 60 second or in some cases they're 90 seconds right
00:09:30depending on the year is what the the length is um yeah so is why is this initial 60 seconds
00:09:39so important to to to winning the to advancing and winning the competition well i'd say life is short
00:09:48life is very short venture capitalists people who are investing in this space have very little time
00:09:54to invest in in in understanding an idea so the real purpose of an elevator pitch is to take
00:10:00that time to convince someone that they'd like to hear more about you so um that's why it's such
00:10:06an important skill to develop as an entrepreneur as a leader but also as i guess a human living in this
00:10:12world today um for these entrepreneurs it allows them not only just to find the investors that'll
00:10:17compete i mean actually contribute to their work but actually helps them find their co-founders helps
00:10:23them recruit the best employees helps them fine-tune their ideas and get feedback on it so pitch the pitch
00:10:29ultimately convinces the person that you're pitching to that you're the person to carry through that
00:10:34idea um so that applies whether you're an entrepreneur in any situation you know if you've
00:10:39tried to describe something to someone ever you'll realize that you're jumping around you're rambling
00:10:45on you're adding new ideas it's a tedious it can be a really tedious and lengthy process and the pitch
00:10:51really hones you in on what is the idea how is it best presented it organizes your thoughts and
00:10:57allows you to critique your own points and have an allocentric point of view where you're thinking
00:11:02who is my audience who's listening to me and what is going to be compelling as a story for me to tell
00:11:07them in a in the simplest and ideally the most emotional way because that's the most memorable
00:11:13so so a pitch is let's just say 60 seconds and the stakes really high and and you you haven't pitched
00:11:19in this competition but you've had to pitch in up front for your other business interests how much
00:11:26time goes in to creating this this high stakes 60 seconds of time this is a hard one for me it takes
00:11:35a lot a lot of time i'm a perfectionist i can sit there honing my pitch for a very very long time
00:11:41but what i always share with our entrepreneurs is that the pitch is a living being um it's always
00:11:47supposed to be honed and change it's supposed to adapt so a pitch is never really done but it's
00:11:53always done and ready to present you know in a way so what i test for myself and with the entrepreneurs
00:11:59that i work with is that it has to click with you first and that might take forever to get to or it
00:12:04might be a quick process it you know when it clicks you feel confident you're able to deliver it without
00:12:10being distracted by your own ideas without laughing you know it feels right and once it feels right
00:12:16it clicks with me then i'm ready to start trying it on other people and that can take many many
00:12:21different trials and i like to pull out different hats and almost a b test the pitch to see what is
00:12:26the response i'm getting which is the part where their eyes light up so i know there's a non-answer
00:12:32you know preparing for a 30 to 60 second pitch can be days months hours it's about kind of seeing it
00:12:39click and you know it when it happens right right so what what would you say the most important if
00:12:46you if you could boil it down to just the handful what do the judges look for what is necessary for
00:12:52a successful pitch what what what is included in what what should be included in every pitch
00:12:58the venture teams we work with and in many early stage um entrepreneurship takes place
00:13:04on evaluating the team um we don't have much to go on all ideas are good a lot of the progress being
00:13:10presented is strong the market fit is often strong you know we're smart enough students to be able to
00:13:15put that forward but really you have to convince and connect with the audience which is often the
00:13:19venture capitalist on why they are the ones to carry this idea forward so that's why they have to say
00:13:25things about themselves or their team to prove that they're they're the absolute best to be able to
00:13:30carry that problem to its solution so why are you to be trusted with their money why are you the
00:13:36secure or capable or coachable or you know expert person to be able to take that forward um so i find
00:13:44that that's the most important part of the pitch and that's often what's missing why is it you and why is
00:13:49it your team yeah i i notice in in most of the pitches we want to see they involve some sort of
00:13:55personal story or personal connection to to to the product and um it also establishes credibility but
00:14:04i you know what i notice and we'll see this is how they take and each of these takes what is really
00:14:11complex which is mit quality engineering and making it so you know a c student like me can under can
00:14:20understand and it is that it is that really is that key because you know you're talking to venture
00:14:26capital people who you would think have a lot of knowledge but do they the audience really doesn't
00:14:31do they the audience doesn't and often neither does the venture capitalists they have expertise in
00:14:37business business models and often in certain industries or thematic investments but a lot of the
00:14:43things that we're talking about are so fresh and so new or sometimes outside of the space that
00:14:48venture capitalists tend to invest in so you need to be able to capture their imagination
00:14:52in a night in an area that they might really know nothing about um so absolutely the being able to
00:14:59deliver the idea in its simplest form and prove that i can carry this idea through is the most
00:15:04important part of it of course there's value creation and capture and you need to understand how
00:15:09you're you'll be able to scale your business and be able to present that but why you anyone can do that
00:15:15yeah and and you know i think there's two kinds of pitches or the pitches that we'll see from our
00:15:20beasley folks later which are actually a sales pre more complex sales presentation but the pitch
00:15:25really isn't necessarily to sell it's just it sounds to me like it's asking for permission to move to the
00:15:31next next level is that is that is that i need to know your audience you need to know what it is that
00:15:37you're asking for and often what you're asking for is the potential to ask again yeah and i'll ask ask
00:15:43carrie because she she sees a lot of pitches and she's got a lot of a lot of sales people who who
00:15:49who work with her turning out pitches do do you think we as as media salesperson do a good job of
00:15:58sort of taking what can be complex and turning it into into something something simple can we do a
00:16:04better job are we doing a good job what do you see from your desk i think we do a good job of it i think
00:16:09you know um kind of like what you were saying is that what are you trying to accomplish you know
00:16:13like so again you're not trying to close the sale so as sales people we're always trying to close the
00:16:17deal right then and there you know but when you're you know when you have an opportunity to have an
00:16:20elevated pitch you kind of want to know what are you trying to accomplish out of that you know are
00:16:24you trying to get a meeting you know so let's just try to get that meeting let's just you know
00:16:28capture their attention and give them a reason to want to meet with you as a person you as a business
00:16:32and you as an organization or are you trying to get an introduction you know to the decision maker so i think it's about
00:16:37understanding and again sometimes you have to act quickly on your feet but understanding what
00:16:41you're trying to accomplish at that moment and again a lot of times you're not trying to close
00:16:45the deal and i think something that's hard for sales people because we always want to be closing
00:16:48but sometimes you want to hold that back and say you know like less is more and what am i trying to
00:16:52do at this very moment because i only have a short period of time so i think it's kind of being
00:16:55prepared and just always being aware of that i think those those those are good points and i think so
00:17:01we're going to watch some pitches now some actual pitches from from the competition um as she was
00:17:07very very kind to to to help me go through hundreds if not thousands of these to to find the ones that
00:17:15that uh are diverse in the type of products they are and that pretty much demonstrates you know the the
00:17:23the best characteristics of of good pitches so with that said the first one we are going to see
00:17:33let me just
00:17:36get this ready for us is for a company called kosmosi
00:17:41so you're probably all wondering what on earth i am wearing right now and this is actually a
00:17:55custom costume made by one of the 60 makers on kosmosi kosmosi is a custom costume platform that
00:18:03services the cosplay community it's a place where cosplayers like me can buy basically custom goods
00:18:10like this if you're not familiar cosplay is the act of dressing up as your favorite character
00:18:16and bringing it to life this is something that i'm definitely not alone in actually cosplay is
00:18:24growing 15 year over year and by the year 2030 we anticipate that just cosplay costumes will be worth
00:18:3223 billion dollars so what's the problem here makers like the lovely cast we have here
00:18:41basically struggle to turn their passion into a business and that's something they really want to
00:18:46do it's because it's difficult to find customers and it's difficult to understand how to work the
00:18:52back end what we do at kosmosi is solve both of those problems we have a marketplace function as well as
00:18:59a back-end system we at this point have 200 users on our platform after just two months of being active
00:19:07and we have connected dozens of projects cosplay is not the end for us we see a whole swath of custom
00:19:14costumes and just custom communities that really need this help and want to turn their passion
00:19:20into a job thank you
00:19:25so asie what did what did you what did you did you witness that one in person did you are you in the
00:19:32audience that i did i did i got to witness this one and so what what do you think was good what was
00:19:40bad what could have been done better so i think this is a fantastic pitch this is similar to what
00:19:45we were talking about before where the investor on the other side might have no idea about the
00:19:50cosplayer world whether this is a strong enough market they might not understand that this is the
00:19:56best team for it and they really brought on and addressed all of those points it's a super super
00:20:01engaging start she's wearing a memorable outfit and she really hones in on why she's the best person
00:20:09to carry this idea through she says cosplayers like me she says i'm definitely not alone in this
00:20:14and they can demonstrate a high potential of growth because they understand this market they also show
00:20:20pretty clear market proposition and and clear business model of how they're going to get there
00:20:25and they demonstrate that they really understand the problem in the current status quo very clearly
00:20:30and that their solution will address this carrie carrie and tina what what did you think of that
00:20:38i thought it was great you know i i the same thing like you know when she first started talking i'm
00:20:42like wait what is cosplay i've never heard of that before you know and then immediately the second that
00:20:46i said in my head she explained it you know and i was like okay that makes sense and then again right
00:20:50you see the proposition you see that you know there is you know value there and that there's an
00:20:54audience there that you know that i may not have known um but she obviously seems to be an expert
00:20:58in her field i think that kind of came across nicely tina any thoughts just um add to what carrie said i
00:21:06felt like anytime i had a question like well is there a market for this they would then answer the growth
00:21:11of the market and you know where the market was so i thought it was really compelling as well
00:21:15um and you know you know the one thing the one thing i noticed is the um is sort of analogous to
00:21:25our to our business is that you know the the capital the the investors they may not think the
00:21:33cosplay is anything right so we have that issue it's a lot of people think nobody listens to the radio
00:21:38anymore or you know there's issues with with digital so i think you know the fact that she was brave
00:21:44enough to go up on stage in a costume to say hey look i do this i thought that was you know very very
00:21:49relatable um so let's watch the next one it's for a company called yamas technologies
00:22:06ladies and gentlemen this is a chicken
00:22:10and every year 58 billion of these birds are raised from meat consumption and in the process
00:22:16six billion dollars is lost through inefficient and suboptimal management of the farm environment
00:22:23in this low margin industry chicken feed accounts for 70 percent of the cost of a bird and a suboptimal
00:22:29environment results in wasteful consumption of feed our conversations with global producers such as
00:22:35cargo have revealed that a lack of data and tools to monitor the environment in the poultry shed represent
00:22:41a key problem so at yamas we're developing a robotics and ai enabled solution to detect changes in the key
00:22:48environmental variables this includes ammonia co2 humidity light and temperature of the bird what's more
00:22:57our robot is equipped with biometric sensors to detect changes in the bird's weight a key variable in feed
00:23:03allocation decisions and by improving data visibility in the case of a producer such as tyson that grew my friend over here
00:23:10this can unlock almost 200 million dollars in savings now our team brings over 10 years of
00:23:16entrepreneurial experience including backgrounds at organizations such as harvard mit and google but
00:23:21more importantly we've secured our first customer a poultry producer with over 100 years of industry experience
00:23:26that has given us two hundred thousand dollars in angel investment and 300 farms on which to prototype our
00:23:32solution we hope that your vote can give us a boost and help the chickens roost
00:23:43clearly a good pun is useful in every in just about every presentation so as he what do you what do you
00:23:50what do you think of that one i thought this one was a good one because definitely using aspects of
00:23:57what makes a memorable pitch he's holding a physical product and that you know you wouldn't expect someone
00:24:03to hold that always becomes memorable and uses humor around that fact ladies and gentlemen this is a
00:24:08chicken and that is a hard one to forget and one of the most important um pieces that gets a venture
00:24:15capitalist attention of course is secured first customer that's being able to say that you have
00:24:21first um revenue that you have a first customer that's definitely going to raise attention um if others
00:24:27are interested in what you're offering likely like the person you're speaking to might also be interested
00:24:33um and ends with that very memorable quip um chickens roosting that also makes a lot of sense to to
00:24:40because there's so many different um pitches that they're listening to and we're going to evaluate
00:24:45later it's important to kind of stay top of mind and memorable um what he doesn't go into is you
00:24:51know why why is the team the best candidate for this and could have turned that a humor into a
00:24:56more memorable or perhaps more emotional story um but i thought it was super super strong pitch
00:25:03i think for me too i know like the one thing that caught my attention immediately was the 200 million
00:25:07savings you know so i think if you can you know like you're immediately perk up like okay that's
00:25:11interesting like how can you help my business you know we can save a lot of money you know obviously
00:25:15that's you know the bottom line for most businesses so that that was definitely most memorable point for
00:25:20me and for me i would add that it was they established credibility there's a chicken firm
00:25:25that already wants to do business with them um i'm assuming none of the investors or anyone on this
00:25:29call is a chicken farmer so we we wouldn't know you know that this product is that valuable and i
00:25:35think that added credibility to his pitch i'm sorry our next one is i i just have to give you a warning
00:25:42it mentions the existence of of of sexual matters um it's not necessarily for everybody so if those
00:25:52kind of topics are uncomfortable for you give us about two minutes and and rejoin one in seven women
00:26:01have never orgasmed let's face it if one in seven men or half a billion men in the world never climaxed
00:26:08that would be cause for a global crisis
00:26:12now this is a huge reality for many women
00:26:16i'm hayley haynes and i'm the founder of alda the first female focused smart sex platform with
00:26:22the goal of closing the orgasm gap our core product is a vibrator that uses and learns
00:26:28from biometric data to actively respond in with the toy as well as to deliver personalized insights
00:26:34helping women understand how they respond to pleasure we also know though that often sex and
00:26:40orgasms is more than just the physical that's why alda's unique value proposition really lies in our toys
00:26:47supporting platform which helps women address sex holistically through educational content community
00:26:54in virtual therapy now sex tech is a big market 40 billion dollars with a 70 kager and what's most
00:27:01exciting is that this growth is in a segment that has failed to address largely anyone other than men
00:27:08there's a huge opportunity for products and services that are delivered towards women
00:27:12who also hold most of the buying power in the us now our vibrator is going to be positioned as a
00:27:19premium product where the average price is 180 in the future we're also looking to monetize this
00:27:25platform for additional revenue streams i created alda to empower women to have better sex no more faking
00:27:38so as he as g i'm gonna say your name right one time before this is over as g what what your what
00:27:43were your thoughts on that one this is a tough one you know she's probably aware that she's presenting
00:27:49to a fairly male audience and is going to continue to do so so she has to address that uh straight on
00:27:56and very early on so um a lot of people are sitting there probably saying is this really a problem and
00:28:01that's why she brings in the usage of we all know that we all know that this is a problem um she also
00:28:07delivers the value prop very clearly closing the vibrator gap she again restates that value proposition
00:28:13no more faking it allows people to hone in on the idea in a in a stronger way and the other piece
00:28:21that she does really well is um provide aspects about future applications so where this idea could go
00:28:29how this will expand and it demonstrates a very fast growing space she mentions kager the growth of
00:28:35the industry and the opportunities in the market and that allows for um de-risking kind of the the
00:28:42the potential investment because they've they've demonstrated that this will be a growing area
00:28:46so she you know that was interesting that you bring up kager i i that word i i sort of caught upon
00:28:53because or that acronym or briefly it's not it is because not many people know what that is and if
00:29:01anybody on here doesn't it's compound annual growth rate which is very very jargony um you know sort of
00:29:08like when we use cpm or um you know a lot of a lot of uh radio rnf there's a lot of radio and media
00:29:19jargon we use should she i mean was that okay do you think to to use that shorthand is it the right
00:29:26audience or would she better off just just spelling it out what that is
00:29:32there's different ways that it could go that's why you have to know your audience and here she's
00:29:36speaking very directly to venture capitalists who are going to perk up at kager more than they're
00:29:41going to say perk up at growth rate if this was a purely consumer audience and purely just pitching
00:29:46the idea she may have chosen to do otherwise that's why it's really important to know your audience
00:29:51if you're going to be safe if you'd like to be safe and if you have a very mixed audience that
00:29:54determines your fate for example if it's an audience choice award for example you might want to rethink that
00:30:00right um tina kerry any any thoughts on that pitch i think um she would definitely deliver with
00:30:08confidence you know so um you know i think when she let off you know how we're you know trying to
00:30:12close the orgasm gap i was like oh she was like as if you know it's like worldwide known thing that
00:30:17everyone knows about so i think she just she spoke so strongly with confidence that you know you had to
00:30:21like lean in and listen i would say she took a business approach in her dress and and also in using the
00:30:28word kager in financial terms that kind of made this more about a business than something that might
00:30:34make the audience or feel uncomfortable or you know not not take this product seriously and um
00:30:41taking investment seriously and she took it as a financial approach um which i think added credibility
00:30:46to her pitch excellent so you know unfortunately we're not going to have time for the the the last
00:30:53the last of the pitches but this was a fascinating conversation but tina kerry do you have any
00:30:58last questions or or thoughts for for esgi before we let her go about her very busy day
00:31:07no i think we're good yeah thank you thank you very much thank you for having me tina kerry
00:31:13tina kerry larry and that's that's that's that's very good thank you so much and thank you for all
00:31:20your help in putting this together as g thank you thank you um so now we are going to move on some
00:31:29examples of the pitches that we have done they're not quite the elevator pitches they're not the 60
00:31:34seconds grab your attention and get permission to move forward these are some we'll call the monster
00:31:42pitches because they closed some big not not not always big deals in terms of money sometimes big
00:31:49deals in terms of share growth or big deals in terms of just closing the uh business from a an
00:31:57unlikely an unlikely customer so the first one we're going to talk about is a pitch from lauren henwood
00:32:05who is in our philadelphia market lauren can you make yourself known so lauren can you do your entire
00:32:12pitch in 60 seconds do you think uh no i got 10 minutes for you got 10 minutes all right that's
00:32:20what we will do and let me bring it up here let's see hold on i just got to get skipped a couple so i just
00:32:38need to get back to on target all right
00:32:52zoom is not being all that cooperative today
00:33:09i think i'm going to use up all your 10 10 minutes making this work let me
00:33:22do this it's larry setting that up setting that up i'll just share um once again the three people
00:33:29we're going to hear from today closed deals in excess of a hundred thousand dollars and qualified
00:33:34for the tim mcgraw trip um this is going to be our best trip yet everyone we have tim mcgraw with carly
00:33:39pierce we have jackson dean we have the grand prix a trip to the distillery um and we're going to film
00:33:46it so for those of you that didn't get a chance to sell into this trip there'll be another one in
00:33:49december and stay tuned for details
00:33:54excellent so i think we're all set can everybody see the you ought to know screen
00:34:04and lauren you you you let's let let's start so first tell us about this this client sort of what
00:34:09led to this to this pitch sure yeah so this is ardent credit union they're a local non-profit
00:34:17member-owned credit union i've been working with them for five years now um when i first
00:34:23started working with them they had three locations they now have seven and so they've experienced an
00:34:29immense growth in the last five years they're actually opening two more branch locations this
00:34:33year um they're you know they're a great partner i have a really great relationship with the client
00:34:39the last several years we kind of did a similar program where they would run you know just voice
00:34:45over recorded production voice spots um on three of our stations and then some email marketing um and
00:34:51this year you know they they challenged us with um the task of targeting more of the millennial generation
00:34:57um so um you know cutting through the clutter how do we connect with that audience um how do we how
00:35:03do we really penetrate that audience so um i'll speak to what our solution was um on the next coming slides but
00:35:11that's kind of the the background you know of who the client is and and what they do and uh you know how
00:35:17how we came to this point so just just real quick so this was an ongoing client and i believe you told me there's been about
00:35:23sixty thousand dollars a year and let's skip to the to the rate card here so people understand where
00:35:29this went so when you were done with this pitch how much more were you getting on an annual basis from
00:35:34this this client uh it was ninety one thousand five hundred dollars we actually just closed um another
00:35:40digital program that put them over a hundred k so um they are now officially a six-figure client
00:35:46so so you use this pitch to go from to to increase by over 50 percent of your annual billing so you
00:35:55could have gone in and just taken the same amount of money probably with no pitch at all right you
00:35:59could say yeah let's re-up but instead you you created this pitch that we're about to see and um it
00:36:06helped you get literally 50 more money from an annual client so why don't you kind of start skipping
00:36:11through and the rest of us can chime in with any questions all right i'm hitting my clicker larry and
00:36:22i'm not getting a it's not okay so let me sorry can everybody see
00:36:36yep okay good okay
00:36:51oh do you mind going back to the coaching ideas results slide layer
00:37:00there we go awesome thank you um so this this opening slide is something that we
00:37:06include in all of our presentations here in the philly market and it speaks to our commitment
00:37:10to the client um and kind of it's our mantra our mission if you will and how we approach our
00:37:15presentations and our our relationships with our clients um it's called coaching ideas results and
00:37:20um it's it's generated from uh paul blake and um our vb and director of sales and it's just a great
00:37:28way to approach our partnerships so essentially you know we want to generate a really genuine
00:37:34understanding um a comprehensive understanding of our clients needs and provide them with coaching
00:37:39um you know to fulfill those needs create cool custom ideas we do a lot of really unique idea
00:37:45generation in the philly market um that separates us from our competition and then obviously at the
00:37:50end of the day it's about results you know that's how we secure those renewals when we have those roi
00:37:55conversations so this is just something we lead in with with all of our programs next slide
00:38:07this is our station overview that just gives a high level uh snapshot of all five of our station brands
00:38:13for the purpose of today's presentation we're primarily focusing on 95.7 benfm
00:38:1893.3 wmr and 92.5 wxt which is our country station
00:38:25um next slide larry if you don't mind thank you marketing objectives so for ardent credit union
00:38:39obviously there's a lot of other big financial institutions in the philly market uh one of
00:38:44their main goals is to increase brand awareness and stay top of mind um you know there's a lot of
00:38:49other big credit unions and they really want to grow to that level of being a household brand in the market
00:38:54um and then twofold you know the other the other objective here is to persuade listeners to convert
00:39:01this client has a really strong understanding of how radio works with branding and whatnot
00:39:05but she's also very highly analytical so we connect her to beasley analytics we do a monthly um recap
00:39:12meeting with her where we go over her radio performance and also her digital performance
00:39:16um so conversions are our focus of the conversation um and you know in her in her goal in her challenge
00:39:23she tasked us with to penetrate that that younger millennial audience um you know we decided to
00:39:30lead in with utilizing an xtu personality endorsement um to really influence the xtu audience but just use
00:39:37a little bit younger um so that was another way that we are you know fulfilling her need to cut through
00:39:43the clutter and can you connect with our listeners on a deeper level to drive conversions
00:39:50next slide yes thank you so you um lauren just let's take time if you can just give it sort of an
00:39:57over the the thought behind the slide and you don't need to go through it so much uh line by line but
00:40:02just what you were expecting to get from each of these slides absolutely yeah so the next several slides
00:40:08are um some marketing rationale and research that we use we actually pulled all of this from top line
00:40:13so we told top line what we were trying to do and they put together these slides and we kind of
00:40:18reformatted them a little bit but they were um they were great in helping us you know put this whole
00:40:23thing together um so the first slide just shows um that's okay um this just speaks to xtu
00:40:29and the power of their audience one thing i will point out is that ardent credit union what separates
00:40:33them from all the other financial institutions in philly they provide these really cool concierge
00:40:38services so one of them is auto buying concierge where um you know they actually have an in-house
00:40:44team of uh employees who were former general managers at automotive dealerships and they will
00:40:50actually advocate for you when you're making your automotive purchase um with the dealership and they
00:40:56actually have a stat that on average they save ardent members thirty five hundred dollars um for their
00:41:01automotive purchase they have a similar product for first-time home buyers um so that's a really
00:41:07unique positioning point that we use in our creative so all of this research supports those different
00:41:13concierge services that we focus on in our messaging um so this one you know you'll see
00:41:18that a lot of them are focused on automotive first-time home buyers refinancing um and that type of
00:41:24thing so you can kind of just go to the next one larry and i'll just hit a point on each one this
00:41:29focuses on xtu as well shows that they have our listeners have a high household income um 17 use
00:41:36a credit union already as our primary bank so they're familiar with what what credit unions are and how
00:41:41they work uh next slide this slide talks about wmmr 74 are homeowners um one in four plan to buy or lease
00:41:52a vehicle in the next 12 months so they might be in the market for that auto concierge service next slide
00:42:00um this is just a little bit more about wmmr if you look all the way to the right um the wmmr
00:42:05audience is 15 percent more likely than the market average to be planning home improvements in the
00:42:10next 12 months which is great because again ardent provides a really unique um renovation loan program
00:42:16for home renovations next slide uh this is wbenfm um so for this one uh 75 more likely in the market
00:42:27average to be refinancing their home mortgage about 40 000 people plan to be buying a home so we're just
00:42:32showing the client you know that again we're our listeners are exactly in the wheelhouse of who
00:42:37they're trying to target um yeah again for ben 27 use credit unions and 13 have the credit union as the
00:42:46primary bank so they're familiar with how these work this is just a heat map that futuri put together
00:42:52um showing that the total expenditure of checking accounts and bank services this is more so for the
00:42:58client to look at we actually put little um pins where ardent's locations are just to show her hey
00:43:05here's where your branches are here's where we're seeing you know the most activity with checking
00:43:09accounts and bank services doesn't really have much i don't know i'm sorry
00:43:16oh okay um so as i mentioned before we came came up with the idea of the solution to propose a um
00:43:24an influencer to to really engage with that younger audience nicole moholic um is our afternoon
00:43:31drive host on 92.5 the wxdu she is fabulous um highly recommend working with her she's absolutely
00:43:37amazing she's young she's smart she's educated she's really active on social media she actually does a
00:43:44daily feature on her instagram story where she talks about current events and what's going on in
00:43:48pop culture and she's just awesome she's so savvy and and current and in the know um so she was a
00:43:55really really great pick for us a really good selection for ardent um she actually as a little girl
00:44:01had a credit union savings bond account so it was like a perfect layup like she was familiar with credit
00:44:06unions loved how they worked knew a lot about them loved that it was member owned and non-for-profit
00:44:13and um she she was really excited about the opportunity so we put a spec spot together which
00:44:19we'll play in a moment and the client actually told us that this spec spot is essentially what sold them
00:44:25on increasing their spend so much they just loved um how it sounded and how different it was from
00:44:31anything they've done before um and so larry if you don't mind playing that i don't know if you're
00:44:37like me hi it's nicole by the way but the thought of buying my first home seems really overwhelming
00:44:43there's other buyers there's inspections appraisals big down payments the list really goes on and on
00:44:50not to mention that the market is insanely competitive right now it's like where do you start
00:44:55all right i do have great news for you first time home buyers out there my friends at ardent
00:44:59credit union are here to help you out and make the first time home buying process so much easier
00:45:05for you ardent offers a program called first home concierge yes now get this it's a free service
00:45:11that guides you through the stressful home buying process so you can make your first home purchase
00:45:16with confidence plus get this ardent may be even able to help lower your down payment and your closing
00:45:22costs so don't go to loan when you want to buy your first home trust the experts at ardent
00:45:27credit union and they will help you navigate the road to home ownership every step of the way to
00:45:32learn more just visit ardentcu.org slash first home that's ardent a-r-d-e-n-t-c-u.org slash first home
00:45:46thank you yeah so we just thought that that was a great way of you know again people our listeners have
00:45:51this personal connection and relationship with nicole they almost feel like they're friends with her
00:45:56so having her endorse this product and the service and talking about hey like we know
00:46:00the market's insane right now and like interest rates are nuts and but hey let me let me tell you
00:46:05how like we can help you out with this and my friends that aren't in here to help so um we just thought
00:46:09that that was a great way to position it and the client loved it um so in addition to the on air you
00:46:14know the the live 60 second reads and then the recorded 30 second commercials we also are having
00:46:20nicole shoot a series of videos throughout the year that we're going to be running on our co-branded social
00:46:24media platform targeted to ardent specific demographics so they're actually targeting a
00:46:30five mile radius of each of their branches um and depending on which video we're running or which
00:46:35creative we're putting different services so for the auto one we're obviously targeting auto and
00:46:40tenders and whatnot so this is just kind of a summary slide on that tool so so the the these um and i'm
00:46:47going to move you along just a little quicker than it this this probably deserves more time
00:46:52but a couple questions so this this presentation included things like video social geotargeting
00:47:00endorsement was that included in previous uh uh previous schedules that you put together for them
00:47:07it had been not not to this magnitude um when they had done branch openings previously we had included
00:47:14um some social and whatnot but um those were more like one-offs whereas this is more you know
00:47:19comprehensive program yeah so um and i i think the most telling thing how much time i mean you asked
00:47:28for what eventually turned into over a hundred thousand dollars from a client who is spending sixty
00:47:32thousand how much time and effort did you actually put into creating this presentation
00:47:40a lot of time uh we started having this conversation back in december of 2021 and had you know made several
00:47:48revisions based on the client's feedback and what she wanted to do um but i would say all in all you
00:47:54know probably 30 to 40 hours um customizing this and getting you know pulling all the different assets
00:48:00together yeah and i think that harkens back to what esg was telling us about creating the one minute
00:48:06about weeks and months sometimes go into to crafting that that that one minute is you were going to ask
00:48:11for a lot of money and so you definitely put in the time and i noticed you used futuri you used a spec spot
00:48:19and so there was a lot of different portions of this curve yeah carrie tina what do you think
00:48:23i think obviously like you know your client you know so um and she's obviously very analytical so
00:48:31i think arming her with uh you know all that analytics that allows her to you know feel
00:48:35comfortable with the decision you know i think um that's obviously you know like sometimes you
00:48:39know overloading clients with that too much information um doesn't always work the best but
00:48:43knowing your client you know knowing that that's going to make her feel comfortable making the decision
00:48:47and spending more money with you i think that was smart and i would say it's very clear how much
00:48:52preparation went into this beforehand i think many times many of us on the call kind of don't put as
00:48:58much work into the pitch as we do kind of setting the appointment and what happens after the pitch and it
00:49:04was really clear that you took a ton of time and pulled in every resource that we have as a company
00:49:09to put your best foot forward and i'm sure that showed to the client that's why it closed
00:49:13not not only those resources but i think there was one more at the tail end here
00:49:17what we want to describe this slide real quick sure yeah this is just a one sheet on our beasley
00:49:23analytics platform um she's been connected my client's been connected to this for all five
00:49:29years of us working together and um just a key um takeaway i'll leave you guys with is that they
00:49:36previously on next to you before doing any type of endorsement they were seeing an average of four to
00:49:41six visits per airing on their website with just the regular production voice spots and with nicole's
00:49:48live reads and recorded spots they're actually seeing an average of 19 visits per airing wow
00:49:52really dramatic increase wow that's that's that's pretty impressive so any other any other
00:49:58questions tina kerry for lauren no job well done got the sale done which is great thank you lauren for
00:50:08joining us today that was awesome um so next and i'm going to apologize in advance to anne marie we'll
00:50:15have you on the next you ought to know because what what you what your pitch is definitely we don't
00:50:21want to shortchange that so i think we'll go to steve and then we'll invite anne marie back to kick off
00:50:26the uh the start of next month's you ought to know so steve are you ready do you want to talk about uh
00:50:32uh your your your pitch so let's let's start sort of at the end how much has this pitch which i think
00:50:42you've when did you make this pitch uh we did it in october of last year however it took four months
00:50:52to get there for which we were able to pitch it so you started talking about october and you pitched it
00:50:59in four months later which if my math we pitched it in october and it started four months earlier
00:51:04than that okay so you invested four months of time into this presentation correct so you want to so so
00:51:12what took four months before we go through and and and see it quite honestly um i had 14 different
00:51:19beasley people on the first call um i could not have done this by myself um you know a quick shout
00:51:28out locally to dan and paul dedick and jessica lawless um without them none of this could have
00:51:35happened to be quite honest with you um everything from the logo to the contest to the verbiage to the
00:51:42production to the artwork was all customized um so it just it took a long time we went from monthly
00:51:50meetings to weekly meetings to daily meetings utilizing you know all of beasley's uh resources
00:51:57quite honestly and and so you you were making getting some money from them before this correct a
00:52:04small amount correct so i was over at lamar for years and i brought them on over there
00:52:10uh we were doing both static and digital boards around some of their local clients whether that
00:52:16be am track or live down by uh the stadiums and the second i came over to beasley uh for me which
00:52:23it was just a perfect kind of an opportunity and the first year um we were doing two thousand a month
00:52:30four thousand a month eight thousand a month and first year we probably did about a hundred thousand
00:52:35dollars with them we were then invited to a cattle call of all of their vendors and there were two
00:52:41other digital shops invited um we went after all the business presented about a million dollars uh worth of
00:52:50opportunity um long story short we took all of their green business which initially was two hundred and forty thousand dollars for which has grown to over four hundred thousand
00:53:03thousand so it's it's turning into a half a million dollar account correct and how much if you had to say
00:53:10on a scale of one to ten how much did this did this presentation this pitch how much did this contribute to the ultimate success
00:53:20um it was everything to be quite honest with you um you'll see just with this first slide in detail
00:53:25the logo um you know everything was customized um we utilized every resource and asset that beasley had
00:53:36uh we each had you know a different skill set and for me you know i could i could sell ice cube deskimos but
00:53:43the creative uh the verbiage the artwork um you know the knowledge that jessica and paul and dan brought
00:53:51to it on the back end was invaluable so let's go so so let's go to this i was gonna say if we go this
00:53:59side so that green you 2022 right that was that was your group with um products tactics sweepstakes um for
00:54:10every quarter and the first one was you know green you in 2022 and it's the opportunity um you know based
00:54:18on a criteria to enter to win 2022 you know there were video we were utilizing their sports relationships
00:54:27and sports talent in the market second quarter was you know food for thought going after the different
00:54:32restaurant businesses as they come back to life uh during covid using video and b-roll and and different
00:54:40products and tactics set all inclusive and you'll look to the logo again it was all created and
00:54:47customized for them from that standpoint uh next slide is you know empowering the youth which was
00:54:55very cool um catching the young people at an early age understanding about going green uh the environment
00:55:03so on and so forth utilizing again video and sports town and radio talent that we have uh and the static
00:55:11and rich media you know assets and there are two different similar yet different logo um all created
00:55:18by us and then for the holiday season the gift of green um so you know we had logo contest verbiage
00:55:26production artwork uh and all of the products and all the tactics and this will we don't have to go
00:55:32through all this flower but it's just all of the different products and tactics that would have
00:55:37been included um within this presentation so you have pretty much used every every uh everything with
00:55:46the exception of the sink in the restroom it looks like kitchen safe man and did it did it all get used
00:55:54well great story so they buy off on it um we take all of the green business
00:56:00the person that we presented to uh for whatever reason they brought in someone over her uh we had to
00:56:08repitch this entire thing uh they bought off on the 240 000 and in doing so however had some different
00:56:16thoughts and ideas and we actually took the program in a different direction um more sales oriented going
00:56:24after you know new business so um a lot of this has not been used as of yet however it was sold and bought
00:56:32off on um as is wow that's pretty impressive and tell us about this last this last next step slide
00:56:41uh really just as we were talking before the we got on here um it's really about utilizing all of the
00:56:48people and assets that we have here um at beasley um and and what we can do for you how we do it a
00:56:58number of different divisions for people that are involved customer service you know more specifically
00:57:04um and how it's going to happen and and the steps that it's going to take
00:57:08and there's there's the summary and and the thank you delaware pennsylvania district columbia there's
00:57:17five different areas that we were using um and for me quite honestly i've been selling
00:57:23since i'm 22 so for 40 years and for me this has been the most complete and comprehensive
00:57:31presentation and package that i've ever been able to participate in and i think that was the key
00:57:37me participating because i could not have done this by myself yeah so you you put together the the the
00:57:43whole the whole team and did you get any any feedback about what the the other people on the cattle call
00:57:51presented and what what they're clearly they thought yours was the best because they went with you
00:57:56but you get any idea of what everybody else did well they obviously didn't do what we do uh or did um
00:58:03one of the other agencies initially took on their more traditional business which was not as valuable
00:58:10both in dollars and in what we presented um so it was a bit more primitive it wasn't as advanced it wasn't
00:58:19as thought-provoking didn't have all the bells and whistles that that we had well that is awesome work we
00:58:26only have a couple of seconds left tina carrie any any thoughts on the work that uh we just can't
00:58:32say steve we should have had the whole team but we couldn't fit them in one zoom window
00:58:37no i think what an impressive um deck and if you could share that with all of us steve i think many
00:58:41people on this call would love to steal some of those slides um i want to ask a question that doesn't
00:58:45pertain to that it sounds like you've had a ton of sales experience you've worked at a ton of different
00:58:49places all of us are going up against different like digit pure play digital agencies um and other
00:58:57competitors like what can you impart with this group that beasley had that the other companies you've
00:59:03worked at or pitched against didn't have that gives us an edge or gave you an edge on this pitch
00:59:09really good question so um it's really the knowledge um you know i have a specific skill set i could i
00:59:16couldn't do what jessica or paul could do um you know reach out everyone was so helpful within beasley
00:59:24and um it has been since the day i got here quite honestly um utilize the assets the people that we
00:59:31have and again i have 14 different people from i think every beasley office around the country that
00:59:37were more than willing to jump on to help to communicate to brainstorm uh and we went from monthly
00:59:44to weekly to daily meetings so you know utilize everybody you can because they're more than
00:59:49willing to help right i think doing that a lot of you know like lets the client know that they have
00:59:55a team behind them you know so i think you know that's smart you know again everyone has different
00:59:59skill sets and you know can bring different things to the table so i think that's something everyone can
01:00:04learn from is that you know you don't have to go it alone ever no matter how long you've been doing
01:00:07it and you know i still you know bringing people to help me you know so it doesn't matter what what
01:00:11level you're at how long you've been doing it i think going that team effort and not only you know
01:00:16brings the client into you know kind of like our busy family we say that all the time here in boston
01:00:20you know and let them feel confident to know that they have a team behind them you know just smart
01:00:23it's yeah it's a great job and you know it harkens correct and i think it's the third slide that we
01:00:28show it was it was an outline of how we're set up digitally uh within the company so you're not just
01:00:34getting me you're not just getting philadelphia you're getting everybody and i think it harkens back i think
01:00:39esg brought this up or it was in in several of the pitches that we saw is most of them said here's
01:00:47the team we have we have a team from harvard mit and google working with us and you know i think
01:00:54that that is critical i think sometimes we skip over that part of it because we take it for granted
01:01:01we know who who works on this and you started with that very first slide with the the entire uh
01:01:06digital the entire digital team that you were bringing to to the table so good good for you
01:01:12my friend and so i will put um i will attach we will post this on beasley academy we'll attach
01:01:18steve and lauren's presentation and again i apologize to ann marie we will start next
01:01:23months you ought to know with her because she it does an awesome job of white labeling presentations
01:01:30for agencies to use and i think it would be important for us to see what agencies
01:01:36are sharing with their clients and what we might think is a good presentation for us may not be
01:01:42what the agency's clients want to see so thank you steve thank you lauren thank you carrie thank you
01:01:49tina we'll see you again next month for the next you ought to know