The Mind of a Marketing and Branding strategist - Louie Lavella

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Speaking, the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Our special guest today is Louis Lovella. He is a longtime media expert, host, producer and entrepreneur. He's interviewed everyone from Lady Gaga, Richard Branson, the Backstreet Boys on Canadian tv. He's also the author of Nightclub and Bar Marketing. Louis, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on the show. Thank you so much.

You have a long time experience in the music world, media world, but what do you do if you are a nightclub or a bar and you can't book Lady Gaga or the Backstreet Boys? How do you market it?

Well, I mean, like you mentioned, not being able to book a Lady Gaga or a Backstreet Boys or Lil John or Justin Timberlake. It comes down to so many different factors in the entertainment industry. There's something to be said about forging relationships. And of course, you know, some large conglomerates like Alive Nation will sign some, some heavy agreements to get these kind of people in. If you're a nightclub and you want to book these people, there's some opportunities but you really have to forge relationships and know what they're looking for. I authored a book called Nightclub and Bar Marketing and it talks about quite a few stories on some of the things to look out for, some of the successes that you need to accomplish so that you can get the attention of the Lady Gaga's because you know, I have had shows that had Lady Gaga know, perform at a smaller nightclub, not a large concert. Of course these are times when she was up and coming but she blew up fairly quickly so she didn't really need to do some of the smaller gigs as she was growing. I had an interview with her just as she got signed to Interscope and it's one of the stories in the book as well. And she exploded like very quickly. So some of the tactics and strategies that are found in the book that I, that I offered Michael Bambar Marketing will kind of guide you through what I went through, some of my experiences, some of the downfalls and, and some of the things that you have to accomplish to get somebody like a Lady Gaga or Justin Timberlake to your bar. But also you don't necessarily have to have someone of that caliber, someone of that celebrity to be very successful. And it really does outline some of the just hardcore marketing tips and promoting tips and ways to produce a show.

What's the number one tip you have for people that isn't the obvious? Anyone who's been to nightclubs has certainly seen clubs only let really hot women in, for example, or make everyone stand outside while it's empty to create a sense of exclusivity. There's always things that people do that seem obvious. Everyone wants to be cool, everyone wants to be the place where hot models congregate. What tips do you have that aren't obvious? To me?

Those tips right there that you mentioned work only to a certain degree nowadays. I think, like you said, everybody knows that. So if you're waiting in line for a half an hour because it's very busy outside and you get in and it's just not that busy inside, the club looks terrible. Like the branding of the club, you know, how they offered that experience and that's the key word, experience. I would much rather give a fantastic experience to every customer. And that could be by way of not going over capacity. You know, some promoters say, look how packed my club is. What a success. And when you ask the customers, they think the club sucked because it was too packed. They couldn't even get to the bathroom. And you know, they lost their friends very quickly to get to the bar and get a drink. It took them forever. The experience was awful. But to the promoter and the owner, they thought it was a great success. So those tactics of having the models there and having the lineup held a little bit, I think we all know about those now. You know, you're talking to the girls or obviously hired models. Models are trying to get, you know, your bottle or your drink and just, you know, maybe flirt with you. But we're aware of that nowadays. So I think the key word is experience. If you can trump all those other things and give them a huge and a very successful experience, that is going to work. And I believe, and I've seen it many times, that's why the hot and very expensive high end nightclub could get crushed by the Ma and PA bar down the street because they give a better experience and sometimes the people just want the experience. Nowadays with social media, we love to talk, we love to share, we love to text or message how the club is or isn't while you're there in real time, right? So if you're waiting in line, you're going to be telling your friends there's a big lineup, how is it over there? And if they're already in the club and there's no lineup and they're like, it's not bad, I'm having a blast and it's half full already, those people just may very well, leave that lineup and go to the other place because they already have been sold in the experience. Does that make sense?

Let's talk about social media component. Many bands still sort of stick to the old school way of wanting to tell the audience, no recording can be made of this performance. You're violating our copyright, blah, blah, blah. There's a newer school of thought where artists say, please record anything, everything shared on social media. They view that as great promotion. As a nightclub owner or manager or marketer, how do you navigate between those two schools of thought?

I have heard and read the stories, just like you of the artists that try and stop it. And I really think that it's not stoppable. I believe that we are in 2016, going to be in 2016 very quickly, and if you're listening to this still in 2018, it's still going to apply. Things are going to just get faster and grow quicker in the social media sense. People are social. They have something to say and they're going to say it. Everybody is a media channel. Whether you're an actual brand or company or an entrepreneur or you're just a regular person and you want to post where you are or the food you're eating, you have become a media channel and a stage tiny celebrity in your own group of friends. Right. I think it is unstoppable. I understand the copyright laws that obviously, you know, streaming something, you are, you are taking the copyright of somebody's music and you're putting it out there without paying for it. I agree that that is wrong to a certain degree because they're not getting paid. But I really agree on the trade off of that in the promotional aspect because we're in a social media world. I think the musicians and artists that say just record anything, you put it out there because you're basically my influencer without me paying you. I think there's something to be said about that. I think it's a smart move and I think if you give opportunities for people to do that, they'll take that opportunity and it's going to help your brand.

Louis Lavella, thank you for being our guest today. The name of the book is Nightclub and Bar marketing, available@Amazon.com stop. Okay, let's sort of step behind the curtains now. Louie. That was, yes, five, six minutes. That's what you might typically get if you were to be interviewed on the Today show or even a BBC program. It's very rare for TV or a lot of major national international radio programs to go beyond four, five, six, minutes, as we just did. Let's step behind the curtain now. Tell us what you were trying to do. What were your messages? What goals did you have in that interview?

I mean, obviously the awareness of the book is going to be a top of a list when we're talking in an NBC style, you know, Good Morning America or Today's show type of 5, 6 minutes that we just had. So the awareness of the book, especially if it's a new book and you're starting to do interviews all over the place, that's definitely going to be on the top of Mind Myself as well, though. Very close. Second, if not tied for first, is the quick questions and banter back and forth, trying to build trust and authority as quick as possible in that five or six minutes. So to me, if I'm just going to, you know, basically spew messages on my book, it's got great information and go purchase it, I think that it's not as powerful as where we had a couple of back and forth questions. There was a little bit of story, some thoughts in there that came out of me to build a trust and an authority that, okay, the book sounds cool. I might be interested because I'm in the industry. But now Louis sounds like an expert because I've listened to the few minutes of him talking. So I think that's either a very close second or they're both tied for number one, in my opinion.

Let's give our listeners a very specific, practical tip that you think most people haven't heard of. When you're preparing for a media interview and you do podcasts, all sorts of interviews all the time, do you have any one simple trick to help you prepare that you think most people either just don't do or haven't heard of?

I think the most simple trick you can think of, and some people do this without knowing it, but many people forget to do this, especially when I'm doing marketing and branding with other companies and musicians they really pass through this is to know the audience you're about to speak to so that all the answers that are about to come out or the stories you're about to tell can really connect specifically with an audience. So in this podcast, it's a little bit different than maybe the podcast I'm going to have in an hour from now that may be really into branding and another one might be just into marketing, just all going to be similar stories. But the way I will say each of those same stories needs to be tweaked. So if you really know the audience you're about to speak to. I think that's a really simple but extremely effective and much needed thing to think about.

Let's define those terms for our audience because communication, marketing, branding. The terms are tossed around all the time and I think with great confusion because they mean very different things to different people. I do not consider myself in any way to be a marketing expert or a branding expert, but I do consider myself communication expert. To me, when individuals talk about, oh, my brand is this, a lot of times I just come away with a sense that they have no sense of self awareness and they're deluding themselves. But tell me your take on those three terms.

Absolutely. So you're right. I think they're very closely related, but they're very, very different. The nice thing is they do intertwine with each other. They're useful with each other to create one final goal. So branding, in my opinion, a lot of people throw the terms of, well, your logo and your colors and your website. That's all branding. And they're part of branding. But I think the best way to explain branding, in my opinion, is how someone perceives you. So, you know, when I'm, when I'm doing interviews, or my specific logo or the color schemes I use, or how cool or not cool my website looks, that's all part of my brand. So that when you're listening to me and how I talk and when you're looking at my stories and you're looking at my website, you can now perceive me in a certain way. So as a branding person, or if you're creating a brand for yourself or your business, you want to intertwine a lot of those, you know, little fun attributes like the logo and the color scheme and how your website looks and how it flows, because you want the audience to look at you in a certain way. That's a brand. In a similar story, that is why a brand can be tarnished. So if Coca Cola, all of a sudden, as a fun example, people think, ooh, it's not good to drink Coke. I heard it wrecks your teeth. They didn't change their logo all of a sudden, or their color scheme or their advertising. And all of a sudden you perceive Coke as maybe I shouldn't drink it because it's not good for you, right? So all of a sudden you perceive them differently. So the brand is being tarnished in your specific eyes. So people can tarnish a brand without them specifically changing the actual attributes or items that they're using. Marketing is using a lot of the tools to promote that brand. So I'm doing a podcast that is part of marketing for me. I might advertise on Facebook. I will do social media and I will post my own blog or my own thoughts or images. If I'm at a festival and I have a nice image of 20,000 people that looks great when I post it on social media, that's marketing the image of me in front of those 20,000 people helps my brand, if that makes sense between the two. And I sure, yeah.

One of the Louis, One of the features we're adding here to speaking with TJ Walker is an opportunity for organizations like yours and individuals to get more focused group research on their brand. So I would ask the listeners now send Louis a tweet on any messages he said so far that have resonated or for that matter, if there's anything confusing, just send him a tweet now. Your website is louielavella.com L O U I E L A V e l l a.com and your Twitter handle is Ouilovella.

Same as Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Snapchat. And of course the website, same spelling and the username all across is Louis Lavella as well. And I really appreciate that. I'd love to.

Nice consistent brand.

Exactly. It's very, you know, while the spelling might be, you know, something somebody has to spell out just because of the way it's spelled, it definitely makes sense, if possible, to have the same username across the board. I think that does help alleviate some confusion when, like you mentioned, it's consistent across the board.

And when I heard you were into marketing for nightclubs and bars entertainment, I had two very contradictory thoughts. Part of me is thinking that must be a whole lot harder than anyone imagines or thinks. And so many difficulties, late nights, egos. There's another part of me that's thinking this must be really easy because just like the restaurant business attracts millions of people every year who start restaurants because they like food and don't know anything about running restaurants, I would certainly imagine that the, the nightclub industry and the bar industry attracts millions of people who don't know anything about managing a nightclub or bar. They just like to drink and party and therefore they would be easy to beat. So which is it?

I think you're right to mention the polarizing too, because it is tough because it seems like shark infested waters. You know, when especially in, you know, streets and little blocks that have 15 nightclubs and bars and 20 nightclubs and bars and they're all you know, going after the same demographic. Imagine going to a mall with only jean stores. That's quite a bit of competition in one concentrated spot. Yes, a lot of people are going to the mall to shop, but there's a lot of competition to sell a similar product. Right. And I think the same goes for the nightclub and bar industry where it's difficult because a. You're right, a lot of club and bar owners may have, you know, gotten money from somewhere, maybe they were a bartender and they know how to operate the bar. When it comes down to being an entrepreneur, it gets tougher. And so. So it's tough to convince them to jump into social media. They think Facebook doesn't work. I tried it, I posted twice and it wasn't packed. Do you know what I mean? We did have it easier years ago where like you mentioned, millions of people did come out to areas and it was a lot easier to pull off a Tuesday night party and a Wednesday night and a Friday. Nowadays, I believe millennials and Generation Z specifically millennials and up right now because that's the age of drinking majority. There's so many things they can do, especially stay home and play Xbox or watch Netflix or go to movies and they're okay with that. Years ago, the nightclub and bar was the spot to be to socialize. Right now if you want to meet a girl, there's apps for that, right? If you want to listen to up and coming music, there are apps for that as well. So things have changed just user behavior wise. And that's one thing I study very closely, not just marketing and how to's of social media because yes, we need to know that, but a user behavior, I mean, how am I going to motivate them to come out to the bar? And then on the flip side of that, it is a little easy to work in this kind of environment because it's fun. You know, people are generally happy to come out, they're ready to blow off steam because the hard work day and they just want to dance and have fun and it's a cool job, it's a cool environment to be at. And then you forget kind of the hardships as you try to promote or market a specific event.

Our guest today is Louis Lovella. He's a well known mediapreneur. He's a marketer, media expert who is focused in the music industry, nightclub entertainment. He's also a prominent public speaker, keynote speaker and workshop presenter. In a moment I'm going to ask him to share his signature story. But first, if you don't have a signature story yet. The folks at Media Training Worldwide can help you. For a free no obligation course on how to be a better public speaker and to develop your own signature story, go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and you can get a free online course. And that's listed in our show notes as well. So, Louis, what story do you have that resonates the most when you are in front of audiences?

I believe the one that everyone keeps asking me about to speak about. And even in podcasts, you know, we kind of lean towards this specific, you know, journey is how I created my personal brand. And now there's great stories that go into that. Interviewing Lady Gaga, being on television, working with large scale festivals, 30,000 people. But it always seems to be the same, you know, resonating story of if I can do it, you can do it. Which is a great message because a lot of people have that similar message. But I have a nice angle and a specific, you know, story set that I could tell that causes some great attention and some after questions, which is amazing. And that signature story is, you know, banging down the entertainment world doors, you know, and, you know, just as a quick example, you know, I wanted to be on radio as I was getting into this industry and I thought I wanted to do music and radio is going to be great. And I didn't get to be on radio, so what did I do? I created my own radio show and then I banged on doors and got syndicated to 300 radio stations myself. I built the door and opened it myself. Similar story with television. I wanted to be on TV too, because I thought, this is cool, it's going to be great for my brand because I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. Went after a couple of TV stations. Nobody was hiring hosts at the time. I went and hired a crew, started to create my own TV show, pitched that show to stations. They watched it and said, well, we don't have room on the program schedule, but you're a decent host and producer, why don't we bring you on board. So again, built my own door and broke that door open too. Right? So there's, there's kind of ways you can, you can go about your goals and.

And you did this in Canada?

In Canada, correct. And, you know, syndicating. My radio station was worldwide. I actually worked with Westwood 1 in the United States and they're a large syndicator. And at the time they were one of the biggest, if not the biggest. And again, it was consistency and just continuing to bang on the door that I have a radio show that's growing. I was getting on online stat as well as terrestrial stations, and it was starting to cause them to take notice. And then I got noticed and I got syndicated through them and over 300 stations around the world, which was great. And that's worldwide. In Canada with BPM tv, just like I told the story, same idea, but that was national. But that story seems to resonate with audiences. On, wow. Whatever goal I have, I don't necessarily have to wait for somebody else to open the door for me all the time. Sometimes you can build a.

Let's dig a little deeper there though, because I gotta tell you, I have clients all the time, have for decades who say, dj, I've got a great idea. I'm gonna shoot this TV pilot, I'm gonna produce this radio show. They often do, and it goes nowhere. I produce a gazillion radio shows and TV shows. One of them, I drove to every TV station in Florida, did syndicate it regionally, was on the air for a couple years, but never really made any money from it. So I want to know, how did you do that? And was there one big moment of a lucky break? Was there one gatekeeper who said, I like you, kid, and I'm going to give the green light? How did you get through that door especially? I'm assuming this was pre Internet days, or at least early Internet days. And you couldn't just go viral with a YouTube video.

Right. You know, for radio itself, Internet was starting to come on the playing field. I also created a mobile app to stream my shows, and I was one of two in the entire world. So I kind of saw mobile picking up speed, literally. This is before the iPhone. The iPhone came out about a year and a half later and then all the apps came out. So it sort of, I will say, crushed that app concept. It did very well. Had hundreds of thousands of people listening in. But the one gatekeeper, it's hard to identify that there was one person that gave me that break. I think it was just a combination of consistency with all of my goals, whether I was going after an Internet radio station to get on my show, sold to them or bartered to them, like you mentioned earlier, you know, it was just constant building relationships and constantly sending them information and just the constant communication between the two to get on. And same with terrestrial radio, which is even harder. You know, a lot of Internet stations that were coming on board were just like, cool, we need to fill content. Where terrestrial stations had built a large business for years. Decades. They were very careful on what they put on air. But again, it was consistency. And I think that was the gatekeeper that I had to make sure I was always on top of being consistent. I remember the Westwood One vice president saying, man, because you kept calling me every few days and we kept chatting or you kept leaving messages, I just had to take notice.

So it's not just about being consistent in creating media, it's about being consistent in pitching it too. And a lot of people like to tell themselves, oh, I'm good at content, but I'm not a marketer. You've heard that before?

Yeah, a million times. And some people are fantastic at content and really bad at marketing. But you can learn marketing, right? And you can learn by not just going on Google and YouTube and knowing the tactics like Facebook ads and things like that nowadays. But strategy comes into play big time. People hit the boost, post all the time on Facebook, and it doesn't work for them because they don't have a strategy behind it. And to learn that is either listening to shows like this, talking to the mentors that actually know what they've been doing in their experience, but also doing it yourself. You know, the trial and error, the failing. That is a huge, you know, nugget right there to just fail as many times as you can because that will teach you the strategies.

Let's take a step back in time, before Facebook even existed. Growing up in Canada, who were your role models as communicators? I mean, Canada is known for a lot of great media personalities and communicators. Whether it was the late Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC News, Mike Myers, Martin Short, who did you respect and admire as communicators?

As communicators? You know what, the ones you just mentioned, there were fantastic communicators. Obviously, being on the news, you know, Peter Jenkins always had a clear message, knew exactly his story as he was covering things and brought that forth. But I think I admired more family members. My mom and uncle and dad, they're entrepreneurs and they had to do their hustle to communicate with potential clients and getting out their marketing. And I was in that. I was growing up watching it. So to me, because I was so close to allowed to forge my personalities and my tools of communication as well.

What were they selling?

My dad is a master electrician, so his business was obviously getting contracts with housing and whatnot. My mom did tax as well as bookkeeping, so her small business, my uncle is in financial planning and mutual fund. So they're all your regular small business. Style of individual. But you can see that hustle and style of communication between the three and how they kind of went out and garnered new business, created their own marketing in a smaller sense. And it's funny because learning from that and then of course learning from other larger scale personalities, I'm able to do that with big festivals and up and coming musicians and whatnot nowadays, which is kind of fun.

So I'm curious, did you ever hear your father have to talk to someone on the phone and you can obviously hear the other person saying, oh, why is that so expensive? I don't pay my doctor that much. How did your dad sell what some people view as a commodity service of electric? And I don't mean to demean it in any way. How did you hear him sell?

You know, there were just, I think it was building the trust level, I think with all three of them was a big takeaway. Again, being a commodity service. There's a lot of electricians, a lot of bookkeepers, a lot of financial planners. It all came down to building a trust. So whether it was on the phone or going to them and saying, you know, these are the things, if you do it yourself, pitfalls. And you know, this is a trust that I've been doing it for so many years. And they would, they would just reiterate the experience that they have. And really that's in a very small sense a personal branding thing that they were doing. Right. They were building a mini, mini rapport, but they were building their brand as, as a reputable person in their, in their industry locally. And that's, I think, how they overcame quite a few, you know, rebuttals and whatnot. And then people will pay for experience and pay for that trust. Sometimes you think maybe the cheapest guy isn't the way to go.

Right? Oh, I've definitely had some bad experiences forgetting that rule. As a homeowner, I can tell you that's definitely not the best way to go. So your parents, immediate family, were your immediate role models. Anyone else you saw as a child, whether just on video from history, whether it was Pierre Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada, anyone else who you saw as a role model, good or bad? It could be sometimes someone you saw that you think, wow, I sure don't want to be like that person when I grow up.

Absolutely. I mean, I read quite a few books as I was growing up in the self help and business books. My uncle, he loved to read the Tony Robbins and the Robert Kiyosakis when he started coming out and I followed that and I read them as well. I think that was a great way to get stronger mentorship. Obviously not direct between Tony Robbins and me, but being able to see him on, you know, the public television, whenever they did, I think Kiyosaki had one and catch something from Tony Robbins, read their books and just learn from them. Those became pretty strong mentors and role models to me even to this day. You know, reading something like Tim Ferriss, you can always take away a few nuggets out of something as funny as the four hour work week. Obviously people don't work just four hours, but I can see the story he was trying to tell and get people to do certain things to reduce the amount of redundant work that you do. So from an early stage, I think reading books and following along, you know, when the Internet did come out, those blogs and those stories and of course YouTube is a fantastic resource now to watch people's. I watch keynotes and you know, Q&As every night. Every night I'm just last night I'm up till three, four in the morning and I'm watching different keynotes and people speak not only just for myself to learn on how to be speaker, you know, and how to, how to get better at it, but just because I'm learning constantly. It's fantastic. Podcasts, they're great.

Nowadays, I've got to ask you about Tim Ferriss now. I like Full Disclosure, I like Tim Ferriss. I listen to his podcast. In fact, a part of this new format of my show is based on how Tim Ferriss really digs deep and deconstructs what successful people do. Mine isn't a direct copy of that. I'm going in the niche of how successful people communicate. Having said, and I've read all of his books, I believe, having said all of that, I thought his first book, the Four Hour Workweek was a horrible book, yet perhaps the best title of a book ever. Get your sense of his branding, marketing and specifically how he market tested through Google AdWords, the title, and I want to know whether you do that too.

You know, I do do some market testing through, through either AdWords or now Facebook, quite a bit more. So anybody who hasn't read the book, you know, the, the message that you're trying to allude to is, is he, when he was coming up with a title for his book, actually went and tested on Google AdWords, different titles and the ones that got more clicks basically he knew were the ones that resonated well. And you're right, the Four Hour Workweek is a fantastic title because it just causes people to think, is there a way to actually only work four hours a week? Right. And you want to pick it up and read it. I thought in half agreeance with you that the book was obviously had some good nuggets, but there's a lot in there that's got a little bit of that fluff on. That's just not feasible to work just four hours. But I did take away a few golden nuggets. I like some of the outsourcing ideas he had. I like the idea like you just mentioned on testing different images or titles. And to go back to that, I do that when I'm creating events and I'm going to have different looking images, which ones will sell more tickets. I will start doing testing. I never just make one flyer and post that and boost it everywhere possible to my targets. I will create several, several layers. I will make sure I target specifically. I'll make one that says Happy Birthday and I will target people having a birthday because you can do that on Facebook and Instagram, which is amazing. So I'll do a lot of that testing as well. And that was one thing that of course Tim Ferriss mentioned that he did in his book. So yeah, I mean I would recommend anybody reading it or listening to it as an audio and see if you could take anything away from it. Was it the best business book in the world? No, probably not. But I think there's a couple of nuggets to be said.

Pretty much. It was pretty much the best title. Absolutely.

Because it sold so many. And of course a lot of, you know, consultants and business owners who have read it or even haven't always go back and make fun of that. You know, the four Hour Workweek. There's no way you can make it by not to say being lazy, but the Hustle is a massive part of being successful. And so the title and some of the stuff in the book alludes to not having to have the hustle or be a hustler or to hustle. And that's, that's a problem in business. I don't think anybody can really get successful by just sitting around and getting lucky. Right.

Except our listeners today are sitting around listening to you and they are getting lucky. If you want more information about our guest Louis Lavelle, go to LouisLavelle.com l o u I e la v e l l a dot com for more information. This show is brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. For all of your media training, public speaking Training needs, whether it's individual or workshop. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com who else do you respect as a marketer and brander? If I were to poll the audience I think they would probably say not only Tim Ferriss. Seth Godin is wildly popular. All of his books from Purple Cow on sell massively. Is there anyone else you think of who is the foremost marketing genius of our time?

I really respect and like the thoughts and messages of Gary Vaynerchuk. I know a lot of people do love him and some people have a polarizing view of him. I think he is putting it out there and he's doing it and I think that's really important for people to just not watch a keynote and read a book and say cool. You know, those are great ideas. But I really like how he's doing it and showing people actually what he's doing by some of his YouTube shows. Not just question answer ones, but he has another one DailyVee. I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with where they're following him around and sometimes nothing's going on. But you can watch, you know, this real time almost TV show that he's creating on him doing it and I really like that.

He is a fascinating character. Again, full disclosure, the first six months of this program were based on Gary Vaynerchuk show. Different subject matter but his whole show, his main show is just him answering questions. And that's what this program was the first six months of its existence. We've now expanded to include interviews with experts like you. Here's my question about Gary Vaynerchu. Every time I watch him and I have watched probably half of his TV shows and I've read all of his books, he is brilliant, he is wildly successful. He's walking the talk. He's not one of these marketing experts who talks about it and then you go to their Twitter page and they have three followers. He's actually doing it. My big question about him though is how much of that is transferable. He seems to be somebody who gets by on two hours sleep and we'll be on Snapchat and Twitter till 3am and up at 5. And I think very few people can a do it, B they can't sustain it C if they tried to sustain it they'd have a mental breakdown.

I think you're right that he may have a special little talent on the Ultimate Hustle. But I think everybody can put some sort of hustle and create their level of success. I'm sure if somebody Worked till three in the morning and got up at five or six and having very little sleep. And they really hustled like crazy. They could get some pretty large success. I know myself, I'm up till 3, 4 in the morning. I don't wake up at 5. I might wake up at 9, which is sleeping in for a lot of people. But that gives me only five hours of sleep still. And I do. I am on the Twitters and Facebooks responding to questions or putting out new content. I'm doing a hustle that's not as large as him, obviously, but has, has that, that crunch of time during the day. And during the day, you know, I'm putting blogs out, I'm doing podcast interviews, working with my own clients, that kind of idea. So I think someone who's, who's either a speaker or a marketing consultant or a mom, pop flower shop, there's got to be some sort of give and take of the hours you trade for the success. But with that said, you have to really love what you're doing. You know, I have two little guys, so I work from home all the time and I take lots of breaks. We'll go to the park and we'll do so you have to also live your life as well. And I'm not Gary, or don't want to make comment on Gary's lifestyle himself. He obviously loves the hustle and the work and he always alludes to his family and trying to take those breaks with him too. But it's up to what he loves. If he feels like he's missing, you know, time with the kids, he makes those adjustments and tries as best as he can to start going there. A lot of people have corporate jobs and they leave at 5 in the morning or in traffic, leave at 6 at night in traffic again, they don't see their family ever. And they hate their jobs too. That to me is not fun. But they're also sort of hustling because they're out there doing the work. I think if you can design your life and just try and balance your life, fun and then work is also something you really love. The more you hustle, I believe the more success you'll get. You may not sell 10 million books and be like Gary getting 70,000 or whatever, speaking gig, but if you hustle his hours and really push out content like crazy, and also have the right thoughts and be a lovable character, you can get there.

And of course, his whole mantra is he claims he spends no more than 10% pushing out content. Everything else is answering people's questions, commenting on their content, and that's. That's his claim to fame. Certainly a lot of people. I myself am occasionally guilty of this, of just pushing content and using social media as another distribution channel. Of course, it doesn't work that way very well. Luis, shifting gears. You're. You're younger than I am, but you didn't just graduate from high school last year. You've been at this a while. How are you different now as a communicator than when you first started? How have you improved?

Well, I think the dawn of social media changed a lot of people's user behaviors, including myself. And just to go back to your comment about Gary on pushing out content as opposed to answering questions and giving, that's how I've improved as well. I noticed user behaviors because I am in the millennial kind of demographic, and that is what's driving social media. So I need to learn how to communicate better and not only make sure I answer questions and put out good content that people can learn from, not just pushing out my book link here or come see me at this speaking engagement. Here's tickets, that kind of idea, but more specifically for communication. I think just doing podcasts like this and writing blogs and getting better at it, the practice of it, makes me a much better communicator. I kind of can quickly gather my thoughts and answer questions without being as prepared as I needed to be before. I try not to stumble as much as possible, obviously, and just doing it and practicing it, you know, just. Everybody just gets better at their craft. And I think from when I first started, and I was always decent at schmoozing with people, being in the nightlife industry, you know, I was very good at schmoozing, even with corporate vice presidents and presidents. But now that I have some experience behind me, it becomes easier to feel, you know, confident, and the communication comes out a little smoother. And things that I say have a nice story behind it sometimes. And that communication comes out a lot nicer.

By the way, you've mentioned stumbling. You're not stumbling much. I don't hear you stumbling at all. But it does beg the question, because I hear this all the time from podcasting consultants. There's all these podcasting consulting agencies that talk about we'll edit out your ums and uhs to producers and host. And my response is always, well, David Letterman, Martha Stewart, Bill O'Reilly, they all say ah and all the time. And they make $30 million a year.

That's true.

Every live interview that Matt Lauer conducts on the today show, their uhs and ums, not necessarily from him, but guests, and they're seen by millions of people. So I always ask people, what is your proof that ums and ahs actually harm communication? Of course, no one can ever give it to me. I just wondered your school of thought on that.

I think you're absolutely right. I think everybody does the ums and ahs, and it's something everybody does. I don't think that it's natural to take those out. I believe that if there's like, I just did an um there, you're trying to gather your thoughts right as the question comes in, your brain is trying to decipher what the question was, what the answer is going to be, and then spew it out in the best possible way. So an kind of gives you a pause, you know, I think the old school scenario is if you're doing too many ums and ahs, you're not being able to think quick enough or answer quick enough. But I just agree with you. I don't think that it causes you to be less of an expert or less of a likable person. I just think that it's a natural thing. If I sat there going, well, you know, and the answer's not coming out. I just think me as a communicator, you're just going to look at me in the light of this guy doesn't have an answer. He's trying to come up with this answer, and it's not flowing well. Other than that, though, I agree with you on I don't think there's real proof on an ums and ah needs to be edited out. I think if you sat there for 30 seconds, him and hawing about an answer, that's just because you can't answer the question, and maybe you're just not there as a communicator, doesn't make you, you know, either stupid or worse or anything like that. I just think that the answer's not flowing well. You may catch me on a bad question. I'm thinking, ooh, how do I answer that question? Do you know what I mean? But I'll say it that way. I'll just say it as in, that's a tough one. Let me think about this for a second. You really caught me there. I would say some different things just because that's the way I would talk to my friends and communicate. Right. It's just more natural.

For the record, I'm not hearing you say on at all, though. I don't really think it matters. The school of thought I always push is focus first and foremost on having interesting things to say. If you are saying interesting, useful information to your audience, they'll forgive the ums and ahs. If you never say ah and um, but you never say anything interesting, no one's going to remember you either.

I agree.

Let's test you for a moment. You are a branding marketing expert and you have a lot of experience in not just the entertainment, bar, nightlife industry, but other industries. Here's a classic branding marketing problem. I see all the law firms, the public, the business world sees it somewhat as a commodity. And yet I've been to chamber of commerce networking events. I'm sure you've been to some kind of networking events where some poor hapless lawyer stands up. Hi, I'm TJ Walker, partner at do we cheat them and how. And we specialize in litigation, civil, domestic, criminal, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they sit down and nothing they said was remotely interesting because their name isn't interesting. They're basically saying they do everything. What is your advice to a professional services company? And I'll let you pick whether you want to use a mid sized law firm or another example.

Yeah, that's, that's a great question and an example to use. I believe you're correct. When, you know, being in a law firm, it is like a commodity, almost like real estate and, you know, mechanics, fixing your car, things like that. And there's a lot out there. And I believe that the first thing people see is, wow, lots of money going to this, you know, end of the table, do I require them? And now there's a trust level.

Right?

And similarly, like I just mentioned, with mechanics, you know, you need your car fixed and you're not a professional. I need to be able to trust you that you're not going to screw me, basically. So for a lawyer, I think just kind of saying, hi, my name is Louis Lovella, I'm a litigator. We deal with civil and criminal and blah, blah, blah, or domestic or whatever it's going to be. It's kind of boring. We know, hi, I'm a lawyer. But maybe a quick elevator speech that is a quick story on how they specifically help a specific problem. Somebody in the audience may or may not have that problem. If it's a trademark lawyer and I need a trademark right away, I'm going to go find a trademark lawyer. But you're right, it's a commodity. So what makes you special? I need to know you're going to help me and have my best interests. I know the fee is going to be up there, but I need to know that that fee is worth it. I'm working right now with immigration lawyers for myself to be able to do more speaking gigs in the United States. And I need to know that this extravagant amount of money I'm paying is going to do me well. I'm going to have a successful outcome at the end, and I'm not just going to waste my money on somebody that doesn't care. So they took a lot of time after their quick elevator speech to learn about me and my issue in my specific goals for that. So similarly to when you're at a chamber of commerce and they stand up, you know, you want to have that elevator speech, as they call it, to give a little, little quick trust level. Not just this is my. My blurb of who I am, but here's some trust so that somebody might approach them after and you can now sit down with them and dig into their problems.

Well, you just mentioned the words immigration and lawyer, and we previously talked about Canada, and I had a horrible memory. Just flashback. I was actually deported from Canada once. I was showing up to do, as I often have, do a media training. And I was stopped at immigration. They said, why are you here? Like, oh, I'm here to do media training. Where's your work permit? Talk about ums and ahs coming out. And I don't normally say them. And they said, well, you can't come in here. You're violating our Department of Labor laws if you don't have a work permit. And whoever hired you can't prove that there's no one in Canada to do the job. Who hired you, Mr. Walker? The department of Labor. I'm not kidding you. A member of Parliament at the time was involved, who was the head of the department. And it was a. Even with that clout and juice, I got no special treatment. The next morning I was on. Everyone was polite, as everyone in Canada is, but I was politely escorted out of the country.

That's a great story, especially being hired by the Department of Labor. But you're right, it's the same thing going the other way as well. Like when I do, you know, any speaking or workshops, things like that in the United States, you need to have your.

Your.

Your T's crossed, I's dotted and make sure that the permits are there. So I'm.

Oh, sure. I don't mean to sound like I'm picking on Canada. The United States is the Worst. And we, we fingerprint you like you're a criminal coming in too.

Yeah, it happens. Now we have a nice treaty, though, so I'm sure if they just filled out a quick form again, being in the Department of Labor, it's a funny story that they're the ones that would have for forgot. And you know, on a side story, me working with a lot of celebrities and big DJs and bands and whatnot, I, I need to make sure that as they come across to Canada and we're doing a concert or an event, I need those forms filled out as well and whatever fees are needed because they will get stopped at the border saying, well, why can't you get the local DG to do it? You know what I mean? So it's fairly easy to fill out, saying, well, they're, they're celebrities. Or UTJ is an expert in your field. We need you, not Joe Blow, you know, marketing guy over here. You're a celebrity that we want and people will respect and come to, to see and learn from. So, you know, I think it's, it's, I want to say, fairly easy to, to do and get approved, but forgetting can cause quite an issue, right?

So, Louis, for our listeners hearing you, you sound like just a natural. You've been speaking, promoting, talking. You grew up in a household with entrepreneurs who had to, they weren't necessarily out getting venture capital, but they were running their own business, having to pitch their prospects on a daily basis. Were you one of these kids who sold more band candy and magazine subscriptions than anyone else in second grade? Or how would you categorize yourself?

You know what, as a child growing up, I, you know, I, I didn't have, I think, the hustle if the passion wasn't there. So going out selling the chocolate bars in high school or elementary school or, you know, like the magazines like you just mentioned, if the passion wasn't there, I was like, I'll sell a few, but do you know what I mean? When I had passion for something, I could jump in all in. I can concentrate on it, and I can do very well at that. So growing up, when I was trying to get into doing some modeling, you know, I would hustle like crazy. I would knock on every agent's door, I would get photos done, I would do what I needed to do. I never became a successful model. I had some great little things was in, you know, some, some national sporting kind of magazines idea. But, but at least I had a passion for it and I hustled for it. Right. So I think it was always in me and, you know, going back to Gary Vee, the self aware thing, I knew what I wanted to do and what I was good at and what I wanted to grow and craft. Even in school, you know, I was good memorizing things, but my grades were, you know, they were great in elementary and as high school came in, they were okay, you know, 80s type of thing. But I never studied or did all the homework because I didn't have the passion for it. I knew that if this is just a memorizing game for me, I can do okay in the test and I'll get okay grades, like good grades. But I didn't need to do the hustle, which is probably bad thing to say. Anybody listening? But that's just. I knew who I was and on the side, you know, in my later high school days, I was starting to forge my. My relationships with nightclub owners and. And different promoters because I wanted to be in the entertainment industry still. And I thought, this is where I want to spend some of my time learning and growing that craft. Not necessarily doing the homework for math or whatnot. Again, terrible to actually say, but I knew who I was and now I'm here in a fun job and doing some. Some things I love doing and my life.

And with more longevity than being a male model.

Exactly.

Not to denigrate your modeling career. I was a male. I was a male model, too. And so our listeners will really laugh when they've seen pictures of me or seen video of me in the last 25 years. I was a tuxedo model and I made a princely sum of $5 an hour for doing tuxedo bridal show modeling runways in department stores and the equivalent of the Macy's belts or the Ivy's store in Charlotte, North Carolina. But it is one of those things that people. It's more. It was a more memorable job than washing dishes.

Exactly.

But I'm actually now a lot more money washing dishes than I ever did modeling. I think I probably made less than $100 as a professional model.

But you dabbled in it and you could see whether you liked it or not. Some people do a lot of things pro bono or for free for exposure and whatnot. And that's okay because you can get a taste for it and if you love it, you can hustle. And funny you mentioned that and not making a lot of money. I know a lot of DJs that come to me saying, oh, it's just not fair. You know, club owners want us to work for peanuts and the industry is destroyed. And I said, well, here's two problems. One, you're all taking the money. There's a problem. If you all took $50 to DJ or half of your doing it, that that ruins your value, even though you could be worth three, $400 or more. And I said, and two, if that's the case, then either you figure a way to use that and get better value out of it. You know, my first days at BPM tv, I wasn't making killer dollars being a national host. I mean, I should have made a lot more money. But I said, you know what? I still like it. I get some fantastic relationships. I got to interview Lady Gaga and Richard Branson. I'm going to use this to my advantage.

Now.

I could tell the story on a podcast to this day, so I can use what's going on and see the future and say, all right, I get it, the deal's not the best, but I can use this to my advantage in the future. And if you can't and then the deal's not the best, then maybe you walk. That's what I did in modeling. That's probably what you did in modeling, right?

Well, there's also the pesky little issue of no one wanting to call me or hire me or pay me any money or my hair falling out and getting old and ugly.

This isn't exactly either.

You've mentioned Richard Branson a couple of times. To me, he's a fascinating example of obviously a successful entrepreneur, but also somebody who says ah, and constantly. Did you notice that when you interviewed?

I did, actually. So when he had version Fest in Toronto and I was actually sitting beside him and his PR people in the VIP area and we were doing interviews with all kinds of other big name bands and DJs, and I turned to his PR and him said, we're doing interviews with everybody. I would love to do a five minutes or just something with you, you know, Sir Richard Branson. I just took the shot. He's sitting there and he said, yes, right. But you're right, the first thing he said was, you know, I do a lot of ums and odds. And I said, you know, nobody's gonna care about the ums and odds. We just want to hear a few minutes of your story and just answer a couple questions as it pertains to the festival and blah, blah, blah. And you're right, he does do the ums and odds line. He looks up and he's trying to gather his words. He is dyslexic as well. So I'm not sure if that kind of causes his mind to try and gather his answers. And the ums and ahs give him time. But as a billionaire or multi billionaire or whatever he is, and a very smart and successful individual, someone who cares about his employees and his customers, people really can say the story, oh, he does ums and ahs and look at him, but that's about as far as it goes. Nobody looks down on him at all or, or thinks he's less of a smart person or a put together, you know, businessman because of that.

So for our listeners out there who are starting podcasts or have podcast, when you're approached by podcast so called experts saying they'll edit all the ums and us out, mention to them Richard Branson perhaps.

Exactly.

They won't try to sell you quite as hard any final good communication advice you have for our audience that you think either isn't obvious, that people haven't heard before, or that they just don't do.

I feel like practice is something that people either just discount or forget. And practice may not just be practicing in front of the mirror or your speech a thousand times or your sales pitch. I think just doing it not only, you know, if I'm doing these podcasts and they're getting better and better and better as I do them, I'm practicing and doing at the same time. You know, I might get clients from it, I might get just more awareness of myself from it. I think just doing it is also practice. And if you think of the two as one, I think that's something that builds your communication much faster. Like we mentioned earlier, from when I was younger to now, just because I've been doing it, being on my own radio show, being on a television show, doing these podcasts now, like if you listen to my Fertpath podcast I did a few months ago, I mean it probably sucks. Sucked, right. Compared to now, it's just more flow and I'm getting more used to it and I've been on television for years in radio and so you would imagine I'd be great at podcasts. But I think everybody who starts out, I mean, your first of something probably is not that great just because you're gonna, you're going to get better at it because somebody else listening to my first podcast might go, well, that was, that was fantastic. You know, nothing wrong with it. Just to us as individuals, we just get better at things the more we do. So for communication, especially just the way you, you kind of gather your thoughts. The way you say it, the way you answer questions, the way you're pitching your product or your service you're trying to sell, the more you do, the better you get at it.

Louis Lavella, thank you for your time. Final question, what is the one thing you want our audience to do?

I would love the audience to tweet at me something that they maybe did that may have harmed their brand, but didn't harm their brand. I did an article a little while back that caught a little bit of fire on, you know, when you make a mistake, don't worry. People are quick to forget. And I've seen it more and more and more and it's something I'm trying to study as a user behavior, something that could tarnish your brand that people were quick to forget. Either you were able to tackle it right away or just there's so much noise on social media they'll attack you for a minute and then forget. So I'd like to hear some more thoughts on that.

And as someone who is a branding expert and who knows about real estate, I'm going to have you back after the election to get your sense of the Donald Trump branding effort. Things are too inflamed right now in the US Tempers are too inflamed, but I would love to get your assessment of that. And for that matter, can someone like a Roger Ailes rehabilitate his brand? It's received some serious tarnishing. Louis Lavella, thank you so much for being our guest again. His website is louielavella.com I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining us today again. For any comments, questions, suggestions for future guests for this program, please send me a note. Tjediatrainingworldwide.com.

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