You Oughta Know #3: August 24, 2021
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FunTranscript
00:00:00well welcome everybody to our third episode of you ought to know tina is taking some well-earned
00:00:11time off this week and asked me to introduce today's session as well as be the moderator
00:00:16she may be listening in so tina please feel free to chime in anytime so today's session is all about
00:00:25landing the digital whales we were talking to four modern day captain ahabs about they hook some awe
00:00:32inspiring online accounts the big game anglers we will meet today are jeff mason from our digital
00:00:39direct team brad siverhus from atlanta but from atlanta but he's also he's actually from augusta
00:00:46dan alperin from boston and greg barron from wilmington these four certainly are not our
00:00:54only whale landers at beasley but they were chosen because they have some great stories to tell just
00:00:59like herman melville did in moby dick so also our friend ashley grim will be joining us for a few
00:01:05minutes a little later on to let us know what resources are available to all of us to help
00:01:10land even more digital whales a couple of things though before we get started a replay of today's
00:01:15session will be posted within 48 hours on beasley academy i will send you a link as soon as that's
00:01:22available also if you have any questions at any time for any of our whale hunters today please ask
00:01:28them in the q a box on your zoom screen please do not put your questions in the chat box but please
00:01:35please please please use the q a box for any questions you might have so now i'd like to introduce our
00:01:43co-host for today's you ought to know session vedra grant vedra are you there hello vedra
00:01:50hello everybody so vedra's job today is to help ask the tough questions of our guests so all of us
00:01:58can learn a little bit more about how they land our whales so vedra is the voice of everybody in the
00:02:05audience if she doesn't understand something it probably means most of you uh on on the session
00:02:10today don't understand it either so vedra is going to be your voice but remember if you have a questions
00:02:15other than the ones vedra is asking please put them in the q a box so vedra is one of our beasley
00:02:22superstars in charlotte she joined the sales department at wsoc 31 years ago when she was
00:02:31still in sixth grade i guess they did not have child labor laws at that time in north carolina because
00:02:36they let vedra come when she was just a wee lass to work for wsoc but prior to that she sold radio time for
00:02:43top stations in atlanta and when she's not helping her clients achieve marketing greatness she pursues
00:02:49acting so vedra rumor has it you were cast in an academy award-winning film tell tell us a little
00:02:56bit about that so sad so sad i was cast then dumped but let me tell you it was a very exciting five
00:03:03minutes of fame it was in ray with jamie fox so i was to play his aunt his younger aunt excellent well
00:03:13um if that if that bonus footage ever becomes available on a on a dvd we'll be sure we should be
00:03:19sure to share with everybody so we have a lot to pack in today vedra so let's meet our first whale
00:03:26hunter and he's jeff mason jeff if you want to join the call there he is jeff joined our digital
00:03:34direct team in january right jeff is that yeah end of january and he comes to us from the digital
00:03:40arm of mcclatchy which is one of america's largest newspaper publishers and here's this is a great story
00:03:48within his first few months with beasley jeff hooked his first whale which was ram windows which
00:03:55today spoiler alert so i'm going to tell you how much they're spending before we tell the story
00:04:02so jeff within his first few months with us landed a hundred and forty three thousand dollar digital
00:04:08only well so but here's the amazing thing and this is this is we're going to focus on
00:04:14jim had to land this whale twice so in other words this is a whale's tale of perseverance so so jeff
00:04:23can you first tell us about who ram windows is what they do and where they do it so yeah ram windows
00:04:30is a luxury manufacturer of windows based in houston texas they design and custom make luxury home windows
00:04:39for home builders high-end hotels and architects and designers and they have three showrooms in texas
00:04:48one in austin one in houston one in dallas so just just understand so they don't really do business in
00:04:57any of what we think of as beasley markets correct that's correct that's correct that's correct and so
00:05:03how how did you come to know this whale personally well so back last fall when i was with accelerate which
00:05:12is uh mcclatchy's was mcclatchy's digital agency a good friend of mine who i work with in the agency
00:05:18business reached out out of the blue she's the marketing director for for ram windows and said hey
00:05:25um do you still work in digital marketing i was like absolutely um so last fall um i pitched them with
00:05:34accelerate um won the business it didn't hurt to have that really solid relationship with the cmo
00:05:41obviously um we were up against two or three different agencies won the business um launched
00:05:48their campaign probably late november um just to continue the the odd story um so come december
00:05:58i found out that mcclatchy was going to kind of dissolve accelerate so i had to you know a make a move
00:06:05for myself and then you know figure out what what does that mean for my clients um you want me to
00:06:11tell the whole story the brief version yeah so i landed with beasley obviously um in in january and
00:06:20and had it kind of had to repitch um ram windows uh you know with with beasley so i had to land them
00:06:27twice that's kind of the long that's kind of the short version so so so i think that's this is a key thing
00:06:34so you were at mcclatchy you closed the business and you had to sell them on why they should do
00:06:40business with mcclatchy right so then that unravels now you have to convince them right why why you were
00:06:47wrong and mcclatchy wasn't a great company to do business with but but now you had to convince them
00:06:53to do business at beasley so so what did that look like how did you how did you accomplish that well
00:06:59first of all just open and honest with with uh with the cmo and the ceo and uh just let them know
00:07:04what's going on and i said hey i don't i don't want you guys to have any kind of pause between your
00:07:09digital marketing because your agency is not going to be around um i let them know i i moved to beasley
00:07:15and they're you know they obviously were interested but a little skeptical um you know because we just
00:07:22started with them when the campaign only been live a month and here we are um pivoting to something else
00:07:27um so after i kind of had that open dialogue with them they said hey you know um let's get to know
00:07:34beasley so we had like a pre-call with the team um via zoom uh with ram windows and got them
00:07:40comfortable and then we did a formal pitch um tag and i actually went in person and then the creative
00:07:47team joined us uh as well some of the ad operations team joined us via zoom and we we pitched it like it
00:07:53was a new account um and and and won it won it back basically so so before we talked how you got
00:07:59the got the account so so you know a lot of us have been with beasley a long time and that's what we
00:08:06what we know so what were the differences mcclatchy a major publisher they were very early into into
00:08:13digital as a lot of newspaper publishers are were so first of all what did you see as the major
00:08:19difference coming from sort of this legacy digital provider to upstart beasley dot digital what what
00:08:28did you see as as the the differences well for this one in particular is is the um the creative team
00:08:35so you know if i always tell clients if you're creative it's not on point it doesn't matter how
00:08:40good your digital strategy is it's not going to work it's not going to work as well so i knew going into
00:08:45uh ram the second time one of their pain points with mcclatchy was listen their creative is is not
00:08:52up to par it's not elevating our brand we're a luxury product we feel like we look like anderson windows
00:08:59you know which is kind of a cookie cutter type window no offense to anderson so i knew going in
00:09:04that we're going to have to pitch creative concepts to to ram and i knew you know with full confidence we
00:09:10would we would we would we would win the business uh primarily on that obviously uh you know the
00:09:16tactics as well so that was my that was my primary differentiator in my mind so so it's it's it's your
00:09:25observation that beasley has the digital juice or the has has the uh capability to produce great
00:09:34creative versus this legacy publisher of digital content absolutely they have you know we have a
00:09:41stellar agency level creative team they have a creative director an art director copywriters designers
00:09:47we they think through the process like an agency level creative team and i've never seen that at a
00:09:53digital agency that i've been a part of so i feel like that is a huge um you know differentiator could
00:09:59beasley going into major pitches um you know i i've i've leaned on the creative team four or five times
00:10:07now with some pitches and they they've done they've done some stellar work and we've we've won the business
00:10:15primarily because because of that was a huge factor um so and one other point that that i think we
00:10:22should make so you were at mcclatchy and you know so theoretically that business was a hundred and
00:10:29forty seven thousand dollar piece of business is that is that considered a whale at a company like
00:10:35mcclatchy well not someone mcclatchy but accelerate which is you know part of mcclatchy i think it was a
00:10:42kind of a medium size you know catch if you will and we're talking about whales um that's kind of their
00:10:49sweet spot was probably about 100k right so it wasn't you know oh my god we landed a million dollar
00:10:55account but it was a very good account don't get me wrong so at mcclatchy but here it's one of our
00:11:01biggest accounts right so i think that's that's that's important it's important to realize is you
00:11:07know again in our some of our mindset we think that that you know some of these 10 000 or 15 000
00:11:13dollars could be a big account when in fact at our at some of our uh competitors competitive media
00:11:20they look at 147 000 as an okay account we went right now we look at that as as as as a whale
00:11:28which which which it is so you go into this meeting so tell us how you you know prepared and what that
00:11:34meeting looked like to land this whale for this not the first time but the second time well it's a fun
00:11:40story and i'm glad to share it with you so when i was in the the first meeting with beasley with the
00:11:45team cfo had a hang up around creative he was like look we don't we didn't get any mad men feel from
00:11:53accelerate and mcclatchy i think everybody on this call familiar with the show mad men so i really took
00:11:59that to heart right um and i was kind of surprised by it but i was like okay they weren't happy with with
00:12:06the creative right so i went back to the team and you know obviously gave them a creative brief while
00:12:11they were working on the concepts well so i took that to heart and i actually wrote a don draper
00:12:17speech for ram windows for the pitch um i addressed the room with you know fake whiskey using apple juice
00:12:24i had cigarettes um i got into don draper mode and kind of kicked off the meeting in mad men style um tag
00:12:32was with me obviously he he he didn't watch mad men which was kind of crazy to me but so who else
00:12:38was in can i ask who else was in the meeting with you well tag was there a person that i had um the
00:12:44whole creative team i think there was about four or five people um i had um ashley i had um the entire
00:12:52ad ops team there's probably about uh i would say nine people on the call nine people so you you had
00:12:59the as i like to call it the cast of ben hur with you yeah i had that i had the a team for sure and
00:13:05so what what did you what did you draw from i mean what what do your client draw from that that with
00:13:11the whole the whole team showing up they loved the attention they loved that that made them feel
00:13:16special and that everybody was all hands on deck um everybody wanted to be a part of it so that's kind
00:13:22of set the tone um i wanted to set the tone and you know with them quickly and say hey you know
00:13:28you know this is an extension of your team you know all these people are going to be working on
00:13:32your behalf uh throughout your campaign so so is that a typical way you do business is bring the
00:13:38whole team with you so to give that level of comfort it depends on it depends on the on the opportunity
00:13:44um but i've got a couple i've got one in a couple weeks and i'm bringing um a few folks with me on a
00:13:51on a pretty big pitch well it certainly sounds like it's a good good bait to to catch whales with
00:13:56that's bringing bringing trevor and and ashley and and tag and and uh i think rachel was on the call
00:14:02too yes yes definitely yeah yes so that that certainly so is is a great way to to land whales
00:14:11vidra do you have any questions so far i do can you tell me which tactics you presented to this client
00:14:18that they loved well we had so it was a comprehensive plan of course so we had sem uh display and
00:14:28retargeting geofencing which they love geofencing their competitors are getting some really good
00:14:32traction on that um i believe we're doing some email marketing and um i believe that's it right now but
00:14:41they're they're doing really well to get lots of lots of leads lots of calls um you know we're super
00:14:47collaborative with them which i love so you know the the campaign's working because like i'll go back
00:14:53to the creative the creative is helping you know move the needle uh along with the right tactics how
00:15:00often do you change out that creative well we have uh multiple sets so you know we probably change it
00:15:06every couple months just so there's no ad fatigue um but we have a good base set of ads that we we can
00:15:15interchange so so uh jeff and i'll ask you minutes together is one of the things you did that was
00:15:21outstanding is you created a a brief a creative brief right which um i put a link to it so everybody
00:15:28could see it it's in your chat box but explain how that create that what that creative brief was
00:15:34and how that really helped uh sculpt the the eventual creative that your client loved sure so
00:15:41i'm a former creative director from the agency world turned sales um but that's a story for another day
00:15:48so i've written these creative briefs before so i need to be as tight and crisp as possible before i
00:15:53gave it over to trevor and the team so really just walk through the basics first the target audience
00:15:58you know what tactics they were running obviously what imagery they had
00:16:27um and what audiences they were they were going after because they had they had three distinct
00:16:33audiences so we had to do three sets of creative so it had to be it had to be really tough and i
00:16:38would suggest everybody take a look at that creative brief because our creative teams are magicians
00:16:45they are they can produce some awesome creative but they're not mind readers right and usually
00:16:50you know you have them on the call but a lot of times they can't be so doing this type of creative
00:16:55brief is i think essential right to getting the creative that you that you the client will
00:17:01eventually be happy with yeah it's critical you you get that uh right the first time because you
00:17:06don't want you know the creative team wasting a bunch of time so you try to make it as tight as
00:17:12possible you know and we didn't go back and forth at all that much and the client absolutely loved the
00:17:19creative we were in the meeting they didn't change a thing um it was it was one of those it was one of
00:17:24the most aha moments where everything just worked so um kudos to the creative team again so excellent
00:17:33so thank you thank you jeff vidra any any last questions that was amazing thank you yeah thank you
00:17:40i appreciate it it's it's an amazing story yeah i just noticed that a couple people are having
00:17:44difficulty opening up the creative link so i will send that out in a follow-up if you can't open it
00:17:50out of the chat box i'll send that up with the follow-up and a recording of today's today's broadcast
00:17:55so um i would say thank you jeff so much for your time and and congratulations on on landing the whale
00:18:01so next up um we have live from augusta georgia brad just pulling up his information here brad
00:18:12silver hoose who is part of our augusta georgia's team he is uh let's say in one of our more petite
00:18:19markets but it's home to the vein guys which is a set 324 000 digital whale jeff joined the augusta
00:18:27sales team eight years ago from the flavors and fragrance industry so uh brad and i may have called
00:18:34you jeff by accident just before no problem because i don't listen to myself as most people don't but so
00:18:40so brad if you could make yourself live which i see that you have done tell us about the vein guys
00:18:46and what they do and how you first met them all right so uh from the beginning they are a company
00:18:54that works on leg pain varicose veins things like that they're in three different markets
00:18:59hendersonville tennessee nashville tennessee and augusta georgia they're probably more branded in augusta than
00:19:05anywhere else which led to most of our focus being in nashville tennessee which is a large market
00:19:11um so it started the process really more of a radio client trying to trying to get them on
00:19:17board with radio locally um so it took about six months to finally get the meeting with the
00:19:22right person and what led to all of our success was um they hired a new ceo and she was not happy with
00:19:31the digital um that they were doing they were located in california um they have the website they
00:19:37were doing the seo sem all that kind of stuff and she wanted a local content um contact so that's
00:19:43how the first meeting uh started can we just take a step back sure how long did it take you to get to
00:19:50that meeting though that meeting didn't happen overnight if i remember correctly it did not it
00:19:54really took about six months of being persistent um you know stopping by bringing things to them uh the
00:20:01former ceo um when the transition happened there was probably another three month period between um
00:20:08the new the new ceo uh accepting and meeting with me initially um tried to get them involved in our open
00:20:15house radio open house we have in december and that led to the um to the big meeting in january that we had
00:20:21so when you first started calling on them did you dream that it could be a three hundred thousand
00:20:29dollar plus digital account i would love to tell you that i did but i would be lying to you if i told
00:20:38you that um one of the things you and i talked about before was never prejudge a client um but it evolved
00:20:46pretty quickly in that first meeting to realize how big it could get and how fast you get there
00:20:52once we started doing a little bit of an analysis of what they were looking for what they needed
00:20:56um we realized the budget's gonna be in the three to four hundred thousand dollar range and well i mean
00:21:04it you know gustas i called it one of our petite markets it's not our biggest you know is is is
00:21:11when did you how did it grow what tactics did you use that made it a three hundred and twenty four
00:21:17thousand dollar account well i think a better question is what tactics did one use um we used
00:21:25every digital product i think that we um that we have we did ott um you know geo we did seo sem well
00:21:33we didn't do seo excuse me that they left that with the the web service provider but uh we did email
00:21:39marketing um so we really served as their agency and and that's what led to all that so what's the
00:21:47first order you got three hundred and twenty four thousand dollars so so the first order was was
00:21:52roughly sixteen thousand a month uh and then it grew within two months up to about thirty four thousand a
00:22:00month wow and what and this is this is great i mean that's that's a big order for any any market sure
00:22:09what what did your colleagues and don't mention any names you're going to embarrass anybody
00:22:12specifically but what was what did you hear back from everybody when you walked in essentially with a
00:22:18with with a you know three hundred thousand dollar plus order in augusta well probably a little
00:22:25disbelief initially um i remember over overhearing um another ae say that's that's not real we don't
00:22:33get those orders in augusta and and it was it was a lot of teamwork to get it to that point um you
00:22:40know with our digital specialist and um thank you our our digital managers there's a lot of collaborative
00:22:46work leading up into that point um but it was behind the scenes not with the rest of the team so when
00:22:52it when it first rolled out there i do think there was a lot of disbelief but but it it opened
00:22:56everybody's eyes to what could be done even in augusta and it sounds to me i mean similar to jeff's story
00:23:03it took the whole team the the whole a team to land the whale you weren't out there with with with
00:23:09the fishing pole by yourself and and and a piece of bait reeling it in it took the team right 100
00:23:15it did you have any questions so far one of the things that i noticed that you said was you started
00:23:23off targeting it for radio and then it turned into this major digital client for you um how often do
00:23:31you turn your radio clients into digital clients and how do you what do you what steps do you take
00:23:36to make that happen for you brad well really just the needs analysis and i say we targeted just radio
00:23:43but we always go into every first meeting with with the idea that we're going to use some digital
00:23:48also but but our open house is more of a radio focus that we do so that's how that started um
00:23:56you know you have to look out what's best for the client and what they need
00:24:00and i think as we did it and started feeling about the layers that's how that's how it went um
00:24:05um but every meeting is always digital every meeting did did um they ever do radio any radio
00:24:15absolutely they did radio in augusta and they did radio in nashville also
00:24:19and we don't have a market nashville so we had to serve as our agency to make that happen so so as
00:24:25part of the service you offered was not just digital tactics but also media buying correct and
00:24:33um ott was part of that in nashville correct correct that was a large portion of it especially
00:24:40you know we changed tactics we didn't do all tactics all the time we changed tactics uh you
00:24:45know quarterly and what was being affected they're very huge lead gen clients so they want to see leads
00:24:51they want to see how it's working and so we if one tactic became stale we moved into another tactic
00:24:58that's awesome um just i just want to go back to one portion in the meeting so you're in a meeting
00:25:04and you're thinking that maybe this is a you know a five six thousand dollar account you know the
00:25:09original what did you specifically hear in that meeting because i think this is sometimes where the
00:25:17where where the whales get away when we don't hear that sort of trigger point what did you hear that you
00:25:24said this this is this is big we need a bigger boat well it wasn't so much hearing it i offered to her
00:25:33we can do everything in all markets and when she said i'm interested in hearing that um we knew it
00:25:41could be big but we really didn't know how big it could be until um cory our digital specialist at the
00:25:47time uh we went back and looked at um you know what what it would take to reach who we needed to reach in
00:25:53that big a market and so we discovered at that point how big the budget was going to grow to
00:25:59so were you a little nervous going back in with a huge budget like that um a little bit a little bit
00:26:07and um but they didn't blink did you did you try to talk cory out of it did you ever say that's a
00:26:14little too much maybe we should cut back you know honestly i i think both of us once we saw what the
00:26:21numbers were we were we were a little a little reticent and uh but we're like it is what it is
00:26:27that's what it's going to take to be effective so i think what's amazing and you know and vidra you
00:26:31know this sometimes the first question we always ask is what's your budget right you guys didn't you
00:26:37guys didn't ask that never asked you just went and said here's what it takes to get get get the job
00:26:42done results correct excellent vidra anything else that that you need to know from from whale hunter
00:26:49brad brad congratulations because that was excellent listening skills and that's something
00:26:56that sometimes we just forget to do in the sale process we're trying to sell so sell you actually
00:27:01illustrated how much you listened so congratulations thank you very much excellent thank you so much for
00:27:07joining us brad and sharing sharing that whale tail with us thank you for having me so next we have
00:27:13ashley grim our friend ashley who's our digital training director is joining us and she's going
00:27:20to talk a few minutes i think she's got some updates and she wants to talk a little bit about some of the
00:27:24resources that that we have here at beasley that can help all of us land more digital whales hi ashley
00:27:32larry thanks for having me for just a couple minutes i just want to share some resources with you as it
00:27:38relates to landing big digital deals and it's all about differentiation although i don't know if you
00:27:44can differentiate yourself more than giving some bourbon and some fake cigarettes in a meeting but
00:27:50other resources that um could help you um number one staying on top of what's going on in the industry
00:27:58you know we all we have to look as the credible source right there's a lot of competition out there and
00:28:05even if um staying up to date and offering insight that doesn't relate to the solution you're talking
00:28:10about but just relates to the industry i think is very valuable because people are yearning to
00:28:15know what's going on and how it relates to helping their business um so what i've been doing and it's
00:28:21a recent change in the finish strong friday email is the first two objects in the finish strong friday
00:28:26email is just good articles that i find that are helpful talking about what's going on with cookies or
00:28:31what's going on with a change in youtube or what whatever in our industry um and it's it's sites
00:28:37and resources that i find helpful you can find your own obviously you can use google alerts to do it or
00:28:44just go go to your you know your go-to sources but i'll share that on um new articles on on fridays just
00:28:51to just to help with that and staying staying in the know also reporting so really it's not a differentiator
00:28:59right now to have you know analytics to show on a monthly report or have that transparency
00:29:05what the differentiator is in our space is how we use that information to make decisions and that's
00:29:12the hardest part is to is to know that analytics that well to be able to say okay because of this
00:29:18we're going to tweak and go this way and so what we've been working on um it's been a big project is
00:29:24uh in-depth training on academy to go through each individual reporting uh report that we have around
00:29:32our solutions and then tying it all together so that's soon going to be available on academy
00:29:37um it's lengthy but it's really good insight so i'll share that when it's available
00:29:42and then the last thing that i think could be helpful and it's something that i think i've learned
00:29:46the hard way in the field is um presentation sharpness anything that you control control whether it's your
00:29:53internet like make sure everything that you're going to present is already on your hot spot or
00:29:58your internet so there's no lag time when you change your internet make sure everything's pulled up
00:30:04so you know how to transition from one thing to another i think that's what takes us to the next level
00:30:09i've seen really great things in the field where you know people have little projectors or just to stand
00:30:15out i think just be prepared and practice your presentation really makes a difference
00:30:22yeah so anything i can share on fridays or if you guys need help with anything just let me know
00:30:26but those are some things that come to mind you know actually i think that's that that's so true
00:30:31is you know sometimes when we ask for a half a million dollars or a million dollars that we're
00:30:36going to see in a little while we make it we we we the presentation looks exactly like a ten thousand
00:30:42dollar presentation looks like so i think your your point is is is well taken about making sure that when
00:30:50you when you're landing a whale you have the equipment including the presentation that looks
00:30:55like it could land it could land a whale absolutely that's awesome vidra any questions for our friend
00:31:02ashley before we let her go and get to the next whale hunter ashley you're a great resource you always
00:31:08cover it all my dear so no i don't have any questions for you thank you oh thank you thank you ashley
00:31:14so so so vidra here's here's a great story coming up next from our next modern day captain ahab it's
00:31:23dan alperin he's a member of our boston team and he's been with beasley i think for for four years
00:31:28is that is that right dan yeah right right when the 98 500 came over to beasley so excellent so he he's
00:31:36had a storied career in boston media primarily involving sports and here's here's sort of a non
00:31:44non-advertising thing i think everybody would be impressed with when he's not landing whales
00:31:50dan runs marathons he will be in germany this september for the berlin marathon and will be
00:31:55running the new york marathon for the second time in november and what we all want to know dan is what
00:32:01are you running from what what's wrong uh nothing just actually i i come up with a lot of great ideas
00:32:08when i'm dry when i'm running larry so it helps it my creative juices come when i'm running so it helps
00:32:14that's awesome so this year dan landed a huge whale and this is this is amazing and the reason that this
00:32:25story uh it's 450 000 from from a company called lantern and now lantern is a cannabis delivery company
00:32:34which of course posed some interesting challenges along the way but you know what i think one of
00:32:40the most interesting part of dan's story of landing this whale how he discovered it how he saw in this
00:32:47ocean of opportunity how he discovered this this whale so can you tell us where where you found it
00:32:54yeah um i was actually giving a tour of my daughter's roommates from college friend i mean family uh
00:33:02around boston which i like to do when people come from out of town and we saw a uh a bunch of garbage
00:33:08cans uh with the cannabis lantern on the on the garbage cans i'm saying that it was coming soon
00:33:15and then i kind of did some research and realized that this was going to be a potential big client
00:33:22in the fact that the company that started lantern was the same company that sold drizzly to uber for
00:33:30over a billion dollars so you knew they had deep pockets absolutely but i just want to go back
00:33:37just to where you saw it so you're walking the streets of boston and you see a garbage can
00:33:42with an with a with a an ad for this this company you never heard of yes they were like basically
00:33:50they owned all the garbage cans in downtown boston so have you ever discovered a whale in the trash before
00:34:00no but i will tell you that my philosophy has always been that prospects are everywhere so you just have to
00:34:05look everywhere because you never know which one's going to be the next big one right so yeah i mean
00:34:10that's true but i that that's so impressive that you know a lot of times we listen to other radio
00:34:15stations or watch tv or look in the newspaper for um for potential leads and prospects but that you're
00:34:24right dan they're they're they're everywhere so tell us about so you from garbage can to the first initial
00:34:31meeting with the client what was that what was that like well what i had been doing was building up a
00:34:36network of people in the cannabis industry as as people know a few years ago massachusetts went legal
00:34:42um and of course you know our team in boston um came up with some digital opportunities through
00:34:50geofencing and email marketing and things like that uh that i had already had some success with some
00:34:57dispensaries uh in the boston area um so i built some relationships through my network and was
00:35:03talking to one of my uh potential dispensaries and he mentioned that he's going to be working
00:35:08exclusively with the folks from lantern and i said well i saw them on the garbage can can you make an
00:35:14introduction next thing you know we have a zoom meeting with uh the founder of lantern who was also
00:35:19the founder of drizzly and their uh their head digital guy and could you tell us so so
00:35:27this company was called drizzly drizzly so uh that was a alcohol delivery service basically anything
00:35:35you want delivered to your house so so so these guys you knew had had uh what do you say eight
00:35:43eight billion dollars what do they sell it for they sold i think to uber for over a billion dollars
00:35:50over a billion dollars yeah so so knowing they had all this this money to spend what what was your
00:35:57approach what what did you bring them specifically well we had the initial meeting uh you know on
00:36:04on the zoom call and we discussed uh originally we kind of talked about our capabilities that we had
00:36:10which were kind of limited um for what they were looking for they could do the geo fencing and all
00:36:15that stuff on their own so they obviously were the first questions a lot of dispensaries ask or you
00:36:21know people in that industry is can we be on the radio and um unfortunately right now we can't put
00:36:26them on the radio but the idea came about uh that what about our digital assets 98.5 the sports
00:36:32subs website and app reaches millions of people um how can we get them involved in that so um they
00:36:40kind of gave us a homework assignment and said you know let's try to figure out how we can get that
00:36:45done uh and that became a long process but um i think it kind of was partially you know it was actually
00:36:52work to our advantage as well and i think so let's talk about that from it so this is a project that
00:37:00uses only first party it uses our first party capabilities our own website we don't we don't
00:37:09use any third party for this or do we the only aspect of the campaign that we are using third party
00:37:15is the email marketing uh aspect of it but everything else is uh the website you know banner ads website
00:37:22takeovers uh video pre-roll and spot audio commercials you know for podcast sponsorships
00:37:30so can you talk about that because i think a lot of people's first inclination when selling digital
00:37:35is immediately to think about uh like you said the geo fencing the display advertising the ott things that
00:37:43you know we we have to use a partner vendor for um so so how how did you know that this was the
00:37:51direction to go with with our first party resources what what was the indication that allowed that to
00:37:58happen well you know first of all that's that was one of the questions that they asked you know so
00:38:04basically they said we're not interested in your geo fencing and and they haven't had a lot of success
00:38:08with that you know this gentleman who's their marketing uh digital marketing guy came from way
00:38:13fair a lot of experience in the digital um you know field um but one thing that they can't get
00:38:19anywhere else is our products like you know the sports hub home of the patriots bruins and celtics
00:38:24is huge right top radio station in boston uh entitlements on the radio so what can we do that would
00:38:30be the equivalent uh you know on our websites and that's what we started to you know started to work
00:38:37through um you know our team you know led by brian and jason and carrie and everybody um started you
00:38:43know asking those legal questions you're like what are we allowed to do and um i you know and it took a
00:38:49long time you know to get those answers and you know and we're still kind of discovering new areas uh in
00:38:55this field so so a lot of times landing any whale takes some uh you know different a different path
00:39:06than we're used to or have never done before this one certainly involved you know a category that isn't
00:39:14fully thought out in terms of legal aspect did you ever so so i know it had to go through a lot of legal
00:39:20hurdles with with with our with our corporate attorneys etc did you ever lose faith that this
00:39:28would come to fruition because of the uh the the hurdles that were in your way i i don't think i
00:39:36lost faith i you know decided that i had to be kind of relentless um and ask a lot of questions and um
00:39:43you know push uh our team to get those answers and once we discovered that uh it was okay to do this
00:39:50uh then it was game on basically so um and one of the things i said earlier was it really kind
00:39:56of worked to our advantage because i was constantly checking in with our um my contact at lantern and
00:40:02giving them updates along the way and say hey you know we might you know might have some good news
00:40:08we're working on it uh and then when it came right down to the final kind of negotiation um you know there
00:40:16was really no negotiation whatsoever larry because um you know we had stepped up got them what they
00:40:22wanted and and they tried and we said you know we said no uh this is we're losing go losing in fact you
00:40:32know last at a at a can you hear me yeah we can now hello hello okay sorry where wait where can you
00:40:41hear me yep oh yeah so where did you lose me i'm sorry well i i think the key point that that i take
00:40:48away from that is the no negotiation so you know as sales people you know we we want to expedite the the
00:40:56closing of a sale so how did you know there there had there could be that you didn't need to negotiate
00:41:01well let me ask this first before you answer how did you know you didn't need to negotiate what was
00:41:06the price tag on the first first deal that they signed five hundred thousand dollars so
00:41:12for six months so it's essentially a million dollar annual account how did you know not to negotiate and
00:41:18how did you have the i guess the the courage to say take it or leave it
00:41:30well i mean i basically the gentleman that i was working with who had kind of made that introduction
00:41:34to lantern had you know i had lunch with him like a few weeks before we closed the deal and he basically
00:41:39told me you know listen you know they have the money to do this so really there's no you know don't
00:41:45worry about it you know go for it uh and then when it came right down to the negotiation of
00:41:50course they said you know can you do this can you do that and you know we said no uh absolutely not
00:41:55because you know it and i think primarily because it took so long for us to get that answer that's where
00:42:01i said you know the advantage of us was kind of time even though you know a salesperson wants to sail
00:42:06right away um in this case if as i look at it from you know right you know um going back i i think each
00:42:13time that i was giving him an update it you know it showed look look we're trying to you know change
00:42:19things for you so that we can get this well that's that's that's an awesome sale vidra any any questions
00:42:26for for captain dan i do dan y'all um sports hub that gives you uh association with a lot of teams or
00:42:35athletes did you incorporate that in any way in this sale um no i mean obviously
00:42:44sorry the sports hub is you know so big with the patriots the bruins and then and the celtics and
00:42:51anytime an advertiser advertises on the radio station on our website you you get that you know
00:42:56association without a direct association um so i think that's you know that's kind of like the
00:43:03important fact about that like the sports hub is so huge you know in boston that um it's like
00:43:10it's like sponsoring it's like being a sponsor of an actual team it's almost better to be honest with
00:43:14you great thank you excellent well congratulations i mean that's that's that's a that's a huge huge
00:43:22sale and i i think you know if what we heard also from from brad just just before you is you know this
00:43:30this let's price it to get the job done and not base it on any preconceived notion of what what what
00:43:38the budget is so that's i think that's that's that's awesome so thanks dan for joining us from from
00:43:44chicago this morning i know uh you're getting your daughter ready for her her going back to school for
00:43:49her phd so thanks for taking the time to join us thank you excellent so we saved the biggest for last
00:44:00our final whale hunter is greg barron his whale is called genesis healthcare and it weighs 2.2 million
00:44:09dollars so far and counting and it packs on more weight every single month this is the whale of
00:44:17whales as far as we're concerned here at beasley um for four years greg has been working in wilmington
00:44:23delaware by far our most petite market but it's where plenty of whales reside and spoiler alert and
00:44:33we're going to talk a little bit about this greg was able to leverage excess with his first whale
00:44:37to land a second whale which is called discovery senior living and with the help of his wilmington
00:44:43colleague uh brandy tagani this account is also whale size proportion of a hundred and seventy one
00:44:49thousand dollars and continues to grow as well so greg when you hooked up with genesis did you ever
00:44:56believe that this account outside of wilmington delaware would ever be a 2.2 million dollar whale
00:45:06no no i mean i would love to say yes but no at the time absolutely not i mean it was one of those
00:45:11things where uh we were i was just trying to get a meeting with them i knew that they had some uh big
00:45:15facilities here locally but i had no idea the potential until it started to evolve so how did
00:45:21you originally meet meet these hooks so i actually reached out to them in december november 2017 i was
00:45:28calling them about a promotion we do in february called heart hints and what i was doing is i was
00:45:33essentially hitting the vertical of healthcare so i was finding all the healthcare providers in our area
00:45:38calling them about this upcoming promotion we have in february it's a five thousand dollar promotion
00:45:44just for one month um was able to get through to the main contact pretty quickly but it was
00:45:49difficult to try to get in the door and get that first meeting so i told her eventually after
00:45:53reaching out for a few months i said i'll i'll email you once a month let you know i'm still
00:45:57thinking about you i'm here you know if you need anything and then we lucked out because at the time
00:46:03aj was our market manager and over the summer his son was actually playing on the same flag football team
00:46:09as her son they connected and she was like oh this guy's been bugging me from wg
00:46:15jbr funny enough and uh we kind of used that to get in the door um and that wasn't until september
00:46:202018 after i initially reached out to the contact so so that was almost i'm sorry you broke up for
00:46:28a second like a year between yeah almost a full year correct so so what was about this particular
00:46:33account that made you be so persistent it was uh a sense of knowing that they were their corporate
00:46:41office was a half hour away from us so they were very accessible and i knew that in the area i was
00:46:46thinking in our immediate area because it was actually just like um i think brad talked about
00:46:51that uh it was about radio at first was what i was trying to get in the door with with that heart
00:46:55hands promotion so um i knew they had a lot in the area i knew it would be a good one to get in the
00:47:00door with and again she was responsive early so that gave me a little bit of encouragement that
00:47:05i would be able to break through eventually so that's why i really stayed on her so tell tell us about that
00:47:10first meeting and when the light bulb went out that this was more than a five thousand dollar
00:47:17radio sponsorship yes so um it was a great first meeting and we were able to go in with aj in there
00:47:23they had a connection with their kids so it was a very natural meeting at first they already knew each
00:47:27other we started talking a little bit about the heart hints promotion but that lasted maybe five
00:47:32minutes she wasn't crazy about radio and then she uncovered we just were talking more about what they
00:47:37were struggling with and she told us that recently they um had to stop sending reps into hospitals
00:47:44to encourage patients to go to their short-term care facilities which is when someone gets kicked
00:47:50out of a hospital they're still not ready to go home they go to these short-term care facilities
00:47:54these post-hospital rehabs they were just told that they're not allowed to send reps in anymore and
00:47:59this was a big problem for them this is how they always used to do it they would send a physical
00:48:03sales rep into the the hospital to tell them to go to their facility and um naturally in the
00:48:09conversation we brought up geofencing and how that would be a really strong way to to replace that you
00:48:15know it's not the same thing but it's a way for you to get inside of those hospitals and encourage
00:48:19people to go to your facilities and it was great also because she never heard of geofencing she was not
00:48:25familiar with how it worked so it was you know a lot of good things coming together with
00:48:30us informing her about the product in general and then how we do it compared to so so were you shocked
00:48:37i mean here's a woman who's essentially in charge of marketing for a you know a multi-million if not
00:48:44billion dollar healthcare corporation marketing that's her job right and she didn't know what geofencing
00:48:50was was not very familiar with it no so it was it was cool to be able to inform her about that product
00:48:57that's for sure so then when when so you and aj are sitting in the meeting when did you realize
00:49:03this is a a really really really big opportunity um i think the light bulb went off when we were
00:49:09like look you know let's try this out you know you tell us the facility and and we'll try this out and
00:49:14she said you're right let's give it a test run here's 10 facilities you know that was their test run
00:49:20and i think right when she said that you know for me it was like okay you know if 10 facilities is a test run
00:49:26then there's a lot more runway uh with this client so that's kind of when the light bulb went off and
00:49:30uh and yeah it's just developed since then which is which has been awesome so then how did how did so
00:49:35what was that first order was it was an order for a month yeah it was an order it was a we did it for
00:49:41the initial month we did tell her that you know we always encourage them to do three-month campaigns
00:49:46but she wanted to see what it looked like so like let's get it on the books for a month and
00:49:49then we'll meet with you every week in this month and go over what we're looking at here
00:49:54um so she'd roll it out on 10 facilities 1200 a piece um we did both geofencing and keyword
00:50:00contextual just because they were interested in both she immediately gravitated towards the geofencing
00:50:06due to the problem that she told us about and also our ability to calculate conversions right
00:50:11telling her this many people this week came from this target hospital into this one of your facilities
00:50:16was very very helpful for her so luckily she really liked what she was seeing that first month
00:50:21months two and three we moved it all into geofencing and then like i said it kind of just
00:50:25took off from there so so what what you're showing her is how many people were exposed to
00:50:30the ad and then showing up at one of their one of their facilities correct yeah i i really wanted
00:50:36to make sure to make the digital as understandable for her as possible as possible since she was new
00:50:42to the product um so this was actually before tap clicks before the pod so every thursday we meet
00:50:47with them every friday every thursday i was going through every campaign i made an individual
00:50:52powerpoint for each one with each of the target hospitals how many people came i showed them a map
00:50:57of how far away they came from for each conversion so i really spelled it out for them so they understood
00:51:03exactly what they're looking at because i knew she had to send this out to each one of her individual
00:51:07facilities too so people that we weren't meeting with i wanted to make sure that they had a good
00:51:11understanding of the product as well so so what happened after the end of the first month so that
00:51:17after the end of the first month not only did she really like what she was seeing but she was seeing
00:51:21she was getting really positive feedback from her centers um just from the tangible results of
00:51:26the marketing efforts that we were doing they weren't used to seeing that on a weekly basis even
00:51:31a monthly basis so they really liked that so it was a no-brainer for her to continue it into three
00:51:36months aj and i continued to meet with her on a weekly basis and every time we would go in
00:51:41just from talking not really just going over results just from having a conversation
00:51:45we'd uncover some other issues whether it's recruiting senior living some of their alzheimer
00:51:49care places and and that's really how this started to to take off and develop by us just being yes
00:51:56men you know saying yeah we can absolutely help you with that you know let's try some of these other
00:52:00options and yeah yeah and i mean and so the so far to date they have over the last two years they
00:52:06spent 2.2 million dollars do you do you see that well i see the numbers they continue to add every
00:52:13single month yes yes the orders continue to come in and we we really have proven ourselves to them at
00:52:19this point um i think it was about four or five months into us initially working with them they they
00:52:25kind of did an audit on us they brought a data team in audited all the places that we were doing the
00:52:30marketing for and the places that we were working with had an uptick in their census of over 200
00:52:36compared to all of the other places so once that happened that's when it really started to go
00:52:41downhill because we really just proved ourselves there and and showed them that we can we can make
00:52:46an effect and we continue to see those results to this day like just last month one of the centers
00:52:51that we just started with is at second month saying hey something's going on here we're getting
00:52:55calls we're getting people coming in so really cool to get that kind of feedback so why do you
00:53:00before we move on to talk about how you leverage this into a another whale so here she is she's
00:53:08theoretically again she's in charge of a multi-million dollar health care company and she must have
00:53:14people knock on her door every day and want to be a a partner and a vendor is you know certainly
00:53:22wjbr in wilmington delaware is not you know the a a uh brand household name in the digital marketing arena
00:53:34why does she continue to do business with you and with us when you know there's so many other bigger
00:53:40players out there yeah i think it goes back to what i already talked about um she was really impressed
00:53:46and i think they really love the white glove service of us going meeting with them on a weekly
00:53:51basis um and you know that was just one meeting we were talking to her multiple times throughout the
00:53:55week and then we had individual solutions for their individual problems that they were having i mean they
00:54:00have centers over 500 centers across the country um in over 30 states and we were able to come up with
00:54:06solutions for each one of their different centers and then give her very comprehensive feedback about
00:54:12what's going on what we're seeing on our end comparing it with her and challenging her to bring
00:54:17up her senses in these centers and really uh you know putting our money where our mouth is and saying
00:54:22you know that we're seeing good results but that doesn't mean you know the center is let's see what
00:54:26the center is looking at and really becoming part of genesis is really how we got this far yeah so it
00:54:32sounds like you went beyond cost per clicks and cost per activity and actually how did it affect sales
00:54:39correct yeah excellent i have a question greg real quick even though you started off talking to her
00:54:45weekly and she has so much trust in the organization and you right now how often do you communicate with
00:54:50her now that you've established this trust uh once a month is it still weekly every week we talk and
00:54:57you know it's developed to i have relationships not just with her anymore you know it's probably
00:55:0210 to 15 different people within genesis they have a whole recruiting side a whole um in-home
00:55:08rehab side who i talk to them on a weekly basis now so this one client really has become you know
00:55:14wow the 20 different clients and different contacts but i think it really goes back to
00:55:18ingraining ourselves within their organs organization you know it's not really how valuable
00:55:23we are it's really become that they do need some of the help that we're giving them and we're allowed
00:55:27to kind of lead them to where they want to go wow that's excellent so so prior to genesis what do
00:55:35you think your biggest order was before that put me on the spot man probably maybe maybe three three
00:55:44to five thousand a month maybe three to five thousand yeah yeah and so that's that's why right when this
00:55:50happened it was like okay and i was happy with the initial 10 10 to 12 000 spend so so you know on a
00:55:57monthly basis so as it as it just started to develop it was uh it was so now you have 2.2 million
00:56:04dollar account so you know it's possible right so what so so next you went out hunting more whales
00:56:10right you weren't you weren't satisfied with just one one whale you needed a pair yes yes so what did
00:56:16you do so um so there was another client of ours here locally uh they were a senior living facility
00:56:22so very similar to what we were doing with genesis and i think the success that we saw you know both from
00:56:29our contact at genesis but really from when they audited us with that data company that's that
00:56:34really sold me too at the same time meaning that you know at that time i really it kind of flicked
00:56:40like okay well now i know that we have a product that can work on a big scale wide scale and it almost
00:56:46works best with companies that have a lot of different um locations and a lot of different
00:56:51facilities they need to work with so this place discovery senior living had a location in delaware called
00:56:56the summit i looped them into our turkey thon event which is a local event we do here um right
00:57:01around thanksgiving and um i just replaced the on air that came with it with the digital because i
00:57:07wanted to show them how how well this is working um and then the success from from genesis allowed me to
00:57:12work my way up to their corporate office and tell them hey you know very confidently i have a product
00:57:17that i know can work for you guys and and you know give us a chance and and and we'll prove it to you
00:57:22and since then they've rolled it out um to to a handful 10 to 15 different centers and and it's
00:57:27been really successful so i think really it just goes back to the confidence that that we gained
00:57:32here locally from the success of genesis to allow us to say give us a shot we know that we have
00:57:37something that can work for you so how does that change overall because these aren't your only two
00:57:42accounts you're you're you're a successful producer month in month out but how does that change
00:57:49the way that you ask for dollars on the other accounts that you that you call on yeah i think
00:57:55it just sets the bar differently you know i think it just changes what we know we can do not just with
00:58:01me and my clients but everyone who's in the building knows okay we have the potential now to um really
00:58:07really push a lot of our clients to put a lot of money towards these digital aspects because we know
00:58:12they work you know and i think it was more so an attitude change because we knew the products were
00:58:17solid and you know i want i don't want to leave this call without giving a huge shout out to the
00:58:21pods um you know i push them a lot with these clients and they do a great job so i think that's
00:58:26a really important thing too is relying on the products relying on our back-end team to to get the
00:58:31heavy lifting done while we uh while we make sure our clients are in the right right place and it leads
00:58:36to a lot of success yeah and i also think uh we you you know we should give a shout out to your your
00:58:42colleague brandy who does that who helps you with that right yes no she she's been great i mean
00:58:47since she's taken over the accounts they've only grown and she's developed some really good
00:58:52relationships with um with each one similar to genesis i mean it went from one contact now we have
00:58:58three four different contacts there so brandy's done a great job you know handling all that um and making
00:59:03sure we're on top of everything excellent we have just just about a minute left vidra any any more
00:59:08questions for the the king of the whale hunters who is brandy brandy is a is a a e here in wilmington
00:59:18um and and she's helped me out a lot with this discovery senior living campaign okay so you all
00:59:23partner with that yeah yes we are we are both equally um equally responsible for that yeah congratulations
00:59:29greg thank you thank you that means a lot i appreciate that that is huge and by the way if you have any
00:59:34questions uh jeff and brad and greg and dan all said you can all reach out to them via email or or
00:59:42phone if you have any more questions and want to learn more about their account so thank you greg
00:59:47congratulations on the success thank you for joining us vidra thank you for co-hosting great questions
00:59:54from you and just a reminder we will be um sending out a the link to today's broadcast to everybody it will
01:00:04be posted on academy with 48 hours and i'll also send the creative brief to everybody if you could
01:00:09not open it in in the chat box so that's it for this month that's what you ought to know and we look
01:00:16forward to seeing you again next month thank you everybody