0411 | B. Jeffrey Madoff [Part 2]

And we're back with part two. Here we go. EA interviews episode 411 inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview.

But you know, it's really interesting because Apple early on was smart and this was Steve Jobs to focus on the user interface and you know, what do you want when you use the, when you're using the ipod, you have fun listening to music. Here's what it does to you. It's fun. And that was really smart. And I think that that's part of the battle was lost simply because Morita, who was the real visionary for Sony, died. And so, and Jobs was young and coming up and full of ideas. A very smart brand steward, a very smart marketer. You know, he really knew how to get attention for his products, how to build anticipation and do that. And again, that's another form of innovation. How you market, how you get your things out there, what the user experiences. There's all kinds of different innovation. So I find that all just really fascinating.

I absolutely do too. I love looking this stuff up if I wasn't around for it. I love learning about it. Obviously we weren't around for Henry Ford and all that, but just learning. I've always had this penchant for learning and I think it's why I gravitated to starting my publishing company because I always read a lot of books as a kid and liked learning and helping other people. And it's like the more, you know, the easier it is to learn. And with what you're saying with all these great companies, it's interesting to see the backstories. One of my things is always looking up like who's the parent company? Like when you said limited brands or you know, especially like GM or Ford, it's like, well, what other ones do they have? You know, Lexus and Toyota. When I was doing primarily modeling and acting, I was working with Lexus, which is the high end brand for Toyota and then at one point Ford had Jaguar. So it's like that context you were talking about building out around, it really shows more of the bigger picture than just any one small avenue of it. And I love that you're bringing up the innovation and I love that we're mixing the business and the creative side of it. And I know that's what your book and course is all about. Why do you think creatives have such a hard time with the business and vice versa?

Well, I think there, there's a few things That's a great question, Mario, and thank you. And the reason is a lot has to do with our culture, you know, and what I mean by that is that if you're going to be a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor, nobody says to you, well, what's your fallback position? You know, but if you say, like, I guess you were going for at one point, well, I want to be an actor.

What'S your fallback position? You know, because.

Starving artist.

Right, exactly. Which is. Which is, you know, Picasso didn't starve. He was incredibly wealthy in his lifetime. There's a great story about Picasso, which is he was at the Cafe de Dumague in. In Paris. And I actually heard this story when I was sitting at the cafe to do. My God.

Oh, wow.

And. And.

A woman came up to him and said, you know, it's my daughter's birthday. She has always loved your work so much. Would you mind just doing a quick little thing, you know, on a napkin? You know, there would be. It would mean so much to her. So he does something very quickly, and she goes to pick it up and slams his hand down on top of it. And he said, that's $15,000. And she said, $15,000? That took you less than. Than 20 seconds to do. He said, no, madam, that took me 65 years and 20 seconds. And I love that because it was loading all of his experience into that that allowed him to render something so quickly and so effectively. And I thought that was really cool. And, you know, that he was a savvy businessman. And I think that, you know, our culture has taught us that, well, you're either creative or you're a business, but the two don't mix well. They're essential. And, you know, in my class.

I tell my students that a knowledge of business is like the martial arts. How do you strike the most efficient blow to protect yourself so you can continue to do what you love doing? And I think that, you know, well, I don't think that business and a knowledge of business is an essential survival skill for any entrepreneur. You need to know those things in order to be successful as an entrepreneur. And I don't buy into at all the idea that you're one or the other. I'm creative. I do business. And I'm not saying that in bragging. I'm saying it's a survival skill. If I want to do the stuff I'm doing, I better figure out a way to make it profitable so that I can do that. And that knowledge that I learned early on has carried me through my fashion business, through my know, film production business, through the play that I am doing. You know, it's that knowledge brings me forward so that I don't get taken advantage of and, or, or there's a lower likelihood I'll be taking advantage of. And so I think that that is really critical. And the thing with your creative expression is that whenever you put your ideas out there, there's a high likelihood you're going to get criticism, insulted, made fun of or whatever. And I think that people's creativity shuts down as a self protection mechanism pretty quickly. I was lucky because my parents encouraged my drawing. You know, they had the retail stores and they bring home big sheets of craft paper that I could draw whatever size I wanted and do stuff and I could put it on my walls in the bedroom. That was my room. That was, you know, my bat cave, if you will. I could have anything in there I wanted and they encouraged me to do it as long as I was doing that stuff and I was happy doing it. But there were teachers that I had that you know, would be highly critical and mean and you know, and even there's peers, you know, that will make fun of something because anything that challenges established beliefs, you're going to get blowback. And so it's, it's having the fortitude for that not to destroy you and to find your voice and be true to your voice and put it out there. And I think that that's, that's really critical.

What if you're afraid to do it? You know, business has a lot of risks. You want to be the creative and have the successful business. But you know, all these people you're talking about, and I wish they would be nicer because I've gone through it too and it's just, it's not fun. But how do you find the way to get past it? Is there anything that intimidates you and how do you get past it? If you feel it, because you're, you work with some of the largest brands in the world.

Some of the biggest actors, actresses, all this stuff, the music videos. I know you do the production. Victoria's Secret. You have the most beautiful women in the world. And I think to most people that could be intimidating. Is there anything that intimidates you and if so, how do you get past it?

I'm, you know, if you put a gun to my head or a knife to my chest, that's can be intimidating in terms of business. It was funny. Ralph Lauren and I were having a conversation.

Probably 30 years ago. And, you know, I worked with him for like 36, 38 years. And.

He at one point said something to me about, you know, something that, you know, he wanted different, didn't really like. And.

And I said to him, he said, can you do that? Are you afraid? I said, no. And he kind of smiled and I said, ralph, what's the worst thing you're going to do? Beat me up? You know, you fire me and then I get a job someplace else, I find another client, you know. And he laughed, he liked that a lot because that's kind of his attitude is he's got his terms and that's one of the reasons he's been so incredibly successful as he has his terms. And you can always stick to your terms and you have to compromise certain things as you go through. But as a general rule, he's pretty strong about what he does and he was very good at calculating the risk. Most of the things we get involved with, if you try to calculate risk and you look at one is very little to no risk, 10 is catastrophic. Life changing. You've really screwed things up. Most things are like threes, you know, twos, threes. And if you really go through it, because at the moment when they're looming, it can seem huge. But in reality, if you look like we've been talking about this whole time, context and bigger story, it's pretty small, you know. So I think in assessing the risk, to me it's always been.

More of a risk to not do something.

Because that can be a tremendous missed opportunity. But as you're in business longer, as you get older, hopefully you also gain something, which is the wisdom to choose your battles because it's not always worth, you know, going to the map for something. And that's.

Yeah, like we were talking about earlier on with the. When I said, do you think you can grow business that big without catastrophic fallout? And to me it's really, can you still have a nice life, a family and still have a nice life and it not just be all work? Because I don't think all work and no play. You know, that whole thing, all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. But I'm very huge on family and friends and relationships and I couldn't just do one or the other. And yeah, at times it's been hard because it's like you want to do this, but, you know, you can't be in two places at once. I haven't figured it out right now at least.

But to me that's the catastrophic. If you have to give up your life and your soul for it, it's not worth it.

Right. But are there people that you may look at that it appears they have given up their life because all they do is work. But their work is something that gives them such satisfaction, feel, fills a certain space that's critical to them. And maybe they never wanted kids, you know, that's true. That's a real. That's so for them.

It's so for them, it's not giving up anything.

That's right.

That was important to them because in their scenario, through their lens.

Exactly.

That is their life and they're doing exactly what they want.

Exactly, exactly. And I think we have a tendency to look at things only through our own lens and not. Right. You've got to have that kind of sense of others.

That you understand how they operate, you know, in. In working with crews and working with models and working with actors and all that kind of thing. I think that the other essential ingredient which we touched on before is that you have to win their trust, earn their trust, and then if you violate that, it's over. I.

For whatever reasons in the way I am, I was always able to gain that trust with the models or with the actors that I'm working with or whatever, because.

I had the bigger picture. But I also have the sensitivity to their needs, their vulnerabilities and so on. And of course, I got better at that as I got older. Older. Because also when you're younger, you're always trying to prove yourself and show what you can do. And as you get older, you know, some people say, well, did you mellow? And I said, no, it's not mellow. I got smarter. I gained more. I gained more wisdom. You only gain wisdom by experiencing things and by screwing up, you know, but nobody can tell you you're going to screw up. You have to screw up and suffer.

You gotta take that risk.

That's right. That's right.

And hopefully you learned something from the last time that got screwed up and this one works out or at least is less of an impact.

That's right. Exactly right. And so I think everything you do informs everything else you do. If you enter into it, and you were touching on this before with. With what I think are essential characteristics for me, essential characteristics is to me, if you are curious and you have that just insatiable curiosity about all kinds of things, which clearly you do, if you have a sense of humor, if you are intelligent and if you have empathy, care for others, we're going to get along. I don't care what gender you are. I don't care what age you are. I don't care what your sexual preference is. I don't care about any of that because to me, it all comes down to those personality traits, and that's what's most important. And if you're lacking those, chances are we won't get along. Or, you know, if we're doing business together, I'll just stay away from certain. It's going to be your traits until the jobs are done right. You know, that I don't have to see anymore.

But I was saying recently on another episode is like, be excited. You know, when you call someone, be the type of person that they're excited to answer the phone for. They're more excited when you walk in the room than walk out of it. Because there's absolutely people where it's like, oh, so and so's here you want to go yet?

You're right. That's right.

That's not a good following.

No, no. And definitely it is a big plus.

In life and at work if you're the kind of person that people enjoy being around, or at the very least, you're not causing problems, you know, and it's usually very needy people that cause those problems, you know, where it'd be great if they worked out some of their issues in therapy rather than on the set or in a meeting. But, you know, I think that that's, you know, that's really important. But I. I've become.

I think, more understanding.

To a certain degree. It doesn't mean I want to be around it, but.

But you get it. You. You get a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah. And again, that's just the openness to experience the other things. And I think it's really essential that people feel heard and that they feel validated. And if you look at people as just, you know, gears in your machine.

I don't think that's good. And I don't think ultimately it's even going to help your business.

And I think a lot of. A lot of people look at people as those kind of gears as opposed to other human beings that have feelings and have difficulties and have all of that kind of stuff. So, you know, where should I go?

Talk to the cogs in the wheel where your minions at?

Like, yeah. And I. I think that when you are dismissive of others, I mean, one of the things that got me when I would start going out to business dinners when I was in my 20s, you know, early 20s and I would see people who were totally dismissive of the wait staff. And I thought, you're an.

Yeah.

Why do you treat people like that? You know, they're just doing their job and, you know, there's just signals you get, you know, as you go through life. But anyhow, I think, I think that that curiosity, trust, listening.

Empathy, curiosity and humor are essential in life and in business.

So it's safe to say the people in your book, the people you work with, everyone from your career, they're all the right people. You're obviously not going to highlight someone you didn't like or didn't want to be around, right?

No, there might be somebody. There are certainly people, some that I like more than others.

Okay.

But, you know, I, I tried to call in my book and in the class, I try to call the useful wisdom that they have, and I try to vet people well enough. I've never had anybody that I didn't think brought something really good to the class. And people say, well, who's your favorite guest? Said the one that I have now. You know, my latest guest is my favorite. And I try to enter into it so that every time I'm doing it, I'm feeling fresh and excited to be talking to them because I learn along with the students, which is fun. I love that. And so, no, I would never have. There have been people that have wanted to do my class.

And that I didn't want to interview them because I didn't want to give them a platform for the things that they had to say that I did not think not only were not valuable, but they got joy out of being provocateurs and just things that. This is not the platform for that. If you want to debate somebody on these kinds of things. That's not my class. My class is how do you bring useful information to the students and have an open dialogue that can help them navigate their life? You know, that's. That's what's interesting. And I'm not interested in their particular agenda. So if they aren't willing to do.

That, especially if it's salacious.

Oh, yeah. Or if it's salacious or if it's exhibits a kind of bias that I don't think is appropriate for the classroom or, you know, for the conferences I'm asked to be in or whatever.

It doesn't have to be salacious.

I can relate to that 150%. There's something I started right when I launched the show, and because I have a wait list of 150 plus people trying to get on. And sometimes I'm just like.

It'S not that you're not qualified, it's just that I don't like you.

Plain and simple. I mean, I think they're qualified, but I'm like, I don't know. You know, one of the things is like, would I want to go to dinner with you? Can we hang out outside of the work thing? Are you a cool person? Obviously, you need to be qualified and stuff, but it's like, yeah, someone, it's like, hey, we're working together. We're corridor. It's nice. And other people, it's like, absolutely not. And then other people, I'm like, I can't wait till we're done. Like, you seem really cool. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. I think that.

Who you include in your life, who you spend time with is critical, but there's going to be people that you don't necessarily care for.

I have a rule. It's funny, when I. When I hired my director, Sheldon Epps, for the play, who's tremendously talented, I've learned a lot from him. He's. He's great. And I had interviewed a bunch of directors, and I said to Sheldon, I really like you.

But you have to know this about me. I have what I call the no asshole rule. And he kind of laughed and said, I think I know what you mean, but why don't you tell me? And I said, if you're paying me, you can never be abusive.

But you can be an to a point. If I'm paying you, you can't be.

And he laughed and said, we have the same rule. I like that. And, you know, that's kind of how I look at it. I was years ago, I was doing a big commercial for Victoria's Secret, and one of the cinematographers whose work I have tremendous admiration for was Vilmos. Zigmund Vilmos did McCabe and Mrs. Miller. He did Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He's been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other cinematographer. I think that's still true. He died a few years ago, but an amazing, amazing cinematographer. And so I called Camera Service center in New York because I knew that one of the guys there had worked with him a few times. And I said, what kind of guy is Vilmosh? And he said, what do you mean you're checking him out? I said, yeah, because I'm thinking of hiring him. She goes, well, he's a fucking legend. And I said, true, but if he's An I'll hire a legend who isn't. And I ended up working a few times and becoming friends with Vilmos, and he was phenomenal to work with, and he was really great. But that's kind of my attitude. You don't have to put up with.

Or reward by paying bad behavior. And, you know, I think that bad behavior needs to have consequences. For me, the consequences are, I don't hire you. I'm not going to work with somebody who is mean to people, rude to people, requires so much that they draw away from the job itself, which we're all, as a community working on to draw attention to themselves. I don't want to be around that. And so the consequences. The consequences. I don't hire you if that's what you're like. And.

Working with Vilmosh was a total joy, and he was great. But I've always had that kind of filtering in terms of who I want to work with, because that's good and.

That'S important, because I think so many people just go. And I don't want to say so many people, but I've seen people over the years where it's like they're just hiring people to fill a spot or just in the sake of a podcast or show or whatever. You know, I'm just gonna hire someone because I need someone, or I'm just gonna have a guest because I said, I'll go live Thursday at 3 and I need someone. And it's like, I think it just really lowers the qu. I've never put anyone on. I really, truly didn't think was. Wasn't gonna be good. Like, there's so many great people out there. It's like, why? And that standard of excellence, you can see it through all of your work. And.

As far as your book and the training, because I know you've been at Parsons since 07.

Yes.

With. And I'm going to say illustrious career. With your illustrious career since the 80s, 70s, 80s and 90s, what made you go? You were already established. I would just venture to say you didn't need to do this. Correct.

To do what?

To teach.

No, I didn't need to. I mean, need. No, I didn't need to.

What inspired you to do it?

Well, this was something I was actually able to work my way into because I was asked by another professor there if I would come and speak to his class.

Okay.

And I did. And it went really well. And the students really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. And I got back. I got invited back. I think the next, like, six semesters, and always had a good time with it, always enjoyed it. And he said, you know, there's an opportunity here. They need an adjunct professor, and I think you would be great. You interested? I said, well, I don't know, because I can get a phone call and be away for two weeks, so it's got to be really flexible. And he said, well, I think that the school will work with you. Why don't you just try a third of a semester? You know, do it for four weeks? I said, okay. What I didn't know is that there were three of us, each of us taking a third of the semester, and then they were going to make the offer to one of us. So I didn't even know there was really a competition going on. But I did the class that I would want to teach, and then I got offered the position. And they had been very flexible with me. I love doing. It led to me writing a book. And, you know, I enjoy teaching, and I even taught when I was in college. So I had taught before, and that was a really interesting experience back then, in which. Until. One of the things about writing a book is it becomes kind of therapeutic because it surfaces memories.

And interactions that I had all but forgotten about. And if I wasn't in that headspace of delving into things to add my own story into this, into the book, wouldn't have even thought of. So it was. It was an interesting process on all accounts, But I believe that fundamentally, good ideas need to be shared. They need to be gotten out there because it can help somebody, make somebody's life better.

It can do something, I think positive when you share good ideas and. And also when you challenge bad ones. And I think that that's really important also.

Because I think when bad things are said.

If you are silent, it can be read as being complicit. And I think it's important to stand up for what you believe in if certain rights are being threatened.

Yeah, I agree 100%, because all it takes for evil to prevail is good men to do nothing.

Exactly. That's right. That's right. And so, you know, I think for me, teaching is, you know, I get the stock answer is often people say, well, I like to give back. I get a lot from it. I love it. So I don't think that I'm giving back. I think, wow, this is another way for me to extend my learning, to scratch that itch of curiosity, to share and stay in touch with younger people who are coming up and their Ideas, So I'm learning from them, too. So it's all of those things that I do it. I'm not doing it out of this altruistic. Well, I want to give back now. No. If I didn't enjoy it, if I didn't love doing it, I wouldn't be thinking about giving back.

I took the same approach writing my book, and I tell people all the time, I don't like anything I don't love. It's like lukewarm is not. It's not even good for food. Maybe leftover pizza, but, yeah, you got to have that passion.

Well, leftover pizza, you know, depends on where it's from. And if the crust has gotten soggy, there's toaster. Yeah, that's true.

Re. Crisp it a little bit.

Excuse me. So I wanted to ask you. I know we're. We're going to be wrapping this up shortly, but I wanted to ask you.

So many things, but one of them was Ralph Lauren, the Victoria's Secret fashion show. I'm sure there's similarities, but what was it like producing one over the other?

Well, there were different considerations. Ralph Lauren's show was strictly a fashion show.

Okay.

And that it was Ralph's opportunity to present to press and buyers. You know, there's no public that's invited to it.

Okay.

And so, in a sense, it's a trade show, but the presentation and this started happening back in the 70s when I first got into doing videos. Where fashion shows weren't videoed.

It became marketing content. So the production value of shows, which used to be pretty low, got to be pretty high. We would build sets, the music that accompanied the show. A lot of thought went into it that didn't previously because it gained so much more publicity and. And was an opportunity to market the line so much more. And when I was initially selling it, it was also that while the buyers are waiting, you could play the video in the waiting room of your showroom. You could have video set up in your boutiques, in the stores or your own stores. And so there I showed them a lot of ways to amortize the cost of the video. So I wanted to make it necessary and hard to say no to.

With Victoria's Secret, we were doing a TV special. So, you know, the entertainment value had to be much higher.

Because. And we weren't catering to buyers because Victoria's Secret owns their own stores. And we weren't catering to press because our show didn't get reviewed. You know, the lingerie they made didn't get reviewed. In the fashion press, like Ralph Lauren or Armani's collection or anything like that. So there are very different kinds of things, but the dynamics of producing the show were very much the same. What's the set? What's the soundtrack? How long is it? How long does it take the model to reverse the Runway? How many changes can you have? How many models? All the cost factors and everything else that goes into it are the same, but in terms of the creative approach, they're different because we're playing to a lay audience.

Through a TV set, essentially. So the. The. At the Victoria's Secret show, the audience was essentially props. You'd hope, you know, you get celebrities there, so you see them on the red carpet, and it's kind of exciting. But the real audience was the. The global audience that the show got distributed to, where with the fashion shows, there was a global audience, but it was the fashion audience, and it was. It was just different. Both were fun and both had their challenges and were both really interesting to do.

Do you think if people aren't putting on live events in business now, if they're not doing live events, they might be missing that marketing component and the extra publicity side of it? Because when I've put on VIP book launches for people and even my own, there's photos in my book from the event I did, I absolutely had videographers, photographers. I was promoting it, and I absolutely went in going, I want that promotional asset for years to come. And a lot of people that would ask me, should I do? And I'm like, yeah, here's all the great benefits. They're like, what costs extra for that? Well, obviously. But I love how you said, even with Ralph Lauren, you focused on the ROI forum.

Yeah. I think that we've had safety concerns regarding life events that were never a component before. So thinking up alternative ways like Zoom.

Was incredible. The resourcefulness that went into how do we keep doing business here in New York City? And I'm sure it's true in Detroit also, like the outdoor eating spaces that a lot of restaurants created, which was a survival mood, survival mode. They had to do that in order to, you know, either have curbside pickup or you could eat outdoors, but something just so they could survive. And a lot of the, you know, theater and all live venues, including conferences like yours were, were very hurt during that period. And. And there wasn't an alternative. So you had to think of, how can I use Zoom or some other form in an innovative way to make the conference still worth watching and worth participating in the Cost to the person staging the event is less because you're not dealing with hotel coordination, meal coordination, all the different kinds of stuff that goes with that. And I know some people who I work with that their conferences became more profitable on Zoom because they were still delivering the same content value, but they weren't. Yes, a lot less overhead. The thing is, ultimately, we are social beings. We want to be around other people. Most of us miss being around other people. And, you know, I think that, unfortunately, Covid's not over yet, but I think a lot of people.

Neglected their responsibility to others in terms of, you know, we're all in this together. Wearing face masks is not a political statement. It's. You're trying to stop the spread of disease. There's a lot of people aren't ready to go to live conferences yet or live theater or concerts or anything like that. So, you know, you. You think.

Do you think even movie theaters are affected?

Of course they were very much affected. I mean, the numbers are there. They're very much affected. And it took a major star like Tom Cruise to say, no, this is not going on streaming. This is four theaters, and we're not going to release it to any streaming service for a while. So if you want to see it, you see it there. And I can't say that I. I never saw the original Top Gun. I don't really care about it, but I want to go see it just because it's supposed to be so much fun.

And so I think that. That what you lose in. In these conferences by being on Zoom is those spontaneous moments. Even if you do breakout rooms, which I think are, yeah, lunch, you know.

Hey, you want to grab food and just hang out.

That's right. And those things that happen like that when you're. Hey. And you recognize somebody and you start to talk, which would have never happened otherwise. So, you know, again, it's a balance in what works. What do people feel safe doing? What are they willing to pay to do, you know, and you have to tack with the times and what that is. So I think we still haven't settled into what the world's going to be. Lots of people have gone back to offices because, you know, they miss it. They miss their colleagues. A lot of their social life is around work or getting together with people after work or stuff like that.

Yeah. Especially if they have a passion for what they do.

Yes, that's right. And. But there are many people that learn that they don't need the overhead of those offices, and for that particular kind of job, you know, they can save that overhead. We don't know yet where this is going to end up. It's still very much in flux. And, you know, it's going to be a while before we really know what the impact is. What's the lasting impact as opposed to dealing with crisis impact.

Well, I appreciate your insight on that because I know there's a lot of businesses, you know, want to get ramped up and do all kinds of different things. And, yeah, I still feel like stuff is different than it was. And, you know, you've done some of the biggest shows around for years and. And that was the other thing. It's not just that you did them one or two times. You said you worked with Rolf Lauren, what, 30 some years?

Yeah.

How about Victoria's Secret? When did you start with them?

Worked with him, like 26 years. Yeah, I. I like building relationships. And again, going back to what we first talked about is when you establish trust.

You know, Ralph said to me it was a huge compliment. He said to me at one point, you know, I can hire whoever I want. I said, I know. And he said, but I chose to work with you. And I said, and I'm very grateful for that, and I will always deliver on that. And he goes, I know you will. And, you know, because he could sense that when I do something, I'm all in. I don't know how not to be all in when I'm doing something that's part of being a professional. And so I. I was very complimented. And by the way, we never had a contract.

So, you know, and I'm not advising people work without contracts, by the way. But there was a trust there.

Yeah.

And that trust was never violated. And I think, you know, when you're building a client relationship, you always have to deliver on the promise you put out there. That's the only way you're going to keep clients.

It's great advice because I think that's also a lost. I don't want to say a lost art. It's just lost integrity, where it's like, well, you know, this happened. That happened. It was like full. Find a solution. You said you were going to do it, you know.

Right.

I have a couple more questions. One of them is the wheel of whatever.

Wheel of whatever.

Absolutely. Do you want yellow or black?

I'll take black.

Okay. Black is a good color.

Black is actually no color.

Absence of light.

That's right.

Where is somewhere you have not been that you would love to go?

Gosh.

I guess I would like to go to.

India is really interesting to me. I've never been to India. I've been a lot of places in the world, but not there.

So maybe. Maybe India. I don't really have a list of desired destinations, but to try to answer your question in some way, I guess it's that.

Have you ever been to Australia?

No. Okay. I'd like to go to Australia, too. I even have friends there.

But I've never been there either.

Yeah, I think I. You said Miranda was from. Is from there. Miranda Kerr?

Yes, she is. That's right.

I liked what you were saying on the. The Deck the Halls.

The video you made, the. The one that went viral, that everyone's trying to replicate this viral thing. And how could you. Could you share on that briefly?

We were doing a holiday video for Victoria's Secret, and so I thought we'd have the models sing at Christmas carols. They're decorating a tree in a room, and they'd wear, like, Santa Helper's outfit. One of the interesting things, by the way, is almost all of the videos that I did for Victoria's Secret and they're. They were very, very well received at that time. If you got over a million views, that was a lot. And we got multiple millions of views.

And I showed the models in a different way. I wanted to show their personalities and have fun with it. So we chose Deck the Halls because I thought, okay, there's a setting here. It's, you know, we're decorating for Christmas. The other big plus was the song's in the public domain, so we didn't have to pay rights for it. And so as the models were singing it, they kept screwing up. And my client said, they can't get through the song. What are we going to do? I said, this. This. I said, yeah, that's the video.

I knew. Miranda being from Australia, Dowson being from.

I can't remember if she's from Germany or Sweden.

Sweden, yeah. And that the models who weren't from the United States, they weren't going to know the song. Alessandra from Brazil, she wasn't going to know the song. And I thought seeing what is usually portrayed as these flawless, beautiful people screwing up and, you know, and that kind of stuff you saw in the video, which was all spontaneous, none of that was acted out, that I thought I could put together something that would be really fun in a way that people had never seen the models before. Well, they. Victoria's Secret trusted me to do that, and it became incredibly successful for them.

So sometimes Mistakes or are the Mandrick. That's right.

So do you think it's easy to create a viral video or. Because everyone now it's like, I feel like. And we didn't get a chance to talk about. But I know you did some of the first live streams for these shows. I'm a huge live stream proponent. My first book is on video marketing. And it was interesting because you. You have these components, and I swear, it's like 80% of people that they think they're gonna do one or two videos, they're like, what are you working on? Oh, I'm doing the welcome video and this. And I'm going to do a viral video. Like, you think you're just going to wake up and you've never done film before and you're just going to make a viral video. Like, that's your strategy.

I can tell by your response. I was going to say, how realistic do you think this is for someone who wants to make a viral video? Because I know you've done multiples of them.

Yeah, I would say that if they have that kind of faith, they should just go to Vegas and. Or buy lottery tickets and take their chance.

Yeah. Anybody that says that they'll create a viral video for you is just full of it.

Okay.

You know, it's such a combination of the right ingredients that somehow captures the imagination and that happens and it spreads like a virus. But people that say, I was at a. I was at this conference, a panel in this big vision conference, and somebody on the panel said, could I ask that question you're asking? And somebody on the panel said, no, the. Nobody can say that they can create a viral video. And I said, oh, I can. I can create a viral video. And the moderator said, really? I said, no, but I'll just charge you for it and then make up excuses when it doesn't go viral.

Because no, no, nobody can claim to do that and you know it. There's a lot more media outlets, but there's also, you know, there wasn't Tick Tock. There wasn't Instagram.

But though. And Twitch and all this other stuff that I don't even know what it is, but you know, there's also a lot more competing for the attention.

Would you say, is it safe to say that you also had the right team in place, you also had the right talent in place that you'd already worked with and there's rapport and, you know, there's something to be said about that too. It's not just the lights or the cameras.

Oh, it's the concept, you know, and that's what's going to light it up. Did we anticipate that that would get the kind of exposure that it ended up getting? Because it ran in its entirety on Entertainment Tonight. It ran in its entirety. The E Channel, Access Hollywood, Good Morning America, all these shows, not a clip. They ran the whole thing. You know, the. The media, if they bought it, would have been prohibitive for Victoria's Secret to ever buy that kind of media. As they say, you can't buy that kind of publicity. And that's what it turned out. Who? No. Who knew? Nobody did. I did a thing with them, with the models dressed as football players. I don't know if you ever saw the football video, which another one was wildly successful. And I felt there was a really good chance that this could really catch because we're promoting it during super bowl weekend, and the client liked it so much that they took four, three or four of the gigantic screens in Times Square on Super Bowl Sunday and ran it on a loop. And it. And I used body doubles and stunt women and all this kind of thing to make the football playing seem plausible and real. And it was just fun. And that, you know, that one, I felt like, I think we've got something here that's really going to be cool. But you never know. You never really know until it's out there. I mean, nobody does this stuff and puts it out there and thinks this will be mediocre. You know, I mean, you're. You're always hoping it's going to be something good. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough that I've done a number of these that just captured people's imagination and it worked for the brand.

Yeah. And I'll also say to your credit, you had the foresight to not drop it or change it and say, no, we need to go with this, because, you know, okay, so maybe you didn't plan it to a T. Every last detail as far as the virality of it. But if he's saying we don't. You know, if the direct, not the director, your client was saying, well, they're messing up, and you could have. He could have said no, or you could have said no, and that would have been it.

Yeah, it was.

You have to have confidence in your ideas. That's. That's really important. But you can't be delusional about your ideas.

Okay.

That's also important.

Okay.

You know.

And then there's a certain point.

This just happened with the play In March was opening night. We had a full house, and some people came up to me and said.

So, are you nervous? No. And I said, you're not? I said, no. So, oh, God, I'd be going crazy if I were you. I said, look, I have faith in the material. I have faith in our cast, our crew, all the work that we've put into it. And.

It'S 15 minutes before curtain. There's not a thing I can do anyhow.

And, you know, so I think I.

Like the optimism, but that realism, like, what's going to happen? What are you going to do? Re. Change it all. Change everything now?

Yeah, exactly. You know, like, that's just the way it is, you know? So I'm fortunate that I'm able, and I think it's because of just having been through a lot to realize, you know something, there's nothing that I can do now. But I did have tremendous confidence in all the different parts of that, that it was going to work. And fortunately it did. But even if it didn't, there's nothing I could have done about it at that point.

Well, I appreciate all your insights. I wish we had more time. I've thoroughly enjoyed this.

Thank you for sharing your wealth, your wisdom, and just being so gracious with your time. I know we've been talking about your book and your play. Is there any direct websites? We're going to make sure it's in the show notes and everything. But where would you like to have people look up more?

Well, you can get the book, which is Creative careers making a living with your ideas. It's available at Amazon and all fine booksellers. And.

I'm proud of the book and it's a good reflection of the class, and that's good because of so many of the great people that I've had in my class. You can check out my production work@matoffproductions.com you can check out on LinkedIn if you go to be Jeffrey Madoff and just hook up with me there. I post clips. I don't even know if you've seen it, Mario, but I post clips from my guests such as Daymond John and wonderful people who have tremendous insights into business. And I'm thinking Damon John, because I'm posting him all week this week. And I just have terrific people that you can really learn something from. And there's also on Instagram, at a. Create the. At Sign a creative career. And then just for the fun of it, since you talked that you like photography, I do your Twitter. Yeah. You know, I don't pay any attention to Twitter. I wish I could wipe the whole thing off. You know, I just. I don't. I stop posting on it.

It's.

Yeah. You know, I just don't do it.

It's just there.

Yeah. Yeah. And I. I probably should, but I don't think it's the right. Right platform for. For what I'm doing. You know, if I was doing something.

And that's an important distinction to make because some people think I need to be on all of them just because everyone says I need to be on all of them, but it's like, where's your audience at?

Exactly. That's exactly right. And. But on Instagram, if you go to JeffCore Madoff, what I do every. I love this city. I love New York, and I take long walks every day and I take pictures and I post a picture a day of just New York life. And it's not for business. It's not for anything but pleasure. I only put up what I like and I think is cool and fun and all black and white photography. And I think you. I think you'd enjoy it since you're into.

I did. I did see it, and I thought that was the Twitter, but it's your second Instagram account I was thinking of.

Right, right.

Yeah.

And there's actually an Instagram from Adolph Productions, too, but those are. That's the best way.

I'll make sure all that's in the show notes so people can have direct links to it and everything. And I want to ask you real quick, quick, about your course. Is there any way. And if you're not in the class, is there any way that you can watch it online, like in its entirety, or do you have any online courses that complement it that you can. People can take as well?

At this moment, I am in deep consideration about doing an online course based on my class. There is not a place to watch it online, but I will be actually posting the interviews in the. Their entirety. Not just Eclipse. I'm redesigning a whole portal and website so I can put that. Because I've been asked that question a lot. So I do plan on doing that. And, you know, I've really enjoyed speaking with you too. It's like been, you know, sitting around with a friend talking, and you ask great questions and I've really had fun doing it and I think the only solution is just have me back on.

Well, I'd be happy to. And I've enjoyed it also. And even before we started, you said, well, I guess I can only go downhill from here. You have not, sir. You've only went up and it's been my pleasure and joy.

Thanks man. I really appreciate it.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24? 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started now. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it. If you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com link LinkedIn. Lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.