065: Randy Cohen - Get Your Business Swagger On

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Swagger baby. Today's show is all about swagger. It's a lesson in leadership, how to tap into your swagger and take your team to the next level. That's what it's all about today. Swagger baby. Hello and welcome. Welcome again to the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm your host and Gazelle's business growth coach, Bill Gallagher. On the show today is Randy Cohen. Randy is an all around groovy guy, as you'll soon hear. He's the author of Swagger or at least the business book on Swagger. It's his second business book, I believe, but he's even written children's books. He's the chief energizing officer for Ticket City. I'm so excited to have Randy on the show today. Welcome to the show, Randy.

I am so excited to be with the legendary Bill Gallagher in the loop of love, teaching the world all about a little businesses and giving them a few takeaways today. So thank you so much for having me on.

Yeah, I'm super excited to have you here. So today we're going to talk about swagger. How to tap into and develop your own swagger. I think anybody in a leadership position or aspiring to enhance their leadership recognizes there's something right, there's something intangible that but really valuable in swagger. Where does it come from? And it's different than pretending to be something, right? And so we're going to talk all about that today and how to access it, how to leverage it and how to use it to take your company to the next level. So I'm excited to hear your story. I haven't read the book so we're going to hear about it together today with the listeners. But I have met you and I know that you've my wife and daughter Both adore you. So you have some swagger, you have some charm. We know that.

Well, it's good to be, like I said, in the Gallagher family loop of love. And hopefully we can give a few takeaways to all the listeners out there and teach them a thing or two.

Well, we promised something of value for your time and effort listening to the show. Tell us about before we get into the heart of swagger. Where. Tell us your story. Where do you get into this thing? Tell us a little bit about the evolution of Randy.

Well, again, thanks for having me out. I'll start by giving the story of why Ticket City has been around for 27 years. I basically started the company and I am about 200 years old. 27 years ago, I took my life savings of $1200 and I bought $206 seats for the big game. It was the University of Texas playing basketball, number three in the country at that time, against the University of Arkansas during the Stroll and Nolan years. And I'll never forget my life savings of 1200 bucks. I bought $206 seats for this big game thinking it was going to sell out at the Frank Irwin center in Austin, Texas. And it didn't sell out. Well, I had to walk down to the stadium. I'm thinking, I can't believe I'm going to lose my life freaking savings. And I walk down there and there's a line in the box office, people buying tickets and all of a sudden the box office shades come down and. And the sold out sign goes up. And there I was with 200 seats going, stand back, non believers, ladies and gentlemen, it's your lucky day. And I sold all those seats for $15 apiece. Made a quick 1800 smackaroos for all you accounting folks listening today. And that's where it all started. Then slowly but surely built it up over all these years. And now we have basically about $150 million operation going to war against some of the big boys out there like StubHub and Vivid Seats and Ticket City fights the great fight and we save the world one ticket at a time and make a bunch of great dreams come true.

I think it's a dream comes dreams come true thing where this all starts to evolve. So how do you arrive? How do you realize that this concept of swagger and how do you cultivate it?

Well, the book that came out, I talk about this in the book Secrets of Swagger, how to own your own cool in life and business. And the way I kind of look at it, it all comes back to what I'll call the epiphany of how I figured out what Ticket City was really about. And I think every company, every founder, has to have that epiphany. What are we about? How are we making a difference? How am I going to rally the troops? All of Mel Gibson, when he's trying to rally his troops to go to battle for him. Basically, what happened? It was the year 1996, and it was the Atlanta Olympics, Summer Olympics. So you're talking 9606 17, over 20 years ago. And I'll never forget, I got a call about eight hours before the opening ceremonies from a lady, and, you know, the phone rings. We answered it. Hi, thanks for calling Ticket City. How can I help you? And we're in our Atlanta office at the time, and the lady says, hey, do you all have any opening ceremony tickets? And I said, yeah, we have great seats. How many do you need? And she says, well, I just need one. But the thing is, I don't have a ride. And I thought, that's kind of strange. But I thought to myself, randy, this is what you're about. You have to do this. This is your chance. And I said, all right, ma', am, it's your lucky day. I'm coming to get you. So she bought a ticket. I went and rented a black Lincoln Continental from the airport. I drove an hour and a half outside the city city. I picked up this beautiful grandmother. She was 75 years old, and she was so excited. She couldn't believe she was going to get to knock something off her bucket list. And I was like, randy, I'm so glad you did the right thing here. And we drove an hour and a half back into the city. We went to the Olympics, where you could see during the drive, she was so excited and sparkling, and we, you know, parked as close as we could. We got there. We. We got to see all the Olympians walk in with all the colors from all the different regions around the world, the nations. And we saw Muhammad Ali like the cauldron. And it was just an amazing experience. And I was so glad that I followed through and did what? We talk about doing the right thing long after the feeling of doing it leads you. So got her back home that night, dropped her off, went to the office the next day, and what do you think happens? Word started to spread around the office. Hey, did you hear what Cohen did? He blew off his plans and took a grandmother to the Olympics. And that's what it's about. All of a sudden, your Troops start doing the right thing long after the feeling of doing it leaves them, and they go above and beyond for the customer. And that was my big epiphany, Randy. Your troops are going to follow you if you're doing the right thing and you're passionate about it. So that was my big epiphany in 96, which really elevated, I think, to another level as we continued on our trajectory of growth.

So are you really saying here that the secret of swagger is finding the thing that you're passionate about?

That's one of the things you still, in life, have to walk the walk and talk the talk. And it's tough. I mean, when you've had a bad day at home and. And you've been in maybe a squabble with your kids or your partner and you're coming to work and you have to just turn it on. You have to walk with the high step and walk in and be like, stand back, non believers. Hello, everybody. I'm here today. What can I do to help? And everyone has to see you there for them. And that's, I think, a big part of what swagger is. I'm called the chief energizing officer. I'm going to live and breathe by who I am. And I don't think maybe everybody has the same swagger. There's lots of different levels of swagger. There's people that are just brilliant at what they're doing and have so much swagger because they're so smart. There's other people that are. Have the gift of the gab and are competitive, like Richard Branson, who I talk about in the book, or somebody like a Lady Gaga who has her own kind of swagger in music and acting. Now. She started as a actress and wasn't making it, so she went over and became a singer. And she dares to be different. That's swagger. George Clooney has a certain swagger in his Rat Pack that he hangs out with so many different people.

He sure does. You know, I'm struck by. And I'm thinking about what you're saying now, and I realize there are moments where we feel insecure, where we're fearful, where we're doubtful, where we. And where we're trying to pretend something. We're puffing our shirt up, we're putting our bed, we're faking it till we make it, that kind of thing. And in those moments, I don't think there's a lot of swagger, and I don't think we're convincing Anyone in those moments that we're doing something and it may work, sometimes accidentally, but I think that's different than what you're talking about. You're talking about walking the talk of something that you really care about that really makes a difference for you and that, you know in your bones you have some access to. Right, Right. Yeah.

And I think it's even more than that. I mean, part of swagger is just showing up. I mean, we have a lot of things going on in our lives today. The speed of business is 200x what it was back in the days of phone and fax and snail mail. I mean, it is cranked up. We're getting stuff done and putting things out. So a lot of times when all this stuff gets to you, and the fact that you just show up, that's huge for me.

Right. And just tell me how this relates. So right here, I'm wearing a little red wristband, right. It's got my company.

What does it say? Tell me. Tell.

This one says, keeping the fire alive, right?

Yep.

Scaling business.com.

Something else.

Scaling up business dot com. And so it's the title of the book that I'm working on right now. And it's the thing that.

Keeping the fire alive.

Keeping the fire alive. Right. And it's this idea of there's some inspiration. There's something that lights you up in a vision that you have for your business that you want to maintain over time. Right. So. So what are the ways that you find the fire, that you tend the fire, that you share the fire? That the fire is your passion and your vision. And I think it sounds like it's related to what you're talking about. One of the things that I do is I have these aqua notes in my shower. You ever heard of aqua notes before?

I actually have. It's pretty cool when you can write that down, right? As you come up with the best ideas you've ever had and you don't want to forget them. You just put them right there in the shower with little.

Some of us have ideas when we sleep. Some of us have ideas while we're driving. Some of us have ideas while we're exercising. One of the places that I have ideas is in the shower. Now, ideation is one of my things, and so on. So I have my. My aqua notes to capture the ideas in the shower. But at the top of the pad there, I have two things that I remember and use every day. So the first is my purpose for life. Like, what is the purpose of my life? The purpose of my life is giving people power and freedom to face anything that life throws at them. Right? And that's something that I'm always like, okay, something bad happened to me. Where's my inspiration? Where's my power and freedom in this? Right? And I'm not talking about, like the good days when we're going to go work on the big project we've been working on forever. I'm talking about, you know, when a family member has a critical event and their life is on the line. What's your inspiration for dealing with a massive breakdown? What's the. Like, where do you find your power in that? So I'm interested in developing that in the face of anything. Right? And. And then the. So that's the first sheet. The purpose of my life, giving people the power and freedom. And I used to just say, make a difference. But it's more than that. It's a specific thing. And. And then the second page is the purpose, Values, brand promises and bhag of our business, right? So I'm helping leaders build a better world. And our five values of courageous authenticity and creativity and self development, never being finished and thinking versus having thoughts and laughing in the face of everything in life. Right? And then giving people the best tools and master facilitation and making the process fun or things that you can count on. And then our mission is out to our bhag, right? Is to impact a million leaders in the next few years. So that's what I use. And then I find, if I say those things, if I read them while I'm getting ready in the shower and doing my shaving and washing my hair and all that kind of thing that. That alters my day. And I walk into the world with that in the background. That's who I am. That's what I love.

I. That. That's beautiful, actually. And when I'm talking about things in Secrets of Swagger, it's a lot of the same type of premises. What can you do to make a difference in the world? How can you love what you do, do it well and keep on doing it? And all the chapters that I started in Secrets of Swagger, Star with a Sea, and you named many of them, you have collaboration.

Right.

And I talked about Lady Lady Gaga. Who does she collaborate with to be the best she can be out there?

Right.

I talk about charisma.

Yeah.

You know, who's charismatic? Well, you know, a guy by the name of Francis Albert Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. You don't think that was a charismatic individual back in the day. Commitment, who's committed to what they do in. In business and in life. You just talked about that. You got to be committed to your mission and set the wheels in motion. And the person I came up with there was Rowdy Ronda Rousey. She was one of the top champions of MMA out there. I mean, for a long time. That's pretty amazing. I talk about courage. Well, who is more courageous than JFK back in the day, having to deal with the Cuba incidents and Russia and everything. I mean, just like Trump today is having to deal with North Korea and past presidents, Nixon, China, they all have to do something like that. Coolness. We talk about George Clooney, competitiveness, Sir Richard Branson. Funny story. I was out there in Africa with, with Richard and I. I sent him a text. I said, richard, let's play some chess. I said, to victory or to death? And he sends me a little text back and goes, rodney, Rodney. Well, I guess then death it shall be. And he whooped my ass in about 10 minutes. In chess, it was not a long battle, but I mean, he's competitive. Character. We talk about character, all these things in business. John Wayne, man, that guy had character back in the day. He was the Cowboys superhero. And then creativity. Who's more creative than Jimmy Fallon on the late night stuff? I was just a Wimbledon and I kid you not. He came walking up, sat two rows in front of me, and I was so excited. I'm not starstruck very often. I said, jimmy, Jimmy, I wrote about you in my book. You know, can we take a selfie? And I'm taking a selfie from two rows apart with him, and he's waving, you know, I'm sure I embarrassed him a little bit, but you got to put yourself out there.

It's like it was this strange guy from.

Yeah, I mean, that's what swagger is about, though. You have to put yourself out there. Be that one head above the sea of heads that stand out so people notice you. You got to show up. And it's tough because we are all busy and there's so much out there. How do we get noticed? You better stand out.

Tell me about the standing out of the company. How does your. So your. Your title's a little different. A lot of people like to create creative titles with their C suite. What. What is. Tell us a little more about what Ticket City does and how your role evolved with that.

So one of the things I'm most proud of for ticket city, number one, we've been around 27 years. We're a debt free company. We've never taken in any money. We've done our way and that's been a lot of fun. My management team has been with me for probably an average of 22 years for each person. So we fought the battles together. We've seen the cycles and the ups and downs and it's been an amazing journey for us. We continue to sell tickets to concerts, sporting and theater events all around the world, giving people an easier ticket buying experience. You go to the website, you can look at things and we find out a few things about you. We're able with our analytics to say, all right, Bill Gallagher, we know who you are. Just a smidge. This is what we're going to recommend, these three choices for you so you don't have to scroll down and spend hours of time. You know what it takes to sometimes book an airline flight. The more we know about you, the more our analytics are going to give you the best seats and the best value for you as an individual. Because everybody's different. Not everybody wants to be in the front row and spend the most money. The most expensive tickets aren't always the best. So we really try to be different out there amongst the tons of ticket companies that are trying to sell you a ticket, that's one of the things we do. We also own a lot of inventory. Most companies that are marketplaces don't own inventory. So with us owning inventory that we put on our site, we have better pricing which enables people to save a buck or two. And if it's easier, you know who has the easy button? You got Amazon, one of the easiest companies in the world to order from. We also believe in profitability. We're that old lemonade school model. If we make money, we put it back into the company and we go buy more lemonade, lemons, sugar and cups. And then we keep on growing that way. We don't like spending what we don't have. So we've been very fiscally responsible and had very good growth over the years. We're not trying to triple every year. If we're growing 25% a year, we're in our little sweet heavenly spot.

25% a year is pretty solid. And you're many years around now. And I think you said at the beginning you're $150 million, right? How many people work in the business today?

We have 61 employees. We have two sides to the company. We have the ticket city marketplace side, which doesn't own anything. And then we have the brokerage side, which we call 360 access and that actually owns inventory for all the college teams, all the championship sporting events. Those are two specialties. College sports, championship sporting events. Yet we do sell a lot of concerts, we do sell theater in New York. So when you want to go to Hamilton, as it's traveling around the country and see that amazing show, we have that availability and just trying to not be afraid to give people what they want when they want it and make it easier with amazing clientele service. So we're there for you and you can call us at 1-800-sold out easy number where you can actually talk to somebody. Imagine that, have a chance to talk to a sales guy if that's what you want to do. Some people don't want to do that. The majority with the web today, it's easy for them to just jump on there and get what they want. We'll coach them through it.

I think that's one of the big things that I heard about you is that you actually answer the phone. Right. So many companies do their damnedest now to keep you from ever talking to anyone, routing you through endless phone.

They do. It's so frustrating. But I mean, I understand it. How can you be profitable where time is so valuable you can't physically afford to pay somebody that amount, 30 minutes with somebody and compete with the big boys.

Right. Totally get that. So Secrets of Swagger is about accessing this and you cover these four Cs, which are a way to access and bring forward the things that you really care about and then to express it, to embody it in the world. Right. So collaboration, charisma, commitment, courage, coolness, competitiveness, character, creativity, communication and caring. And you take through examples of real people, real like captains and stars, icons who embody these things. And what's the lesson that you've learned in observing them and applied in your business? And then you talk about, of course, about some of your own application of this and how each of us can cultivate this and bring this forward to develop our leadership and to develop our business. Right.

I think you nailed it. And we take specific examples of things that Ticket City or I have gone through over the years. And we have comparisons to show. Wow. You know, there's maybe no secret silver bullet or lightning in the bottle. You have to do those things, as I said, long after the feeling of doing it leads you. You have to show up every day. You have to high five and chest bump your employees. How do you figure to get them to bust their butt for Ticket City or whatever company you're with, if you're not showing up yourself and being there for them and listening and hearing their struggles and their compl concerns. And you go through ups and downs because let me tell you, 27 years in business, I have seen a lot of, you know, ups and downs from, you know, 9, 11 to, you know, maybe not even be able to make payroll one, one year because of all the stuff that went down. We've all been through these battles. But it's the old saying that this too shall pass. It's cyclical. And if you're doing the right thing and showing up, I think you can really win that battle. And, and the fire, what you're talking about has to be inside your belly. You have to always have it because somebody else is going to find a way to have it if you don't. And then they're going to kick you off your pedestal.

Well, I think, right, that you. There's times when it's obvious, right? It's a little bit like, I mean, 27 years, you've been through up markets, down markets, you've been through boom and bust. You've been through a range of different challenges along the way. And there are those moments where it's easy, it's natural, it's fun, right? And then there are moments where, like, it takes everything you've got to open your eyes. And in those moments, if you can find something, some way of being that is. That is truly available to you, you can call that forth, you can lean on that, you can draw that. I mentioned earlier about a thing, and I've spoken frequently publicly about the decline of my father's life. And he had some business trouble and then he got into. He started drinking and he had, he had a background. I didn't know growing up that he was bipolar, but he had. So he had a mental illness condition. All these things combined together and his, his life declined. Now, I. When I was a kid, right, my dad was my hero. My dad was awesome. My dad. My dad was a professor of linguistics. He was an entrepreneur. He could, he could model by in like 17 languages. He was a hyperglot, right? As they say. He taught me to surf. He took. Taught me to travel around the world. He just was extraordinary guy. But then his life began to decline and I started to avoid him, right? And I started to avoid him and not want to deal with his problems because he was my hero. He wasn't supposed to be like that, right? But. But my dad declined. And first he tried to kill Himself and ultimately he did. He was successful. He ended his own life. Right, yeah.

Sorry to hear that.

Yeah. Thank you. In the face of dealing with that, from the first moment that I heard that through his passing, we went a few years and I didn't want to deal with any of that. Right. I'd been avoiding it, but suddenly I had to. And what I came up with with was providing leadership for my family because I didn't so much want to deal with my dad, my hero, being anything other than that. Right. But providing leadership with my family was the thing that lit me up, the place I could find swagger. And so I did. Now in the course of it, I got to express my anger and everything else that my dad. And actually there was love. Right. In going through all of that. And the last few years, my dad and I did communicate and, and when he did finally go, I knew that it just was his way. He loved me, I loved him. He knew I loved him. Like that relationship was complete and I had made my peace with his choice and his way to live and end his life. And I think even in all these moments, we can find some way to deal with, to face something. Yeah, even something heavy. Right.

I love that because come on, we all go through the struggles of life. It's not all business.

I mean, my illness crisis, right.

I have two ex wives because I put everything I had into growing ticket City. And I wasn't there showing up for, for the relationships that I, you know, started. I have great kids and I wasn't always there for them. But we love each other and we learn from our mistakes. And as long as we continue to learn and grow and trying to self improve, I think that's awesome. I mean, what I came up with a long time ago, I call the lair model. And the lair model I talk about in my first book, Ticket to the how passion and performance can transform your life and your business into an amazing adventure. And it's pretty simple. We all can do a better job of listening Layer stands for listen, acknowledge, explore and respond. And I'll give you an example. Let's say you and I are at home and our, you know, wives or partners or girlfriends say, honey, will you take out the trash? Well, we're watching SportsCenter, so we're in the top 10. We're kind of focused, but we kind of heard them, you know, in the back of our brain and we acknowledge it. Honey, you want me to take out the trash? People just want to be acknowledged, you know, it needs to be authentic. They're acknowledged. So what is she going to say? She's, you know, you just acknowledged her, but now you need to maybe explore, ask a few questions. Honey, do you want me to take the trash out in the bathroom, in the bedroom, in the kitchen, outside? What is she going to say, Bill, take out all the damn trash, would you? Okay, honey, you just heard her. So now you acknowledge that. Again, you just explored by saying, honey, I will take out all the trash in 10 minutes after SportsCenter. That's your response. Listen, acknowledge, explore and respond. If you could do that and everything that you do and people feel like they've been heard, you're going to go a long way. But it has to be authentic. And that's the challenge in life because things always don't come across being authentic.

Yeah.

So here's some things, a couple things to know about Randy, right, to give our listeners because we're going to run out of time for this show. But Secrets of Swagger you'll find on Amazon or wherever else you get your favorite books. Right. And you can read more about that. And then, of course, you'll find links to your other books. You've written a couple children's books, too, haven't you?

I love to rap. And I wrote a kid's book called Dee Dee and Daddy's Big Night Out. And Dee Dee stands for darling daughter. And I don't know if I have a copy of it here. No, I don't think I do. But the whole thing is a wrap. And it starts off like Dee Dee awoke with excitement that day. Who's Dee Dee? You ask? Who's Dee Dee? You say. Well, Dee Dee is my darling daughter, you see, and this is the story of Dee Dee and me. And all the characters are bugs and ladybugs, worms. And it takes them on an adventure through Bridgeland with amazing bridges of candy and gold and loop to loop. And I had so much fun. And you can actually get the app on Apple. It's called Deedee and Daddy's Big Night Out. It's free. And there's famous country singers that sang songs on it. They had so much fun with it. And I mean, it was it. I mean, it's for my daughter, who was 9 at the time. She's 6, 16. But that little legacy for her to read a book and she's a ladybug. I mean, come on, we all need to write a book for our kids. I had a better time with that than teaching business stuff.

All right. Secrets of Swagger Ticket City 1800 sold out. Right?

Ticket to the limit.

Ticket to the limit, Right. These are all of his things. Go check them out. Go a little deeper with Randy. Thing you got to know about this guy and his 27 year old $150 million business with no debt, right? Because our listeners are looking and mostly thinking about how to grow their businesses. Randy grew his business using the principles of the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling up, applying it, learning from it, just as many of our listeners are. So the same thing that we apply there, the Rockefeller habits, habits learned from John D. Rockefeller and distilled from his life and his work, applied in a modern way and then updated today is what's in Scaling up. And that's what we teach and develop and that's what he's applied to do that as well. And then of course it's gone into the book and all that kind of thing. But we teach these things via this podcast, via our blog, our website, our list and our public workshops. So we do a couple public workshops all the time where you can come get a firsthand experience of what it's like to be coached by us, how we apply them, the the basics of the Scaling up framework and the 2.0 version of the Rockefeller Habits. And we probably have one coming up. You'll find all that info, our growth kits, our downloads, our things like that. You can subscribe and you can find a workshop and register for one there@scalingupbusiness.com and then of course this podcast and blog will be there as well. So you can find that and all the others that we have. So I don't know where this is probably number 64 or something by now of, of the topics and we do.

About one every week.

So go to scaling.

Be a bigger advocate, Bill. I mean the Scaling Up Rockefeller Habits from Vern and from all you coaches, starting with the morning huddle that's showing up, you got to show up for that huddle every day in all the different departments. I still do that and I still show up to these growth summits and I learned something new all the time. You gotta, you gotta keep on learning and growing.

Thanks so much for that. We'll end on that ticket City and Randy Cohen, Secrets ofswagger and scalingupbusiness.com thanks so much. We'll have you all back next time. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. Great seeing everybody.

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