 So I just want to say thank you to everybody that joined us. Thank you to each one of our panelists. The goal of this particular online conference or gathering, I don't know what we're calling these things. This webinar was simply right now with the pandemic and COVID-19 what we're noticing is all of the restrictions on cannabis promotions went from, you know, crazy restrictive before to almost impossible now if you a don't have money or B don't have a publicist on retainers so obviously we can advertise like other industries and our main source of promotion and exposure over the last at least seven years that I've been in cannabis has been events. Obviously that's not happening now. So with our reduced options. We just wanted to bring together all of the most recognized publicists and journalists within the industry which I think we've done a pretty good job of grabbing. Most of the key publications and PR firms to discuss what the options are for brands now on a budget to really be able to grab some exposure and and maybe just some helpful tips for earned media email marketing digital PR and marketing and social media. So this is going to just be more conversational. I'd like to go through and let each one of the panelists. I guess I should introduce myself as well. Let me back up my name is Cynthia salaries Adam the founder of access wire, the co founder of green market media and I'm also the founder of House of soccer. So with my, you know, extensive knowledge and experience within PR and marketing within this industry. I thought it would be a good idea for us to do to do this at no cost to help all of the cannabis brands. Have some better insight on how they can garner some, some earned media and you know, do a little extra in their social media during these times I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Terry next and then why don't we just go through. I don't know why don't we just introduce the people when they get to their section so that people like the attendees can that way. Everyone for joining I'm going to hand it back over to Deborah and she's going to take it from here. Thank you. So, as Cynthia mentioned that we really are viewing this more as a dialogue versus having a state formal panel with three people or two people. We really wanted to bring everyone together and as you noted you know you guys the best and brightest, and we wanted to have this a little more casual and a little more flexible so that's why we've got so many people. I'm kicking it off with really talking about the state of journalism today and one of those, what I'm going to do is present some slides right now that I put together. And so right now, the state of journalism is it's it's been pretty rough. What's kind of interesting though is with people home and working from home, they really are wanting a ton of content so this is a new survey that just came out from Duke of London. 56% so they want to see and read more stories about business plans to recover from the pandemic so that was super interesting. 62% of investors want more coverage on business recovery versus non investors so that that kind of makes sense you've got investors that really want to see okay well how our company is going to come out of this. 46% are reading or watching more financial news than before the pandemic so that's great for you know some of us like business insider and MJ's daily so they really want to get this business news. Only 26% said they're consuming less so people are really glued to their screens right now. Hold on Deborah can you put it on presentation mode so it looks a little bigger. There we go. So, despite all the demand layoffs have increased. So that's what's been really crazy about this while people are really wanting to read more content. Financial Times got 50,000 new subscribers, but they cut the staff hours they cut the executive pay contributor budget was cut the economist laid off 90 people, all their top executives to pay cuts. Horts reduce reduce their staff by 40% later and this folks this is all happened within the last few weeks, all of these layoffs. And vice media 5% of the workforce. I thought this was super interesting the digital news for vice media is 50% of their cost but it only brings in 21% of the revenue. So we're going to close their la studio. That included our colleague, Chloe yellow, she was let go vice also let go Alex no Sarah, he was reporting on date trends. Basically 36,000 jobs have been lost in journalism right now. Here's what's really happening big tech is destroying digital media Google and Facebook carry our news content but they don't pay us for it. When people started to come have started to complain. They've done a little bit, but here's what's kind of thing that's happened just lately within the last couple of weeks as well. France's regulators are demanding Google paid publishers. So we're all crossing our fingers that goes well Australia's regulators are also negotiating with for platform payments for publishers so they're trying to save journalism as well. So big text response was Facebook started paying some select big publishers directly but that doesn't help us little guys and Google started handing out grants for experimental journalism but really that was described as a full philanthropic handout. Now Facebook and Google said yeah but we give you traffic isn't that great well that doesn't really pay the bill. Here's another really unique situation here is the politicians are actually on the media side because they don't want to be the enemy of the media. So, even though those lobbyists for Facebook and Google are really, really powerful. It's, it's great that the politicians are actually on our side. So that's something that I take away from that is look demand is really high right now for news. But the news is strapped because the as Cynthia said the ad budgets have been cut, and we can't do events. So it's really heavily hurting us. And as she mentioned before, a lot of brands have had to scale back and so they've cut their PR teams or they cut their ad budgets they cut their marketing budgets they really pull back. I think really having said that now I'm sure is the time to really get out there and promote your brand and I'm going to turn it over right now to Lewis Goldberg he is a managing partner at KCSA They do credit communications. They do investor relations. Lewis has been in the cannabis business for several years now. Lewis fill us in what's going on from your point of view on the PR side. So we don't do a lot of brand specific communications when it comes to business to consumer, you know, we're focused on the business to business and business to investor communications. And the trends that you laid out that have been what's been going on in the media, you know, for the last 15 years, it's not just that we've seen shrinking of newsrooms over the you know the last, you know, 15 weeks or even five weeks. And they just have accelerated dramatically. But the, the trends that you pointed out that there are people who are, you know, the average investor is consuming more financial news now means that for the Javier's of the world and the Jeremy's of the world. They are as important, if not more important than they've ever been because of who they are speaking to which is the investor. The clients that we are working for who have either been forced to scale back their budgets or turn off or at even greater disadvantages than they've ever been. You know, Bill Gates said, if I, it wasn't Bill Gates, I'm sorry Steve Jobs said the last dollar I would ever spend is on public relations. And that's because we are able to disintermediate the gatekeepers in communicating to target audiences so working with you a green market report and the report you know like Warren who writes for Forbes for Javier at Benzinga. There's an appetite amongst consumers and investors for good journalism. The stories are harder to place now. You really have to be able to understand what that intersection of cannabis, the capital markets and culture is, and thread that needle, because there is less room for the coverage of extraneous crap. You know, a new flavor of a new vape cartridge is not going to get covered. The stories that worked well early in the crisis were how the cannabis industry was adapting. So there were lots of companies. That is a very cute dog john cannabis companies who were using their extraction equipment to make hand sanitizer. That was a big story for five minutes cannabis companies who are adapting their employment policies. And I think not about cannabis as what we are using to deal with anxiety or stress or depression or PTSD, but where cannabis fits into the larger culture from a business perspective and tell those stories. And then respectfully to the journalists that are on with us. There are lots of other journalists that we need to be communicating to so journalists who cover health care and mental health are just as important as journalists who cover stocks and bonds. We're talking to journalists who cover employment trends, journalists who are covering bonds, journalists who are covering basically everything, but weed. You know, these guys and these women who we have all worked with closely for years now as the industry has been built. You are as important as you've always been. As communicators who are working for these companies we have to be thinking beyond that same limited set of reporters that we have pitched and developed relationships for years and that's that's what I'm telling my clients. That's what I'm telling my team members and that's what I'm doing. Hey, Gia, what about your side, what are you seeing with your clients and what are you telling them. Oh, she's not hold on your unmute. I'm unmuted now. And GM on is with GM communication she's also if you don't know Gia is very well involved in women grow. Yes. Yo now right. I'm president shonda CEO and president but thank you guys so much first of all I love this conversation. And to my fellow colleagues hello it's good to see you virtually feels like it's been ages since I've seen many of the faces. I agree with everything that Lewis has said. And what I, what I found interesting during this time is before going to advise clients on how to best promote their business we immediately went into crisis communications mode right and we're still dealing with it. It's not quite likely. Now, but we definitely hit started off the pandemic with advising our clients on how to adjust and deal with this they needed to communicate to so our clients we've got. An operator in the state of Pennsylvania. And so for them this was their first time really engaging in this kind of a quote unquote a crisis and so we needed to guide them during this time on how to not only communicate internally but also externally, but even within their community like just the whole point of what Lewis made in terms of how the industry itself had to adjust to what was happening. But now when I think about clients that have worked with even let's say the NCR so National Cannabis Roundtable you know they haven't changed their focus on what they're doing on the hill, and that's been consistent right and so we had to make sure that people stay focused that the safe banking act is still very necessary and we have to keep fighting for that. And we're continuing to educate the media through what has been the primary focus which is COVID. What's interesting I had a team call this morning. And the feedback from my team is hey listen, everyone's ready to start shifting back to the news that they were covering before. And so it's a great opportunity for us as well as through our clients, where we've been following up in terms of like op Ed pieces we've been asked for our clients to which has been fantastic because we're using this time and I think what Lewis was the point Lewis made was so valid is that it's a great opportunity for us to further educate mainstream media while I thoroughly appreciate our colleagues on on this panel now cover the industry and I love our depth of knowledge, but now I'm taking advantage and our team is taking advantage of, hey, if these other colleagues of ours from mainstream are home. They're actually taking the time to talk to us where it's been harder while they were in their offices to reach them. Deborah, what what I found profound is that the number of layoffs as you said, from those media outlets, many of those who were quite knowledgeable about cannabis and really understood what we were doing and understood the direction of which we were going. So what we've been doing from our end, for those who are now having to pick up stories what have you, is some revisiting those conversations we had maybe a year or two ago. But I'd say that, you know, thankfully we've been pretty fortunate our clients fully understand where we are, they understand that they have to pivot at any given moment. We are utilizing the media in terms of not just providing, of course, quotes and background conversations but we have been asked on a number of occasions if our clients can write op-ed pieces that are either relevant to what's happening or what they see could be happening next. I'd also, I'd also appreciate the fact that with more companies that are shifting virtually, they're really looking for guest speakers to come on their podcast or, you know, like their virtual talk shows, that's what I kind of call them, which has opened, I think, or broadened the awareness, I think of the general public on who these players are within the industry. And, you know, before it was a little bit more challenging to even get some of those opportunities because people have had to sort of pivot their approach to reaching to the general public. I think these online interviews have been great for us as well. We hadn't considered that before, but it's been quite, it's been quite positive. That's so pretty interesting to hear. And I was, you know, say Cheddar, if you weren't in the New York area to be able to just go down to their studio and jump on a camera, then you were limited. Or if you didn't have a travel budget where you could be at some of these conferences. So, Mario, why don't you tell us what you're experiencing and what you're telling your clients with the situation that we're in right now. So, you know, obviously I agree with what everyone else has just said, but there are two things that I would address. So one, you know, to the beginning of your slide in the state of media industry. And even thinking about even Jeremy, for example, on this call, like, people have been laid off. They've been furloughed. Jeremy was asked to pull off his cannabis speech and cover what was happening in New York. So we, educating our clients realize that their time is really limited and we'd be super sensitive to the types of stories that we're telling because this is, and also everybody else is dealing with their own like mental things at home. Right. So, realizing that journalists are people and that we're pitching them it has to be super relevant, right, to relevant to what's happening right now, like within COVID, and just sort of the bandwidth. So that's been, you know, one shift with the journalists who work on a regular basis. But if you also think about it, this is the first time where cannabis has been deemed essential. So to Lewis's point, Manjia is that broadening our reach. We could do that now because this is one of the only industries where, you know, everything's still ticking. There's so much opportunity that we can reaching out to journalists across the nation in different regions about how essential it is and how, you know, they're helping humankind. So it's been a really interesting couple of weeks and really actually watershed moment that, you know, cannabis is essential. So what does that really mean? What are the implications of that? Like how will that move forward, you know, in the future? So that's what we're seeing. Thanks, Rosie. Yeah, it's, it's certainly been pretty interesting on the editorial side. And to your point, Lewis, yes, when I get a pitch about a new grapefruit flavor THC drink or a CBD pillow. I'm not going to cover that right now. And it's just, you know, it doesn't do you as a PR person any good to have, you know, the automatic delete when your name pops up. You know, and I think that's a great segue to something that John wanted to talk about, which was a lot of do's and don'ts. Can I just jump in one thing about brands quickly? Of course. About coverage. So, but we do work with brands that their job is launching products and they had a lot of things that have been planned, right? Like, things are still rolling within their businesses. So what do you do, right? So even Terry wrote about this, about like how brand, how companies had to shift like their marketing, right? So there's, there's the story of how marketing has changed. So there are ways to pivot that. And she wrote about just the different creative ways that brands are going about marketing. So like that was a story. So there's some interesting points to that as well. Well, and that is a really good point. I'm, you know, I had a interview with a film producer, you know, last week, because they had they were supposed to launch their film at South by Southwest about, you know, acid trips and psychedelics and stuff. Obviously no South by Southwest, no movie premiere, but they still launched on Netflix and kind of did that pivot of, okay, well now we're going to talk about launching on Netflix. And, and so they, I guess to your point, you need this professional advice in order to guide you into pivoting the right way. Well, so that's the story that Lewis was talking about right is the story that Rosie just mentioned wasn't necessarily about launching the new products we turn it into a story about marketing how everybody was adapting to marketing. So you just have to get a little more creative than normal, even though our industry is always been for us this shouldn't be too hard because we who everything we do has to be creative and thinking outside of the box but I do think Lewis now that in that we can look at the story and angle it a little bit differently to that business aspect or like Rosie said that marketing aspect and that's how you can kind of promote your brand through that actual angle versus just there's a new grapefruit flavored vaporizer. And I think Gea raised something really interesting about podcasts right using non traditional media to tell a story has become even more vital, you know, I have, you know, I'm sporting my podcast logo and Mike. Yes, we noticed. But the thing here is, it's not as much about this podcast as we are counseling our clients now to create their own shows. Right. And it may take time to build an audience. But if you create your own vehicle that is an authentic way of communicating whether it's audio, video, you know, or something, you'll find an audience and it is a way to communicate that is unfiltered by you Deb or by Jeremy or by Javier and as as amazing as, you know, the journalists are the value of working with your podcast is that we are ultimately borrowing their brand. You know, you borrow the business insider brand you borrow the brand of Green Market report that gives you the credibility to tell your story in a war in a world in a world that it's time to get a journalist to pay attention to you, and you still need to tell your story. If you create your own channel, your own podcast, your own video blog, whatever it is, you can do that in an authentic way, and build an audience and the key thing though is it has to be authentic. If it is, Hey, I have got this amazing new product and let me tell you about it and it's the best flavor and it's the best whatever people are going to see through that and not watch. But if it is an authentic conversation about what it is to do what you're doing, you'll build an audience and that's what you've done with Green Market report you built an audience, because it's an authentic communication about the business of cannabis. And that's why we're can you're telling our clients, guys we're going to work and we're going to we're going to work with the journalists, but it's also incumbent on you to tell your story and work around the journalists because there are so fewer of you guys out there, and you're pulled so thin that we still have to tell your story. Let's just do it in a different way. And thank you for that podcast. Some suggestions. I just wanted to thank Lewis for his podcast because my clients have enjoyed their, their, their time on there and it was a lot of fun. Hey John why don't you run through some of the suggestions that you had you had sent to me and I thought they were actually quite good. Thanks Deb. You saw you're talking about the like do's and don'ts for publicist that I suggested. Yeah, I mean this is something that I've been harping on for actually several years basically because I've been as every journalist on here will tell you handling a lot of pitches from from various PR pros and you know a lot of companies that are very eager to get their stories told. For a lot of the same reasons that Cynthia outlined but what I found has been much more effective from PR pros is in building relationships with journalists is more of an approach where say you know someone like Cynthia reached out to me and said alright here's here's what I can do for you. Here's who I represent. Here's what I can connect you with. Let's talk about how we can help each other as opposed to just bombarding reporters like me with the same kind of pitches day after day where it's like here let me let me introduce you to this specific company which is launching a specific brand line which you know could make for a great story and yeah sure that's that's you know could be an interesting story but there's hundreds if not thousands of product launches you know every single month every single year and that that basically is just not going to go anywhere for with with most reporters it's it's much more effective to build a relationship by just reaching out and saying you know here's who I am here's here's what I can do for you. What do you need what can I help you with and and that way there's just a lot more mutual benefit because the interest tend to overlap a lot more in terms of that approach as opposed to just the you know more traditional. Here's here's my client here's the story they want to tell can I sell you on it I for me for me that almost never works and I just you know I but I've worked with a lot of PR pros to take that other approach and I think we both tend to get a lot more out of it that way. You mean John you don't want an interview of someone you've never heard of. It could be man I mean depending on the story they have to tell and you know how compelling it is I just you know it. It's still astonishing to me that there are some PR pros out there who and I get that there are a lot of times you know client driven clients that you know have a particular story they want to tell and everything but. Yeah, that's I maybe that maybe that's just me. I don't know but. There is some dues and don'ts as well and then Javier writes stories at least once a year on this so we might as well let them both get a little bit in on that. I think you know now is a good time to kind of hear from some of the writers we've got Warren we've got Javier. We've also got Heather you know talking about. What do people want to read right now and what are you focusing on because I think we have touched on you know where COVID was the story of the day for about two months you know if you're in the New York area. You know we're now in in May we've been quarantined since early March and so we're starting to hit month three of this. I think we are starting I know I'm getting into COVID story fatigue and moving on. What about you guys what are you know what is your focus right now you still focused on COVID cannabis stories are you starting to shift out of that what is what are you doing. You want to take place. We need a director hold on she's she's on mute how about now can I can I. Heather. Hey that. Am I still muted. I'm good now. Well I was just going to say I think also you know you have to understand when you're pitching reporters that are outside is sort of the traditional group who have been covering cannabis all these years that there is an incredible knowledge gap. And so sometimes these pitches just I mean I can just tell you as someone who came in with knowing nothing and spending three years to write my book. You know I still feel like I am constantly learning and I think that's because this is a beat that touches on so many different verticals I mean so many that you know whether it's science or business or health. And so I think. To John's point about building a relationship. I think that's really important because you have to remember that a lot of times reporters particularly if they're new to the beat or if they're general asylum reporters and they're just looking for enterprise stories. They need to get up to speed. And so even sometimes offering to kind of walk them through. What's going on why certain things are important because somebody from the outside is not necessarily going to know for example that the fact that the aid bill last night at last week that was you know passed by the house the fact that there were cannabis provisions in there that that was an interesting moment. Like the average person the average reporter who doesn't cover all this or even who maybe doesn't even cover the Hill that's not something that they would necessarily be following. So I think it's really important that you know to understand that you sort of have to start from square one and I reporters in general they want to get it right and they want to understand the landscape and the context. So I think that's that's number one you know it's not just about getting in to write about your product but it's also about recognizing that this is a long if you want this to be a fruitful relationship it's got to be something where you're you're helping them you're introducing them to aspects of these stories that they may be never even thought about or people that they hadn't considered talking to I think it's so important with such a complex landscape. And then I would just say I think helping them understand the macro view of some of these stories I get pitches like the ones you were just talking about I mean sometimes the pitches that I get are so inside baseball. Like, I would never write about some of these things just because I did the amount of explanation that I would have to give to my audience I mean they would they would like glaze over before. So I'm always looking for, you know, sort of stories that I think have a certain cultural relevance or tied into actual news. As we look ahead to you know I have my own publicity team I'm working on promoting my book right now. We're talking about you know how important it's going to be to tie in any coverage we get probably to the election. Because I think even though everybody's going through COVID fatigue, you know when it comes to things like get up morning television for example, just getting on is going to be really hard just because the new cycle is such that. And remember, again this is such a such a complicated topic. These shows, they don't have cannabis reporters I mean gma does not have a cannabis beat reporter. So when you're pitching someone that you're really starting at square one and a lot of times, you're going to have to walk them through in your pitch. Why this is relevant to their audience. So just I think that's an important point you know so I just so for those of you who don't know I'm a former ABC News correspondent I reported for Good Morning America. You know worked on the alumni board at Columbia journalism school so I definitely come from the old school. And you know, for those of you they're still wanting to get those placements. I think you just have to think about it that way that you know you really have to keep it very basic and high level for a lot of these folks because they just don't know. That's smart. What about you Warren. What are you what are you targeting on your stories right now. Hello me on meet myself you know what I would wish I wish in a perfect world, I wouldn't be asked two things. The first thing is how much should I pay you to get my article in Forbes. That's the first thing. I don't accept money to get into Forbes. People get in touch with me all the time. The second thing is CBD. I'm on record I find it very difficult to wrap my my arms around something that I find to be really no more than snake oil my grandfather made Gerrit Hall I know all about snake oil. And I know about the power of the FDA and the FTC and what they can do unregulated drugs. So I don't I try not to write about that. Although everyone wants me to write about it. I love you. I would like to write about flowers. I'd like to write about great wheat from Oregon. Do you know what people want. My number one article was about a bomb. It was about a higher bomb. 150,000 hits on it. And all I did is explain my personal experience of the enjoyment of this people are looking for that. I think they're mined away from TV news. I'm living a three week away from news right now. I have never felt better. Yeah, my body is not reactive. It's supportive. I want to see but you're not a PR pro. I don't have to be Louis. I don't have to be a PR pro. I have to write five articles a month for for Forbes but I write 30 again is I want to make make a difference in the world. I want to write about stories that resonate and I really want to do well by others get away from news. The same thing. I wrote for Forbes for a little while and I used to get that all the time like people wanting to pay me to get a place and I never quite get understood that you know Javier, you know it's been saying that you're also on the business side. You know, you know, we're in the thick of earnings season. So, you know, it's, you know, I know I've had to, you know, shipped away from coven and I'm on the earnings beaten. Honestly, the earnings haven't been horrible. They've actually been pretty decent. What are you are you pivoting over to the earnings now or are you still cove. I gotta be honest, you know, answering the initial question you know that opened this debate. What do people want people to still want a lot of cove it 19 coverage I posted one article on cannabis and cove it yesterday I got a thousand clicks on And that is, you know, without count and syndication and Yahoo et cetera, which I'm sure gets a lot more. Now, you know, what people want is important but to me it's honestly I've never been particularly interested in cannabis and cove it. We've done two, three stories a day and it's enough right but if everyone all like everyone is pitching only cannabis and cove it I'm, you know, I'm not particularly interested as you say the world continues you should stay at home just to be clear the fact that we want the world to move on does not mean we should not be respecting social distancing rules, but the world does go on so you know I'm still seeing people interested in aurora earnings or why CBD earnings this week or you know till raise earnings last week, as you mentioned so Honestly, unless you have fresh angle on cove it. Maybe just stop it I've heard 100 pitches of companies pivoting to to make hand sanitizer as if I cared. You know I cared about the first two it was like wow that is crazy. Thanks for startable initiatives. I get pictures like we donated 100 and like $1,000 is like good for you. Donate another thousand don't spend it on another press release I'm sorry PR people. I shouldn't be saying this but you know, it's the right thing to do. Yeah, I'm interested in news I mean, especially in cannabis there's not a lot more to cannabis in Kobe. We are essential we know that sales have spiked. We know that we were we were not included in the original you know federal stimulus package, not a surprise you know the federal government still consider considers cannabis and illegal substances now to a certain extent where we're included that's interesting but again like commentary arrives five days late you know until we go to a vote. I don't want to hear your opinions on you know the the stimulus package from five days ago. I've already written about it. But you know it's it's honestly I'm I'm all about the regular news cycle we've hired like 10 people since it's COVID started. A moment and jump in that Javier has launched a Spanish cannabis news site in the middle of COVID-19. Can you just give us a quick rundown as to why you chose to do it at the time did you see an uptick in people looking to consume? Oh no. So you took it? It was a coincidence. Honestly, it was ready to launch El Planteo.com and and everyone here actually is in some way contributing to it. So thank you for the support. I love you. And honestly just coincided I feel guilty. I feel a little bit guilty thriving in a context where the world is falling to pieces. I'm not press releasing on on the accomplishments. I do understand that operating companies need to but it was honestly a coincidence. It was to a certain extent a lucky coincidence. I feel it's almost like this concept of Sheldon Floyd where you feel a little bit happy for other people says, you know, misfortunes. It's not that but the fact, you know, the fact that everyone is at home certainly made it easier for me to launch a digital media outlet and get traffic right away and get attention right away just because people are sitting at home and Googling stuff. So that's it. I mean, thank you, Javier. And also I just wanted to quickly mention before we go to our next panelist that Heather's book is called the new Chardonnay. I know she mentioned her book, but she didn't say the title. So it's certainly a difficult thing as Warren knows to write a block as he's written several and so quite a few and that's a big accomplishment. And Jeremy, you know, we, you know, was mentioned earlier that you were on the COVID beat for a while and you just move back on your desk over to cannabis and John you're with high times, you know, you guys have had a lot going on there. Can you two kind of talk about how you're making these decisions on what you're covering, you know, because Jeremy, you're on the business side, and I know you get overwhelmed with the pitches and such and John, you know, for high times. You know, it's, it's not it's not necessarily this is it's more cultural and lifestyle. So I'm curious to hear from you guys, what your focus is right now and how you're making these editorial decisions. Sure. Yeah, no, thanks for Debra. Thanks for tagging me in there. I mean, for those of you that don't know me, I write, I write about cannabis for business insider was doing COVID coverage in New York for the past two months. Happy to be back a lot less, a lot less death and destruction on this beat, of course, a little bit more fun. But anyway, so I'll kind of, I'll kind of want to ping back off of a point that John made. You know, for us at least we're pretty mainstream financial publication like we're not an industry publication. So the bar is really high to go from a pitch to a story. Specifically being, you know, I write for a subscription vertical so the value proposition to readers information that you cannot get elsewhere right so something comes to me as a pitch or something as a press release that already sort of denigrates the value of what I'm supposed to do. Now all that isn't to say like I'm focused on negative news, but generally speaking, you know, news is something that others don't want reported some people do. And so that's where that's where my focus lies. That is layoffs, which the industry, you know, has gone through a lot, whether that's protecting employers against false promises from entrepreneurs, whether it's bringing some rigor to what retail investors are looking at when they decide to make investments. And that's where we position ourselves and that's that's what I'm primarily interested in. That being said, you know, when people like there is positive news as well, you know, when, you know, mainstream, you know, pension funds or big private equity funds hedge funds invest in cannabis companies. That's good for the industry and that's good news when you know cannabis startups raise really big rounds. We report on that like obviously that gets press released and that's something that, you know, we can find an angle on that that works for consumers and and, you know, you know, bring subscriptions through the door for lack of a better term. Yeah, kind of lost my trade of thought there but anyways I that's that's that's sort of what we're looking at. You know, on the flip side, if a company is sort of touting that they raised around then it's a major down round using the press release can actually kind of hurt the company because we can easily show like look they're touting raising $35 million or series B with $70 million, something like that. So we, you know, we're very careful on that and we're very tuned to that. You know, that being said, again, to one of John's points is that you all you know you, the PR people that I work with on a regular basis, I very much respect and I listen to and you guys have eyes and ears on things that I generally do not see. So that is very helpful to me when you're like oh you should take a look at this company I take that seriously, because I believe those are good companies and I think you're bringing it to me in good faith. The flip side of that is like, you know, if there's too much of that it gets a little bit tuned out it's like, these all cannot be good companies because of what I see in the industry right. So I'll leave it I'll leave it at that. Jeremy before we move on, I think as PR people from the other side, some of our clients don't understand a lot of times that if they raise $3 million. That's not business insider, not fortune news, do you guys have any sort of and I think john shawyer you also at MJ Biz Daly have some sort of criteria in place that you know, if there's a certain amount raised or if there's a technology involved what are your, can you each give us a little bit of insight as to what's appropriate for brands and companies and even PR people to pitch these days for those types of stories. Jeremy. Yeah, sure, I can I can just dive in on that. You know, the, the, I guess, bottom line the round has to be large for it to be a standalone story has to be large and selfishly we'd like it to be an exclusive to us. Again, because you know, I, you know, just being totally frank about that like we're subscription publication. I got to I got to bring subscriptions to the door and exclusive do that. And it has to be large or if there's an interesting wrinkle. You know, like I said before, institutional investors investing in a plant touching company somehow if we can explain the financial mechanism, or the legal mechanism they're using to do that. You know, that's an interesting story to us. All that being said, like if a client, you know raises one and a half million dollars and they really are whatever maybe $2 million and they really want to be in business insider. They're smart ways to do that, but that's not a standalone story. It might be here. Here's the challenges with doing a small fundraise for a cannabis startup, or here's why this sort of niche part of the cannabis industry is raising money and look at this example. But it generally, it may be too small to be a standalone. Someone is asking what's large, right, like what what's our criteria for large and their Lewis is 10 million or more. What do you think that's I mean we Lewis is right. We, I don't have like a hard and fast rule around that. But we like to see that so rarely hear that in my. That's right. Lewis is right. I, you know, it's not hard to pass rule evaluations in excess of 100 million. If they're disclosing valuation the raise in excess of 10 million is kind of a good rule like we're going to take a closer look at that. That being said, it can be a little smaller if there's big name investors mainstream investors. You guys have a little bit of a criteria for that too as well. No. Yeah, we do. I mean, a few years ago and capital raises were much less common. It was, I mean we would write about just nearly any capital raise that was announced by any company because it was still fairly rare, you know three four or five years ago. But I think it was about two years ago, maybe two and a half years ago we started a rule I'd have to go back and check but I think our rule of thumb is that a capital raise has to be minimum, maybe 10 or 20 million for us to even do a news bit on from from a press release, because there's so many capital raises in just the seven figures or under that we just don't have the bandwidth now. And that really became that that really became a hurdle in I think it was 2018 when when capital raises really started ramping up. But and related to just your other question about, you know, a, what could make a single story pitch stand out. I agree with Jeremy there there's going to be have to be something pretty extraordinary about a single press release to get the attention of a reporter in it or an editor that would be to a standalone story either I mean, you know, either has to be something like the biggest acquisition in, you know cannabis industry history, or it would have to be something pretty monumental to really get that sort of attention right away without without a bigger picture, or a bigger story trend or something. Otherwise, it's just, we don't, we don't let PR folks run run the news business sorry to say everybody, but we have to, we have to we have to be discerning in some level. And so we just, that's that's just part of In addition to the I think the financial raises there's some other tips I think that brands and companies should know these days, unless you've hired, you know, Zuckerberg, or someone your, your new higher releases probably are not going to garner that much press. In addition, you know, we don't want to hear about a board member. I'm not sure, again, unless it's, you know, Obama Barack Obama, that's not really news. So I think it's important for brands to really understand that before they start asking a their PR people to work miracles that are just not going to happen. I really understand and manage expectations and for brands and, and companies when their representatives go out there so that they're not discouraged when those stories aren't picked up. Everybody look I have a brand and to me it's the most amazing thing on earth but to everybody else it's, you know, it's not it's fabulous but it's just you got to keep that in perspective when you're pitching so that you really understand why your stories aren't being picked up. I think too it's the dollars and cents thing and john from high times you might want to speak to this because you know it's, I know you guys work with a lot of contributors at this point. You're making decisions on am I going to spend this money on a contributor for this story. So what, what is helping you push that story over that dollar line. So it's, it's interesting because having worked on both sides of this that was in the PR side for a long time and I think that's how I know a lot of you guys actually a lot of a lot of what we're looking to do now. Definitely given the climate that we're in is looking for a positive lift. I mean since I kind of come into the role at high times one of the things that we've tried to do is shine a positive light on the industry and not focus on you know some of the things that we wouldn't even call them competitors but some of the other publications in the space like to make waves off of we don't really like you know push for the for drama stories. So this hasn't really changed that much for us in terms of COVID but now more than ever finding things that like leave a positive impression on the reader is something that we're really serious about and not just in the sense of like, Hey, is this going to make this person feel good, but like, you know, this is something that I don't want it to seem like we were going to hold this story or anything like that but like when you're seeing this like the tests and reports come out of Israel of how like cannabis can potentially help fight the coronavirus or something like that. We hesitate telling that story now, not necessarily because we don't want to celebrate like you know that there's something good is happening for our plant but like I also don't want people out in the street who are just smoking without thinking like oh, hi times told me it's okay that if I'm smoking weed that like I won't get coronavirus or something like that, you know, so it's definitely we're definitely walking a line. But there's I mean listen in there's tons of ways to utilize your network and what you're already doing in order to help promote things so like for example, one thing that we've been focusing on the last couple months is getting a lot of our bigger pieces translated into Spanish to kind of help you know some other audiences who want to read it. There's some hard costs to that that like, you know just weren't working out for us. And so Javi happened to be launching his own site at this time and going on all these efforts so if there's a way that like, we can work together and I can help get the eyeballs to his content while also helping satisfy my audience with you know, something that like we can't provide like I don't speak Spanish, you know what I mean I'm not comfortable editing a piece in Spanish. So I wouldn't put it up but like I trust Javi I know how great his work is, like, having access to that kind of content and like being able to help push his, his message forward, I think is a win for all of us. The other thing is like just creating content ourselves like everyone on this call has you know a very unique lens into this industry and a perspective that like, you know, not a lot of people get. So, to the point I don't remember who made it earlier but like we have been a lot more receptive to like guest posts and things like that from like leading executives in the space. I'm not like saying hey come on and wax about your brand or tell me you know all the reasons why people should work with you, but if you're going to come in and like, teach my audience something that like they could help that they could benefit from without necessarily doing it to make money off of them like that's something we're very interested in. So like, I know everyone said this especially on the editorial side but there's so many pitches right now, going out around like you know pivoting to making hand sanitizer or donating mass or something like that and like, there is, I feel like lately we've been relying less on pitches because we're getting so much from of that noise and like, listen I totally get it like when your baby does something you're very proud of it you want to get as much mileage as you can out of that movement. Like, some of this is the right thing to do we're in a crisis right now you know what I mean like these people like healthcare workers need masks they need like you know protective gear like donating that is it's not a press release you know it's not a publicity stunt it's like your company trying to help what we're all collectively facing right now and it reminds me of like, I mean this is still happening this year but you remember a couple years ago and like there would be like ads that were banned from TV for like the Super Bowl or whatever because like they were going and attending to they were intending to run something during that that was me. There you go. So like that like listen the first time that that that that that that happened like of course there was a new story about it but then after it happened like you saw like there were six to 10 people that followed on like knowing they were never going to get their ad on TV, but like they thought hey I can get an earned media wave out of that. We don't necessarily like that it costs us money to write stories. I can't just afford to, you know spend budget on telling some fun gimmick that you guys did you know what I mean. I totally get that I had to explain that to someone the other day when you know they pitched me something and I just I just flat out said look, I can't spend money on a story that is not going to move the needle in anyway. And I think you know bringing up advertising is a great segue to Terry Stanley, who's with ad week and last but not least Terry, you know, certainly, our industry is very challenged on the advertising side a lot of us can't boost our stories on Facebook because of cannabis. But yet we're happy to take cannabis advertising for you know outlets like remarker report. Tell us what what you're seeing from your end right now. Okay, I'm going to be the, I'll be the cranky reporter here. I'm og and I'm very cranky. So, fellow panelists have discussed this already. I'll just tell you, we at week do not have a cannabis beat. I just have to happen to sort of be the de facto cannabis reporter, because I haven't interested it on based in LA so it makes perfect sense for me to cover this area, but cover it in a very ad week way. And that's why this incredible wave of pitches that I get our majority hit the delete button, because they don't understand ad week, they don't follow ad week, they don't follow me, they don't know what I like, they don't know what I cover, they don't understand the nuances of this publication, because maybe people think that at week is strictly covering the advertising industry, and the ad agency business way back in the day it is much broader now it's very much publication that say anybody who is interested in any consumer category would be interested in reading, you could go to our homepage, any single day and find all kinds of very ordinary, but with a business and an advertising and marketing underpinning. So, I get these pitches. This may be relevant to the audience listening that are very much just one size fits all. So, it's a cut and paste with my name on it. Maybe sometimes not even that. So, I'll get a cut and paste pitch as soon as I open it I already know. Hey, would you like to cover X, Y and Z. No, delete. Because I can tell that that was CC the world. Yeah. And that really annoys me because I'm a cranky reporter right. I want to add a little note here from, you know, it's an interesting conclusion I've come to while listening to this panel. I read this panel thinking well, my criteria for what I like and what pisses me off must be the same for every journalist. And interestingly enough, it is not. Like John said, you know, I like when people reach out and ask what they can help with to me. That's like, it pisses me off it's like, you know, I won't tell you what I'm working on. And it seems Heather said, walk us through the, you know, through the industry and introduce us to it. Again, poppy for me. It's like, really, I know cannabis. John, for instance, one time he said, I like it when people email me on an informal tone like hey man what's up this product is dope check it out. And if someone emailed me like that, I would be like a Paul's like, dude, I'm a business reporter. I'm not your friend. Like, dude, is a thing for this panel, not for it. Hey dude in an email when you don't know me, then and you know all this kind of ties up, you know, to teal's point. What was evidently the common, you know, that here is know who you're pitching if if you're going to pitch me pitch heavier and it's one style Jeremy has a different style. No, you know, know that the, for instance, size of a race you need to pitch Jeremy for business insider something that is business insider worthy or Forbes worthy. So just know what you're doing. But it was interesting to see how each one of us had very different preferences off in a post. And to your point, Javier, it may be a little harder for the PR staff to go about it that way. But that targeted approach is probably going to be way more successful than the fast and easy. As Terry mentioned, so yeah, you're doing that email and you can tell your boss, I, I pitch 40 reporters this morning. I don't know why no one's responding. Whereas it might take a little bit longer to pitch five reporters, but then you may get three hits out of that five. We don't get, we don't get paid to check boxes, right, you know, our clients don't care about the process of pitching and placing a story, they care about the results. And when I hear that my team members are sending out mass emails, it drives me nuts. I took the time to develop relationships with every one of you on this call, every single one of you. Right. When I pitch you, I know what I am pitching and who I am pitching and why it is right for business insider or high times or Forbes, I don't waste your time. And when I find out that my team members are doing that, they have wasted my time because I am paying them money to do what I do, which is learn who the media is, learn what the outlet covers, learn how to be effective at pitching. And if they come back to me and say, Oh, I pitched 40 reporters today, I'm like, bullshit. You didn't actually pitch 40 reporters, you may have sent 40 emails out, but did you actually do the research and know what their last four stories were? Did you reference one or two of those stories in a pitch to show the journalists that you have the respect for the time that they put into writing, so that they will pay attention to your pitch. And you actually get on the phone and call them and say, Hey, I want to talk to you about something, not I just sent you an email, did you read it? Because if that's what my team members are doing, then I am wasting money on them and my clients are wasting money with me and it pisses me off. When you say what you guys are saying, I really hope and I have asked Javier this, and I've asked Jeremy this that when you get mass emails from my team members, send them to me, and I'm going to talk to them about how to pitch properly, because that's not how you do what we do. It's not what Cynthia does. It's not what Rosie does. It's not what Gia does, and it's not what I do. I feel like a bobblehead from that. I mean, I think that Louis, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I think Louis just basically captured the difference between PR pros and people who are either not necessarily no vice but really are dipping their toe into, let's say, quote unquote, the Canada space, because that's an all time like public relations do, like you know what to do and what not to do, no matter the industry you cover. And so when I hear that people are just hitting media or journalists up randomly to say, Hey, do you want to cover this? They obviously haven't done their homework, which is like that's the first rule of thumb. I don't want to waste my time nor anyone else's time. So if any of us are reaching out to you who've been in this space and who know what to do, it's because we believe this is an interesting thing. And my personal pet peeve is I hate my time being wasted. So I don't want to waste my time nor anyone else's time. So if any of us are reaching out to you, who've been in this space and who know what to do, it's because we believe this is an interest of yours that you would like to cover, because it's either, you know, your interest and your readership ones, or they're learning something new either way. I mean, I think Louis just captured what we all feel, not only from our side, but also the media side like it's stupid when I hear that people are just saying, Hey dude cover like you know this new flavor. By the way, I am though very curious about that CBD pillow because I'm curious to see how I meant to say something about that. I looked into that right am I the only one who spent like a half hour trying to figure out what was the CBD part of that pillow. I definitely did that. I just want to pose one more question and then we'll wrap it up here. Let me jump in one second for the brands that are on the call and they are not PR pros there is a way to take the same core information. So in that email so everything that you need to send as far as literally the nuts and bolts can remain the same, but what I would do as a new brand, or a new person who's trying to pitch out to the media. In the first paragraph or in the first few lines. That's where you target the specific journalists and their beat that's all they're going to look at. If you can in there say I saw your article last week on this I noticed you write on this blah blah blah blah then the rest of it can remain pretty. You know template or cookie cut or whatever the case may be you don't have to reinvent the wheel each email you just have to specify and target the individual writers and journalists in those first few lines that's I think the tip to take away from everything we just heard right now. So the one thing I want to close on and and put it out to the panelists is, you know, events. I love seeing everybody here I love seeing your faces I miss you guys and we're colleagues we're competitors. But, you know, we play in a very small sandbox, and I have the utmost respect, you know, for my fellow journalists. You know, we, like I said, we work together and you know there's just no animosity with each other and I think that that's great. But I miss you guys we don't do events now and what is your thought about events are I know I'm getting stuff on my calendar for October and September. I'm just curious to put that out there what are you seeing what are you feeling are you not going to do anything till 2021. I want to go back to them in September October. I want to go ahead and say I am not responding positively to pitches about in real life events right now, even if you're rescheduling for the fall or something like that I think it's totally tone deaf and like I do not want to be a part of it and it's probably going to ruin the relationship between us. I've definitely sent some emails that like, I wish I didn't, but you know, pushed people down the lens of like you really think this is going to happen they responded the wrong way and that was it. I think it's important to understand that I think for us we're preparing to accept the fact that events may not happen again until sometime in 2021 unless something as far as treatment comes up or even vaccine I don't know whatever the case maybe I think we're all going to sit tight until at least you know things really become clear that that it's safe I certainly don't want to throw an event and have a bunch of people get sick I mean that would destroy my name destroy every company I'm part of destroy anything I'm it's just it's not worth it I would just ease back on the events right now and it does get a little frustrating when you have these people constantly stalking you for money for sponsorships when we know there's going to be no event so it's just let's ease back a little bit become realistic without the events I do want to mention for the brands and the and the people the attendees that are watching your options for for exposure right now without events. You've got earned media and that's what a lot of this was for us to help you understand better practices so that you have a shot to get in front of these journalists and possibly have your story picked up. You know so you've got earned media email marketing social media influencers and things like giveaways and collaborations with other brands that you can tie into social media I think these are the areas that people need to focus on for exposure and just step away from the events for now that's my can I can I just say something to that and I think that was John went from high times it just said that he pushes away from that. So it's interesting, I wasn't going to mention that I was affiliated with women grow on this because I was wearing my GVM hat, but here's what I found interesting in the last couple of weeks, as I was speaking to two other program or events producers. So one of the things that I found interesting is I said, why are you still pitching for live, you know, in person panel events as though we're going to go back to what we were doing before. And I said, I actually find that a little bit offensive, because coming from women grow. That's what we do, we do live and in person events. I had to make a conscious decision to say to everyone hey listen, we're not doing live events until 2021, but the difference between what we do and what some of the other events producers do is they're under contracts. And so they actually have to continue to operate as though some of these things are still happening based on the city or states that they're having their event. Because if they're not acting as though they're not right, they can't break their contracts with whoever they have contracts with existing. So I had to take a step back from that and say, I get it, I understand you still have to operate as this thing is going to happen in October, November would have you. And you have to continue doing your job, which is getting the sponsors and getting the speakers. And then what I've noticed. And so having realized that MJ this shifted to their virtual event, which would have been in New Orleans in person, but it went to a virtual conference. You know, I believe that's what we're going to end up seeing a lot more, especially coming in the fall, but I had to actually learn that same lesson john where I was like, I made the decision to cancel all of my live events for women grow. I aren't these other people doing it, but I realized that their commitments are somewhat different from what the others. And so until the city or state calls it and says, all events, all live events are canceled. They actually still have to operate as though they're promoting because the cities are expecting this promotion for these events. I totally hear you and I just just to respond to that really quickly. I have been an event promoter myself, besides the stuff the cannabis cup stuff that we do with high times like my, I came up producing events in New York City. I totally recognize that, but there's two reasons why I still even if I was in contracts would want to make sure that I was outwardly saying hey I'm trying to protect people I care about your health. And B, it's also because of like people like like the situation you're in, you know how many people on your team you can't afford to pay right now who are not making the money they're used to making the amount of seasonal workers that I have who come and only work the summer who work on high times events and then, you know, are used to having the fall off and then making their nut again. Those people are not in positions that they even know where their next check is coming from and I well again I totally understand you know not wanting to basically but bulk on contracts or anything like that I do think it's important that you take this step and one thing that I have been responsive to are the event promoters that are trying to figure out what the next option is instead of just saying hey, we're still going to assemble even though we don't know what's necessarily healthy, but hey like here's a perfect example the biggest concert of all time just happened on fortnight. Okay, what didn't happen in you know wasn't live aid was anything like that it happened in a video game. I'm amazed by that I think that's one of the coolest things that's ever happened like that's where what I'm interested in that the guy who set that up I'd love I'd love to chat with him about what's next. Totally agree. Totally agree. Well that's been that that was a pretty interesting I you know like I said I'm still booked for some stuff in the fall I you know I don't know I you know and and I would love to return back to events you know events, you know like, I'm sure john would agree, both john is you know it's a big part of our business that's been losing that is pretty painful. But yeah, if the cities and states reopen, you don't have an argument to say no to contracts, but listen, I don't want to keep anybody any longer we got started a little late. And I want to thank everybody once again, we're taking the time out and know, as we've all said everyone's super busy because we're all strapped for time with, with fewer people doing more. Thank you for all our attendees we appreciate you downing in thank you Cynthia for helping to set this up. And we will have this recorded and we'll post it later on our YouTube channel. Thank you so much I appreciate have a wonderful day. Bye everyone.