Jeff Krauss on Building Experiences and Celebrity Connections

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Welcome to Mick Unplugged where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves and game changing conversations. Buckle up, here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today's guest is a visionary entrepreneur and event maestro who has been redefining the art of crafting unforgettable experiences for a listers and prestigious brands across the world. As the founder and press president of IE Group, he has orchestrated high profile events for clients like Saturday Night Live, George Clooney, the LA Dodgers and many, many more.

Get ready for an electrifying conversation with.

The dynamic, the influential, the maestro, Mr. Jeff Cross. Jeff, how you doing today brother?

I'm doing great man. Thank you so much for having me. How are you doing?

I'm doing awesome as well. And you know I was telling you offline, you're someone that I've looked up to from afar, like seeing all the crazy cool things that you're you're doing. You know, aside from podcasting and leadership development, I'm also a speaker. And the things that you do from an event standpoint, absolutely incredible. But, Jeff, I want to start with this because, like I said, I've been a follower and fan of yours forever. And I'll make unplug. We talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, that real reason that makes you do what you do. But here's what I know about Jeff, because I've heard you say this numerous times.

You failed.

But the difference between you and millions of other people is that you kept going. When life gets harder, when that situation, when that project doesn't go the right way, the easy thing to do, believe it or not, is to stay.

Stop.

Right? Jeff has always kept going. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that. Because for you, that purpose, that drive.

For you, by the way, first, first and foremost, thank you for having me on today. And that actually means a lot for you to say that, that kind introduction. As far as my because and my, my why, I have always just adapted. The mindset of it's never over till it's over. It's just not. There's a difference between saying, okay, you know what? This project isn't going to suit my needs because I am not able to accomplish X, Y, and Z. And the reason I can't accomplish X, Y, and Z is because it's not fitting within what I can do, whatever the obstacles are. So I will push as hard as I can to make those obstacles disappear. But if they don't disappear and you get knocked down, just get back up, find another project. Everybody has talent. Everybody has motivation. The thing that I see is that people get knocked down. And then when they get knocked down, what they do is they say, oh, the world is going to look at me this way, or whatever the case is, whatever. Their reasoning is that they're disappointed in themselves. But the truth is, is that Rome wasn't built in a day.

That's right.

So you just have to look at it like, hey, I'm going to take my strengths, whatever they are, and apply them toward things that I can do that I'm confident that I can do, that I enjoy doing, and maybe delegate some other things to some other partners, just keep it moving. I mean, not every project is going to work out, unfortunately.

Absolutely.

You just have to keep going.

Amen. That's one of my pillars, is keep going all day long, man. So, again, I think that's why I've connected with you on so many levels is because I'm that same way, right?

Like, if.

If life were easy, if everything were supposed to happen the way you do when you do your business plan, everybody would be billionaires, right? Everybody would be fulfilled. But it doesn't. It doesn't happen that way. And I think those that separate themselves are the ones that just have resiliency and keep going.

But it's mental resiliency.

That's right.

It's. It's mental, right? Because again, half of the battle is mental.

Totally agree, Jeff. I want to. I want to go in on something. You know, again, I do a lot of public speaking, keynote speaking, and one of the things that I absolutely admire about you, for you, it's not an event, it's not a moment, it's an experience, right? And you do an amazing job of creating the experience.

But I'm going to take it to.

Another level because again, there are conferences, there are events, there's. There's showcases, A hundred a day, no matter where you look, especially United States. Right? But what you do is you take it to another level. It's not just the experience of the event, it's the experience for the people that are attending the event, is the experience for the sponsors of the event. Is this experience for the staff of the event, is the experience for the speakers or, or the, or whoever's on stage. Most people that are event planners, and again, I do 50 a year, they never nail all four of those. And, you know, all four, most people don't even know one completely about the experience. But how in the heck do you make sure that you're giving the experience to everybody that's involved in the event where most people, they focus on most of the time, the guests, and. As we should.

But we have to remember it's more.

Than the guest experience, especially if it's something that you try to do again and again and again.

Here's the thing, the way I look at it is you have many different facets of the event, as you said. You have the guests, you have the people that are working the events, and then you have the talent or the DJ or the, the speaker or whatever, whatever type of event it is. And then you have miscellaneous stuff, right? So the way I look at it is this. Why would anybody want to do an event with me, come to an event that I'm producing or have any involvement if they're not treated well? Why would they? That's the way that I look at it. Why would they come Back to me. Why would they refer me to people? Why would they? They wouldn't. So my, my philosophy is make the experience great for everybody involved if you can just nail that. And people are like, hey, you know what? I'm excited to do this event with Jeff. I'm excited to work the event. I'm excited to attend the event. That's, that's where the, the magic is in my, in my opinion. I mean, that's how you grow long term business, is by having long term relationships. And if you have long term relationships, people will remember that because you gave them an experience that is much deeper than them just going or working any event.

It's all about the experience. And again, it, to me, it's mind blowing of how many event orchestrators missed that moment. And you can tell, right? Because I know, Jeff, you've been to many events as well too. You can tell when an event isn't properly planned, when an event was rushed, when there were shortcuts taken. And again, I just applaud you because if there is a gold standard, Jeff, you are that. So I just again, just wanted to tell you that face to face, virtually.

That that means a lot for you to say. That's very seriously, that really means a lot to me for you to, for you to say that.

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Man so where did this come about? Like, walk us through Jeff saying, yeah, events, experiences, that's me. That's what I want to do. Like, where did that, where did that come into play and what's that journey been like?

This whole thing started for me back in college. It basically started out kind of as a dare in a way. I was online at a nightclub with a group of my guy friends. I'm personally a little bit introverted, or actually very introverted at times. My friend, on the other hand, is very extroverted. And we're just standing there and promoter comes up and cuts the line, walks in with all these girls, right? So my friend says to me, jeff, that's what we gotta do. We gotta become promoters. And I said to him, no, no, no, I don't wanna do that. Like, no. So he kept pressing me for weeks, Jeff, you don't understand. This could be so cool. We can make all this money and we can cut the line and meet all these girls. And like for weeks and weeks, he was pressing me. And so finally I said to him, okay, look, I will try this once. If I like it, we'll do it again. But if I don't like it, don't bother me about this ever again. So I call my sister. She knew a promoter, connected us. We start calling everybody in our Phone book. My friend is calling people from tennis camp from 10 years ago that he hadn't spoken to in years. I'm calling people from my college. You know, we're. We're. We're calling everybody we know to come out to this party. And now I'm underage at the time, show up. I show my id, and the bouncer immediately looks at it and says, this isn't you. Now, mind you, I've never had a problem getting into a nightclub before. This just so happens, first time I'm throwing a party, the announcer realizes that I'm underage. Go figure. So my. My partner goes inside. He's ranting and raving to the. To the people running the place. My partner and I busted our butts to fill this place, and he's going crazy to get me in, right? So finally, one of the. One of the people that's running the place says, look, we'll let him in, but he cannot drink. So I said, fine, no problem. I don't have to drink. No problem. I go in. It's a zoo outside of people trying to get in. Some of our friends didn't get in. My sister came, and she brought a whole bunch of friends with her, but one of the. I guess the bouncer or the door guy knew one of her friends, so they didn't count that for us. And it was just one of those things where we didn't get paid because they said we didn't bring anybody that. Or whatever, or we didn't bring anybody that paid or whatever their excuse was. And we got into a whole fight with the promoter and whatever. But the way I looked at it was the people that got inside had such a great time. They were asking, when's the next one? And that. That made me feel really good that I was able to. Putting the. The. The internal drama and money and all that. All that stuff aside, what really made me feel good was that everybody had a great experience. So I said, look, we'll try this one more time, but I want to do this in a venue with another promoter, that it's not the hottest place in the. In. In Manhattan, and we could just do our thing. And we're going to have the rope that we need, the tools that we need to succeed and learn the business. I found somebody, Donnie and Tina. They taught me a lot of stuff. They gave me a lot of. A lot of leeway. Do whatever. And I just fell in love with it. However, as the years went on, I did open up a lounge that I was a Partner in that didn't work out in the end, which is. Which is fine. You live and you learn. But as the. The time went on, I realized that I really love the event aspect of it. So I started gearing more toward, hey, you know what? Yes, I can consult for your venue, I can help you with programming, but I'm still going to focus on events. I started focusing on experiences and I started to build my celebrity Rolodex, started working with restaurants, met my business partner, Mitch Faulkner, from One2,3 Talent. And our whole thing was this. He wanted to book celebrities for appearances for the conventions and comic cons and all that kind of stuff. Kind of stuff. I just wanted them to come into the restaurant and have a good time or to the event or whatever I was doing. So we parlayed both of that. It fed right off of each other, and we built this great partnership that we just teamed up and we been doing everything together since.

And doing an amazing job, by the way.

Thank you again. That really means. Means a lot. Seriously. I do take a lot of pride in what I. In what I actually do. So it doesn't mean a lot.

And like I said, I genuinely mean it from my soul because, again, been a huge fan, huge advocate of you and what you do, and you brought up something that I wanted to pick your brain off. So you talk about building your celebrity Rolodex, and a lot of people think that that's insurmountable. A lot of times it kind of is, right? Like, it's like everybody just, There's a skill to do that.

What is that process like?

Or what was that process like starting out? Because obviously everybody didn't know you then, like the superstar that you are today. Right. So what was that like? Like building.

I'm not even going to say the.

Rolodex, but more the. The trust, the credibility, the. Yeah, we're going to give this guy a shot.

There's a lot to this. Number one is that they might have known me as, let's say, a promoter, but they didn't know me of whether I was trustworthy or not to deliver. They didn't know me personally. Not everybody knew me or knew that I can deliver or knew that when I say something, that it means it's going to happen. So what happened was I would reach out and I would build the relationship with the managers, the publicists, the assistants, the agents. And a lot of times it would be for talent that they're big, but they're not, you know, global superstars. So to Speak.

Right.

But what would happen is that that same rep would also rep other people or have colleagues or whatever the case. So it started to just build, like, hey, you know what? He is a trustworthy guy. We can send our talent to him. We can, you know, do events with him and dinners and all this kind of stuff. Because I built that up. It wasn't from scratch, basically. See, I had a few relationships. My partner had some relationships. It kind of just intermixed, and it just kept building. So I would build a relationship, I would introduce my partner. He would then kind of start doing stuff with people. He would then say, oh, by the way, meet Jeff. He does more of this kind of stuff. And it just kept building. And they were like, okay, Jeff and Mitch, these guys are legit. And I just stick to my word. If I say we're gonna do something, I stick to my word, right? And, yeah, that's pretty much my thing.

The simple things. Do what you say you're gonna do. That goes a long way, right? That goes along. Yeah. Wow. Love it, man. So I want to talk to you about Fan Room Live, man. Like, how to bring the virtual into it.

Right.

I think the one thing that that Covid did was created hybrid situations, and a lot of those have kind of faded out. But the ones that have done it right and are doing it right, like, it is a monumentous thing. So tell us about Fan Room Live, how that came to start partnering with Cedric the Entertainer, like, all of that jazz.

So this is a very, very interesting and fun loving story, I guess you could say.

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One day, everything is shut. Events are shut, restaurants are shut, Conventions are shut. Everything we were doing was shut down. We're all just sitting in our houses now. My business partner, Mitchell, has a lot of athlete relationships. So he called me up and he said, hey, Jeff, I got this idea. What? What if we got some of our athlete and wrestler friends, clients online to just talk to their fans, maybe teach a class, maybe do this, do that. I said, hey, what a great idea. But what if we had a charity element to it? Oh, what a great idea. What if we included celebrities to do this as well? What a great idea.

Even better idea, right?

Started making some calls. We called Cedric and we just said, hey, listen, we got this idea. It's very bare bones, but this is the idea. And he just listened and he said, listen, this is an amazing idea. But I think you guys are, you guys are thinking of this as like one off events, as a. Just, you know, to raise money for charity, which is great, but what if we can build a brand? What if we can build a brand that goes beyond Covid that we can build. That is going to be. So we kind of just said, okay, we'd love to partner with you. Because that was what the conversation was. We just started brainstorming like, hey, what about this idea? What about that idea? But this idea for months. And then finally we said, okay, let's do some, let's do some test runs here. So we, we test ran it a couple times and we said, all right, this concept is great. And it's not just about money and about all that stuff. It's the connection and the experience we're giving. So then got Jay Benjamin involved, host and.&CO EP. Stacy Toy came on board, co host and. And co ep. And we just started, we just kept doing it. More and more people wanted to come on board and host their, their fandom lives and raise money for their charities and meet their fans. And it's. It's been amazing. Like, it's a very up close and personal experience, which is what we love, but it's an up close and personal experience that everybody joins together and can do. So you could be one on one and then everybody else is waiting in the wings watching because maybe they didn't think of that comp. They didn't think of that question. Right. They didn't think of that. So now all the questions that everybody else is asking, you get to listen to and you get to have this special moment that. And we get to bring entertainment to people's lives that, especially during that time, that was heavily needed. Yeah.

I've always thought it was an amazing concept for many things, but more importantly, I think getting to interact with celebrities and seeing how real and genuine a lot of people are on an upfront and personal basis. Right. Like everybody doesn't get to do the behind the scenes at events or the VIP experience at conferences or events or whatever. I thought this was a way to kind of bring that moment to. To the forefront for the masses, for everyone. And so, again, I applaud you, Jeff. Like, dude, like, the way that you do experiences is unparalleled, man. And the way that you think through the details is unparalleled. And I think fan room live is the perfect example of that because you bring the everyday person, like myself right to a sedately entertainer to, you know, name the celebrity, and it's like an authentic conversation. And a lot of times, to your point, it's for charity. So, like, it's a win for everyone involved. And, like, again, I just applaud you for that. That mindset, brother.

Thank you again. That. That. That does mean a lot. One other thing I also do want to point out is that the difference between fan room and, say, meeting a celebrity at a nightclub or a convention or VIP is that you get uninterrupted conversation. You go online at a comic con to get, yes, you get an autograph and you get your picture, but there is a bouncer, like, rushing you off, like, hurry up, hurry up. Next person, next person. Because they want to cram as many people in as possible. Whereas here we do have time limits based on the celebrity's time allotted, but we're not. We're not rushing people through. They come on, they have their conversation, they have their moment, and then they go back into the wings and watch everybody else and hang out.

Yep. And to your point, the celebrities actually focus. Right. Like an event for so many distractions and things are going on. The celebrities focus on you eye to eye, which. Which is great. So ending this, what's going on now with Jeff, like, what's new, what's upcoming? What do you want the world to know about? Jeff, Stay tuned.

Look, it's. It's second week of January 2025. We got a lot of cool events in the pipeline, a lot of cool fandom live stuff in the pipeline. And just stay tuned and you will. You will see what's coming.

I love it. Jeff, where can people find and follow you, brother?

They can follow me and my company, IE group@iegroupnyc on Instagram. You can follow Fanroom live at FanroomLive. By the way, you can also follow quote notes official, which is my other project, where we spread love and inspiration through inspiring stories and inspiring quotes throughout social media to give people a brighter day and to motivate people and make people feel good about the actual good things in this world that you can look forward to.

I think the audience wants you back, Jeff. So we can talk about that last piece. I think that's so dynamic. I want to bring you back and give you more time just to talk about quote notes. Because that's amazing too.

That'd be amazing.

We're going to make that happen and.

I thank you for that.

Yeah. Jeff, I know you're busy, human. I appreciate you taking time to spend with us today. Anytime you want to come back on the floor is yours, brother.

I appreciate that and I would love to come back on. This has been awesome. And by the way, you're an awesome host. I really do mean that. And I do appreciate you having me on today. Seriously.

You got it. And for all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Thank you for tuning in to make Unplugged. Keep pushing your limits and brings embracing your purpose and chasing greatness. Until next time, stay unstoppable.

As a.

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