CEO's You Should Know x Signature Cruise Experiences

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri, where I am now.
I went to Brown University. Undergraduate, I went to the
University of a Michigan law school.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
What'd you want to do coming out of school?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Practice law, which I did for about twenty five years.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So let's talk a little bit about the industry here
in now with signature cruise experiences. You know, you obviously
had a life before that, a big life before that.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
How did you get to this? It's really a simple story.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
For years, a Norwegian Cruise Line had a jazz cruise.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
It was never a full ship charter.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
It was a partial ship, but it was on Theess Norway,
which is a very large ship, and there was about
a thousand passengers and there were five or six groups
who sold cabins into the program. And in nineteen ninety
nine NCL Norwegian Cruise Line, like every other cruise line

(00:56):
at that time, got rid of their.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Affinity cruises, the theme cruises, all for the same reason.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
The cost of the infrastructure to do one or two
theme cruises didn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
And that really was the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Of a charter cruise business where there were independent people
that did it with respect to the Jazz Cruise.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
One of the people who.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Sold the most cabins into it was a lady from
Saint Louis, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
And she contacted me.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
She was seventy years old at the time, high school education,
probably dyslexic, and she said that she wanted to be
the first person in the world to charter her own
ship for your music.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
This was in the year, the year two thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So I met with her, sat across the table and
I said, Mom, do you know what you're doing? It
was my mother, okay, And that's how we got started.
And then she told me what a cruise ship would
cost a charter, and then she looked me right in
the eye and says, you know you can't take it

(02:13):
with you. And I said, well, that's true, but you
could leave some of it behind. So I started helping
her and we charted our first ship, and we sailed
in two thousand and one on how in America lines Mosdam,
twelve hundred and forty five passengers. Our entire sales effort

(02:37):
was a mimiograph machine that had a two side or
I can still smell that that mimiograph stuff, whatever that
ink is or that water is or whatever, and on
the front of the crew, the front of it had
the lineup and the back had the price of the cabins.

(02:59):
And I'm mom had a great mailing list, and that
cruise was sold out in about sixty days. And so
the next year, just like Jaws, we got a bigger boat.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
And then and then a little.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Bit later, couple year after, I was contacted by these
guys that wanted to do a smooth Jazz cruise. Well,
not only did I not know what smooth jazz was,
I mean, I had no idea, but they actually had
a cruise going that was not a full ship charter.

(03:36):
And I told them that that I would produce it
for them, provided that if I liked it, I would
have an opportunity to own summer all of it. And
after the first night, I turned to the person I
was with and I said, I don't know what's going
on here, but I'm going to own it by the

(03:57):
end of the week. And I did, and then I
stopped practicing law, and since that time we've been we've
been doing cruises. My life has been seventy five years.
It's been in three segments. The first twenty five years
was being educated and being a kid of the second

(04:17):
twenty five was practicing law, and now I've done twenty five,
twenty five years of a running, running charter cruises.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, Michael, it's a great origin story, and I really
appreciate you sharing that. I do want to do this
for everybody. I'd love to go over exactly what you
do the different cruises. I think we peaked a lot
of people's curiosity. How cool this is, this idea that
you've been doing for a quarter of a century. Overall, though,
what is the mission statement when it comes to signature
cruise experiences?

Speaker 3 (04:46):
It's really simple. We're everything is built around the guest.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
We don't sell witches, we don't we don't sell CDs.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
We sell cruises.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Vacations that cost for couple between seven and twelve thousand dollars.
It is not an impulse buy, is a considered purchase.
And we have made the commitment that if we're going
to take that kind of money from people, it has
to be.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
The top product possible. And we have to be ready,
willing and able to be.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
With them, to interact with them if they want to
call the office. I write a blog every single Saturday
morning is called the weekend or about jazz and stuff.
And at the end, I always have my email address
and on Sundays I come in here for a couple

(05:45):
hours every Sunday.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
And answer people's emails.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
And I believe that if you're going to run that
kind of business, this kind of business that you have
to you have to be able to They have to
have a face, they have to have a name, they
have to have a way to express themselves, and we
make sure that that happens. Well.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
I want to talk about that a little bit later
on because you're talking about accessibility and leadership and culture,
so we'll talk to that in a little bit. But
there's a lot of our listeners here of future entrepreneurs,
and there's current founders that listen to the series that
are probably being introduced to signature cruise experiences for probably
the first time. With that said, if you were to

(06:30):
give a thirty thousand foot view and tell all the
new people about your company about what you do, what
would you tell them that you exactly do.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
What we do is we find a theme that we like.
We charter a ship, which is very expensive because it
is you either fill the ship or you don't. You
still pay the pay the cruise company. The same thing

(06:59):
celebrity cruises. That's what we're using now. So we identify
the ship and the itinerary, and then we hire the talent,
and then we produce the cruise. We actually storyboard every
day as to what's going to be happening in every venue,
what are the people going to be doing where the

(07:20):
shows are, and then we have to produce the cruise.
We have to have the right lighting and sound, and
those things are incredibly important to us. And if you
look at the people who have performed on our cruises,
they would not be performing on them if, in fact
that was not the case when we started twenty five

(07:43):
years ago, asking a certain artist to be on a
cruise was almost insulting.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Because they felt that it was either.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's the end of their end of their career or
the very beginning of their career.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well, that's completely changed.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
The analogy would be Las Vegas. People artists used to
feel that way about playing Las Vegas. Then they realized
that that what it is is just a fabulous venue.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Same thing with the cruise ship.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
It's a fabulous it's a fabulous venue, but we made
it such because they get treated well, but about our
production level is very very high.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
I mean we've in the world of jazz.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
We've had everybody, Diana Crawl, Natalie Cole, George Benson, on
and on.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
There are very few, very few jazz guys that we
haven't had.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
We we are doing our first country well not our
first country music cruise, because I did some with another
partner years ago, but our first country cruise by ourselves.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
And we have Keith Urban, you.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Know, we we we always have top talent on everything
that we do.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
So how many ports do you go out of and
are you seasonal orre you year round?

Speaker 1 (09:09):
We used to be very seasonal January and February and
we would do between four and six seven day cruises
during that time. Now we've added a bunch of fall cruises,
so we we're in pockets.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
We avoid of the summertime. Ships are very expensive.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Kids are on vacation, isn't it isn't really good for
what we do.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Our cruises are adult cruises.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
We don't allow children, it is, and the music themes
are really conducive to that. So it's a very nice atmosphere.
It's very nice. People from all over the world are
jazz cruises. We now it's like sixty seven different country

(10:00):
We've had people people from and forty nine of the
fifty states. You're going to ask me which one is.
No one from South Dakota has ever has ever either
either no one from South Dakota has ever sailed on
our cruises or no one from South Dakota has admitted

(10:22):
that they sailed on a cruise.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
And how long are the cruises and where are all
the destinations that you go to?

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Seven days? We've done them all over the world, mainly
out of Florida.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
We did cruises in the Mediterranean, we did cruises in
the North Sea. We've done cruises in the Pacific. We've
got three cruises coming up that have that are Vancouver, Victoria,
San Francisco, and La with an overnight in your San Francisco.
And we're going to be taking people to Napois, Sonoma,

(10:58):
performances at St.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Jazz, things like that.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
We haven't done a lot of land based events related
to the cruises, but we're gonna start doing that for
those cruises.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Well, when I was on the website, I was pleasantly
surprised to see that you have a plethora of different
kinds of cruises and what you can do on there?
Can you go through it? I know there's several on there,
but just for our listeners, I know they're gonna hop
on the website. We're gonna give that at the end
to everybody, and a few more fun facts for everybody
as they find out about what you do. But how
many different cruises and experiences are you offering right now?

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Well, I'm gonna go back and I'm going to tell
you the things that we've offered over the last twenty
five years. Okay, because as I have created some cruises
that I've sold, Okay, I created Star Trek the Cruise,
Nascar Nascar the Cruise, a country music cruise, Sole Train,

(11:54):
we did a gospel music cruise. We did an Elvis cruise.
A barrier to entry of this business is enormous, which
is why there really are very very few companies that
actually do this, and there are very few privately owned.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Companies that dude this.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Most of them are now owned by by the cruise
lines themselves. Okay, but right now we have three sailings
of the Smooth Jazz Cruise, and that's Marcus Miller, Bony James.
We have We're gonna have Kenny g coming up. It's it's,
it is. It is true smooth jazz. We have the

(12:34):
Jazz Cruise, which is a straight ahead jazz creuse with
a big band, and we've.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Had more salads on that cruise.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
We're gonna Pequipo Rivera to Travaldez, Diane Reeves. We have
all of the top jazz people in the world and
that was our first cruise and that's been going for
you know, twenty five years. Okay, by the way, the
Smooth Jazz Cruises have been operating for twenty one years,

(13:05):
but we've had over forty sailings. Of those, we do
more than one year than twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
We're gonna do three.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
We have a Christian McBride's World at Sea, which is
Christian McBride on one of the top jazz basis in
the world and he has a whole bunch of different bands.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
We have a Chris Body at Sea for the third year.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Chris is a jazz trumpeter and with him we've had
a David Foster, Katherine McPhee, Gregor Reporter all. We're gonna
have Elvis Costello, Baz Skaggs on those cruises. That is
more of an eclectic adult kind of performing arts center cruise.

(13:53):
And then we have our newest cruise, which is a
top shelf country cruise, which iHeart Radio came to us
and said, we can't help you with talent, you guys
do the cruise, and so that's our that's our country

(14:15):
music cruise. For those who are a country music fans
of Bobby Bones, who's a.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Big time radio DJ.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
There, he's going to be the host and we have
a terrific lineup and that's and that's not a bigger
shift than we've that we've ever done a cruise on.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
So those are our programs.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
We've got nine nine cruises coming up in the next
eighteen months.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well that's outstanding. In my takeaway is you have a
ton of big names. It sounds fun. So I know
a lot of our listeners have probably been on a cruise,
but specifically to yours. Depending on what kind of package
you get, what kind of access beside the actual concert
do they get? Are there sometimes a photo op? Do
they get to meet some some of the different people.
What's the experience like when you do one of those, Well.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
That's that's the key there. There are tremendous interactive elements
to the cruise. When you go to a concert, at
the end of the concert, the artists, he may sign
some CDs, but.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Everybody's getting in their car going someplace.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Okay, when you're on a cruise at the end of
the show or the end of the evening, all you
have to do is get back to your cabin along
with you know, the artists. And as I just said,
it doesn't even have to be your cabin. It just
has to be a cabin. You have to get back
to a cabin, so they hang out and because of

(15:45):
the price point of the cruise, they have learned to
be comfortable that the people who are going on the
cruise are not going to drive him crazy. Once in
a while somebody make it out of line, but it's
pretty rare and they get to see them and talk
to them. And we have lots of Q and a's,

(16:05):
We have lots of artists hosted events, wine tastings and
food pairings and things like that, so you get a
more in depth view of the artists. But the main
plus because it's a cruise is these guys will now

(16:28):
participate in everyone else's shows, so you're gonna see things
that you couldn't possibly do on land. To me, the
cruise ship, the fact that it's a cruise has much
less to do with the fact that we're going places.
Then the cruise itself is a crucible. The ship is

(16:49):
a crucible with all these guys in it, and they're
there and they're with people that they like, and they
get to see each other perform, which is very unusual
well for them. They're usually they are to use the
pun ships passing in the nine and.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
They walk on each other shows and they perform.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
That's cool.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean we.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Had, yeah, we we last last smooth jazz crews. We
had we had nine saxophone guys up there playing okay,
and we have configurations that you never that will never
be repeated because you couldn't afford to do them on land.
Because here they're already there. They're there and they decide

(17:34):
to do these things. They get they get into the
spirit of the cruise.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
If you want, Michael, I promised I was going to
ask about leadership, and I always think this is an
important part of this series when we ask people, and
everybody loved this about and I realized that this is
your personal journey. But you've been doing this for a
long time, for a quarter of a century, so you
obviously have weeded out what works what doesn't. But I'm
just going to assume that when you're setting up a cruise,
not only with the artists, the people that are buying

(17:59):
the package, is in the staff that are on the
actual cruise liner. There are a lot of people. There's
a lot of moving parts. So I know, you know
how you want things to go down, and it sounds
like you outline everything from start to finish, but when
it comes to communication and execution, how do you get
your message across to everybody so everybody has a great experience.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Well, we deal with the guests. We are incredibly transparent.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
We have a twelve step notice process for everybody that books.
We walk them through every aspect of the cruise before
they get on the cruise. I don't want people when
they get on the ship to be wandering around the
ship worrying about.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Signing up for this, signing up for that.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
We try to do all of that way ahead of time.
Every single cruise that we do, we will have two
webinars prior to the cruise which I conduct and people
can ask questions in real time and corridos and share them.

(19:02):
We've had eight hundred people on a webinar, Okay. Then
they get the spirit of the cruise and I give
little little insights about the ship and things like that.
So that's important. That's how we talk to the guests.
The artists I talk to directly because I want them

(19:27):
to realize that there's a whole lot of people, two
thousand people at a time, who have taken a whole
bunch of money out of their bank account and a
week out of their lives because they want to be
with you, guys, with the artists. And my job is
to make sure that you, guys, the artists, are able
to present yourselves in the very best possible way. But

(19:50):
your job is to fulfill their dreams. Okay, So you.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Tell me what you need to be able to fulfill
their dreams.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
And that's all about the guests. Twenty one thousand people
have sailed with us four or more times. Twenty one
thousand people who stayed with us four or more times,
and yet we just finished four sailings. Forty percent of

(20:21):
our guests were brand new. So it is a tremendous
balance between.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
You know you will your repeat fans and people.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
That are that are new they're finally, finally at an
age where they can they can take the week off
either their kids are out of the house or they're
in college. Finally, a lot of retired teachers, you know
now now I'm retired, Now I can go on that,

(20:55):
go on the.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Cruises, things like that.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
So it's it's an obligation that we have to make
sure that it is right for everybody.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Well, Michael, it says a lot about your communication and
your outstanding customer service, whether you have repeat or you
have new people coming on. So I appreciate you sharing
all that. I know that everybody had to pivot during COVID,
especially your industry. So with that said, when you got
back to whatever our new normal is, did the company
and you pivot at all or did you just pick
up where it was.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
We didn't sell for one thousand and twenty nine days.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
That means we didn't earn a nickel for one thousand
and twenty nine days. We maintained our staff fully. The
good news about the charter business is you rent everything.
You rent the ship, you rent the artist. So when
you're not operating other than keeping your personnel together. There

(21:47):
really is an idiot ongoing cost. We were very fortunate
over fifty percent of our guests who had purchased or
a reserved state room from one of our cruises, even
though they had the opportunity to get all of their

(22:09):
money back, immediately chose to leave it in because they
wanted to.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
They didn't want to lose their place in line.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
And so when we came back, obviously we were somewhat
circumspect because you never know, and so we sailed in
twenty twenty three.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
There were still some COVID restrictions as.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
To the number of cabins and certain other things, and
we did very very well.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
But twenty twenty four was huge, and that's when we.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Knew that, okay, people were ready to ready to come back,
and so we've had we've had a lot of growth
since the pandemic. The other thing that happened, quite frankly,
is some of the other charter companies did not survive
right right.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
So I did want to ask you about the future.
It seems like things are picking up and going very well,
and I know you've probably gotten better over the years
when it's working with artists or setting up the cruise
and the experience as you look down the road to
the future, is there anything that you think you can
do better, that you want to do better or will

(23:22):
expand the experience with both the artists and the people
that go on the cruises.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
We have an.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Internal issue about keeping things going. I'm seventy five, so
there is that element here and building the kind of
organization that will continue with the same feel in the
same brand, if you will.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
But there's so many there's so many teams.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Out there that we're trying to look at. And because
I a cruise, a cruise is not cheap. But when
you look at today's world, with the cost of a
hotel and the cost of meals and the cost of
entertainment tickets, cruises are tremendous values, unbelievable values. For four

(24:14):
hundred dollars a day, you get all your meals, your room,
and a first class entertainment.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
That's unheard of in this world. Yeah, I mean it's
it's you know, four hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Somebody told me that a lift ticket at Veil a
day a day lift ticket is now three hundred dollars.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
Okay, that that is that is just for the right
to get onto the slow or get everything else. Okay,
So that's is a great value from a business point
of view.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
What our specialty is and what will help us for
the future is this. We know how to run a cruise.
We do a couple of land based events. There's probably
ten fifteen thousand people in the US who know.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
How to do a land based events.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
There aren't five groups who know how to do a
charter cruise, and.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
There is no Cornell School of cruising.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
The only way to learn how to do a cruise
is to do it.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
And unless somebody starts right now and does a.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Whole bunch of cruises, we will always have done more
right so, and it is that experience that makes our
product better. We keep adding production elements. We now have
an app where you go on the cruise and you
can use your phone without using the internet to look

(26:02):
at all the events of the day and.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Things like that.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
And we're trying to make it easier for everybody, and
we're adding land based elements so it is a more
complete package.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Outstanding Before well, Michael, I want to ask you about
philanthropic and charity work, and I know you're terribly busy
with your team, But when you have a time to
be a part of it, whether it's through the company
or yourself personally, what do you like to be a
part of We do a lot of jazz stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
We do a jazz house kids, We do jazz education
stuff all over the country. The country has a lot
of jazz societies where they're helping either a local jazz
musicians or more importantly kids that want to learn how

(26:47):
to play music, So we do that. We're also a
substantial contributor to a Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, and
that's one of.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
The one of the hooks that we have with with
Bobby Bones for the upcoming cruise, we're going to be
doing doing that. So those are the those are the
things that that that that motivate.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Us outstanding great charity work. And also Bobby is one
of the best here at iHeart, so I'm excited that
you're partnered with him. Well, listen, I want to get
some final thoughts from you and a lot to digest
for our listeners. We're going to give the website at
the end in just a moment here and let everybody
kind of peruse of all the great cruises you have
and really get into the meat of it, but maybe

(27:34):
just some final thoughts and recapping what we talked about. Michael,
the floor is your, sir.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Thank you well. First of all, thank you for giving
us time to really talk about this. It's it is.
It is fun for us. I love what we do.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
I don't consider this work although some of it, some
of it can be can be relatively tedious, but the
interaction with the guests and the interaction with the artists
and providing a great experience for people is a hoot.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
And we've been very fortunate over the years.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Not every cruise has been successful, but thankfully more have
been than haven't been. And it's just a great way
to interact with people. One of the things that I
really love about it is, and we say this to
the guests on the first nine for.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
One week, the world doesn't exist. All the noise and
all the craziness that is out.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
There in the world, do not bring that onto the ship.
It's all about camaraderie or respect, having fun. People from
all over the world, all walks of life, sharing whatever
the theme of that cruise is. Even when we did
Star Trek, they were all, you know, everyone's dressed in

(28:59):
star trek Clo. This is this is a week where
they get to be that and and just sharing the music.
Friendships are made, long term friendships are made, but there's
an attitude among the ship that is so congenial and
so lovely. You just wish, like I say every time

(29:21):
at the end of the cruise, I wish you could
take that home with you.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Okay, that is your that is your gift to.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Go home with and but it is it's it's it's
a fabulous feeling being around very happy people and very nice.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
People and it's all about music. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, and it's escapism too that you talked about and
having a wonderful experience for a week. Well, Michael, let's
do this for everybody. I know a lot of our
smart listeners have already navigated on Google and whatever search
engine they're using and want to know what the web
address is. But for the people that haven't done that yet,
what's your web address so they can check everything out there?

Speaker 1 (30:01):
SC Cruises dot com, s c E Cruises dot com.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Outstanding, Well, Michael, listen, congratulations, it's an empire over the
quarter of century that you put this together, and it's
really neat and I love to talk to people like
you that have had all these different chapters. I mean,
going from a lawyer to running the Signature Cruise Experiences
is an extraordinary pivot, and it sounds like you enjoy it,
you're passionate about it, you love it, and you're making

(30:31):
a lot of people happy, which is really cool. And
we really appreciate you joining us on CEOs. You should know,
thank you so much and continued success and thank.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
You very much. And you do a great show, really
do