Evan Samet - Perseverance in the Time of Covid

Hey, folks, welcome to a very special edition of the Small Business Show. I really think you're going to like this one. Right, Dave.

I enjoyed this interview that you are about to hear so much. What a great conversation we had with Evan Samet, who. He'll explain his piece in the live entertainment industry, but what an industry to talk about right now.

Right now. And so many small businesses are suffering out there, and you couldn't pick one that was hit harder, you know, than this event and ticketing. Shut down, maybe? Yeah, just. Just shut down. So he's got a great story and, you know, he's a listener that. That reached out to us, and we. We always love these, you know, opportunities to connect with folks that are listening to us. Before we start the show, do us a favor. Pause. Unless you're driving. Pause. Pause your podcast here and go leave us a. A review up at your podcast directory of choice. We don't have nearly enough of them. They help us out. They help us bring in better guests. We would appreciate it. It would make our Thanksgiving tremendously better if you could leave us one of those reviews.

Yeah, it really does help us.

To.

Grow the show, and that grows the Small Business show family, which is good for you as a listener and all of us. So, yeah, please. That review would help a lot. So. Yeah, that's.

And one of the things I really loved about Evan. Evan is the mistake that he made that he talked with the company he founded. You know, it is. Just reverberates through his entire life and all the. The things. And we've talked about similar things on the show before, but it's a. It's really a. A great insight, and I know that everyone is going to really enjoy towards the end of the show as we talk about that mistake.

I think so. I certainly appreciated it, and it. It rang true with me for sure, as you'll hear. So. Yep. All right, well, I. That's all I want to get to this interview. Unless you.

No, I'm. I'm ready. The small businessman.

I'm ready to Small Business, too. He's Shannon Jean. I'm Dave Hamilton. And this is episode 304 of the Small Business Show.

You know, there's nothing better than having a Small Business show listener reach out to us with a request to be on the show. Right, Dave?

It's the best.

Yeah, absolutely. We talk about it all the time.

Especially when they have good stories.

Yeah, exactly.

Which I think is the case.

So, recently I was contacted by a listener via LinkedIn with a really compelling message about his experience starting and selling a small business, but also really about the challenges of being in the ticketing and live event business that was completely shut down due to Covid. Evan Sammet. He founded ticket insider in 2013, had some great success, sold the company in 2018. Evan's now the VP of purchasing and Marketing at Key Investment Group, which is another ticketing and VIP experiencing company on a large scale. And he's been through a lot and I'm just so glad, you know. Evan, thank you for joining us today, giving me all the feedback when you reached out. We're really happy to have you here.

Thanks, guys for having me on. I've been looking forward and obviously reached out to you. I'm excited to share my story and talk about the live entertainment business.

That's one that's near and dear to my heart. Listeners know I'm a drummer, too, and even though I don't draw my revenue from that these days or my primary revenue, it's definitely a business that's been hit perhaps harder than any other. Right? I mean, for sure. Yeah.

So let's get a little bit of background here for our listeners and talk about how you got in the ticketing and the event business, you know, back in 2013.

So I started the business, you know, from my college dorm room. I had tickets to go to a show that was playing at a local club. I went to Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. So it's playing, you know, down the street in New Haven's place. It was actually Toad's Place. Yeah.

I played there a few times. It's a fun club.

Yeah, yeah, the good time. And I bought the tickets. I lived with, you know, seven other people at the time, so I bought the tickets for eight of us. I'm sorry for the seven, plus myself. And for whatever reason, I don't even remember the reason we couldn't go. And someone offered me. The show was sold out and they offered me $20 per ticket. And I thought, wow, this was, you know, this was an amazing return, 100% return. So I'd always been into live entertainment and, you know, going to concerts was always my favorite thing to do. My dad, for my 15th birthday, took me to see Bon Jovi open up the Prudential center in New Jersey. So I'd always been. I'd always been into that. I went to a million Yankee games, you know, growing up. And I just decided, you know what? I saw this return was good. I knew this. I knew the business. I didn't know the ins and outs of the business. But I knew, you know, what music was popular. You know, I kind of had my ear, you know, ear to it. I followed sports and still do really closely. So in the watches, always wanting to, you know, start a big business. I said, you know what, Let me go for it, because I'm knowledgeable in the subject and, you know, just started growing, and I haven't been in another industry since.

That's cool. Yeah, it's great way. I mean, you learn that lesson, you know, getting started and, you know, growing it from there. So we're going to talk a little bit more about the business and how you got things going as you get. But one of the things that you mentioned in the email and you mentioned here just right before we started the show was reaching out to us because how devastating it's been for you professionally and I imagine, you know, personally as well, and how Covid has really shut down your entire business. And you made this comment that I really liked. You said, you know, picking yourself back up and moving on is not as easy as it sounds.

And.

And we talk about that a lot on the show. You know, Dave and I are these eternal optimists. But, you know, it's great to talk somebody that's gone through it and it sounds like you're getting through it and maybe even coming on the show and sharing your experience here is part of getting through that. Talk to us about what you've been through and how you're. How you're responding to it.

Well, you know, I think it's, you know, it was gone through multiple stages, and I don't even want to sound like, you know, like a page at AA or something, but I think, you know, I think the first, you know, the first step was actually accepting that, you know, Covid is a real thing, and it's going to be around for longer than any of us. Like, I think at, you know, the very beginning when, you know, when we ultimately, you know, put the business on hold for a little bit and just stopped. We. I know our first step was we just stopped buying tickets because we just didn't know, you know, what was going to happen to anything. And, you know, we're like, okay, is this going to last a month or two months? And, you know, me, myself, I'm a huge tennis fan, and I said, okay, well, they still have Wimbledon coming up, and they're going to play Wimbledon. They've never not played Wimbledon, and then they cancel Wimbledon, and it's like, okay, well, this is, you know, this is going to you know, this is going to take a while. So, you know, I think the first part of it was, you know, accepting, you know, that this is going to be here for a while and there's nothing that I can personally do to bring it back. You know, me personally, it's just going to be a matter of time.

Yep.

So then, you know, you kind of move on from that and you say, okay, well, as a business, you know, what do we do to keep the business going? I know the best thing about working at Key Investment Group is, you know, being in a small business. The business is, you know, part of my family. You know, everyone who I work with, I'm incredibly close with. And, you know, we've spent, you know, we all put in a minimum of, you know, 10 to 12 hours a day, you know, working with this because it's all our passion. And we all, you know, we all love the business and, you know, having that time taken away of saying, like, okay, well, my passion is in the entertainment business, and my hobbies are going to concerts and going to ball games. So, you know, where do you, you know, where do you move on from them? And, you know, a lot of people, you know, you kind of bring it. I know I was very fortunate enough in my first business that financially, you know, I'm okay. Like, I did very well in my first business. So it's not like, you know, having a slowdown of business. I didn't know where my next meal was coming from type of thing. But this is. This is what I love to do. And, you know, having that taken away and just say, okay, well, I'm going to go pop into another business or I'm going to, you know, try to save this business and kind of, you know, overcompensate. I think, you know, I think that was the hardest part about, you know, I didn't know how to get back up. You know, I knew I was down, but I didn't know what direction to necessarily go in.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, that. That was a lot of people.

I think there's still a lot of people there, you know, that are. That are going through similar things. So I kind of. Well, I feel like, you know, reading what you wrote and talking to you, maybe you've turned the corner. Like you said, there's different. The steps here. What have you. What resources have you tapped and, you know, process or systems have you put in place to get you through those things as you work on, you know, either recovering the other business at some point or shifting to a new Industry.

Well, so, you know, IKEA investment group ever, you know, we're still, we're still alive, we're still running. I mean, obviously, you know, our sales aren't what they were in January and February. But I think, you know, one thing that we realized as a business, and, you know, I think everyone else, no matter what business you're in, and I'm not even saying, you know, whether you own the business, whether you're an employee of the business, is you should figure out what your company does and what your company knows. And without, you know, kind of beating a dead horse, how can you monetize it in a variety of different ways in case one of your avenues of revenue was cut off for any reason? So we were doing, you know, a key investment group. If you said, okay, what was our best three months as a company? It was, you know, December 2019, January 2020 and February 2020. I mean, we were just, you know, trending up and just becoming, you know, just, you know, just higher sales and hiring more people. But we never really thought about, okay, we consider ourselves ticketing experts and you know, meet and greet and, you know, VIP experience experts. But we never really looked at entertainment as a whole. Memorabilia, trading cards, autographed anything, pictures with this live, sorry, virtual meet and greets. We never really looked at ourselves as entertainment experts. And now that we've kind of looked at that, we know what the most popular trading cards are. And we've seen, you know, believe it or not, trading cards selling for 65,000 to $100,000 just for a single card. And, you know, we, we didn't really look at ourselves as, as I just mentioned, as experts. And now we know we're coming in and it looks like we're turning a corner. You know, it looks like there's, you know, so called an end, an end in sight. And now we have so many different avenues of this business that when we can come back, we can attack the ticketing side, the memorabilia side, the card side, and attack sports and music as a whole, not just in the ticket field.

That's going to make you bigger than you would have been otherwise. I mean, potentially. Right. Because you've had this moment to take a breath and say, wait, what do we do here? Who are our customers and what else do they want that we can take our expertise and deliver.

Yes. And to add on that, like, I know I have, you know, family members who are a little bit older and, you know, we always talk about music and they said, you know what, Even if, you know, There's a vaccine. I might not be ready to go back to a concert right away, but my aunt is, my aunt is a huge Allman Brothers fan and she asked me if I can get them, you know, like a sign, you know, signed photos, because she wants to hang them up in her house. And, you know, it's different things like that where for people who, you know, may not want to go back to a concert right away, maybe we can give you memorabilia, so maybe you can be part of, you know, another part of our business. We know that ticketing is still going to be the biggest part of our business. We know that that's where our bread and butter is. But if we can just add other streams of revenue, just, you know, just in case, for whatever reason, concerts get shut down again. You know, we still have people, we still have another stream of revenue.

Totally makes sense.

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Absolutely.

What's your prediction as to when that will realistically be able to resume?

I truly think it's going to be in around May or June, because all the shows that we're supposed to. We got through. We, you know, the artists got through shows up until around the second week, second or third week of March, and then everything got pushed back until 2021. So for all those shows that were booked, they basically moved them. You know, same venue, almost same date, just the same year. So all these shows that you were supposed to see this summer are now in place for next summer.

That's all my tickets. All my tickets just say 2021 instead of 2020.

And the date and the dates, you know, are probably within, you know, a couple of days of each other, you know.

Yeah, it's within a week. Yeah, they tried to just sort of remap the. Take the map from this year and do it for next year. That's right.

Exactly. And the reason I think the shows have to happen in the summer is because I don't know if they can push it back another summer, because shows, shows that happen at. Out at outdoor amphitheaters, you know, they can really only happen in the summer. You know, you can't go. It's tough to go see a show in, you know, New Jersey at an outdoor venue in January. Like, it's just.

It's not fun unless it's a football game. And then people don't seem to mind.

But, you know, otherwise, for whatever reason, football, you know, for whatever reason, football has defined that for years to come.

You know, the funny thing is, I'm up in Tahoe right now, and they have a festival in the middle of winter here called Snow Globe. And my kids go to it, and it's, like, crazy. Of course, they're not doing it this year. So it's like there's there's unique events that maybe could do that, but for the most part, you're right.

So. So, Mike, because Mark Geiger involved in the live entertainment business for a long time, Lollapalooza founder, I think, and other things. He says it's going to be 2022 that we come out of what he calls the, the, the quarantine economy and enter what he calls the claustrophobia economy, which is moving from we must stay in our house to we need to leave our house, you know. Yeah. So. But I think whenever it is, I think it's going to be party central out there. Whatever. Whenever we heal to the point that we're comfortable touching each other again, I think it's going to be the roaring twenties like we've never seen.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to be, I mean, we're planning to get back and just be as busy as could be because I think, you know, one of the things that has, you know, and again, you say talk about in the show being optimist. One of the things that I've looked at as, you know, the glass half full type thing is that live entertainment now is needed more than ever and people need to get out. I know there are certain, I look at it right now and I look at certain businesses like hotels. And I know my mother travels a lot for business. I mean, she used to travel at least twice a week. I'm not sure if she's ever going to travel at the same rate because you can just get on, you could just get on a zoom call or get on a phone call for meetings that aren't necessarily.

That part has changed for sure.

Yeah. But I think. And then the other benefit that I think of is I think more than ever, you know, going forward, working from home, working remote, working wherever is convenient for you is going to be more acceptable going forward. And I think that's very, very important for the live entertainment business because I know I used to, you know, when I'd go up to my office, it was around, you know, a 45 minute commute. And I had friends who I live with who, you know, had to drive, same thing, 45 minutes an hour to go to work in the morning. Now there'd be a show on a Wednesday night that I would want to go to, but I know one of my roommates would say, you know, I don't really, it's. I kind of want to go, but I don't want to go enough to get home at midnight and then get up at 6:30 in the morning and then go to work. But if it could be a thing where he could work from home the next day and get up at, you know, 8 and roll out and be at a desk at 8:15 and you know, you can necessarily work from home the day after you want to go to a big event, I think it will force, you know, more people to go. And then once you start getting into the live entertainment experience, then I think, you know, your work the next day kind of, you know, you slowly forget about it. It's just about getting, it's just about getting to the show. And then, you know, you have maybe another beer, you have more food at the show, you buy a T shirt. And that just helps the overall, I'll call it the overall concert economy. And you know, just keeps, keeps everything going. But I think going forward, live entertainment is going to come out of this pandemic better positioned than a lot of other businesses.

I think that's true. Well, it. And the services businesses as well will. I mean, there they've all, like you said, you've all been given this, you've been forced. But I always like to look at things as opportunities, this opportunity to pause and reevaluate. Right. Because you have to. And, and at some level, once things do start to reopen, there's a rebuilding that will happen. Right. Because most companies didn't keep everybody on the payroll, you know, so you, you kind of relook at it and say, if we were to do it again, how would we do it differently? And that question, just as a byproduct of this gets answered. So.

Yeah, yeah. And I want to touch on. You mind if I just jump back? I want to touch on one other thing that we brought up. I know we talked about, you know, when does live entertainment come back and when do concerts come back? And I think, you know, a lot of things that, that people aren't taking into consideration is, you know, I'll listen to someone go, oh, like I would happily go to a concert right now. But like, why can't they do a concert? You know, social distancing, you know, why can't I go to an arena show? And instead of there being 15,000 people, have there be 5,000 people. And you know, for anyone listening who I know, because I know I've been asked that question a lot, I just want to answer that. The toughest thing that I see that other people aren't understanding is when you go to a show, there's so much that you expect. You expect the lighting show, you expect the noise. There's so much other stuff that there's so many more people working than just the artist. And if you're going to a show at a third of the capacity, you're not expecting a third of the experience. So for musical artists, it's very difficult for them to, you know, put on a show and have it be as profitable as it would be because they need to provide the full experience, and they can't do that only selling a third of the tickets.

Yeah, that's a good point. I've done some shows and I've got some professional musician friends that are, you know, full. That's what they do for their income and they've been able to make things work, but it's always with a skeleton crew and like you said, not the full experience. And you have to be really careful what that does to your brand going forward, because if that's part of the show and part of what peop. What entertains people. You know, when you go to a concert, you think, oh, that band was great. Well, maybe. But if all you saw was that band with, you know, a couple of spotlights on them, would you have been as entertained? Are they that good or does the lights help? Do the, you know. Yeah, I mean, what's the picture for you?

Yeah, I mean, there's so much to. To a show. And I mean, obviously, if you look at the, you know, the super bowl, which is any show on, you know, essentially steroids. Think about how much that's going on at the Super Bowl. I mean, think about last year with Jennifer Lopez and, you know, Shakira. I mean, there were dancers, there were lights, there were, you know, different instruments being brought up. I mean, these artists are, you know, essentially corporations, and they have, you know, a staff that needs to put on the show. I mean, think of everyone who, you know, even scans your ticket at the door, how many people that is on it on a given night. If you go to an arena or a stadium and you're not going to wait on a line three times as long. Right. It's these things where we take them for granted, but, you know, it goes into the show. And an artist, as you said, doesn't want to devalue their product if they can wait nine months and have a full tour at, you know, the normal capacity and not devalue their product.

Right.

Totally makes sense. And I want to go back and just make comment on, you know, the. You were describing moving into other areas, the memorabilia, different things like that. It. It's such a great way to build on the credibility that your business has already established in that relationship with customers that already trust you. And it is often, you know, crisis that forces you to think like that, to start developing different revenue streams. So I really commend you guys for working to come up with that, and I would highly recommend it. You know, other folks out there that are, you know, having a heck of a time going through it is look at ways that you can reach your existing customer base and offer them other services that they may be looking for. It's great advice.

Yeah. And the one thing I would even add on that is think about that before you need it. Of course, you know, we didn't, you know, we, we didn't think of. Yeah, I mean, obviously, looking back, but we didn't, you know, we didn't think about it before we needed it. And then you have everyone else in the industry kind of scrambling and everyone is, you know, sometimes you make decisions under pressure and you make good decisions, and sometimes you make decisions under pressure and they're not as good decisions. So, you know, if you can have a plan kind of, you know, planned out to where if you need to implement this, you can implement this right away while everyone else is still scrambling, it'll put your business leaps.

Yeah, we've talked about here. We did a whole show, I think, about the post mortem of really analyzing something that has gone south or what happened and this kind of thing. And it's almost like you need to exercise that and say, okay, well, what would happen if our main revenue stream turned off tomorrow? And of course, before COVID everybody. Oh, that'll never happen. Well, now, you know, and you can kind of maybe force that crisis mode and get you thinking along different ways. It's great. So what. Yeah, one of the things you mentioned to me that I really liked is that, you know, you've been a company founder and you've also been an employee again. And so for those of us that haven't been on the employee side of things for a number of decades, what insight has, you know, being on both sides of the table given to you when you're working with other, you know, your. Either your employees or, you know, other. Other folks in your organization?

So, you know, a couple things, you know, the one thing about being, about being an employee is, you know, owning a business. You understand that your, your founder has laid so much out on the table for you to even be able to even be able to have a job. And, you know, I don't you know, I know other employees, you know, you almost kind of take things for granted. You know, knowing what a founder has put in the blood, sweat and tears that they've put into the business, to even have the ability to hire you is, is something that should never go unnoticed. But I think the other thing is that even when I've hired people, it's made it easy for me to hire people who work under me because I understand as a founder that you need to delegate tasks that you aren't as good at and bring people in who kind of supplement your weakness or, sorry, complement your weakness. So if you're not very organized, you know, make sure you hire someone very, very organized. If you're weak on accounting, you know, you aren't as, you know, financially savvy, hire, you know, the most book savvy person you could find. And, you know, kind of being on that side of things, you know, being able to know what to look for has helped me tremendously.

It sounds like being a founder has made you a much better employee.

It has. Because I appreciate, you know, I appreciate both sides of this. And you know, I get, I get the, you know, the so called, you know, gripes of being an employee. You know, you know, why should I, you know, why should I work when my boss gets a dollar, why should I work for a dime type thing? And you know, you know, I, I understand that, you know, the founder has laid out so much for you to, for you to be able to even get that dimension that you should be able, you should give everything you have to them. And then working in a small business, you can grow and really rise up the ranks so much quicker that if you give it all to your founder, it's something that, you know, never goes unnoticed.

That's cool. It's a great advice.

Yeah. What an interesting thing. We often say, you know, I use the term about myself and I say, you know, I'm patently unemployable. I wonder if that would be true in the future like it was true in the past.

Maybe not.

And that's why I started and started doing what I, what I do. But listening to you, it's like, oh, yeah, there's that empathy that you would naturally have as long as the person's a good, good leader and a good founder. If they're not, then that would be really frustrating on a variety of levels. But, but you know, presuming that they know what they're doing. Yeah, that's interesting. It might, it might actually work out really well.

You never Know, you could get a job maybe.

And I think. And I think if you have. I think if you have a founder who's, you know, open. I've been able to give our CEO and CFO advice, you know, of things that employees may be thinking because, you know, they just haven't been, you know, close enough to the situation. Or sometimes as a founder, you're just. You're just in your own world and, you know, you're working on a topic that, you know, necessarily, you don't see and you don't always see what's going under you. And being an employee has also made me, I think, a better, you know, founder, you know, or would be a better founder because I now, you know, kind of say, okay, here's what everyone's going for. And even when I think I'm doing big business, I should look out for every little piece of business that's going on and make sure all concerns are being addressed.

Yeah, yeah, I can see it both ways. That's pretty insightful. I'm really glad we brought that up.

Kind of blowing my mind here.

Yeah, yeah, it's really good. We say, you know, we. You've heard us say before, we always learn the most. So, you know, we just. I'm sitting here. Okay, great. Oh, yeah. I have to ask another question, but I'm still absorbing that. It's powerful. One of the things I liked about, you know, your story as well is that when you know, the ticketing parts of the business, you needed much less of your time. And then you took on another role as president, CEO of another small business. Since everything slowed down a bit, how did that come about? Did the opportunity find you or did you find it? How did that work?

Well, it was. You know, it was actually a job that. A job that I got offered. You know, I didn't know, you know, I didn't know whether or not the live, you know, the live ticketing business was coming back. And I just kind of wanted to, you know, put my foot out there and, you know, in a sense, keep my skills sharp for, you know, for when this business comes back and, you know, be able to take what I've learned from the entertainment business and move it over. And, you know, I ended up getting offered a role as, you know, president and CEO of a smaller company and actually. Actually turned the position down. And I really, you know, at the time, I really wanted the position, but I knew no matter what, my heart at that time was in the entertainment business. And it was my heart and my loyalty belonged to key investment group because we've grown so much together and, you know, we've kind of. Not by our doing, has kind of been knocked off a cliff. And, you know, I want to be there with the team to get back up. So, you know, so I didn't think it was right to take an opportunity with already one foot out the door, if that makes sense, knowing that, okay, I'll take. I'll take this role, but, you know, the first time a tour gets announced, I'm out the door.

Right.

I really, you know, I really, you know, wanted to. To look at and say, okay, what other opportunities would there be outside of, you know, live entertainment? I, you know, I started my business when I was 19 years old. I had a summer internship with the Brooklyn Nets that summer. And outside of that, I've never worked out of. And I guess that's considered entertainment. I've never worked out of the entertainment space. So I just almost wanted to see what else, you know, what else was out there and where do my skills translate best. And, you know, I've been able to take so much about being a leader and again, being a founder and being employee that I found that, you know, I would be a valuable asset, I think, to a lot of. Or I know I'd be a valuable asset to a lot of different businesses. Which, you know, is something that I think when we, you know, when we talked about earlier about, you know, picking yourself up, part of that I was able to pick myself, part that I was able to pick myself was up was like, you know what? God forbid, if the entertainment business, you know, dies for whatever reason, I'm a valuable asset in. In many other businesses. So that honestly, really getting that job offer, even though I didn't take the position, helped me bounce back more than anything.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And, you know, I always talk about, as founders and business owners, you really have to learn to pat yourself on the back because you're off. You're constantly, you know, rewarding other people and growing your team and. And you have to find ways that are going to motivate you and. And lift yourself up. And I think that is a really good way or a good thing to recognize that, hey, I'm valuable no matter what happens. I'm going to go and find something. Whether, you know, we turn around here or do something else. I think that's great.

So I think. Sorry to cut you off. One more thing. I think no matter what, I think no matter what industry you're working in, you should always work on your business skills and, you know, just again, like, different things that you could pick up, you know, client relations. No matter what business you're in, you know, if you have a client making sure that you care deeply about them and they feel that you're selling them more than just a product, skills like that can translate and have you be successful in any industry that, you know, any industry that you go into.

We talk about.

We always say every business is the customer service business. So, you know, you just nailed it. That's it.

Yeah.

And you're building. You're building your talent stack that you're going to carry with you your entire life. No matter what you do, what company you start, whether you work for someone else, that talent stack is what is going to make you successful. Because if you're just good at one thing, it usually doesn't work out right. So it's good to recognize.

That's perfectly good.

Yeah. So, Evan, you know, we love mistakes on the show. We've written a book about it. Can you share a mistake that you made along the way, something that stuck with you and taught you a lesson you'll never forget?

Yeah, I think, you know, I think the biggest mistake I made and, you know, it's not going to sound like, you know, necessarily a big one at the beginning, but it actually led me to sell my business was when I started my business, I was afraid to let other people into the business that weren't family. So when I was, you know, when I first started the business, there was nothing at the beginning that I was doing that was proprietary. I just was really going off my knowledge and, you know, keeping really, really tight books and keeping logs of, you know, days that tickets were bought, you know, how much. How many tickets were being bought per day versus, you know, you know, the distance away from the show. But there was nothing I was doing that, you know, I could trademark or that I could patent. So I was afraid to say, okay, well, if I let someone, you know, work for me who's very smart, they're going to, you know, take everything I teach them and run. And so at the. So I hired, you know, hired. I hired my dad to do my accounting. I hired, you know, my sister and her friends to help me, you know, buy tickets and, you know, call different promoters and, you know, hired, you know, my grandfather to help me, you know, with, you know, reaching different vendors. And as great as every my family was who worked for me, I didn't have anyone with any experience in the entertainment business. So I wasn't learning anything new about the business. Everything that everyone who worked for me knew, it was something that I told them or something that I had taught them. So in the end of 2016 through all of 2017, my business, in a sense, flatlined because I was unwilling to, you know, trust outside people. And I'm not sure if, you know, obviously working for Key Investment has been one of the best decisions that I've ever made, but I don't know if my business, if I necessarily would have sold it if I didn't, in a sense, limit myself. Right.

Yeah, it's great insight, and it is very difficult. And we've had lots of people on the show, and this has happened to me as well, where you do train people and they. They don't. They go out and start their own businesses and different things. It's. It's a tough thing and everybody manages it in a different way.

But, yeah, I. I found that my. I think my initial hesitation was less about the fear of someone coming in and taking what I taught them and leaving. It was someone coming in and telling me that I had been doing it wrong because they had more experience and they were actually smarter than me. And once I got. Well, I'm just being honest, right? And once I got over that, I was like, well, of course I want them. If they're actually smarter than me, of course I want them in my business to tell me how to do things better. That's. That's why you pay them, Dave, you know, but. But that's a hard thing when, when you're like, nope, I can do it. Because, because as an entrepreneur, you are forced to ignore the doubters at some level and at different times, right? It's just how it goes. And so that mindset, you know, if you don't compartmentalize and control it, it controls you. Right? And it's like, oh, no, I have to be the one that knows the most about this, otherwise that shatters everything that, that I, that I stand on here.

Right.

You know, so.

I mean, that's exactly right. I know at Key Investor Group, in around September or maybe August of 2019, I hired, you know, a computer science major or computer science student who just had graduated. And, you know, at first I was nervous. I go, wow, you know, you always think anyone in computer science is, you know, just automatically smarter than you are because they can do things that you don't even comprehend. And he, he was able to open my eyes to. To so many different things about, you know, different. What was being Researched throughout different cities and he was able to expand the business and just help us grow so much. But I know for Ticket Insider, my business, I never would have hired a computer science major. I said, this guy's so much smarter than I am and he definitely can take what I do and automate it and knock me out of the water. But then he became, in a sense, my right hand person and we were able to help grow the business together because of different things that he was skilled at. But one thing I didn't take into consideration and as much as I, you know, respect him, he was just there to do a job and he just, you know, there were certain aspects that it takes to run a business that I know he just didn't have. And that's what complemented us so that's what complemented us so well because we were able to just rely on each other's strengths. To where had I hired him, had I hired another, you know, computer science major, I could have helped grow Ticket Insider. But I think my fear and my mistake of saying, you know what? Not let's not get the best people around me, you know, really hindered me.

Very common man. Yeah, we have all been there and it is, a lot of it is fear of what, you know, what's going to happen or what could happen, losing control. I think it's some great insight that you can look back on it now and talk about it and it will serve you well for the rest of your career, that's for sure. It's great. So, Evan, thank you so much for coming on the show. I want to ask you one more question before we go. We're really in this kick for 2020 since there's so much inaction going on and we're all kind of in many ways sitting on our hands waiting for things to turn around. But is there if there was some action item you could recommend for, you know, small business owners out there listening, especially in industries like yourself that are just kind of whole on hold, what would you recommend they do something today that could help them, you know, make it through this stuff?

That's a good question. I would, you know, I would touch on earlier and maybe I'll expand on something I said earlier. You know, have another, you know, have another stream of revenue and maybe even have it, you know, in a sense offset your, your core business. So, so for example, right now I have a good friend of mine who owns a restaurant and his best dish is, is macaroni and cheese and it's his number one seller and he says, you know, his number two item is not even close to. So what I told him is they said, you know, why don't you, you know, take it up? Why don't you, you know, box your Mac and cheese and try to get it into supermarkets? And he goes, no, man. Like, that's crazy. I'm going to devalue, you know, I'm going to devalue my product. It's not going to look as, you know, it's not going to taste as good, the presentation isn't going to be as good, and my margins in the supermarket are just going to be so much tighter than they would be, you know, if someone came to my, you know, came to my store, sorry, came to my restaurant. And now you look at where we are on November 24, indoor dining has been essentially eliminated for the next five weeks, if not further. And for him being if he had his dish in a supermarket, he could have a whole new avenue to get sales and then have those people, in a sense, come back to his restaurant when things reopen. So my one piece of advice is, you know, again, figure out what your core competency is. Figure out, you know, what makes you better than your competition and just try to, you know, monetize it in as many different ways without, you know, completely devaluing your business.

No, that's great. That's great advice. You know, some really great tips today and I just want to thank you again for coming on the show, sharing your story, being, you know, open and authentic about it. What's the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about your business?

I think the best way, I mean, I've been right now and, you know, you talk about like different ways you can find, you know, inspiration even the way I found both of you guys is, you know, just reach out to me on LinkedIn. First name Evan. E V A N. Last name Samet. S A M E T. And I would love to talk about, you know, any business questions or any, you know, entertainment related questions. And I've been actually through LinkedIn just, you know, finding a lot of different stories and finding, you know, finding you guys and, you know, having great conversations, which, as you stated earlier, has helped me, you know, have a more positive outlook on things. And if I could help, you know, someone else have another positive outlook or give any piece of advice, you know, that's all I want to do.

Yeah, that's awesome, man. We really appreciate it. We wish you the best. Please keep us posted on how things are Going. We'd love to have you come back on the show when things turn around and you can share how awesome things are going for you. And thank you again.

Yeah, thanks. Thank you guys for having me. This was a lot of fun.

Man, what a refreshing interview to do because it was just a conversation. And not that I. Not that I mind any of our others, but, you know, like he said, most people have something they're actively promoting when they're doing the interview circuit. And he just wanted to. He was promoting help, which I thought. And. And optimism, which is even better. Yep.

And. And I. What I. I really, you know, we. I get pitched a lot every, you know, every day someone wants to come on the show, and I'm really, you know, well, okay, what is. They offer to our listeners this kind of thing, and you try to, you.

Know, I get five of them a day that I don't even send to you. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm sure.

And so when he came in, I was like, well, you know, really, he. Two things. He wants to share his experience so that it could help someone else. But at the same time, like, I pointed in the show, I think it's helping him get through this as well. Right. Talking about these things and, you know me.

Yeah.

Just like for us. And so it's just. It is a great tool, if you will, to put into your. Your toolbox, add to your system to have. Being able to engage. And we're not able to do that as much as we were eight or nine months ago, and it may not be for a while. So it was great. I really enjoyed having them on, and I learned a lot, as. As usual.

Oh, yeah, this was fantastic. Fantastic. So, so much fun and so nice to just kind of dive right in. So, folks, if you have any thoughts, questions, if you want to come on the show, but even if you don't, even if you just want to share your optimism by way of us reading it or your. Your troubles and your problems, like, we're happy to answer your questions, too. Feedbackusinessshow.co. we definitely want to hear from you. It really these conversations, you know, Evan came to us as a listener, right? It. It. This. This is what we do this for, so that we can all work together as a community. And that's what. That's why we started this. So. Yeah. Feedbackusiness show, please. We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much for listening. Yep. Yeah. If. If you're in the US and you're listening to this before Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Keep living that charm life. See you next time.