#220 - Tom Stimson - Business Coach, Consultant and life long AV Expert!

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Hello there and thank you for
joining me again today on Geeses

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of Gear Episode #220.
A great podcast.

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Today I will tell you more about
it in a little bit, but for now,

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today's podcast is brought to
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Nearly every project brings
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actentertainment.com and today's
podcast is also brought to you

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by a company I know a little bit
about, Gearsource.

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Gearsource was founded in 2002
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Since that time the company has
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lighting, staging and video
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I remember almost every one of
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Did you hear that podcast
Episode #219?

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The last one, the previous one
with Jamie Mardis from Coffee

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Cult.
And you know I talk about it all

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the time.
Geezers grind from coffee cult,

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which is my daily drink and so
many other people in the

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industry and goes to support
Roby backstage and helping

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people who need the help in our
industry.

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But great story.
If you haven't heard it, please

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go listen to 219.
Jamie's a good guy.

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He comes from our industry,
longtime roadie lighting guy,

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etcetera.
Had his own company.

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Still does actually in live
events in.

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He had a generator company, he
had a lighting company.

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He's had several businesses
staging and he's always done

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really well, but he's super
passionate about coffee, knows a

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lot about it, taught us a lot
about it on the podcast.

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So go listen to 219.
It's a good one, but I'm really,

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really excited about today.
You know, I am a business geek.

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I'm an entrepreneur geek.
I love the tech, I love systems

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and processes and things that
make businesses better.

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I constantly read books about
it.

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I'm constantly following
different podcasts, and this

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gentleman happens to be one of
those podcasts that I do follow.

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So Tom Stimson is a is a
business advisor, coach,

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speaker, and works exclusively
with hands on owners and

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management teams who want to
improve their decision making

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and elevate their strategic
thinking.

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His intentional success
framework has helped hundreds of

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companies remove the clutter of
past decisions and focus on

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better goals with resolute
efficiency.

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All of that stuff is amazing.
I just basically read his bio

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information, but the guy is just
a really smart dude.

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He's great to listen to, really
do.

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Check out his podcast, which I
believe is called the same thing

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as his coaching business, which
is intentional success.

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Tom Stimson.
Intentional success.

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I know you can just search for
it on on Apple or any of the

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podcast mediums and you'll find
it.

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I listened to a couple of them
on my walk this morning.

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They're all pretty short
episodes, really easy to listen

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to.
Anyways, without further ado,

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Mr. Tom Stimson.
Hi Tom.

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Hey, how's it going?
Fan flipping Tastic couldn't be

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better.
It's funny because the biggest

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off expert that we've ever had
on this podcast I think had the

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most trouble getting on the
podcast.

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So he's on like Camera 7 now?
He is, Yeah.

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Yeah.
I'm I'm I'm wildly engineered

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here, so.
Yeah, it's it's pretty cool.

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I'm, I'm not used to even having
guests on that have headphones

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on.
It's it's a struggle just to get

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them to use like an air pod, you
know?

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So yeah, as you probably know,
yeah.

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Yes, as I, as I, as I, as I have
experienced many times, yes.

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I mean, it's crazy cuz I'm
always looking for better

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microphones, better mixing
boards, better audio, yet I'm at

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the mercy of my guests, so.
I I will tell you, Avav, people

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are really the worst at this.
You know and I, you know back

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when I was out in the field
visiting companies all the time

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you go in their conference room,
big integration company, they

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they could never get their
conference room to work all

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living, right.
And then I couldn't get any of

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my clients to use Zoom before.
Oh really?

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I would.
I'd book a Zoom meeting and

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they'd call in on their phone.
I mean, it wouldn't touch the

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thing.
So I really want to get into a

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lot of things with you today.
I've actually, I've had this one

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circled on my calendar for a
couple of weeks now because I

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really am a business geek.
But first, you know, I'd like to

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start with every single guest we
have on just sort of what your

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background is, the foundation
that got you to where we're at

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today.
And then we're going to spend a

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whole bunch of time talking
about where you're at today.

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So how how'd you get started?
I I know you started more like

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on the AV Show side of things,
right?

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Well, I mean, I'm a failed
theater kid, right?

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So I mean, I actually grew up
doing theater and doing so.

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And I finally got out of college
and stopped working in the

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Roadhouse, went to go find Real.
What I found was I could work in

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theater and make nothing.
Or then I answered an ad in in a

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We had newspapers back then for
projectionists.

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Well, I do a big deal.
And I found an AV company.

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I didn't know what AV companies
were.

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I knew what AV was because, you
know, we did it in the big

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university stand.
But I didn't think it was an

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industry.
So all of a sudden it's like,

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yeah, we'll pay you 10 bucks an
hour.

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This is 1983.
We'll pay you, which is good

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money for a freelancer back
then.

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It's like we'll pay you 10 bucks
an hour if you'll come babysit,

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slide projectors and run and,
you know, sure, microphones

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through M68 mixers into house
sound.

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I was going, well, this is not
rocket science.

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Oh, but you have to wear a suit.
And we need you to shave your

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beard.
Oh, man, this is not working out

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for me.
But yeah, so you know, yeah, I I

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still owned a suit.
And I shaved my beard and found

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myself working in hotels.
And they fed you and you know,

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you're working inside.
It's easy.

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And then and I was like, how do
I get more work?

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Well, we only have, you're the
only freelancer we know, but we

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just hire you when we have a one
person gig.

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I said what do you do when you
have a five person gig?

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Well, we, we call the union, but
they hate doing our jobs.

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So I said OK, well what if I
find some more freelancers

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hyper, So I started a staffing
company.

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I mean it's like.
How old were you then when you

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started a staffing company?
That was a while ago still too,

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right?
2022, I was probably 22 years

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old. 22 years, Yeah, that's
wild.

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Yeah.
So you were, yeah, just trained

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people.
I I was.

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I just gigs and got more gigs.
But I ended up, you know,

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anybody that came from out of
town into the Dallas Fort Worth

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area.
We were the we were the local

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labour people.
Yeah, so.

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Yeah, that's interesting.
And then, so from there, I think

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you've got into Alfred Media at
some point, right?

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Yeah, I mean they were one of my
clients and well I I had the

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staffing company.
I I had business agents who ran

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it and they did most of the
day-to-day and filled most of

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the gigs and you know I, so I
went off and I was traveling and

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doing shows, right.
So I had my clients and I would

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go doing my gigs and the guys
from Alford, you know, were at a

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company before that called
Kimball AV.

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And so we'd worked together for
years.

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We did the Coca-Cola 100th
Anniversary in 19 with 72 slide

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projectors.
We were the slide guys and when

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they started, you know the the
current iteration of Alford

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Media in 1990, I I started
January of 91 and they finally

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figured out that, hey, I went
out and did shows.

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But I was the person who made
the show, made the, the, the

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stuff work.
I wasn't a great technical with

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crew chief, right.
So.

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So they got organizational
skills.

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Would you come in and run us?
And so Tom did most of sales.

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I did sales.
I created the operations.

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We did.
Any time there was a process

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missing, I'm a process guy.
So I'd make a process.

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And being a theater person,
where we have processes that

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are, you know, a millennia old,
it was not hard to find better

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practices than what we were
doing right?

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So well, Alford was much smaller
back then, I'm assuming like.

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It it was a start up.
I mean it, it was, I mean I was

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probably employee number six on
the rental side and the other

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three people were named Alford,
so.

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That's.
Wild and the and you know it was

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their first year of business and
it went from like 6 employees

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and beginning of 91 I think we
had 80 in 2000.

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I am So they went from a from
$1,000,000 company to a $20

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million company in eight years.
It was a wild white the 90s were

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something to.
Yeah, I I mean, I guess that's

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where you really discovered most
of what you teach today too,

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though, or at least a foundation
of it all is, you know, there's

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nothing like growth to teach you
a lot of stuff, you know,

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especially that kind of growth,
right?

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Right.
Yeah, it's, it is, it was.

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It's very foundational.
Lots of things that I learned

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that I still apply.
The big thing is the mindset,

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you know, understanding how to
constantly exceed what you

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perceive your capacity to be.
It's impossible to grow if you

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think you're only this big.
And the cool thing about the

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Alford culture is we were used
to being the underdog.

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We started out as the underdog.
We were competing against Big

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East Coast and West Coast, big
name players.

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We're using the dumbest
technology we have and we're

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just sticking with it.
All right.

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It's working now.
Tom.

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I can hear you.
I can see you.

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OK.
There you are.

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Sorry about all of this.
I don't know what's going on.

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This has honestly never
happened.

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It's bizarre.
That makes me feel so special.

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Yeah, well, I wanted you to feel
special here today.

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You're on geezers of gear and
we're geezers and so.

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Here we are.
We could use some gear

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apparently.
So anyways you were, you were

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talking about Alford and how you
were there for sort of the blitz

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scaling that they went through
when they went from 1,000,000 to

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$20 million, which to me those
are two entirely different

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companies like a company doing
$1,000,000 in revenue versus 20

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million is?
Not, yeah, I would say it.

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It was 5 different companies.
Yeah, yeah.

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00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:05,080
You know, it was, you know, five
different iterations.

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You know, going from 1,000,000
to to 5 million was a company.

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Going from 5 to 10, was a
company 10 to 15?

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Yeah, you know, there's a point
in time where we had three

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offices.
We had an office in Atlanta, LA

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as well.
Yeah, I mean, so, you know,

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there was 2 Duke.
I mean it was just every year it

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was like, you know, the the, the
bar just got raised and we

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figured it out.
You know, Tom, in in that

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There's a lesson though, 'cause
it's funny.

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00:12:32,800 --> 00:12:37,360
I had, you know, I, I operate a
marketplace company and I had a,

226
00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:41,520
a startup marketplace founder
contact me a couple of weeks

227
00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:43,840
ago.
And you know, because I'm sort

228
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:46,920
of an OG of marketplace, I've
been in the marketplace world

229
00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,280
since before it was called the
Marketplace.

230
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,480
And so, you know, I get these
people reach out to me all the

231
00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:54,600
time.
What do you think about this?

232
00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:58,040
What do you think about this?
And so I asked him where he was

233
00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,920
getting all of his ideas from.
Because I said these are big

234
00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:04,960
ideas like you're a startup, you
haven't even really product

235
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:08,160
market fit yet.
You haven't hit your first, you

236
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:10,840
know, 100,000 in revenue yet,
let alone a million.

237
00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:14,560
And he said, Oh yeah, I'm
reading every Amazon book and

238
00:13:14,560 --> 00:13:19,800
listening to every Jeff Bezos
podcast that I can and I'm just

239
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:23,160
duplicating what he does.
And and I said, you realize that

240
00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:26,040
a trillion dollar company
functions a little differently

241
00:13:26,040 --> 00:13:31,120
than a than a $0.00 company.
And you might wanna back that up

242
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:33,560
a little bit, like there's some
good principles you'll be able

243
00:13:33,560 --> 00:13:36,120
to find in there.
But you need to understand that

244
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,880
hiring a person into a A1
employee company is very

245
00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:43,240
different than hiring a person
into a, you know, 100,000

246
00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:46,360
employee company or whatever.
So yeah.

247
00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:48,880
Yeah.
It's nice to have aspirations,

248
00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:51,320
but we first have to have some
sales.

249
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:52,800
Of course, yeah.
And.

250
00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:56,320
If you don't have, if you're not
in to have sales, you have to

251
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:58,680
have a product or service.
So I mean there's so many

252
00:13:58,680 --> 00:14:00,400
things.
It's like, yeah, that would be

253
00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:02,440
really cool.
Yeah, right.

254
00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:05,920
Yeah.
But there aren't that many Jeff

255
00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:07,880
Bezos out there.
Yeah, right.

256
00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:10,960
I don't wanna go too far off
your story here, but I was

257
00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:13,040
listening to one of your
podcasts this morning and you

258
00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:16,560
were talking about how when you
first start out with a new

259
00:14:16,560 --> 00:14:21,600
client and you sort of have a
checklist that you go through

260
00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:27,400
and see in my brain, I would
always start with revenue.

261
00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:30,680
What's your revenue look like?
And you said no, you want to end

262
00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:34,440
up at revenue because otherwise
if you don't know how the

263
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:38,520
revenue happened, you're not
going to know whether there's

264
00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:40,640
problems in there or or
whatever, right?

265
00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:42,080
Right, right.
Yeah.

266
00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:46,560
When you're when you're talking
to a new prospect and and you

267
00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:50,040
know all consultants, all solo
entrepreneurs, all freelancers,

268
00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:53,480
you know we have a certain
complex where we think we're not

269
00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:56,880
worthy enough, right.
So if you ask him about the show

270
00:14:56,880 --> 00:14:59,800
and you go, Oh my God, that's
the biggest show I've ever, all

271
00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:02,360
of a sudden you've talked
yourself out of being qualified,

272
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,280
right.
So part of this goes back to the

273
00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:06,000
psychology of being a
consultant.

274
00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,080
It's like, hey, I've never done
business with a $500 million

275
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:10,680
company.
So they tell me they're $500

276
00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:13,120
million company.
I'm not thinking I have any

277
00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,880
solutions but I tell you what
I've worked with $500 million

278
00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:17,760
companies.
They're just as messed up as

279
00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:20,840
$5,000,000 companies.
It's just it just has a bigger

280
00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:23,280
ramification.
Well, so, yeah.

281
00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:26,240
You start with you know, how do
you feel about things?

282
00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:27,760
Are you?
Are you comfortable with what

283
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:29,960
you're doing?
And if you're already getting

284
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,400
issues there, there's plenty of
stuff to do.

285
00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:33,960
Oh.
God, we have the Max

286
00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:36,240
celebrations happening right now
on the.

287
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:38,800
Screen wonderful.
Yeah.

288
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:41,680
So yeah, that's like.
Everywhere are watching this on

289
00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:44,600
YouTube and cringing right now.
Yeah, exactly.

290
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:46,960
Exactly.
It's like, well, that's why I

291
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:49,320
don't watch.
Yeah.

292
00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:51,640
So it's like, yeah, let's start
with, you know, something that

293
00:15:51,640 --> 00:15:55,640
matters and you know, figure out
how do you feel about it And you

294
00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,440
know, how confident are you and
your people and do you like your

295
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:02,800
customers, right.
And and then you you kind of get

296
00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:05,160
to, do you have any idea what
business you're actually in?

297
00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:08,480
And then, OK, tell me about how
much money you do and how much

298
00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:10,400
money you're making.
It makes a lot of sense.

299
00:16:10,400 --> 00:16:13,360
You know again I've I've always
sort of come from the sales

300
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:17,320
angle and and for me sales
solves everything and sales

301
00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:19,400
solves all the problems and all
of that stuff.

302
00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:23,880
But The thing is it makes a lot
of sense taking sales out of the

303
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,680
equation and and getting down to
sort of first first principle

304
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:29,720
thinking or whatever you want to
call it, right?

305
00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:32,280
All of our problems start with
sales.

306
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:34,520
True, right.
So that's right.

307
00:16:34,520 --> 00:16:37,480
So you know, there's a lot of
$10 million companies out there

308
00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:40,320
that are not making money.
Everything they do is hard.

309
00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:42,120
They don't like all of their
customers.

310
00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:45,480
They would be a wildly
profitable $6 million company

311
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,360
and love their life.
Yeah, yeah.

312
00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:50,920
Except for sales.
Yeah, by the way, I've I've,

313
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:53,360
I've done that mistake on my
own.

314
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:56,440
Like I had a wildly profitable
in a different business.

315
00:16:56,440 --> 00:17:01,200
I had a wildly profitable 7 or
$8 million business that, you

316
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:04,200
know, the whole world told me
you can turn this into $100

317
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:07,280
million company very quickly.
You just have to do this and

318
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:08,880
this and this.
And the worst thing that

319
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:11,599
happened was an investor came
along and threw a bunch of money

320
00:17:11,599 --> 00:17:15,000
at me to do that and just
completely destroyed my

321
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:18,240
business.
And so I learned a valuable

322
00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:23,000
lesson, you know?
I mean, yeah, you know.

323
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:25,359
Yeah, you know, I think it was,
Tom offered.

324
00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:27,520
I mean, he had a flaw.
He says anybody can sell.

325
00:17:27,839 --> 00:17:32,440
Revenue is not hard to get
right, so revenue can't be the

326
00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:33,600
goal.
It's got to be the right.

327
00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:36,760
Revenue, well, yeah, I mean says
the guy with a lot of revenue.

328
00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:42,000
You know sometimes revenue is is
really hard to get and and you

329
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,600
know I know like in marketplaces
in particular and you, you and I

330
00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:47,880
could have an offline
conversation about this one day.

331
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:53,360
But marketplaces are very unique
businesses because you have the

332
00:17:53,360 --> 00:17:56,440
supply side and the demand side
and sometimes you have three

333
00:17:56,440 --> 00:18:00,760
sides you know like in a in a
like one of these DoorDash

334
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:04,160
companies or something you have
the driver, the, the food

335
00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:06,680
company and the customer.
So you have a three sided

336
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:08,280
marketplace and then the
marketplace.

337
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:13,240
So in a sense it's even a four
sided marketplace, but you know

338
00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:18,320
you when you start up a
marketplace you have to

339
00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:22,080
basically make a a very early
decision on which side you're

340
00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:24,560
going to focus on the supply
side or the demand side.

341
00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:27,560
And of course it's hard to
create demand with no supply.

342
00:18:27,560 --> 00:18:30,160
It's hard to create supply with
no demand and they call that the

343
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:34,640
cold start problem.
And it's something that I was

344
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:39,040
fortunate I didn't have to learn
much about because my supply and

345
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:41,160
and demand side are the same
people.

346
00:18:41,560 --> 00:18:46,480
And so as soon as you added to
two people, you basically had a

347
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:48,800
network and network effects
started happening.

348
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,600
When you added a third person,
network effects started

349
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:54,680
happening.
And so it's, I love the

350
00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,400
marketplace business, but it's
one of the hardest businesses in

351
00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:58,800
the world.
It really is.

352
00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:03,240
And and you know that's why I
sometimes I say that that

353
00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:05,720
finding revenue isn't the
easiest thing.

354
00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:10,040
You know, I'll give you a quick
example, Tom, sorry to talk so

355
00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:15,080
much, but COVID happened.
Most businesses shut down

356
00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:22,360
completely and we had this weird
situation where we got a lot of

357
00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:26,000
supply all of a sudden because
companies and you actually wrote

358
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,440
a really great article about it.
I'll give you credit for some of

359
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:30,160
this because I helped share your
article.

360
00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,800
It was something like you know
your your greatest asset is in

361
00:19:33,800 --> 00:19:35,440
your warehouse or something like
that.

362
00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:40,480
And and I pushed that around
like crazy and companies

363
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:44,920
literally were using inventory
as currency, you know to pay

364
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:47,520
their rent and to pay their
employees or whatever.

365
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:53,640
And so we had a lot of sellers
and very few buyers really like

366
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:56,920
bottom feeder sort of
opportunist buyers who were

367
00:19:56,920 --> 00:19:59,080
sitting on a lot of cash and
went, yeah, I'll buy twenty of

368
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:00,680
those, I'll need them eventually
you know.

369
00:20:02,120 --> 00:20:06,080
And then 2021 happened and all
of a sudden it just completely

370
00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:10,400
flipped the script and we had no
supply and a shit ton of demand

371
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:12,360
that we couldn't fill.
So.

372
00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:16,240
And then 2022 the, you know the
supply chain is shut down, so

373
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:19,280
you can't buy new products.
So all of a sudden used product

374
00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:22,960
is.
Very valuable, 23 manufacturers

375
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:26,720
overbuilt everything and we're
not only dropping prices, they

376
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:29,600
were financing it.
They were so aggressive.

377
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:37,160
So now we had supply ish and
very little demand because now

378
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:40,040
all of a sudden new prices were
less than used prices in many

379
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:43,280
cases.
So it's just it's it's been a

380
00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:47,160
weird and wacky world that I
live in for sure cuz you know

381
00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:50,760
and we'll get into that later.
But anyways, Alfred Media.

382
00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:54,080
Yeah, what I'm saying, but what
you're talking about really

383
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:57,840
sounds like fun and there's a
lot of parallels to to that that

384
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:01,720
Gogo 90s experience I talk about
where if you figure out what the

385
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:06,080
knobs of your of your business
are or faders if that's the way

386
00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:09,320
you go you know I'm.
Gonna say push when my business

387
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:13,440
yeah, I'm just a big knob at the
end of the day, so.

388
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:16,560
Right.
So and there of course is like

389
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:19,120
OK, how much of you can we turn
up and turn down.

390
00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:22,360
But what we want to do is we
want to get a little parametric

391
00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:26,800
on you and have more versions of
that so that we can dial those

392
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:29,440
things in.
And that's the, that's the

393
00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:33,360
challenge for businesses that
are that are evolving, growing,

394
00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:37,080
expanding, whatever it might be
because I mean people generally

395
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,160
want to grow.
I I deal with deal with owners

396
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,560
who are happy where they're at,
just want to make it better.

397
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:44,680
Yeah.
But most of them aspire to

398
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:46,800
something else and and of
course, you have to grow with

399
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:49,960
the market too, right.
Yeah, $2,000,000 now is not what

400
00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:51,920
$2,000,000 was 10 years ago.
True.

401
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,040
Yeah.
So you know, you should be a $4

402
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:55,920
million company, so.
Well, not.

403
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:58,680
Knowing which knobs to turn is
important.

404
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,800
That what you just said
2,000,000 today is different

405
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:06,360
than two million a long time ago
brings up 1000 other questions.

406
00:22:06,360 --> 00:22:09,240
So I want to get through your
your foundational story first.

407
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:13,560
So you you spent roughly 15
years at at Alford learned an

408
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,200
awful lot.
I assume you you learned a ton

409
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:21,160
about like I think if I were to
guess you know your next stage

410
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:25,080
in business where you got into
consulting and stuff was really

411
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:30,680
created by going through that
you know 01 to 5,000,005 to

412
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:34,080
10,000,010 to 20 million at
Alford, right?

413
00:22:34,360 --> 00:22:36,480
Would be my guess like it
because you learned every

414
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,400
business model in doing that,
right?

415
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,720
We learned, we learned every
business model and I was

416
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:45,880
involved in so many aspects of
the business, you know from, you

417
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,600
know from the, you know, finance
side, the CapEx side, the IT

418
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:52,040
side, you know, we had our own
software platform, you know.

419
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:55,000
So I was touching a lot of
things.

420
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,680
You know, my my style is I like
to learn something.

421
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:00,920
I don't need to understand it
well enough to delegate it.

422
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:03,200
Yeah.
And so when I could, when I

423
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,160
could delegate it, then I can
just touch base with that person

424
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:08,680
or that team to understand
what's going on.

425
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,760
When the when the other teams
when things are changing and we

426
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:14,520
need to go back and get this
thing to change.

427
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,640
If we need to bring our our
platform or software platform

428
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:22,800
has to evolve, well that's
because of changes in sales,

429
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:25,720
changes in operations, changes
in warehouse, changes in

430
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,240
finance.
Now we go back to software

431
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:31,120
development and meet their
needs, right.

432
00:23:31,120 --> 00:23:33,480
So that's a that's a great
learning experience.

433
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,040
But there gets to a point in
time when one's career, when

434
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:40,360
you've run out of things to do,
you know, I was very fortunate.

435
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:44,920
We had a fantastic team, you
know, by, by the time I realized

436
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:51,160
it was time for me to move on.
I also realized that in probably

437
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,240
less than a year I I spent about
three years winding down.

438
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,800
But in less than a year I had
delegated 90% of what I did.

439
00:23:58,040 --> 00:23:59,600
Wow.
Right.

440
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,280
So that when it came time to
exit, it wasn't a huge

441
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,680
transition.
You rendered yourself redundant.

442
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:06,280
I did.
And.

443
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,880
Which is something and which is
a lesson from my father, right?

444
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,680
You know, I watched my father
and his career as a business

445
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,480
executive moving from company to
company.

446
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,400
And he would get promotions and
we'd get to go out to a fancy

447
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,560
dinner and get a promotion.
We go to a nicer dinner.

448
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,680
That's the only thing that
changed in our life is we got to

449
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:25,120
go out to eat.
But I asked him once what he's

450
00:24:25,120 --> 00:24:26,680
doing.
He says whenever he took on a

451
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:28,520
new role, he worked himself out
of the job.

452
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,080
He tried to make that management
role, that director role, that

453
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:37,720
vice president role obsolete to
free himself up to go on to the

454
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,160
next thing because there were
people who needed to be

455
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:42,920
empowered.
There are processes that need to

456
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,080
be put in place.
The only reason you have this

457
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:49,080
organizational man there is
because we didn't take the time

458
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:53,160
to develop the people and
processes so that we don't need

459
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:54,560
that person.
Yeah.

460
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:56,920
No, that that makes so much
sense.

461
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,520
Yeah.
Yeah.

462
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:05,320
I mean, again, it brings up 1000
different questions, but so in

463
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,800
roughly 2006 you left you again
all of those lessons in

464
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:13,800
education and everything became
the foundation that created a

465
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:15,400
consulting business, I think,
right?

466
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,080
Yeah, yeah, that was the toolbox
that I started with.

467
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,160
Yeah, which is pretty much where
you, you continue today.

468
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:23,520
And you've added all kinds of
different wrinkles onto it.

469
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:28,640
And I think you've written a
book balance.

470
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:31,440
Yeah, I've got.
To build a scalable business

471
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:32,920
with less stress and more
profit.

472
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:35,960
And yeah, I'm, I got to go get
that book myself because I got

473
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:37,720
to figure that one out, you
know?

474
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,160
It is balance.
I mean, balance is kind of like

475
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,320
is taking everything that I've
learned over the 40 years and

476
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,320
distilling it down to what I
consider my operating system

477
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:48,840
now.
Yeah, And it This book couldn't

478
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:50,280
have happened without the
pandemic.

479
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:52,800
Oh, really?
Because the pandemic taught us

480
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:55,440
what we needed to understand
before the pandemic,

481
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,360
particularly in the in the live
event production rental

482
00:25:58,360 --> 00:26:01,600
industry.
We have an an entire industry

483
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:07,840
which one not scalable at all.
A seasonal industry that isn't

484
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:09,880
scalable.
It's it's insane.

485
00:26:10,360 --> 00:26:12,640
So everybody was focused on job
costs.

486
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,440
How can I reduce the cost on
this job and make this job more

487
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,280
profitable rather than how can I
make the business more

488
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,720
profitable?
So they hire more technicians

489
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,680
and they buy more gear to reduce
their outsourcing and their sub

490
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,240
rental so they can say yes to
one more job on the off chance

491
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:28,680
that somebody wants to hire
them.

492
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:30,240
Yeah.
And then on the bus when they're

493
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,840
slow, they go, Oh well, well, we
were busy cleaning up the

494
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,440
warehouse and doing, you know,
deep QC on the gear and trying

495
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,840
to justify all their expenses
and go, this is totally

496
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:40,080
untenable.
Yeah.

497
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:44,400
And you know, the pandemic kit
knocked all of that revenue

498
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:46,720
away.
And you know, I had clients that

499
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:48,880
went from 60 employees to five
employees.

500
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,240
Yeah.
But within a year they were

501
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:54,640
doing half the revenue again
because now they're doing

502
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,200
streaming events.
They're outsourcing everything

503
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,160
cuz they're scared to death to
hire anyone.

504
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,800
Thank goodness, right.
And then we start to see, OK,

505
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,400
here's the problem we have,
we're over build for what we do.

506
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,560
That was some of the problem.
So I won't say who the owner

507
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:15,000
was, but I I helped an owner
sell his company and you know,

508
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,440
relatively a very experienced
company.

509
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:23,080
I think they've been around for
around 40 years and this owner

510
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:26,960
sat down with me.
This was right at I'd say early

511
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,320
21 when he he was getting ready
to close on the deal to sell his

512
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,560
company And him and I went to
dinner and and he said, you know

513
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,160
Marcel you're helping me in so
many ways right now, you know,

514
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:39,000
and I really appreciate it and
all this stuff.

515
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,080
But he said, you know, some
people don't understand

516
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:43,080
something.
And I said what?

517
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,640
And he said the pandemic was a
really good thing.

518
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,640
And I said what do you mean?
And he said, and you know, for

519
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,800
me, I have some very good
answers to that, by the way,

520
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,560
because I think it was a great
thing for most of our industry,

521
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,400
as hard as it was.
But he said there's a lot of

522
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:03,360
people that I had to lay off
that I in a million years never

523
00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:06,040
would have let go.
And now I'm not hiring him back.

524
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:10,840
And so he said it allowed me
basically to clean house and

525
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,720
it's such an important thing
because you know there is so

526
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:18,320
much dead weight that was sort
of hovering around our industry,

527
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:22,680
whether it's on the manufacturer
side or the the rental companies

528
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,320
or everywhere.
I mean just all over the place.

529
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,480
There's people who are lifers
who really think I've kind of

530
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:32,280
earned my chops and I don't
really need to do it anymore or

531
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:33,920
I don't need to do as much
anymore.

532
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,440
I don't need to be as, as
functional as I once was or

533
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,040
whatever, 'cause now I'm a
veteran.

534
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,240
And yeah, I I mean, I think at
my age I still have to hustle

535
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,200
just as much as I did 30 years
ago, or else I'm going to find

536
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,000
myself less valuable.
Right.

537
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,360
And and if you're your heroes,
'cause you're talking about the

538
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,520
heroes, the people you've kept
around, because they save the

539
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,960
day once every once in a while,
they save the day.

540
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,360
So they're protected.
They're franchise players,

541
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,080
right?
But whenever there's a problem,

542
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:09,480
which usually is because they
didn't solve it, yeah, their

543
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,520
solution is we need more people.
Yeah, we don't have enough

544
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:14,480
people.
That's their solution to

545
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:15,600
everything.
Well, we need to hire more

546
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:17,360
people.
Oh, these guys aren't good

547
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:19,080
enough.
We need to hire better people

548
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,240
instead of getting down to what
the crux to the problem is.

549
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:23,960
Yeah, so true.
I don't know.

550
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:24,960
What?
So it's like I.

551
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,200
Hit my bubble thing and it grew.
Oops.

552
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,680
Yeah, no, you're you're
completely right.

553
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,320
And and you know, I mean So what
were some of the other things

554
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:40,360
that you think COVID did to
really help our our industry?

555
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,920
There's a few things that it did
obviously to hurt our industry

556
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,800
it.
The most the most important

557
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:47,920
thing it.
Hurt companies P and LS it hurt

558
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,680
companies Balance sheets a
little bit.

559
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,880
Way too much debt.
Companies brought on way too

560
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:55,720
much debt because it suddenly
became easy to get and cheaper

561
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,760
than it was.
But now that they're paying it

562
00:29:57,760 --> 00:29:59,920
back, they're going oh jeez,
maybe I shouldn't have taken all

563
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:05,360
that money, but.
You know the the thing that and

564
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,000
it it wasn't just the pandemic
on our industry.

565
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:13,560
It really was on the the entire
economy change the value of

566
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,840
people.
OK, So we had all these people

567
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,080
leave the marketplace
involuntarily.

568
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,520
I'm sorry for everybody who lost
their job, who struggled and did

569
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:23,840
all of that.
You know, it wasn't good that

570
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,920
happened to them.
What's good is that we started

571
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:31,520
to pay better attention to what
people are worth, and people

572
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,960
didn't come back to work unless
you paid them more money valued,

573
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,440
The more that's true, gave them
the right responsibilities.

574
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,600
Freelancers left the marketplace
because, well, one we weren't

575
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,480
paying them enough anyway.
We were paying them less than

576
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:47,480
what we sold when we sold it for
too little.

577
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:49,280
Yeah.
Right.

578
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:51,160
So I was like, I I take people
all the time and say, like,

579
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,920
you've got an audio engineer on
your team that's making 100

580
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:56,560
grand a year and you're charging
$600 a day for him.

581
00:30:56,560 --> 00:31:02,080
Yeah, do the math for me, right.
How many days a year does that

582
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:04,040
person have to work to pay for
themselves?

583
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:09,280
So it's like we completely
misconstrued the value of Labor

584
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,240
and the pandemic was a reset for
us.

585
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,320
And so now we've got labor rates
up to probably where they should

586
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,560
be.
It was a huge, painful jump for

587
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:24,040
a lot of buyers, but we also
lost a lot of buyers, which is

588
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,040
another great thing because all
the price shoppers got fired

589
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:32,000
because there was nothing for
them to buy and then they didn't

590
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,360
get hired back.
They put a younger person in

591
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:38,040
their place who is more
interested in relationships than

592
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,200
being the hero for beating up a
supplier.

593
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,640
And so our boxers have changed.
So now we can have value

594
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,440
conversations instead of let's
just compare prices.

595
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:52,520
Well, these other guys will do
it for this or they're cheaper

596
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:54,640
on this than you are.
Can you match their price on

597
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,640
this one light item and then
they do it to you 50 times.

598
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:01,400
So we got out of price shopping
situation because during the

599
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,600
pandemic, if you could do a
streaming event and you were

600
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:10,200
available, you got hired, they
say I don't care what you charge

601
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:14,520
me, I have to do this thing.
And then during 2022 during the

602
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,440
supply chain shortage, at the
same time we're having revenge

603
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,960
meetings because now we're back
in ballrooms again.

604
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,800
It was like the first question
you ask is, are you guys even

605
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,200
available?
If you're available, great.

606
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,560
What is it going to cost me to
do this, right.

607
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,400
And so now you're setting your
own price.

608
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:39,600
Well, man, it's hard to, it's
hard to go, you know, go you

609
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,560
know that 25% profit that people
were making in 22, it's hard to

610
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,480
give that up and go back to that
4% net profit you were making

611
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,600
and 2019.
So true.

612
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:53,200
Yeah, so true.
So like going into COVID, early

613
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,680
in COVID there were a bunch in
my own head.

614
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,400
There were a bunch of myths, you
know, like this is going to

615
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,080
happen, this is going to happen.
And I'll tell you, two of my

616
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:06,840
biggest ones were this concept
that I used to call day 91.

617
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:10,960
I said this is a 90 day problem
and you want to basically take

618
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:14,920
this time to clean your shop,
clean yourself, clean your

619
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,800
skills at upskill a little bit
if you can and you want to

620
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:23,200
improve the outlook for day 91.
I I just came up with this whole

621
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:27,200
concept of day 91 and so that
was one of the things that I

622
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,200
screwed up badly and I was way
wrong.

623
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,600
It was like day, you know, 591
or something.

624
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:37,920
And and the other one was that I
thought the the people who were

625
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,240
going to hurt the most or the
companies that were going to

626
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,240
hurt the most were the
manufacturers.

627
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,800
And you know, because I'm in a
different part of the business

628
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,320
technically than you are, you're
more on the AV side.

629
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,680
I'm talking primarily like the
large lighting, automated

630
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,680
lighting manufacturers for
example.

631
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:59,680
I felt like there was going to
be some, you know, some some

632
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,280
attrition and some roll ups and
and some brands were going to go

633
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:04,800
away.
Like if you started with 20

634
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,840
brands you were going to end up
with 10 and God was I wrong, I

635
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,080
mean they're all bigger today
than they were pre Pandemic by a

636
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:14,040
long shot.
You know they're all hitting

637
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,560
record sales every month by a
long shot.

638
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,719
And what were some of the ones
that you you sort of fumble on?

639
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,360
In, you know, in the early days,
everybody thought that lots and

640
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:27,520
lots of companies were going to
go out of business once, once we

641
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,760
got past that idea that this is
only going to last 90 days,

642
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:33,120
right.
You know, people go, man, we're

643
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,199
going to so many companies are
going to go under so many.

644
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,120
It's like, no, I mean I I
personally talked to five owners

645
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,560
who said, you know what, I'm
just going to hang it up.

646
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,880
You know, I'm almost 70.
I should have sold the company

647
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:46,360
years ago.
I'm just going to liquidate and

648
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,320
move on.
Yeah, that could happen on any

649
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,600
year.
The fact is between the

650
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,320
government subsidies that were
available and the fact that if

651
00:34:55,320 --> 00:35:01,000
you got rid of your overhead, OK
you we had a lot of runway to

652
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:03,360
work with.
So the people who pivoted more

653
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,080
quickly and got into virtual and
find other ways to be valuable

654
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:11,080
and reduce their overhead
actually did OK, which is most

655
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:13,200
companies.
I actually one business owner

656
00:35:14,240 --> 00:35:16,200
that I was working with right at
the beginning of Pandemic

657
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,800
because 100% of my business went
away, right.

658
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,480
And we were going through a big
change management project so you

659
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:24,120
know, he could sell his company
down the road.

660
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,440
And he, he called me up and says
I'm just going to shut it down.

661
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,480
He laid off all he had like
40-50 employees.

662
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,600
He laid off all of them.
He kept 2 on retainer, one of

663
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:37,920
them which you know was a
relative, right.

664
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,320
And if, if the phone rang, he
answered it, and if he felt like

665
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:44,320
doing it, he did it, he says.
I'm going to shut down for at

666
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,920
least a year and see where we're
at and then hire back.

667
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,720
So there are lots of different
reactions, but we really didn't

668
00:35:51,720 --> 00:35:54,120
lose anyone.
We got people thinking about

669
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,240
their business differently.
Yeah, true.

670
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,960
But your 90 day thing, you know,
it's like you were forward

671
00:35:59,960 --> 00:36:01,480
thinking there was a lot of
people who thought this was

672
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,800
going to last four weeks, right?
That you know that my first I

673
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:09,880
had a webinar, it was I think it
was March 17th or 18th and I

674
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,880
realized that wait a minute, I
can't do a webinar on what I was

675
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,280
going to do about, I got to talk
about this, you know, what are

676
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:17,560
we doing?
What's going on here?

677
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:19,960
Because you know, we are now,
you know, four weeks into

678
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,520
cancellations, you know, the
wheels had fallen off the wagon.

679
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,000
So I got on there and I started
doing these weekly webinars

680
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,360
about how to respond to this.
And on that webinar I started up

681
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:31,320
and said guys, here's the
situation we're in.

682
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:36,480
You are not going to have any
revenue before next August.

683
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:38,960
Zero.
None.

684
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:43,240
Start planning that now.
Yeah, if you want to hang on to

685
00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:46,560
people and clean the warehouse
and do the inventory, you can.

686
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:48,720
I am telling you right now
you're not going to have any

687
00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:51,440
revenue by week three of those
webinars.

688
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,120
I was telling them you're not
going to have normal revenue

689
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:58,040
again until 2023.
Damn, you were very.

690
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:01,640
Very on top.
Of it much more so than me it.

691
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,640
Became very clear that we were
going to have to have vaccines.

692
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,480
All these things that were going
to happen, that's going on,

693
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,600
we're not going back in the
ballroom for a really, really

694
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:12,520
long time.
You better embrace virtual

695
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,000
events.
You better figure out how to do

696
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:18,480
it because that's where demand
is, you know, and that's time,

697
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:20,920
you know, it was now.
Now it's May of 2020 and and the

698
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,240
big business was outdoor
graduations, you know, where the

699
00:37:24,240 --> 00:37:26,840
kid where the parents drive the
kid up in the car and they hand

700
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,520
them the diploma through the car
window.

701
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:30,560
You know, they're doing them in
Drive in theaters.

702
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,760
You know, it's like that was
our, that was our big business,

703
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,160
you know, for that month.
But then we still have to

704
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:39,000
communicate.
We still have to talk to people.

705
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:41,400
Yeah, well, streaming.
Events.

706
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,320
Again, different for the off
side of the business than for

707
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,120
the, call it rock'n'roll or.
Entertainment.

708
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:52,120
And entertainment side of the
business because they tried to

709
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,960
do virtual events and there were
a few that worked out OK.

710
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:00,520
But for the most part like
virtual concerts sucked, you

711
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,680
know, drive in, concerts sucked.
And they weren't very profitable

712
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:08,000
for anybody involved.
The artist, the, the production

713
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,360
company, the promoter, anybody.
Nobody, nobody could make any

714
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,840
money with these these pods that
were 10 feet apart with four

715
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,760
people in each pod or whatever.
I mean, yeah, it was just, it

716
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:20,160
was ridiculous, those.
Pictures of those outdoor things

717
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:22,080
where they've got these 12 by 12
skirts.

718
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,000
I know people in it.
It's like, oh crazy.

719
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,320
Yeah, I mean, again, how do you
make money on that?

720
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,800
Like the logistics.
And I remember one of these

721
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:34,600
outdoor concerts and you know,
all these, they showed

722
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:36,480
renderings of it.
Look at all these people in

723
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,560
their cars and they can listen
to the concert and stick their

724
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,760
head out the window and cheer
and stuff.

725
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:44,240
And I said, where do they go to
the bathroom?

726
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:50,040
And they just went dead silent.
They were like they didn't even

727
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:52,520
think about how are these people
like what are they pee in a

728
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,440
bottle, in their car?
Or something like.

729
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,680
How do they go to the bathroom?
And yeah, that hadn't been

730
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:00,160
considered at the.
Time, yeah.

731
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:02,480
And entertainment was tough.
Touring obviously.

732
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,480
I mean there's that.
That was probably the the most

733
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:09,760
difficult thing to get back into
a viable model.

734
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,200
But the interesting thing is, is
as a as a modest consumer of of

735
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:18,960
music, the number of artists
were able to find a following by

736
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,640
embracing virtual and doing
their own mini concerts.

737
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,840
There's a lot of people that I
still follow that I only found

738
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,840
out about because they had the
presence of mind to get out in

739
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:31,360
the world and and expose
themselves.

740
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,240
And then when things came back,
they're out touring and you

741
00:39:34,240 --> 00:39:38,520
know, comedians, you know, one
of the comedian, they did really

742
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:41,400
well because they they could do
that virtually so.

743
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,360
Although I listened to a few of
them like on on Joe Rogan and

744
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,720
stuff and and they said that was
hard, that you know, because

745
00:39:47,720 --> 00:39:51,640
comedians are funny because of
the interaction.

746
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,400
With audience.
You know, the audience is what

747
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:56,680
makes them vibe and makes them
funny and stuff.

748
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,480
And I saw some artists say the
same thing like, you know,

749
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:04,320
Metallica did a a virtual thing
where they had like that Tony

750
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:09,240
Robbins 360 screen around them
and they could point and go Bob

751
00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:12,240
in Kentucky, let's rock and you
know Bob would be like.

752
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,440
You know, on the screen and they
had, I think they you paid extra

753
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,920
to be part of the VIP group that
was the 2000 people on the

754
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:21,080
screen or whatever.
Right.

755
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:23,920
And that was one of the few that
I saw that worked well.

756
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,800
But when you heard interviews
from the band, they said it was,

757
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,200
it was so hard.
You know, we're a we're a metal

758
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:35,480
band and to stand in a room in a
round screen and try and make it

759
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,600
seem like we're having a good
time, it's hard.

760
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,200
And you know, there was a lot, I
mean, there was a obviously a

761
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:43,160
lot of social pushback.
I mean, yes, we're an event

762
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,520
industry, live event.
People have to be there.

763
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:46,840
That's what makes it a live
event.

764
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,960
And you know, we can't have
lockdowns, we can't have social

765
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:53,560
that we can't have all of these
things.

766
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,920
That's more important for people
to get together, which was part

767
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:58,840
of the problem.
Right, exactly.

768
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:00,320
Right.
It's like say the the the the,

769
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,240
the, the, the quicker you
embrace the solution, the sooner

770
00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:05,280
we're going to get back to the
thing that's important to you.

771
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,760
So that's the thing that you
know talking to my audience is

772
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:14,840
getting them to guys process
this, think this through, right.

773
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:16,480
OK.
Yes.

774
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:18,800
You may be in a market where
people are comfortable with out

775
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:20,800
and going meetings.
I live in a major city.

776
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,080
We're not going anywhere.
We're putting a hazmat suit on

777
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:27,160
to go to the grocery store until
we understood what was going on.

778
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:31,040
So like I said, it was an
opportunity to start to

779
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:35,400
understand some things that
what's valuable and what you do

780
00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:39,680
and what's valuable and what you
do is not own equipment and have

781
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:41,440
technicians that you're back in
call.

782
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,960
What's valuable is you get a
show done for your customer.

783
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:45,960
Yeah.
Absolutely.

784
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,880
And my message was a virtual
meeting is a show.

785
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:51,640
Yeah.
Get over it.

786
00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:54,600
It's a show.
Yeah, you can treat it like a

787
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,240
zoom meeting, OK?
Which in which case it's going

788
00:41:58,240 --> 00:42:00,640
to suck.
Or you can treat it like a show.

789
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:01,720
Now what are you going to do
about it?

790
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:03,240
How do you make this a show,
Huh?

791
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,680
And some people probably did it
really, really well and others

792
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:09,080
didn't, I would guess.
Right.

793
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:11,040
They they created their own
platforms.

794
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:14,040
We had people developing
software, you know, to create

795
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,760
virtual environments.
And you know, you know, you walk

796
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,600
out and you're standing in a
lobby and you choose the the

797
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,360
meeting room you go to next and
you interactive.

798
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:24,120
There's huge things that were
developed.

799
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,480
They're all sitting dormant now,
but they were extremely valuable

800
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,520
for a long time 1.
Of the things that I thought was

801
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:34,120
so cool during the pandemic was
it, It made me proud of the

802
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,760
industry that we're in.
And because there was so much

803
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:41,280
innovation, because they're
people refused and hated just

804
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,200
sitting back watching Netflix
and stuff and just accepting

805
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,080
we're closed, you know?
So like I did that whole red

806
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,760
alert restart thing with a group
of people that we pulled

807
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:53,720
together and and lit up 3000
some odd buildings across the

808
00:42:53,720 --> 00:42:56,400
country and stuff.
People were so happy to go out

809
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:00,800
and hang lights, you know, and
program lights and hit buttons

810
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,360
and stuff like they were just so
excited to do that.

811
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,920
But you know the other really
positive thing I think that came

812
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:12,280
from COVID in in the
entertainment space is the pent

813
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:18,600
up demand created such an
explosion of growth in in the

814
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:24,600
market and an explosion of of
demand for live events and live

815
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:30,760
music that you know you have
every average or better artist

816
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,880
playing in stadiums, you have
comedians playing in stadiums,

817
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:40,440
5060 thousand seats stadiums and
it ain't getting any smaller.

818
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,120
It isn't slowing down.
You know one of the things that

819
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:48,120
and I keep quoting this on my
podcast but Rapino from Live

820
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:51,360
Nation said in there I think it
was their quarterly earnings

821
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:56,080
report or something.
He said that growth is is going

822
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,600
to continue in 2024 and here's
why.

823
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,400
These artists have like 10
million followers on their

824
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,560
platforms and all I my job's
easy.

825
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:10,360
I have to sell 500,000 tickets
out of 10 million followers.

826
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:15,400
I have a really easy job.
So the artists, the promoters,

827
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,600
everybody's looking to expand
that from 5% to 10 or 15% of

828
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:21,720
their followers, right?
Right.

829
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,280
But they didn't have those
followers before.

830
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,440
The pandemic.
Pandemic is what got them those

831
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,440
followers because they had to
adapt, right.

832
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:34,080
You know, they they we're going
to, we're one day we're going to

833
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:35,440
call it.
They had the Taylor Swift it.

834
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:37,440
Right.
So they, they swifted an

835
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:41,000
audience together and that's
what fills their stadium.

836
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,120
You know, back in the day, you
know, we we did concerts to sell

837
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:47,480
records, then we did records to
sell concerts of.

838
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,320
Course, yeah.
Now we build social networks.

839
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:53,280
Yeah.
And we can sell anything we

840
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,200
want.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's

841
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:57,960
crazy though.
I mean to me that's one of the

842
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,280
craziest things that's come out
of COVID is the amount of demand

843
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,800
and growth in the.
I didn't see it coming.

844
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,560
I didn't see the the live music,
live event, entertainment space

845
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:11,880
growing as much as it as it is.
And I know the AV side of the

846
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,520
business, conference
conventions, corporate meetings

847
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:19,480
and stuff is still coming back
like it's it hasn't had the

848
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,600
explosive growth from what I
understand anyways.

849
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:24,720
Oh, I'm not sure I agree with
that.

850
00:45:24,720 --> 00:45:27,000
I think it has had very
explosive growth.

851
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,320
Yeah, 'cause most of the
companies that I talked to say

852
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:33,440
that, you know, it's still
coming back.

853
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:37,040
Basically, like, you know, a lot
of the the massive stuff that

854
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:40,120
they used to do is still coming
back, 'cause there are companies

855
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:45,880
that laid into even 23 were
uncomfortable putting 5000 of

856
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,360
their staff in a in a ballroom
or whatever.

857
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:51,880
Yeah, so there's a certain
there's a.

858
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,960
There are types of events that
have not come back, but they've

859
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:56,760
been replaced by three other
events.

860
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:58,160
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, right.

861
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:01,480
So there's, I mean the the, the
surge of work that we saw in

862
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:08,160
20/22/2022 revenue far exceeded
20/19/23 exceeded 2019 though it

863
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:12,000
didn't exceed 2022, yeah,
because remember 2022 we had

864
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,000
pent up demand, it was wild Wild
West prices were through the

865
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,400
roof. 2023 is pretty darn
normal.

866
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:22,480
It was way better than 2019,
much more profitable, right.

867
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:27,720
And 2024 is even more normal in
that our lead times have gotten

868
00:46:27,720 --> 00:46:31,680
longer.
So big events are are definitely

869
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:34,600
back, small events are bigger
because we're pricing them

870
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:39,160
correctly, right.
And the difference between, you

871
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:43,680
know, in 2019, the difference
between a good company and

872
00:46:43,720 --> 00:46:48,120
somebody who is a poser, their
difference in price was 5%.

873
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,760
The difference in price between
those two companies now is 30%.

874
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,400
Really.
Yeah, there's there's tons of

875
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,640
posers out there still.
Those are the people who have

876
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,800
the same revenue or less than
they had before and are telling

877
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,200
you that meetings aren't coming
back.

878
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:07,520
Yeah, because they're the same
company they were before.

879
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:08,960
Right, Yeah.
Right.

880
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,320
That's probably not all of them.
But typically when I find

881
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:16,360
somebody who has not seen the
upside of the post pandemic era,

882
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:18,760
it's because they're the same
company they were before.

883
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,240
What about So as a as a
consultant, business coach,

884
00:47:22,240 --> 00:47:26,200
etcetera, are you dealing with a
lot of the downside of that

885
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:30,640
explosive growth in you know,
mental health, physical health?

886
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:33,840
You know, I know people who have
literally worked themselves to

887
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:37,600
death since since the pandemic
where, you know, they just said,

888
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:39,520
well, I lost a truck driver,
I'll drive the truck.

889
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,960
I lost, I lost, you know,
whatever, I'll, I'll do that gig

890
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:44,800
too.
And their weekends became

891
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:47,640
shorter and shorter, their rest
periods became shorter, their

892
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,640
sleep became less and their
health went to shit.

893
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:56,360
And they died, you know?
Yeah, there are.

894
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,720
There are certainly business
owners out there who took on too

895
00:47:59,720 --> 00:48:01,840
much and didn't.
I mean that's always been true.

896
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:04,080
You know what they were like
that before.

897
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:10,000
What what I think we we have to
come to grips with that the

898
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:13,720
pandemic was traumatic.
I don't care how well you think

899
00:48:13,720 --> 00:48:16,880
you survived it, it had a
significant toll.

900
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,840
And what I see in the owners
that I deal with is a lot of

901
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:25,520
untreated trauma, and
particularly particularly in the

902
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:27,760
older generations.
You know, the the folks under 40

903
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,040
fared a little bit better, a
little bit more resilient.

904
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:34,080
The older guys, they don't
realize how big a toilet took on

905
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:38,240
them emotionally, how much pain
they've been packing down.

906
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:42,400
They've lost a lot of their
their vim and vigor for the

907
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,920
business because they they
missed the self-care.

908
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,400
Yeah.
And and you know, again, maybe

909
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:51,200
it's different on the concert
touring side because I'm

910
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,880
actually seeing the problem more
so in some of the younger people

911
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:59,240
who who didn't necessarily grow
up in touring in the grind

912
00:48:59,240 --> 00:49:02,360
where, you know, you were on the
road 11 months out of the year

913
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,360
or whatever.
It's much more corporate now and

914
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,400
people have more normal hours
and stuff.

915
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:10,960
But since COVID, they've been
worn down to a point.

916
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,200
Like I had a call with a guy
today who's a fairly successful

917
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:18,520
young production manager who's
done some sort of mid size acts

918
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,880
and done really, really well
with it and he's leaving the

919
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,640
industry.
He's he's looking to to do

920
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:27,760
something entirely different.
And he was asking for my help to

921
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,560
help him figure out what that
next step is and introduce him

922
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:35,240
to some people and stuff.
And I I have a lot of those

923
00:49:35,240 --> 00:49:37,720
conversations with, you know,
whether they're lighting people,

924
00:49:37,720 --> 00:49:42,000
sound people, production
management people, whatever they

925
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:45,360
are, the last two years has just
worn them down.

926
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,520
Yeah, and I and and I wonder
about that, 'cause I do have

927
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:51,400
clients who are in the concert
space and they struggle to find

928
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:53,760
people, right.
Which means that, you know,

929
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:55,680
people are doing stuff more
back-to-back.

930
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:58,640
You know, their local crews
aren't as much help as they were

931
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:00,120
before the pandemic.
They can't.

932
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,520
You get a 20 man order for stage
hands and you know, 10 show up.

933
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:05,880
So everybody's working hard for
them.

934
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:08,880
You know, there's there's a lot
of things going on there.

935
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:13,480
But what I'm really hearing is
somebody who's employing these

936
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:17,440
people is not facing the reality
that you can't keep these people

937
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,760
in the field and not address
these issues.

938
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:22,960
Right?
So the industry has changed.

939
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:25,400
We need to do something
different.

940
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,840
Yeah, burning people out.
And I mean, I hey, I mean, I

941
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,960
manage, I manage staff, I manage
freelancers, right?

942
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,520
The most precious thing you have
when you're managing the

943
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,320
resources of your company is
time.

944
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:43,600
You got to reduce the amount of
time equipment is not working,

945
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:48,560
as in out of repair, out of
service and you've got to manage

946
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:50,800
the amount of time your team has
downtime.

947
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:53,800
Yeah, and.
If you're not managing downtime,

948
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:56,240
and you're not looking at the
schedule and being first and

949
00:50:56,240 --> 00:51:00,120
foremost aware of the downtime
for that person, you're just

950
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:01,680
shooting yourself.
You're just creating a problem

951
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:03,280
that you can't.
You're saying making sure that

952
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:05,920
they take downtime?
Yeah.

953
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:07,160
Who's giving?
No, no.

954
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:12,000
So if if my if my employee, if
my employee gets to choose when

955
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:15,840
they work and their tendency is
to work themselves to death,

956
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,840
management needs to take notice.
Yeah, right.

957
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:22,800
First of all, why would any
employee get to self select how

958
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,240
hard or how long they work?
What are they working on?

959
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,040
So are you just taking advantage
of somebody and hope they don't

960
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:32,840
die on your show, right?
Or are you are you burning out

961
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:34,280
an asset?
Right.

962
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:36,400
Yeah.
So what's the highest and best

963
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,240
use of this person?
It's not running him into the

964
00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:42,240
ground.
I mean, I did horrible corporate

965
00:51:42,240 --> 00:51:45,600
touring shows in the 80s, right?
Yeah, you know, with a with a 27

966
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:46,760
hour day.
Yeah.

967
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:49,400
Yeah, you.
Sleep under the You sleep under

968
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,160
the front of house console or
whatever you take.

969
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:55,640
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I I completely get

970
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:57,760
what you're saying and it's it's
an important thing.

971
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:00,480
And I mean, I think a lot of the
older school owners, myself

972
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:04,040
included, tend to forget
sometimes that you do really

973
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,920
need to manage that and pay very
close attention to that 'cause

974
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:09,080
we didn't when we were younger,
you know.

975
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:12,000
And and look at how you buy
touring.

976
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:14,880
You buy on a weekly rate.
Yeah.

977
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,040
You don't really think that you
need to pay more than you did

978
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:20,400
four years ago?
Yeah.

979
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:22,840
So what do we short?
We short the labor.

980
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,120
Yeah, yeah.
Touring companies don't want to.

981
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:26,720
I mean, they want to own all the
gear.

982
00:52:26,720 --> 00:52:29,000
They're not going to sub rent
gear to send it out on a tour.

983
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:30,520
They're going to own all that
gear.

984
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:32,800
Yeah.
So all of a sudden they're not

985
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:36,240
really making money on labor.
They have to put people on the

986
00:52:36,240 --> 00:52:37,240
show.
Yeah.

987
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,720
So I mean, we're cutting
quarters at the one place we

988
00:52:39,720 --> 00:52:42,520
can't cut corners because we
aren't willing to tell the the

989
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:45,680
tour manager or the producer
saying, I'm sorry, I can't do

990
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:48,840
this for 6000 bucks a week.
Yeah, well, I mean, even your

991
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,480
gear, you know your gear, if you
don't take it out of Commission

992
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,360
every once in a while and make
sure that it's cleaned up and

993
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,400
fixed up and checked and
everything else, it's going to

994
00:52:57,400 --> 00:52:59,400
start failing you too.
Let me ask you this.

995
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:04,040
So let's say you have a business
owner who's who's been, you

996
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:07,000
know, sleeping for the last 20
years and he comes to you and

997
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:09,160
goes, Tom, I'm going to reboot
my business.

998
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:12,600
What are some of the things that
have changed in the industry,

999
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:15,200
like some of the big things that
have changed in the industry

1000
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:22,160
from 20 years ago to today?
I love the question. 20 years

1001
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:26,120
ago I started when I was back
when I was doing magazine

1002
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:28,280
articles, when we used to get,
you know, paper magazines that

1003
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,280
would come in the mail and pile
up on your desk.

1004
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:32,440
And there was I.
It was three different trade

1005
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:34,480
magazines that I wrote for every
single month.

1006
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:37,440
And I remember writing this
article about scope of work

1007
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:41,680
proposals.
We're an industry which until

1008
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:47,120
really 15 years ago, the norm
for 99% of the people in our

1009
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,480
industry was to write in a line
by line equipment list, line by

1010
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:54,560
line labour, show the client 24
pages of line items with a price

1011
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:58,400
on each one and maybe a discount
somewhere or a few price

1012
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:00,680
adjustments.
Yeah, right.

1013
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,800
That's how everyone sold.
So 20, somebody coming, you

1014
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:08,360
know, out of a coma from 20
years ago when they write a a

1015
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:10,480
proposal, that's what they're
going to do because that's what

1016
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:14,960
we all did.
And I was like, that's the worst

1017
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:17,840
possible way to sell.
Now, there are channels and

1018
00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:19,520
stuff where you have to sell
that way.

1019
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,360
If you got a technical buyer in
touring, you're damn right

1020
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:24,560
somebody's scrutinizing every
part and piece that you're

1021
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:27,520
sending their commodity buyers,
right?

1022
00:54:28,240 --> 00:54:33,760
But if you have a good tour
client, you're going to tell

1023
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:35,480
them I'm going to send
everything it takes.

1024
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,040
It's 8000 bucks a week.
Yeah.

1025
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:40,520
And they're going to go.
Thank God you're available.

1026
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,720
We want you to have on the show.
We can make that number work.

1027
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,080
You know what's interesting?
I didn't know that that change

1028
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:48,200
had taken place because I'm not
on that side of the business, of

1029
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,080
course.
So, but that's how I've always

1030
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:53,880
quoted things because a couple
of reasons.

1031
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:57,680
You know, one you make it too
easy for them to just take one

1032
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,440
line out of it and go Google it
and get a lower price.

1033
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:06,080
And it's not fair because you
know, nine of my other 10 prices

1034
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,480
might have been lower than the
other ones.

1035
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,120
And you can't just pull one line
out and go price shop it.

1036
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,760
It doesn't make any sense.
And this this show isn't just 10

1037
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:17,480
lines, you know, it's it's so
many other things.

1038
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:21,440
Well, so and do they know what
can be pulled out, right.

1039
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:24,320
You know, I remember you know
you know back in the day you

1040
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:27,440
know when we were doing slide
shows we had a an item.

1041
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:29,640
When you're doing multi image
slide shows, you had a computer

1042
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:32,880
and you had a data booster which
is basically what we would think

1043
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:37,080
of as a DMX splitter right.
And it and it, it protected the

1044
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:41,160
signal, so it's and and you put
it on each end of the snake to

1045
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,200
get to wherever your control
devices were and producers look

1046
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:46,160
at that oh we can we don't need
two of those.

1047
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:48,640
We just need one because they
want to.

1048
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:51,240
They want to save 15 bucks.
And we started saying, well,

1049
00:55:51,240 --> 00:55:53,680
this is stupid.
That's going to screw everything

1050
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:55,120
up.
Yeah, right.

1051
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:57,880
So we just sort of saying this
is not negotiable.

1052
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,120
Here's everything it takes to do
an 18 projector slideshow.

1053
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,680
Yeah, right.
And so it's not 18 projectors

1054
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:08,600
and six stackers and, you know,
18 lenses and 18 mounts.

1055
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,840
And you know, no.
Here's everything it takes to do

1056
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:14,840
an 18 projector slideshow.
And how did they accept that

1057
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:15,880
though?
Like what?

1058
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:21,720
That had to take some time to
create that behavioral change in

1059
00:56:21,720 --> 00:56:26,760
in the buyers.
It's It usually takes one time,

1060
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:31,960
huh?
So you lose that show and and.

1061
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,080
Sometimes.
Often you often you don't.

1062
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,600
Often what they'll do is they'll
piss and moan about it.

1063
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,040
You'll give them a little break
somewhere else.

1064
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:45,000
That doesn't matter, right?
You throw them a little because

1065
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,960
you're not changing the price.
It's the same price, Yeah.

1066
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,400
You're just taking away all the
little things that they can pick

1067
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:55,160
at.
That one is not helping

1068
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,800
anybody's time and the fact is,
I'm gonna send it anyway.

1069
00:56:58,280 --> 00:56:59,760
Yeah.
So if you were gonna send it

1070
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:01,800
anyway, why are you even telling
the customer you're charging?

1071
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,600
For it, it's totally true.
Just wrap it into the price.

1072
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:06,840
And so we started doing things
like, say, when you run a video

1073
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,760
projector, it includes all the
things it takes to make the

1074
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:13,680
video projector work, rather
than listing all the things that

1075
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:15,640
go with the video projector.
Well, one of the ones so.

1076
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:17,320
That's the beginning.
Yeah.

1077
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:19,920
One of the ones I used to always
remember with automated lights,

1078
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:23,760
with moving lights was
especially if you had cameras on

1079
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:27,920
a show or it was a video shoot
of some sort of television shoot

1080
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:31,920
or something, they didn't want
to pay for new lamps, right?

1081
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:34,520
You know, I want to pay X amount
of dollars per light and I'm

1082
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:36,240
going to rent these lights and I
don't want to pay for any.

1083
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:39,600
And then they'd come and they
would complain for days that the

1084
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,960
color temperature doesn't match
perfectly in all of the lamps,

1085
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:46,520
you know, and you know, I gave
you that option.

1086
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:49,720
So now the only thing we can do
is filter down to sort of the

1087
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:54,000
lowest temperature that works
for you or whatever.

1088
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:57,680
But I mean, it was always, it
was always this argument over,

1089
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:01,480
you know, no, we don't wanna pay
for new lamps, but yes, we want

1090
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:03,800
all the lamps to match.
Well, how can I do that without

1091
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:05,560
putting new lamps in the
fixtures?

1092
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:07,240
Sir.
You know, I mean, it just

1093
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,960
doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, I mean people always, you

1094
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:13,120
know, lighting is always a hard
thing to price, especially in

1095
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:15,800
the AV world, cuz if you're
competing with a entertainment

1096
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:18,920
lighting people, the price
points are much, much different,

1097
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:21,200
right?
And you could rent a a source

1098
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:24,000
for ellipsoid over $18.00 a
week, but if you go to the AV

1099
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:26,960
company it's $60.00 a week,
right.

1100
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:30,880
So one of the things we used to
say and it doesn't always work

1101
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:33,280
as saying, well, does the
company you're running from

1102
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:36,920
bench focus it after every job?
Well, no.

1103
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:38,760
Do they put new lamps?
What?

1104
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:40,480
What?
Right.

1105
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:44,120
So it's like no, there's so it's
a different value proposition.

1106
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:46,600
So again, it's understanding
what it is you're doing, where

1107
00:58:46,600 --> 00:58:48,840
you fit in the marketplace that
makes a difference.

1108
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:52,520
Yeah, I mean, that quoting thing
is interesting because again, I

1109
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:54,520
I didn't even know that that
change happened.

1110
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:58,360
It makes a ton of sense, but are
there any other major things

1111
00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:02,680
that you'd you'd tell that
freshly awoken business owner?

1112
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:06,000
Hey by the way, this is going to
be a lot different now.

1113
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:11,360
I think that's the big thing.
The other big thing is that, you

1114
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:16,280
know, compared to that era and
now if you own all the equipment

1115
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:19,000
and people that you need to do
all the jobs that you're going

1116
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:21,520
to do, you are not going to make
money in this economy.

1117
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:24,960
Really.
That model does not work.

1118
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:29,440
It is not viable because you'll
never have the utilization

1119
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:33,680
unless you have solved the
seasonality problem, which I

1120
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:35,600
always ask whenever I stand in
front of an audience and say

1121
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:38,760
guys, quick quick conversation,
you guys all talk to each other,

1122
00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:41,000
tell me how you solve
seasonality for your business.

1123
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:43,880
Go.
There's no answer to it.

1124
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:47,120
Yeah.
We're a seasonal industry, so

1125
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:50,440
how can you run a business that
has overhead that's not being

1126
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:54,920
used three or four or five or
six months out of the year just

1127
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:57,360
so they can be super busy for
the other half of the year?

1128
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:01,400
But how do you outsource that
overhead if everybody else is

1129
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:05,480
busy too?
That's not true.

1130
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:07,720
We haven't.
We were over saturated right

1131
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:10,120
before the pandemic.
Everybody had too many employees

1132
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:11,760
on staff.
There was tons of freelancers

1133
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:13,280
out there.
Nobody had trouble finding

1134
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:15,000
people to staff a show.
Right.

1135
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:18,920
Right.
Why do you have direct labor on

1136
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:23,000
staff?
Name a theater company that has

1137
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:26,160
full time technicians.
No.

1138
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:29,480
You're right, Name an act that
has full time technicians.

1139
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:31,800
Yeah, you're right.
Why do we have full time

1140
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:36,200
technicians?
It's a gig industry and all the

1141
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:40,520
best people gig the best people.
There are some fantastic people

1142
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:46,320
who are staff, but if you want
to know who the best of a job is

1143
01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:49,280
in any segment, I guarantee you
as a freelancer.

1144
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:51,640
Yeah.
You were saying though that that

1145
01:00:51,800 --> 01:00:55,000
you know it's you can't be
profitable if you own all your

1146
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:56,320
gear and all your people and
stuff.

1147
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:59,880
But is that different at scale,
In other words, if if you're a

1148
01:00:59,880 --> 01:01:03,920
much larger business with 20
offices?

1149
01:01:03,920 --> 01:01:07,320
And there's no scale that it
works.

1150
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,520
OK.
Because you're always going to

1151
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:11,800
have seasonality.
You're always going to have to

1152
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:14,440
sell.
You're always buying equipment

1153
01:01:14,560 --> 01:01:18,920
and hiring people ahead of
demand, right?

1154
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:21,160
If that's your model, you have
to hire ahead of demand.

1155
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:26,400
Then you turn away work, right?
If you could always sell beyond

1156
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:30,120
your inside resources and you
can always outsource, you can

1157
01:01:30,120 --> 01:01:33,280
sell as much as you want.
In the example I always get one

1158
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:36,720
of my one of my clients that
I've had for many years, they

1159
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:42,120
had 70 employees.
Pre Pandemic they did $15

1160
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:47,360
million a year of business.
They were not profitable, I mean

1161
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:53,680
just not profitable right?
Post Pandemic 2022, they did $18

1162
01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:58,560
million worth of business with
30 employees and they did over

1163
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:03,720
20% net profit.
And the team, no one in sales,

1164
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:05,680
no one in operations, no one in
finance.

1165
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:08,600
Broke a sweat.
End of the year meeting.

1166
01:02:08,600 --> 01:02:10,440
How was the year for you, man?
We did a lot of business.

1167
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:12,320
Who's burned out?
We're not burned out.

1168
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:15,040
Yeah.
They they had not a single

1169
01:02:15,040 --> 01:02:17,800
technician on staff.
They did not buy any new

1170
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:19,800
equipment.
They subreddited whatever they

1171
01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:21,400
needed to.
They hired freelancers.

1172
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:24,960
They built a they went from a
fifty person freelance pool to a

1173
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:29,440
300 person freelance pool.
Yeah, but so you know again

1174
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:32,040
different industries but
comparing that to the the

1175
01:02:32,040 --> 01:02:38,560
concert industry 20/21/22 when
when equipment shortages were

1176
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:42,920
such a a massive problem and
people shortages, the companies

1177
01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:46,160
who had their own equipment and
people were a able to charge

1178
01:02:46,160 --> 01:02:48,360
more B able to take on more
work.

1179
01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:52,760
You know C probably more
profitable because the the

1180
01:02:52,760 --> 01:02:57,320
people who had to sub rent
people and and gear were

1181
01:02:57,320 --> 01:03:00,520
overpaying.
Often times they were unable to

1182
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:04,280
get everything they needed.
I did not see that at all.

1183
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:08,800
No, no, I mean, I mean you you
yourself experience fact.

1184
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:11,800
We have a surplus of gear.
Everybody's dumping gear on your

1185
01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:13,200
platform.
Yeah.

1186
01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:14,560
Right.
And then they weren't.

1187
01:03:14,640 --> 01:03:16,080
And then there was like.
But then they.

1188
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:17,920
But then they weren't, right?
Yeah.

1189
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:24,280
So again, we can't, we can't use
21 or 22 as a benchmark.

1190
01:03:24,520 --> 01:03:27,440
That's true, yeah. 2023 is our
benchmark.

1191
01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:29,640
Yeah.
OK. 2023 is our close.

1192
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:32,280
To normal as I.
Think is our is our first pretty

1193
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:34,320
normal year.
We're as normal as we could be

1194
01:03:34,320 --> 01:03:36,000
all year.
We haven't had any shutdowns.

1195
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:38,600
We haven't had any things that's
caused people to cancel

1196
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:41,920
meetings.
It's been fairly normal demand.

1197
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:45,680
But again, if you have a
seasonal industry and so let's

1198
01:03:45,680 --> 01:03:48,680
call it corporate meetings and
it's seasonal.

1199
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:53,920
If if I don't own all my gear or
all my people who am I cross

1200
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:56,760
renting from?
If it's seasonal for them as

1201
01:03:56,760 --> 01:03:59,520
well and their season matches
mine because it's the AV

1202
01:03:59,520 --> 01:04:02,520
industry or am I renting from
the rock'n'roll or theater

1203
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:04,720
industry because they're not as
busy?

1204
01:04:04,720 --> 01:04:07,760
There's there is always somebody
who's not busy that week, but

1205
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:12,000
the fact is you know we have a
wholesale market.

1206
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:14,720
Yeah, there are plenty of
wholesale suppliers out there

1207
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:18,280
particularly on the pro AV side.
There certainly is I mean if you

1208
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:21,480
look at it half APR GS business
is being a wholesale supplier,

1209
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:23,840
yeah for sure to to other
companies, right.

1210
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:27,040
So there are plenty of suppliers
out there who are B to B

1211
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:30,760
suppliers that we can rent from
in every local market.

1212
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:34,080
There's five other companies
that do what you do who have

1213
01:04:35,160 --> 01:04:37,760
parts and pieces available that
week and we trade back and forth

1214
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:41,480
just like we did in the 90s
right before der, right, right.

1215
01:04:41,760 --> 01:04:43,960
So before there was a wholesale
market, we had all these people

1216
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:45,880
who did business together.
We never had trouble finding

1217
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:47,960
gear.
So there's plenty of gear out

1218
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:51,520
there.
You just may need 10 go to

1219
01:04:51,520 --> 01:04:53,640
suppliers instead of two.
Yeah.

1220
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:56,280
Now it makes sense.
I mean I completely agree with

1221
01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:58,560
you.
It's it's you know those are the

1222
01:04:58,560 --> 01:05:01,280
most expensive moving parts in
these businesses.

1223
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:05,240
And and again when you're when
it's a seasonal business and

1224
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:08,720
it's a down season, the last
thing you want is a huge

1225
01:05:08,720 --> 01:05:11,920
warehouse full of inventory and
tons of people that need

1226
01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:14,160
feeding.
And it it just doesn't make any

1227
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:16,480
sense.
Like you need your you need your

1228
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:19,360
expenses to rise and fall with
your income.

1229
01:05:20,200 --> 01:05:22,000
Right.
And that's, you know, that's the

1230
01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:26,000
plug again for my book balance
because this operating system,

1231
01:05:26,000 --> 01:05:30,880
it works the same in in in
concert touring companies,

1232
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:34,480
corporate AV companies, you
know, I got Broadway clients,

1233
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:36,840
right?
It's all the same problem.

1234
01:05:37,080 --> 01:05:40,320
Yeah.
If we put too much direct labor

1235
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:45,440
and direct resources into our
resource pool, we have to sell

1236
01:05:46,200 --> 01:05:48,400
on revenue.
We got to sell on price in order

1237
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:50,360
to keep it busy.
Yeah, yeah.

1238
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:52,760
It's a death spiral, and the
only way to break the death

1239
01:05:52,760 --> 01:05:56,320
spiral is to be inherently
profitable and outsourced

1240
01:05:56,320 --> 01:05:59,760
whenever you need to, so you
don't buy permanent overhead to

1241
01:05:59,760 --> 01:06:02,840
try and keep up.
Let's let's get a quick plug on

1242
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:04,400
that book.
Where can people get it at?

1243
01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:06,920
On Amazon, I would assume.
Well, you you can certainly get

1244
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:09,200
it on Amazon balanced by Tom
Stimson.

1245
01:06:09,520 --> 01:06:12,200
Yeah, can you get it on your
website and.

1246
01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:15,720
You could drop on my website, it
gets it sold on your website.

1247
01:06:16,360 --> 01:06:17,800
No, I don't sell it on my
website.

1248
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:20,440
I want as many people to have at
Amazon is way better at this

1249
01:06:20,440 --> 01:06:22,960
than I am.
But if you pop by my website at

1250
01:06:22,960 --> 01:06:27,080
trstimson.com, shoot me an
e-mail, have a chat, something

1251
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:29,240
like that, I'd be happy to send
you a copy.

1252
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:33,800
Yeah, now I'm definitely gonna
grab the book because I I love

1253
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:35,400
what you're what you're talking
about.

1254
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:37,720
I like all of this stuff a whole
bunch.

1255
01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:41,400
So going back to our guy that
was sleeping for 20 years, let

1256
01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:43,600
me ask you something.
What do you tell him about AI?

1257
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:48,280
This this poor SAP?
What are you gonna tell this

1258
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:50,840
poor SAP who probably hasn't
even seen an iPhone yet?

1259
01:06:51,800 --> 01:06:54,080
You know, he may have a
BlackBerry.

1260
01:06:54,840 --> 01:06:59,280
Well, assuming he actually was
in a coma, but you know, if they

1261
01:06:59,280 --> 01:07:03,280
were just out of the industry,
you know, I'd say AI is just a

1262
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:05,880
tool, right.
I'm, I'm not sure what in our

1263
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:08,480
industry AI replaces except that
I use it.

1264
01:07:09,200 --> 01:07:12,400
Yeah, every meeting I I take
with a with a client or a

1265
01:07:12,400 --> 01:07:14,840
prospect.
You know my note taker is an AI

1266
01:07:14,840 --> 01:07:17,000
bot.
You know it's giving me notes

1267
01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:20,600
and bullet points and reminders
and you know transcripts and

1268
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:22,880
everything.
It's being it's very intuitive.

1269
01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:29,120
We're using AI to you know to
generate podcast content to do

1270
01:07:29,120 --> 01:07:31,240
intros and outros.
There's so many things that we

1271
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:35,720
could use for AI for in the
meetings industry right to make

1272
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:38,200
life easier.
How you know, I'm from the the

1273
01:07:38,200 --> 01:07:41,400
old days when we used to do, you
know live walk ONS, you had to

1274
01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:44,800
have the voice of God Mike to to
walk the executive on and then

1275
01:07:44,800 --> 01:07:47,440
we sort of like recording on
tape and we're splicing reel to

1276
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:49,440
reel.
Why not just type the script in

1277
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:51,880
and run it through your AI bot?
It'll be perfect every time.

1278
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:55,480
Yeah, I mean, of course, the
industry though is concerned

1279
01:07:55,480 --> 01:07:59,440
with the fact that we can't be
that far away from lighting

1280
01:07:59,440 --> 01:08:03,960
consoles that program themselves
and audio consoles that read the

1281
01:08:03,960 --> 01:08:06,720
room and set themselves.
And.

1282
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:09,400
Yay.
But again, those are those are

1283
01:08:09,400 --> 01:08:11,520
jobs that are pretty well paying
jobs as.

1284
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:14,120
Well, we're not.
We're not getting rid of jobs.

1285
01:08:14,120 --> 01:08:15,320
You know what?
You know?

1286
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:17,240
Remember what consoles used to
be like?

1287
01:08:17,319 --> 01:08:19,960
Yeah, you know, they were so big
that you had to lean to both

1288
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:21,760
sides to get to the faders,
right?

1289
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:24,760
Yeah.
Technology gets easier, easier

1290
01:08:24,760 --> 01:08:27,200
to apply.
It gets easier to engineer.

1291
01:08:27,359 --> 01:08:30,600
You need to be less of a rocket
scientist in order to make it

1292
01:08:30,600 --> 01:08:32,319
work, which means you get to be
more of an artist.

1293
01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:34,240
Yeah, yeah, I.
Agree with you, AI.

1294
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:37,200
Agree with you.
We know that AI AI sucks at art.

1295
01:08:38,120 --> 01:08:41,000
OK, there's still gonna be an
operator there, but God, what?

1296
01:08:41,359 --> 01:08:43,359
I mean, how many people are
using something to wring out the

1297
01:08:43,359 --> 01:08:46,439
room?
Why do you say AI sucks at art?

1298
01:08:47,160 --> 01:08:50,000
Cuz I've seen some pretty
incredible AI art.

1299
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:52,479
Is it?
Is it art or is it?

1300
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:56,080
This is always the question, no,
but this is always the question.

1301
01:08:56,240 --> 01:08:58,800
The same with music.
Music that's created by AI.

1302
01:08:58,800 --> 01:09:01,560
Is that art, or is that
something else you know?

1303
01:09:01,640 --> 01:09:03,359
Right.
So it's it's the self driving

1304
01:09:03,359 --> 01:09:05,560
car thing.
At what point in time do you not

1305
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:07,080
want to be.
I'm not ready to be in a self

1306
01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:09,439
driving car.
Yeah, right.

1307
01:09:09,439 --> 01:09:13,040
I I, you know, I want an
operator there because there's

1308
01:09:13,040 --> 01:09:16,520
that moment.
Yeah I might.

1309
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:19,040
I know the.
Car instead of the Uber driver

1310
01:09:19,040 --> 01:09:21,240
these days, you know.
But there's a point in time.

1311
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:23,240
We all want to make sure our
show goes well.

1312
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,479
And there are things that are
always out of our control.

1313
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:33,160
And I trust me to mute the CEO
when they're barfing up along on

1314
01:09:33,160 --> 01:09:37,800
stage or they're going to the
bathroom with their mic on more

1315
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:40,479
than I trust AI to do it.
Yeah, Did you hear that one?

1316
01:09:40,479 --> 01:09:43,120
I think there's always.
That one live thing that they

1317
01:09:43,120 --> 01:09:48,080
did on on Twitter or whatever,
where Vivek Ramaswami went and

1318
01:09:48,080 --> 01:09:50,640
took a leak and he had his mic
on and they kept going.

1319
01:09:50,880 --> 01:09:53,240
Vivek, you got a live mic.
Vivek.

1320
01:09:53,439 --> 01:09:56,240
Vivek, you got a live mic.
There's a there's a piece on

1321
01:09:57,120 --> 01:09:59,560
Welcome to Wrexham where Ryan
Reynolds does that.

1322
01:09:59,640 --> 01:10:01,600
I remember that that is.
Such a great.

1323
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:02,800
Show.
By the way, I don't even know

1324
01:10:02,960 --> 01:10:04,480
whoever turned me on to that
show.

1325
01:10:04,480 --> 01:10:08,120
Thank you, because I I, my
girlfriend is British and a huge

1326
01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:09,480
soccer fan.
But I am.

1327
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:10,720
I'm Canadian.
I don't.

1328
01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:12,560
I don't know what.
Soccer is it's it's a it's a

1329
01:10:12,560 --> 01:10:14,400
great show.
It's a great show, really good

1330
01:10:14,480 --> 01:10:16,680
show.
It has been great visiting with

1331
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:17,640
you.
This has been a blast.

1332
01:10:17,640 --> 01:10:19,360
Thank you.
Super, super cool.

1333
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:21,640
No, I mean, I, you know, I could
talk to you for another two

1334
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:27,040
hours, but I obviously have to
be very cognizant of your time.

1335
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:32,920
So you know, your book balance,
how to build a scalable business

1336
01:10:32,920 --> 01:10:34,320
with less stress and more
profit.

1337
01:10:34,320 --> 01:10:38,480
Get it at Amazon.
Give me two minutes.

1338
01:10:38,480 --> 01:10:42,400
What is intentional success?
I know that you have groups and

1339
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:46,920
you have coaching and.
So attention to success, this is

1340
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:49,920
really my philosophy.
I mean, what are you doing to

1341
01:10:49,920 --> 01:10:51,560
have success?
What are the steps that you're

1342
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:54,080
taking?
We spend so much time wishing

1343
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:57,000
that things were better.
What are we actually doing about

1344
01:10:57,000 --> 01:10:59,360
it?
So most of what we have to do is

1345
01:10:59,360 --> 01:11:01,800
overcome obstacles in order to
be better.

1346
01:11:02,080 --> 01:11:04,120
And that takes intention.
Yeah.

1347
01:11:04,200 --> 01:11:08,440
So we can let business happen to
us or we can take steps to make

1348
01:11:08,440 --> 01:11:11,280
business work better for us.
So that's what intentional

1349
01:11:11,280 --> 01:11:13,240
success is all about.
There are things that we could

1350
01:11:13,240 --> 01:11:17,120
all be doing to be better.
So, right, Intentional success

1351
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:21,000
clubs are my peer group clubs
where we meet monthly, we meet

1352
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:23,480
in person, we help each other
with their businesses.

1353
01:11:24,440 --> 01:11:26,680
I do, of course I do the
intentional Success podcast.

1354
01:11:26,840 --> 01:11:29,080
So these.
Are like CEOs in in the AV

1355
01:11:29,520 --> 01:11:32,720
industry and company owners.
Yeah, these are these are owner

1356
01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:35,360
operators for the businesses.
I've got a group that has, you

1357
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:37,280
know 2nd and commands with them
as well.

1358
01:11:38,280 --> 01:11:41,240
I do management team groups.
We do one-on-one coaching.

1359
01:11:41,920 --> 01:11:44,160
I do business assessments and
road mapping.

1360
01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:47,280
When you've got competitive
business owners all in this

1361
01:11:47,680 --> 01:11:51,000
group talking about intentional.
Another thing that that guy from

1362
01:11:51,000 --> 01:11:54,040
20 years ago was going to find
out that if he's worried about

1363
01:11:54,040 --> 01:11:56,240
his competitors, he should just
go back to sleep.

1364
01:11:56,720 --> 01:11:59,400
Yeah, you're not wrong.
No, nobody.

1365
01:11:59,400 --> 01:12:01,640
Nobody is your competitor.
Yeah.

1366
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:05,400
Now, what are the odds that, you
know, two people in my group

1367
01:12:05,480 --> 01:12:07,640
work across the street from each
other and chase the same

1368
01:12:07,640 --> 01:12:08,560
business?
They're not.

1369
01:12:08,840 --> 01:12:12,640
The fact of the matter is, when
you find out that even if you

1370
01:12:12,640 --> 01:12:15,120
knew everything about your
competitor's business, what are

1371
01:12:15,120 --> 01:12:16,400
you going to do with the
information?

1372
01:12:16,640 --> 01:12:18,000
That's true.
Yeah, right.

1373
01:12:18,280 --> 01:12:20,400
Why not learn from each other?
You support each other and the

1374
01:12:20,400 --> 01:12:23,520
fact is they're not competitors.
They're people who are doing the

1375
01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:26,520
same thing and need support.
Yeah, the transparency that has

1376
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:29,480
become from social media and
stuff, it's one of the things

1377
01:12:29,480 --> 01:12:32,280
that I really like is we're not
hiding all of those secrets

1378
01:12:32,280 --> 01:12:35,240
anymore.
It's all blemishes and all are

1379
01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:36,800
put out there on social media.
So.

1380
01:12:37,560 --> 01:12:39,200
So these groups are meeting how
often?

1381
01:12:40,040 --> 01:12:42,800
We meet every month.
OK, so once a month and they're

1382
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:45,000
all virtual meetings?
Yeah, they're once a month

1383
01:12:45,000 --> 01:12:46,880
virtual meetings.
We do meet in person a couple of

1384
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:50,200
times a year and then all of my
club members get one-on-one

1385
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:51,600
coaching with me whenever they
need it.

1386
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:53,880
And again, if anyone's
interested in that, they just go

1387
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:56,440
to your website and they can.
Sign, go to my website or e-mail

1388
01:12:56,440 --> 01:13:00,000
me at tomtrstimson.com.
Happy to chat with you about it,

1389
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:02,880
Help you understand how it
works, how it might apply to

1390
01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:05,200
your business.
Yeah, so cool.

1391
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:07,440
Again, I've been following you
since.

1392
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:11,440
I think it was Griff Palmer who
sent me article that you wrote

1393
01:13:11,440 --> 01:13:14,640
about inventory and he said,
Marcel, you got to get to know

1394
01:13:14,640 --> 01:13:18,280
this guy, smart guy.
And I read the article, loved

1395
01:13:18,280 --> 01:13:21,480
it, shared it a whole bunch and
I've been following you since.

1396
01:13:21,480 --> 01:13:26,360
So I appreciate you taking the
time to come on and look forward

1397
01:13:26,360 --> 01:13:27,720
to talking to you a whole lot
more.

1398
01:13:27,720 --> 01:13:30,160
We'll bring you back on again
when I know more better

1399
01:13:30,160 --> 01:13:34,160
questions to ask you and.
Well, it's it's been a treat.

1400
01:13:34,160 --> 01:13:37,480
I'm happy to do it again and
we'll who knows, we might even

1401
01:13:37,480 --> 01:13:40,280
have better AV.
Yeah, yeah, our mics might work.

1402
01:13:40,640 --> 01:13:42,320
Thanks again.
All right.

1403
01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:43,200
Cheers.
All right.