September 11, 2025 ⢠49 mins
On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, sits down with Michael Barclay II, Chief Events and Experience Officer at Sundial Media, to break down the massive machine behind Essence Fest, AfroPunk, and BeautyCon. Barclay shares how Essence Fest became more than concerts, growing into a conference, marketplace, and cultural touchstone driving over $350 million in economic impact for New Orleans. He also opens up about his journey from Def Jam college rep to leading some of the biggest cultural festivals in the world. Listeners will learn the truth about what it costs to stage massive events, how brands and partners really work behind the scenes, and why patience and community-building are non-negotiable for long-term success.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think people will be surprised at how much of
an investment it takes to create this experience.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's not a money grab.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
There's a lot cheaper ways to make money than to
throw a festival. Festivals and large scale events are expensive.
They are a cash up front business. To quote Jay Carter,
if you're getting into this game to do events and
large scale events and cultural events, be prepared to lose
money for at least five years.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Everybody, Welcome to another episode of but I'm the host.
Brandon Butler founda CEO of butter atl and today got
somebody special in the building. Man, mister Michael barklayed the second. Man,
how you doing, Bro?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm doing good, Brandon, Man, I appreciate you having me
on here.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Don't either say a second or can I just say, Mike,
you want how you want me to say it?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So, so my son is the third okay, and he
just got into the industry. So after he graduated, well
when he was getting his senior year in college, like, look, bro,
you got to start using your suffet. I gotta start
use your mind because I'm getting your LinkedIn messages, you
get in mine, and.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So we we do that now. But you can just
call me Barklay Manlay.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Okay, Barkley, Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Man. Look, man, I appreciate you pulling up. We're gonna
have an amazing conversation. You know, for those of y'all
don't know Man Barclay here. He is the chief Events
and experienced Officer at Sundown Media, so you oversee stuff
like Essence Fest, Afro Punk, Beauty Con, a bunch of
other events. We got an amazing conversation. But first, bro, yes, sir,
I did something. I did something I do for all
(01:33):
my guests.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
What I do is I go on chat cheapt and
I asked chat ChiPT to write a bio about my guest.
So I asked chat chept who you were, and I'm
about to read.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
You what it said.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Me and chattare locked in chat. Probably good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
All right, So man, this is what this is what
chat says about you. Mister Michael Barbi played the second
is the Chief Events and experienced Officer at Sundown Media Group,
where he leaves a strategy behind some of the biggest
culture shaping festivals in the world, including Essence Fest, Afro
Tech and Beauty Con. Under his leadership. Essence Fest celebrated
his thirtieth anniversary with the record breaking attendance cebmenting its
(02:08):
place as the largest black culture festival in the country.
A biz Bass industry innovator and award winging Marketer, Michael
also has earned CON's Lion A cok con Line Award
and Cleo Sports Honors for his work. Beyond Sundal, he's
the founder of Left Lane Marketing, where he continues to
push the boundaries of experiential storytelling and cultural impact. Dang man, Yeah, yeah,
you're you and chat locked in.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Man, Chat locked in. You know that that that premium
chat uh.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Subscription of Look, I to tell people you gotta pay it.
You got to pay the twenty dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You gotta pay the twenty twenty dollars as well. Worth
it bru And yeah, that's crazy. He went back to
left Lane.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, that's that's nuts. That's something I started in two
thousand and four.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh wow, yeah, here Atlanta. Actually, okay, all right, man,
we look.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
We don't get into it, man, let's get into this thing.
So look, man, you've been at Sundow Media and Technology
Group for a couple of years now, how did you
get into the involved in this role.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So actually, so I've been doing experiential twenty plus years
and just happened to meet Richliu Dennis, who is the chairman.
Happened to meet him while I was leaving one job
and going into another, literally the first day of my
new job. But it was during the Final four down
New Orleans, and it was actually after the finals game
(03:21):
on Monday. I was working remotely my first my new
job that I was going to met him at Coca
Cola hospitality suite. We didn't know each other, but as
we were leaving, he well, as he was leaving, he
asked me, he said, you know who are you because
we haven't met and so mutual friend of ours became
my hype man.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
He was like, you're Rich. It's my boy Barclay.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Barclay did all this power Aide stuff because i'd actually
just didn't run a commercial for power Aide that dropped
during the Final Four at my previous job that I
had left.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That I was about to start the new job. And
so we're in this Coke hospitality suite. I kid you not.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The ad that I ran or created was running in
the background on the extreme and so, but he's like.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Rich, he just left there to go do some other
dope stuff. Be telling them what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I said, well, you know, I just started SVP at
I won't name the experiential agency because they're probably not
happy with me because I ain't stay the longe like
I just started, you know, as SPP of experiential at
this uh at this this agency. You know that's what
I'm doing. And Rich looked at me and he said,
you're the guy that I need take my number down.
(04:25):
I said, yeah, but Rich, today is my first day
on my new job. He said, you're the guy that
I need take my number down, and so we exchanged numbers.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He left.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
A mutual friend was like, all right, man, I'm gonna
tell you how this is gonna go down. He's like,
Rich is gonna call me. He's like, I'm gonna tell
Rich if you legit and if he wants you, he
gotta come correct.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And I'm sitting there thinking, I hope not. Because I just.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Went through a bidding war from one agency to the next.
I just started a job that day. I didn't want
no smoke with, you know, somebody that is wealthy beyond
my understanding. I was like, how do I turn this
dude down? You know, hopefully he was just you know, talking,
and you know, I felt fortunate because I hadn't heard
from him in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But then I heard from him, and then the rest
is history. You know.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I turned him down probably three four times. He kept
coming back. It was three times, he hates when I
tell the story turned out three times.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But he tapped into what I knew to be true.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But what I was fighting, which was if I didn't
take this opportunity, I would regret it. And the reason
why I didn't want to is because again I had
just left another agency. I had only started this other job.
I'd been in for two weeks at this point. You know,
I didn't want to alienate myself in the industry that
I had been working in my whole time, which is
you know, agent marketing and advertising agencies. But it was
(05:42):
an opportunity of a lifetime, and so you know, eventually
I got my mind right and said, you know what,
let's do it, and I jumped out and that agency
that I started working at on that day that I
met him, I was out within thirty days. I was
over at Essence and I've been rolling ever since, and
I do not regret it. At at one point, like
(06:03):
it was it was a great decision and crazy inflection
point in my life and you know, just so happened.
It's crazy how there's no such thing as coincidence. And
you know I got invited to that hospitality suite felt like,
you know, just just fall through type of situation and
then you know it led to this, So yeah, that's
how I got here, That's how I got the Essen's
Ventures and now Sundown Media group.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, you know it's interesting too, like because one thing
I learned. I remember they taught us about this when
I was in grad school and they kind of sat,
at a certain point in your career, the opportunities that
you find, they're not going to be on LinkedIn or
class door and all that kind of stuff, right, And like,
I know that's the space I've been in for a while,
but it definitely sounds like and I just want people
to kind of like double clicking on what you just said, right, Like,
(06:46):
at a certain point, the opportunity is a relationship based.
Like I'm pretty sure they weren't searching for a you know,
chief experience officer and events officer on glass door or nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Like that, right, No, Yeah, I mean it was again,
I think I don't know if it was the nature
of the conversations that we had been having, because you
know how it is when you're in a space and
all the black people kind of congregate, so we all
kind of ended up in a cipher and we just
kind of talking around different things, and I think we
(07:15):
talked about some experiences and some kind of new technology
here or there, because I was again talking to one
of our mutual friends, and you know, me and Rich
never said a word to each other the whole time,
but when he was getting ready to leave, he had
had to get that introduction. So I'm not sure what,
you know, I still haven't asked him that, like what
drove him to even come over and make sure he
got introduced.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
But yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
After that, all of the things that you typically think
of for a job become the formalities of it all.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So yeah, I had to submit my resume, but I
had already got off of the job, you know. Yeah,
you know, you go through all that stuff, and you
know the fulfilling you know, filling out application or whatever
you need to do, and the.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Two jobs prior to essence with the same way. You
couldn't have You couldn't have applied to it if you
wanted to. You know, it is relationship based. You know,
it is people seeking you out because they've seen your
book of work or things like that. So it definitely
gets to a point where it is about the relationships
and networking, keeping yourself top of mind and showing that
(08:19):
you're out here doing things and people will find you
in a lot of those situations.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, man, a lot of times I hear people thrown around,
especially you know, as influencers and creators. Everybody's throwing around.
We got to do an activation, and we got to do
experiential right, Like how did you even get involved in
the space in the first place? And like what do
you remember about your first activation or event?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So I actually got into it out of necessity. When
I was in college, I used to want to really
be in the music business. That was my thing I
wanted to be. You know, back then in the late nineties,
early two thousands, A and R was like the coolest
thing you could be in music.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So I wanted to be an an R.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And I had applied for college rep program with death
Jam Jam used to have college reps on campuses all
over the country. I didn't think I would get it,
to be honest, you know, I was kid out of Fayirville,
North Carolina, had no real music industry experience, but I
was accepted into that program. I was a Deaf Jam
college rep for North Carolina A and T and we
(09:16):
got all this stuff, you know, we got posters, we
had you know, CDs, Maxi singles, all those.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Good things, you know, the Maxi singles, bro.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And but we didn't get any money, you know, it
was unpaid, and so I started to think, how do
you get paid doing this? Well, now I started throwing
around the Deaf Jam name and people are like, oh,
you want to do a party at this club?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You want to do this?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So I started doing parties and using that as a
promo platform. So I party, we giveaway posters, we give
away CDs. But then I would charge for those parties.
And so that's really how I got into events. So yeah,
that was the necessity of it. And then that just
grew because you know, as we were doing different promotions,
you know, again aging myself. I promoted Belly, you know,
(10:01):
we did the at the at the movie theaters, we're
doing the letout for the movie theaters and giving them
belly merchant and driving traffic into the theaters.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
We would break talent on campus.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So I had that listening sessions, you know, music Soul
Child broke on our campus in the in the student union,
and so setting up those things, and so it really
kind of came that way.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Mind you.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
During the day, I'm a finance major, you know, I
was in the school business. But at night I was
in the streets, you know, throwing parties. And then I
pledged in fraternity. I was you know, Kappa, and I
became the Capital Party. So it just kind of progressed
to there. And then you know, after I graduated, I
took a finance job and to be honest, hated it.
(10:45):
It was just boring to me. I didn't know I did.
I knew I was not going to like it when
I took it, but that was my option. I wasn't
going home, you know, I wouldn't going back to Fairville,
and like, you graduate and gotta get a job, go
get this money, and so I took the role. But
eventually an opportunity showed up for a marketing director for
(11:08):
a nonprofit in New York City that was part of
the New York Giants organization. And I had gotten that
recommendation from a mentor of mine who.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Worked at the NFL. And again that's an opportunity that
wasn't listed.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, he you know, his job was to manage Super
Bowl and Pro Bowl host committees. And so he disappears
during that time of year, came back, and I at
that point had decided I was quitting this job that
I was at, this program that I was in. I
was going to move to Atlanta. Actually had a whole plan.
(11:43):
I moved to Atlanta. My best friend was here. He
was a police officer, and he was living rent free
in Forest Park, actually out in Forest Park, and so
I was like, I'm gonna come crash with him and
be a financial advisor.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And now we don't have to you know, because you
got paid I think commission.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
You're like, so's I can be a financial advisor living
off commission, and since I won't have rent, it won't
be that much pressure. I had this whole plan, and
he came back from Super Bowl and he's like, Yo,
that's a great plan. However, I just met with the
owner of the New York giants. He told me about
this nonprofit organization he has and he's looking for somebody
to lead his marketing and events and he's specifically looking
(12:21):
for an African American man.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Are you interested? Thank yeah, ripped the whole plan. I
had to rip that.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Hell yeah, I'm interested, of course, and so so I applied.
He submitted a handwritten letter of recommendation for the position
for me, you know, good looking out And so I
got the call from the hiring man. Actually I got
a call from the executive director from the organization, and
she said, I just want to let you know that
(12:50):
you're the only candidate, because I was living in Kansas
City at the time. You're the only candidate who is
not here in New York. You're also the only candidate
who doesn't have any full time marketing or events experience.
I'm just sitting there like, what.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Just tell me. I ain't get it. You know, why
are you dragging this out? Uh? She said?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
But you're also there on the candidate who got a
handwritten letter of recommendation from the NFL.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So we want to interview you.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And in my interview, I was able to pull from
that work at depth. Jam so I didn't have full
time event experience, but the things that I did around campus,
the marketing, promotion and events, was enough to convince them
that I could do this job. And so that's really
how I got into full time events and so forth.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So yeah, yeah, man, No, that's that's an interesting approach
again because like I said, in a certain again, there's
just certain roles just aren't out there right now. This
all comes to relationships and knowing the right people. And
then you know, you obviously spend time in the agency
space and learned that world, and it's always interest about
agency world is like it was funny because I remember
growing up. I mean, I've spent time in agencies too.
We'ven't even worked at some of the same agencies, you know,
(13:53):
not the same time, but it's some of the same
large agencies and shops.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
It's so interesting, Like I didn't even know that world existed.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Growth No, you know, I don't think they don't talk
to us about that kind of stuff, right, And so
saw that the.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Closest thing we got to it was Boomerang.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Right exactly. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Watching the movie Boomerang, I didn't know what it was,
but you know, to see that on the screen.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
It was aspirational.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
But yeah, like once I got into it, and actually,
it's funny when you get into the agency space, especially
the multicultural and urban urban they used to call it
urban urban marketing space, you run into some of the
ogs in the in the game, and it's funny all
of them. To a man, all the people that started
those old marketing agencies that we know in the space
(14:36):
would tell me that Marcus Graham was based on them.
From Boomerang, I was like, how is he all of y'all?
Like he's every single one of y'all. But yeah, so
you don't know, you know. Again, I was business major finance,
you know, that was and I went to Ant had
a huge, you know, business department, well known, and that's
the path that I was on, you know, And that
was what I saw is you know, financial analysts, you
(14:59):
know Wash Street. I did an internship in Gold and Sacks,
you know, so all of that was what I thought,
you know, was the career opportunities. And again I did
have a passion and love music and entertainment, but didn't
know that you could do that and not do that.
So you can do music and entertainment and not work
for def Jama SONI. You know, I had a realization
(15:22):
after my first essence fest. Somebody was one of the agents,
one of the talent managers, was talking to me and
we were just chopping it up about what we wanted
to do growing up, and I said I always wanted
to work in the music business. And he looked at me,
He's like, you are. I was like, oh, I ain't
even you know, it hadn't even registered to me. I'm
sitting here after producing this, you know, concert series for
(15:45):
forty thousand people.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
He's like, you are in a music business. Like, well, damn,
I guess I did make it to the dream of
working in the music business.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
But yeah, you don't know about the different ways that
you can actually pull your passion into something that could
be a job on occupation and don't necessarily have to
be I mean, it's you know, it's the cliche of
you know, you don't have to be on the court,
and there's all these jobs, you know, in sports, it's
same with eco art and everything else. You know, so
all these different opportunities to get involved, and you know,
(16:14):
it's been I've been fortunate to be able to work
through just different passion points and figure out how to
make that work within you agency life, and then also
now at the media side.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So yeah, yeah, man, you know, I remember I bumped
into Anthony Anderson at the airport one time, and I
remember telling him because even in Blackish he was an
agency he did and I remember kind of telling him, like, man,
you were me.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I told him the same thing. I was like in
my real life youth, I'm a real life Dre that
I'm Dre.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
You know. Yeah, man, It's it's funny.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's like you don't even know this world exists, and
all of a sudden you see it, and then once
you get into it, you're like, oh, okay, I see.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
So this is how all this stuff gets.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Man, A second though, you were just talking about, you know,
your first essence Fest and obviously you're overseeing all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
What do you remember about that first essence Fest?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Just being overwhelmed, to be honest, good and bad, you know,
overwhelmed with just the magnitude of it. I don't think
you realize what it is until you're on that side.
I had experienced it, especially from the agency side, activating
on behalf of some of our clients, and so you
just you know, with that, you get a very myopic
view of it. You know, this is what we do here.
(17:33):
But when you are on the planning side and you
see just how big the thing is, you know, as
we were talking yesterday, it's not just a festival. You know,
my team gets upset sometimes like we're not really a festival.
We're much bigger than a festival.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
We are a.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Conference slash convention that hosts you know, nearly you know,
up to fifty thousand plus people a day in the
convention center.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Where a.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Film festival you know again that has multiple hundreds and
thousands of submissions of film that we have to cipher
through an award and then an extreme stream and view
on site. We have a marketplace that is over two
hundred plus entrepreneurs small businesses that we you know, manage,
(18:23):
and again, applications come in and we get thousands of
applications that we got to sort through. And then the
logistics of placing and planning and so forth. And then
you throw on top of that a concert series in
a stadium that holds you know, fifty thousand people. So logistically,
when you think about experiences and experiential some of the
(18:45):
most complex operational things we do together in one weekend.
And so to have that again I started five weeks
before my first success and so you know, that was
just overwhelming just to see it all and really trying
to wrap your head around all the things that have
(19:07):
to happen, but then overwhelming all the positiveness, Like it's
really we often say it's like a family reunion, but
it's just so much love in the city that we
can you know, that year the theme was is the
Black Joy for Me?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And it really felt that way.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
You know, it's almost you know, you're walking around the
street and you got you know, people gonna comment on
your outfit or they're gonna just you be happy to
see you, offer you some foods. New people in New
Orleans like hey, come o buy the house. We cookn't gumbo,
Like it's very much a family environment. And then on
top of that, you start to share with people that
you work with essence that you're part of bringing this
(19:43):
experience just so much love, man, and it was it
was great to see it.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I fought again, like we talked, I fought to try
to start after the first Essence fast because I felt like, again,
I'm five weeks before the first and so what can
I do here?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
But it did.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
It was it was a valuable opportunity for me to
see it. It was low pressure because again we had
a great team in place and a lot of the
things were kind of nailed and ready to go by
the time I got there. But it was you can't
learn it without experiencing it, and so that being down
there was great to just kind of start taking it
(20:23):
all in.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
So, yeah, to.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Do an event that be because again, you know, people
want to talk about events and activations and all this
kind of stuff, and just at an event at that
scale and even with your role, like, what's something that
would surprise people about what it takes to logistically pull
that off?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Oh, it's probably a lot because people think they know,
but they have no idea to think about the economies
and economics of the thing. And actually people that work
in our industry are often surprised. When I was speaking
with Ryan over the gathering spot, can.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I say that on there? Okay from the show to
give no free unless you know.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
They've been here.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Talking to Ryan when he was doing the talk right
after this year is Esta's Fest and he was trying
to guess how much talent costs and me and Jay
Carter was like, no, no more more.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
He's like for.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Real, like no, it's I think people will be surprised
at how much of an investment it takes to create
this experience.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
It's not a money grab by people. Oh you know,
you're all trying to know.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
There's a lot cheaper ways to make money than to
throw a festival. Festivals and large scale events are expensive.
They are a very much cash up front business. You
can't float your deposits for venues, you know, you can't
net whatever talent you know they need. People need money,
(21:59):
so you need money to be able to do these
and oft the time, you need money before you make money.
And I think that is probably one of the biggest
things that people don't understand and they get into this business.
And to quote Jay Carter from when we were on
that panel, if you're getting into this game to do
events and large scale events and cultural events, be prepared
(22:22):
to lose money for at least five years, because that's
really to build it up.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
It takes that. And then once you get that doesn't
mean you'ren to stay there either.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Even if you get to profitable, all types of things happen,
you know, and it could knock you off just as
quickly as you got there. So I think that people
don't know that this is a very expensive endeavor. And again,
unless you love it, unless you've got a clear understanding
of how you're going to be different than the next event,
(22:50):
or you've got some special sauce that somebody else doesn't have,
you may want to look at it another way of
making money because it's not a quick fix. It's not
gonna you're not gonna run off with the bag just
by doing an event in year one for sure.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Because like how many how many just on the artist side,
like how many artists performed at in Essence Festers.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
They have forty artists on our super Doll stage.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
So that's forty artists, that's forty riders, that's forty entourages,
that's forty man. Like, I'm just trying to help people
understand the scale of this thing.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And that's not even to mention the talent in the
convention center, right, because all of our stages in the
convention center also loaded with talent. So we probably had
another two hundred to two hundred and fifty members of
talent just in the convention center. So even the talent
operation itself is on a magnitude that people probably can't understand. Yeah,
(23:42):
like you said, you got not only do you have
their fees, but then there's hospitality, there's transportation, ground transportation,
there's movement once they get there. So there's one talent
has ten to fifteen touch points before they even get
on stage.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Like again, it's funny actually talked to j Carter, yes
that he's been on here. Like again, like we we
talk about the events of these scale, and I know
there was you know, a lot of just again obviously
there was you know, events have challenges, a lot of
stuff going on, but like just talk about what's the
economic impact of an essence fest on a city like
New Orleans, And that's why it's important that exists in
that space.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, we're still waiting on our numbers for this year,
but our numbers in twenty twenty four it's three hundred
and fifty one million dollars of economic impact over the
weekend and we were there, you know, so it's it
has a huge impact.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
This you know, we love to support the city, the city.
It supports us as well. You know, we we go
together real bad us in New Orleans and and it's
part of our advocacy emission is too because we know,
you know, that is a very a city that's very
deep with the culture.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know it is.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
It is one of our crown jewels and Black Black America.
And so to be able to support in that way
and have the support that we get from new ones
is very important to us in that relationship.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Now on the other side, man, like like I was
saying before, you got everybody all these you know, influencers
and creators they love to throw around. We got to
do an activation, We got to get a sponsor. Like
what do people normally get wrong when it takes to
not just getting partnerships, like really landing partnerships with like
large brands.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
The days of creating your experience, creating a pitch deck
with benefits packages and just having them pick one presenting.
Those days are over, especially for the bigger brands and
you know, the larger sums of money brands and partners. Well,
(25:51):
brands want to be seen as partners at least the
ones that we work with, and that's how we approach it.
Your partners, so you're included in planning, programming ideas.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
You know. Also, it's a dialogue. It's not just it's
not a one way conversation.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
It has to be a dialogue of what is it
that this property that I'm creating, What can it do
for your business? What problem can it solve you? What
community can it connect you with? And how would that
most benefit you? And what are those key performance indicators
that we can build out this program or this this
(26:27):
this package together. That's really what I mean again, I
remember those days where oh, yeah, I'm doing this party.
You know, you get your name on the step and repeat,
you get this, this, and this for ten thousand dollars.
And even then it still would always be a negotiation.
But I feel like even more so now, like you
don't even go there, like don't even know. We got
(26:49):
to talk about what it is that you're trying to accomplish.
And then let me go back to the lab. Build
you a package, put some dollars against it, just because
I know what it's going to cost me to do
what you're looking for cost plus, and then I'll come
back to you and say, all right, you said this
was the problem that you needed to solve This is
what I can do to help solve that through my
community that I'm building here. These are the deliverables that
(27:13):
you will receive and this is the dollar amount, So
it really is more of a conversation before it is
a dictated like package handed off.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
So imagine you know, you transform transplaces to another another place,
another dimension or another another parallel universe, and you're starting
off the Barclay group. But you know everything you know
now about experiencial events. If you were putting an event together,
(27:43):
how would you approach a brand to try to get
them involved?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
First?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Before I would even approach them, I would make sure
that I have a community already. And that's one of
the things you can do with I'll spend the money.
You can start to build your community people that are
interested in what you're doing, so you can show I
got all these people behind me that are dying for this.
Because a year one ha been is very difficult to
(28:07):
get support, and that's been the case since I've been
in experiential. Nobody wants to be the test dummy. Nobody
wants to see you test and learn on their dollar.
But if you can show that you already have a
built in community that's going to buy whatever you put
out there that helps mitigate that risk. So I would
(28:30):
definitely start there. Secondly, I would create something as small
as possible to be the most impactful as possible. To
start small, don't go big. And I've seen it. I've
seen people crash and burn. They come out with three stages,
and I'm like, bro.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
You ain't felt one stage.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
How you gonna go How you gonna build something with
three stages and you ain't sold out a stage? First off?
And so community first, making sure you go MVP. You know,
the minimum product, Yeah, the smallest, most effective thing that
you can do that can deliver upon what your objectives are.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And then you go there.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I would take that and then go there and then
again co create from that point, because again, if you
keep it small, you give room an opportunity for growth
through partnership. So you got your core thing, you go
talk to X, Y and Z Corporation and like, oh,
that's dope, but we're working on something that's like this,
could you fit that within your objectives and your pillars?
(29:33):
And if you can, now you've actually grown your experience
without the burden of you having to fully be the
one to grow it. As long as it aligns with
what you plan on doing, then it works out.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
So yeah, I mean I've run a very similar play
and you. So, for example, I do an event called
Creators of Color, right, Like, I felt like Atlanta kind
of needed its own kind of creative you know, conference
in the sense or like just kind of creative thing, right.
And so the first year I started doing, which was
last year, I was going back and forth and I
started to like make a deck and all this stuff,
and I was like, you know what, like to your point,
(30:06):
I said, Man, I don't have time for this. I'm
just gonna do this thing. So I literally paid for
my own pocket. I rented out the gathering spot. You know,
I have a pretty large platform with butter atl got
a huge email list, a large following on social you know.
I called up some friends, had them come out they
were going to be involved in it. Literally sent a
couple of emails. Thousand people showed up.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
To the gathering spot.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
It was packed out. I made sure that we had
photos and videos from that event. I packaged those up,
kind of talked to some folks. Then all of a sudden,
I had a conversation with State Farm Arena, and they
were like, yeah, we saw what you did, would you
be interested in doing it here? Because like I tell people, like,
when you've done it, you already now you have the leverage.
Now I'm not sitting here going to them saying, well,
(30:46):
this what it might be like and they can envision
themselves kind of seeing it to your point of align
with one of their pillars and what they were trying
to do next year, which was this year. Back in April,
I literally rented out State Farm Arena and brought four
thousand people to State for And so that's how I've
been kind of building this thing step by step and
I have not had a sponsor come on yet. Now
the funny part what I did was after I did
(31:08):
it this year, I went on LinkedIn strategically and I
had all these I had a photographer come out to
an amazing photography, had videography, all that stuff. We were
literally on the court. Like I told them, I said,
I'll only do it if you let me go on
the court and do it. So I'm literally sitting at
center court. I got the mayor and all this stuff,
and so I posted like all the photos on LinkedIn
like the next day and I was like, man, we
just need created as a color two this year was
(31:29):
at State Farm Arena, like this amazing. I said, still
no partners, those sponsors, but you know it, go keep
on going. Let me tell you we're about thirty minutes later.
YouTube split In my emails like hey, you would have
a conversation, but I tell people it's like you have
to kind of put it out there first, especially because
we kind of talked about this, right, Like people, I
think forget that at these brands. People work at these brands,
(31:52):
and these people they got mortgages, they got bills, they
got kids, they got car notes, and so they're trying
to protect their jobs too, right, So you got to
help set them up to be successful, right for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Two things. One, you actually gave me a trick question.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
You said, if I was starting to take today, how
would I go to a partner? And you actually, if
I wasn't going to a partner, I would I would
build it on my own first. So that would be
one of the things Like if that wasn't part of
the question, I would have said, what you did, build
it on your own first before you go to partner,
because you have that proof point to showcase. And when
(32:27):
you talk about people on a partnership level and the
brand level, you're right. So they have all those things careers,
they got to protect, they got goals and objectives, they
got to reach within the building, but they also have
personal interest and so a lot of times where you
actually get the end roads is if you build something
that connects with somebody that's already inside, even if it's
(32:47):
just it could be as surface level as I just
want to be there. You know, that was a dope
event over at the gathering spot I didn't get in
on if you know, I represented X y Z brand.
Now I'm not only in there, but I'm sponsoring I'm
going to be there.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I've had clients in the past that just wanted to
be next to one of the talent that we hire.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah, you know, they're a fan of so and so.
But then it can also be deeper.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
It's just again they have a personal connection to what
you're building and they see that how it aligns with
what they're trying to do within their company. So it
really is a people business when it comes to that
as well, because again that's why the conversations are important
as opposed to just.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Trying to push down their throat what you want to do.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
How do you address the issue of money when it
comes up, because you can't do all this stuff without money,
And a lot of times I think creatives kind of
find themselves or just people trying to do if it's
find themselves. In this kind of like chicken or egg situation,
it's like, you know, I want to work with you,
what's your budget?
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Well, how much does it cost to go back that
whole two step two step? Right?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Gosh, Like, how do you kind of handle that situation?
Or what advice would you even give to somebody that's
like kind of handle little situations.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
It depends on what side you are on of that
two step, but I think from the hiring side, just.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Be clear on what your budget is out front.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
You know, if you know you only got X amount
of dollars and you might not have to give them
the whole thing because of course, you know, if I
got two hundred thousand dollars til you got one hundred
and fifty dollars dollars, because you're gonna come back to
me with a two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars idea,
figure it out. So I think, you know, from that side,
it's fine. Like people, I think some folks feel like, oh,
if I tell them I got one hundred and fifty
(34:40):
thousand dollars, they gonna give me one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. They're gonna spend all my money. They might
they might, you know, or they might give you what
it costs to do what you're asking for, But ultimately
it cuts down on the two step because that takes time.
That's the time suck to be like, well, you know
(35:02):
what's your budget. I don't know how much it's gonna
cost me to do it, and that back and forth.
Just just tell them what you got, you know, you
hold some back and do that. And then on the
other side, I don't like even looking to create without
at least having parameters, right like, if you can't give
me I got two hundred thousand dollars, well what's the range? Yeah,
(35:26):
give me something, because the worst thing that ever happens
is you go, you create this amazing idea, you come
and pitch it to somebody, They love it, they buy
in on it, and then they tell you their budget
like it's a half a million dollar idea and they
tell you they got one hundred thousand dollars. You can't
put the genie back in the bottle. So once they
(35:47):
decide that they liked that idea, nothing because now you're
in a buying because now you've got to try to
figure out how you're gonna get as close to this
half million dollar idea for a fraction of the money
twenty percent of the budget, because they won't accept a
hundred thousand dollars version of that five hundred thousand dollars idea.
They've already seen that and fallen in love with that,
(36:09):
so you really try to You got to try to
get something out of them, so you at least are
building within the ballpark and not get setting yourself up
for something where they're just not going to be satisfied.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
One of the one of the things I tell brands
when I talk to them is creatives need parameters.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah, for sure, like.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Always, because the worst thing you can do is say,
you know, just go be creative, like there's no restraints.
I say, no, actually, there needs to be constraints, because
you know, my version of creativity could be drawing a
stick figure on a piece of paper and saying here
you go, right, And so you know, the example I
always kind of give is think about it like basketball. Right,
Like basketball has rules, there are rules of the game.
(36:49):
The beauty of the sport is how creative can you
be inside of those rules? And I look at it
the same way when it comes to you know, creativity
and brands and sponsorships, right like I need to your
point the parameters, and what I'm going to think about
is what can I come back with It's going to
give you the most value within those constraints. But what
I can't do, especially when you run I mean because
(37:11):
I run a small business. You know what I'm saying,
Like butter is a small team. We do a lot
of good stuff as a small team. But having come
from the agency side, right Like on people don't notice,
but on agent side, we have a.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Thing called new business and that's an investment.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
So because again to pursue a piece of work, it
takes people. Agencies sell time and so they might invest
make it up fifty one hundred thousand dollars in especially
we start getting you know, certain people's titles on the business.
Right in pursuing a piece of work, for me as
a small company, I can't spend all day making estimates
and depths because I'm not making that money, right, And
(37:46):
so that's why I really try to have those conversations
with those brands. And that's why it's so amazing when
you can find people that are really good partners and
kind of understand that. And like I said, the ones
that I have the most successful with are the ones say, look, Brandon,
you know this we're trying to do. Here's our budget.
And like I tell folks like making up, you tell
me your budget is fifty thousand dollars, Like, I'm not
going to come back you and be like, Okay, here's
(38:07):
forty nine, no nine, you know what I mean. I'm
gonna come back you with what I think can be
the right fit for that correct and you know, And
that's what people have to kind of understand.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
And oftentimes having those parameters drives more creativity.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
If I know I have to do something dope and
I don't have, you know, half a million dollars to
do it, now, I got to really think about how
we do that and make it make it worth, you
know what, we're trying to make it worth without having
all the dollars behind it. And you know another thing
that I will say, when you said new business, I
thought about a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
One, I've been on that new business.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Flash back a line.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I was like a new business team, how much we're
gonna invest, you know, and how much we're going to
send a thank you gift after this over and there's
a whole thing. But then the other thing, especially for
small businesses and people that are looking to like jump
into different industries, be careful of how much of a
(39:04):
discount you offer to get that business. Yeah, because if
you think after your year one of doing this thing
that they loved that you gave a steep discount for,
you're gonna be able to recoup a year two sadly mistaken.
What you set as the president is what they look for.
That's the anker for, that's the anchor. So you can
(39:26):
only wiggle maybe twenty percent, especially if you delivering the
same you know, type of impact. So yeah, I've seen that.
I've actually seen it on multiple levels. I've seen it
in the agency space where you know, we give them
three million dollars worth of work for a million dollars
and then you know, as the as the account lead
(39:46):
I'm setting in for the year two negotiations like all right,
we got to you gotta get us back.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Up to at least close to where we are. And
now I have a client like, no, that's not happening.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
No, you already did all the work.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
You did it, and you did you set the precedent
of how much it costs to do these things. I
want the same level of production, but again, no more
than a twenty percent increase year over year if that.
And so yeah, be careful because you'll get yourself locked in. Especially,
be careful if it's a steep discount is actually costing
you money, because then now your business is running in
(40:16):
an opposite direction. Yeah, and so yeah, I would definitely say,
you know, be careful with the discounts you offer. Make
sure it makes sense, make sure you're willing to live
within that range with that particular client, and you know,
don't offer it to everybody. You know, get you one
or two in there, and then from there you've got
(40:37):
your solid foundation and you don't have to try to
offer discounts.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
One of the best things I learned I spent some
time at an agency. I won't say which one, but like,
one of the best things I learned there was the
idea of margin and how to actually built that in right,
And so again like all this stuff at a certain
point is a math equation, right, Like you're talking about
you know, people and effort time. You put a value
on that time time. But then what I think a
(41:01):
lot of people miss is is like, Okay, adding what
margin do you want to make off of this business?
Speaker 4 (41:06):
And then adding that on top of it.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
There's this other book that I read, it's called Profit
First that I actually started implementing that a couple of
years ago, and that's really helped out because now it's like, Okay,
if we do this work, we got to ask ourselves
like we're not going to do the work, and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Then whatever's left.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
I literally was talking to somebody the other day and
I was like, look, bro, like I can't you know,
I'm just getting to make it up numbers Like I can't.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
You can't tell me you know this work is you know,
you'd have got ten grand, but you want me to
do eighty five hundred worth of work?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Right?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
You know what I mean? Because at the end of
the day, I'm my company's walking away with fifteen hundred
bucks and that's not going to help us do anything right.
And so what I've even started doing this has been
really helpful to our business. And again I've learned this
in agencies, like really building that margin in and asking myself, okay,
like at the end of the day, what do we
actually want to make off of this, and like making
sure that profit margins protected because that's what's allowed, that's
(41:54):
what allows you to grow. The worst thing you can
do is, especially as a small business, is just do
things that catst or even worse. If you do that
at cost, you're probably losing.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Money, right, You're losing money if you're doing that cost
off rip, you know, because it costs you just to
go get whatever you was getting. It's costing your overhead,
Like you're not even including all of that usually in
your cost is you know your your cell phone bills
in there somewhere. Yeah, No, you're right, And you said
something that just made me think too. Chat GBT pulled
(42:25):
out left Lane and that shout out to Chat. But
what it didn't say about left Lane and how it
was a catastrophic failure. When I first started, I moved
to Atlanta, started a business, started an agency, had never
worked at an agency, started an agency failed. I didn't
even know how to price out the work that I
(42:45):
was doing my time. So don't be afraid also to
get paid to learn.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Say it again, please, because Atlanta is such a I
always say it's such a hustle based city that what
I've noticed is a lot of entrepreneur people. They think
there's value in completely avoiding that corporate angle.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
And I always tell people work teaches you how to work.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
And I see it a lot when I work with
people that have never had a real corporate job. They
can't run a meeting, they can't do an estimate. It's
like work teacher, It's okay to learn how to work.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I get paid your paige to learn.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
When Left Lane failed, so I started in two thousand
and four. By by the end of two thousand, by
mid two thousand and five, I was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Don't know, it's not working out.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
So when I ended up leaving, leaving Atlanta going back
to Brooklyn around two thousand and six, and that's when
I said to myself, I was like, I need to
work at an agency because I don't know how to
run an agency, and so I ended up getting an
agency job. I was working new business, and new business
was a great place to work because I had to
do all the budgets. So I had Now I got
(43:54):
a budget template. I know how much things cost. I
know how to cost plus you know, like you said,
you know margin as a margin in there. You know,
there's this table is one hundred dollars, We're gonna charge
one hundred and twenty dollars for it. I learned how
to calculate time value of people by position, fees, all
(44:14):
of that. So now I'm like, ah, so this is
I saw all the things that I had done wrong. Right,
you know, I'm people paying me with chicken plates in Atlanta,
and so now I know how to price out the work. Also,
I got the relationships when I was at the agency.
So that's when I started working with the big brands
(44:34):
because I was again got the backing of this agency.
That's putting me in front of these brands, especially in
doing new business. So I'm running around the country pitching ideas,
responding to RFP. I didn't even know what an RFP
was in two thousand and four were left Lane, So
just learning the industry, especially if it's something that you
want to do entrepreneurially.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
There's nothing wrong with going and learning because.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I learned so much in that time at that first
agency that I went to, and then I relaunched Left.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Lane basically and killed it.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, absolutely murdered for five years, did amazing work with
all types of brands all over the country. Built my resume,
built my experience, built my name. And it was because
I learned by going in house to an agency to
how to run an agency.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
No man, look, yeah, you got to do it. And
there's nothing wrong with getting paid to learn.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
And I always say this too, it's a lot of
y'all is stressed out becau y'all shouldn't be running businesses
in the first place.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
And it's okay. Everybody's not built to be an entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
It's everybody's not built, and it's okay.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
A lot of y'all are stressed out because y'all are
trying to be number one on your own thing. You
should probably be number ten, twenty or fifty in something else.
And there's nothing wrong with nothing, nothing at all. You know,
wait till you wait till you get that payroll bill.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
Like trust me.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
It's nothing wrong with with do it on somebody else's time, man, Barklay. Look,
this has been a great conversation man, before we got
out of here. Just you know, for the next group
of you know, young creatives and entrepreneurs and people they
really want to get into this space, what's the piece
of advice that you would kind of give them if
they want to get into space and like actually start
doing events, whether they're a huge as Essence fest or
if they're doing something local, Like, what would you tell them.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
We'll definitely kind of piggybacking off what I said before.
Start small, build your community, and then the basic stuff
that I always tell anybody that works with me, You
got to have these things down.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Number One, be on time. And that's not.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Just the literal beyond time, it's also the broad spectrum.
So make sure your production schedules on time, make sure
your payments are on time, make sure your influx of
cash is on time, and also show up on time
to set because events are as stressful enough as it is,
(46:49):
and so adding time pressure to it it just makes
it worse. In general things Again, this is if you're
doing this, if you're in speriential. I'm talking to you
right now. Number two, if you're traveling for an experience,
stay as close to the venue as possible, and if
you can stay in the same venue, do that because
(47:11):
you get that two am call if something fail down
and ain't working and you can just go downstairs and
fix it.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
It's worth it. Even if you've got to pay more.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
If your hotels is going to be more expensive to
be close to wherever you're activating, make sure you do
that and know your numbers because it's all you know.
As we say often within the walls of SMG, you
know the revolution must be financed. So none of this
is for free unless you're operating a nonprofit. But you
(47:42):
got to know your numbers, especially if you're going to
go asking for money from a sponsor, partner, investor. You
got to know your numbers top line, bottom line, you know,
figure out what it means if you don't know, and
be able to talk that because that's how you're going
to one control and manage your business and operations, attract
new opportunities, whether it be from a brand or a
(48:02):
sponsor or an investor. And three for a successful business,
you know you gotta you gotta know those numbers.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Yeah, absolutely, man, Look Barclay Man, we appreciate you pulling up.
Congratulations on all the amazing work y'all be doing it
at Essence Fest and Afro Punk and all the big stuff. Man,
I told you, I've never personally been. I've seen Girls' Trip,
I've helped my friends have talked about it. When I'll go,
I'm going with you. I want to see it from
your perspective, you know what I'm saying. I want to
see what it's like.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Man.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
But Yo, y'all have created something amazing. It is a
cultural staple and the most important thing is that these
things need to exist, especially in our community.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
It does.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
It has so much economic impact. You know everything, nothing
is perfect, but at the end of the day, it's
important that it exists. And you know, we can't wait
to see it continue to be successful. Man, So congratulations
on everything. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
I appreciate that. And yeah, I got you man, come
down next year twenty twenty six. We out there, man, Yes, sir? Well, yeah,
with that being said, man, that's the pod jab out peace.
You've been listening to button Nomics and om your hosts,
Brandon Butler, got comments, feedback?
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Want to be on the show.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Send us an email today at Hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Ksey Pegram, with marketing support from Queen and Nikki.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Music provided by mister Hanky.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never
missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on
all our social platforms at butter dot atl Listen to
button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
I think people will be surprised at how much of
an investment it takes to create this experience.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's not a money grab.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
There's a lot cheaper ways to make money than to
throw a festival. Festivals and large scale events are expensive.
They are a cash up front business. To quote Jay Carter,
if you're getting into this game to do events and
large scale events and cultural events, be prepared to lose
money for at least five years.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Everybody, Welcome to another episode of but I'm the host.
Brandon Butler founda CEO of butter atl and today got
somebody special in the building. Man, mister Michael barklayed the second. Man,
how you doing, Bro?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm doing good, Brandon, Man, I appreciate you having me
on here.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Don't either say a second or can I just say, Mike,
you want how you want me to say it?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So, so my son is the third okay, and he
just got into the industry. So after he graduated, well
when he was getting his senior year in college, like, look, bro,
you got to start using your suffet. I gotta start
use your mind because I'm getting your LinkedIn messages, you
get in mine, and.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So we we do that now. But you can just
call me Barklay Manlay.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Okay, Barkley, Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Man. Look, man, I appreciate you pulling up. We're gonna
have an amazing conversation. You know, for those of y'all
don't know Man Barclay here. He is the chief Events
and experienced Officer at Sundown Media, so you oversee stuff
like Essence Fest, Afro Punk, Beauty Con, a bunch of
other events. We got an amazing conversation. But first, bro, yes, sir,
I did something. I did something I do for all
(01:33):
my guests.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
What I do is I go on chat cheapt and
I asked chat ChiPT to write a bio about my guest.
So I asked chat chept who you were, and I'm
about to read.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
You what it said.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Me and chattare locked in chat. Probably good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
All right, So man, this is what this is what
chat says about you. Mister Michael Barbi played the second
is the Chief Events and experienced Officer at Sundown Media Group,
where he leaves a strategy behind some of the biggest
culture shaping festivals in the world, including Essence Fest, Afro
Tech and Beauty Con. Under his leadership. Essence Fest celebrated
his thirtieth anniversary with the record breaking attendance cebmenting its
(02:08):
place as the largest black culture festival in the country.
A biz Bass industry innovator and award winging Marketer, Michael
also has earned CON's Lion A cok con Line Award
and Cleo Sports Honors for his work. Beyond Sundal, he's
the founder of Left Lane Marketing, where he continues to
push the boundaries of experiential storytelling and cultural impact. Dang man, Yeah, yeah,
you're you and chat locked in.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Man, Chat locked in. You know that that that premium
chat uh.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Subscription of Look, I to tell people you gotta pay it.
You got to pay the twenty dollars.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You gotta pay the twenty twenty dollars as well. Worth
it bru And yeah, that's crazy. He went back to
left Lane.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, that's that's nuts. That's something I started in two
thousand and four.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh wow, yeah, here Atlanta. Actually, okay, all right, man,
we look.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
We don't get into it, man, let's get into this thing.
So look, man, you've been at Sundow Media and Technology
Group for a couple of years now, how did you
get into the involved in this role.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So actually, so I've been doing experiential twenty plus years
and just happened to meet Richliu Dennis, who is the chairman.
Happened to meet him while I was leaving one job
and going into another, literally the first day of my
new job. But it was during the Final four down
New Orleans, and it was actually after the finals game
(03:21):
on Monday. I was working remotely my first my new
job that I was going to met him at Coca
Cola hospitality suite. We didn't know each other, but as
we were leaving, he well, as he was leaving, he
asked me, he said, you know who are you because
we haven't met and so mutual friend of ours became
my hype man.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
He was like, you're Rich. It's my boy Barclay.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Barclay did all this power Aide stuff because i'd actually
just didn't run a commercial for power Aide that dropped
during the Final Four at my previous job that I
had left.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That I was about to start the new job. And
so we're in this Coke hospitality suite. I kid you not.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The ad that I ran or created was running in
the background on the extreme and so, but he's like.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Rich, he just left there to go do some other
dope stuff. Be telling them what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I said, well, you know, I just started SVP at
I won't name the experiential agency because they're probably not
happy with me because I ain't stay the longe like
I just started, you know, as SPP of experiential at
this uh at this this agency. You know that's what
I'm doing. And Rich looked at me and he said,
you're the guy that I need take my number down.
(04:25):
I said, yeah, but Rich, today is my first day
on my new job. He said, you're the guy that
I need take my number down, and so we exchanged numbers.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He left.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
A mutual friend was like, all right, man, I'm gonna
tell you how this is gonna go down. He's like,
Rich is gonna call me. He's like, I'm gonna tell
Rich if you legit and if he wants you, he
gotta come correct.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And I'm sitting there thinking, I hope not. Because I just.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Went through a bidding war from one agency to the next.
I just started a job that day. I didn't want
no smoke with, you know, somebody that is wealthy beyond
my understanding. I was like, how do I turn this
dude down? You know, hopefully he was just you know, talking,
and you know, I felt fortunate because I hadn't heard
from him in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But then I heard from him, and then the rest
is history. You know.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I turned him down probably three four times. He kept
coming back. It was three times, he hates when I
tell the story turned out three times.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But he tapped into what I knew to be true.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But what I was fighting, which was if I didn't
take this opportunity, I would regret it. And the reason
why I didn't want to is because again I had
just left another agency. I had only started this other job.
I'd been in for two weeks at this point. You know,
I didn't want to alienate myself in the industry that
I had been working in my whole time, which is
you know, agent marketing and advertising agencies. But it was
(05:42):
an opportunity of a lifetime, and so you know, eventually
I got my mind right and said, you know what,
let's do it, and I jumped out and that agency
that I started working at on that day that I
met him, I was out within thirty days. I was
over at Essence and I've been rolling ever since, and
I do not regret it. At at one point, like
(06:03):
it was it was a great decision and crazy inflection
point in my life and you know, just so happened.
It's crazy how there's no such thing as coincidence. And
you know I got invited to that hospitality suite felt like,
you know, just just fall through type of situation and
then you know it led to this, So yeah, that's
how I got here, That's how I got the Essen's
Ventures and now Sundown Media group.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, you know it's interesting too, like because one thing
I learned. I remember they taught us about this when
I was in grad school and they kind of sat,
at a certain point in your career, the opportunities that
you find, they're not going to be on LinkedIn or
class door and all that kind of stuff, right, And like,
I know that's the space I've been in for a while,
but it definitely sounds like and I just want people
to kind of like double clicking on what you just said, right, Like,
(06:46):
at a certain point, the opportunity is a relationship based.
Like I'm pretty sure they weren't searching for a you know,
chief experience officer and events officer on glass door or nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Like that, right, No, Yeah, I mean it was again,
I think I don't know if it was the nature
of the conversations that we had been having, because you
know how it is when you're in a space and
all the black people kind of congregate, so we all
kind of ended up in a cipher and we just
kind of talking around different things, and I think we
(07:15):
talked about some experiences and some kind of new technology
here or there, because I was again talking to one
of our mutual friends, and you know, me and Rich
never said a word to each other the whole time,
but when he was getting ready to leave, he had
had to get that introduction. So I'm not sure what,
you know, I still haven't asked him that, like what
drove him to even come over and make sure he
got introduced.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
But yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
After that, all of the things that you typically think
of for a job become the formalities of it all.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So yeah, I had to submit my resume, but I
had already got off of the job, you know. Yeah,
you know, you go through all that stuff, and you
know the fulfilling you know, filling out application or whatever
you need to do, and the.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Two jobs prior to essence with the same way. You
couldn't have You couldn't have applied to it if you
wanted to. You know, it is relationship based. You know,
it is people seeking you out because they've seen your
book of work or things like that. So it definitely
gets to a point where it is about the relationships
and networking, keeping yourself top of mind and showing that
(08:19):
you're out here doing things and people will find you
in a lot of those situations.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, man, a lot of times I hear people thrown around,
especially you know, as influencers and creators. Everybody's throwing around.
We got to do an activation, and we got to do
experiential right, Like how did you even get involved in
the space in the first place? And like what do
you remember about your first activation or event?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So I actually got into it out of necessity. When
I was in college, I used to want to really
be in the music business. That was my thing I
wanted to be. You know, back then in the late nineties,
early two thousands, A and R was like the coolest
thing you could be in music.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So I wanted to be an an R.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And I had applied for college rep program with death
Jam Jam used to have college reps on campuses all
over the country. I didn't think I would get it,
to be honest, you know, I was kid out of Fayirville,
North Carolina, had no real music industry experience, but I
was accepted into that program. I was a Deaf Jam
college rep for North Carolina A and T and we
(09:16):
got all this stuff, you know, we got posters, we
had you know, CDs, Maxi singles, all those.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Good things, you know, the Maxi singles, bro.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And but we didn't get any money, you know, it
was unpaid, and so I started to think, how do
you get paid doing this? Well, now I started throwing
around the Deaf Jam name and people are like, oh,
you want to do a party at this club?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You want to do this?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So I started doing parties and using that as a
promo platform. So I party, we giveaway posters, we give
away CDs. But then I would charge for those parties.
And so that's really how I got into events. So yeah,
that was the necessity of it. And then that just
grew because you know, as we were doing different promotions,
you know, again aging myself. I promoted Belly, you know,
(10:01):
we did the at the at the movie theaters, we're
doing the letout for the movie theaters and giving them
belly merchant and driving traffic into the theaters.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
We would break talent on campus.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So I had that listening sessions, you know, music Soul
Child broke on our campus in the in the student union,
and so setting up those things, and so it really
kind of came that way.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Mind you.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
During the day, I'm a finance major, you know, I
was in the school business. But at night I was
in the streets, you know, throwing parties. And then I
pledged in fraternity. I was you know, Kappa, and I
became the Capital Party. So it just kind of progressed
to there. And then you know, after I graduated, I
took a finance job and to be honest, hated it.
(10:45):
It was just boring to me. I didn't know I did.
I knew I was not going to like it when
I took it, but that was my option. I wasn't
going home, you know, I wouldn't going back to Fairville,
and like, you graduate and gotta get a job, go
get this money, and so I took the role. But
eventually an opportunity showed up for a marketing director for
(11:08):
a nonprofit in New York City that was part of
the New York Giants organization. And I had gotten that
recommendation from a mentor of mine who.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Worked at the NFL. And again that's an opportunity that
wasn't listed.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, he you know, his job was to manage Super
Bowl and Pro Bowl host committees. And so he disappears
during that time of year, came back, and I at
that point had decided I was quitting this job that
I was at, this program that I was in. I
was going to move to Atlanta. Actually had a whole plan.
(11:43):
I moved to Atlanta. My best friend was here. He
was a police officer, and he was living rent free
in Forest Park, actually out in Forest Park, and so
I was like, I'm gonna come crash with him and
be a financial advisor.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And now we don't have to you know, because you
got paid I think commission.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
You're like, so's I can be a financial advisor living
off commission, and since I won't have rent, it won't
be that much pressure. I had this whole plan, and
he came back from Super Bowl and he's like, Yo,
that's a great plan. However, I just met with the
owner of the New York giants. He told me about
this nonprofit organization he has and he's looking for somebody
to lead his marketing and events and he's specifically looking
(12:21):
for an African American man.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Are you interested? Thank yeah, ripped the whole plan. I
had to rip that.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Hell yeah, I'm interested, of course, and so so I applied.
He submitted a handwritten letter of recommendation for the position
for me, you know, good looking out And so I
got the call from the hiring man. Actually I got
a call from the executive director from the organization, and
she said, I just want to let you know that
(12:50):
you're the only candidate, because I was living in Kansas
City at the time. You're the only candidate who is
not here in New York. You're also the only candidate
who doesn't have any full time marketing or events experience.
I'm just sitting there like, what.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Just tell me. I ain't get it. You know, why
are you dragging this out? Uh? She said?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
But you're also there on the candidate who got a
handwritten letter of recommendation from the NFL.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So we want to interview you.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
And in my interview, I was able to pull from
that work at depth. Jam so I didn't have full
time event experience, but the things that I did around campus,
the marketing, promotion and events, was enough to convince them
that I could do this job. And so that's really
how I got into full time events and so forth.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So yeah, yeah, man, No, that's that's an interesting approach
again because like I said, in a certain again, there's
just certain roles just aren't out there right now. This
all comes to relationships and knowing the right people. And
then you know, you obviously spend time in the agency
space and learned that world, and it's always interest about
agency world is like it was funny because I remember
growing up. I mean, I've spent time in agencies too.
We'ven't even worked at some of the same agencies, you know,
(13:53):
not the same time, but it's some of the same
large agencies and shops.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
It's so interesting, Like I didn't even know that world existed.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Growth No, you know, I don't think they don't talk
to us about that kind of stuff, right, And so
saw that the.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Closest thing we got to it was Boomerang.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Right exactly. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Watching the movie Boomerang, I didn't know what it was,
but you know, to see that on the screen.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
It was aspirational.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
But yeah, like once I got into it, and actually,
it's funny when you get into the agency space, especially
the multicultural and urban urban they used to call it
urban urban marketing space, you run into some of the
ogs in the in the game, and it's funny all
of them. To a man, all the people that started
those old marketing agencies that we know in the space
(14:36):
would tell me that Marcus Graham was based on them.
From Boomerang, I was like, how is he all of y'all?
Like he's every single one of y'all. But yeah, so
you don't know, you know. Again, I was business major finance,
you know, that was and I went to Ant had
a huge, you know, business department, well known, and that's
the path that I was on, you know, And that
was what I saw is you know, financial analysts, you
(14:59):
know Wash Street. I did an internship in Gold and Sacks,
you know, so all of that was what I thought,
you know, was the career opportunities. And again I did
have a passion and love music and entertainment, but didn't
know that you could do that and not do that.
So you can do music and entertainment and not work
for def Jama SONI. You know, I had a realization
(15:22):
after my first essence fest. Somebody was one of the agents,
one of the talent managers, was talking to me and
we were just chopping it up about what we wanted
to do growing up, and I said I always wanted
to work in the music business. And he looked at me,
He's like, you are. I was like, oh, I ain't
even you know, it hadn't even registered to me. I'm
sitting here after producing this, you know, concert series for
(15:45):
forty thousand people.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
He's like, you are in a music business. Like, well, damn,
I guess I did make it to the dream of
working in the music business.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
But yeah, you don't know about the different ways that
you can actually pull your passion into something that could
be a job on occupation and don't necessarily have to
be I mean, it's you know, it's the cliche of
you know, you don't have to be on the court,
and there's all these jobs, you know, in sports, it's
same with eco art and everything else. You know, so
all these different opportunities to get involved, and you know,
(16:14):
it's been I've been fortunate to be able to work
through just different passion points and figure out how to
make that work within you agency life, and then also
now at the media side.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So yeah, yeah, man, you know, I remember I bumped
into Anthony Anderson at the airport one time, and I
remember telling him because even in Blackish he was an
agency he did and I remember kind of telling him, like, man,
you were me.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I told him the same thing. I was like in
my real life youth, I'm a real life Dre that
I'm Dre.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
You know. Yeah, man, It's it's funny.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's like you don't even know this world exists, and
all of a sudden you see it, and then once
you get into it, you're like, oh, okay, I see.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
So this is how all this stuff gets.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Man, A second though, you were just talking about, you know,
your first essence Fest and obviously you're overseeing all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
What do you remember about that first essence Fest?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Just being overwhelmed, to be honest, good and bad, you know,
overwhelmed with just the magnitude of it. I don't think
you realize what it is until you're on that side.
I had experienced it, especially from the agency side, activating
on behalf of some of our clients, and so you
just you know, with that, you get a very myopic
view of it. You know, this is what we do here.
(17:33):
But when you are on the planning side and you
see just how big the thing is, you know, as
we were talking yesterday, it's not just a festival. You know,
my team gets upset sometimes like we're not really a festival.
We're much bigger than a festival.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
We are a.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Conference slash convention that hosts you know, nearly you know,
up to fifty thousand plus people a day in the
convention center.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Where a.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Film festival you know again that has multiple hundreds and
thousands of submissions of film that we have to cipher
through an award and then an extreme stream and view
on site. We have a marketplace that is over two
hundred plus entrepreneurs small businesses that we you know, manage,
(18:23):
and again, applications come in and we get thousands of
applications that we got to sort through. And then the
logistics of placing and planning and so forth. And then
you throw on top of that a concert series in
a stadium that holds you know, fifty thousand people. So logistically,
when you think about experiences and experiential some of the
(18:45):
most complex operational things we do together in one weekend.
And so to have that again I started five weeks
before my first success and so you know, that was
just overwhelming just to see it all and really trying
to wrap your head around all the things that have
(19:07):
to happen, but then overwhelming all the positiveness, Like it's
really we often say it's like a family reunion, but
it's just so much love in the city that we
can you know, that year the theme was is the
Black Joy for Me?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And it really felt that way.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
You know, it's almost you know, you're walking around the
street and you got you know, people gonna comment on
your outfit or they're gonna just you be happy to
see you, offer you some foods. New people in New
Orleans like hey, come o buy the house. We cookn't gumbo,
Like it's very much a family environment. And then on
top of that, you start to share with people that
you work with essence that you're part of bringing this
(19:43):
experience just so much love, man, and it was it
was great to see it.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
It.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I fought again, like we talked, I fought to try
to start after the first Essence fast because I felt like, again,
I'm five weeks before the first and so what can
I do here?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
But it did.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
It was it was a valuable opportunity for me to
see it. It was low pressure because again we had
a great team in place and a lot of the
things were kind of nailed and ready to go by
the time I got there. But it was you can't
learn it without experiencing it, and so that being down
there was great to just kind of start taking it
(20:23):
all in.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
So, yeah, to.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Do an event that be because again, you know, people
want to talk about events and activations and all this
kind of stuff, and just at an event at that
scale and even with your role, like, what's something that
would surprise people about what it takes to logistically pull
that off?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Oh, it's probably a lot because people think they know,
but they have no idea to think about the economies
and economics of the thing. And actually people that work
in our industry are often surprised. When I was speaking
with Ryan over the gathering spot, can.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I say that on there? Okay from the show to
give no free unless you know.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
They've been here.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Talking to Ryan when he was doing the talk right
after this year is Esta's Fest and he was trying
to guess how much talent costs and me and Jay
Carter was like, no, no more more.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
He's like for.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Real, like no, it's I think people will be surprised
at how much of an investment it takes to create
this experience.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
It's not a money grab by people. Oh you know,
you're all trying to know.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
There's a lot cheaper ways to make money than to
throw a festival. Festivals and large scale events are expensive.
They are a very much cash up front business. You
can't float your deposits for venues, you know, you can't
net whatever talent you know they need. People need money,
(21:59):
so you need money to be able to do these
and oft the time, you need money before you make money.
And I think that is probably one of the biggest
things that people don't understand and they get into this business.
And to quote Jay Carter from when we were on
that panel, if you're getting into this game to do
events and large scale events and cultural events, be prepared
(22:22):
to lose money for at least five years, because that's
really to build it up.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
It takes that. And then once you get that doesn't
mean you'ren to stay there either.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Even if you get to profitable, all types of things happen,
you know, and it could knock you off just as
quickly as you got there. So I think that people
don't know that this is a very expensive endeavor. And again,
unless you love it, unless you've got a clear understanding
of how you're going to be different than the next event,
(22:50):
or you've got some special sauce that somebody else doesn't have,
you may want to look at it another way of
making money because it's not a quick fix. It's not
gonna you're not gonna run off with the bag just
by doing an event in year one for sure.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Because like how many how many just on the artist side,
like how many artists performed at in Essence Festers.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
They have forty artists on our super Doll stage.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
So that's forty artists, that's forty riders, that's forty entourages,
that's forty man. Like, I'm just trying to help people
understand the scale of this thing.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And that's not even to mention the talent in the
convention center, right, because all of our stages in the
convention center also loaded with talent. So we probably had
another two hundred to two hundred and fifty members of
talent just in the convention center. So even the talent
operation itself is on a magnitude that people probably can't understand. Yeah,
(23:42):
like you said, you got not only do you have
their fees, but then there's hospitality, there's transportation, ground transportation,
there's movement once they get there. So there's one talent
has ten to fifteen touch points before they even get
on stage.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Like again, it's funny actually talked to j Carter, yes
that he's been on here. Like again, like we we
talk about the events of these scale, and I know
there was you know, a lot of just again obviously
there was you know, events have challenges, a lot of
stuff going on, but like just talk about what's the
economic impact of an essence fest on a city like
New Orleans, And that's why it's important that exists in
that space.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah, we're still waiting on our numbers for this year,
but our numbers in twenty twenty four it's three hundred
and fifty one million dollars of economic impact over the
weekend and we were there, you know, so it's it
has a huge impact.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
This you know, we love to support the city, the city.
It supports us as well. You know, we we go
together real bad us in New Orleans and and it's
part of our advocacy emission is too because we know,
you know, that is a very a city that's very
deep with the culture.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know it is.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
It is one of our crown jewels and Black Black America.
And so to be able to support in that way
and have the support that we get from new ones
is very important to us in that relationship.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Now on the other side, man, like like I was
saying before, you got everybody all these you know, influencers
and creators they love to throw around. We got to
do an activation, We got to get a sponsor. Like
what do people normally get wrong when it takes to
not just getting partnerships, like really landing partnerships with like
large brands.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
The days of creating your experience, creating a pitch deck
with benefits packages and just having them pick one presenting.
Those days are over, especially for the bigger brands and
you know, the larger sums of money brands and partners. Well,
(25:51):
brands want to be seen as partners at least the
ones that we work with, and that's how we approach it.
Your partners, so you're included in planning, programming ideas.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
You know. Also, it's a dialogue. It's not just it's
not a one way conversation.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
It has to be a dialogue of what is it
that this property that I'm creating, What can it do
for your business? What problem can it solve you? What
community can it connect you with? And how would that
most benefit you? And what are those key performance indicators
that we can build out this program or this this
(26:27):
this package together. That's really what I mean again, I
remember those days where oh, yeah, I'm doing this party.
You know, you get your name on the step and repeat,
you get this, this, and this for ten thousand dollars.
And even then it still would always be a negotiation.
But I feel like even more so now, like you
don't even go there, like don't even know. We got
(26:49):
to talk about what it is that you're trying to accomplish.
And then let me go back to the lab. Build
you a package, put some dollars against it, just because
I know what it's going to cost me to do
what you're looking for cost plus, and then I'll come
back to you and say, all right, you said this
was the problem that you needed to solve This is
what I can do to help solve that through my
community that I'm building here. These are the deliverables that
(27:13):
you will receive and this is the dollar amount, So
it really is more of a conversation before it is
a dictated like package handed off.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
So imagine you know, you transform transplaces to another another place,
another dimension or another another parallel universe, and you're starting
off the Barclay group. But you know everything you know
now about experiencial events. If you were putting an event together,
(27:43):
how would you approach a brand to try to get
them involved?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
First?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Before I would even approach them, I would make sure
that I have a community already. And that's one of
the things you can do with I'll spend the money.
You can start to build your community people that are
interested in what you're doing, so you can show I
got all these people behind me that are dying for this.
Because a year one ha been is very difficult to
(28:07):
get support, and that's been the case since I've been
in experiential. Nobody wants to be the test dummy. Nobody
wants to see you test and learn on their dollar.
But if you can show that you already have a
built in community that's going to buy whatever you put
out there that helps mitigate that risk. So I would
(28:30):
definitely start there. Secondly, I would create something as small
as possible to be the most impactful as possible. To
start small, don't go big. And I've seen it. I've
seen people crash and burn. They come out with three stages,
and I'm like, bro.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
You ain't felt one stage.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
How you gonna go How you gonna build something with
three stages and you ain't sold out a stage? First off?
And so community first, making sure you go MVP. You know,
the minimum product, Yeah, the smallest, most effective thing that
you can do that can deliver upon what your objectives are.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And then you go there.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I would take that and then go there and then
again co create from that point, because again, if you
keep it small, you give room an opportunity for growth
through partnership. So you got your core thing, you go
talk to X, Y and Z Corporation and like, oh,
that's dope, but we're working on something that's like this,
could you fit that within your objectives and your pillars?
(29:33):
And if you can, now you've actually grown your experience
without the burden of you having to fully be the
one to grow it. As long as it aligns with
what you plan on doing, then it works out.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
So yeah, I mean I've run a very similar play
and you. So, for example, I do an event called
Creators of Color, right, Like, I felt like Atlanta kind
of needed its own kind of creative you know, conference
in the sense or like just kind of creative thing, right.
And so the first year I started doing, which was
last year, I was going back and forth and I
started to like make a deck and all this stuff,
and I was like, you know what, like to your point,
(30:06):
I said, Man, I don't have time for this. I'm
just gonna do this thing. So I literally paid for
my own pocket. I rented out the gathering spot. You know,
I have a pretty large platform with butter atl got
a huge email list, a large following on social you know.
I called up some friends, had them come out they
were going to be involved in it. Literally sent a
couple of emails. Thousand people showed up.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
To the gathering spot.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
It was packed out. I made sure that we had
photos and videos from that event. I packaged those up,
kind of talked to some folks. Then all of a sudden,
I had a conversation with State Farm Arena, and they
were like, yeah, we saw what you did, would you
be interested in doing it here? Because like I tell people, like,
when you've done it, you already now you have the leverage.
Now I'm not sitting here going to them saying, well,
(30:46):
this what it might be like and they can envision
themselves kind of seeing it to your point of align
with one of their pillars and what they were trying
to do next year, which was this year. Back in April,
I literally rented out State Farm Arena and brought four
thousand people to State for And so that's how I've
been kind of building this thing step by step and
I have not had a sponsor come on yet. Now
the funny part what I did was after I did
(31:08):
it this year, I went on LinkedIn strategically and I
had all these I had a photographer come out to
an amazing photography, had videography, all that stuff. We were
literally on the court. Like I told them, I said,
I'll only do it if you let me go on
the court and do it. So I'm literally sitting at
center court. I got the mayor and all this stuff,
and so I posted like all the photos on LinkedIn
like the next day and I was like, man, we
just need created as a color two this year was
(31:29):
at State Farm Arena, like this amazing. I said, still
no partners, those sponsors, but you know it, go keep
on going. Let me tell you we're about thirty minutes later.
YouTube split In my emails like hey, you would have
a conversation, but I tell people it's like you have
to kind of put it out there first, especially because
we kind of talked about this, right, Like people, I
think forget that at these brands. People work at these brands,
(31:52):
and these people they got mortgages, they got bills, they
got kids, they got car notes, and so they're trying
to protect their jobs too, right, So you got to
help set them up to be successful, right for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Two things. One, you actually gave me a trick question.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
You said, if I was starting to take today, how
would I go to a partner? And you actually, if
I wasn't going to a partner, I would I would
build it on my own first. So that would be
one of the things Like if that wasn't part of
the question, I would have said, what you did, build
it on your own first before you go to partner,
because you have that proof point to showcase. And when
(32:27):
you talk about people on a partnership level and the
brand level, you're right. So they have all those things careers,
they got to protect, they got goals and objectives, they
got to reach within the building, but they also have
personal interest and so a lot of times where you
actually get the end roads is if you build something
that connects with somebody that's already inside, even if it's
(32:47):
just it could be as surface level as I just
want to be there. You know, that was a dope
event over at the gathering spot I didn't get in
on if you know, I represented X y Z brand.
Now I'm not only in there, but I'm sponsoring I'm
going to be there.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I've had clients in the past that just wanted to
be next to one of the talent that we hire.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah, you know, they're a fan of so and so.
But then it can also be deeper.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
It's just again they have a personal connection to what
you're building and they see that how it aligns with
what they're trying to do within their company. So it
really is a people business when it comes to that
as well, because again that's why the conversations are important
as opposed to just.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Trying to push down their throat what you want to do.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
How do you address the issue of money when it
comes up, because you can't do all this stuff without money,
And a lot of times I think creatives kind of
find themselves or just people trying to do if it's
find themselves. In this kind of like chicken or egg situation,
it's like, you know, I want to work with you,
what's your budget?
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Well, how much does it cost to go back that
whole two step two step? Right?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Gosh, Like, how do you kind of handle that situation?
Or what advice would you even give to somebody that's
like kind of handle little situations.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
It depends on what side you are on of that
two step, but I think from the hiring side, just.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Be clear on what your budget is out front.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
You know, if you know you only got X amount
of dollars and you might not have to give them
the whole thing because of course, you know, if I
got two hundred thousand dollars til you got one hundred
and fifty dollars dollars, because you're gonna come back to
me with a two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars idea,
figure it out. So I think, you know, from that side,
it's fine. Like people, I think some folks feel like, oh,
if I tell them I got one hundred and fifty
(34:40):
thousand dollars, they gonna give me one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. They're gonna spend all my money. They might
they might, you know, or they might give you what
it costs to do what you're asking for, But ultimately
it cuts down on the two step because that takes time.
That's the time suck to be like, well, you know
(35:02):
what's your budget. I don't know how much it's gonna
cost me to do it, and that back and forth.
Just just tell them what you got, you know, you
hold some back and do that. And then on the
other side, I don't like even looking to create without
at least having parameters, right like, if you can't give
me I got two hundred thousand dollars, well what's the range? Yeah,
(35:26):
give me something, because the worst thing that ever happens
is you go, you create this amazing idea, you come
and pitch it to somebody, They love it, they buy
in on it, and then they tell you their budget
like it's a half a million dollar idea and they
tell you they got one hundred thousand dollars. You can't
put the genie back in the bottle. So once they
(35:47):
decide that they liked that idea, nothing because now you're
in a buying because now you've got to try to
figure out how you're gonna get as close to this
half million dollar idea for a fraction of the money
twenty percent of the budget, because they won't accept a
hundred thousand dollars version of that five hundred thousand dollars idea.
They've already seen that and fallen in love with that,
(36:09):
so you really try to You got to try to
get something out of them, so you at least are
building within the ballpark and not get setting yourself up
for something where they're just not going to be satisfied.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
One of the one of the things I tell brands
when I talk to them is creatives need parameters.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah, for sure, like.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Always, because the worst thing you can do is say,
you know, just go be creative, like there's no restraints.
I say, no, actually, there needs to be constraints, because
you know, my version of creativity could be drawing a
stick figure on a piece of paper and saying here
you go, right, And so you know, the example I
always kind of give is think about it like basketball. Right,
Like basketball has rules, there are rules of the game.
(36:49):
The beauty of the sport is how creative can you
be inside of those rules? And I look at it
the same way when it comes to you know, creativity
and brands and sponsorships, right like I need to your
point the parameters, and what I'm going to think about
is what can I come back with It's going to
give you the most value within those constraints. But what
I can't do, especially when you run I mean because
(37:11):
I run a small business. You know what I'm saying,
Like butter is a small team. We do a lot
of good stuff as a small team. But having come
from the agency side, right Like on people don't notice,
but on agent side, we have a.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Thing called new business and that's an investment.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
So because again to pursue a piece of work, it
takes people. Agencies sell time and so they might invest
make it up fifty one hundred thousand dollars in especially
we start getting you know, certain people's titles on the business.
Right in pursuing a piece of work, for me as
a small company, I can't spend all day making estimates
and depths because I'm not making that money, right, And
(37:46):
so that's why I really try to have those conversations
with those brands. And that's why it's so amazing when
you can find people that are really good partners and
kind of understand that. And like I said, the ones
that I have the most successful with are the ones say, look, Brandon,
you know this we're trying to do. Here's our budget.
And like I tell folks like making up, you tell
me your budget is fifty thousand dollars, Like, I'm not
going to come back you and be like, Okay, here's
(38:07):
forty nine, no nine, you know what I mean. I'm
gonna come back you with what I think can be
the right fit for that correct and you know, And
that's what people have to kind of understand.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
And oftentimes having those parameters drives more creativity.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
If I know I have to do something dope and
I don't have, you know, half a million dollars to
do it, now, I got to really think about how
we do that and make it make it worth, you
know what, we're trying to make it worth without having
all the dollars behind it. And you know another thing
that I will say, when you said new business, I
thought about a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
One, I've been on that new business.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Flash back a line.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I was like a new business team, how much we're
gonna invest, you know, and how much we're going to
send a thank you gift after this over and there's
a whole thing. But then the other thing, especially for
small businesses and people that are looking to like jump
into different industries, be careful of how much of a
(39:04):
discount you offer to get that business. Yeah, because if
you think after your year one of doing this thing
that they loved that you gave a steep discount for,
you're gonna be able to recoup a year two sadly mistaken.
What you set as the president is what they look for.
That's the anker for, that's the anchor. So you can
(39:26):
only wiggle maybe twenty percent, especially if you delivering the
same you know, type of impact. So yeah, I've seen that.
I've actually seen it on multiple levels. I've seen it
in the agency space where you know, we give them
three million dollars worth of work for a million dollars
and then you know, as the as the account lead
(39:46):
I'm setting in for the year two negotiations like all right,
we got to you gotta get us back.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Up to at least close to where we are. And
now I have a client like, no, that's not happening.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
No, you already did all the work.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
You did it, and you did you set the precedent
of how much it costs to do these things. I
want the same level of production, but again, no more
than a twenty percent increase year over year if that.
And so yeah, be careful because you'll get yourself locked in. Especially,
be careful if it's a steep discount is actually costing
you money, because then now your business is running in
(40:16):
an opposite direction. Yeah, and so yeah, I would definitely say,
you know, be careful with the discounts you offer. Make
sure it makes sense, make sure you're willing to live
within that range with that particular client, and you know,
don't offer it to everybody. You know, get you one
or two in there, and then from there you've got
(40:37):
your solid foundation and you don't have to try to
offer discounts.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
One of the best things I learned I spent some
time at an agency. I won't say which one, but like,
one of the best things I learned there was the
idea of margin and how to actually built that in right,
And so again like all this stuff at a certain
point is a math equation, right, Like you're talking about
you know, people and effort time. You put a value
on that time time. But then what I think a
(41:01):
lot of people miss is is like, Okay, adding what
margin do you want to make off of this business?
Speaker 4 (41:06):
And then adding that on top of it.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
There's this other book that I read, it's called Profit
First that I actually started implementing that a couple of
years ago, and that's really helped out because now it's like, Okay,
if we do this work, we got to ask ourselves
like we're not going to do the work, and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Then whatever's left.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
I literally was talking to somebody the other day and
I was like, look, bro, like I can't you know,
I'm just getting to make it up numbers Like I can't.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
You can't tell me you know this work is you know,
you'd have got ten grand, but you want me to
do eighty five hundred worth of work?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Right?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
You know what I mean? Because at the end of
the day, I'm my company's walking away with fifteen hundred
bucks and that's not going to help us do anything right.
And so what I've even started doing this has been
really helpful to our business. And again I've learned this
in agencies, like really building that margin in and asking myself, okay,
like at the end of the day, what do we
actually want to make off of this, and like making
sure that profit margins protected because that's what's allowed, that's
(41:54):
what allows you to grow. The worst thing you can
do is, especially as a small business, is just do
things that catst or even worse. If you do that
at cost, you're probably losing.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Money, right, You're losing money if you're doing that cost
off rip, you know, because it costs you just to
go get whatever you was getting. It's costing your overhead,
Like you're not even including all of that usually in
your cost is you know your your cell phone bills
in there somewhere. Yeah, No, you're right, And you said
something that just made me think too. Chat GBT pulled
(42:25):
out left Lane and that shout out to Chat. But
what it didn't say about left Lane and how it
was a catastrophic failure. When I first started, I moved
to Atlanta, started a business, started an agency, had never
worked at an agency, started an agency failed. I didn't
even know how to price out the work that I
(42:45):
was doing my time. So don't be afraid also to
get paid to learn.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Say it again, please, because Atlanta is such a I
always say it's such a hustle based city that what
I've noticed is a lot of entrepreneur people. They think
there's value in completely avoiding that corporate angle.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
And I always tell people work teaches you how to work.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
And I see it a lot when I work with
people that have never had a real corporate job. They
can't run a meeting, they can't do an estimate. It's
like work teacher, It's okay to learn how to work.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I get paid your paige to learn.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
When Left Lane failed, so I started in two thousand
and four. By by the end of two thousand, by
mid two thousand and five, I was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Don't know, it's not working out.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
So when I ended up leaving, leaving Atlanta going back
to Brooklyn around two thousand and six, and that's when
I said to myself, I was like, I need to
work at an agency because I don't know how to
run an agency, and so I ended up getting an
agency job. I was working new business, and new business
was a great place to work because I had to
do all the budgets. So I had Now I got
(43:54):
a budget template. I know how much things cost. I
know how to cost plus you know, like you said,
you know margin as a margin in there. You know,
there's this table is one hundred dollars, We're gonna charge
one hundred and twenty dollars for it. I learned how
to calculate time value of people by position, fees, all
(44:14):
of that. So now I'm like, ah, so this is
I saw all the things that I had done wrong. Right,
you know, I'm people paying me with chicken plates in Atlanta,
and so now I know how to price out the work. Also,
I got the relationships when I was at the agency.
So that's when I started working with the big brands
(44:34):
because I was again got the backing of this agency.
That's putting me in front of these brands, especially in
doing new business. So I'm running around the country pitching ideas,
responding to RFP. I didn't even know what an RFP
was in two thousand and four were left Lane, So
just learning the industry, especially if it's something that you
want to do entrepreneurially.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
There's nothing wrong with going and learning because.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I learned so much in that time at that first
agency that I went to, and then I relaunched Left.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Lane basically and killed it.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, absolutely murdered for five years, did amazing work with
all types of brands all over the country. Built my resume,
built my experience, built my name. And it was because
I learned by going in house to an agency to
how to run an agency.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
No man, look, yeah, you got to do it. And
there's nothing wrong with getting paid to learn.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
And I always say this too, it's a lot of
y'all is stressed out becau y'all shouldn't be running businesses
in the first place.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
And it's okay. Everybody's not built to be an entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4 (45:38):
It's everybody's not built, and it's okay.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
A lot of y'all are stressed out because y'all are
trying to be number one on your own thing. You
should probably be number ten, twenty or fifty in something else.
And there's nothing wrong with nothing, nothing at all. You know,
wait till you wait till you get that payroll bill.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
Like trust me.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
It's nothing wrong with with do it on somebody else's time, man, Barklay. Look,
this has been a great conversation man, before we got
out of here. Just you know, for the next group
of you know, young creatives and entrepreneurs and people they
really want to get into this space, what's the piece
of advice that you would kind of give them if
they want to get into space and like actually start
doing events, whether they're a huge as Essence fest or
if they're doing something local, Like, what would you tell them.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
We'll definitely kind of piggybacking off what I said before.
Start small, build your community, and then the basic stuff
that I always tell anybody that works with me, You
got to have these things down.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Number One, be on time. And that's not.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Just the literal beyond time, it's also the broad spectrum.
So make sure your production schedules on time, make sure
your payments are on time, make sure your influx of
cash is on time, and also show up on time
to set because events are as stressful enough as it is,
(46:49):
and so adding time pressure to it it just makes
it worse. In general things Again, this is if you're
doing this, if you're in speriential. I'm talking to you
right now. Number two, if you're traveling for an experience,
stay as close to the venue as possible, and if
you can stay in the same venue, do that because
(47:11):
you get that two am call if something fail down
and ain't working and you can just go downstairs and
fix it.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
It's worth it. Even if you've got to pay more.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
If your hotels is going to be more expensive to
be close to wherever you're activating, make sure you do
that and know your numbers because it's all you know.
As we say often within the walls of SMG, you
know the revolution must be financed. So none of this
is for free unless you're operating a nonprofit. But you
(47:42):
got to know your numbers, especially if you're going to
go asking for money from a sponsor, partner, investor. You
got to know your numbers top line, bottom line, you know,
figure out what it means if you don't know, and
be able to talk that because that's how you're going
to one control and manage your business and operations, attract
new opportunities, whether it be from a brand or a
(48:02):
sponsor or an investor. And three for a successful business,
you know you gotta you gotta know those numbers.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Yeah, absolutely, man, Look Barclay Man, we appreciate you pulling up.
Congratulations on all the amazing work y'all be doing it
at Essence Fest and Afro Punk and all the big stuff. Man,
I told you, I've never personally been. I've seen Girls' Trip,
I've helped my friends have talked about it. When I'll go,
I'm going with you. I want to see it from
your perspective, you know what I'm saying. I want to
see what it's like.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Man.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
But Yo, y'all have created something amazing. It is a
cultural staple and the most important thing is that these
things need to exist, especially in our community.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
It does.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
It has so much economic impact. You know everything, nothing
is perfect, but at the end of the day, it's
important that it exists. And you know, we can't wait
to see it continue to be successful. Man, So congratulations
on everything. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
I appreciate that. And yeah, I got you man, come
down next year twenty twenty six. We out there, man, Yes, sir? Well, yeah,
with that being said, man, that's the pod jab out peace.
You've been listening to button Nomics and om your hosts,
Brandon Butler, got comments, feedback?
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Want to be on the show.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Send us an email today at Hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Ksey Pegram, with marketing support from Queen and Nikki.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Music provided by mister Hanky.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never
missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on
all our social platforms at butter dot atl Listen to
button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Brandon Butler
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