Pitch Perfectly With Jessy Grossman Of WIIM (@jessygrossman)

Today we’re speaking with Jessy Grossman of WIIM. Jessy Grossman is a long time entrepreneur in the digital media space. She founded the community Women in Influencer Marketing in 2017. Alongside WIIM, which began as a passion project, she built and sold a multi-six figure influencer management company. Today, she proudly spearheads the WIIM community amongst thousands of its incredible members. She believes that women are limitless in what they can achieve, especially with the support of each other. You can find inspiring member stories and more about Jessy on the WIIM Podcast.

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[00:00:00] Jessy: Hi everyone, and welcome to the WIIM Podcast. Women In Influencer Marketing is a first of its kind exclusive networking group made up of inspirational women. This podcast is where we explore influencer marketing and get real about women in business. Find us wherever you download podcasts, and of course, you can always find us iamwiim.com. That’s iamwiim.com.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Women In Influencer Marketing Podcast. My name is Jesse Grossman, I’m your host for today, and also the founder of this incredible community. I always tell you this guys, like, of course I’m biased, but like I do think it’s the most incredible community that you’ll ever find.

It’s like everything combined that I personally enjoy and, I don’t know. It’s just such a good experience being around you guys all the time. So huge welcome to anyone who’s tuning into the podcast for the first time. This is gonna be a solo episode, so I hope that you enjoy it. If you do, please be so gracious enough to give us a review, five stars, but also honestly, like the most important thing that you can do is just share this podcast with others. So please do so if you enjoy it, binge on other episodes, they are all there for you to enjoy. Guys, we have an event, in two days from now, from the time that I’m recording this intro.

It’s an in real life dinner in New York City and I am so excited because this is just going to be the first of many. So keep an eye out for that if you are missing the New York dinner, we actually already cut it off. We had to cut it off 50 people, so we now have a wait list. So anyways, keep an the eye out for future events.

We’re gonna be doing other cities or probably gonna be coming back to New York in a few months. For another dinner. Also have to send a huge thank you to our sponsors for this event, Maybelline Cricket and Olay Henrickson. So thank you guys so much for sponsoring this dinner. Such great connections are gonna come from it. We’re gonna have a really nice time. It’s a beautiful space. I’ve had my birthday there multiple times so, I’m so excited to come back next week and tell you how it went and check out our Instagram and I’m sure you’ll see photos and posts about it. Anyways, if you haven’t joined the membership yet, what are you waiting for?

I wish this wasn’t a rhetorical question because I can’t actually hear what you’re saying. I wish I could read your mind. Guys the membership for WIIM is a game changer. I don’t use any term like that flippantly, I truly believe in how much value we are constantly giving and adding to our membership. So not only are you gonna meet lifelong connections that, you know, start out as professional, but in many instances go well beyond that. But you’re gonna generate new business with those connections.

Networking is such a powerful thing, and it’s like this dirty word. People have this weird association, not even necessarily negative, but like a weird association with networking. As somebody who owns a networking organization, I can vouch 10 times over, the power of networking. Networking is what got me so many opportunities in life, and it wasn’t even necessarily because I networked with this specific person on this specific day, but it was so many opportunities that came from that directly came from that. It’s too many to name, but I can personally vouch and I know there’s so many other women in the group that can as well.

If you could just switch your mindset about networking and know how powerful, rewarding, and impactful it can be, like truly, like fundamentally, a game changer. Then you join our group because it’s a who’s who in influencer marketing. It’s the most supportive, but brilliant and talented and successful, but also nurturing group out there. So check us out, it’s iamwiim.com/join to check out joining our membership. We have a monthly and we have a yearly membership that you can join and take advantage of things like job listings and recruitment and our community on Slack, our community, and facebook group, our masterclass library, we have our events. Oh my gosh, we have so many things, but definitely check us out.

And, without further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s all about pitching, which can be applicable to so many different circumstances, of course, in the work that you do, but even in your home life, even in, you know, with your coworkers trying to pitch them on a new project a new, a new something. So anyways, I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s all about pitching. I will see you guys around and, enjoy.

We’re gonna have a mini episode, and it’s about a specific topic that we recently covered in a community connect event. So the topic is what makes a perfect pitch, and I started the talk by saying, click bait, because I actually don’t really believe in a perfect pitch, I don’t really believe in perfection. So, caveat it’s really what makes a great pitch. And I have a few ideas that I wanted to share with you guys. So before we get into what it is, and the ideas, you might be wondering, you’re like, well, is this episode even for me? I’m not necessarily in a role where I pitch all the time, um, or I pitch at all, so maybe I can shut this episode off.

What I will tell you is the following, I get pitched all the time by people in all different capacities, and I’m pitching people all the time. I’m pitching my seven year old, I’m pitching my best friend on where we should host our baby shower. I’m pitching people from professionals to, you know, friends to kids on a regular basis.

So the ideas that I’m presenting to you as today for consideration, it really applies whether you do this professionally or not so the last thing I’ll mention on that is like you’re pitching your coworkers on ideas all the time anyway, you’re pitching your boss on giving you a raise, you’re pitching your superior, you’re manager for giving you a bigger budget. So I will push back on that notion. I actually think most if not all of us are pitching professionally all the time. So with all that being said, let’s get into it. So what makes, not a perfect, but a great pitch, cuz I don’t believe in perfection.

Concept number one, know what the person wants. So this might sound pretty basic, but I’m gonna get into it because I don’t think enough people ask thought-provoking questions before they even make a proposal, which, and then, in turn makes the proposal seem super generic and like it’s for everybody and it shouldn’t be. It should be very specific.

So when I’m getting pitched, I love when people ask me some really thoughtful questions to really dig into the core of not only necessarily what I want, but what I need. And once you have all of those answers, then you can go ahead and put some really good ideas, thoughts, and suggestions in your pitch. But you’ll hear me say this time and time again in a lot of different capacities.

Certainly when I coach my clients, I’ll talk to them about how it’s always, always beneficial to put a little bit up more upfront work into what you’re doing because it will give you so much more in the long run. This is a perfect example, taking a little bit of extra time in that, you know, initial call or that initial conversation with them.

So you’ll hear me talk about this with a lot of people that I mentor, people that I coach, and it’s the following. I think it’s so important to do even just a little bit more work on the upfront, and that will give you 10 times more in the long run. So again, in this instance of creating a pitch, you’re gonna have some sort of conversation with the person that you’re pitching beforehand. Take it off email, either hopefully have it in person, have it through video. Last case is, you know, just voice, but do not put this in an email and ask them some really thoughtful questions.

First of all, they’re gonna get a sense of kind of how you work. It’s gonna be like a little working session, a little mini working session, and they’re gonna get to experience what it would be like to work with you. So, really understand also that your pitch is happening before you even present like a proposal. Your pitch is starting from the second. You have the first interaction with this person, and if you’re having a little mini working session with them and you’re asking them really interesting questions that get them thinking, they’re already gonna associate you with that style of working, which is like, huh, this person’s really making me think about things I didn’t even necessarily think about before. I need this person. So asking thoughtful questions before you even make the proposal to be able to get a sense of what they want.

Next, you’ll hear me talk about this all the time in so many different capacities. Y’all need to figure out how you are unique. I get pitched for stuff all the time, and no one’s telling me how they’re unique at all whatsoever. People are telling me the services that they provide and how much they charge. I can find a million people that do SEO. I can find a million people that do community management and charge about what you charge.

Why am I hiring you? Why am I going with you? I wanna know how you’re unique unlike nobody else. What is that for you? Maybe it’s the results you’ve gotten, or maybe it’s the approach you take, or maybe it’s the level of attention that you give your clients. Whatever that is for you. Whatever is your like truly, truly unique quality. Emphasize that. Emphasize it so much.

Also, I want you guys to think a little more outside the box in terms of how you’re pitching. I’ve seen some really interesting pitches that might seem a little quirky to some people. They might seem a little too outside the box, but I’ll tell you what was smart, it left me with an impression. It was memorable. And we all work in branding in one form or another, so I just want to reiterate that for the sake of branding yourself and thinking outside the box, it could be really beneficial because what it will do is make you memorable.

All right, Next point I wanna drive home, I want you to be not only specific about why we should hire you, but also why should we hire you now. So let’s talk about a scenario in which case you’re maybe a talent manager who’s listening to this conversation, if you’re a talent manager, you’re pitching all the time, you are pitching your clients left and right for all sorts of opportunities. You’ll usually get some sort of a spec. They’re looking for, you know, people on Instagram with this level of engagement, with this many followers who meet X, Y, Z criteria. You can easily just say like, I have two people that fit that here they are. However, I think the most dynamic pitches, the most successful pitches, not only share why this person, but why now?

So I’ll make up an example. Let’s say it’s a home brand. Let’s say it’s Home Depot, that is looking to work with influencers. And so maybe part of the pitch says, you know, here’s their Instagram, you’re looking specifically for Instagrammers. But why now? Maybe it’s, ugh, this client just moved into a house a month ago and they’re actively building a nursery for their first born kid and, you know, they just moved into the house and it’s less than a mile from the nearest Home Depot. So they’re in and outta there all the time. They organically, you know, talked about them in their stories already, and people just know, they’re like a natural fan of Home Depot. Plus, their YouTube channel, has really been blowing up lately. They’ve been putting a lot more focus into that, and they’re looking to build more interesting content. And have sort of like a room reveal for this nursery. So Home Depot would be not just the perfect fit for this influencer, but it would be the perfect fit now. That’s an example.

If you’re an agency trying to pitch a brand, you know, maybe it could be like a, we just came off of three other partnerships with a similar vision as yours. So we have, we feel really primed to, you know, really hit this out of the park for you. There’s a number of different things, but the point that I wanna drive home is not just why you, but why now? And I think that that really helps to have the pitch land in a little bit more of a personal way.

The last tip that I wanna give to you guys, maybe this is just a preference that I have, but I love options, like if somebody presents me with anything, I’m salivating if they give me more than one option. I don’t know why, like I don’t know why I can’t even explain it, and it’s not even worth getting into. So if you are making a proposal to someone, if you’re pitching them your services, I would provide perhaps maybe like a more economical option or like a standard option, and then like a home run option where like it’s all the bells and whistles. It could be economically based, or maybe it’s your manager, talent manager and you’re like, okay, so here is what we could provide you based on what you’re asking for.

Cause I want you guys to really communicate that you’ve heard the person that you’re pitching. So here’s, here’s a proposal based on everything you asked for, but what I also heard you say is that you’re really focused on impressions, and my client, this client in particular, happens to have a very new YouTube channel, but that’s like blowing up. So I would also love to present you just like a soft good option in case you’re interested in opt in, in taking advantage of that. Let’s throw in a YouTube video and I only charge you an extra X dollars. So I like different options because it’s showing the type of partner that you are. And I haven’t even pulled the trigger yet.

So I don’t know if I could impart like a couple final thoughts of like things that I really hope you take from this conversation. It’s two things, one, it’s the idea of doing a little bit more upfront work will help you tremendously in the end. So just asking a few other questions, getting a little bit and more information, spending a little bit more time on the pitch to like manage the expectations of your client will actually help you infinitely more once they end up hiring you, so keep that in mind.

And the second thing that I really wanna emphasize with you guys today is to utilize the pitching process to your advantage, because in the way that you pitch, in the way that you’re communicating with this potential client, you’re already starting the pitch process and they are already learning how it would be to work with you.

So just being cognizant of that I think will help you tenfold. So I appreciate you guys so much for tuning into this week’s episode. Again, this was all about not what makes a perfect pitch, but what makes a great pitch. In my humble opinion.

So thank you guys again so much for tuning in. If you are not a member of WIIM, definitely check it out. It’s iamwiim.com, we talk about all this kind of stuff, but everything more in influencer marketing and plus you get to do it amongst hundreds of other women in the industry. Take care and we’ll see you guys next week.

If you enjoyed this episode, we gotta have you back. Check out our website for more ways to get involved, including all the information you need about joining our collective. You can check out all the information at iamwhim.com. Leave us a review, a rating, but the most important thing that we can ask you to do is to share this podcast. Thanks for listening. Tune in next week.

JESSY GROSSMAN

Founder of Women in Influencer Marketing and CEO of Tribe Monday

Jessy Grossman is a long time entrepreneur in the digital media space. She’s passionate about supporting women in business and being at the forefront of innovation. She’s been quoted in Forbes and was awarded a spot in the “Influencer Top 50” by Talking Influence. In less than two years she created one of the fastest growing talent agencies in the country. Amidst unprecedented growth, she sold the multi-six-figure agency and pivoted to focus on her long-time passion project: Women in Influencer Marketing (better known as WIIM). Founded in 2017, today WIIM is the premiere professional organization for those who work with influencers. The community offers networking and new business opportunities, career services, continuous education and more. Jessy also does consulting, advising and influencer marketing recruiting with her company Tribe Monday. You can find inspiring stories and more about Jessy on the WIIM Podcast. Check out iamwiim.com and tribemonday.com for more information.

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