Exclusive: How Two Media Veterans Are Reimagining Sales Coaching With AI

Media industry veterans Richard Brown and Penda Howell are on a mission to transform sales coaching with their online platform, Momentum Lab Pro.

In an exclusive interview with UrbanGeekz, the co-founders explained how their 40+ years of combined experience in sales and digital media revenue helped shape the platform’s vision. They are building an AI-powered sales enablement tool designed to help salespeople build confidence and drive stronger revenue outcomes.

Momentum Lab Pro is more than an AI chatbot. Launched in 2025 and currently in beta, the platform combines Brown’s very own decision-making matrix with his proprietary A-Suite Framework to deliver personalized coaching, conversation insights, and AI-assisted email drafting.

While rooted in the news media industry, where both founders built their careers, Momentum Lab Pro is positioning itself as an innovative cross-industry solution for insurance, financial services, and other sales-driven organizations.

Learning from the Sales Floor

Starting out as a junior salesperson at a local newspaper, Brown knew very little about sales, but quickly discovered his natural ability to connect with people. As he transitioned into digital media, he built digital revenue infrastructure for leading regional news organizations, including the Omaha World-Herald and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

It was during those years managing sales teams that Brown developed his signature insight: most sales training overlooked the fundamental role of behavioral psychology. Through extensive research, he developed a decision-making matrix called 70-20-10. Brown argues that decision-making is 70% emotional, 20% rational, and 10% justifiable, meaning that to close a deal, salespeople often need to engage all three elements.

Developing the Persona Framework 

At Liturgical Publications Inc., Brown served on the senior sales leadership team, where he led the company’s digital sales and renewal strategy nationwide. He directly managed about 20 people, while the broader sales leadership team oversaw roughly 150 sellers nationwide.

“Some sellers are very Type A [personality]. They don’t play about their routine. Some sellers are very frivolous and disorganized, but they produce results,” Brown elaborated in an exclusive interview with UrbanGeekz. 

By observing these different styles, Brown developed the A-Suite Framework, which categorizes salespeople into four personas: the Aggressor, the Analyst, the Actor, and the Ally.

He then began coaching teams on how to use that self-awareness to improve conversions. By understanding both your own persona and the persona of the person you’re selling to, you can tailor your pitch for maximum impact while staying true to your personal style.

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The Creation of Momentum Lab Pro

When Brown and Howell met, the two industry leaders recognized how much they could learn from one another from their years of experience in the field. Together, they felt compelled to share their knowledge on revenue growth with a larger audience. 

“Through my work with New Jersey Urban News, New York Amsterdam News, North Jersey Media Group, and other media ventures, I saw firsthand that many mission-driven media organizations struggle not because they lack great journalism, but because they haven’t been given the tools to develop strong revenue models, build partnerships, or scale their impact,” said Howell.  

“Some sellers are very Type A [personality]. They don’t play about their routine. Some sellers are very frivolous and disorganized, but they produce results.”

Most revenue growth strategies overlook how individual behavioral psychology and communication styles shape decision-making and conversions. Brown and Howell saw an opportunity to scale personalized coaching through AI rather than traditional one-on-one mentoring.

The result is Momentum Lab Pro, an AI-powered platform that combines off-the-shelf large language models with Brown’s decision-making matrix and the A-Suite Framework to help sales professionals understand themselves and their buyers, and ultimately close more deals.

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Research and Development 

Building Momentum Lab Pro without outside investment meant making every decision count. As a bootstrapped business, Brown and Howell were strategic about when to outsource, bringing in lawyers, developers, and industry experts for specialized knowledge. Meanwhile, Brown also immersed himself in the research, extensively studying large language models, AI agents, and data privacy frameworks.

That research paid off: Brown and Howell retain ownership of their intellectual property. At a time when many startups build on top of third-party technology without protecting their own innovations, that was a deliberate decision.

Features and User Experience 

When users first create a Momentum Lab Pro account, they are invited to take the A-Suite assessment to determine their individual sales persona.

To deliver personalized coaching, the platform includes a section for users to upload their price list, product sheet, and other company details. By analyzing this information, the chatbot can offer tailored suggestions for approaching sales conversations. In addition to providing general guidance, users can interact with the AI coach to ask questions, discuss pitches, and test their own approaches.

“I saw firsthand that many mission-driven media organizations struggle not because they lack great journalism, but because they haven’t been given the tools to develop strong revenue models, build partnerships, or scale their impact.”

Users can also upload their sales contacts and indicate the stage of negotiation they are in. The AI draws on previous conversations to predict individual buyers’ personas and suggest next steps to help secure a deal.

What makes Momentum Lab Pro distinct is its memory. The platform stores information and learns from every interaction, growing more attuned to each user over time. Rather than delivering generic advice, it builds a picture of who you are as a salesperson and adapts its coaching accordingly.

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The Future of Momentum Lab Pro 

This is just the beginning for Momentum Lab Pro. Later this year, the platform is set to launch personalized coaching for managers to help them lead their teams more effectively. The founders also plan to introduce CRM API integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce, along with language plug-ins to support global accessibility. Looking ahead, they also want to “lean into more automated next-step conversations, training the AI even more to surface the best opportunities right away,” Brown explained.

As businesses across industries grapple with tightening margins and longer sales cycles, Momentum Lab Pro is betting that behavioral psychology can help build more confident, high-performing sales teams.