10 Years of Polite Persuasion: Celebrating a Decade of Being Politely Pushy

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I’m Eric Chemi and this is Politely Pushy. Welcome to Politely Pushy I’m your host as always Eric Chemi, but today I’ve got so many more people on the show than normally I would ever have here it’s because we’re celebrating the Bospar 10 year anniversary I’m not sure a lot of

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people thought bosar was going to make it to 10 years but here we are proof we have humans these are not AI Bots these are real people that prove that we did make it all the way to the 10-year birthday party so Bospar of course The Spar is Curtis Spar he’s here below

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thank you for for being the great leader that got us here and we’re joined by three of our favorite friends uh you know past clients current clients repeat clients people that have that have been on this side on both sides of the game here for many years

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from the very beginning up until today so we’ve got Priti Khare we’ve got Anuj Nayar we’ve got Caitlin Cassady I’ll let you introduce yourselves very very very briefly because we don’t want to keep people here forever certainly we’ll we’ll keep this as short as possible for

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our very busy users but thank you all for joining and and and happy birthday Curtis you you’ve made it you’ve made it this long in the in the entrepreneurship game >> we’re 10! Oh my God we’re so mature and you got your swag I see Curtis has got his swag, Anuj has got

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some swag I’m still I’m trying to look neutral with my nice you know my nice suit over over here I don’t know if Caitlin swag made it there in in the camera shot it no the swag actually was uh stolen this morning by my son as he got ready for school because I got a hat

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that he was wearing the hat to school and so the swag is being presented to the second graders of Burlingame California today so that’s pretty good though that’s pretty good so so your kid saw a Bospar hat and thought I need to wear it I need to wear it now and I

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need to wear it to school right now yep pretty much he liked the face oh that is it that little orange head yes exactly it’s like Anuj’s sweatshirt it was that on the hat I really liked it um and turns out he did too so. I mean you maybe

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we could quit this PR business and next 10 years we could just go into fashion I think I liked the head I think I like because because what is that zoom in Anuj like how how close can you get to the camera that looks like a that’s Push*E that’s our little oh it’s the Push*E little bot yeah

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because I was going to say it looks like a like a cryptocurrency Emoji or something like that but you know when I first heard Curtis telling me late 2014 hey I’m starting my own thing we not going to have an office and you know this whole new agency remote I I didn’t understand I

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said where are you gonna get your mail where are people going to go and meet how are you supposed to talk to people if there’s no office so I didn’t understand how it was going to work and and and so obviously I knew Curtis from before day one and yet here we are raise

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your hand how many of you when you first heard hey Curtis is going to do his own thing did you think great idea crazy idea great idea great idea great idea but also crazy idea come on there’s enough agencies out there we were all like really I was like well good for the

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industry needs one more agency and it needs it for me Curtis we need one more and I’m going to be the guy that does it that’s exactly what I thought and I thought at most it would be like a five person shot you know I thought it’ be like okay it’s a nice little bespoke

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media relations kind of media house and uh well I was clearly proven wrong what’s the numbers now oh we’re about 60 some odd people and you know right now as the economy you know continues to grow we’re looking to bring on a few more people before even the end of the

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year wow and uh I feel bad coach because you’re not doing this from your from your normal office with that array of awards and other things that that stagger everybody as soon as you get on in your normal call so it’s unfortunate we don’t have that there but it’s been a an

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incredible run I mean 10 years I can’t believe it’s been already been 10 years I was 40 back then now I’m 50 oh dear oh dear TMI TMI um let me tell you why I thought it was a great idea because an agency is nothing more than the collection of people making this making

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the agency and Curtis and the people he was founding the agency were so stellar and having worked with agencies big small and in between I had never worked with such an amazing group of pure PR professionals that I was I was in no doubt that he was going to make it and

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make it big so uh True Believer all the way and you know the thing is out of everyone here Priti was our very very first client >> that’s right that’s right and a funny story when I was moving my business to Curtis’s brand new infant agency um the person who we were moving the business

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from told me I was crazy and I would live to regret it and uh here we are 10 years later uh I don’t know how many times uh I’ve engaged Curtis and Bospar since then so uh it’s been quite a ride I love that I met Bospar when y’all were already fully remote, I think I’ve was

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came in around year four or five Curtis when I first started engaging Bospar I think I’m on my third company now with Bospar actually but I was actually working remote and I loved that the agency was remote because I wasn’t in the office with my own team at that point currently

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and I was like great I don’t need anybody in an office I’m not in one what’s the point so it never it never made any like never sounded crazy to me I always thought it was a brilliant model you know Priti you said you’ve you’ve hired them a few times or or same with

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Caitlin ups and downs I know we can talk about the ups, but I want to get into just some mistakes or here was a problem or Curtis really screwed something up and then how did you resolve that how did you how did you find a way of saying hey usually you’re great but but I don’t

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know I don’t know about this one so you know here’s the thing I think Curtis is a brilliant PR strategist um and has comes up with some amazing ideas but at times the ideas can um the the scope of the company and where the company’s at in the budget and Curtis’s

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ideas don’t have don’t quite meet um and I I do remember this one time when there was a brand new CMO at this company that we were with and Curtis came up with this Grand idea on we were talking about rebranding the company and Curtis’s ideas were brilliant but the

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the the pay you know the cost was exceedingly intimidating and I had warned him not I had warned him to keep keep it realistic but you know that’s hard for Curtis to do when he gets into his ideation mode so I just remember this meeting and looking at Curtis and just shaking

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my head because I could just see the CMO you know I just gets smaller and smaller in the chair going are you kidding me but you know we got over the hump um uh the thing I love about Curtis is he’s always open to feedback I can tell him good bad or ugly straight up and and I

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had we had a we had a very candid conversation after the meeting saying I told you so Curtis what were you thinking and we fixed it I mean you know he came back the very next week with a revised proposal that was much more in line with what we were thinking so um

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sometimes sometimes Curtis’s enthusiasm needs to be matched >> guilty >> but that that that creativity I think is unmatched that idea to kind of like here’s something that’s going to capture the cultural Zeitgeist and really move things forward I still remember one of my favorite programs

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I’ve done in my entire career was the uh PayPal Galactic was our idea to kind of talk about payments in space of just around the time when Virgin Virgin Galactic and SpaceX and blue Origins were launching and you know getting Buzz Aldren involved getting the Sentience

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Institute involved getting NASA’s Silicon Valley space Institute involved and I think the whole thing including the the you know the agency cost and Buzz Aldren’s significant fee was like $100,000 for like the most incredible campaign that we saw major uptick on the business

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for so uh you know it definitely can work both ways it’s like the you know if you can if you can hit the right the right creativity and get that moment which I think is one of the things I’ve always loved about uh the team is that being able to see outside of our little

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box which we get out in in house and saying hey this is something that’s really going to hit outside of your world because it’s hitting a pop culture moment and it’s hitting kind of a cultural moment I’ve always been singularly impressed about how that how the team brings that stuff

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together >> I agree and I think it’s been such a great part of I know for me it’s why I’ve continued to engage Bospar is that it’s Curtis it’s you and Tom but it’s everyone you hire too because everyone that I work with like I’ve now had three different you know account

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teams at three different companies and everyone I’ve been able to be like this is my big idea and like you tell me what’s going to be relevant about it you push me to like help make this like more interesting from an external perspective to your point in

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like it’s easy to get narrowed in in like my little internal vision box of just what the company’s doing um and I’ve always appreciated that push and pull where Bospar is always really truly felt like a partner to me not an agency that’s it’s it’s funny you said

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that because that was going to be my next question is as you’ve been three times around you’re getting different account team members you’re your your company that you’re representing has got a different Focus different goals different priorities and it’s not going

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to be just an agency founder right like you said right 60 odd people right now you’ve got to find this ethos right in terms of when I work with Bospar it means something and it means something consistent otherwise like like we said before it’s just a collection of people

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those people have to be working towards a common goal a common theme from your perspective on the client perspective how would you describe hey when I work with Bospar I’m getting X whether or not Curtis is in the room or Tom’s in the room when I’m getting a Bospar team

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what does that mean to all of you shall I go I mean I think they hit the tagline it’s Politely Pushy they push us too right it’s not just pushing the media and pushing the external characters they it’s pushing the client to say hey this isn’t going to work how

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like what you’re telling me is not newsworthy it’s not going to drive narrative what else have you got can you do this can we do this can we sitting there and pushing the US, me I love that uh because I find often especially in house you get into group think just like Caitlin

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was saying you get to the group think it’s like this is the way forward and this is what it’s going to do and everybody’s going to love it and you’re like and then having somebody come in being like this is so boring I’m sorry there’s nothing interesting at all about

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what’s going on I mean normally that that’s not fair they’re a lot politer than that but the message is always like this is really just no you guys are in your little bubble it’s not going to happen and having somebody say look what else have you got and then having

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working with us and brainstorming with us and sitting there and saying what about this you mentioned this a couple of weeks ago is this still an option we can start working through that stuff and then together we’ll come up with something that actually may actually cut through uh the

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noise you know for me I think, to Second what Anuj said it’s uh when you’re working in PR in house you’re often battling with a whole bunch of people who really don’t understand what PR is right they equate PR with advertising well just tell our story just sell our

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product we should do a press release because we added two new features and so you really need a partner um with you to Lobby to the powers that be in house to say no we are not this is not we’re not in the business of advertising if you want to sell your two new features

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put on an ad right what makes your story newsworthy why would a reporter care and that’s where bospar really shines because they bring to the conversation not stuff that’s just relevant to you and your little product and your little indust your little industry but what’s

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happening in the media at large how do we insert you into the New York Times even though you may be you know doing cashback shopping and how do we elevate your story and make it interesting whether it’s pushing you to look at the data you may have that you would have never

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considered right um so I think all those approaches make bospar really valuable and they do it in a manner that’s uh as Anuj said perfectly Politely Pushy as they should which I really value because again they’re a partner and not a vendor uh for a lot of PR people you’re work

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you’re the only one doing PR in the house so I always View the Bospar team as an extension of my team and not an external vendor and that’s how they behave no matter who’s on your account team which I love >> completely agree like I’ve I’ve the three three companies where

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I’ve engaged Bospar I’ve all been like fairly like small to midsized startups where it’s like not just a single person doing PR but like tiny marketing teams like very little very little internal resources and I think for me what’s always been great too is like to have

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someone bring in a different level of creativity um I can come to any Bospar team I’ve worked with and be like this is the business goal you tell me how we’re going to like make this sing um and being able to have that like extension of like hey this person who’s

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not even on your account team spoke with this reporter and by the way we think this actually ties back to what you’re ultimately trying to do so let’s get creative with it like let’s figure out even with like your smaller budgets how we can make this go and for companies

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that admittedly the very first one I engag Bospar with was like pretty boring if I’m going to be honest with myself it was budgeting software there was nothing sexy about it it was very impactful but really boring and the Bospar team like that’s that’s where I

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fell in love with Bospar is like they came up with new ways on a regular basis to help me figure out how to make it more engaging and exciting for uh our external audiences you know that I mean one of the things you go ahead you had Anuj >> so one of the things that I’ve always

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appreciated I think we’ve all in-house had the experience of the marketing team or the product team comes up you like just get a press release out about this that’s what you guys do and you’re like but why they’re like because that’s what you do you’re like but why they’re like

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to get media coverage but why to get media coverage like but what is the business goal that you’re trying to achieve that you want to get the media coverage for right and I have sat down with the team multiple times and said you’re gonna we’re gonna be in this

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meeting this is what’s going to happen and like he is working together to be like let’s get them refocused on what is the ultimate business result that we’re trying, the Communications as a a function is going to try and uh help deliver and then we’ll move out of the

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conversation of this is a press release or this is a a play story in the New York Times into here’s the full arsenal of tools we can bring to the floor and it could be a whole bunch of different things I think one of the things I’ve really enjoyed is I think the

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communications as a function has changed so much in the last 10 years and uh it’s been great to work with an agency that’s always on the cutting edge of like this is some of the new stuff that’s going on and can we try and move this forward you know like I look at all the work they’re

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doing with AI right now I think it’s really interesting it’s like how do you take the latest Technologies married the business results that you’ve got and move things forward I mean you know 10 years ago nobody had heard the term influencer for example right and now

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everyone’s sick of the term influencer right it’s the it’s this whole ideas that have gone through a gamut that have hit the Peaks and gone down and Bospar has always been a partner for us or for me at least to be hey this is what’s happening next this is what’s going to

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work and this is what it is to tie these different vehicles to the business results you’re trying to achieve >> Curtis do you think you’ve had to hire different people in the last couple of years from let’s say 10 years ago like you said influencer wasn’t a

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thing 10 years ago AI is a thing now right the the the reduction in the newsrooms but people are people are spending more time on screens they’re spending more time consuming but it’s in such a fragmented way do you feel like you have to hire a different kind of

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person for that or is is the function in the ethos and driving the same business goal still the same thing as a decade ago that’s an interesting question because often times what I’m looking for is someone who uh either builds quality that we’ve never had before or is

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exactly some you know some shape of a journalist who I think fills an important gap and so we have brought on people who do social media because that’s you know something that is increasingly more and more a thing that we need we have also really uh doubled down on former

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journalists just because that sort of understanding of these newsrooms is critical to getting our stories placed we brought recently brought on Tomio Jerone who you know I used to pitch at Wall Street Journal at Forbes at protocol and having his understanding of

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The Newsroom and you know what is the best time for a story to get green lit at the Wall Street Journal versus Forbes is really interesting it’s very tactical and arcane but it’s just those nuances that are so helpful and so I know that’s kind of a waffly answer Eric because you

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know there’s not like a type you know who does it I think the person who most appeals to me just on a kind of selfish reflective level is someone who follows up in an email and is indeed Politely Pushy if someone does that I’m a lot more excited about them and I know I’m

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just going to get my inbox just exploded with with emails but that’s the you know personality trait that matters most where did you come up with the Politely Pushy phrase where did that come from I was working on this project for Anuj at PayPal and we were trying to get the

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first uh outer space purchase made and I was talking to this astronaut’s wife and I was trying to convince her to get her husband to do it and I couldn’t follow up with her every day even though I had tremendous pressure to get this done and so I had to think of unique ways each

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and every time to get in front of her so I didn’t seem like a huge galactic pest and that’s when I really crystallized on the Politely Pushy idea because that’s what you have to do with journalists that’s what you have to do with analysts that’s even what you have to do with

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clients and with your peers and so it just seemed you know cute enough and right enough and basically got the Zeitgeist and if could go and zoom out just a touch further when I look at different agencies and how they describe themselves it’s like agency Mad Libs, if

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you were to take the agency names remove them and just put the descriptions of them you would not be able to tell which one is different and the whole idea about Politely Pushy is we’re not going to be so insecure as to have all these different words describing ourselves

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we’re going to be secure enough where we’re going to have something memorable and cute and thoughtful and that’s going to be not only our tagline and motto but that’s going to encapsulate our approach to getting attention for our clients as well >> do you all agree when you hear that

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as the clients do you do you agree with what Curtis said >> one piece of one piece of information that he didn’t mention is the reason he had to talk to the wife is because the astronaut was on the International Space Station she she could talk to him like once a week right

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but he was still pushing different ways to put it together I think that’s an important back like why weren’t you talking to the astronaut because he was up in space he was up in space wow no I absolutely agree with what Curtis said and I would also add one trait I have seen um in all

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Bospar teams that I’ve worked with or two rather is one they’re relentlessly curious and I think in the pr business that’s extremely important to be you know to be really curious and to be voracious readers you actually have to be a a voracious consumer of the news if

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you want to successfully be placing stuff in the news you know it’s one thing to be a journalist not every PR person has that background but you have to at the very least be a voracious consumer of the news and almost all the teams that I’ve worked with every single

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person has been extremely curious about learning understanding new things and also bringing to the table hey I was just reading this article in Vogue magazine and that’s great because that this is how it connects to what you are doing and you know tell me more so I

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think those two those two qualities are something that I have found in spades in Bospar teams and fairly lacking in some of the other people that I’ve worked with >> uhuh and universally helpful and that’s I got a third one there pretty which is just even when I haven’t had an

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actual uh paid relationship with the team of Bospar I’ve had not just Curtis but the whole team reach out to me be like hey Anuj we saw this and we thought you might be interested in this outside of even the core stuff and often you know it’s been a uh a news item or

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something or another kind of idea that has completely blown me away so it’s uh it’s not that excuse me it’s not a uh I agree with you completely it’s not just that but it’s also that innate helpfulness or if I if I’ve needed something like hey it’s outside of my

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core work but could you help me get this thing done always on it immediately turning something around and and delivered to to an excellent extent so it’s a it’s a true partnership I find yeah agreed and I think too what I love about that sometimes um I think Curtis

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you mentioned is like being Politely Pushy with the client like I know that I coverage or whatever it is that we’ve been like tackling together and when I’m the holdup like the team is never rude but they’re like, Caitlin this is what we’re trying to do like you’re actually the

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blocker here or your team’s the blocker or whatever the case may be and they say it so lovingly that I’m like yes yes I know I feel bad but it’s the right vibe where I’m like that’s what they’re doing to reporters to get us the coverage to get us in front of the right people to

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have the right conversations to get people to come cover us at events or things like that and so like I actually love that perspective because I think there’s so much out there in the world today like Eric you just showed your phone like there’s a thousand other

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things that people could be paying attention to at any given moment you have to put yourself out there and be a bit pushy I think to like rise to the top and make sure people are talking to you >> do we think we’re gonna be doing this 10 more years from now when Curtis

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is 60, is Bospar gonna get together >> had to bring it to me being 60 I mean you’re the one that started with the ages no one else brought up ages >> clear that I I I’m I’m I get that I appear youthful and that’s just because there’s enough Botox to make that happen

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but you know yes I think we’re g to be doing this when I’m 60 and when I’m 70 and when I’m 80 I I’m in it uh because I really love this I think that telling interesting stories uh is important I remember when I was on the other side as on the news assignment desk and

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sometimes I was just thinking is anything happening here that’s compelling and so having that sense of I’m in Toledo Ohio a town where spiders go to die I need to make some news happen and now being on the other side where I actively can do that I I can’t imagine anything more

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rewarding >> awesome well thank you >> it may not be us I think I think it may be our AI avatars will all be doing this we and that information will be received by somebody else’s AI avatar and what kind will make that happen. Before we go I just wanted to say you one thing I did take before

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we jumped on the call I had a little thought was like what was happening 10 years ago that was when the ice bucket challenge was the biggest viral moment I just thought I just got to bring that stuff up Kim and Kanye just got married right it was It was kind of Frozen Mania

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was the big was the big stuff on that stuff and you know I just thought think how much think how long ago that feels like you know but um but so much has changed but so much is so much of the cool tech the cool fundamentals of doing good PR remain the same >> it’s a good

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reminder that that’s a it’s so quick that 10 years went by like the ice bucket challenge I wouldn’t have picked was that particular year for example right or I didn’t realize it was frozen or it was Kim and Kanye didn’t last too long so you outlasted them you outlasted them Curtis nice

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job that’s the bar that’s the bar that’s the bar well thank you everybody here’s to another 10 years cheers to Bospar thank you thank you thank [Music] [Applause] you thank you to my guest and thanks for listening subscribe to get the latest episodes each week and we’ll see you next time