breakneckroad.com

Watch this, and join the movement. Its incredibly brilliant and contains some ideas that I will be borrowing from…

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and the importance of keeping many irons in the fire.

Deals. Making deals of any sort takes time or reputation. Unfortunately, when you are cracking into a new arena, or tracking down a job fresh out of college, or anything along those lines you don’t have either. So, the solution is keep as many options open as possible in order to ensure success. Its a contact sport.

So, I find myself in the circumstance of having advanced the ball as far as I possibly can and now I must exercise patience. Further, to alleviate risk, I need to add more irons to the fire. So, its to the phones. Dial for dollar time.

Now, there is no question that people are nervous at first when it comes to making calls to random strangers and asking for time and business. When I was a financial hooligan at Morgan Stanley, I used to make at times 300 plus calls a day and as a result my calendars were always full. That came with a LOT of rejection, figure half of those calls ended with no result, meaning maybe the desired person wasn’t in the office, was in a meeting, blah blah. Then factor that I was successful on about 20 of those calls and there you find the number 130. So, 130 times a day I would basically be told no. Actually I was told no on all 300 of those calls if you really look closely. That sucks but, its great. Twenty new opportunities for something good to happen.

Its not easy getting the right person on the phone nowadays. You have to be skillful to get that person on the other end of the line. First, call before or after the secretary gets in, this is the oldest idea in the book but, it works as a first resort. Of course hit * to get yourself to the directory and dial the name, and you are directly dialed to the extension you need.

If that doesn’t work, then you just have to call at all times. I put numbers in my cell phone and make calls at random times throughout the day. Just call, and call, and call, and call until they pick up. If they don’t answer just call again. Don’t leave messages. This is the kiss of death. See once you leave a message you can’t call back and actually get them on the phone, instead you have to wait till they call you and now you have taken the ball out of your court and firmly placed it inside of theirs…a friend of mine once told me and I have often repeated. “If I made my business on call backs I wouldn’t be in business today”. Lot of truth in that.

Now, I am not saying that these people do not want to business and they are avoiding you and that’s why they aren’t picking up and calling your sorry ass back. They are BUSY. They are doing the things that are exactly why you are calling them in the first place. So, you need to pay homage and call till the time is finally right. When it is you need to blow them away. Don’t rattle off your pitch, kick it to them. Your style, or the way in which you deliver your information will win the day. Be strong. They respect strength, it too is what got them to where they are today.

Let me share with you what I mean by tough…once I was sitting with a very wealthy man. He had built his business from the ground up and was now wealthy to the point that he could do pretty much anything he wanted at any moment in his life. He could wake up tomorrow and decide to ski in Switzerland and he could and take his own private jet to do it. You get it. As we are in the midst of our meeting he turns to me and says “son, I am twice your age, what do you think you can really tell me that I haven’t seen before you were born?” How would you respond?

I told him “sir, with all due respect, take out your wallet.” He looked at me puzzled but, obliged. Stick up kid I am, then told him to open it and show me where there was a picture of me that would give him the right to call me son. And then, I went into what I knew was best for his situation and took him down. My gut and determination impressed him to where he was willing to give me a shot to earn.

Don’t get me wrong this can go either way and you need to be prepared for the fallout. There a definitely some that don’t react well to strength, instead they want their asses kissed. This was not my type of client. Here is a great example. There is a certain movie director who is known for his activism and films addressing issues affecting Black people. I was at the time working for a Black owned investment bank and selling an initial public offering in a highly successful Black owned media conglomerate. If you know anything about IPO’s, strong ones at that, often debut at much higher prices then they are offered, giving you incredible one day returns on your investment. So, I got said movie director in meeting and gave him the rundown. He said no. I went back at him again, and again he said no. A third time, same result. I could tell he wasn’t going for any of my traditional methods of knowing what was best for his situation and the likelihood of high success with the offering. I told him that his reputation makes this investment a no brainer. He looked at me puzzled. I said “I work for a successful Black owned investment bank, and am bringing you the IPO of what is a widely oversubscribed offering, and should result in tremendous one day gains, that too is Black owned. Sir, with all due respect you should put your money where your mouth is.” I was shown the door.

The commonality of both experiences is that I truly believed I knew more about my business than the person across the table and knew that I could deliver on what I was saying. That kind of confidence will not be denied long term. Short term, you will face challenges but, those challenges will be overcome with numbers. The more you go out the more you will succeed. Every call you make could change your life. Every call you make can get you in the door to something phenomenal. Pick up the phone.

How to make it in America. Here we go.

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I’m fresh back on the east coast after a 40 day winter whip around the United States as part of the Under Armour 3rd Rail Jam. There is no better way to spend the colder months of the year bouncing from spot to spot, meeting new people, seeing familiar faces in different places, and soaking in all the accents, architecture, and attitudes around the USA. Getting a chance to step on stage and kick some raps too? Say word. That brings me to the title of the post, lately quite a few rappers and bands have been hitting me up about how they can get out on tour. Well, here is the way that I got on a national tour from zero in 12 months:

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