Business Development

At The Cavalry Productions besides being an Executive Producer, I am the face of the company.  My role is to help develop new clients.  And one of my favorite stories came from one of our first clients.  An old colleague from a company I had worked at had landed as a new position as a producer for the mego toy company Hasbro.  I reached out and after a few discussions was giving the opportunity to bid out a small corporate video with a budget around $35,000.  We bid the job spot on, offering more and coming in under our other competitors.  But we were not awarded the job. When I inquired why, it was communicated that my old colleagues new boss didn't feel comfortable in going with us because he didn't know us and was aware that we were a newer company.  Most people in this situation would just go 'okay, thanks for the opportunity to bid the project and please keep us in mind' but not me! The fact that he didn't know us, wasn't a good of enough excuse for me.  So I took it apon myself to make sure his boss got the opportunity to get to know me.  I knew that they were coming into LA for the job that we had been passed over on, so I offered the following.  I said that I knew they were staying at the Mondrian and I would like to buy them one drink, and if I couldn't convince them by the end of that one drink that they are going to want to work with me then I would simply move on and not push the issue further.  They came into town, I bought them that one drink, discuss with them the benefits of working with The Cavalry, and finished that one drink and thanked them for their time and excused myself.  Shortly there after we were given the opportunity to bid out a $87,000 commercial and landed it.  Not only that but we absolutely killed that job where a month later they gave us a slate of commercials with a budget of $410,000.  I developed that client into a $2,000,000 a year client. All because of one drink and the determination that the no given wasn't a good enough excuse.

Marketing Materials

Crafting the messaging, branding and vision of The Cavalry Productions was one of our first steps.  We always ran our company as a big company.  I worked diligently to craft an engaging pitch for the company.  It wasn't just about the visuals for the deck that had to be captivating so must the presenter that speaks to the room.  It was paramount to create a story that exuded confidence without being cocky, professionalism without being stuffy, but most importantly leave them begging for more! 

Creative Strengths

The ability to be creative serves no purpose unless you can craft an engaging way to communicate it.  First you must let every idea rise to the surface take them, craft them, and throw them against the wall and see what sticks.  I am a passionate communicator, consumer and most importantly story teller.  We had the opportunity to pitch a new start up dot com a full comprehensive marketing strategy.  Everyone wants to "wow" a new client, I wanted to show them that they hadn't even scratched the surface of what their company could become.  As point on this project I helped assemble a team of designers, copywriters, editors and creatives.  We set to task with me at the helm driving the ship.  I knew the vision of where I wanted to lead them, how to tell the story, and what would have the most impact. I knew that I could show them a vision of what the potential of the company could become that they hadn't even considered ye

I set to task our post team to create a spec commercial, it needed to pull at the heart strings, be inspiring, the feeling of a start of a movement.  And we didn't want to spend any money.  I worked with our copywriter to craft a story that would inspire.  As a whatever it takes to get it done style producer I also lent my voice to finish out the project.  In the end the pay out was grand!  During the pitch I watched as two of the founders eyes swelled with tears, someone saw their vision too.

We followed the pitch video up with a comprehensive pitch deck that included multiple concepts to show range and an in depth media buy.

Newsletter

Sometimes there isn't a staff of creatives, copywriters or designers around to do the work that needs to get done.  Conceptualized, designed and copyrighted by me, this Newsletter was sent to twenty one thousand industry contacts with a 15.97% opening rate and ____ click through rate. The strategy behind it was to engage new potential clients accross the advertising world and to remain fresh in the mind of those who already know The Cavalry. Following the analytics I was able to track who opened the newsletter, who engaged in what articles and who clicked through to watch or engage in content.  I was then able to do a follow up to the contact based off of the knowledge gathered. This engaging marketing tactic was used numerous times with successful results.

Enjoy!