The Art Of Making Things Happen With Steve Sims (Full Interview) Revisited

Chris Collins here, and I hope everybody's having a happy holiday season. We are busy creating some new content and recording some new episodes of Unleashed that you will see early in January. But in the meantime, I picked some of my favorite episodes from last year, and this one is Steve Sims from Bluefish. Now, we've condensed this into one. It was originally released as a two parter, so this is the unabridged version. And I would encourage you to get a pen and paper and take some notes. Steve is a genius at marketing, at finding a niche, and the thing I think I've learned from Steve more than anything is his mindset. When others don't believe something is possible, he figures out a way and he has a certain pattern of thinking. So really pay attention to that when you're listening to this. There's a lot of gold in this episode. I've listened to it a couple times myself, just to refresh, because he's such an inspiration and make sure you get his new book out also. And so here it is. Steve Sims, do it live.

I can. I'll write it and we'll do it live.

I can't read it. There's no.

There's no words on it.

That's tomorrow.

And that is it for us today.

And we will leave you with. With me. I can't do it. We're.

Do it live.

Okay, we'll do it live.

Welcome, everybody, to Unleashed. How you doing, G man?

I'm doing good.

We have a special guest today. Steve. How are you?

I'm feeling good. Feeling good.

A good friend that lives very close here, up in the Hollywood Hills, right?

Yep. Y.

What's it feel like coming downtown?

Well, you know, I cut past passport control, but they let me in. We got to be checking things. Yeah. The visa, they're getting light.

They need to put Trump in charge of that.

What? Did he. Didn't he just, like, make it illegal for most countries to come here?

Yeah, no one's allowed to come here anymore. You know, I can't leave because I'll never get back in.

So funny. So we. We're excited about this. We're going to try to keep this under four hours because you have so many good stories. But your. Your company's Bluefish and you. You basically is the motto. You make the impossible happen. Is that how you say it?

Yeah.

Yeah, we did it. We did an article in Forbes, and they came up and said that we were the real life wizard of Oz for those with a checkbook. So I quite like that.

That is. That's yeah, that's a good tagline. And so just most. Well, let's. Let's go way back. How did you come up with the idea that there was a niche for that?

Oh, I didn't. I was a doorman of a brothel in Hong Kong. And quite simply, I wanted to not be a doorman anymore. So the people that were coming into the clubs and stuff tried to select, you know, those that were rich got looked after, and those that didn't have much money, you know, weren't let in. And so I just tried networking like that, hoping I would get a job with these bankers that were in Hong Kong. I just became the man that knew where to get stuff. You know, where were the best parties, where were the best hangouts? And then people would contact me and go, you know, can you throw a party? And can you do this? And, hey, I'm going to England. You're British. Do you know anyone? You know, that kind of stuff? And it just grew. I was actually trying to get a job delusionally as a stockbroker while building up this networking community and income by traveling the world, going to these places. And obviously, I never got a job as a stock worker, but before I knew it, I was just on the Rolodex of some pretty important people.

How old were you when that started?

Early 20s. So, like, 21, 22.

Were you always the person, even, like in school when you were younger, that was the connector that knew how to throw a party and that sort of thing?

No. And I still now class myself as a. As the worst networker in the world. You know, if I go to a networking party and, like, the events that we go to, you'll always find me at the corner of the bar just growling.

This is not true. I've always envied how good of a networker you are.

No, I'm the guy at the bar.

It's gonna be me and you at.

The bar from now on. No, I just. I don't like networking events because it seems to be a challenge how many business cards you can get. And as soon as they got a business card, they're gone. Oh, yeah, yeah. If I. If I meet someone and they kind of strike me as in interesting, I want to sit down, have a chat. So networking events don't really give me that ability to kind of, like, engage with someone. So if I go to one and I'm forced to go, I'll sit in the corner and just see who I can like, pin on and, you know, attack and go. You seem interesting. Talk to me and I'll do it like that. So I was never very good at that. That schmooze in that. Hey, you know, my name's Steve. I. I can't be doing that. So I don't. And I wasn't like that at school and just standing on the door, they have to come to you. They come to you and they go, can I come in? And as I say, if you felt that they were good people, you'd be like, yeah, go in and ask for Tina. Tell her Sim says, you know, that you need to be looked after. Or if I saw a couple of planks, I'd be like, not tonight, boys. You know, move on. And I'd send them down somewhere else. It was grotty. So it was just a gut reaction of what I had at the time.

Okay, I love this party.

Lucas, interpret for me.

What is a plank?

Lucas says funny stuff like that all the time, too. He goes, he's a dude. And what's a plank?

It's not someone you want to be kicking around with no.

Brain cells, basically.

No brain. That's funny. And so then how do you end up from there? Where did. Did you go back to England, or did you come here?

No, I never, ever went back to England. Funny enough, when I was in Hong Kong, as I say, I was trying to get a job, and Hong Kong was this. This mass migration of everyone from the uk, Australia, Germany, a lot of European countries, as Asia was what they called the tiger market at the time. So it was this booming expansion of modernism and Westernized world going over there. So there was a lot of expatriates over there earning tons of money, not paying tax, wanting to spend it, wanting to keep it offshore. So I just ended up kind of getting into that crowd and throwing the events, as I say, delusionally, because I wanted that lifestyle. But then I would get people like jewelry firms going, hey, look, you know. You know how to, you know, throw these events. Can you throw this event? We're selling these new watches, and I got in touch with Ferrari, and then I got in touch with the netjets and these Gulfstream aircraft. So before you know it, I was throwing some pretty serious parties. Then people were like, in six months time, we want one done in Monaco. Can you do that? And I'm like, sure, I can. And they go home and try to work out where Monaco was.

So, no, wait, in that moment, are you scared or are you just like, hey, this will be fun.

I didn't have anything to Lose. So that's usually what gives you fear. Yeah, I had nothing to lose. And I'm young and dumb. Thought I was invincible. Thought I was a bit of a tough lad, so, you know, I had everything wrong. And so someone would throw me a challenge, I'll be like, yeah, I can do that. And then go home. And then maybe in the cold light of realization, sobered up from a couple of whiskeys, I'll be like, crap. You know, what did I promise I was going to do? But the more I did, the more credible I became. And then I could walk into an area where I'd never been in before and go like, you know, you don't know who I am, but this is what I've done before. And then that credit, that credibility kind of carried me along and the kind of. The wilder and more amazing stuff I did. And I'd throw a party for Ferrari. So all of a sudden I could throw a party for Gulfstream. And all of a sudden then the Grammys wanted to chat with me. And before you knew it, I was. I was getting into some pretty serious offices and always thinking, I'm going to be found out one of these days, you know, how the hell am I getting. I'm getting paid to go and party with these people, you know, and they're going to fly me there first class. And still happens now. I was in Israel a couple of months ago for an event, and these people knew I when it was in Israel, so they wanted me on tv. So I'm on Israeli tv and then I'm on the Israeli radio stations. And it was just. Just weird, the kind of places I get flown around. So it's pretty cool.

So how young were you when you started to kind of develop a system for the impossible? So if somebody said, hey, we want to have Ferrari or what was the first thing that you said yes to that kind of what. You were in over your head.

So there's a few questions there. From 94. I was the doorman trying to build up a network, and I was trying to build up a network of people I could resonate with. So without realizing it, I was building up a community and a culture. If I didn't resonate with him, I didn't care how rich you were, didn't want to know.

So somebody comes through the door and that. And there's somebody you think might be somebody, you're like, here's my number. If you ever need anything, let me know. I'll take care.

Yeah. But I always found the best marketing in the planet was to get someone else to tell someone that you were brilliant if you did it with self promotion. So, you know, after I started kind of looking after a few people, someone had come into me and they'd say, I hear you're the man, man that can. I'd be like, possibly go and speak to Chris, you know, ask him, and I would deflect people. And even now, you know, if someone's in, in, like one of the clubs that we're in, you know, I'll say, you know, they go, oh, I hear you do all this stuff. Go speak to Joe, ask him, go speak to Dan. Yeah, he'll tell you. So I'm, I'm happy to deflect. And, and now I will. I always leapfrog off for someone else. So if I need to get, like, every year I work with Sir Elton John's foundation for the Oscar party, and every celebrity you can think of goes to that thing. So if I need to get to any one of those, I can go to that group and go look, make a call, let them know that, you know, I may look strange, but I get stuff done. Right. And so I come through a source of credibility, and that's how I started. Even at a young stage. So even working on the door, I would deflect you to someone else because when they tell you, that's gold dust.

You know, it's funny because. And when I was at 25k and I approached you about Journey, I don't know if you remember, but. But I asked you about having so.

So Gary has a dream on his 50th birthday to have Journey play.

Yeah, I do. Cool.

I walked over and talked to you about it.

Yeah.

And then you, you actually said. You said you should go talk. And I forget the guy's name, but you said you should go talk to him because he played on the stage with Journey and I got that done. It's funny, you deflected me right to him to, to have a conversation with him so he could tell you, tell me what was possible.

Yeah, it's the best marketing because then you, you, you've come back and I'm now credible to you. Right. So if, If I had just told you, yeah, I can do it. It's just marketing.

Yeah.

And with my stunning good look, she'd have never paid me.

So how did you figure that out, though? How did you figure out that that was important?

Oh, I didn't. Remember that woman I told you about earlier, the one I married 32 years ago? She Did. So I was still doing my stuff, partying like crazy. And then what I would do is about three times a week, I would actually, like, take my earrings out, put a suit and tie on and go and hang out in like, the cafeterias or have lunch with these bankers and brokers and agents and. And this was daft. Praying that they would offer me a job. Now, it was made, made clear to me a while back, it's the only time in my life I never asked for anything. Anything I need, I go out and get. I ask. I'm very happy to ask. You know, this is going to cost 20 grand. Give me 20 grand, I'll make it happen. I've got no problem with that. No sticker shock. Very cool about that. But this was the only time in my life I actually went into that environment thinking, they're going to offer me a job. If I'd have gone in there and gone, hey, you got any internships going on at the bank or the brokerage firm or the jet chart company? I'd have probably got a job. And that would have been disastrous for me. But it was the only time I never asked. And my wife actually said to me one day, we were living in Switzerland at the time. She actually came over to me one day and she went up. You keep going to these things, but you throw like two parties a year through two parties a month. And this is our bank balance and this is where we're living. Isn't it kind of time you started looking at what you got? Wow. And it was then that we screwed it all up. The usual entrepreneur, you go, hell, I've got something here. I've got to be a business. So now I've got to be sensible. Now I've got to get one of those things called a website. Now I've got to kind of like start. I've got to think of a really good name. And that was the funny thing. I did a podcast on this this morning about Brandon. We had to filter people coming into the. To the clubs and my parties. I would send out where it's going to, when it's going to be, and then on the day I would send out where it's going to be, what time and what's the password. Okay. So it was always this secret door kind of thing that was going on. So these people would turn up. And I always thought that a good filter would be to have them say something stupid. So I would say, let the password is name two of the Teletubbies.

Or.

And this was A tough one. This was actually very hard. Name the name. The lion out of the Lion. The Witch and the Wardrobe. Jeez, that got so many people. And that was a. That was a cool one because you'd have these people come up, and they'd be like, I don't know. Is it Barry? You know, and you. You knew it wasn't, but you'll be like, stupid. Get it? You know, and you'd have a laugh. But they were okay. But you get a dick come up and go, no, I don't know. You know, I'm here for the party. I don't think there's a party here, mate. And the whole thing behind you is kicking off. And there'd be me and this other meat, Ed, and we'd be like, do you know about a party? No, I don't know about a party. And there'd be people behind them. We'd be like, sorry, mate, you know, I think you're in the wrong place. And we just send him away. But other people come up and go, I still don't know. Is it Terry? We'd be like, no, but go on in and whatever. And one of the other passwords we had was. Finish this sentence. One fish, two fish, Redfish. And that was one of the easiest ones we had. Yeah. But when we decided, okay, we've got something now. Everyone had my phone number. We sat down, me and my wife, and we tried to think up the most obnoxious, precocious name that signified the connector of all. And of course, we were going through Greek mythology and all that. I don't know how many bloody syllables were in these names. And we came up with a few names, and we actually registered one of them in the Virgin Isles, you know, to have an offshore bank account and stuff, because we dealt with a lot of international clients. So we had this company. People would still phone us up and go, is that Bluefish? We'd be like, no. And they'd go, oh, okay, and hang up. And so then after a while, we thought we got to call ourselves Bluefish. And it was the community, it was our culture that adopt. Adopted this name. So that's when we became Bluefish. We literally closed it. I can't remember what it was. There were three of them. But we closed all those names down, did a name change for Bluefish, and we came Bluefish. And people, if they didn't know us, they'd be blippish. You know, what do you. What does it stand for? Whatever you want it to stand for. And because it didn't mean anything. Right? We were able now to give it a meaning. I suppose that's why we're here now with a book called Blue Fishing. It was just one of those things that happened and created from the crowd, from the masses. We had some huge players in there that were just now creating bluefish as a. As a culture, as a. As a. As a tribe.

So they adopted it for you. They came back and said, oh, this.

Is what we want. There's no intelligence from my side. You know, you worked that out by now. They. They literally gave it all of its fuel and drive and they stared it in different directions. And I was like, well, hang on a minute. You know, I've got to take it seriously. Am I a travel agent? I didn't know what concierge was. The first time we ever got called a concierge was when a friend of mine, who. Who, you know, he owned Gulfstream jets, bought this little company and I got this phone call that he'd bought this company, and I was like, what do you buy? He went, it's called img Jesus. He said, yeah, and they own seventh on sixth, which is the New York Fashion Week, and they want you to look after some of the buyers and the talent and loads of stuff. I was like, yeah, sounds great. They did a press release announcing bluefish as the official concierge of the New York Fashion Week. And I read that and I was, like, freaking out as a concierge. And that was the first time we were called a concierge. Then we became the official concierge of the Grammys and. And the Kentucky Derby, and we were still scratching ours going, what the hell's the concierge? And the good thing is no one knew. So we had all this press. People had no idea what it was we actually did so we could again, give it our own. Give it our own meaning. Now. You got, you know, we got dogs. You know, there's a vet concierge. You take a Cadillac Enemy service, there's a Cadillac concierge. So everyone's a concierge nowadays. But that's what we were called, so we didn't argue with it.

Yeah, yeah. That's not at the level you're doing it, though.

You're solving.

You're a problem solving concierge.

It's. We get the good thing about being bluefish and being concierge is I get to play in any sand pit I want. And so I get a lot of people coming to me and they go, we got this Product we need you to do. We know you do corporate events. We want you to do the product launch. And I'll be like, great, but I don't like your packaging, I don't like your message. So maybe we all look at the branding first. So then I've been able to come in as Steve D. Sims and gone, let's look at the marketing, let's look at the voice that you're actually going. So before you get Bluefish engaged to actually do the event, why don't we actually kind of look at who your avatar is, who your client is? So I get to play in another sand pit. So that's the beauty about my job. I get to do basically the hell.

I like and take on the clients. You want, the opportunities that you want.

Absolutely. You know, you know, someone turns up and they've got a bundle of money, but they're a prick, I'm nowhere near them. If I got gas in the tank and I got whiskey at home and the family's safe, I'm already wealthy enough.

Yeah.

You.

So back to when you're younger, how did you figure out your system for making the impossible happen?

Well, they say experience always comes once you've screwed something up. So I screwed up a lot.

That was my next question, was your failure. So I'm excited to hear this one.

Someone said to me today, you know, what are you. What are your biggest. What did you fail at? And I went, absolutely everything you can think of. The website, perfect example of the website. So we were getting known to lurking around and doing all this crazy stuff. And we got asked to be on a British radio, a British TV station. So I did this British TV show and we had just put up this website and it was about 30,000 bucks for like three pages, you know, that, you know. Yeah, right.

The usual normal.

Yeah, that was like, do you remember 1999 when it was like Linux and HTML? You had to get this. This kid to design this. This thing was ten grand a page kind of thing, and it was dead slow. And one picture that would. Would load after about four days on dial up. So we had that. We had this website and I'm on this TV show and this woman's there and she said, oh, you. You travel the world and you do this. She's going through a few of the little things that we've done and would start working with the Titanic, because James Cameron was doing this Titanic movie and was actually doing a lot of trips down to the Titanic. So we were piggybacking by shoving you know, paid clients onto these Titanic trips. So we were getting known for doing. Sending affluent people down to the Titanic. So that was a good icebreaker for us. And she turned around, she said, you're so exclusive, you don't even have a phone number or anywhere to contact you on your website.

And I sat down, I'm like, yep, that exclusive. And then came off. And I was like, who the left our phone number off the website? So we had absolutely no we. You couldn't email us, you couldn't mail us, you couldn't phone us. We spent 30 grand. We'd spend 30 grand and no one could contact us. So you were there, like something we would do. Yeah. So I just went through all of this stuff and I would invoice people, and I would invoice them for my cost and not for my commission. So my wife's like, well, how much we making out of that? And I went.

No, we're not on this. And everything I could possibly screw up, I would do. But every time something happened, I would try to find the lesson in it. So I didn't look that big a plank. And so I'm like, well, okay, I don't do the invoicing anymore. Website. Yeah, I don't touch that anymore. So I would always. And Joe always says this, and strategic coach always says, you know, if you could do it, get someone else. If they can do it as good as you pay them to do it. Yeah. So I literally look for anything that I'm doing in my life. If someone else can do it just as good as me, I'm going to find someone to pay them.

Oh, that. That was a. A fun conversation with Babs and Dan Sullivan, who. Who are the. The sweetest, smartest people. But Dan was saying that he doesn't drive.

Yeah.

Season driven for 12 years.

Old Cook. Yeah.

He says, I decided I get road rage. I don't like it. It stresses me out, so I just won't drive anymore. He's a car service.

Yeah.

And he's. And the thing that, I mean, I've done it for a long time. I'll take. I'll get a driver sometimes, especially here in la, because it's an hour to go, you know, a couple miles.

Oh, yeah.

And you can work. And so sometimes it's better. But he. That's his. That's his. That's his gift to himself.

Or I remember I was talking about some marketing and I'm a great believer in the handwritten note, so I'm always writing notes and stuff. Like that. And I remember Joe saying to me once about, you know, you know, what do you do with the notes? I said, well, the stupid question, you know, I'd write them and then I post them out. And he went, so you go down to the post office and you post them? And I went, yeah. He says, how long does it take you to get down there? 10, 15 minutes, you know, get a sandwich on the way back. He said, see, you're out a couple of hours. Oh, yeah. He said, so what's a couple of hours worth to you that you're gonna go out and post them? And I thought, that's a bit stupid. You know, anyone can spare, you know, a little bit of time. And then you suddenly realize you do that a few hours a week, or they start going, hang on a minute. And even the handwritten notes, you know, some of the time, if I've got a whole bundle of them, I'll dictate one of the notes and, you know, my daughter write the damn things. But so I do try to find if anything can be replicated and the standard not lost that paid to do it. Yeah.

What do you do when. When you pay somebody to do something, but it's not the standard that you.

Well, it's got to be to the standard. And you try them. You know, I remember there was. David Jensen said, hire quickly, hire slowly, fire quickly. So anyone that comes anywhere near me for anything that I'm going to have done, it could be mechanics on my bike, it could be, you know, writing notes. It could be website design. So I'll sell it, design me a page, you know, write me a letter, do this, and if I like it, I'll talk to you. And so I interview absolutely everybody I do anything with, and I have them give me examples. New person wants to work for us. I'll say, right, I want to go to Tokyo. Write me a itinerary for a culinary experience in Tokyo. Have you ever been to Tokyo? And they'll be like, no. Well, okay, it'd be good. Then I'm there for 10 days. Write me the itinerary, and I want to see where their fails are. I want to see if they try it and do a pretty good job of how to lay it out. Even if the information is garbage and they haven't found good stuff. If it's laid out to be impossible to misunderstand, it's very easy fly. If it's laid out well and it's visually good, I can fix the rest. But I want to see you've got the basic, basic grunt of it there. And if they get to a point and they're just stuck, I want to know they're going to reach out to me or they're going to just keep flapping until they drown. Yeah.

Do they ask questions?

Right. Or they. Exactly. So if they kind of phone you up and they, steve, I want to give you the best itinerary I can, but I actually see the other thing. Well, it's not even stuck. You know, here's the dumb thing. You say, look, I want to go on a 10 day culinary experience in Tokyo. Great. All right. And then they run off and you go, well, hang on a minute. You haven't asked me if I'm taking my wife. You haven't asked me if I'm taking my kids. You know, so if they go, if they go, okay, that'd be great. In order to give you the best, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. You say culinary experience. Do you have any dietary restrictions? Yeah, yeah. Are you allergic to fish? I don't eat fish. You know, but isn't that, isn't that a perfect question to ask? Yeah. You know, so if they start asking you, couldn't you go, okay, then you know, that's. So you've got to go through those fundamentals and if they don't ask you, but they, they ask everything else, you can go, well, hang on a minute. You didn't ask me if I had any dietary restrictions. Peanuts choking aside, peanuts are used in a lot of Asian food. You know, dietary restriction. Yeah, I blow up when I eat a peanut. Well, I'm thinking maybe China or Asia should not be the best place for you. Right? Yeah, you know, just something like that. But you're looking to find out how interested they are and it's all about asking the questions. Yeah.

How many people do you have working for you?

We have a team of about 50. We have full time team of about 8. And then we take on different people around the planet as we need them. Okay, all right.

So they kind of contract basis.

Yeah, we've got a fantastic network. We're lucky about our 23rd year. You know, when we were in, we were in Rome a couple of years ago because we had a client want to get married in the Vatican. We had about 60 people on, on, on ground that worked for us there. And we had about three of our team just managing them. And I was permanently, I was stationed there for like about, about three or four months in Rome to get this done. They wouldn't accept an email. So, you know, they. If they wanted anything, I'd have to go over. I'd have to take it away from one house. They have houses. They have the house of Augustine, the House of St. Thomas and Thomas Aquinas. So they have these different houses. So you go to, like, Augustine. You'd pick up the paperwork. You weren't allowed to take it to Thomas Aquinas that day. You had to take it back to your hotel, even if you'd filled it out there. And then you'd have to go back the following day. And if you went, oh, can I fax it? No. Can I get a courier involved? No, if you send us a courier, we can't be. We can't guarantee we're going to receive it. So you'd have to. You'd have to be stationed there just in case you got a phone call to actually pick up a document and take you back the following day. And they don't have emails. This whole thing was done. No emails were allowed to be done. It was a very weird environment, but. But kind of cool. You know, I got to hang out. I got to hang out the back of the Vatican and just, like, nose around areas you don't get to see. So it's pretty cool. And that's. That's the fun of my job. I get to. I get a bean. I get to be in rooms that I shouldn't be in. Right, right. So that's the fun. And I get paid for it.

How much traveling do you still do? Do you still do a lot of traveling?

So I said to my wife, I think it was about six years ago, I said, you know, I'm traveling too much, and I'm still gold on. Gold and diamond on absolutely every airline you can think of. So this year, I've done Europe a couple of times, done a lot over America, but, you know, just usual kind of stuff in New York and Miami, San Francisco stuff, but the big stuff, Japan and Japan and Israel. Oh, and Germany a couple of times. Okay. So I think I'm not traveling, but, you know, we're in. We're in September, and that's. That's today. And I know I've got a lot more to do in New York, and then I'm back in Asia again this year, I think, oh, geez.

So what have you learned about. In wealthy people and their expectations of things? I know, like one of my friends, it's very wealthy. I always call it rich guy problems, but they get mad about the simplest, the. The details how do you manage the details when you're doing such elaborate things for them?

I always under promise that's.

That's the frame up front.

So whatever I do, I kind of manage the expectations and I manage them low, you know, so if they're going to get. If they're going to get 10 pieces of cake, I'm going to promise them seven. I always do that. I believe that there's a credibility bank that's kind of like being registered in the head. So, you know, if you promise them 20 things, but like, something's a bit short, but actually, you know, they're getting 30, then if one thing fails a little bit short, then you're okay because you've made up. Because last night you gave them this or you did this, or they were expecting that room in a hotel. They were not expecting the. The suite just under the presidential, or, you know, they weren't expecting to be picked up in a Rolls Royce to be taken to the central pay hotel. So you're building up that credibility all the time. So you're surprising them with things that they didn't know you were going to get. Your promise them a transfer and give them a Rolls Royce. Probably the biggest one was I had a client and his stipulation to me, and this is a common thing within Bluefish, the longer we have the client, the shorter the request becomes. So when you get your first client, they come up to you and they're like, oh, I'm a mad fan of this and I want to do this and I want to go over there and I want to make this shot, this. And I want balloons and I want another, like, journey for your birthday. Yeah, like you. And so.

But I want to play drums and I want to.

So they give you all the details, they give you the whole damn itinerary, and then you go, that sounds fantastic. Why'd you want to do that? And then you start asking them questions and then you find out that the balloon's got nothing to do with it. You know, they just thought balloons would make it good. And so, you know, and then there's deeper doing. So things evolve. So you actually want to ask them why, why, why? A couple of times to actually get to the nuts of what it's all about. And then as you've worked with them a few times, they kind of like, well, I'm not going to tell him. I'm just gonna go, I need to go to Spain or I need to do this or, I need to do this. And I had this one Client contact me. And he went, I need to go to Florence for dinner. Taking my girlfriend for dinner. It's her birthday. I want to go somewhere exclusive.

That was it. All right. Dietary restrictions. Anyone else going to be joining you? Yeah, actually, her best friend and probably her mama said it's gonna be six of us. So I want an exclusive restaurant in Florence. All right, I'll make it happen. Now, if anyone's ever been to Tuscany, they know that it's family style. The whole point is, you walk into a restaurant in Florence. Have you been in Florence? No. You walk to Florence. If you walk to New York and you want a table of two, what are you going to get? Table for two. Yeah. Bingo. You got a flaunt. You want a table of two, you're going to get stuck on a table that there's 22 people and there's two seats and you're now on a family table and you're like passing each other the. Before you've left that meal, you know, everyone's relative and illnesses and. And happiness. You've just gained 20 new members to your family. That's the whole point of Tuscany. And your meal lasts about eight days. So this guy wanted an exclusive restaurant, so I knew what he wanted, but it didn't exactly exist in Florence. Didn't mean that he shouldn't get it. We knew what he wanted. We just now had to create it. So he's a very private gentleman. So we knew that it couldn't be with people. And, you know, you can walk and buy out a restaurant, but how bloody boring would that be? You in a restaurant and no one else is around?

Yeah, it's quiet.

Yeah, Terrible. It's like Applebee's at 4 o' clock in the afternoon. You know, you just don't want that. So we tried finding something that would give him another part of a story. So we tried to find a location. Started just dreaming. Where's the ultimate location? So Florence. You know, Diamond Diamo is this massive cathedral. It's absolutely beautiful. It's all made out of marble. So beautiful that they didn't want to ruin it by putting handles on anything. Okay, bottom line of it is, do you guys know what the DMO is? Would you recognize it if you saw a picture? Maybe not. The Palazzo de Vecchio. It's another massive icon of Florence, which I'm sure if I showed you a picture, you'd go, but you may not know what it. What it looks like. And from the inside, it's very ornate. But again, you may not recognize it. In Florence is a museum called the Academia. In the Academia is one of Michelangelo's only statues outside of Rome. David. There's no one that doesn't recognize. David. It's more famous than the Statue of Liberty. So we thought, how cool would it be? Kick everyone out of museum, set up a table for six at the feet of the most iconic statue ever done. That's a story. Okay. And it shows. Shay exclusive. Well, that is. And then we thought, well, you in a museum. So we went through the whole thing, and, you know, I actually got the Vatican to phone up and find, you know, let them know who I was. So I was doing my leapfrogging of credibility, and they agreed to this. And we had this table set up, and we thought, it's quiet in a museum. You know, we got to get some entertainment in there. So we asked around, and we got this. We got this quartet, the string quartet. Yeah, that's nice. That's. That's nice. Bluefish doesn't do nice. How can we do something that's a little bit cooler? And we started again, just dreaming. And you. You dream big, you know, you go for the. Go for the moon. You get some stuff. That kind of stuff. I'm amazed at how many people don't even reach. So we thought, well, you know, what's. Who's the most iconic Italian singer? Okay. There's not dead, you know, so we had a couple of. In that group, went, oh, Pavarotti.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, he's not busy anymore, but, you know, he's not going to come along. He's been dead for many years. We had to point it out to him. And then we thought, Andre Bocelli, okay, he's Italian. People know him. I wonder if he'd like to come along and sing for a dinner party, you know. So phoned up the Vatican. Do you know Andre Bocelli? Yes, we do. You couldn't make a phone call for me, could you? Suddenly made a phone call, and the clients came in. I'll give you this funny thing on the front of the Academia. I want you to picture this. Two of the biggest bloody doors you've ever seen. These wooden doors with the big brass rivets in them. Typical Italian. And there's these plaques. There's about 15 or 18 plaques in all these different languages. And these. These doors are open up, and my people are walking through these tables, these candelabras, and these hot plates for these chefs to start doing this food. And the museum's there. And I said, to the museum, you know, just passing a day and keeping the conversation going. I went, I see all these plaques, you know, what are these plaques mean? And I thought it was announcing who's inside, you know, what artists are actually showing inside. And this lady looked at it and she went, all the plaques, they say the exact same thing. I said, what is it? No food and drink inside the museum.

In every language.

Every language. And we're piloting candelabras and tables and everything. So that cracked us up. And so we got the. We got the table. It was all set up. It was absolutely stunning. One of the most impactful things that I've ever done. And the client was. And this is like 4 o' clock in the afternoon. And we'd all. We knew Andre Bocelli was coming over, so the clients weren't showing up until 9 o'. Clock. So I had about three hours chatting with Andrea Bocelli for this. For this serenading that he was going to do. So I said to him, I said, look, you know, I'm actually setting up. The clients, they don't know you're coming. And he said, they do not know. Nope. It's a surprise. So this is a great surprise. It is. So the clients turn up, they're sitting down, the string quartet goes off. So I enter the room. Now, the clients obviously knew who I was, but they didn't know I was on site. So, you know, sometimes I'll just be hidden, you know, and. But I went out there, I was like, you know, I'm so sorry. Like, you know, what are you sorry for? I said, I had a local entertainer that was going to come in and sing for you during dinner with the quartet, and we had a piano in there as well. And I said, but they couldn't make it. So I'm going to quickly run down the road and see if there's anyone in one of the local bars that I think is good. And. And I'll be back.

And.

A frame. That's a great frame.

They're kind of looking at me a bit funny. I'm like, yeah, don't worry, don't worry, it'll be okay. And they're like, oh, okay, Steve. You could see they were nervous. So then I walk out one of the side doors and give her a couple of minutes just to kind of like settle in, then stick my head out and I'm like, it's all right, I got someone. Back in a minute. And then, you know. Meanwhile, Andreas stood there listening to all of this with Veronica, his Wife. And we're just out of sight. And I go back out and I went, you ready? So I look at the string quartet. They obviously knew he was there. Given the nod, they start playing. And I walk out with Andrea Bocelli on my arm and my clown's, you know, it was just, it was brilliant. So it's all to do with positioning and setup. Yeah. So when you've got the client that's being a bit demanding, just exceed what he's actually gonna get. But just don't tell him if the guy thinks he's getting a red cake, you know, tell him it's a little red cake and then give him a three, three piece wedding cake, you know, in red with balloons going off of it. So just exceed the expectations but never tell him what they're getting. Yeah.

Is the, the part of coming up with those ideas the fun part for you?

Yeah, it was usually like, you know, it usually starts with, I've got an old Fashioned in my hand. And I came up with this idea. So alcohol has been the, has been the fuel for most of my daft things.

But yeah, see, it makes more sense that people would just tell them, hey, I want to go to Florence. Oh, yeah, because if you say, I want to go to Florence and I want to eat at this restaurant or whatever you might be, you might be dumbing down your experience.

Right? Yeah, yeah. And we got that credibility now. And of course, we get the different, we get the different medias and we get the different articles and we get the different TV and stuff and they reveal all these kind of things. So people, people do come over now and just go, blank sheet. I need this. Yeah, okay. What's your budget? Budget sex. And we go, okay, fine, you know, we could do something in there.

So what's the average, like budget for a trip to Italy?

You know, do you want to be going to the Vatican at midnight? You know, would you want to be going in with a coach, nine o' clock in the morning? So it's, it really depends on, on how far you want to take it. So you could go and have a fantastic trip with a family. I mean, two people in Rome, decent hotels, you know, for like 10 grand, you know, really good, you know, have some great restaurants, some great access and stuff like that. But you're not shaking hands with the Pope. So, you know, if you want to go that far, then, you know, you're starting to hit quarter of a million bucks. So really depends on how far you want to take it. And the good thing is Most people that come to us, they have no idea. They go, I'd like to do something. Well, you know, do you want to meet Pope? Can I? Well, I don't know. Do you want to, you know, just. Yeah.

She's got to find out if they. If they have the desire. And that's the key. The desire. You know, if you hit someone with a price tag and go, well, that's going to cost 20 grand, because let's be honest, no one wants to spend 20 grand. Yeah. You know, because 20 grand's 20 grand. Right. But hang on a minute. If you get to do this, this, this, this, this, you're not spending 20 grand anymore. You're doing this, this, this, this, this. You know, the experience has overtaken the dollar sign. So I never speak to people about. About the money. You know, I'm always kind of like, okay, what do you want to do while you're there? Have you thought this through? Can you afford it? I don't know how much it's going to cost. I have no idea. I'm just talking to you at the moment. But if you can get those hot buttons, I'll sell that. Firstborn. Yeah. Right.

Well, yeah, some people to meet the Pope. There's no. There probably isn't a dollar amount.

Oh, hell no. And everyone's. Everyone. Some of the stuff that I've done in some of the arenas and industries I have absolutely no care for. But it's been such a thing for them that I've gone, you know, this. This is something incredible. There's a story, you know, you mentioned the guy from Journey. Incredible story. Did you get the whole story of that?

I think you told me most of it.

Yeah. So this. This guy. And it all goes well, you know, he met Richard Prince and told Richard Branson he had this dream. He wanted to meet Journey. Richard spoke to Joe Polish. Joe Polish phoned me up, said, you know, see if the guy's real. So I phoned him up, and he went, I want to do this. And I went, great, send me ten grand grand. And that was it. And this is all documented. You can see videos on this. And he took a gamble, and he sent me ten grand. So I thought, well, okay, he's serious now. Now I'll have a chat with him. So I chat.

So the 10 grand is just the entry fee.

I just wanted to find out if it's in between. Ten grand, you know, I wanted to find out if it was big enough to him, you know, obviously doing something like something with a major rock band ain't gonna be cheap. But if you're gonna go. Well, I. I don't know. I just think that's a lot of money. I'm not sure. That would have been a very short conversation. So he went, okay. I went, great. You know, I'll email you my details. And I did. And he paid. I went, all right. It's important to him. I didn't even cash it. He sent me a check, and I.