Living The Red Life - Fast Track Your Brand Growth! - How Small Businesses Can Leverage Celebrities w/Ben Press

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

In today's episode we have Ben Press, someone who found some of the greatest stars we have seen in our favorite movies. One he is most known for is securing a role for Amanda Seyfried in "Mamma Mia!" despite initial resistance from the studio, highlighting the importance of persistence and leveraging trusted relationships. He emphasizes never taking no for an answer and building authentic connections that can facilitate achieving significant goals. This mindset, which was crucial in his career as an agent, enabled him to navigate the industry successfully and secure major opportunities for his clients.In the discussion, Ben also delves into his transition from talent representation to the world of entertainment technology startups. He talks about his involvement in ventures like Russell Wilson's TraceMe, which was later acquired by Nike, and his advisory role at Cameo. He explains how celebrities have become more accessible for brand collaborations due to economic changes in the entertainment industry and shares insights on how entrepreneurs can leverage celebrity partnerships for brand growth. His approach combines understanding target demographics, vetting potential celebrity partners, and structuring equity deals to benefit both parties.CHAPTER TITLES1:00 - Introduction and Guest Overview2:08 - From Mailroom to Agent: Ben's Career Journey2:30 - Working with Hollywood Legends3:00 - Packaging America's Next Top Model and Mamma Mia 3:45 - Pivot to Entertainment Tech Startups 4:20 - Leveraging Celebrity for Business Growth 5:00 - Evolution of Celebrity Brand Work6:10 - How to Engage Celebrities for Your Brand7:25 - Vetting and Selecting the Right Celebrity8:45 - Structuring Equity and Compensation Deals 10:15 - The Importance of Fast Decisions in Celebrity Deals 11:00 - Activations and Fundraising with Celebrities 12:21 - Creating Authentic Celebrity Partnerships 13:08 - Case Study: Landing Amanda Seyfried for Mamma Mia 16:23 - Lessons in Persistence and Relationship Building 18:10 - Strategies for Effective Asks 19:27 - Encouraging Staff to Overcome 'No' Responses 20:41 - Turning 'No' into 'Maybe' and 'Maybe' into Meetings Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

It was my job to know what movie studios were going to be making. And I called up my friend Donna Langley and I said, I've got your person to star in Mamma Mia! I heard you're making it. I knew what a success it was as a show, Broadway and all over the world. And she said, don't waste your time, Ben. She goes, I'm so sorry.

We already have our person. And I said, I've got the person who's so right for this. And she said, we got our person. I don't know if I can say this or not, but since it's probably like, it's been so long ago, I can say it, but it was. And I gotta tell you, it's a lesson for life. You know, never take no for an answer

and build relationships of trust and authenticity so that if you really need something, and I love asking for things, by the way, I'm a huge asker, no ask, no get. Make sure the ask is grounded in trust. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week.

If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today, we're gonna talk about acquisitions, Join me in Wonderland and change your life. acquisition that was bought by Nike. You've worked with some of the biggest celebrities on the planet for many, many years and hosted a bunch of businesses. And you're the man to know in the world of celebrities in Hollywood, working with Nicolas Cage, Diana Ross, Denzel Washington, Ariana Grande, the list goes on. And I'm excited to dive in today on how you build those relationships and use

celebrities in the business work that you do. Ben, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Well first of all it's a pleasure, Rudy. It's great to be on your podcast and yeah, my quick history is I started in the proverbial agency mailroom pushing a mail cart, literally the lowest of the low at the time ICM, which was one of the biggest global agencies in the world. And I went from mailrooms to the assistant to the time, the biggest talent agency in the talent agent, the biz, a legend named Ed Lomato, who's since passed away. And I was, my desk was attached to his for four years on every call, typed every conversation. And then I was finally graduated, if you will, I was attached to his for four years on every call, typed every conversation.

And then I was finally graduated, if you will. I was promoted to full agent. I was at ICM for 10 years, representing major stars. Like I said, I was weaned on Ed's client list of Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Gere, Denzel Washington, Anthony Hopkins, Steve Martin, Nicolas Cage, so forth, and so on. Madonna. It was unbelievable. And then I signed Ray Liotta and Don Cheadle and Ariana Grande worked with, and I signed Amanda Seyfried. And some of my highlights of what I did is not only did I get films and TV series for these people, but I packaged America's Next Top Model for Tyra Banks, who I represented.

I got Mamma Mia for Amanda Seyfried, which is still to date, I think, the biggest musical comedy hit in Universal's history. And I'm just very proud of what I did. And it was very exciting working with these incredible artists. And then I pivoted to the world of entertainment tech startups, one of which my first one was Russell Wilson's Trace Me. It was a celebrity fan engagement site. I left being a talent rep to go head biz dev for them. And it was incredibly exciting. And we were acquired by Nike, as you mentioned. And then I advised Cameo, which is now worth over a billion dollars.

And then I also co-founded an online platform called, an online network called Joy Sauce in 2022 and now i have a consulting business where i represent i basically get to marry my agent's experience and venture experience and i represent startups that want to partner with celebrities yep i love that and uh you know that's obviously one of the reasons i wanted you on the show because that's what i do right it's working celebrities, building brands, and often encouraging thousands of people that listen and follow me and work with me and that we consult for about not sleeping on the whole influencer celebrity route. I mean, it's one of the fastest ways to grow your brand. And I think what's interesting with the celebrity

side is a lot of people seem to think, and I know this from speaking to members, that you can only work with a celebrity if you're a billion-dollar company, right? And I disprove that being an entrepreneur that's not a billion-dollar company just yet. And I've done very well doing so. I've made millions of dollars in the last year and a half working with celebrities. And obviously, it's grown my brand and opened a lot of doors for me. So let's start there, right? Like, what do you think about that? Do you think celebrities can be accessible to the everyday basic entrepreneur that's

starting out? A hundred percent. And there's an interesting evolution in this whole world. And I'll go back because the history lesson is fascinating. and it teaches how we got to where we are today. And the quick lesson is, is when I started in the business, the biz, quote unquote, back in the early 90s, it was unheard of for major celebrities to do any kind of brand work, what have you, that would domestically be shown. You could have Arnold Schwarzenegger or any major star at the time go to do a commercial in Japan or do some brand work internationally,

but God forbid it got shown here, it would be terrible, supposedly, and would hurt their cred. That Berlin Wall got torn down so long ago. So now you have celebrities totally accessible for brand opportunities. And let's face it, there's something else going on, which is just simple economics. The entertainment industry has completely crashed in between COVID and the strikes. When I started in the biz, Disney, the Disney Studios released 22 films a year. Right now, they are at an absolute minute fraction of that.

So the opportunities, just take that and extrapolate, the opportunities have all folded in. So there's not that much, frankly, and opportunities for celebrities to get paid the kind of money they used to and do the volume of work. So guess who filled the gap? Business friends, entrepreneurs. Yeah, I think that's why I started transitioning some of my brand and what I do to building these brands with celebrities

because some of the celebrities, the Kardashians and others, building these billion-dollar brands. So I think a lot of the other celebrities are going, you know, they just like entrepreneurs, they go to an event and they will chat, right, and share ideas and what they're up to. And, you know, they're probably at the Oscars and chatting and whatever and talking about this other billion dollar, you know, jewelry line or skincare line or alcohol line. And, you know, just like an entrepreneur, they have that itch where they're like, why am I not doing that? Why are they doing it? And I'm not doing it.

And yes, I think the opportunity to leverage celebrities in building a brand is so accessible now because they're trying to do it themselves. But they also see the potential from doing it in terms of more like shout outs and influencers so how would you start you know if someone's listening they're you know making a couple a million or starting their brand out try and try and explain like how would they ever get started with this well first of all let me move back i want to just explain that there's something i call lf it's the lamborghini factor And what that is, is these celebrities gather at these events, you've named a few of them, and somebody says, yeah, I have equity in this,

and I'm involved in that. And the other ones around the table or by the bar or you name it, or in the yoga class think, oh, I got to get one. So it's literally the same as someone pulling up in the Lamborghini and say, I got to get one. it's the same kind of magnetic pull it's uh gotta get mine so to go just human psychology right and i think a lot of people like i know a decent amount of celebrities now not at the level you do but more than the average show and they're all normal people at the end of the day right so they have jealousy they have egos they have egos, and then they wonder why can't they do that, right? So to answer your question, Rudy, my advice to the person out there who wants to start that celebrity connectivity for their brand and be able to get that boost as a result. A couple of things that are really important to take into effect, and I do this with my clients.

It's very important to understand what your demographic is going to be. Who are you distributing to? Who are you speaking to? Whose eyeballs do you want on you? You know, is it 18 to 32? Is it, you know, what is the demo? Is it male leaning, female leaning? Anyway, that being said, you then break down a list of top 20 celebrities that speak to that demographic. Who are they? Who are the ones? And then you do some vetting because God knows you don't want a morality clause to get in effect. And you want to get somebody who's got a background that shows that they're going to be reliable and not end up in prison while you're working with them. And, uh, by the way, very big possibility in this world. And then, uh, what, uh, what you got to do is you,

you determine with, with the brand who you're going to go to. And because it's a level of celebrity, um, that they must be shown the respect that you go to them exclusively. You can't fan out to five or six at the same time. Not to mention so many of them are represented by the same people. They're going to be in a staff meeting saying, I got an offer for this. Well, I got that offer. I got, you know, and it's going to be mayhem. You have to go exclusively. So there is an urgency to get through it as quickly as possible, because if someone passes or, as I like to say, declines to pursue, you know, a pass is so final. You can always go back to someone if it's not really a pass. But let's say they do decline.

You want to know fast because, you know, a fast no is very respected. I hate slow no's. So give it to me fast if it's not gonna go and I'll go to the next choice yeah now that being said once once a celebrity says I will engage with you you have to determine the level of equity possible upfront money usually you know because I work with startups upfront money because their startups is not gonna you to move the dial immensely. It's a carrot.

But the equity factor is very important. So oftentimes, as an agent, I put together so many deals, and it's natural I do the same here, where there are thresholds. It used to be the case with back-end deals with feature films. If it reaches X amount at the box office, you get this much. The same thing here with the celebrity's involvement. At certain thresholds, they get rewarded with even more equity, but significant C-level equity. And frankly, it's that simple. And I will tell you, there are so many celebrities out there who, and by the way, when I say celebrities, it can be in the buckets of pro athletes, field entertainment, musicians, you know, all different, just in general under the umbrella of celebrity.

This is, frankly, this is the next iteration of the industry. This is where it's all going. Brand connectivity, um, to the point where, you know, when, when TV started out in the 1950s, there used to be something called Texaco Star Theater. It was TV sponsored by, at the time, Texaco Gas Company, and they presented stuff. Well, we're now in the next version, the next generation of, frankly, Texaco Star Theater. You have celebrities now presenting to you on behalf of brands the same way they used to in black and white little TVs. We're just that much more sophisticated about it.

But frankly, it's the same. It's the same methodology. Okay, good. And I think last question before we go into all your other ventures and lessons is what, like in 60 seconds, give me three of the biggest benefits of someone actually doing this, right? So they give equity, someone comes on the board or the face, right? What are some of the, obviously the exposure and credibility, but are there any other benefits? Yeah, let me break it down for you. I think of it in three different, three different silos. Not one being more equal than the other. You have the fact that a celebrity can be involved in a brand's, especially startups, which is really where I spend a lot of my time, because I just love that energy in fundraising.

You know, in the raise, if you insinuate the celebrity in the raise, it is. I'll give you an example. When I headed BizDev for TraceMe, founded by Russell Wilson, Russell was involved in that process. He had founded the company, but he was in the rooms. And let me tell you something. When you have people who are potentially going to write you a check and they get to interface with somebody like Russell Wilson um it you know those that care and you obviously want to focus on the ones that do and and work your superpower or in business they call you know your unfair advantage um that is put the celebrity in the room for those raises and it's

going to be very successful i've seen this happen time and time again the next silo is activations um i work with a number of companies ai in particular but also some actual good old-fashioned hard brands if you will that you can touch and hold and uh if you have an activation and you have as part of the deliverables of the deal with the celebrity that they show up, and I'm making this up, but show up in Philadelphia or Atlanta or wherever for that activation, big deal. The press that comes out of it, again, at the end of the day, you partner with a celebrity for the eyeballs that it'll attract. And and obviously it all has to be genuine and authentic.

It reflects the proclivities of the celebrity. It reflects who they are. You know, you don't want someone from out of left field. That makes no sense, of course. But and finally, there's the bragging rights. You get to go and and brag away that you have Celebrity X on board with you. Truly skin in the game partnership. This is not I pay them to do some posts and they go away. No, this is actually in, you know, in for what's the phrase in for a penny and for a pound in it. And that that says a lot. Yeah, I think that's great. And I think it's a great way to look at it because I've talked a lot in the past and had other people on about, you know, doing influencer posts and shout outs and collabs.

But, you know, the equity sort of more board of advisors sort of route is great because you get all those benefits that you don't get if you're just paying 50K to do an ad with them and some reposts. Right. So I'd love to know now obviously we talked about the celeb side but for the second half you know you are an entrepreneur in yourself you've built a lot of this through connections and all your other skills talk to us about some of those big projects the runway and all you know these things like talk talk about all these shows and what you've done there I appreciate that well I'm going to give you an example and this sort of is a is a parable for how I approach everything but this is what it looked like in action um and I took this lesson and put it in

my venture experience now my consulting experience but certainly in my agenting and it's one particular story that happened in the late 2000s. I was representing a young actress who to this day is doing unbelievable work, Amanda Seyfried. And she had at the time a movie called Mean Girls that she had wrapped, had not been out there yet. So I didn't get the benefit of like how amazing she was. Audiences seeing that. But she had she had done it, which was a great get a Paramount film. And I had heard because it was my my job to know what movie studios were going to be making and get in there and push our clients, push my clients. And I called up my friend Donna Langley, who to this day is still amazing. She's been running universal for

a long time and brilliantly and uh i called donna and i said i've got your person to star in mama me i heard you're making it i knew what a success it was as a as a show you know broadway and all over the world and she said don't waste your time ben she goes i'm so sorry we already have our person and i said come on yeah i i've got the person who's so right for this. And she said, we got our person. I mean, I don't know if I can say this or not, but since it's probably like it's been so long ago, I can say it. But it was Mandy Moore, who's a terrific actress. She said, we got Mandy.

We're all the way down the line on her deal. And I said, do me a favor, which, by the way, so much of my career success has come from favors. Again, based on relationships, trust. And I said, can you just do a favor for me? See her. Just sit in the room. Give me half an hour. So she said, okay. because I knew her going back

to when she used to work at New Line. We have a long history. And walked her into Donna's office and the meeting happened. And after the meeting, she said, okay, we're setting up a screen test. And I said, I told you. And sorry, Mandy Moore, I know it didn't go to you but the long story short is amanda got it and it is it was massively successful she was amanda was in the second one there is a third one now of course meryl streep was in it played her mom i went to go visit the set uh in in london and it was one of the great most glorious kind of affirmations of why I do what I do. That lesson, the lesson of never take no for an answer, to work a relationship,

to make something happen around the no, if you will. And frankly, I always used to say, what is no spelled backwards is on. It's telling you something. And I always used to say, what is no spelled backwards is on. It's telling you something. And I got to tell you, some unbelievable things have happened, by the way, not just to me, to colleagues of mine who practice the same thing. We all were raised in that environment. Many of them still agents today, dear friends of mine who are doing unbelievable work for their clients.

And I got to tell you, it's a lesson for life. You know, never take no for an answer and build relationships of trust and authenticity so that if you really need something, and I love asking for things, by the way, I'm a huge asker, you know, no ask, no get, you know, make sure the ask is grounded in trust you're not you're not pulling someone into something you know that they never want to be a part of or you wouldn't want them want to muddy them in it's something legit um and you know because you you don't have many asks left if you screw with people so yeah i think i think what's fascinating is i love the not taking no for an answer um the the relationship capital side right and i always it's funny i train my staff

you know so many times we're hosting events and sorting flights and venues and issues with that and getting vendors in and and all the time i hear no they can't do it no they can't refund it no it wasn't refundable no the vendor can't make it no we can't get someone at this short notice and i make them you know all the time ring back up and i speak to them and i say how do we make this happen right and i literally just ask that's like one of the things i do is i just ask the person on the other end of the phone that already said no i said so how can we make this happen and then it's funny because it's just like it once you empower them and it switches the brain then the staff member all of a sudden said well yeah we don't normally do this but we could do

this or maybe we could just do two hours and it's just funny how most people in society just accept to know right like all my staff do it pretty much and most people in life, whereas you go, well, how can we just get her in the room for 10 minutes, right? And then it's like, boom. You know, Rudy, I so appreciate what you just said. You know, we were young agents. We always were taught, turn no's into maybe's and maybe's into meetings. It's all about getting, now there's a little bit of a cliche about Hollywood and meetings being the end all. No, meetings are useless if you don't use them to an end. However, you got to get to the meeting because ain't nothing going to happen if you don't get that meeting. Yeah, I would say my team, like we have a big branding team and everything.

And they're always like, really, we got this person, they're willing to do it or whatever, what's next? I'm like, don't worry about that. just get me on the zoom call that's it that's your only job I can handle everything from there you know exactly exactly and and it's just about because once you're in the room come on that's then it's all about you and if you have the confidence and belief in what you're expressing you know it's it's you know it's going to happen you have the intention to make it happen and um i i have to say um you know the taking no for an answer first of all people that i have worked for so long with no people when i say no people they love to say no it's a test because if you take the no and go away you've just made their life a whole lot easier by going away.

It wasn't worth their time anyway because you weren't passionate enough to lobby for what you were going for. You just took their no. It's like in baseball, you're taught never to swing at the first pitch. It's the same thing in this world. Never take the no. Yeah. I think that's a a great lesson and i mean as entrepreneurs for some of us

it's in our dna for others i like even our coaching clients i have to say you know go back figure it out go again go again you know until you uh and i explain it i always i give this analogy in marketing and sales and websites they go if you have one dart and you have to get a bullseye, what are your odds? Okay. Now if you have two darts, now four darts, now eight darts, now 12, and I go on and then they start to get it. And I'm like, that's business, that's marketing, that's landing pages, that's ads, right? Like don't limit yourself with one dart, try and have 20 and you've got much higher chance of success. And then I go, if you believe that to now be the case, the question is, how can I throw 20 darts as fast as possible?

Because the next world is people throw one a year and then wonder over five years why they've not been successful when I throw one a day, right? And I'm like, that's why I'm 32 and built all this because I go, go, go. It's amazing. Amazing. And by the way, you keep keeping the red in your hair. Nobody's going to know how old you ever are because it'll just be red. It's amazing. Amazing. And by the way, you keep, you keep keeping the red in your hair. Nobody's going to know how old you ever are. Cause it'll be, it'll just be red. That's fantastic. So

I'll give you another example of something that's going on right now. I have the distinct privilege. It's really, it's been awesome working with an amazing company called Official AI. Okay. I really love being in the AI space. I feel very fortunate to be on that wave, that first wave of AI. And I have been going around and talking to major celebrities, and all of the aspects I explained all different iterations of celebrities, to onboard them onto Official AI's platform. It's a marketing platform where major advertising agencies come to Official AI to have brand partnerships with celebrities

for Gen AI online campaigns. It's all generative AI campaigns. Anyway, we are talking to celebs and onboarding them onto the platform. And I am getting a lot of yeses, a lot of very enthusiastic yeses. But as I would have absolutely expected, I'm getting a lot of fearful, you know, I don't know, you know, AI. It's very scary. And I get it because from the celebrity standpoint, and by the way, I'm sure it's more than just celebrities who are feeling this, but because the strikes that recently happened here, the writers strike, the actors strike, it was so much of it was predicated on AI. And I understand that. AI has gotten a bit of a stink about it in this community because it's not understood and fear is dropping in the decision making.

And I get to explain, basically ride into town with the white cowboy hat and say, we're the good guys. We are the good guys. And yes, there's always nefarious take on anything. And I get it. We got to take that bad stuff down. But the good guys are where you want to align because it's not going away., it's been a lot of fun to evangelize about it in that way. Like I said, I feel really fortunate because my God, imagine being around in the early days of the internet and being able to, you know, I heard an interview with Jeff Bezos. It was fantastic. And I use this a lot in my conversations. He had to raise the first million for amazon and it was hard as hell and he went hat in hand to his friends and he got 25 grand here 50 grand ultimately got to a million

and by the way imagine those people how much they've made since but he said he said the biggest resistance this is fantastic was that he had to explain to each one what the hell the internet was. They didn't know, they didn't understand. So to be in that era and that position on that wave of the internet in the early days, I feel like we're there with AI right now and it's very exhilarating. Yeah, Ben, I think it's awesome to kind of, you know, see your blend of the celebs and the personality, you know, working with the personalities and the negotiations and then bridging it into business because I really think that's only getting bigger. We're out of time for today, but this has been awesome to kind of not only for the members to

see the celebrity side, but then I think some of that entrepreneurial trait, not taking no for an answer and especially with some of these big deals and life changing celebrity partnerships. And, and, uh, you know, I think you have to start with the power of belief and then just go all in and not take that no for an answer. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing that. And guys, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Um, all of Ben's links and what he's up to now will be in the show notes. And yeah, go out there, make it happen, get a celebrity on your team and see how it changes your business. Ben, I appreciate it. Guys, take care and keep living the red light. Bye.