Power Phrases + Mobile Locker Co

Business brain, episode 556 for Casual Friday, June 7th, National Donut Day. It's a week of eating sweets. 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a couple of ideas, maybe even three, maybe four, who knows? We analyze them, we dissect them, we use them to tune our business brains collectively. Yours, mine, his, hers, all of us, so that we can each make sure we keep on living those charmed lives. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And here in Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean. And man, I love donuts.

Right.

But I, but I, I try to. Well, I do limit myself. I don't eat them that often, but they're good.

They are so good. So good.

Yeah, it's just crazy. I've been to some crazy donut places over, over time. And you know, it's great when you're traveling or doing like that, but that's, but you got to, got to be careful.

Yeah, I, I generally only eat them when I'm doing something atypical so that it doesn't become habitual.

No, I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool.

I, I noticed the thing, I talked at the beginning of Wednesday's episode about the phrase thanks for your patience. And I noticed another phrase that has been used on me that I don't know if I'll ever use this on other people, but I found it interesting. The folks from Grant Cardone's company have been trying to sell us at Backbeat Media on their sales training. Right. And so I was like, oh, yeah, I'll take a call with you. And so the guy called me and actually to set up like our, our first little, like the, the first sales call.

Okay.

And then during that, we set up the second sales call and after we said, all right, we're going to do it, you know, on Friday at 10am or whatever. Great. They both asked the same question. Is there anything that would cause you not to make that appointment?

That's a great. That's for sales meeting. I think that's pretty good.

Right. Because it puts it on you.

Commitment.

They're getting your commitment, getting your commit. Yep.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Another one I really like is when you do something because we believe in the law of reciprocity here. We talk about it all the time, but one way I, I read about people doing it and I wish I could remember to do it more. But I always forget is when they think someone thanks you for doing something, the response is, I'm glad to Help. I know you will do the same for me.

Oh, not. I'm glad. I know you would. Right?

You will. I know you will do the same for me because you're shifting that. You know, they're. They're taking ownership, like. And of course they will do the same for you. But it's just a subtle little reminder that you're placing that word would with will. That. Okay, great. You know, you're. You're building up your bank, if you will, and you're not doing it, you know, doing nice things to build your bank up. But that should be part of the byproduct, is that you want to help each other.

Yeah.

So I know you will do the same for me. Love that.

That's great. Hey, so I went and saw the Rolling Stones last week at.

How was that?

At Gillette Stadium. It was fantastic. I went into. The Stones are my dad's favorite band, and so any opportunity, I get to go see the Rolling Stones with him. I. I will take. I. So it was a win before the band ever started playing.

Got it.

Right.

Yes.

You know, for all of those reasons. And we used to joke and say, like. And when I say used to, I mean, starting in 1989, when they said it was probably going to be their last tour with Steel Wheels, we used to joke and say, well, we should go because this might be the last time they play. Now the joke is we should go because it might be the last time we get to go see them play.

Yeah. Yeah.

But. But then, so. So the bar was set pretty low. I mean, you know, mix almost 81. Right. Like, wow. I didn't know how they would be.

Yeah.

And it didn't matter. You know, in that sense, we created a good night. We took a limo down because Gillette Stadium sucks to get in and out of. It's just all. It's two hours from us, which is fine. But you spend an hour, plus, like, a third hour on both ends getting into the stadium and then getting that problem here.

Yeah. With the 49ers.

Yeah. Right. So we took a limo down, which they upgraded us to a party bus, which was great. There were six of us that went. It was. So we had three generations of the family there.

Wonderful.

No, it was. It was freaking amazing.

Yeah.

And then the Stones played, and they were outstanding. It might be the best I've ever seen them play.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

And I'm picky, like, you know, like, I. But I was moved to tears at one point. Like, it was absolutely fantastic. Yeah. They were great. They really were. Yeah. Yeah. On the way out now, again, I want to, I want to set the stage properly here because pretty much everyone is either drives in or is driven in to the stadium. There's tons of parking lots. Public transportation really doesn't touch Gillette Stadium in any meaningful way. So while there might be, I don't know, there might be some world where you could get public transport to, you know, maybe a mile and a half away from there and then walk down, which would still get you out of there way faster than we did. Like, it's not how the majority of the people come. I would, I would gather that 95% of the people are parking there.

Okay.

Okay. So we go to the show. Great show. On the way out, we decide, well, we're going to stop and pee. We're in no rush. We're going to be comfortable. We'll get back to the limo and then our wonderful limo driver Lisa is going to take the reins and take us home. Like, it's awesome. We're paying, paying her for this and we're happy to do so and she's happy to be there. So, you know, we took our time. We get out there and as we're leaving the stadium, I see this truck outside of the stadium with a line of people, probably 500 people long. Now this is a good 30 minutes after the Stones have played their last note. We walked pretty slowly through the stadium. It turned out that our seats were, were on the complete opposite side of the stadium from the door that we wanted to leave through to get. So it was. And we walked slowly. So. And we stopped to pee. Like there was all of those things so easily 30 minutes after they stopped playing. Maybe longer. I should look at the timestamp on the, on the picture that I sent you because it might have even been longer, but at least 30 minutes, 500 people in line. And it's the mobile locker company. And what the mobile locker company did for people that night was so great. Well, if you go to their website, you will see a picture of people going in to like lockers that have little keys that, you know, that kind of thing that you.

Self service kind of thing.

Self service. That's not what was happening at this Stones concert. What was happening there was, they had a box truck and inside the box truck were just hundreds of hooks.

Oh, then those lockers.

Correct. It was literally an empty box truck with nothing but hooks and everybody's purses and backpacks and all of the things that were on the list in the email that everyone got days before they went to the concert and then again on the day of the concert that no one clearly read that were, you know, you can only bring in small bags and you can't bring in all of the things that were hanging in there. And 30 minutes after the show there was still a line of 500 people getting all their crap that they clearly paid. I don't know what they paid for that. I looked up some prices for other events. My guess is they paid probably somewhere between 10 and $20 apiece to, to do their stuff.

That's cool.

Now they, they also, I'm sure had to kick some money upstairs to Bob Kraft.

Yeah.

And the Gillette Company. Right. They rented space in the parking lot. But I looked on their website. I believe they're a Massachusetts company. They are, they have a deal with Gillette Stadium to do all of the events, concerts plus all the Patriots and Revolution games that, that happen there. But it just amazed me.

It's genius, dude.

Well, it's genius because these people saw a problem and it's a problem that shouldn't exist. All of these people have cars certainly within a 10 minute walk.

They're not, nobody wants to store anything in their car. What they get broken into me, I guess California, dude.

Oh no, I don't think that happens at Gillette Stadium. I'm sure it does, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but not purse.

These are a pet.

These are people that brought their back backpack to the gate and didn't want to spend the time to walk back to the car. That's what they banked on here with the mobile locker company and clearly it paid off. But they're going to do this for football games. Now most people who go to football games are going with their season tickets and they show up and they have their routine and they're still going to sell them spots every weekend or every Sunday that they have a home game in their, in their truck. Even though these people know darn well what they can and can't bring into the stadium.

Yeah.

It's just fascinating to me.

It, I, I love it because it's, it's a business that solves a problem because we have it here too. Every sporting event you go to, there's always people going, what? I didn't, you can't bring what, you know, this kind of thing and it.

Slows down entry, all of that.

Yeah, yeah. And so the flip side is, you know, it's, it's businesses that are in search of a, that are a solution in. Excuse Me in search of a problem, which. I see that stuff too.

No, this is absolutely a business that. They were probably in line together for a concert of the founders of this business. And we're like, this is dumb. We can. But. But we can make money off of dumb people.

Of course, of course. I mean, it's actually, I. I would argue it's very useful.

Oh, it is.

Find what they charge. But in the sense that when you're stuck there, I mean, you're going to a venue.

Oh, cocktail.

Yeah. You know, and. Okay, where is this now? I don't see. Oh, here we go. So yeah, I. I think it's great. And let me see.

Yeah, the Levitate Music Festival is the. Is the next thing on their event page. And you can pay 15 bucks a day. It's a three day festival or $40 for the whole festival.

So I love it. And yeah, what I, what I like is I bet you they have adapted to. To your point and just said, you know what? We don't need these big locker inside.

These trucks for levitate. They do have lockers. You are renting a 12 by 12 by 18 for levitate. Yeah.

Three days. Okay. Or a day, whatever it is.

But for, for the Stones concert, it was a bunch of hooks. It was coat check for your bags is really what it was. Their only problem that they need to solve is getting people processed faster. That's right.

Yeah, Sounds like it. Because there may be one or two people in the truck.

That was it. There were not enough. I think people had little like bag check, claim tickets.

Oh yeah, that's a little archaic. You need some. Yeah.

And I think people were paying at the end. I don't know. There was something, but it was. There was an inefficiency. Inefficiencies, as you and I both know, can be dealt with. Like that's a solvable problem.

Yeah, you could solve that. Yeah. Have you been to an event yet where they require you to lock your phone in the sleeve?

I've been to a comedy show where they do that.

Comedy show. Yeah, I've said that too. That's another great. What the name of the company.

Oh, that does that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phone, sleeve, lockup.

Yep. One. One thing I will point out as. As much as what? Say that again.

Yonder.

Yonder.

They're kind of the ones that started it.

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Interesting.

But Gillette Stadium was driving in and out of there was a disaster and we knew it was going to be. And it's amazing that they have football games There, you know, all year. Concerts there all year. And they haven't yet solved the problem. They're like, oh, it's going to be bad traffic because it's happening at rush hour. But then even leaving, there are all sorts of arteries off of the main road there. And they had them all blocked. And it's like, well, if. Instead of blocking them, if you sent. I realize they don't want everybody taking these smaller arteries, but they could like, intelligently decide, well, we can. For every. For every 10 cars, we can take two of them and put them here and two of them and put them there and it would. Would free it all up. But they're not doing that. One thing they did right, though was getting into the venue. We walked. There was, you know, a line of people and we walked through a sensor about 30 yards before we got to the person that was looking at the screen.

Yeah, yeah.

Based on the sensor. And that person would decide, okay, these two people need to go for further inspection. Everybody else is done.

Yeah, the Giants. The same kind of Giant stadium is that way now where you walk up. You used to have to go through the. Yeah, the, the bar thing and they would want you and big lines. But now it's. It's way out there and, you know, they're doing, I'm sure, some kind of facial thing.

Oh, they're profiling and scanning and other. All the things. Yeah, yeah.

But to your point about the parking in and out, I mean, there are venues here close to us that I just. We just won't go to anymore. Correct. Because it's, you know, they. You have a concert maybe on a Thursday night, trying to get there during rush hour is just a disaster. You have to leave at like one in the afternoon and then just trying to get out. There's like one way out and we.

Won'T go to Gillette Stadium. Like I said, they. The only reason we went is because it was the Stones and we brought my dad. Like, otherwise we turn down shows at Gillette Stadium all the time. However, 18 years ago, I got on the Patriots waiting list. I'm still on the Patriots waiting list. Really? Despite the fact that Tom Brady no longer plays for the Patriots and they've had some terrible seasons.

Sure.

I'm still. They still haven't gotten 18 years deep in the waiting list. But because of that, I get the opportunity to buy concert tickets there early for a lot of shows. But I don't. You don't get any warning. You just get an email and it's like, okay, wait list. Season ticket members can buy now and if I'm at my desk, I'll go buy. And I bought like front row for like ACDC and Kenny Chesney. And then I. What I do is I immediately put them on StubHub. Genius, dude. I've made, I, I've made thousands from just doing that. Yeah.

Oh, that's a great. That's a great side hustle.

It's fine. Like, if I have time when the email comes in, it's like, great because I capitalize on the initial ticket sales fever, you know, I don't hold on to them. It's like I get them and I sell them and. Yep.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, if you have interesting, you know, takes on businesses that solve unique problems, we'd love to hear about them. Feedback at BusinessBrain show and have a great weekend and everybody, and thanks for joining us and listening and everybody who's watching us on the stream, thank you for hanging out.

Absolutely. Feedback at BusinessBrain Show. Have a great weekend. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.