Noob School - The Jazz of Sales with Kevin Korschgen

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Today on Noob School, it's the last podcast of 2023 and we're joined by Kevin Korschgen - jazz drummer and music educator. Topics range from his time in Chicago, the music education system and how sales intertwined with his career, to his own education and how he fell in love with the world of Jazz. For all salespeople, aspiring or accomplished, you won't want to miss his story - especially if jazz music is your thing. Check out what the Noob School website has to offer: https://SchoolForNoobs.com 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 #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School. All right, well, welcome back to Noob School. John Sterling here, and today I've got a great friend, Kevin Korshian. Kevin, thanks for being here. You're very welcome. Yeah. So Kevin's relatively new to Greenville. He moved here, what, four or five years ago?

It's been eight years. Eight years. Eight years ago. And Kevin has many talents, one of which is he's probably the best jazz drummer in the area. also organized, he organizes some wonderful jazz events, big promoter of jazz in the area, and he sells nationally, he promotes jazz brands nationally through the very cool and hip jazz radio stations around the country. So, you know, I've gotten to know Kevin as a musician and also as a promoter and just been very impressed with the way he goes about his business and sells.

And I thought, you know, some of his skills might be interesting to all of us, even if we might not be in the music business. And so I ask Kevin to be with us today. So welcome aboard, Kevin. Glad to be here, Jim. Yeah. Well, before we get into where we are now, let's back up to the beginning so people can understand you a little bit better. All I know for sure, I think, is that you did grow up on a farm up in the Midwest somewhere. I grew up in a farm in northeast Missouri.

Missouri. And it's really, I want to tell you, in the middle of nowhere, if you can picture Quincy, Illinois, Hannibal, Missouri, where Mark Twain's from, we're up in probably about 20 miles off the river off Mississippi. Okay. And it's interesting. I went to a one room, my first seven years I went to a one-room country schoolhouse. The school had eight grades in it. One teacher taught all eight grades, and they're usually about 15 kids in the whole school.

So some years nobody was born, so it was nobody in that class. No running water. Is this a poor man's Montessori? Is that what just this is? He couldn't afford another teacher. I think it was one of the last ones in the country. I'd also let you know how old I am. Well, we're about the same age.

So, yeah, I grew up in a farm, and thank you. I was thankful that I did. I loved every minute of it. My parents got divorced and I kind of moved into, moved to Illinois, Quincy, Illinois, and then Jackson got Illinois. Went to college at the University of Wisconsin in O'Clair. They had a good jazz program up there. That's what got me there.

Okay, okay. And then after college, I moved to Chicago where my mom had moved to suburbs. didn't know what I wanted to do. So for probably, I guess it was about three years, I played some gigs, bartended, worked at Motorola, and then finally decided to use my degree. My degree was in music education. So I started teaching at a great school, Notre Dame High School for Boys, a great school run by the university, by the way.

So I taught there for six years. and then I went back on my master's degree in music ed and went into the city of Chicago to be a maverick really at Notre Dame we had really good jazz bands good bands and we would be at contest all the time and I'd never ever see a Chicago public school there so I went into the city to

see what I could do in urban education that's what I did most of my really that was my career and spent most of my adult life in Chicago. So back it up a little bit to college, you went for a jazz program. Was that just like a real highlight to get to play that much music? It was.

Interesting. You know, when you go to music school, you take one of two paths, and they kind of direct you there. You either are a performance major. And if you're not one of the better players, like I was not at the time, they push you into education. So there was a lot of playing. There would be a little bit more for your performance. Gotcha. Yeah, I played a lot.

And played in bands outside of it. I played in a polka band. I played in the hard rock trio, you know, and jazz. So, you know, you do play a lot. Yeah. It was wonderful. And so you eventually decided I'm going to take on music education in the public schools of Chicago. And what made you want to do that?

Because, I mean, I would imagine the Notre Dame High School. was a pretty sweet gig. It was a great gig. Catholic schools don't pay real good. So I went back to get my masters to try it up. And they don't pay into a pension. Okay. And I was thinking about that.

Thank God I was thinking about it. So it's more of a lifestyle choice if you want to teach there. And so the urban thing, I've always kind of had my hands been around Afro-American culture a lot. My ex-wife is black. She was a jazz singer. And so my son is mixed. So I've always like just the whole inner United Nations kind of approach. And so I think I would there again, I would see that these schools never showed up.

And so I've always had like an interest, not just in giving back, but just how does all that work? How do we? I can't say I wanted to go in better the world that much. I just wanted to get in there and get my hands dirty. So I could say this in the midst. In working in public schools, I've worked in some of the most. challenging schools and at the end our school for the arts and some of the most kind of elite too yeah so I've I've taught in for the whole spectrum so when you were in

the public school system sometimes you were in the regular public school system and sometimes you move to the school of the arts or something that was right at the end idea okay and so selling wise you know talk to us about the sales you had to do with on one side, the administration of the school, to be able to create these performances and travel and get more equipment. I'm sure they were always fighting for something. And then on the other side, to get the kids to buy into the program, that if they practice and come together as a team, we're going to win a championship and it's going to be good for them, that kind of thing. Right. Well, let me start with the kids.

And thinking about coming to talk to you, I was thinking, well, I've never really been a salesman in my life. And this is exactly what I thought. That's what we do as teachers we sell. And that selling to me through the years, it's about turning kids' heads, or what I like to call getting them bit. And I found there was for me in my life there was two approaches. And when I made one switch to the other approach, I became a better teacher. So the one I'm talking about is, in my life,

early years, I kind of modeled myself after a few people who were very successful, who were the hard-nosed, kind of mean, demanding. The old days I used to tease, joke about, they'd put the wood on you, you know. And in the Catholic school, it was strict. So I saw some modeling of that kind of like the hardline coach, Bobby Knight kind of thing. And my first years of teaching, and especially in kind of a rough school in Chicago, even at Notre Dame, I took that approach. And it had some success, but I didn't feel good about it.

And through a couple mentors, they weren't designated to me as mentors. I saw a different approach. And I actually totally, I think, turned myself around until the other approach became then inspiring. And I know that sounds simple. There was a quote, I was thinking of all this on my drive over. It was a quote I used to tell myself, not the kids. It came from a French ship builder, Navy, sailor. And it's a great quote you might want to look up.

It says that if you want to build a ship, just don't drum up men and women together would designate jobs and give orders, instead instilling them the love for the sea. and so that's kind of what I started to do. And I think the secret, and I think this is something you might get about sales. The secret was, I've seen so many great teachers, there's hundreds of different approaches. So you can be a quiet, shy guy, be a great teacher, you can be very charismatic like you, John. But depth and breath.

of knowledge is I found was the whole key. Because then that's what turned the kids heads when you lay something out to them that's kind of profound. They don't have to be, a kid doesn't have to be, you don't have to call them a deep thinker, but things that are really profound and right, maybe like with great coaching, you play basketball, when the coach can focus you on that gym. And so that's how I sold it to the students. That was so much more successful.

Yeah. Talking about the result or the in result or where they were going versus what they're having to do to get there? I would say the process. Process. There's another quote I used for the students by Abraham Lincoln. It was if he had eight hours to chop down a tree, it's been six sharpening the axe. And it's interesting.

if I used that at the right time, it made a difference. Interesting. So you did that, as I recall, it was a couple of decades, right? Oh, yeah. Three decades? I taught for about 26 years. Yeah, wow. And your wife also taught in the school system too, right?

No. No? No. No. I had that wrong. I thought she was a teacher also. Okay. So you then retired.

Yes. Whenever it was appropriate, somewhere around, you know, whatever retirement age is. I'm going to give away your age. But I remember meeting you after I'd seen you, like, at a jazz event. And I think you were sitting at the aloft hotel, like on your computer. and I walked up and introduced myself and said, I'd seen you at the thing, and of course we hit it off immediately.

But asking you, you know, because I like you so much in what you're doing for Greenville, how in the world did you end up here after that? And so I'd love you to tell the group how you and your wife chose Greenville from Chicago. Yes, we found it interesting travel log I don't know the guy's name. He's from New York.

He's bought a place and he's going to retire in Nashville. He had this travel log, online travel log for North Carolina and South Carolina through it. He went very systematic through all the little towns. The pluses, everything about the little towns.

And so we read through that. But then you get a phone call with him. You get a half an hour phone thing. And we called and we told him a little bit about what you thought. So he mentioned Greenville. That was one thing. But then the other thing is one summer, in the heat of the summer, I think it was August,

we made a little trip down. We visited Asheville, Charlotte, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, and then here. And this is where we chose. It just felt good. It felt smart. I mean, I could tell you, we put little, you know, the coding about all the other places. But this, for me, it was just kind of,

it just seemed smart and clean. So when you made your trip here or on the guide or something, did anything alert you to the jazz scene here? I went in line to see what was going on. And I saw a few, I, online I could find out that there was a Shannon Hoover. I found out there was Matt Dingledeen. And it was about it. It didn't look like there was a lot going on.

Yeah. Not like maybe a little bit more in Charlotte. Yeah. Charleston, but I studied that, but not a whole lot. Yeah. Not a whole lot. Well, as you know better than I do, there's a lot going on. Yes, there is.

You just have to know, there's no good guide for what's going on in jazz and Greenville, but there's a lot of different places and jam sessions. And of course, you know, the thing that Kevin's famous for in Greenville, or one of them anyway, is his underground jazz session. called, also called the wheel. The wheel sessions. The wheel sessions. Wheel sessions.com.

Wheel sessions.com. So I remember, I don't even know, I might have gotten like, got it sent to me on Facebook because I like jazz or something, but the first time it popped up and it said, you know, underground jazz at the wheel session, you know, this Thursday night, seven o'clock, you know, and it was like an undisclosed or a location I didn't know about in West Greenville and I went in

it was like a building there was nothing there was nothing on it you couldn't even see through the windows except for there was this old wheel on the door so I knew I was in the right place well let me correct you yeah the wheel

so just real quick it's a good story though it is the the sore front we're talking about is right next to naked pasta you used to be a gentleman yeah had creating your own naked naked pasta on this.

And so on top of the storefront of mine is a white wheel. And it's still there. So there was no wheel on the rugger door? Wasn't on the door. No, it's up above that building, a white, I don't know how it ever got there. I don't think that ever knew how it got there. So that's why we called it the wheel sessions. That's a crazy name.

But you walked in there, particularly the first time it was jaw-dropping because the chairs were all donated. They were all like mismatched chairs. It was Ed's Man Cave. Yeah. There was a couple of odd sofas in there and a few jazz paintings. And it was a mess. One little old bathroom for everyone to share.

And people just loved it. It loved something about the bohemian nature of walking, like what you would think a jazz club would be back in the old days. And so anyway, I'm sure I'll make more mistakes as I described. because this is just romanticizing it in my head. But Kevin works really hard to gather an eclectic mix of the best jazz musicians, mostly from the area. I'll say Charlotte, Asheville, you know, around Atlanta, some from Florida,

and then some of the best people from here and kind of mix them all together for these spontaneous, you know, sessions. Would that make sense? I think it makes sense. Yeah. I think in reality, we've never had a band. Right. It's always, like I would call John, and we might talk about who we want to play.

I'm always putting players who have not played together most of the time, or a few people who have not. Or they know each other. And then for that night, we just kind of decide what we're going to play, maybe a short rehearsal. Right. And almost always a short rehearsal beforehand, and then we hit it. Yeah. When he says short rehearsal, we're talking 10 minutes. Yeah, 10 minutes to 40, no more than that.

You had one last week with Ronnie Elliott, this wonderful young phenom, 14-year-old jazz guitarist. And I heard that for this young kid that the rehearsal was 10 minutes. About that, 15. We started a couple of tunes, and I would say, I kind of want to watch it. We started and said, that's good. What else do you? You don't want to waste it. You want to waste it, right?

And then after a couple, I just asked Ron, is anything else, anything you want to run? He said, no, I think I'm good. So, yeah, I just. Well, you know, I got to play with Ronnie once last year. And I'll always savor that because he's going to be famous musician one day. He is. Trading licks with Ronnie. That's right.

That's right. That's the bohemian. Oh, man. Well, that's part of the sales thing is I want you to take your time and describe how somebody moves. here from Chicago, doesn't know a soul, and creates this wonderful underground jazz program that's been going on for how many years now? Well, seven. Seven years.

Yeah, and you have a big mailing list, big Facebook following. So how do you, how did you go about what are the steps from not knowing a soul to getting that first gig done? Well, I would say it was step by step. And I never really started off to have it be anything much. it started off I could have called the sessions my Kevin's play dates

you know I just call some musicians and we'd split the door but then because I gave call it the wheel sessions I gave the first one a number that was good so now we know the next session's 1005

yeah so the first one went well and so let's so we did a second so it just kind of I would say it just built, gained momentum as it went. And as it's gone, maybe year by year, I realized, hey, man, you know, this is kind of happening more and more. But I never really had a grand plan.

You know, I've never maybe different than most of the people would be bringing it. I've never been a businessman. This is the first time I've created anything like this. So it was really just kind of learning as I went. As we got close to the 100, I knew it was coming, but I wasn't, you know, even all that aware. I thought it's going to come. And then it came. We had a really nice session for that.

And who was it? Sold out. Oh, my God, can I remember? I remember I wanted to use local folks. So Brad Jepson was on that, Tom Wright. Yeah. Peter Demery was on that. I think Shannon played bass.

I'm sure he did. And the only person not local probably was Philip Howell and piano. I think Philip played that one. He feels like a local. He feels local, yes, even though he's from Charlotte. So the steps were just small increments. I feel like we'd go up and we'd be there and then it would go up a bit. I think the reason it's been successful.

successful is maybe because we've remained small. It's really a one-man operation. And so what has happened, I think the reason it's worked, is because I get to curate it. Yeah. And somebody once told me, the secret is to just make great art. And so it's always been about the artist coming in and having complete license and creativity and what they want to do.

If you come in, we do what you want to do. Yeah. There's no time limit. You don't have to play the songs. There's no restriction. So I think the musicians like it. Yeah. And I think that's it.

It's everything, it stayed very clear what it is. Yeah. Even my mission I have is very clear. It's just to entertain and rich and enlarge your Greenville jazz community. And so I think that's why it's just never really grown just in size. in the size, but the brand has never changed. You know, how like when people come, for those of you don't know, people come to this location, this photography studio.

It would be like fine in this place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you walk in, it's like, and then you walk into the studio here, and it's amazing. You walk in where I have the sessions, people get seated. In 104 sessions, I've never told the audience, we'd like you to keep your voice down. Right. We start. You can hear a pin drop.

And so that brand has never changed. We put out beer and wine, and we take an intermission that's really all about the fellowship. The intermission, everybody's talking, everybody and people talking. So we've never changed that. You know, it stayed the same. I never thought about it. That's amazing because I've been to a lot of them, as you know, and there's never anyone like in the back talking or making a noise. Everyone respects what's going on.

They're there to hear the music. They are. And I think from the musician's perspective, so many. of your musicians, you know, they play weddings or bars or whatever, and they're like, well, you gotta start at 815 and you gotta stop it, and we don't want any of this, and we want these songs, and these guys just get to wail on it. Musicians are happy when they play the music, they're happy playing. I think the audience is happy.

If the musicians are happy playing what they're playing, you know, having a ball, then I think the audience is a winner. Yeah. You've done a remarkable job. remarkable job, making it a little bit better all the time. I think it's one of these examples, a lot of these folks that are, that are, that are, that our audience, you know, are entrepreneurs also, or they want to be entrepreneurs one day. And I try to help people understand that, you know, they very often see a business person

who's all of a sudden, like, really successful. And they're like, I want to do that. And it's more important that they understand what those. first five years are like as you start to build it. So if you've been doing it seven years, you know, if we fast forward plus 13, what does that look like? Maybe you got your own place by then. Maybe it's two nights a week. I mean, who knows? But you can't get there from here. You just got to get here. You know, you've got to keep incrementally moving it along with an occasional breakthrough that you probably can't predict. That's right. And I have a couple things in mind. I've just small little

ideas of such as I was thinking I might start a little series where I take the wheel sessions on the road so like I do one in Asheville because I use a lot of players

some up there maybe do one in Charleston I mean it would take a lot of connection but I think through maybe a non-profit down there or radio station you know help promoting it that's one of the things

I was thinking about doing and I feel like the quality of music we have has gone way out. I feel like, and that's the thing I'm probably most proud of, I think the musicians, because of what we have is so unique,

when they come in, I mean, they come in, it's time to go. You know, I think what the music we're presenting is pretty high level. So, proud of that. For anyone interested in this really cool underground, you ask thing, it's the wheelsessions.com? Or wheel sessions?

Wheel sessions.com. Wheel sessions.com. And then you can follow it or go on Facebook and follow it. And it'll tell you when these things are. There's no, it'll announce like, hey, it's next Thursday and here's the deal. It's kind of cool. So let's back up just for a second because I forgot one question. We talked about selling when you're a teacher to the students.

Let's talk about selling to the administration. How would you get them to let you do what you wanted? Success. I think put it like a coach the coach is winning they leave them alone okay most administrators don't much know too much about music education yeah and you know we live in it any teacher to tell you this we live at a time where they try to micromanage teachers because the results are so important it's kind of a common thing probably in business too you're wrestling with that yeah so for me they

pretty much left me alone because I was getting pretty not pretty good product. I think if your kids score high on, you know, if you're math teacher and your kids are scoring well, they're probably going to give you that freedom. Yeah. There were fights to get money. I mean, there were times I'd push for it. I guess I used more sugar and honey than I did fighting. In general, I had some, really good administrators. Good. So you found in that case you were delivering results.

Yes. And that's the way you got what you wanted. Yeah, I think that's it. Good. Well, it's nice when it works like that. That's good. That's good. That's excellent.

And then sticking to the music theme, tell us about your promotional work. And I think the way I understand it is somebody hired you or pays you to call. the jazz radio stations around the country and promote certain new jazz CDs. And because with your background, you can explain to them, this is that, this is, whatever. Can you tell us about that? Yes. So there's a lady Kate Smith promotions.

Actually, she's been kind of a good friend of my mom for some time. And Kate had a great jazz club in Chicago. She had a place called the Bob Shop. But Kate, some years ago, started this business. And I've worked for her now for about two and a half years. What she does is she'll take, such as yourself, say you have a CD, you would come to her as a client and you have a new CD and then you'll pay her and we will get it played in radio stations across the world, actually, country in the world. So we are a CD promoter, a project promoter. And so what I do is she'll give me a list of DJs to call.

I call and email DJs across the country, some in Europe, and try to, the most important thing is try to build a relationship with them. And you're right, because I'm a musician. It takes time. Yeah. I have great respect because, you know, you, this backtales dovetails in something you once told me, unless I learned from you. There's been people I call and they never respond. and rather than get upset by that, I may be called again.

And out of the blue, they'll call. Like, just you told me what happened. And they'll say, oh, Kevin, yeah, I'm in meaning to respond to you, but I never did. But I think by being a jazz musician and the fact that we sell jazz recordings, that gives me an empathy or whatever you would call it with them,

that does help. I feel like I'm just now getting better or relatively maybe good at it, not great yet. Are these all jazz only stations? Oh, man, it's so interesting. No. Some of them, a few of them are. There's WBGO in Boston, which is, I think, almost 24-7. One of the things that surprised me when I grew up and I used to listen to jazz DJs,

they'd be on every day, five days a week for maybe a three-hour show. Now a lot of these guys have one show a week for two or three hours. The scene has changed. The rest of the time, is it just rolling jazz? Sometimes they buy a station, a show. Some guys sell their shows. And, of course, now, especially since COVID, a lot of them don't go in the studio. So some of the guys are transitioning to digital rather than the hardcore hard CD.

Tell us about selling to these people, breaking through to a DJ and getting them to play your music. I try not to bug them. Kate, my boss, would, I'll tell you this because it's kind of like probably relates to what you think. She would like me to sell harder, I think. But I'm very conscious that I don't bug somebody. So I try to, for me, that's kind of the line. That's kind of my personality. So I try to do that line.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, for me, disappointedly, very few guys pick up the phone and talk to you. And that's a change that Kate's seen in the last five years or so. So a lot of it is emailing. But what I do is I don't send a group email. I'll send individual ones. So it takes some time to kind of like. So through that and the conversation,

Once I get them on the phone, once I get through a little of the initial thing, then we have, I mean, I have some nice relationships with, I mean, guys, I can't wait to wait, anger, couple women, that I can't wait to meet someday. Yeah. You know, we talk about getting together when I come in. So when they play it, then you get a report that says they played it? It's another learning curve. I always assume that everything was played on the radio station is reported to us. specific place. It's not that way.

There's a college station. There's a thing called Jazz Week, which is a magazine that keeps a poll. There's Jazz Week reporters. Some of the guys do that. That's the one we like. There's one called Spinetron. It's a couple new ones. Some guys don't report.

Some guys will print out their playlist and send it to Kate. Other people will just tell me, yeah, I played it. We have to go with that. So, of course, the people we represent, the whole thing is about getting that data back to them so that they know they were played how many times they were played at this station, how many plays they got,

how many possible plays they got. So at the end of the promotion, Kate will give them the readout that gives them all that information. And she is good. I mean, she's meticulous. But that's one of the hard things. And she and another gentleman do that,

they do that accounting. I just do the sales, so to speak. But they do that gathering of that info. But I thought it would be a more cut and dry process of their reporting, but some of them, you know, don't report it at all. What would you say the number one jazz station in the country was? Oh, well, that's up. Maybe W.BGO.

Okay. There's one in Washington, D.C. that's called Jazz and Justice. It's got three DJs on there that are old school, and they've been to business for years. Like, for instance, a guy named Rusty Hussein. And he's interviewed everybody. And I remember the first time nobody had gotten him, and I caught him.

I noticed his show was on Thursdays at a certain time, and I called, and he picked up, and said, hello. I said, this is Rusty? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is Rusty. And he said, well, this is Kevin. And so, yeah, yeah, yeah, what you got? What you got? I said, well, you know, we sent the CD,

and then he's kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I got it. I'll check it out. Good, got to go. And I don't call him very often, and he won't play something unless it's top level. But he's always like that. But I got through to him. But he's very much down to business. Yeah.

Yeah, I'll check it out. He usually doesn't. Yeah. Because he knows what he... Most of those guys know what they're going to play. Yeah. You know. It was one I found in Russia a couple years ago that played great 24-7 jazz.

It's not a great European jazz. There's one recently. He's a guy up... There's a guy's show I found I like better than anybody. His name is Ben Body. And there's an online only show. By the way, all these stations stream their shows. Yeah, yeah.

But it's only online. It's called Taint Radio. And he lives in Raleigh. But they have other DJs that live around the country. And I love his show. It's on, I think, three days a week. So I found them, but they are strictly an online station. They have no call letters.

They're just called Taint Radio. And I love them. There's so many great stations around. But I would say WBGO, which is in Boston. Switching gears again on your wheel sessions. Social media, I know you're using Facebook for that. Yeah. Anything else?

A disclaimer, John, you know this. I'll use almost a bad word. I blow at social media. And the reason is I don't like any of it. I go in and so what I do on Facebook, I'll go in, create an event, and then I'll go back once or twice and share it. I'm missing the whole boat there. I've had some people say, well, maybe I can help you. I've gone a different avenue.

This might be healthy too. My email list is everything. It gets large and larger. And on my emails, if you see my emails, I try to make them succinct and to the point. I never sell anything else. But the thing I do do, I think this might be interesting for sales.

I think you and I talked about it. I finally, I've created a relationship with the Greenville Journal. Yeah. And we've figured out, initially I started without asking, I was put in an ad in occasionally in Town Magazine because I see a talent. Oh, this is a great demographic. You know, this is the demographic that comes to my shows.

And then when I finally went and met with them, they said, this is probably not the best thing. So what I've done, I've put all my eggs into one little basket. And before each show now, I'll put an ad in the Greenville Journal. But they don't put it in the arts section. They put it in the Friday newspaper, and I find that brings me people. And what I'm doing is doing it every time. Now, it costs me money. It's not a free event at listing.

No. But I've found that, and I feel that if I just keep doing the same thing, so the same people see it, you know, maybe the fifth time, I've seen that before. So I think that maybe they will check that out. So that's something I feel good about a success is just for. finally in my mind decided I'm going to do this one thing. Because I tried other things. I tried, I won't name the names, some of the online things like GLV today.

That, you know, and try and there and paid them one of the companies like that, little money. But it didn't seem to do me. None of the online stuff seemed to help me. Yeah. Well, I'll say this, you know, we do a lot of online stuff with our business. the end result of what you're looking for, typically with the online presence, is your email list. So you've done a good job building your email list. But the reason you might do Twitter or Facebook or whatever is to capture those emails

so you can have this one place for all your customers. Because Facebook could kick you off or go out of business or who knows. But as long as you have those emails, you're in good shape. So I think somehow you've managed to do that. And you asked me new things. It may be in this next year with the help of somebody. I may go down that road. If I want the thing to grow that much.

All I really want, John, is for people in the area to know about us. So if they're interested in jazz, they can find us. I really, you know, that's all I really want. Well, you're pretty much doing that. The last time I went, you were completely full. Yeah, I think we're getting there. Just have Ronnie play every week. Everyone loves Ronnie.

They do. Okay. Let me ask you this. What is your favorite book? Ken Follett's the, what did he call that series, Pillars of the World or Pillars of the Earth. It was a three novel series, especially the first book in that series. What's it about? It traces family. It starts in the Middle Ages. This guy's a cathedral builder.

Poor man, but he was a great cathedral builder. So he would be hired. So there were a couple families through different ways. And it traces them. And then it goes, the next book goes into the next century, and the families move on. The last book's more gets into the early 1920s and so on. But the first book, those middle ages,

the way people lived and it was fascinating. We got it made, don't we? We're living in a good time. Do you know, I don't know that this is true, but I gleaned this from the look. Do you know what it means? Don't that just get your goat? No. In the Middle Ages, many people just had to wander through the country, you know.

And if they were too poor, they could go into monasteries, that the churches would have to take you in, but you had to leave the next morning. So it was an interesting network. But when you're out in the country, you could get robbed or anything. It was hard to make. But if you had a goat, you could live off the milk and the cheese. You could live off the goat. A goat could sustain you. And so the fear was people would steal your goat.

Get your goat. And that happened to this guy. Yeah. They were doing it and they were making it and they stole his goat. And it was like, oh, no. Damn. So, Ken Follett's a great writer. I read some other Follett books.

I think he's a great author. Yeah. I've never heard of that one. That's great. And then what's your favorite? Favorite word? Cool. Cool.

I'd probably say it more than anything. Perfect. Perfect. That makes perfect sense because you are cool. And then favorite band? I think the band I had the most enjoyment out of was NRBQ. Okay. NRBQ.

They were like a pub. If you never checked out, NRBQ, check them out. NRBQ, jazz band? No. Well, they had jazz influences. They were like a party. a party. Do you guys know NRBQ? I don't know if they're listening.

Vime Music Studio, they were kind of, they would play these clubs and bars, but they get real famous. They just check them out. Chicago? Chicago band? No? But not the modern version. You have to go back to, you know, 40, 30 years ago.

Well, you know, growing up, I listened to soul music primarily. You were thinking the South I'd listen to like shag music and stuff, but Isley brothers, Cool and the Gang, Ohio players, Earth, One, and Fire. I mean, that's, I was just drawn to it. And then in college, I heard weather report for the first time. And then I heard like Grover Washington and Stanley Turrentine. And I started to understand, you know, the jazz influence back to that soul music and vice versa. And so I liked jazz all along.

I just didn't know what it was. Until I was like, you know, in my later 20s. Sure. Of course, I love all the jazz. I mean, I could go through a litany of groups and jazz that I love. And that's my first love musically to play. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to try to out jazz bands you. I think you got me on that.

Well, let's talk about what we promoted... Hey, you didn't ask me my favorite movie. Is that part of the deal here? Well, sorry. What's your favorite movie, Kevin? I had to narrow this one down between two, but I would say it's reservoir dogs. Ooh, I like that. That's the first Tarantino movie, right?

One of the first. It may not be the first, I think it's the first. Well, mine would be Pulp Fiction, so we're really cousins almost. We're cousins, yeah. Yeah, I think he's amazing. I heard one of his old girlfriends interviewed one time who'd live with him or something for a year or two. And they're like, why did you leave him? He goes, well, we come home every night and we'd watch three movies and go to bed.

So all he wanted to do was watch movies. He was just, he's just crazy wired for movies. And thank goodness for us. I mean, he's a piece of me. Let me ask. Oh, I get to ask you a question later. But not yet. Okay, I'll ask you.

Yeah. But you can ask a question now. Go ahead. Like with that, you know, we've had a few big-name musicians in. You know, Fattis was here, James Carter. E.10 Charles last year. All of them, what I noticed, they are 24-7 music.

They never quit. I was in Fattis' house one night. John Fattis, the famous jazz trumpet player, over his apartment in Chicago, he never puts his trumpet up. He could be hanging his wife's cooking dinner, and he'll pick up the trumpet. So he remember this?

He puts it down, and he talks a little bit, and then he picks up the trumpet. He never quits playing. And I feel, I remember, back some of the athletes I saw through my years teaching, had to kick him out of the gym. And I think the great musicians, I mean, they're so good because they never quit playing. It's like we never quit talking.

They just, but I wonder in sales, you have to be bitten. You have to have to. Definitely, you definitely have to, like, I looked at it because I had played sports, and I was a gym rat, right? I was like, you want to stay in the gym the whole time. And when that part of my life was over and I moved into sales, that became my new game, right? I'm trying to win the game. And so I was enamored with, you know, winning the game, being a top performer,

or making presidents club or whatever. And a lot of athletes are drawn to sales for that reason. It's competitive to be in sales. But I'll tell you also from an entrepreneurial perspective, it is amazing how many people I run into that, you know, They might be people. I sat next to a guy when I was in college who was a very famous South Carolina entrepreneur. He owned movie stations or movie theaters all across the country. He developed most of Litchfield Beach.

He owned car dealerships. I mean, he was a really famous guy. And I sat down next to him and he goes, hey, John, have you seen any good movies lately? He wanted to talk about movies. and the movie the movie business that he was in. So in his mind, you know, he never, he didn't want to leave his little domain of owning 600 theaters or he would talk about car dealerships or whatever. He didn't want to be rude, but that's just where his mind was.

And I think that's where you have to be. I don't think Steve Jobs was following like what the 49ers were doing, you know, that weekend. He's like about his product. And I, it's not for, everybody, but to be a really hyper successful salesperson or jazz musician or entrepreneur, you've got to stay focused. All right, so we're going to promote wheel sessions.com. Everyone should go to willsessions.com to sign up for the alerts.

Is there anything else you want to promote? No, I think that's it. Don't you have a new album coming out? I don't. Yes, you do. Oh! Yes, you do. I have a new album coming out that was recorded right here at Spitt and Spittin' Spitz.

Yes. Studios. It's rise and fall of Sweet Pea. I don't know what the official titles. Sweet Pea Rides Again. It was a Sweet Pea Rides Again. It was with John. John playing saxophone, Robert Nance on bass, and his cell phone drums. And we came in, staying in the true jazz nature, we had no rehearsal. We just came in and we played live. Yeah. Yeah. So Sweet Pea Rides Again. We'll be on Spotify within a week. Awesome. Yeah. Sorry, I forgot to promote. You do you do so many albums. You're the ultimate side man.

There you go. Well, Kevin, I thank you for being here today. Thanks for your friendship and for being nice to me when I approached you in the hotel lobby. Likewise. But, yeah, I'm just thankful and delighted to know you and thankful that you're willing to share a lot of your story with others that it might help them. So thank you. You're very welcome. All right.

Thank you, James. I appreciate it.