Noob School - Changing the Game: Sales Wisdom from Greg Bennett

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

Join us in this episode of Noob School as we dive deep into the extraordinary career of Greg Bennett, a trailblazer in integrated advertising and branded entertainment. With over three decades of experience, Greg has founded and led some of the most innovative agencies in the industry, including the Luna Bacardi Group, O! Brand Entertainment & Marketing, and Iconoclast Brand Marketing & Entertainment. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies, revolutionizing marketing strategies and transforming the branded entertainment landscape. In this episode, Greg shares his invaluable insights on what it takes to succeed in sales and marketing today. He discusses his journey launching groundbreaking campaigns for iconic brands like Apple, CBS, and Disney, and offers practical sales advice that can elevate your approach in today’s competitive market. Excitingly, Greg’s upcoming book, "I Can Make Caffeine Nervous," is set to release next week! Tune in to hear about his mission to change the world through collaboration with his nonprofit, "The Genius Stage," and gain inspiration to push the boundaries of your own career. Whether you're a seasoned sales professional or just starting out, this episode is packed with wisdom that will empower you to drive success in your endeavors. Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.co I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

Welcome. Welcome, welcome back to Noob School. This is episode, and we're sure of this. 130, 130 episodes, a special day. As we have my friend Greg Bennett here. Congratulations on 130. That's pretty amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Most people don't make it to 100. As we said, you're now in syndication. Yes, I'm in syndication. Flintstones, all the family, and the Noob school. All syndicated. Glad to be here. I've fortunately met Greg, I think a few months ago. Do you say unfortunately? Oh, fortunately. Oh, fortunately. Fortunately.

And I was a friend of a friend said, you guys should meet. And that's pretty much the only explanation I got. That was my description. Yeah, you should meet. So we met, and my son Jack was with me and his wonderful wonder dog Echo. And we watched the kind of the, I guess the grand opening or something of the new music facility down the West End. The guy owns, when I think out in L.A., the... Like the House of Blues?

House of Blues. Yes. House of Blues. Yeah. You know when you get older, you forget. Oh, I'm with you. I'm with you on that. And so, yeah, so we talked to the guy who ran the House of Blues in L.A.

And I knew him out in L.A. And Greg's like, well, I know you. I was a VIP member out there. That's pretty good. The foundation room. Foundation room. That's very cool. So I might butcher this a little bit, but Greg has been very successful.

in the marketing and advertising world on a global scale. Wouldn't you say Budweiser, Apple, some of the biggest brands out there? Started local with my first client being Evie on Water. And then went all the way to Disney and GM, but that's a story in itself. Right, right, right. So we'll talk. We'll get into that in a little bit. So the ending, where you are now is fantastic.

I mean, anyone who wants to go into marketing would like to be where you are, having had multiple successful agencies and some, great campaigns. We always back up to the beginning, you know, how did you get started? How did all this happen? And trying to find some sales stories along the way. So I'll tell you what I remember. I've read. He's promoting a book today. It's a wonderful book. Available on Amazon next week. Next week. I could use the bucks. Thank you. I can make caffeine nervous. And I can tell you from knowing him a little bit, it's a real title. He's got a high motor, as we say, in the south about football players.

But for some reason, after being born in New Jersey, your parents moved you to Mexico City? Mexico City. I was three months old. My mother was an artist. Probably one of the most prolific artists of her time. And my father was in banking and financial business. And they were down there because my mother loved it. That was the art scene.

And I was raised there until I went to Florida State. university when I was, God, that was 1977. Right. It's going back. Well, he's a complicated man. He's got Russian grandparents. He grew up in Mexico City, and he went to Florida on a skiing scholarship. Water ski scholarship.

People always go out in other mountains in Florida. Yeah, I mean, it's water skiing. Well, yeah, it's water skiing. Plus, I mean, I don't even know they did a lot of water skiing in Mexico. I suppose they do, but, I mean, think about that. Mexicans like water and they like to water ski. Okay. So that's pretty good.

Okay. So it's beyond soccer. And so how did you pick Florida State? Actually, I was recruited by Rollins College to go ski for them. They had the water ski teams in college. I was recruited by Rollins. When I was in high school, went to Rollins for a year. It was just too small.

Great school. It was a small private school. A friend of mine from the ski tour said, we have a spot on the Florida State team. Do you want to come up? Yeah. Sight unseen. Had a German Shepherd at the time.

Name Annie, took my boat and went up there with a bathing suit, Rayvan sunglasses, and the rest of this history. Took my dog, my boat, my glasses, and shorts. When you're a skier, that's all you have. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. So I don't even know how competitive college skiing is. Is it like times in the slalom or is it jumping? There's three events.

There's jumping, how far you go. There's three jumps. You get three shots at it. If you survive all three, that's pretty good. Slalom is you just go through the slalom core six buoys. Every time you make a successful pass, the line gets shorter and shorter. And trick skiing is just basically doing 360s and flips and so forth. But it's gotten so sophisticated since I ski.

The kids today, what they're doing is just blows your mind. It defy gravity. It's like snowboarding. People used to just go down the hill. Yeah. And then it's just amazing. It is amazing. progress. It's progress, technology, peeing in better shape. Yeah. Kids that are phenomenal shape

with the equipment. Right. And I'm just guessing you had a really good time doing that. Well, Florida State had three women's every guy. I had a wonderful time. Yeah. And, you know, the dog is a magnet, so I did quite well. Didn't do so well academically. You were marketing at the time. I was marketing myself. Have you used to dog? He's bait. Actually. Yeah. My college, graduate thesis was the economics of getting laid. And she really asked Dr. Rackley, she said, you sure you want to submit this? And I said, yeah, and I got an A on the paper reluctantly, but it was pretty good.

Excellent. So I knew that's when it was starting time to be creative. Well, that's the thing is I just wonder, along that, I mean, that's like a really fun, athletic, great time. Were you think in the back of your mind that you wanted to be an ad man and be in marketing? No idea. Okay. I just, I literally was, after graduate school, I had 21 applications, companies like Texas

instruments, IBM, the usuals at the time. Yeah. And I got rejected 21 times. So what I did is the time I was a pretty good scuba diver, and I got a job at ClubMed teaching scuba diving. Here's the kicker. Yeah. My father, who just had put me through graduate school, said, how much did they pay?

And I said, well, you get 20 bucks a week. and all the drinks you can have. Yeah. But you don't even drink. So it wasn't not really a good deal, but I learned a lot. I learned a lot about people. I learned about self-reliance. And I truly believe you just have to start somewhere.

So if you're getting out of college, take any job you can take. You will learn from it. And I think that's key. Anyone who says they want to do something in life, get a job somewhere. You need to start somewhere. Yeah, yeah. You may hate it, but you're going to learn from it. Right. So I agree with you that if you're getting out of college, you don't have a job, you know, that you're going to need a job. It's almost like you're getting in the game to some degree. But I would rather them have that thing that they know they want to do. Like I've always loved farming or I've always loved banking or I always love marketing or I always love marketing or sales or sports. I want to be in sports management or whatever it is. It's hard to get there.

If you're lucky, though, as you just said, if you have that knowing what you want in college to be a doctor, to be a technician, to be musician, follow your dreams because that's what makes you happy. Yes. But how many really have that driving desire to do what they want to do at that age? Yeah. Well, not many. And my premise is that you can work towards it. Some people are just born into it, let's say an actor, born into an acting family, or an athlete into an athletic family, or maybe they just, you know, the bolt of lightning hit them one day and they're like, love this thing. So some people just get it that way.

Some people, I think, start in the business world somewhere like you're saying, and they try this, doesn't work, try this, doesn't work, this is pretty good, that's where they shoot off to, which is fine. But I think if they take it seriously, like in college I didn't take it seriously, I didn't try one iota to figure out what I wanted to do. You know, I just went to class, played basketball, you know, whatever. You're coming up on graduation. You're like, I got no idea. Why shouldn't you spend, you know, an hour a week, you know, trying to figure out where am I going to be happiest? Where can I add value? Yeah.

So it definitely worked out for you. How did you go from ClubMed? Did you get your first kind of marketing job after that? Well, club med was, it was just a job. You know, I was just scuba diving. I was learning a lot about people, which was really interesting because club med has people from all over the world. Yeah.

And my degree was an interpersonal communication and had a lot of international business classes. So I was able to apply a lot of that. And I was able to see how you have to get ahead. Even though you're just at a club med, there's a lot of politics. back then even. Yeah. So you have to learn how do you deal with that, even though your school instructor. Yeah.

But after Club Med, I ended up talking myself into a job in Tallahassee at the Florida Division of Tourism. And they just wanted to know, do you think you can do the job? And I'm like, of course I can do the job. And they gave me a shot. Yeah. And I ended up being head of promotions for the Florida Division of Tourism. Yeah.

But I have to be honest with you, I was fired five of my first seven jobs, as I say in the book. And I just found that working for people was not for me. Right. And I didn't have, I couldn't play in the sandbox. But I really, really believe that if you think you're an entrepreneur, you want to start your own business or so forth, you need to work for other people for at least five years. Learn. Learn. Learn, learn, learn, learn.

Yeah. And I think in today's environment, because. as everyone is hooked on these little boxes, the phones, and the tablets. How are you really learning life experience that way? If someone makes you uncomfortable on an iPad, you click them off. But if a boss is really raising cane with you, you have to sit there and take it. And you have a choice. Walk, learn, and stay.

So today's environment, I think, is much different than when you and I grow up. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Next question. I'm ready for you. I agree on the job thing. You know, Reed Hoffman, the guy who started LinkedIn, he wrote a book about kind of his life.

And he had about the best approach to it that I've ever seen, which was he was a computer science guy in high school. He was lucky enough to grow up Silicon Valley area. So he kind of was in that ecosystem. So he knew he wanted to start a tech company one day. And he said, until I figure out what that is, I'm going to work for a couple of companies to learn from their leadership. Yep.

And I'm going to do sales for two years, marketing for two years, project management for two years, and something else. So by that time he was 30, he had all the experience he thought he needed to say, okay, I'm going to start my company. And that was LinkedIn. And you have to start somewhere. And if you look at guys in the entertainment industry, like Michael Eisner, who ran Disney for many, many years, he started off as a page at Paramount. and he learned every department within the company. Bob Eiger, same thing, started off in one division,

learned the other division. And he really become a value, and I think that's what's important, is that people become a brand of their own. And if you think of your own brand, and how am I going to build this brand and communicate it, you'll move forward. What's been interesting in this book,

because you mentioned Apple and Disney, when I was working for them, it was kind of easy because I was looking from the outside looking in and marketing them. Now that I have this book, which I'm not sure if I told you, it's available on Amazon starting next week just so you know. It's been real hard because I've become the brand. Yeah. It's been very good. How do I present myself?

Yeah. Without seeming egotistical, but seeming I need to sell a book. I want to really help people with a book. Yeah. And so forth. So it's been a really interesting challenge when you become the brand. It's different. It's very different.

Yeah. It's very different. Well, so it doesn't surprise me that you were destined to be an entrepreneur, you know, with your high energy level and your propensity to speak the truth, you know, without much sugar-coating, which... That gets me in trouble. Well, I mean, I discovered it right off the bat. After my first time with you, I said, either we're going to be really good friends or not friends at all.

I wasn't sure. So I think we're going to be good friends. I'm already a good friend of yours. So tell us about some of those jobs you had along the way before you went out and started your own thing. I have to tell you, they were very cool jobs, and I worked for very nice people. Yeah. It was not them. Yeah.

Tallahassee doing advertising for the state, which was a wonderful job to have because I traveled all over the world, shooting commercials for the state of Florida, and bringing the commercials, or I should say, showing them around the world. I worked for a company called ProServe, which was a blast because I was hanging out with professional athletes. And my job there was to create sports properties using our athletes. Yes. And so I was actually producing TV shows, the AT&T Challenge on ABC, the Kenny Rogers Weekend Classic. That was another ABC project. But I moved on from there. When I say moved on, I was asked to leave from there. Well, hold on. Hold on. I have a note on one of the pro-server, I think, that you were starting one of the first three-on-three national leagues, right? So the three-on-three league basketball.

It was really big at the time. Still is, but it was huge when it was starting. You were trying to find a sponsor who would sponsor the whole thing, and he thought it would be someone like, I forget, the athlete's foot, I guess, one of the big shoe chains. They were huge at the time. Yeah, they were huge. there's other ones, I forget what they're called. But anyway, and this, you know, my thing on sales, and we're always talking to the salespeople about go to the top, you know, talk to the owner, if you can, talk to the boss,

and don't be bashful about finding ways to have that conversation. Because they're protected people, but they would like to have a conversation with someone who's trying to help them grow their business, right? It's just hard to get that conversation. So the way this gentleman did it, he tried all traditional methods and some untraditional methods that didn't work. And finally, you figured out where his office was in the building. Yep, in Atlanta.

And you rented a blimp. And you had to blimp circle the building for three days with your message saying, I'm Greg, take my call. I'm going to help you make money or something like that. I need to talk to you. I have a great idea. And it was an electric blimp. The type of they flowed in baseball stadiums and so forth, got going around.

on top until finally we were escorted off three, four days later. But his senior vice president called and said, well, we get that you're Greg Bennett, and you want to talk to us. What the hell do you want to talk to us about? And it really was the largest three-on-three basketball tournament that ever was created. We went 58 states, hundreds of thousands of people came to watch, lots of players. And then it became Pizza Hut Hoops 3-on-3 presented by Pepsi. But they're both Pepsi co-com.

Yeah. Great event. But you were talking about sales and you can be as brash as you want if you're a salesperson. Yeah. But you better be able to deliver. Yeah. That's the key. Yeah.

And I think two key elements is that you better understand what you're selling and you've got to love what you're selling. And if you look at the most successful companies, Apple, and you look at the Disney, and Pixar, their salespeople, their marketing people, have a passion for what they do. They're just not filling a slot. They're filling a passion. And people pick that up. Yes.

People really pick that up with who you're selling to. Yeah. And I think that probably goes to some of the timidity in sales is if salespeople aren't confident enough about, like, finally getting to that owner of that business of athletes' foot, what am I going to say to him? Yeah. Versus, I want to help him deliver a million dollars a year to his bottom line,

doing it this way. And, but I just love, I love the fact that you wouldn't give up and you tried some crazy stuff. Because, I mean, let's face it, if they never called you, or if they just hauled you off in the property and told you to leave, so what? Next. Yeah, next. Next? I'll find somebody else.

You go to the next place and ask them. But they were, by the way, my, like, four. shot because I did get turned down by Reebok. I did get turned down by L.A.G. I did get turned down by L.A. Adidas. And it was frustrating because it was a great property. And I think it made a good point about you can help companies out. But rather than just selling and talking, because word salad is a big word today, a big statement, you really have to understand who you're selling to. Why can you help them? Why can you sit down in front of a CEO and say, I can help your margins by this much because I know this is how you're doing it and so forth.

Let me just do a test. You don't have to own a whole country. Just work with the state. Right, right. But you better be prepared. Right. You have one shot. Yeah, yeah.

And it doesn't have to be complicated. Not a complicated pitch. Steve Jobs says simplicity is the greatest form of sophistication. Yeah, yeah. I truly believe in that. I remember his pitch, at least what I read, his pitch to Mick Jagger. when he went to pitch him on, being the first one on the, I guess, the Apple Music. Yeah.

And it makes like, well, why would I do business with you? And he goes, well, he goes, you can give your music away on the internet for free. Yeah. Or you can let me sell it. And we'll, you know, I'll give you 70% of the money. Yeah. He's like, okay, let's do it. You know, I mean, that's...

He had nothing to lose. Right. I mean, he's either going to fail quietly where it's going to make a shitload of money. Am I allowed to say that? Of course you are. Of course you are. Yeah. I don't know if we're on network TV.

Oh, that's cool. Another story I wanted to ask you about. I'm sorry, these stories are so good. I was going to read this whole book this morning. I was just going to skim it. And it's so good that I only got halfway through it because I had to really read it. But it is so funny. But somehow you horn swoggled your way.

This is before you started your own thing. You were trying to get a job somewhere. I can't remember where it was. And you used one of your resources to get you with some big muckety muck somewhere. and the guy was treating you like a dog. He was like, just wait out here or sit right there or whatever. And finally he says, what do you hear for? And you're like, I'm a copywriter, a good one.

He goes, you're a good one, I'm a good one. They said, all right, we got 30 minutes to come up with a jingle and a tagline for it was bubble gum, only for nuns. Made by nuns, made by nuns for nuns. Yeah, his name was Glenn Varell. He was president of BDA, BDO, one of the sweetest men I've ever met in my life, mega ad agency. And I knew this is really what I want to be doing. I thought they had walls full of awards and really cool music and gorgeous floors.

And he said, can you write? And I said, oh, yeah, I'm the best. Yeah. Yeah. You got 30 minutes to write a commercial. I know. He goes, let me think. a bubble gum made by nuns for nuns,

and he better come up with a great tag. And that's what happened. And it was, the name of the brand was called Divine Shoe. Divine Choo. Divine Choo. The tagline was, taste as if the Lord is in your mouth. Now, it was a little risque.

He thought I was a little off the wall, but he says, you're in advertising. And they hired me. Yeah, and made you a rover, right? They made me a rover. Yeah. Most accounts, copyrighters usually work on one or two.

accounts. He made a job for me that I worked with all the accounts when they needed humor or something a little bit different. So I was able to work on Miller Beer, Chevrolet, Delta. And it was just a blast. It's all I can say. I really thank him a lot for it. I love the question because it gives you a chance to prove that you're a great copywriter. And I read, you know, the whole thing in the book, it goes through the whole, you know, shoot and, you know, what the, what the camera's going to be doing and everything. So it's amazing. And I know Elon Musk does that when he interviews people.

He gives them a task. And I think Jobs used to do that too. He doesn't ask, like, you know, what school do you go to? He's like, can they build a rocket or can't they? It's kind of what they want, what he wants to know. You know what's interesting about it? I found being on the agency and having agency business, it's a business you have to take care of.

I have employees, you know, insurance. My wife, Julie's here. She was my CFO and H. It sounds like it's a lot of fun on one side, but on the other side, it's serious business. You're dealing with a lot, a lot of money. Yeah. And being on the agency said, I was able to look at these big companies and say, boy, this is a messed up company. Yeah.

Or this is a phenomenal company. And one of the things I found was at Apple and Microsoft, they don't hire for the job. They hire for the company. Mm-hmm. So HR plays a key role, and they say, can this person start off here, but then move into this department and move into that department? So they're thinking 10, 12 years down the road because people are in an investment. Right. I don't know if it's halfway today anymore because of working from home, the technology, the thoughts of AI.

But at the end of the day, it's all about people. I truly, truly believe that. Yeah. It's all about the human being. Yeah. And we can't move side of that. I agree. I agree.

Yeah. Hiring people, you know, right out of school that you can see with your company, building with your company for a long time. I think it's wonderful. Okay. So I had to ask that question. I just love that. I'm on a role now.

I know. I guess I got another one. I got another one. Okay. I got another one. I don't know where this is in your career, but at one point, I think you and Julie were flying some, yeah, y'all were flying somewhere, and you were in first class and somebody had an epileptic seizure and was choking on a shrimp at the same time.

Correct. And nobody, including everyone just sat there. The stewardesses, nobody did anything. And finally you're like, oh. And you went up there and saved the day. And the guy was still not recovered because he, I guess he had a seizure. So he was still kind of hazy. He was gray, clammy gray, eyes rolled up behind his head.

Glenn. Glenn, that's right, Glenn. We'll forget Glenn. Yeah. And didn't the pilot come out and talk to you and say, can this man fly on to wherever you were going or should we turn around? And you had to deal with him? That came down.

That was a few minutes after. Julie and I were flying to my cousin's wedding in New York. We were going from L.A. to Newark. And this guy starts gasping and the arms are going up. And I didn't know if it wasn't a funny movie that we were watching, so I know he wasn't laughing, so something was going off. She gets up says, my husband's choking. My husband's choking. Please help.

No one's helping. So I said, I might as well do something. So I get over there and there's Glenn who's, actually, he's a big guy like you, actually. Glenn was a big boy. And I went to do the Heimlich maneuver because she said he's choking, but I couldn't lift Glenn. So I asked the guy that's sitting behind Glenn here. come here, and it was like a comedy. And he turned out to be a short little guy.

But thank God he was strong. We get Glenn up, and now you've got to realize that Glenn is now slouching in this little guy's arms. And now my arms are around the little guy, and now I'm pumping, pumping, pumping, poof comes a shrimp. Glenn falls back into his seat. Eyes are rolled up in his head. He's gray. So I asked the flight attendants get me some oxygen, and they're just standing looking at me. And I said, I need cold towels.

They stand there looking. Finally, I grabbed their neck, and I let them know what I thought of them and just get me the damn oxygen. They brought me the oxygen. Glenn starts to wake up a little bit, and he's really, really woozy. And everyone's standing up, so it was like,

it was pretty cool like I had an audience. You know, I didn't waste my time. So the pilot comes out and says, what do you think we should do? I said, look, I got to make it to Newark pretty quickly, but I don't think Glenn's going to make it to Newark. So he says, okay, we're going to land in Denver. So we land in Denver. We get down there, the paramedics come on there, questioning me what I did with my professional degrees of scuba diving to save this guy.

And as Glenn's leaving, I just slip on my card in his shirt pocket. Don't know why I did that. So Glenn has taken off the plane. We go to the wedding. Several months later, I'm in Hawaii on vacation, and I get a phone call. And he goes, you may not remember me, but this is Glenn. And I go, who is Glenn? Remember, you made us do a stop in North New Jersey.

I mean, excuse me, in Colorado. I said, well, yeah, Glenn, how are you doing? Turns out I ended up getting his business. He was president of Unoglob Travel. He wanted to thank me. He said, they're looking for an agency. I said, I'm always looking for an agency. I just think it's, I mean, so many reasons that's a great story.

But one of them is, you know, as we talk to younger salespeople, you know, you've got to always have your, you know, your ears on for business. And, you know, why you put that, it might have been, your brain might have been thinking, maybe he'll call me and tell me how it turned out. Or maybe he'll be thankful. Maybe he knows someone he could do me a favor. I mean, I think that's where it was going. I don't know.

I just wanted to know how he is because genuinely I'm that way. I really want to know how people are. I want to make sure they're okay. But you really made an interesting point that is coming, it's bubbling up in my head every day. You said the word, listen. Yeah. And salespeople need to listen like there's no tomorrow today.

Yeah. Because once again, it goes back to the, I just getting frustrated. with technology in a way. If you don't want to hear what it's saying, you click it out. You click it out. But if you listen and listen to what's going on around you, listen to subjective opinions, if you listen to what the client needs,

that's the big one. What are you telling me you need? Make sure they understand and then sell them. Don't sell them blind. Yes. But listening has become a lost art. I agree. And it just means that people who can listen can do a lot.

better. Like back to your example of the person with the big chain of shoe stores, you know, understanding their business and how sponsoring this three-on-three thing could help them, you know, and the association with Nike and all their customers, basically, I mean, they're suppliers. Well, that's an interesting point because it was a lot of things were going on there. I wanted someone to underwrite the event with big bucks, and athlete's foot did it. But why did Pizza Hut come in? Which is really, it's a different dynamic. You have shoes and you have pizza.

At the time, Pizza Hut was coming out with their home delivery service from their, what they call them, the red roofs. So how could we went to Pizza Hut and said, we can help drive more pizza deliveries. So in each market we were in, they were getting discount coupons to enter teams to the tournament. So Pizza Hut said, it's going to help us drive our business. It wasn't because I was a nice. guy and have blue eyes I didn't want to do it. Right. It had to drive pizza.

Right. So that was key. Yeah. It's so key. And so many salespeople and sales teams will say, John, show me some tricks and some best practices to get people to buy stuff. And, you know, just forgetting that the whole thing is finding people that really need what you have.

You know, there's no trick to that. That's just work and listening. Yeah. when we first met, we've both been around, I think, I want to say too long almost, but you can tell when someone is genuine, and you're definitely genuine. And I think if you're a salesperson, the day of the used car salesman is gone. That stereotype is gone. It's if you're genuine, that's going to cut through all this technology and social media.

The body, the brain just works that way. It's fight or flight. Right. If you scare me on what you're pitching me, I'm not involved. Right. But if I feel comfortable with the way you're treating me and I feel good vibes, I'm going to open up to you and say, tell me more about what you're talking about. Right, right, right. I'm interested.

I'll spend my money with you. Right. That's key. Yeah, it is key. And I tell people if you're not genuine and you don't come across as open and trustworthy, they won't tell you you're fired. They just won't call you back. Yeah. Right?

I mean, they're not going to say, oh, I don't think I like you. Get away. They're just going to say, at least down here, that's what they're going to do. They're going to ignore you. So that's probably why we liked each other immediately is figuring out that we're just going to talk to each other like human beings. It's a, yeah. So technology days really made it, I think, a totally, another area that I really pushed towards is if I think there's always going to be salespeople. Yeah.

That's just part of life. There's going to be people selling phone service. They see commercials all the time. Verizon, Inter Spectrum, they need salespeople, and that's wonderful. It's a living. But I think if you really look at what sales is about, it's really about, because I have a book I really want to talk about, not my book. By the way, it's on sale for Amazon next week. I don't know if I mentioned that yet.

That's free. Okay, good. This is a book I absolutely love. It's called Hoax Springs Eternal, The Psychology. of cognitive deception. It's by Peter Hancock. And he's a professor head of psychology at University of Central Florida. And when you look at how we are hard-wired for the time we were put on this earth, we have the five senses. And I think if you're a salesperson or a marketing person and you can incorporate those five senses into your pitch, if you can get all five,

that's great. If you can get three, that's great. but it sure beats just one. Just reading or listening. Let the other guys do that. But if you really want to get the deal, consummate a big project, study psychology, study public speaking, because I think that's what we're going to make a difference now. Great salespeople will. Yeah.

So give me an example of a presentation that would include all five senses. That's a good question. And I wasn't prepared for it. That's okay. But, I mean, it would be like, obviously, a video, talking, some music. I'll give you the perfect example of five senses. I'm going to sell you. You're going to open up an ad on Google talking about a loaf of bread.

Best loaf of bread they're calling it. Best loaf of bread you've ever seen, you've ever tasted. But you read it. Yeah. Other ads are going to come on. Time to buy airbirds. So that bread ad is gone. They just wasted their money.

Right. So now what we're going to do is you have the bread ad and you're going to be walking down the street. And there's an aroma. And you're going by that bread company's retailer. Man, that smells good. But I remember that ad, best bread in the world. Now I'm smelling it. Now I'm going to go into that bread company store.

Yeah. And I want to taste it. And you'll feel it. And touch it. Yeah. And it's warm. Yeah. Now you've used all your five senses.

You hear people talking in the store. It's really talking about how good the bread is. I've used all five cents. I will sell that bread at 100% rather than just relying on a newspaper ad or Google ad. So five senses. If you can put those senses into, and I call it the neural narrative, it's really allowing the brain to speak, taking advantage of the brain. It's pretty fascinating stuff.

Well, we had a guy one time he was coming to try to sell us his business which was located in Argentina. And he came to Greenville, Carlos Pilate, wonderful man, and he was going to do his presentation of his business, and he turned, he opened up the laptop, on the screen, hit the button, and the tango music started. I mean, kind of loud. I was like, I looked at the guy.

I'm like, my guy, I'm like, what is he doing? He calls it. Oh, in my country, the music. We always have the music. So, so, so. Okay, so then, you know, so he gave his presentation with the music. And he didn't really dance around the room, but he kind of did. It was kind of like he was moving and, you know, and we bought the business.

And it turned out to be great. But it was just, it was an interesting example, someone who did something more than the boring, you know, PowerPoint slide. There's just the power of smell when you're in a restaurant. Yeah. If it's like a pizza shop or something. and then you see it. Yeah. And then you just see the, the, uh, them making it in the oven.

That's three senses. You're going to buy pizza. Yes. We go sometimes to a place, a couple of places in Greenville, we'll have to go there some of that where you sit at the, the kind of the chef's bar and you're watching, you know, watching the chefs cook. So you can see it, you can smell it. And you're like, I want some of that, some of that, some of that.

Why can't you take that into sales? We should. That's what I'm saying. That's where's that. I need to do that, figure out how to do that. But I like it. I like the multiple things, but this is great. I think we'll start.

We should all read this book. I'll read it and we can have a book club lunch. There you go. But the point was, if people who are listening and they want to do better in sales, enhance their life of their own brand, is understanding the psychology of people. I've got so many questions. We're about halfway through.

So I'd like to get to when you launched your first business, how that went and just walk through some of your business, ventures since then. Okay. How old were you? I had just turned 30. Yeah. This is an interesting story because I had just turned 30. I was fired from my job. I was getting married in two weeks. So I called my wife and said, by the way, I don't have a job now. You still want to get married. And she said, considering my mother paid for the wedding, what the hell? And he seemed like a really nice guy, too, and he liked to work. So she chanced it. Yeah. 37 years late. How many years? How many years? has it been?

36 and a half. 36 and a half. Okay. So that's pretty good. It's pretty good. If I didn't ask her, I wouldn't know. So I was fired for my job. I had to do something, but what was interesting, I always wanted to be famous.

I wanted to be famous, I wanted to be known, except I can't play basketball. I'm a lousy dancer. I can't carry a tune. What the hell am I going to do? So I never forgot the 1984 commercial of Apple. of Apple. I thought it was extraordinary. It was only shown twice in its history, yet it's one of the most impactful commercials. So Super Bowl, what was the second time? When you're in the media business, you have to run it in a smaller market one time just for approval. And they ran it somewhere

like in Toledo, Ohio. Okay, just to check it? At two in the morning. Okay. Only twice. Okay. It was supposed to happen. So they ran it only once nationally. And I said, I know what I want to do with my life. I want to be able to write these commercials and have them on TV and say, you see, I did that. I could become famous vicariously through the stuff I have in the air.

And that's how I got into to really pushing writing and so forth. I got my first client with Evian Water, and it was just, I asked a guy, he was a friend of mine, and I said, would you be a client? mine, he goes, what are you going to do? I said, well, we'll sample water. He goes, how they held you sample water? It all tastes the same. That was a good point. So, but he let me do it at

a grocery store for $2,000. And then I had my first client, I announced to everybody that I had Evian water. Yes. They didn't know if I only had like two bottles of their water as a client, but it's Evian. Yeah. And then the, I got another smaller client. And my big break came when a general telephone in the West Coast called, no pun intended. And they said, do you want to pitch our business? Sure, I don't pitch your business. But you have to remember, by this time it had already done work for Pizza Hut. I'd done work for athletes foot.

I already had credibility as a marketing guy. So I had. It was pretty well established at the time I was 30 years old, by the way. I think, I don't know if I answered that. Went out to GTE, got that account. It was a million dollars, a million and a half dollar account. And I was shocked that I got it. And I asked Trina, I said, well, why did you give it to us?

She says, because you're hungry. And she said, you want to do a lot with my money. One account let to another. And within 10 years, we were doing close to over 200 million in business. Nice. We had about 48 million net revenue. But what was why the success, we're competing with a lot of big agencies. We were going against Shiat Day.

We're going against Leo Burnett, the biggest agencies in the world. But what I did is we, what the agency did is we said, we're going to, first of all, going to Hispanic marketing because of my Hispanic background. No one was doing that at the time really. And we were doing Hispanic promotions, in-store promotions. We were doing TV commercials, original commercials in Spanish, when usually they were dubbed. So our growth grew into an area that I found a void for. But the clients at the time were GTE, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, doing their Spanish work.

They were impressed, and they said, you want to try some of our general market promotions. And I said, I can do it. And we started doing, and we just grew and grew. But why the success, it was that I always believed that it can't be measured, it doesn't exist. So my pitch to clients was we're going to do something different. We're going to put the product and the brand in people's hands. And I'm going to measure everything that we do, from couponing to in-store sales, to retail sales, to impact, to unpack.

So they were, this was unheard of at the time, measurability, for God's sakes. Yeah. And we just grew. Yeah. And it was interesting because the people I had to hire came from the airline business, and you say, why the airline business? Because there's something called yield management. And the airline business people know, excuse me,

they know how much each seat has to be sold for. So we were going to clients and saying, for this project to pay off, we have to sell this many cases. And this is how many we have to put in store. Because once they're in store and then cap displays, we know how many they're going to be pulled out, being sold. So it was remarkable. So we ended up getting beer, Dan and yogurt, Nissan.

And it was the secret sauce. That is secret sauce. And then, you know, with your background growing up in Mexico City, that makes sense that you would lead that type of marketing. But what was the moment? When was that moment when you're like, I think that we could probably help normal or typical American brands segment this market, and then I would be the right person to do it.

When did that happen, and how did you get that first client? We started off with, as I told you, the Hispanic marketing and those relationships. And there was never, as I say, an aha moment. we were talking earlier about how a shark is always just always moving. Yeah. And it just came very organically. We had a lot of clients that were doing their unilever Spanish. They said, we'll do our general market.

And we segued into it. It wasn't that I came up with a great idea. Okay. But it was relationships. Yeah. That is so key if you're in sales. The relationship is key. Yeah.

And they trusted you. Did the people, let's say Procter & Gamble, was the person heading up there? Spanish marketing, Hispanic marketing, were they fluent in Spanish? Most of them were. They were. Most of them were. They were Latinos, spoke Spanish, knew the culture somewhat.

But knowing, I knew the culture very well growing up in Mexico, but also the diversities within the culture is you have Cuban, you have Dominican, you have an inswellan. Right. You just because you see Spanish, you're not Mexican. Right. So that was key because each market was so. segmented. Walmart, we helped Walmart

helped their displays because they really were, the spatic market was big to them. And we started saying, no, you can't sell that kind of product here, you have to sell it. That you do in Texas, but you don't do that in Miami. Yeah. And so forth. Yeah. So we became an invaluable partner to clients. Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. So you built that up for how long before you, did you sell that business?

Sold that in 2000. And how old were you then? Well, I was 30 when I started. I think I was like around 40. Yeah, so 10 years learning your craft, basically, 10 years building your first business, you sold it, and then what did you do? Can I touch you on something that you said?

It was a craft. And I think as a salesperson, because I know your focus in business as sales, is it takes a while to build a craft. It takes a wall to really paint that painting of sales. Right. You just don't get out and do it. It took 10 years to really say, I love pitching.

I know how to pitch. This is how I'm going to do it. I'm prepared to do it. It didn't come in the first year, second year. Right. Yeah. It takes time. And after 10 years, I was feeling pretty good about it.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's the same in a lot of areas like, Wenton Marcellus. I'm going to ask him. He had a musician. Yeah, he said, what's the hardest part? about becoming a jazz musician. He said the first 10 years, you know.

Because after 10 years, it becomes fun because you kind of know what you're doing. But the first 10 years are practicing scales and your sound doesn't sound right and all that stuff. So you just can't get over it. And I think I tell young salespeople, if you'll do what we're talking about here for 10 years, you're going to do great. No, it's true. It actually as a kid, I was very shy. I was very, very, very, just didn't. talk to a lot of people, is very shy.

When I found what I love to do is when you come out of the shell. Yeah. And it became a passion. Right. That makes sense. And it was never, I'm nervous, I have stage fright. So if you love what you do, I think it's so much, and be yourself. Yes.

I think that's the definition of freedom, is that you can be yourself. You know, you can just legitimately be yourself. And if you find that thing you love to do and you get pretty good at it, it leads to a pretty happy life. Yep. So you sold your business. That's a happy moment, I'm sure. What did you do after that?

You were in your early 40s. Well, I stayed on to the company that bought me for three years and became the chief integration officer because they were a holding company called Aspen Marketing. And I think they bought 23 companies. Wow. And they were all bean counters who bought the companies and they know anything about marketing, which was quite scary. So I stayed on and I integrated the 23 different companies.

It was really a bittersweet moment because I think it's also one of, I hate to say, the biggest mistakes I made in my life was selling my company. When they bought us, we had a phenomenal culture. Just people loved working for my company, Luna McCarty group. They were like family. And they were not going to touch you. we love what you're doing. You're like the greatest thing.

What they were doing was they were also taking my cash flow and putting it into buying other companies. And they started to get very cheap. And I was always take clients to Las Vegas, buy them golf clubs. And you know, it's not, and I want to sort of clarify that, I felt very fortunate at the time that I was making the kind of money that I was. I never thought that. but I had my clients I had a client who we went golfing

and he said had cerebral palsy their child had cerebral palsy and he looked at my golf clubs and said I wish I could buy you I wish I had that set of clubs and I sent them a set of clubs like mine and I think that's

it was never about influencing clients but if you listen to them if someone loves jazz music a new album comes out. Buy it for them and send it to them. Thoughtful. Just be thoughtful with your clients. That's the greatest

sales. That's the greatest keeping that retention. It takes work to have a relationship. It does. It does. It does. It takes work to have a friendship. It does. And listening and being thoughtful goes a long way a lot more than just sending someone or gift cards or money or something like that.

Okay, so you stayed on. I can't believe you lasted three years. It wasn't a happy three years. I didn't say I was happy. And then in the middle of that, when I sold my company, 9-11 happened. And I was up, it's in the book that I was actually supposed to have breakfast at eyes on the world, I think it's called. The top floor. The top floor. And I never tell Julie when I'm traveling, she knows I'm going to be in Chicago or New York or I'm staying at the Ritz or wherever.

Holiday Inn. Not holiday, no more. Ritz. And I said, you know, I've never been top of the world. And right next stores, the new Aspen agency they bought. I kept telling her about they had a shark tank in the middle of three stories. I can't wait to visit it. And I was late to the, I was late to breakfast.

I couldn't get a cab. So I had to take the subway. I got off two streets too soon. Had I been on time, I would have been in. So you saw it. I saw the first plane. Wow. Oh, my gosh.

The 757. It was like right over a head, saw it go right in. Gosh. But Julie thought I was in the tower. Oh. Because I was supposed to be there having a breakfast. You don't seem like a person who's late very often either. No, I'm always early.

Yeah, that's probably the one time. I'm glad that happened. But in New York City, everyone loves to walk. And if it's beautiful, I couldn't get a cab. It was like, this is ridiculous. Something's going on here. Well, I'm thankful. Gosh, I'm so thankful.

That was a rough day, but I'm glad you were spared from that. So to answer your question, if memory serves me right, you asked what I'd do after that. I started a company called I kind of, no, excuse me, oh branded entertainment. Okay. And what we started to do was just we got into the branded entertainment space, which was very new at the time. and I always wanted to get entertainment because I just thought it was sexy. Advertising, entertainment, I'm going to entertainment. And we were very fortunate that I was able to work with talent agencies,

worked with their clients, and once again it was all about moving product. And this was the time when not product placement, but is actually integrating a brand into the show. They become a part of the storyline. like FedEx and Tom Hanks and Castaway are the BMW films. Those are great branded entertainment examples. And once again, niche market.

Nobody was really doing it. And that company grew, got a lot of press on that. I'm not sure I even know what that is. Branded entertainment. You know, years ago, and they still have it today, you could have Jerry Seinfeld drinking a Coke. and that's just product placement. Okay.

If the brand is in the movie, someone paid money for it to be there. The brand actually becomes part of the movie. There's a reason why it's there and the consumer doesn't feel that they're being shoved in advertising. So early on, if you remember, the James Bond movies,

BMW came out with their new Z3. That was a car he was driving. They never mentioned the Z3. He didn't say, look at my Z3. He was just getting in it and driving like no tomorrow. People said, my God, that's a cool car. That's branded entertainment. Okay.

So your business was getting BMWs connected with movies and getting paid to do that? Correctly. And also, we would do concert tours. And back in the 80s, Rod Stewart could go on concert and, let's say, Butterweiser would pay $30 million. Now the 90s come around, and the Binky's coming. encounters are saying, how am I selling more beer at the end of the day? That was an earthquake in California. They were used to getting the checks. So they came to me and said, because my background being in packaged goods and so forth, how can I move more Budweiser and justify 30 million

for Rod Stewart? That's when we started doing sweepstakes and promotions and impact, on pack end dollar displays because every time there's an end dollar display, that means public has to buy more beer. Right. But Publix is benefiting it because we're pushing people there because there's discount tickets. Right. Or sweepstakes or something.

Or sweepstakes. But we're getting the beer out of there. We're getting the beer in. We're getting the beer out. So we were able to music tours. We did red carpet events and put brands in movies. And then CBS came calling. I think it was

When did CBS come calling We went to New York? 2008 by then 2008 Okay Julie knows everything And CBS said Do you want to start a branded

Entertainment Agency at CBS They made You know the godfather said We're going to make you a deal Yeah You can't refuse They did

Nice So I packed my shit up And went to New York Yeah I made a California boy Yeah And we had shows like Entertainment Tonight, Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, Inside Edition. So I'll give you an example of branded entertainment on Inside Edition.

Geico was using the Caveman at the time. And Inside Edition was more of a new show, highbrow news and so forth with Debra Norville. So we thought, what could I do with Geico? They came to us and said we want to be in one of your shows. So what we did is. every Thursday, do you remember Andy Rooney? Yeah, of course. Sixteen minutes?

Yeah. Always complained about everything. But in a fun way. So we made an Andy Rooney segment within inside edition with a Geico Caveman. Nice. And people knew who it was. Yeah. And he talked about why is it, uh, uh, with the, oh, uh, camp day, you know, summer camp

day is in September when kids are our school, you know, when they're there in June. So that's what Brandon Entertainment was about, putting them in a show and it had a lot of fun. So you would find GICOs, put them in a CBS show, and get another revenue stream for CBS. Correctly. Okay. So that would be another revenue stream. But they had, first of all, it wasn't just a fee. It was fee plus 10% because they were not going to.

to be doing a commercial because they were going to be in the show. So we would charge them the commercial, the integration, plus a 10% penalty for not doing an extra commercial. Right. So it's a big moneymaker for them. That's great. Yeah. So you did it successfully on your own, and then they gave me the offer you couldn't refuse.

You did it for CBS for how long? I think four years. Four years? And is that about when you moved here? No. We stayed in New York. I'd left CBS. It was really tough, very, very tough business to be in.

I call it the most physical business I've ever was in. And after four years, it happened again. Yeah. They said, there's the door. And I said, that's fine, but where's my severance? Yeah. So, but the newspaper said we parted amicably. Well, that's good.

No, they threw me out of my ass. It wasn't good. Well, they probably paid you well to leave. Yeah. Yeah, well, you're... They did a job on me. It's tough to be such an entrepreneur to last very long in any kind of business. And that's such a big business, my goodness. Les Moonvest, the chairman at, before they bought the company, he said,

I'm going to give you, tell you a piece of advice. And he said, smartest people that work for CBS are not in CBS. I didn't know what that meant. I did four years later when I realized that. If you're a consultant to them like I was when I was at O Entertainment, they think you're so smart. Yes. You got to figure it out. The second you become an employee, they come after you. The politics start. You're not so smart. Everybody wants a piece of you. I never forgot that. Yeah.

That's a good point. It's a real advantage to have, you know, I mean, there's kind of a fine line between being a full-time employee somewhere and being an entrepreneur. And somewhere in the middle, you can kind of be doing a job for maybe three companies. You know, and you're not really a wild entrepreneur or anything, but you just have three companies you work for. And you kind of have a lot more control then. You do have a sense of control. But to that point, someone goes, you're so lucky, you work for yourself. I said, no, I don't.

I got 20 different bosses. Right. I got to keep 20 people happy. Instead of one. Instead of one, I got to keep 20 people happy. Yeah. And they let you know, by the way, when they're not happy. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. When they're signing checks like that, they let you know. I can only imagine. I've been spared working for a big company, so I think I'm lucky. They were not easy. All right. So that ended. and did you move to Greenville after that?

No. No. Back to California or did you? Stayed in New York for a period of time and started a new company iconoclast. Okay. Brand marketing, entertainment. And that was both L.A., New York,

so it was a commute kind of job. And then at the time, my father was just about 95 years old. And I'm very close to my dad. And after all these years of just being on my own, being in California, really having my own life with Julie. And my dad's my best friend, he needed me. So I moved reluctantly to California, excuse me, to Florida, and was able to spend five years with my dad while still running a company, which was not easy at all. Because unless you're in the fight, you're really just sort of out of the picture. but we survived.

But at the time I was, I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm doing this. And now that my dad is gone, it's the greatest thing I ever did. And because I know he appreciated it. He did everything for me when I was younger. Yeah. So when you say you're not in the fight, does that mean like in the advertising world, you should be in New York or L.A.?

You have to be where your business is. Yeah. All the buyers are up there. The buyers are New York. The clients are New York. They're in Los Angeles. Nothing is really happening in Florida other than fishing from what I saw. Well, that's what I am.

They make orange juice down there. There is orange juice. And I can't speak much about that. There's a little theme part down there. Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you, and then we can get to the... I'm on a roll. You're on a roll.

You're doing great. Okay. You mentioned a couple times having to deal with difficult people, particularly when you were the employee and not the entrepreneur. And one of the things you said was, you know, sometimes you just got to realize that this happens sometimes. Some people are jerks. And you just got to just put your deflector shield out,

not fight about it, and just live to play another day. At some point, you have to pull the plug and tell them no thanks anymore. And there was one example of that in your book. But I want to ask you, like what we talk about with salespeople is early on, a first conversation with a new prospect. If they're already acting like jerks at the beginning, if they're like, how long is it going to take? Why should I be talking to you? I've heard your company's no good. If they start that way, I'd tell them just pull the plug right then.

The odds are that relationship is not going to grow and get a lot better. I don't know what you thought about that. Well, if you start a relationship, that way, it's not when you really want to get into. And I agree with you. But I'm always, I want to get the damn deal. I really do. Yeah. So to be berated and be treated like dirt with no respect, that's something not good for you.

Yeah. And not good for them because they're just jerks. But I would always write them a note, though, a month later. Hey, I was thinking about that great meeting we had. You know, this is what I'm doing now. Because the worst thing is that they're not going to respond to you. Yeah. But I wouldn't put all my eggs in that one basket if they're just being asses.

One time in my life when I was really a young salesperson, I just would call everybody a million times, this guy was a jerk. I mean, jerk, jerk, jerk, you're no good. We don't want to do business with you. But he would answer my call. So I kept calling him. And after about a year, he said, well, we've decided we're going to go with you guys. I was like, I almost didn't care anymore.

I was like, why? Why? After all this, why? And he said, you're the only guy who kept calling. He goes, nobody else would call me back. Persistency. And when he came back, it was a different tone. because he realized you are that intellectual property that he wants.

But in the book, and I'm not going to say it's on sale on Amazon starting in a week, because that would be the fourth time. I'm not going to say it. There's a chapter I think you might have read that this gentleman from Dial, I couldn't use his real name, came to Los Angeles. And he was a really important client. He was the number two marketing guy. And we were shot going around Rodeo Drive walking around.

And there's a shop that he looked. like Hugo Boss suits. And I say, you know, I shop here all the time. If you need a discount, we can get you something in here. I was offering the discount. Yeah. I was offering entree to the discount. Yeah. The son of the bitch made me buy him, and I say that loosely, he made me buy

him a suit, a pair of shoes, sports jacket. I was in close to $2,500. Now, I could have said I'm not buying it, or I could have said, I think you're a jerk, you're rude. And I had to think about, they pay me a lot of money. I work with a lot of other people. I have an office to support. I like doing the work.

Bite your tongue. And just take him back to the hotel. Shake his hands, wonderful. He never sent me a thank you note, by the way. Right. That was really rude. That's a very interesting conundrum you're in there. I mean, if you're listening,

And if it's your money, let's just say this customer is putting $50,000 a month in your pocket. And this guy just says, hey, can you get me a new suit for $2,000? You know, the church boy in me says, well, of course not. I'm not going to do that. But, you know, the capitalist in me says, 50, 2, that's 48 for me. I'll take it. Yeah. You know?

what we're most proud of is when I talked, I'll go back to Julie again. We said, you know, we could have buried that in his media budget. He wouldn't have known. And we said, that's not us. Right. We're not going to be like him. Right. Right. Right. But you have those, those instances in business, and that's why I think relationships are strong. I think mutual respect is incredibly important when you do sales. Yeah. Because we're all going to make mistakes too in a relationship. And if there's that friendship, they're going to know you're earnestly going to, make it better. You didn't learn out to hurt them. Okay, let's start to wrap up here. I want to know after, you know, Mexico City, Florida, L.A., New York, God

knows where else you've lived, how did you end up on Greenville, Greenville, South Carolina, where we are? We came here to visit, I think, in 2010, 2013. When would we come visit the first time? 10. 10. Hi. See, she knows the dates. To BMW driving school. And all I knew about Greenville is I fly over at a hell of a lot between L.A. and New York.

That's all I know, and I've seen it at the airport terminal, Greenville. And we were standing out at the Reedy River at the bridge, and Julie goes, we're going to live here one day. I think I could live here. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding, Greenville. No way. We came back a couple more times for the driving school and got into the city. And it was time to leave my father and sort of continue my life. And we didn't want to go back to New York because what's happened to New York,

just the drama that goes there in L.A. is just so totally changed. So let's look at Greenville. And we walked down Main Street and walked Paris Mountain. And we went to restaurants, and we went to the Swamp Rabbits came. We went to the baseball state. And we go, this is really cool. Good.

This is really, we're in a bubble. And to this day, Julie and I, with what's going on in the world, we are lucky to live here in this cocoon. Yeah. And it seems like we feel safe here. Good. Very cool town. We're delighted you're here.

Well, thank you. I love to be here. Yeah. Now, I was going to ask you your favorite book. Is this your favorite book other than this book available on Amazon next week? No. That's your book? Well, my book is obviously my first favorite book.

Recently, I read a book that I think was just fascinating, and it was called Shoe Dogs by Phil Knight. Yeah. And most entrepreneur books that I've read could have been by Eisner or other leaders and so forth. They're sugar-coded. Like, I read one book where he says, I was a party, but I didn't drink. You were a party and he got drunk, come on, but the persona.

And Shoe Dog talks about all the suffering he did to be a salesperson, to be an entrepreneur, and how many times he almost went bankrupt, how many times he cried. And to me, I said, this guy's just put his heart on his sleeve, and I was just enthralled with that book. Okay. You have to read that one.

I've heard it's good. I'd have to read that one. But I read a lot of other books like that, and people, I think, should read books outside of their industry because you learn so much about something that's not in your industry. Right. And bring it to what you do. Right.

Well, this one does have some great sales lessons in it. Thank you. Wonderful, out of the box. Put the business card in the diamond jacket. All right. What's your favorite band? Beatles. The Beatles.

That's so strong. And favorite word? Imagine. Imagine. Imagine. Imagine. Imagine. Imagine.

Imagine. Imagine. All right. So tell us about anything you want to promote today. You're going to talk about the book. You're going to talk about. What do you want to talk about? Well, the book is really why I liked it is because I have nothing to lose anymore.

Yeah. I can just lay it all. out, and that's what really the book is about. If you want to know what it's like to go through some mental challenges because of stress, this is the book. If you want to know what it's like to prepare for pitches, this is the book. You want to be the fly on the wall. Be careful you don't get slapped, but this is why I like the book.

It's not to tout me. It's to tout what it's like to pitch business and the psychology behind the pitching the business and so forth. The ups and downs, funny stories. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful book. It's a wonderful book. It's a why book.

So that's why I got a kick out of that. And other than that, you mentioned my foundation that the genius stage, genius change.org. And what we do is we work with professors and help get their IP out into the public. So it's not hiding in a file drawer. And we bring it to life because professors, are lousy at communicating their genius. Do you have a favorite school?

No. Not yet? We work. Well, I'm a little partial to, God, out in the UK, just totally forgot. Oxford? I don't know. No, University of Plymouth.

Okay. I work with them closely, great university. But I'm also working here. in Greenville with Prisma. And I'm working with USC. Good. With some of the doctors here. Good. By the way, the doctors here are amazing. Good. Medicine here? Off the charts, good. I'm glad to hear that. Probably need them one day. Well, it's good. Hopefully not, but they have great. Dr. Gluck created this cancer institute here. Yeah. One of the best in the business. Good. Good. Well, Greenville, as the spokesman for Greenville,

I must say, we're delighted that you're here. Thank you. And I would look forward to all. I'm forward to a long friendship. I hope everyone reads this darn book and we'll get you back in maybe in six months and kind of give us an update on the book and some of your speaking and different things you're working on. But we're glad you're here and we're learning a lot from it. Thank you. Thank you, man. I've enjoyed this. Thank you. It was a hoot. Yeah, it was a hoot. It was a hoot.