E5: When The King Speaks - Leadership Lessons from The Entertainment Biz with Matt Stoneback

Matt Stoneback, the creative force behind Eddie Sound and Rockbox, shares his unique journey from juggling a full-time job to becoming a pioneering figure in the entertainment industry of Colorado Springs. With a knack for clever branding, Matt reveals how he strategically differentiates his services for educational and upscale clients, inspired by a personal connection to the Sarah C. Eddie Music Building. His story is a testament to maintaining a strong brand identity while navigating the challenges of a dynamic industry.

Throughout our conversation, Matt imparts valuable lessons on business leadership and the nuances of the event production world. We explore the trials of balancing ambition with financial practicality, especially when dealing with unpredictable clients and late payments. Matt's insights into communication, decision-making, and maintaining high-energy teams offer a fascinating glimpse into the workings of a successful enterprise. His candid anecdotes emphasize the importance of fiscal responsibility and the delicate art of managing client relationships for long-term success.

The episode closes with a powerful discussion on the significance of reputation and securing financial stability in the business world. Matt shares strategic moves that helped him maintain client trust, even when faced with unexpected challenges. His lessons on leadership and ownership in tough situations provide a roadmap for professionals seeking to thrive in service-based industries. Whether you're an entrepreneur or someone intrigued by the world of event production, Matt's experiences and advice promise both inspiration and practical guidance.

the king of entertainment here in Colorado Springs I am sure at one point

he has probably made you feel like you're about to hit an EP epic episode

well in today's episode we're talking with my good friend Matt stonebeck of

Eddie sound and Rockbox um Matt founded this

company out of a pure desire and a little bit of history but to bring

entertainment to Colorado Springs in the best form possible and you can see his

work anywhere from a snowball dance on up to the Broadmore um so we're going to talk with Matt

about all kinds of really good things but first Matt tell us a little bit

about Eddie sound Rockbox and what you guys do um so Eddie sound is best way to put

it is a AVL company so audio video Lighting Company um especially specialized in live production Live

Events um and started it because when I moved out here um actually interviewed

at some different places it just wasn't going to work out at that point in time in my life so I kind of went a totally

different Direction with a career and then full circle back around even though I had a full career that was like paying

my bills I was like I still want to do this so I kind of started a company on the side and then slowly it got to a

point where I had to leave that other job because I had kind of booked myself too busy that I couldn't actually juggle

both so stepped that on my own and uh just started doing just live events for

um everything from corporate to faith-based do a lot of uh work in like area schools government uh contracts and

then from there like the schools took off so that's where Rockbox comes from and uh we got a little bit worried about

The Branding and that uh people would the best way to put it is you talk about we do Stu with the Broadmore I wouldn't

want someone that would be like at a Broadmore event look and see photos or videos of us in a high school because

then they kind of would have a thought like oh they can only do this style of work so then we made Rockbox as a DBA um

and so the funny part is is like schools really don't even know who Eddie sound is they only know us as Rockbox uh the

people who pay us know because of the some of that documentation but for the students we're Rockbox and then it's

nice when people are working with us underneath Eddy sound They Don't Really ever see that we work in high schools so

it's all branding deal yeah it totally is and it makes sense it can totally be confusing because I understand the woses

of operating underneath two businesses two names all of that um but I love the

story of your names can you tell us a little bit where you came up with the both of

the names no it makes sense so and so Eddie sound came from and it's kind of funny we're working on our website right

now and one of the things is who's Eddie right we get asked all the time so a lot of times I answer the phone and they'll like hey is this Eddie and I always just

say yes cuz it is Eddie sound but they they assume they're talking to somebody by the name of Eddie and then I'll be

like yeah this is Eddie I'm like this is Matt and then we get to business pretty quickly but so Eddie sound comes from uh

was sitting around with my wife and we kind of made a decision we're going to do this we were like what what are we going to call it and you know not

against anybody else in the community but we were like there's Rocky Mountain this and place Peak that and Front Range

this and I was like that none of that matters like there's no like personal connection it just was a name that says

hey you work in the Colorado region it's geography correct and we and we just I don't know that doesn't resonate with me

and so the funny of the story is for us that are older we'll all remember AOL Instant mess messenger oh boy and uh my

handle was Eddie soundman and the reason why it was Eddie soundman is because the

the school that I went to the music building was the Sarah C Eddie music building and I was the guy who had all

these different jobs but I worked in like the recording studios and the music labs and I worked as the audio engineer

in the attached venue there that I was the sound guy so my handle was Eddie

soundman so for us it made a lot of sense and any body who's from back at home right we've been out here a long

time but at the time if you think about when I started the business everybody who knew me back in the day was like oh

Eddie sound like that totally makes sense for who you are and I've been told I need to change it because we do

everything and everybody's like it's bad and you need to like you know Eddie's Productions and we're just like nope

it's going to be Eddie sound that's who we are and we're going to make her own brand and it's worked I mean no one calls me and says I didn't realize you

own lights right like they they figure it out so we did that and then Rockbox is ashy in so then we had we figured out

that we might have confusion in the marketplace between our different clients so we like we have to come up

with this other name and I actually worked with a designer in town who was

really well known I think he's in Denver now I mean he does stuff for like Honda Acura like all these crazy big Brands

and uh from my other employment I got to meet him because he did some contract work for us so I literally went to him

and paid way too little bit of money and we did this whole like brainstorming color scheme thing to figure out what it

was and what it came down to Rockbox really comes down to because we joke we work in high schools and we go into high

schools we're always in big Square rooms so kind of like our little slogan is is that we rock the Box because we go into

big square and rectangular rooms even if we're in like a convention center it's always a box and we turn it into like a

club or something special so that's where Rockbox came from is that rock Box rocks the box and that's the kind of

tongue and cheek so that one actually had real branding thought behind it Eddie s is like I was young it was

Legacy it's Legacy it's Legacy there's something special about Legacy and and

again like we get asked this a lot and so on our website soon we'll have this story and I actually am going to reach

out to the college and get a picture of the building because I have one but I don't like the picture because I'm in it

just being honest so gonna get a picture without me in it and uh it shows the

plaque on the building maybe that will help people make sense of it probably will I also don't care I mean is that

terrible no okay it's a brand we've created it is it is and it's it's a name

yep I mean there's so much more in describing who you are and what you do then even just the name right like brw

tax and accounting brw a lot of people say they're like what is that don't they think about it for a minute yeah just a

minute I know it doesn't take long you'd be surprised how people don't put it together though oh my gosh you're right

yeah um so talking about Legacy as you were building the

businesses what song would describe your experience in building Edie sound and

Rockbox I don't know if I have the answer to that one yeah you do you're Mr Eddie sound remember yeah you rock the

Box okay but here's the crazy part you may not believe this about me I don't remember the names of songs really even

my favorite artist I don't know a lot of the names of their songs because I'm it's very much the the actual physical

music itself yeah so like to even name a song like I can name you a whole bunch of terrible songs that we have to play

in high schools because I know them I have to play them yeah but I'm very much more uh I don't know I connect things

mentally to the actual music itself but that it's because I'm a classically trained

musician so that's what it goes to even lyrics don't matter to me really it's more in just the score yes really so I

wish I like I don't know what the answer for that question would be and I figured you would probably think I would have

that answer but I don't I know I thought I was going to go with the ultimate cliche question here no yeah is that

terrible no can you sing can you sing something for

us I don't I just don't we will

rock and I think too I probably have too much music that is like linked to

like oh link to things that like there's

certain songs now we have to play all I think of is like it could be the best song in the world but all I think of is like a high school which then it's like

yeah kind of buzz kill yeah okay let me change directions all right what's the worst piece of business advice anybody

ever gave you oh I know that um so when I started to build a company one of the

things I noticed in town was there's a lot of sound companies and that's that's very important I named my company Edie

sound because I'm an audio guy by trade and I instantly realized cuz when you start small you kind of subcontract with

a lot of people there's not a lot of us in town so to get work someone need

extra person you go do it and so when I did all these shows I noticed that all the sound companies really only did

sound and I thought that was weird because they would get asked to put up like

lighting and they would do it but it was always very like the sound might be

amazing but the lighting was kind of terrible really well because it's an afterthought huh they and so I noticed

that as I was building my business on the side and so then I was like I'm going to start to buy lights because if I buy lights I have something that my

competitors in town don't have and I can achieve it so then what end up happening

is I bought a moving head so an intelligent moving head instead of just a regular light and I remember I had

told one of the other people in town this and they said that was a terrible decision and that I should never like

this was just going to be bad and I shouldn't own any of them and that they were going to break and it was going to be a big problem for me and I now own

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and maybe there's one other guy in Town's good friend of mine um who specializes

in lighting I think he owns more but other than that we're the biggest ones in town and everybody calls us for him oh wow so I was like that like I'm glad

I went with my gut CU I was like no like this is something that our community needed because I'd go to other communities even just Denver on the

Front Range or out of state and you'd see these amazing beautiful setups and it sounded great but then it also looked

good yeah so that's why I did it and that was the bad that was the advice don't don't get into moving lights don't

get into lighting it's there's no money in it that was kind of what was told to me I think actually there's no money and it was the exact words interesting how

people are afraid to change we've proven that wrong yeah doesn't that feel good we have a lot of people that just call

us for lights now really oh yeah that's the main we don't give them any any audio at all wow so okay did you have

these all specially made no I wish I do have a Jenga game with question that I had specially made which we need to bust

out sometime soon yeah which fictional character would you adopt into your extended family to make Gatherings more

interesting oh that's a good one I mean this is fun because I can probably just pick anything that would be that would

be interesting right fictional character it makes you go like do I want a cartoon or do I want someone off a TV

and the plug you know the the kicker is to make events more interesting

right there's that entertainment Factor you have to live with

them oh

boy I feel like I need to pick a cartoon person okay no no I know who I pick now

I know who I'd pick it's because I have children uhhuh and and because my wife loves this person I would literally pick

Bluey Bluey really and the reason I say that is because it brings joy to to my

wife whenever my kids will watch it she that's the one show that she always laugh about because of all the comedy

back and forth and so if you wanted to make it interesting because of the banter I pick Bluey Bluey it's was

really bizarre and random but it like would be hilarious because my whole family would be laughing all the time oh

my gosh my daughter would be at your house all the time oh my youngest would be in stitches but then more importantly

for me my wife would be laughing which would be fun to watch okay full disclosure my kids are older I have

never seen Bluey ever ever ever and so when you guys say Bluey I think of Blues Clues from when my kids were totally and

it's Australian right uh I think New Zealand or Australian New Zealand yeah it's a like a family of dogs yep and

it's the only cartoon kids cartoon that made me cry and blue is a girl and bl is a girl is a girl which I didn't realize

that for a long time but blue is a girl the banter between Bluey and the other I don't know if the other one's a male or

female and then Mom and Dad is to die for and there's it's one of these cartoons where I feel like they um do

inside jokes with the adults that we can understand but our kids oh fully there's really oh yeah there's some episodes I'm

like this is some of the greatest television I've ever seen cuz it's actually addressing meaningful Concepts and it's

well written and they're 8 Minute episodes so there's like I think there's

there's is it like a YouTube show or something Disney now the theme song will drive you nuts oh yes now get this

Disney picked up the rights to it it is is the most streamed minutes watched on

the entire Disney platform it beats out Star Wars it beats out Marvel it beats out billions of dollars that they've

spent and the most amount of streamed uh minutes is Bluey I never thought I'd say

this but now I feel like I need to go add to those streaming minutes and check this show out eight minutes it's worth

it really okay Bluey it's a very holistic family mhm the dad is actually

like engaged in like I'm like finally like a dad that's not an idiot like he's actually a quality father figure on a

television show with always playing with the kids always engaged playing yeah what's up with Father figures never

being portrayed as like good solid dad because my fictional character was going to be Homer Simpson I mean come on Homer

would be amazing to break and I was trying to think do I want to go somewhere like off of a movie or like a TV show but then I was like cartoon

would just be more interesting anyway see mine was going to be Clark Griswald so there we go yeah yeah interesting my

problem is is like a fictional person I watch way too much like reality is TV

well that's cuz all they make anymore I feel like right yeah and like if you come to our house and we're not big TV people but the TV's on the cooking

Channel's on yeah so I'd be like can I have Bobby Flay in my family that'd be fun that could be interesting good too

Gordon ramsy all day oh man or um go I just yes I want to go to driver the din

D drivers and div I'd do that all day with them but still if I had to go fictional it's Bluey all right if it's

real it'd probably be someone off the Cooking Channel plus they would cook for us exactly when when Happy Thanksgiving

to me every day exactly okay Jason what's your question here here's my

question I want to know what is an unusual habit that you've picked up for

the way you conduct business that's actually made you a better owner unusual

habit an unusual habit something weird that you do that you feel like is unique to you

oh I'll tell you something I don't know if it's a habit but it's something that can it be something I say yeah yeah okay

so one of my biggest things when I try to lead uh my employees is um I don't do

it as much anymore but I used to hire people I tell them this I'm like hey when we teach you stuff sometimes we're going to teach you excuse me a certain

way but I always tell you why we're teaching you it and why so there's two reasons why we would teach you one is

because well I guess three so one's like this is a safe way you have to do it two for me would be it's because uh it's the

industry standard and so this is how we have to do it in this industry to be accepted and then three is my habit and

the third habit would be because I'm telling you to do it but the joke or the phrase is and we kind of joked about it ear is uh I usually will tell it and if

they look at me at then I very politely and it's like a big joke but I'll be like it's good to be king and so I use

that phrase a lot as it's good to be king and it's not to be disrespectful to them but it's my polite way of telling them this is my my call I'm making the

call if I'm wrong it's still my call and I'm going to die on my own call and so that's my little habit is it's good to

be king and that's kind of how I will go back to him and that's the way of saying cuz you know sometimes too the industry

standard it may be the industry standard but for how I'm trying to build my business it doesn't it's not appropriate and we want to do better and so then

it's the King's Way it's my way because we're trying to uplift the business or uplift the world that we live in so that

that's probably my that's a little Quirk but it's worked well because it lets your people understand um you can kind of sometimes

say it's going to be king it's it's kind of a way of even saying hey I know I sound like a a jerk right now but I'm in

charge and I need it done this way and there's so there's there's um understanding and there's trust that's built that they're like okay like okay

it's Matt's way we're going to do it Matt's way but then if you talk to some of my employees they're like oh and so

like yeah my radio like we have two-way radios sets and so I'm the radio number one that I always get and it's and all

of our nicknames CU we all have nicknames uh it says the king on it so it actually has it on in the radio when

I get it and people have asked like what's that mean and I'll literally be like it's just good to be king it's the

pl way to say I own the I own it you know to follow you down that path though the crown is heavy yep I mean it may be

good to be king but with those decisions like it's not just a decision it's the risk that comes with it because you have

to pay the ultimate price based on that decision so I'd assume you and I have

had a lot of conversations about decisions um and I know this for a fact

as a matter of fact um the

while you trust and Empower your team to make decisions when it comes to those really important ones that matter the

most that can impact you the most that's when you do as a king have to step in so

yeah in a way it's good to be a king but it's really hard to be a king to it's good when you get to tell them what the

decision is it's not so great when the decision you made backfires and then you

have to live in the fact that you're the one that made the call and often times you're saving them from that backfire by

making that decision because I find it harder as a leader when my team member

makes a bad call and I have to be the one to pay the price which I'm fine with but seeing my team member have to live

with that that I've seen a couple team members where it just kills them and I

never want to do that to anybody but that means but hold on I'm gonna go that means you have really good team members

and employees oh my God I do though so what I tell everybody it's like and I

was like this I know I was like this because a situation that happened to me in my former employment life when I was

working for people but it's always good when you need to talk to someone about uh something hard as a owner and you can

see that they're beating themselves up more than it's either warranted or that

you're willing to go because for me that shows they have skin in the game and they deeply care about what they are doing so so that's I'd rather have that

employee all day oh yeah than have an employee who sits in there and is very flip it with me and they're like I don't

understand why this is a big deal and you know you just need to get over it the the employee that literally is like

beating themselves up yeah that's the employee that I want I would take give a

[ __ ] any day over pedigree yeah any day if you have heart in the game I don't

care where you into college or if you went to college yep I would say the thing being uh the positions that I've

held always more of that entrepreneur right partnering with the kings in many ways I found in organizations where

there is a king things flow so much easier because people know where the buck stops yep when an owner doesn't

take the position of being King it makes the team think that they have to pick that up and when they do it's like it

gets weird right so like an old boss that I used to have used to say like this is not a democracy I'm the king

this is like what I say goes and if you like that then you know but I think more

small businesses need sometimes owners need that mentality of like this is it it's buck stops here on the well and I

like too because I let I definitely Empower my people but I what I've liked as we've grown even since we've known

each other um is that I've been able to actually step back and let them do their

jobs a little bit more but I love that I can be than the trump card yeah so we had a situation even the last couple

days where I know exactly what my employee was doing unbelievable doing

their job through and through and they were through a third party we were just kind of getting stonewalled we've had that same exact

experience and it was given to me and I said I got it from here and then I took an email and I cced the person on it and

guess what movement the clouds opened and now we're getting where we needed to get and

it had nothing to do with the employees ability but it was nice because they were empowered to run it and they have

all the Empower in the world but then it's nice to be able to finally be like I'll go ahead and push it for us real

quick and it did exactly what I hoped it would do well I think it also speaks to like understanding what a good King is

right I mean there's bad kings and there's good like so just because I think sometimes we use that adage it's

important to realize like there's good leadership there's good kings that that run a a a quality uh Kingdom if you will

and then there's the bad kings I think the the good to be king and is my way of jokingly to be able to be like hey I'm in charge without having to look at

people like hey I'm in charge and and they take it as understand like okay like Matt Drew the line at this point

like there's the line I'm making the call this is what we're going to do and versus me having to be like hey I'm in

charge here you have so it's just a very nice tongue-and-cheek way yeah and I started it by accident and it just kind

of is a joke now it's a nice light kind way of reinforcing Authority yeah it's

it's a good way of doing that you know from the HR perspective it's interesting that we're having this conversation

because I'll tell you guys Jason I think you're spoton when it comes to Kings I

have walked into more organizations where there is no King and oftentimes it's that leader who had had a bad

leader in their past and so they just want to be a nice leader so they don't take that king or that author authority

authority ship um and the team just takes advantage and it it becomes weird

as you had mentioned and those are the hardest cultures to actually unravel and actually bring to a quality culture I

can take a bad King any day and help them guide in move into a good culture

but the lack of king that's a tough one it is it's interesting that you brought that up what a what a cool conversation

um we never know where it's going I know right that's the fun of a podcast right

um perfect transition though um the heaviness of the

crown the purpose of this this conver ation today you know we'll transition into the meat and potatoes here

is the biggest mistake we've made as leaders and we're going to unpack and

dissect and as you've been preparing for today I'm sure you've put a little bit of thought into it and I'm really

curious to see what we're going to talk about I think about did you think did you our last I ran by my wife I was like

hey this is what I'm thinking see so oh wait can we say that before we go so I may be the king but I do have a queen oh

always every good k does and and as and as much as I own the business cuz I do slowely own it I don't do any big

decisions without running to buy her she's my she's my lipus test CU she knows me more than even my employees

some of them been with me a very long time but she'll tell me right away if I'm like going off of where she's ever

seen me go in the history so anyway so I just I think we all need that sounding

board though y you know I know Brian's that way for me all the time you know not that he's my queen he's my king but

still we you have to have that y um so I think that's that as I was saying

heavy is the crown because we're human in business and

while we make all of the decisions we have all the authority the buck stops with

us we still screw up yep how' you screw up uh so I've done it

like multip quick Cheers Cheers take a drink real quick I've done it multiple times

so my multiple times okay so when you own a business

doing what we do we get to do a lot of um fun things and then you do a lot of

work too that like you have to pay your bills yeah so it's not that it's not fun

but like you know it's not like you wake up and you're like yes like you got to Fe the Beast yeah so my biggest mistake

and I'm it's it's with an s my biggest mistakes is that I

am kind of a sucker for wanting to do cool things and so the way to put it is

like you know when you in our industry it's very it's it can be very Visual and so you know even like you watch you go

to a show Once you work in Industry you don't really enjoy a show anymore like you do but you don't but you're like

what kind of equipment do they have what kind of Lights do they have right you're always and it's not a comparison I don't feel less than but you're just more like

like what how are they doing this what could I learn what do I not like so I like to do cool things and I always want

to stretch probably bigger than we are and maybe do things that are bigger than where the company currently is and so

that's where my problem lies is that I will go do some of these events because

I want to do them and then it's re it's happened and it's happened at different

levels but then I end up getting burned on the other side because I don't get paid oh for it

so it's like a bad thing because there's in our industry there's a couple rules that every Mentor ever told me um and I

definitely run my business a little bit differently but when you make this mistake you start to question if you really need to listen to your mentors

more but there's an old adage that 100% in the production industry stands which is you do not open the back of your

truck until you've been paid in full so if I were to show up to an event a concert a corporate event whatever you

look at them and be like if I been paid in full the truck doesn't open and we don't move any gear and that is

unfortunately not not how I do business part of that is some of my um a good actually a lot of my contracts are

somewhat government based be it a school still government or government-based and bluntly they're not paying you

beforehand that's their own policies of the government you're going to have to put in your invoice wait 30 days you get

paid but still government works so I mean a little bit of yeah the government

has to balance their books so we talk about with like Brian and what he does like the books have to be balanced they're not going to not pay you we've

had ones that have missed us a school or they might lag well well they'll forget

like somehow like you work for an adviser who memb a teacher and it never makes it to actually he's going to write

the check and we've messaged them after we know their budget year is closed sometimes nine 10 months later and we

always get paid because they feel bad right away and they're like oh my gosh like the budget isn't balanced and we

didn't pay yeah so the problem has been is I will do these other events and and

in my growth there's there's three that stick out and they just as you scale

your business they get um larger yeah so you like you kind of like well you do

this and then you lost that money and then you do this and you lost that money and then you do this and so it's been

hard because um right I'm a for-profit business you

are but at the same time um I don't do anything that I'm not

prepared to take a swim on it's probably the best way to put it it so I wanted to do it not my people I wanted to do it so

that's the king yeah but it sucks but you PID the ultimate price you didn't

now and now we're a business that I have people that sit in pretty high roles and do very important things to me and it's

they know yeah they can see my books the ones that have access to it the the people who are operational know yeah and

uh it's interesting because they you know in their defense they want me to go out and go get

go get your money like go get it and I'm kind of like um I don't know sometimes

you got to let it go you just got to move on like why look back but I mean there goes circling back around there's

that great team right yep they care they give a [ __ ] they're looking out for your best interest when you are probably not

correct right you're like I'm done probably you know licking your wounds a little bit y um caring for yourself but

they're caring for you too that's pretty spectacular and the worst part is like you say what's right you sent everything

out and I'm looking at it before the podcast and it's like what's your biggest mistake and I mean we've been blessed like we haven't made huge like

other mistakes that I can think of we've just we've been blessed we haven't had injuries and we haven't had catastrophic

failures or anything like that but then I just had to laugh because I was like well I know what the biggest mistake is

the biggest mistake is I literally went out and did pro bono I mean we do pro bono work but the stuff I'm talking

about wasn't meant to be pro bono it was meant to be uh you still had to pay your staff you still had to transport the

equipment pay you the worst part some of it was some of it had some pretty expensive uh sub contracts and all those

people I paid in full because I don't want to look bad right and it's not and

I'm not and I've and I've had people call I have had partner companies call me and be like

hey can you do me a favor I didn't get paid I've actually had that happen and I've done it but I refuse to do that

because it's not their fault so the people that I've made an agreement with they had to get paid in full so that I

mean you're really taking a pretty big hit because your your people obviously have never missed a payroll in the history of the company I never will so

like they're going to get paid all my other subs get paid and then you know I

crack it up for like all the all the things I'm thinking about I have great media that we were able to

capture so I'm curious in this like I want to know what time two two things I

want to know a time where you stretched yourself you took on a project that it was worth it because you learned

something new or you saw how that kind of that expansion supported you and then when was the time where you went for it

and it didn't support you okay so I'll tell you that so the one I can talk about easily ra didn't get paid because

bluntly this individual if they ever saw a podcast I won't say names or anything but they know I don't care does that Mak

sense it doesn't matter so and I can I can do complete specifics cuz itn't bother me so we did an arena show up at

uh CU Boulder and that was definitely a stretch for us I we had the knowhow but

like we had never done anything in that caliber before so the success was great because we did it and we did it

flawlessly and like we really I mean it was probably the biggest stage in a sense that we' ever supported and so

that builds a lot of confidence in your team yeah and you know you know and

you're getting to know me more as we got but I have a very young team so in the industry if you look in town like um

most of my competitors are either around my age or slightly under and then they have what I'm going to call full adults

that work for them because I like my team until recently my oldest employee

was like 26 years old so my team was 18 to 26 and I can tell you at the time

when the the one I'm talking about like think about it we went and did an arena and a whole bunch of 20-year-olds walked

in and did an arena show that's so cool yeah and like other companies with

people who've been in the industry for 20 and 30 years would have struggled to do what we did so that right there and

like to watch your team walk out it didn't matter I didn't get paid their chests were so filled they were walking

so high there's chips on their shoulders and they deserve every chip on their shoulder like you can't you can't do

anything but be proud and you watch these guys like work 18 and 20 hour days give you blood split tears and then to

see it go off and then to watch them go tell all their friends hey we did this concert with this

person nah who cares about the money yeah literally who cares about the money and the cool part was is it was a

promoter who didn't pay me and even uh it was up at CU Boulder CU Boulder uh through the athletics department I mean

I had great conversations with them afterwards they know I took a dive but you know what my head was held high they

had amazing things to say about me and about my team and everything that we did and that's all that mattered that was

more than any dollar that I could go put in a bank account so that's the first one what was the other question when do it not worth well like where has it

failed you took a risk and then it was like oh that um I don't know if so on all the

ones I'm thinking about they've all been okay like there's a positive side I think where it fails

is um now you start talking about a 20-hour day and what it takes out on

your team and sometimes that money would have been nice to offset the exhaustion

if that makes sense I mean they they're not going to necessarily get that but I

guess you take a uh for us you take a physical toll so some of one of the big

one that I'm thinking about that one like we had to turn pretty tight to be

able and we live that lifestyle sometimes where you know you're not proud of it but like we get out at 2 a.m. and we're back on site at 7 a.m.

and everybody did go home but yeah you got wind down time get up so I think

that's where it doesn't pay off is that and and we run like we watch our labor a

lot we're a pretty lean mean team we can get big when we need to be um I've

gotten really good at telling when we're at breaking points on specific people and you start to learn their body

language their speak and that's not that's where it's not worth it because you feel bad yeah cuz sometimes you have

to ask them to dig where you're like I shouldn't I I can't but I don't have a choice but that's not all the time for

you guys either you guys are highly seasonal so there's there's there's definitely the rest periods I mean there

are those on moments kind of like a yep a CPA right taxis and boom boom boom

boom boom but then you have those rest times so well I guess that kind of which helps I'm curious to maybe also open

this thread up of like where have you experienced some either mistakes or learnings in running uh a team where

there's a lot of pressure yep a lot of potential conflict personalities of like

I mean [ __ ] has to go off seamlessly like you don't exist right I mean correct a great show I you're there how

do you how do you manage a team or what have you learned or what mistakes have you made with employment side of things

of getting a team to perform to that level there's one thing you figure out real quick when you hire someone and and

you can I can Team speak with some of my higher up and that team speak is you can

tell you can see pretty quickly if you hire

an employee who can hang with the the speed that we go I don't know

how else to put it but you can just tell after about I mean they can work for you for a week and week and a half they get

out of maybe two or three shows you can see so we definitely um you know like

from an HR perspective that's not really clear on paper yeah like that doesn't they could be extremely in intelligent person had

great jobs whatever but then uh you take him out and even at the end of maybe like a

12-hour day that we know wasn't bad and they literally like you're pretty sure you just literally like took a year off

of their life in one day there's no way you can gauge energy yeah on a resume or

even during an interview there's just no way Y and what you guys do requires a lot of energy so you figured that out

the thing too like on the on um where where you see it the most or where you have to act as an employer in

my point of view at this point when it comes to really about exhaustion is when

you're running in a heavy season so I mean there's there's weeks where you

know we'll start going pretty hard on like Tuesday and it's not going to end until Sunday and that Friday Saturday

depending if it's like a high enough high enough uh in show or a stressful

show uh the way you take care of it is you you have to move people so there's

sometimes where you have to walk up and be like you're done go walk away for a minute or you have to be like you know

hey step away from the console Hey on the console all you're trying to do is just change it up enough to like help

them have a moment to bring that stress down and they are good enough especially I mean again I've blessed most of my

people have been with me for a while now they they know what's happening without you even having to say what's happening

so they understand that movement is like oh yeah and they'll and they they'll

speak really well about it too like even after the fact like I've had employees come to me like hey man sorry like I'm just like really really tired I'm like

yep I know that's a lot about your leadership though you taught them to recognize that and then you gave them

the authority to call it not a lot of employers do that they don't teach their

employees to recognize their burnout their stress their Ed they still don't love it trying to give them a day off is

like so hard cuz my my people don't want a day off in busy season if you give them one or two days off they'll actually come and

like did I do something wrong like no like go home sleep like I need you next

weekend like that's what I'm doing to you but they're like but I want to work I'm like no you don't I want you on your

aame y well and how much of that is because something like your industry

people enjoy the thing that they're doing to do lighting and the audio and the visual uh my people the I think the

reason why I've been successful with the age group that I have one you find the hard workers but two if and you guys you

definitely know and we literally get to do some of the coolest things in kiral

Springs do and we are behind the scenes and you know and none of that I'll say

this none of this is to be a flex but like there's there's months at a time where like the governor will be on our

stage like every other week and the weeks when he's not on it then the mayor's on it and then when the mayor's

not on it then it's the CEO of so and so and the CEO of so and so and the CEO so and so I mean even during Co I did one

of the presidents I never thought I'd do that and so they want to be there and that's just like notable people we want

we can go no whole another route with musicians they're like you know we're doing who yeah like this is a musician

and so it's fun to be in the crowd at those things but it's also fun to be able to move seamlessly behind the

scenes I mean think about it we never get stopped yeah CU we're there to do work so we have credentials it's pretty

cool yeah I mean especially for your team members to be like oh my gosh I kept the spotlight on so and so I kept

their microphone on I was able to make sure that their show kept running and it's not just one so and so I mean it's

this huge list it never stops I know sometimes I want to come work for you it's fun record well I always I mean I

hate to say but when you hire people you tell them like hey the pay may not be great but you're going to have a lot of fun here we're going to treat you really

well and you're going to get to see amazing things that you want to get to see otherwise and I always laugh cuz Carl Springs can be you know it's the

big Big Town that's really small and then vice versa and I always laughed that we do like a lot of private events and then you like you can speak

about it there's no NDA we go sell people afterwards and people in town like that happened here what who was

here and I was like you should go buy this place more often there's a lot of people that just kind of swing through

all the time and that we get so it's that whole you're constantly invited into basically private events that no

one knows about of big celebrities big names that you would never even know that their feet were on our it's all

types of celebrities because we work with a lot of stuff with the Olympics the number of Olympians that I have met

in the last three years is insane like and I even I I mean some of my guys

don't really always know who the Olympian is but I do so I'll like get a picture of when they're on the stage and

I sent to my mom and dad because my mom and dad were like watch them compete yeah so it's pretty cool because might

people be like who's that it's like that that's that's a big name Olympian like when I was like six and8 years old I

watched that Olympian on TV yeah and now I'm like they're standing on my stage like that's a cool moment way to turn

your parents into those jerks at dinner parties oh look at my son he so so like

gosh I really hate hanging out with those Stone bcks they're always bragging about their son and I like do my sister

cuz my sister's a big music person so I like to and and she's not always like uh the the big name right we're not doing

huge use names all the time but like we'll do a band that and I like s her and be like no way like I just saw them

and she she's back in out in the east coast and so she' be like oh I just saw them I'm like well we just worked with

them that was cool that's amazing really quick I want to rewind just a little bit

you had alluded to the fact that when you were in the midst of deciding

whether to work with an organization or a promoter or whoever it is

and there were times when people gave you kind of the red flag and said whoa whoa whoa whoa don't do that oh yeah and

it seems like it was pretty consistent that's what I'm kind of picking up on a lot of these these you know these bum

deals people were giving you warnings what do you think those warning signs were like why how did these people pick

up on it oh like like how did I pick up on it to them or how did I see it yeah either way

like clearly there were red flags what were the red flags or how' you pick up on them sounds like people warned you

the hell did they know and you didn't no you I know how I always knew on on the again it's like three particular times

you just start to get when that you can tell you hear overhear something or see something and it becomes very clear that

the funding agent is not there that the funding agent is not as solid as you

might hope the funding agent is and then you have to make a decision are you going to take it or not and again like

if it's a if it's cool and I don't know how cool is like such a low brow word for me to describe but like if it's

something that like I want to be a part of that I already put a lot of effort into it I know that we can make it big

but then I start to scheme in my head already like I said I have really good content from all of those so when I saw

it coming you take care of yourself yeah so you start to self serve so the

digital cameras are coming out and the videos are coming out and you you just make sure you document what you're doing

because what in my head as a business owner is like if I probably never going to get paid for this but I'm going to have proof I did it and we're going to

do it at a high level and I'm going to leverage that to get me my next job that's paying yeah and so all the events

I'm thinking about I have leveraged the things that we did to further my company

so it's one of my it's one of my tenants you never want to get into a deal that you can't like okay so we get asked a

lot to do stuff for reduced rates um cheap asses it's not that it's

it's kiding kidding for whatever reason sometimes it's a nonprofit sometimes um

a budget got cut what whatever it is um I always approach all those deals that

if you're gonna if I'm going to do it then I'm GNA get something out of it so I try to teach even my employees like

you want to make sure that you are always you always want to be on the high road so I always try to take the high

road so that uh nothing negative could be said about us so we are still going to perform at the exact same level okay

and then if anything negative needs be said we know who the negativity can be said about but then I don't go advertise

that because that also makes you look really terrible as a business person because why do you just want to run around town and talk and smack about

people absolutely so it you always leverage that you're on top and then and

and to answer your question I mean you sense it you'll you'll see with the one promoter like I started getting win that

the uh Financial agreement between that individual and the college the

university maybe it wasn't what it all was oh but you're in it deep enough at that point that like what are you gonna

do pack up your truck and leave I mean you could you'd have every right to I could have in every situation I could

have left but then you leave a fan filled Stadium sitting there and who looks like

the dud yeah cuz they don't know the they don't know what's going on and you got to remember the the employees don't

know what's going on yeah so you just have to lead like you just got keep going cuz they don't

know he backed you into a corner though yeah but I chose it all right fair fair

fair you did but I'm okay like again I'm a I'm a sucker for I like out out of the

box I like opportunity I like to do cool fun and cool things cuz we do so much

stuff that we get paid a lot of money for that's just boring what's your definition of cool like what's your Dre

dream cool I lots of dream that you would happily take Z for it at anybody

body watching don't take this for granted no well hold on I don't I don't think it's I don't think it's to take I

don't think it's to take um no money for I think it's

um I like events all right so back to like even as

I'm a kid the reason why I got into sound and audio is right as was classically train musician I love music

I saw the power of music and how music affects people

and um I like and well you kind of know this because we worked with you on some

of our Mission Vision value type stuff I have a 100% belief proof whatever you

want to call it that music can be latched to a memory and so like I still

this day which is kind of funny because you asked about like hey what's this song and I couldn't give you a song but if you were to just play songs

unknowingly you would accidentally probably hit songs that the minute you played a song and I heard it memory not

even a memory I can like physically feel myself in that situation like I know

like I'm there and so I like anything where we can make such an impact that we

have literally put that moment in time for whoever that they will never forget

it again for what so that can be a corporate event but for me a lot of it is wrapped around a musical event yeah

um but I mean you know it's what I always tell my guys like when I stand back and I look like I

I teach my guys like audio engineering I'm like mixed for chills that's how I use that word a lot I'm like mix for chills like what do you mean I said

chills are when you're mixing and for a split second you look up from the console and you look out and everything

is right it sounds right for that Split Second the lighting is Right which you have no control where the guy next to you does the video is right like the

crowd scening right thing and I said and you get chills I said then you made it that's my whole that's what I tell them

how to mix don't become a robot you're mixed for chills no matter what you're doing so the events for me are like I'm

trying to get chills at events that's a cool event and that could be anything

like we have one coming up we we did the Hall of Fame for the Olympics and we're about to do it again this year and

there's not a lot of music there but like the last time we did it went flawlessly did you get chills I don't

know if I got chills but there's there's times that one would be corporate's a little bit different because like you don't have like the the crescendo that

takes you yeah but it is I'll tell you this as I've as I've grown a company it's when you stand

back and you look and everything's perfect and all the people are doing their jobs and you know for a corporate

event there's no feedback everybody can hear they're lit properly everybody's all in and those type of events I sit

back and I like I L like wow I I own this company right like literally you

like start to be like it gets unreal y they're like oh like like this is me and

you actually feel like you're attending it because the stress is so low cuz everything's working that's the win

that's the win that's pretty spectacular and that's what we're known for I mean my guys know that I push a

pretty hard um I have very very high expectations I definitely have a nice

little anger uh streak in me and my employees would say that but the one thing I have

noticed is that most of the time where I get upset annoyed or anything like that and they feel it it's just normally

because we're not to the level of perfection that I know we can be and no one can ever be perfect no want be clear about that but we shoot for excellence

at all time so I'm not usually like I just I want to look at you and be like I don't like what you're wearing like

that's not that it's not that it's like hey why wasn't the mic locked on you know that's our rule you never give a

mic to somebody who's not locked on because it's on our ball game we unmute the mic we don't ever let them do that Y

and then I might get on for it but it's because we know better and we want to be that level of a service provider I

struggle with people not living up to their full potential if you're on myam better than me but I think that's where

you're I run an HR company I know all the words I do I

words but I think that's kind of where you're going with it is you know the potential of your team because you've

had those moments where it's pure perfection yep right and you know that is your

team and that's that's what they're capable of oh yeah and so when they don't do that hell yeah that pisses me

off too like just come on and it's cool like you're this industry that you're in

has the capacity for Perfection yeah like you can actually nail it right you

can it can go off flawlessly one I joke like uh like I was telling you i' done a I've done one other podcast in my life

and we I talk about this in there which is like I talked about the chills in there too the chills are there and then

I joke in the very next second like you get chills and then everything can go off the rails totally but that's but

then too I also figured out part of me is I enjoy adrenaline because that's the adrenaline of how do you put that train

back on the tracks and do it quickly flawlessly without anybody knowing and so that's the thing too you got to find

people who are a little bit at work for me that are a little bit Adrenaline Junkies absolutely I mean they're not yeah we're not like jumping like X Games

or like doing crazy things on motorcycles but there's still adrenaline in the moment yeah well I mean it's

interesting because it's like for your company and what your team does if things are executed perfectly nobody

noticed correct right nobody knows but if it falls off the rail it is literally on the PA to

thousands of people well the thing is right that we always joke you never want to see people turn around and look at you right that's the goal you never want

to see anybody turn and look if they turn and looked you screwed up yeah that that's that's how you know you no one

has to tell you it's just that you know and one of the pet peeves is like when

uh you're not like we're hired for something and we're not in complete control of an event and I hate when

another sub vendor can uh make a mistake but then it comes back on us just

because we can't fix it because like we weren't given yeah the full control and that that's frustrating cuz people are

looking at you and you're like it's not me so like okay here's my PSA one of my pet peeves I I hate when people are like

yeah like do or like we so you ask about pricing and where if people come to us

and like hey we don't have a great budget but we really would like to use your services and like we have some equipment we'll bring our own yeah I've

been burned too many times where we try to do a favor and then their equipment fails I've got a boom box in the back so

what we rather do is be like we're going to tell you what the full cost would be and then we'll bring it down and then

they're always super sweet they're like we can bring our speakers we have wireless microphones but and we're like

leave that all at home we'll just TurnKey the whole event with our equipment cuz then we're guaranteed to be successful cuz if not if it fails

it's not like I can stand up to everybody and be like so I just want to know that everything went well but the reason why that microphone went out is

because actually the people who are paying me brought it like that's not a good look either we give them a deal on

this situation yeah they brought their own equipment it's their FA we had to happen we had to happen recently at an

event where we went in and we helped um and then because everybody knew we were

taxs we tried to step in to go the extra mile and it just went really not great

with some notable people there and then we had an event come up maybe like four

months later and we found out it was going to be in the same place and so we overspeed gear left our price way down

for the client and then the funny part is I was actually on on that show which

I'm not always on shows anymore but I was on that show and I walked in and we had still kind of agreed to like

a half SE thing and I looked around I turned around look at my people I'm like called

the shop they're loading the truck yeah and we brought in everything and we made a I made a call that day luckily we were

like two miles from our shop and the client was like what are you doing I like you're not paying for any of this

but like we've got to fix we have to do it like this and we just got booked by him again for this year did you yep and

I'll have to do the same thing like I'll have to do it's a nonprofit working with like why I I just can't risk that with

what we do anymore you do the right thing the theme that like we're really exploring is this idea of how reputation

is everything yes right maintaining this like this level of reputation so what

what have you learned or how have you kind of gotten into that reputation management side of things where you've

really had to maintain this level of reputation that you guys have like what made me what makes me do it or how I

guess or maybe also Lessons Learned just I think a lot of small business owners right we're when we're working in our

communities reputation is everything and people talk right people talk behind closed doors they'll tell stories and so

maintaining this level of reputation like how kind of how have you done it or what have you learned about it like to

maintain this quality reputation that you have I'll tell you how I learned it so I'm talking about having another job so I worked for the government for 10

years I was in a government job um and then part of that job probably like the last

five years of the 10 years I worked for PR so I worked underneath all the pr people I wasn't totally in PR but I kind

of was um and I worked for an elected official so I learned very very quickly

about how that needed to look and the organization was very uh paramilitary in

its structure so it was such a good learning ground to understand like a

chain of command and ranking structure and then how things had to be and then like my job like you're going to laugh

so somehow I was in my job and they

needed photos taken and I was like the guy who raised his hand and said I know how to use a camera which I kind of

didn't know I mean I know to use it now I really know how to use a camera yeah so they gave me a camera well then that

ended up being that I would have to go with the pr people even before I was assigned on underneath of them they'd be

like oh you know go get Matt Matt will come Matt will do photos so so it put me again in a lot of rooms I shouldn't have

been in because I just had to take a photo and so then you get to watch

people who are not that they're better than me but like we're talking about elected officials and stuff and so

there's um decorum yeah and how things need to be and then like how to make sure like you can blend into a wall I

mean I'm really good at sitting in a room and no one's seeing me because that's what I had to do so I can't see

that I know cuz I'm like so bigger than life right yeah you are if you ask my people but we but we're when we're in

show mode like I'll stand behind a pillar all day and hide I have no problem I've been at a lot of events

that you are I stay away and I have a hard time finding you I'm like I'll come

say hi to you because you track me down and I try and find I'm like okay they're here I I know they're here I see their

truck they're unload whatever it is I know that you guys and I'll look for you I can't find you you're no you know how to hide and you know like and I hate to

say but you know like the rule like we now I work with a lot of politicians and elected officials in what we do um I

will do the and again no one taught me this and I don't feel less them but I won't speak to them unless they speak to me first because it's not my place and I

don't feel less than like I kind of am the hired help but I don't I don't think I'm the hired help in a bad way and what

we do is not a hired help in a bad way but it's like um like the mayor I know the mayor really well and if he comes

and says hi to me and shakes my hand gives me a hug great but I don't need to go assert myself into that mix uh

there's no point that's not why I'm there I'm there to serve I'm there to give customer service to do an end all

so I think I learned it because I worked for someone else for a very long time and I

just literally watched how they all handled themselves and I feel like I had some um really good leaders uh to watch

it's kind of funny politicians you know name a politician someone who loves him someone hates them yep the same with the

politician I worked for some people loved them some people hated them um I'm just really good I think at watching and

trying to take the good no one's perfect but you know you just you figure

out how to be in the room now the the thing I will tell you that I dream for someday I don't know I read this quote

once but I want to at some point I want to be the person that walks into the room that never needs to be

introduced because in our industry we are paid a lot of money to know who walks in the room and they

never have to be introduced us so like my people are really good if um and even our small community KY Springs and

certain people walk into the room my staff will either send a message or start to Talk Amongst each other and

it's not in awe but it's to let everybody know that we need to be in our best so and so is in the room so and so

just came in hey they're here do you see they're over there and it's not like a big long conversation but it's a quick

they're in the room yeah and i' I just read a quote once that you want to be the person that never has to be introduced that when you walk into the

room everybody in the room knows you're there and that's how I want to be someday I got a long ways to go though I

got a long ways we'll be there together okay yeah have you ever thought about that though there's people who walk in

the room and you instantly know they're there did they have to come tell you who they are nope even okay you know you and

I have known our mayor for a really long time right even before he was mayor he was still that person way before right

way before I remember when I first met him do you know he's the one who

convinced me and Brian to move our business to downtown clar Springs and he didn't even know us yeah he is and he

didn't even know us we saw him speak and in that moment I was like I want to know him I want to know him he's going to be

my friend and put it out there and 6

months later we were friends having coffee checking in Crazy having conversations yeah but he was always

that person who walk he how I met you huh yeah he is but that's before he was mayor too yeah way before he was mayored

cuz I had I had a problem that I needed fixed and I called him and said hey and then he said this is what you need to call so we went and had lunch call yeah

that's right yeah we had a great lunch we did and then you grilled the [ __ ] out of me yeah but then you told me but then

you told me about your husband and then I was like I need to talk to your husband so and you grilled the [ __ ] out of him and then it works and now we're

all big happy family no I think actually out of all of our clients at least on the HR Branch's side I don't know about

the brw side but on the Branch's side I think you're the one who's done the most due diligence on us ever in our history

is that good that might scare me I think that giv me a lot of confidence you need to do your

job I I let's do a commercial for you it right it gives me confidence in our

friendship and our relationship though because you took the time to actually care about what you were walking into um

and understanding what you were about to engage in is so important but wait but that's easy though and again maybe I'm

different but it's easy because again if you read an entrepreneur book or Business book or whatever if you want to

grow you got to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you wise advisers and so like I didn't just you

aren't to me an HR company you're in my Rolodex of my tried and trude safe wise

advisors that like this is who I call in this situation who I call and so for me

you may call it being a Grilla but what I was thinking is like okay if this is going to be you know your wise adviser I

better really know that they know their stuff or that they can help me I mean it's like you never you want a good

attorney if you're going to have an attorney so you better ask a lot of questions before you hire the attorney hell yeah and so and you hear about it

like your attorney and you're you know for me it's like I got a payroll company and then I have you know HR and I have

uh accountant and then then I have a lot of people in my industry that are like business owners that I will call yeah

and then for those like okay and then for our industry too it's small enough I always have to make sure they're like out of state because you can't call

anybody local because they're not going to they're not going to give you that much advice because you're in competition with got go buy that machine

you got find all the people farther out and be like hey like how do you do this would you do it so I don't know that my

that's my pitch for I guess for any business owner if they're going to hire people that they're going to let into

their business and help run it you should ask a lot of questions you should or maybe I'm too type A and control

freak no yeah probably yeah you are I am too so there's that yeah but that's a

that's a perfect Segway though Lessons Learned so we've been able to kind of uncover a few themes

here unpaid work yeah that that hits all kinds of things

reputation management which I think is just so so critical we've uncovered a

little bit of leadership there's there's a theme there and then uh do your

homework so tell us like Lessons Learned if you

were to and I like I hate saying talking to new entrepreneurs or even

entrepreneurs period but like professionals yep who are Sitting In

This Moment like [ __ ] I don't know what I'm going to do what do you tell them

sitting in those moments the money thing's a little bit easier now I mean

um we again we're in an IND we're in Industry where a lot of people do have

to pay UPF front but again we've picked a client base that has some regulations

that don't allow it um so outside of that client base so the other client

base you really have to either know your people through and through so like a history of work and then a history of

being paid yeah um if not we do find ourselves asking for deposits and more money up front than we used to um it's

just hard but I think that's like one lesson is absolutely like go get their

money I mean we we just took some money a deposit from someone that normally I wouldn't have but they wanted to give me

money and so I was like I'm going to go ahead and take your money please do thank you so I think being okay with that and being like hey like we'll go

ahead I think too I've always and it's G to sound weird but you know like okay if

we go to if you go to buy something anything right even Amazon or like to the Apple

Store like right you don't get the good yeah until you've paid for it but it's always been weird for me because we're

service based so it feels funny to me and it shouldn't be very clear about that but it feels funny for me to take

the money before I've provided the product yeah and so you my suggestion is

get over that because if you're in in service base you have to get that money up front the other thing too is in the event industry if I don't take the money

up front and they're short well the Caterers are going to get paid but you're not y the decor company's going to get paid but you're not and I can

assure you there's not a single Decor company that will show up with Decor without being paid in full like they

flat out will not do it so I I think the Takeaway on that is take get your money

up front or get deposits or have longlasting relationships I mean again some of my clients I've worked with for

12 years so I know that I'm going to get paid can I can I throw in an unsolicited

real quick yep you also deserve to get paid for the

cool stuff and you deserve to get paid for the cool stuff handsomely so you are

not only you but like all the listeners too and I I think that's one thing even I fall guilty of is well I I'll throw

something out for you I'll throw something out for you and your company I mean I remember like a year ago you

changed your rates a little bit I bet right yeah we did that was great cuz I remember Megan I think it's true I

remember the phone call with her all day I had no problem and uh I feel like you guys even were a little bit worried

probably I maybe oh every time I hate asking for money and I just remember like talking to Megan I was like yeah

like we're good like just whatever and even I think she was like not taking back but like I was probably really easy

to talk to but again but it's because I know the value yeah of what I'm paying

for because we're both service-based organizations right we don't have a tangible product to be like okay well

here this is what I'm going to give you right it's it's all based on our expertise and our knowledge and our

capabilities and you can't really prove it with the tangible item saying this is what you're going to get yep right it's

really at the end of the experience yes and it's hard in a way way to ask for

money for that promise of an experience yep and yeah I think did one we even I

usually don't do this but I am proud of myself for doing it we had a event get C like literally the truck showed up this

happened a couple weeks ago the truck showed up my guys were there they called the client and the client said we just

canceled the event oh sh and historically I wouldn't have taken any money for that but we did take money you

should have that was your time you booked something else for we did we did we we gave him a deal because it's a

long-standing client and you know sometimes you need to think about there's a bigger picture and there's a much bigger picture with that client but

I was able to get enough money to cover what I would call the admin costs and the cost for that truck and the cost for

the guys to come in because if you think about it I had all the guys pack all the gear then another earlier in the week

all the admin to get the event ready which is actually pretty substantial then another crew came in loaded the

truck showed up was getting ready well didn't even get to do anything it's canell but they said they drive the truck back unload it all and then my

guys have to down swort everything back so I was at least smart enough to be like hey and the client is a good client

client actually offered to pay in full wow but I knew that what they were doing was a fundraiser and I knew that yeah

and uh so we talked internally and talked with Chloe because she's client relationship manager and I was like

here's what we're going to do and just you know update the invoice and send it over to him but that's going to get me a lot more work than if I had just said no

you got to pay me in full oh absolutely so you got to like float with it a little bit there's a balance yep there's

balance yep absolutely okay so what's your next lesson Lear advice whatever

want to call it next lesson um wisdom from the king

the wisdom from the king um I'm going to kind the joke of the

king but I think I I we hear it a lot and that is

if you own the business um whatever happens on you it doesn't

matter if an employee made a mistake it's it's yours and not that it's your mistake you didn't make the mistake but

it's you own the results yeah so you have to own it and so you know not being

afraid to be a leader and I would say that's one thing that I can't I can't tell you what it felt like 20 years ago

anymore but I can tell you now it doesn't scare me to be a leader it doesn't scare me to have a tough

conversation I've had to have plenty of tough conversations but you can always um handle a tough conversation with a

lot of Grace yeah and then the way you take it so I think like the takeaway really is is well you know I don't get

to do it as much anymore I sit at a desk a little bit more than I would like but be the tip of the spear yeah so never ask your people to do anything that

you're not willing to do and I mean that 100% And I've been out you know we talk

about uh okay great takeway you talk about exhausting so we did a amazing event last year up in Denver crazy crazy

hours it's the last day over snow came in it's an outdoor show we start to clean up and I literally was watching my

team crumble because this was the end of seven days but I bluntly I'll tell you

what I was thinking and if they listen to it they probably already know this I had a lot of Financial Risk outside in

the snow so I had to get cleaned up we couldn't go even though we had more

time we actually had the whole day the next day and well we had the whole day plus we had to split career going another show but like when I looked

around that cost money that cost money that cost money that can't be in the rain that can't be in the snow so we

pushed really really hard and I remember it got to midnight and I had had some uh external uh labor come in and they were

gone at midnight and I wasn't satisfied with where we were at as in bluntly from

Matt's opinion Eddie sound still had a lot of risk yeah available for loss

overnight yeah but I had some people who had crumbled and I mean crumbled and rightfully so I want to be very clear

about that we had asked a lot and that's a tough position to be in and I stood there and I pulled them all together at

midnight let the other people go and I had probably had 12 there's probably 12 or 15 of them and I made a decision that

certain people were going back to the hotel they weren't given an option mhm and I looked to him and said you're out

you're out and you're out and uh then I looked to the rest of the team and said I need to still do some things here I'm

going to stay if you want to go back to the hotel you let me know or not and I

went to each person and every person who I went to said no we're still here and then the tip of spear was when the other

people had left I was running across the field with them jogging at midnight and

trust me my body hurt I am not as young as them but you know what every one of

them like we all went to like another level and we worked for another two hours and we were able to protect all of

our investment and get everything done and we actually made the next day even better for him but like it's about I may

sit a desk but I always tell them if you want to see me work challenge me because I will work right alongside of you and

it's a different work you're there and I have to do a lot of like grab that take that there do that pull that do that but

I'm right there and I'm grabbing stuff with them and doing what I can and so I think that's a huge lesson is like don't

ever ask your people to do something that you're not willing to do because they'll know it they will they'll know

it and they will eat you alive for it yep and they'll disrespect you or have less respect for you in the long run and

they'll just be like oh well you know all of a sudden it's like he just sits in his office oh yeah but if you can

show him I'm not just going to sit in my office like I'm there and I'm sure with you know mine's a pH we have a physical

job but I'm sure like with what you guys even do like you have late nights where something has to be done and if you stay

with your employees to get it done they're going to think a lot more of you than if you're like remember it's got to be done see you tomorrow morning and

they're there for four hours after you that's not going to be chill yep yep you know lately I found myself in this

position where I've been taking on lesson less clients that I actually support and it's more you know my team

taking on the clients but what I'm finding and I kind of love about this is my role in my transition has actually

been to be the support system for my team I'm the advisor to them when they

have those big complex hairy issues they come to me and I help them you know tear

it apart and understand and and and I and be that conductor as you kind going

wrong instead of going to them and telling them it's going wrong you should go to them and ask them what do you need from me yeah absolutely then that's

probably why it's going wrong is they have a need that's not being met yep Y and the owner can do it yeah exactly a

lot of times maybe of times if you're there and available and they're ready like you know because we're surface based and we deal with complex issues

all the time like my team is like they've got it there their aame but now they have someone else that they can

come to and you know tear things apart and consider and talk about it and I I

like being that adviser to my team and that conduct you can scale too oh yeah I

know right you got to Chick-fil-A yourself have you ever read that book by

C it I've got it if you want to borrow it it's a really good book um anyways

okay so I dig grass all right so we've got great lessons learned we've gone through some really really in my mind

profound experiences um thank you thank you so

much for your openness your vulnerability I had no doubt though did you have any doubt no doubt I don't know

if that's good or bad if anybody's going to say it the way it is in this town it's probably the truth it's Matt Stone

Back everybody kind of wrong I come across abrasive to some people I think me too

okay me too so you know but usually we somewhat tell you how it is uhhuh at the

right time yeah especially with one or two of those oh boy like you're really

going to get all right so we're going to go ahead and wrap up today's episode but what I

want to do is just give you a moment to tell everybody here how in the world

they can have Eddie sound Rock Rockbox and the Magnificent team that Matt has

built to manage provide the a the the what you call it the lvp MS so I never

used I never used to say but AB so audio video see I Don't Know audio video lighting I should know it sorry no but I

did but think about it for a long time like I had audio and I had lighting but I have video so I couldn't really call my self an AVL but now we do you do I've

seen it in real life he can do it all yeah he can do all the cool things for your party so call Matt have him throw

your party you probably will never see him because he's the man in the

back but Matt tell everybody how they can get a hold of you and how they can do business with you that's easy um our

website is just Ed E sound.com so to make it clear it's Edy not IE Edy and then sound.com and on

it there's like a contact form or they can just email literally info Edy sound.com um that's probably the easiest

way like we have some social media but to be we're blessed which means we usually have more work coming into us

than we can even handle so we don't uh we don't worry about too much on the marketing side of things if that makes

sense but that's the best way to do it is just reach out to us through email and I like email because we're trying to

grow in scale and it lets me get that email to the right team member so that the right team member can follow up

quickly that's perfect because if it's to me black ho you don't want to see my

phone don't want to see the notification just going to be honest I'm I'm with you

gosh just over the weekend I came into the office with 125 emails I'm like really oh I think my phone says I have

like 30,000 emails unread that's my personal email we're not going to talk about you actually have that like the

notification B oh man that would me recently though I did do another rude hack I turned off all my notifications

other than uh text phone and email are the only three every other notification has been turned off don't don't eat it

we're going to wrap up this episode so thank you so much for joining us but got a really amazing email tool for you

and if you comment on whatever Channel I'll tell you what the email tool is that cleans up your email

automatically uhhuh so but otherwise thank you my friend Matt I appreciate

you being here Jason you got any uh closing remarks or thought I don't think so nope we'll see you guys on the next

episode [Music]

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E5: When The King Speaks - Leadership Lessons from The Entertainment Biz with Matt Stoneback

Transcript

Making your passion more profitable.