October 4, 2023 • 52 mins
Tom Hostage, Fdr and Pres of Bespoke History, Bespoke Reunion Publishing, and Partner of Hostage Bros Printing, shares his passion for preserving the stories of families and family businesses.
Bespoke has worked with captains of finance and industry – including two NFL families – producing privately commissioned books to capture family and institutional legacies.
Since 2011 Bespoke Reunion Publishing has worked with top universities including Holy Cross, Fordham, Lehigh and Providence College.
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Bespoke has worked with captains of finance and industry – including two NFL families – producing privately commissioned books to capture family and institutional legacies.
Since 2011 Bespoke Reunion Publishing has worked with top universities including Holy Cross, Fordham, Lehigh and Providence College.
Winning Business Radio is broadcast live Mondays at 4PM ET.
Winning Business TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Winning Business Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Winning Business Radio Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/winning-business-radio--3075598/support.
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(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history
are condemned to repeat it. Kevinhelen n believes that certainly applies to business.
Welcome to Winning Business Radio here atW four CY Radio. That's W
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four cy dot com and now yourhost, Kevin Helena. Thanks everybody for
joining in today. I'm Kevin Hallan, and welcome back to Winning Business TV
and Radio on w f C whydot com, streaming live on talkfo tv
dot com, in addition to Facebookand that's at Winning Business Radio, as
(01:07):
well as available in podcasts after thelive show on lots of platforms including YouTube,
iHeart, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, pretty much wherever you listen to
your favorite podcasts. The mission ofWinning Business Radio and TV, as regular
viewers and listeners now, is tooffer insights and advice to help people avoid
(01:27):
the mistakes of others, to learnbest practices, the how tos, the
what too's, the what not tos. You know, to be challenged and
hopefully to be inspired by the successesof others. But you know, virtually
every successful person I've ever had achance to talk to has had some form
of failure in their lives and careers. So while we all have to get
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our knees skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from
needing major surgery. Let's endeavor tolearn from history so we don't repeat it
today. My guest is Tom Hostage, founder and president of Bespoke History,
Bespoke Bok Reunion Publishing, and partnerof Hostage Brothers Printing. Here's his bio.
As one of ten children, TomHostage first wrote a book about his
own large and lively family as agift to his parents and their descendants.
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That book became the foundation for hissecond business, Bespoke History. After graduating
with a BS and Communications from Cornelleighty nine, Tom spent six years in
corporate media sales prior to founding HostageBrothers Printing, a Massachusetts based commercial printing
and design firm, in nineteen ninetyfive. Tom founded Bespoke History in two
thousand and six after writing and producinghis first privately commissioned family history. He
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and his core team have produced overthirty Bespoke History books since their founding as
a member of the association or excuseme, he is a member of the
Association of Professional Personal Historians and affiliatedwith the Association of Professional Genealogists. That's
kind of a mouthful. Bespoke hasworked with captains of finance and industry,
including two NFL families, producing privatelycommission and books to capture family and institutional
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legacies. Bespoke History produces privately commissionedmemoirs and comprehensive family, corporate, and
institutional histories. Bespoke History's goal isto help families and organizations preserve and celebrate
their history and memories for the enrichmentand enjoyment of future generations. Additionally,
he refined the genre of college reunionbooks after founding Bespoke Reunion Publishing in twenty
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eleven, working with top universities,including Holy Cross, Fordham, Lehigh,
and Providence College for more than adecade. He's a resident of Northborough,
Massachusetts and a native of Bethesda,Maryland. Tom, Welcome to Winning Business
Radio. Thanks for being here.Good to be here. I know you're
busy. I appreciate you taking thetime, so tell people who may not
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be familiar with Bethesda tell us alittle about the city and what it was
like to grow up there. Sobezzda. Maryland is right in the hub
of Washington, DC metro area.It happens to be where the Marriott corporate
was located, and my dad wasa Marriott executive growing up. I'm the
like I said, the eighth ofhis ten kids, and we were all
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raised in Bethesda. Anybody in Bethesdaknows one of the hostages, most likely,
but very you know, right inthe heart of I grew up right
around the DC monuments, going intoWashington, d C. On a regular
basis for any reason. I veryspoiled in that regard. We left Bethesda
when I was about eleven years oldand relocated up to Boston, and I
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spent my formative years up in Boston, and that's where I've made my my
business ever since. But so whatwere this grow up? That's awesome,
that's that's awesome. What were yourearly interests during that time period. Well,
you know, I was a sportsguy. I was an athlete.
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You know, I played football andlacrosse growing up. When I when I
got in the college, I gothurt playing football, and my dad told
me. I told him when Itold my dad, Pop, I don't
think I'm gonna you know, thisis my last injury. Nobody's going to
pay me to play football when Iget out of here. And he said,
well, then you better get ajob then while I was at school.
So I went to the local radiostation in fact and and got some
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experience, and that's how I endedup in sports marketing and media sales when
I got out of college, whenI gravitated towards the only way to make
money at the college radio station wasto sell advertising, so I wasn't interested
in being on the air. Iwent and sold advertising, made a little
money, and figured out how todo that for a living for the first
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five or six years of my professionallife. And it was at that point.
I have five brothers. There's fourof us that could be called Irish
twins were born like you know,right in a row and basically you know,
and they were all working in theprinting business up in Boston. And
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I was doing very well in mediasales, but I really very close with
my family, and there was anopportunity to take over another printing business,
and my younger brother was graduating rightbehind me at Cornell, so I decided
to pick it up and move upto Boston. After this is after I
spent five years in New York aftercollege, right went up to Boston,
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started a smoke, took over areally a dying little printing company and kind
of turned it around with my brother, both of us having learned the business
through working with our older brothers andvacations in summers and things like that.
I was going to ask and Iran that business starting in nineteen ninety five
with my younger brother, and weyou know, we grew one business,
sold, got a bigger shop,had more employees, grew that And my
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story is very similar to a lotof stories I now write, which is
two thousand and eight came along andthe printing industry changed dramatically. It was
you know, it had impacts onevery industry but in the printing industry,
obviously people were going right to theirbudgets to figure out where they could trim
down and slice down. And alsoyou have to remember we're into the digital
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age, where so many of thethings that we used to produce, print
products we used to produce are nowpdfiles and whatnot. So on a number
of levels that industry changed to adegree that I looked at my brother and
to put a pin in that.By two thousand and eight, I had
written my first book as a sidegame, just as something I was interested
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in doing. I wrote the historyof our family, the Hostage Family,
which I had to figure out howgoing to be a long book with ten
kids? Yeah, well you know, and I traced our ancestry back to
the fourteen hundreds in England and literallyproduced a very comprehensive family history. I
was the white whale was trying tofigure out how we got the name Hostage,
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but I wasn't able to necessarily answerthat question. But I produced a
really comprehensive book that detailed our familyhistory. And in the process of doing
that, I learned a lot andI really enjoyed it. So when two
thousand and eight came along to theprinting industry. My brother came to me
and said, listen, we gotto stop taking paychecks for about six months
so we can pay off these notes. Because at the bank we had a
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lot of big equipment that we hadles is on. So the bank calls
in our note, we're in trouble. So I decided you do this.
I'm going to write books for awhile. And I haven't looked back.
That's thirty one books ago, andI still co owned Hostage Brothers Printing with
my brother, and I still havea presence there. I was the outside
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man, he was the inside man, so I do have a connection there.
And frankly, I looked at Bespokeas a way of helping my printing
company because we designed and produce allof my books. And I started Bespoke
re Union because when you do afamily or a corporate history, it's a
one off job. You do onebook. It's not like continual renewable business,
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right right, right, Whereas I'vejust fatted the Reunion Company, which
produces fiftieth college and reunion yearbooks forcolleges like Holy Cross, Providence College,
Fordham University, and that business isrenewable. There's a new reunion every year.
So and I looked at that asa way to help my printing companies
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to stay around because there's been tremendousattrition in that industry. And that,
you know, Hostage Brothers is stillkicking and we're still in business and doing
very well. And I'm now fullbeen full time writing books now for a
dozen years. Well tell me juststick on the printing company for just a
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second, just two minutes there,maybe not even two minutes. Who are
your clients and what are your specialtiesin the printing company? So in printing,
like in anything, we we foundourselves in a niche of the restaurant
industry. And it really only happenedthat way because when I we made an
acquisition of another we moved our businessfrom Newton, Mass To Framingham, Mass.
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Bought another company where the owner wantedto retire. He had a book
of business. One of those clientswas Legal Seafoods. Oh, the restaurant
chain at the time. Today it'sa great restaurant, great chain now.
When this was nineteen ninety eight,and Legals only had seven restaurants back then,
and they were a very local,preventional, little company family owned and
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we grew with Legal Seafoods. Basically, I went down there, made relationships
with the key people there, andthey said, listen, we're about to
go on a huge growth expansion.They expanded the thirty five restaurants in the
space of five years from that point, and they gave us a has to
grow with them, and we did. You know, we kept adding equipment,
adding people to facilitate their growth,and we became their primary vendor for
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men us back a house front ofhouse marketing materials. I mean, the
great part about it was a hugepiece of business. The bad part about
it is that it was too muchof a ratio of our overall business.
Right, you lose an account likethat and suddenly there's a giant hole.
Fortunately we never lost Legal Seafoods,so that's the good thing. Until COVID
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came along, and then COVID changedeverything in the restaurant industry. But for
Hostage Brothers Printing, we developed this, you know, because of Legal Seafoods.
We were able to attract brands likeBertucciese and Margarita, you know restaurants
and add other similar regional change toour network of restaurant groups. That we
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did work with so that that kindof we worked that niche really well.
We have other corporate clients. Obviouslywe're a business. We were business to
business printers. So we're not lookingfor people walking in off the street saying,
you know, I need to doa funeral brochure or something like that.
We are looking for businesses that haveyou know, value needs for and
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design needs. You know. Inthe printing business, it's so competitive,
it's so price sensitive, turnaround sensitive, quality sensitive that it became a The
price became the driving force, andthe only way to overcome to make any
money, frankly, was to findother ways to make money besides the printing
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parts. So we became a designcompany that happens to print. Right.
How big is the team? Wehad a dozen people at our at our
peak. You know that that hasshrunk a bit with digital printing. We
don't run presses anymore, right,so I don't need pressmen and I don't
need a lot of the other peoplethat I need. So we're doing similar
numbers with sick people that we usedto do with. It doesn't so it's
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not a huge company. Was ait was a regional business. Uh,
we did well with it. Andquite honestly it I went into that business
to be self employed. I didn'tgo into that business because I was I
was. I dreamed of being aprinter right right, and and and I
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the the mental exercise of taking thisbusiness and figuring out how to make a
living at it was stimulating for aboutfive six years, and then between that
between it's a tough business. It'sa real grind of a business, just
expressed. You know, price sensitive, quality sensitive, turnaround sensitive, you
name it, it's sensitive. Andso for a lot of reasons, uh,
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you know, we decided that weneed to evolve a bit. We
became a design you know, graphicdesign company that happens to print, and
printing became a lot less of theratio of what we do. And when
you when you control it clients designand branding, you're designing all their materials,
you're designing their signage. It's justeasier to do work with the guy
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that's designing it than go to anothervendor to go get it produced. So
because they can do the way toembed with our clients in essence, So
that was and I, you know, I always say, I tell my
daughter, who's twenty two and I'mtrying to advise her on a career now
she's out of college. I saidto her, Listen, I never I
never wanted to run a printing company, but I wanted to be self employed.
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And frankly, I never really dreamedabout writing books for a living either,
Right but bye, where by whereby running a printing company. I
decided to write my first book becauseI had the infrastructure to produce beautiful printed
products. I have designers, Ihave all the you know, print infrastructure.
I happened to have a degree inhistory and communication for Cornell that I
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wasn't putting too much use. SoI was like, well, I actually,
you know, stretch my legs alittle bit, and I really conceptualized
a family history book project product thatreally was just a gift to my family.
Right but the reaction that book gotfrom people really put an idea in
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my head to put a shingle outand see if I see if somebody would
pay me to do that for them. Right hould that thought right there?
We're going to come right back tothat thought. We're going to take our
first commercial break. We'll be backin about one minute with Tom Hostage,
founder and president of Bespoke History,Bespoke Reunion Publishing and partner of Hostage Brothers
Printing. Will be right back.You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin
(15:41):
Helena on W four CY Radio.That's W four cy dot com. Don't
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Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting excitingtopics and expert guests with one goal in
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again, it's Kevin Helena.
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Welcome back with Tom Hostage. Tomtell us about the reactions from whom
and what did they sound like?That's with regard to that first book.
Yeah, so obviously the family,anybody's family history is interesting to that family.
I found that there were a lotof people outside of our family that
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were interested in the historical components ofwhat we do. I mean, our
family lived through a lot of historyin both American and even over in England.
So the reaction that I would get, the most commonly heard phrase was
I would love to have something likethis about my family, right. And
it only took somebody. It onlytook hearing that for a year I think
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before I decided maybe there's something here. And but like anything else, I
had to give some get somebody togive me my first break, right.
So, because the fact is Iworked for a year and a half on
that book, and it was alay and night, I mean, really
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a lot of research. I interviewedprobably thirty forty people, my family members,
other people, gathered genealogical research toreally understand that, you know,
the true underpinnings the framework of ourfamily history, and then add detail and
you know content, you know,color and onto that all of that.
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So you know, that reaction,like I said, was I said,
well, well, if people everybodywould want something like this, for their
family? How am I? Howcan I craft a business that could possibly
do that for them? But thenthe hard part is how do you how
do you charge for something like this? Right? I always said to people,
if I ever added up the manhours I spent on that book,
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I probably, you know, curlup into a ball and I so that
it's there's no automated way to dothis. It's a man now. It's
hardcore research, writing, editing,design work. And so how do you
quantify that? How do you puta number on that and then make a
proposal to somebody? So? Andthen how do I get somebody that?
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And what I came back to isthat this is going to cost tens of
thousands of dollars per book, Right, this isn't something I can do for
five grand or something like that Ineed. So therefore that has everything to
do with the name be spoke.Right. I had a dear friend at
the time who actually helped me writemy business plan. He had gone to
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Yale, then he went to Oxford, and then he went to Harvard,
and while he was in Oxford obviouslyspent a year in England. He's like,
you know, you really have toconsider the name be spoke, because
what you do is really tailored,right, custom customized to that family,
to that organization that you're writing for. And it's a word that the people
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who can afford your product will understand. And so let me pause you on
that because I'm smiling because we justcame back, my wife and I from
two weeks ago in England and Ilearned the word be spoke and it's,
you know, something you do forsomeone specifically, and we were in Oxford,
it's an amazing city, but goahead, go ahead. Well yeah,
it was really I think, originallyassociated with tailoring, right, you
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want to be spoke to suit,right, But then somebody, you know,
I created bespoke in two thousand andsix. It's quite annoying to me,
frankly that about five or ten yearslater I see them you spoke somewhere
along the way. It was ina movie or was in something, and
it became the popular name. Nowthere's a bunch of bespoke businesses out there,
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right. But the idea was tocreate to brand. It was in
a way that it appealed, Ittargeted a specific and at the time I
started be spoke to write family histories, right, and you've done a lot
more. We'll get into that,but you've done companies that I looked at
the handcock of You Go Right inMaine. That's the actually the book I'm
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currently writing. So you were seeingwork in progress. But the fact is
I wanted, you know, II'm very passionate about my family. You
know, the story of Bespoke isthat I was sitting around the family dinner
table one day and one of mybrother I was the kid of the of
the ten kids who asked all thequestions about where we come from, right.
Nobody else seemed to care. Andone of my brothers asked the question
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of my father. That told me, I can't even remember what the question
was, but it told me thathe knows absolutely nothing about our history,
about our family, right. Andthat was the idea for writing the book.
I said, you know what youdon't It really bothered me that he
didn't know. You know that mymom's family came from a dairy farm,
and they were German and Irish,and my father's family had come from England
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and this and that. So thatwas the that was the motivation to write
the first book, and it waspurely out of a gift to my family.
Then that turned into recognizing that otherpeople might like this. So I
founded a business to write family histories. And like I said, somebody had
to give me my first break.This gentleman, who I actually who met
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I met who advised me to givethe name be Spoke, is a dear
friend of mine named Michael Danziger.He passed away a few years ago.
Michael had founded a foundation in Bostoncalled Stepping Stone Foundation, and it helps
inner city kids who are good studentsin low performing schools get into some of
the top prep schools in the NewRegion and you know, get a leg
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up in their life and just afantastic human being. And so Mike said,
well, Michael's the one who said, you know, you know,
he suggested he spoke, and thenhe said, I'd like to be your
first customer. And of course that'swhat I needed. I needed that first
break, you know, because otherthan writing your own family story, how
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are you going to ask somebody topay you fifty grand to write a book
when you've you've really got only onebook in your history. How are you
gonna how you gonna yet, There'sno way to do that job for you?
Know, depending on the on thebook, you know, the range
of the books goes quite a bit. We can talk about that. Yeah,
you've also learned to scale, rightof course. Yes, yeah,
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so, I mean but at thetime, all I knew knew how to
do was this incredibly constant, comprehensivehistory. And that's all I was thinking
this business would be. And Ilearned over time that there's there's a whole
number of books, you know.I usually have one or two massive major
book projects and left the little onespiled up on top of it typically.
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But yeah, so family business eventually, no family stories eventually brought me to
my first family business story, right, And that's I think part of why
I am here. But enough,what is the process for capturing history?
Talk about interviewing people and doing genealogicalresearch. Tell us about that. Yeah,
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so that's part of the bespoke aspectof it, is that every book
project has its very unique requirements toget it done right some families, most
families want to know at a minimum, when did our ancestors come to the
US, right, maybe a littlebit of the why and the how,
right, and then mostly tracking thatfamily family. However, many generations since
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they came to the US, right, and being in New England, I've
met a lot of families that goquite a ways back, right, So
that was sort of the initial thrust. And so therefore genealogy sort of like
when you're building a house, youbuild a foundation. Well, genealogy is
(24:57):
your foundation when you're doing it familyhistory. So before you know, so
the process is, first of all, you talk to your client enough times
to understand what the perfect book forthat client is, right. So I
don't go into a project knowing whatthe book is going to be. I
go in and have conversations with theclient about why they even reached out to
(25:18):
me in the first place, youknow, and learn enough about their story
to understand what the what they knowand what they don't know, what they
want to know. So it's sounique to each situation that there is no
cookie cutter, you know, processor menu or price sheet. Every project
is very unique in its challenges.Uh. Some families want to know the
(25:41):
history in the old country, right, So I've I've hired researchers, and
I learned early on, right thatI'm not a genealogist. I can do
genealogical research. All of us cango on ancestry and do all that,
and there's a really real genealogy ismuch more boots on the ground type of
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stuff, and you got to knowwhat you're doing, and it's it takes
a certain type of person to doit well right, And I realized I'm
not that guy, so so Iyou know, that's why I joined the
Association of Genealogists, so that Icould tap into a network of researchers who
are all more than happy to youknow, there's not a lot of guys
knocking on their door to hire themto do stuff, so it's fairly easy
(26:26):
to hire people. And I lookfor researchers who have an expertise in the
very specific you know, whether it'sa geographical region or a type of business,
whatever you know it is. Ihire researchers, both genealogical and other
types of researchers to help me gatherthe content I need to turn and assimilate
(26:49):
it into a story, right souSo the process, like I said,
first things first is to spend enoughtime with your client to understand to turn
around and be able to show thema book plan for exactly the book that
they would want, right and andonly when we agree on what that is
(27:11):
do I then start making a planto create that book. Right. I
learned that are you able to seta budget earlier? Is that over time?
Yeah? So I learned the hardway. So my first few books,
my strategy was get them to commitas much money as I could possibly
get them to commit. That wasthe strategy. And you know, feel
(27:33):
them out enough and know enough aboutthem and feel them out to know what
range would work for them, becauseand depending on the book. In most
cases, I was pitching books thatwere you know, year two year type
projects, right right, So,and so what would happen is I go
in and agree on a number withthem, which was a wild wag,
(27:56):
as they say, a wild assguess, right, But you know,
based on how much time I thoughtthis and that would take. It was
purely learning by experience. So whatI learned is you have no idea what
you're getting into until you start workingon it and get deeper into the story.
So if you try to say,somebody, I'll do this book,
I'll tell the story of five generationsof your family for sixty thousand dollars and
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it'll have this it'll cover all thesethings and it'll have whatever genealogical research,
research on your whatever whatever it iscalled for in the book. That line
I would get commit to a numberup front and then just go work on
the book and end up probably overdelivering by many times. Right. And
I learned that I need to changemy strategy for how I'm going to pitch
(28:45):
these projects if I'm going to makeit not a bleeding experience for me.
So I learned to go in andsign phase one agreements. Right, So
phase one allows me, is itrelative to the total cost of the project?
Phase one is probably ten to fifteenpercent? Right, Whatever I think
(29:07):
the total project's number is going tobe, this is probably ten to fifteen
percent. So if I get themto commit to a Phase one number,
it's typically in the ten to fifteento twenty grand range, maybe you know,
maybe less on a smaller book.That allows and for phase one,
we agree what we're going to doin phase one and phase one, I'm
going to interview this many people.They may give me a list of people
(29:29):
they want to interview. I mayput together that list. Whatever it is.
We agree on a number of interviews, interview subjects, people to be
interviewed. We agree on parameters ofresearch that we're going to do right,
very specific, like you want toknow where your family came from in the
old country and you want to knowdetails, or you want the story to
(29:51):
start here in the US from thepoint they came whatever that is, we
define what those parameters of research are. So Phase one covers interview research and
the third item is image sourcing.Right, our books are very visual,
a lot of a lot of pictures, a lot of I like. I
like that. I liken it tothe ken Burns approach to family history books,
(30:15):
where it's lots of pictures and coolmemorabilia, letters and documents and stuff
that brings the story to life.Right. I always said that with my
uh, with my nine siblings,it's like I got some siblings that are
voracious readers, and I got acouple that move their lips when they read.
So how do I get how doI write the book that this sibling
can appreciate all the content and informationthere, and this sibling might be tricked
(30:40):
into reading it by all the picturesan interesting visual component that that's how he
knows he's been reading this book.Right. So, so again Phase one
is is interviews research image sourcing,and so image sourcing really means we're going
to come. You're going to giveus access to the family. In a
case of a family, they're goingto give us access to old pictures,
(31:02):
albums, basements, addicts, whereboxes of whatever, an attic once in
a while, Oh hell yeah,absolutely, and we you know, a
lot of times I'll have to showup with a laptop and scanner and scan
on site, or I'll send somebodyto do that if it's going to be
you know, days worth of scanning. But where possible, we get clients
(31:27):
to let us bring boxes and cratessome material back to our facility, scan
everything and catalog and organize it sothat at the end of phase one,
I've recorded a number of interviews,I have transcripts from those interviews. I've
done whatever research we agreed that wewould do as part of phase one,
and I've gathered hundreds of images thatwould potentially be used eventually in the layout
(31:52):
of the book someday. And atthe end of all that, I have
a much better you know, theimage sourcing aside from the interview in research,
I have a much better understanding ofthe story that's to be told here,
and how hard it is going tobe to do that, because some
stories are easier than others. Right. I did an Icelandic family that was
(32:14):
hard. You know, their wholenaming patterns are very different. Obviously I
don't speak the language. I hadto hire translators and hire a researcher in
Iceland to gather material, translate itand send it to me. So some
projects are harder than others, andthere's degrees of difficulties, right, And
sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes youdon't know until you get you've done your
(32:36):
research and interviews to know like,oh wait, this is a way more
complicated story than we were. Youknow, we were thrown around at the
lunch the other day. You know, this is this is growing and expanding,
and so that that conversation can behad within phase one and at the
end of phase one, the deliverablefrom phase one as a book plan.
(32:57):
Right, Yes, it's also thearchive of images we've gathered and it's research,
you know, the interview transcripts we'vegathered. But that's all just raw
materials, right that we're going touse to put the meal. So so
again, so at the end ofphase one, I have I'm much better
informed to tell them to put forwardto phase two proposal. Phase two is
(33:21):
the writing, editing and design ofthe book. Right at the end of
phase two, you have a digitalfile for a book that's ready to go
to press. Right fase, pleasepull that thought. Between phase two and
phase three, we got to takeone more commercial that'll take us to the
end of the show. We'll beright back with Tom Hostage in about one
minute. You're listening to Winning BusinessRadio with Kevin Helene on W four CY
(33:50):
Radio. That's W four cy dotcom. Don't go away. More helpful
information is coming right up right hereon Winning Business Radio. Hey, this
is Elliot Lewis of Holland Oates andyou're listening to W four CY Radio.
Whatever. The yp dot com websiteis your local search engine. If you're
(34:15):
looking for a good restaurant, itcan help you find the right one nearby
with ratings and reviews. Or ifyour car breaks down, you can use
the yp app to find the closestrepair shop. Or maybe you're just looking
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where, if you're looking for something, yp Local Search can help you find
(34:36):
it, So go to yp dotcom or download the app to search local,
find local, and save local.And now back to Winning Business Radio
with Kevin helenan presenting exciting topics andexpert guests with one goal in mind to
help you succeed in business. Hereonce again, it's Kevin Helena. We're
(35:05):
back with Tom Hostage, founder atpresident of Bespoke History and Bespoke Reunion Publishing.
Take us now into phase three.We've got phase one, Phase two.
What's phase three? So Phase twois writing and designing the book,
right, that is by far themost lengthy and expensive component of the whole
project. You know, at theend of phase two, we delivered We've
(35:30):
been delivering chapters for the client toread and bet and feedback. So at
the end of phase two, thebook has been approved by the client,
the client has read drafts, we'vemade revisions, we've made design changes,
and the book file is ready togo to print. And then phase three
is pre production. And phase threeis obviously that feeds back into my original
(35:51):
printing company and that helps that business, right, But obviously printing is a
variable cost, so it's never partof the package up front, camera here
and getting in the sun. Soyeah, so that's that's really where the
rubber hits the road in phase two. That's that's the big price point of
the project. And and it's youknow, phase one is pretty easy to
(36:15):
quantify what it's going to take toget done. Phase two is is the
is much more unknown. And you'vegot to do phase one before you even
try to price and outline phase two. And these are limited publications, correct,
Yeah, we produce you know,as I think I put in the
name, you know, we privatelycommissioned histories. Right now. Having said
(36:40):
that, I've had a couple ofclients I've done I've done memoirs for for
individuals, interesting personal you know.A lot of the clients, a couple
of CEOs along the way, havewanted me to write their personal story or
help them write their personal story.I've actually been the ghostwriter writing and the
first person voice for this person,right And I've had one guy who who
(37:02):
decided that book was so he gotsuch great feedback from all his friends and
family that this book should go onAmazon. And so we've had a number
of those, but they're really notproduced with that in mind that you know,
for instance, Hancock Lumber is apretty good example. This company in
Maine that's hired me to write theirone hundred and seventy five year history.
(37:22):
One of the first read questions Ihave for a client like that is,
what are you going to do withthe book? You know, why are
you hiring me? Right? Theywant to obviously celebrate their one hundred and
seventy five year anniversary. But right, so, who's going to read this
book? Who's my audience that I'mwriting to, right, And typically that
audience in a family, it's I'mwriting to the descendants. I'm writing not
(37:45):
just to the family that's here,but to this future generation. Right,
I'm speaking of that when I writethose books. When I'm writing a corporate
history, I find that I'm writingto an audience of people who work in
the business, or who do businesswith the company, or obviously you know,
board members or our books in thebusiness sphere are used as public relations.
(38:10):
Uh, They're used as to establish, you know, obviously the story
of the company and the culture.I would say corporate culture is the biggest
reason companies hire me to write theirhistory. They want to capture the essence
of who they are. It's justyou know this out here just like I
just as I said to my brother, you know, you don't even know
(38:30):
who we are, you know,as a family, if you don't know
where we come from. Right,same thing with the business, you know,
if you if you want, ifyou have a great corporate culture that's
been in place for four or fivegenerations of a family business, how do
you sustain that? How do youkeep the same value system and you know,
uh culture that you work so hardto create? And this these books
(38:52):
really drill down on establishing what thatcorporate culture is, but that value system
is, and how it can beyou know, sustained into future generations of
the company. So give the audience, Uh he can name names if you
want, you don't have to,but just describe the different projects you've done.
Sure, and by the way,we haven't talked much about reunion yet.
(39:15):
You can introject some of that aswell. Absolutely on the business side.
For instance, there's a company HerschelHospitality in Philadelphia. I read on
that one. Yeah, it wasinteresting. Yeah, And so I mean
that's that's an immigrant story, that'san American you know dream story, right
head to the title. You know, we call it an American story because
(39:38):
that family is so proud of havingcome over here in the sixties with nothing
and built their business from from onelittle, you know, dingy motel in
the Harrisburg you know, on theoutskirts of Harrisburg into a hotel empire of
hundreds of high end you know,four and five star hotels. Right.
(40:00):
So that's that's an example of acompany that hired me. Both from the
family perspective, they wanted this isthe second generation that hired me, but
you know, the third generation waswas maybe ten and you know, in
their teens, and they wanted thatgeneration to really appreciate where they come from
and how we didn't just arrive hereat this level, right, We got
(40:22):
here by a lot of toil andhard work and sacrifice. And that's the
story that they want to bring forward, you know, the line, you
know, to celebrate, but alsoto inform future generations. Right. It's
it's not just to capture the storyto glorify the story. It's too so
you learn something from it. Youknow, the next guy is going to
(40:45):
learn something either he's about him orherself by by knowing your ancestors. You
get to know yourself by knowing whatthey you know, the different characteristics of
them and what they went through.It helps with you understanding yourself and understanding
how your company was built and puttogether and what went into that story helps
workers and you know, people inthe company and people in its atmosphere understand
(41:09):
you know who they are and whythey do business. So other examples,
I mean in terms of I've donea lot of real estate executives, it
seems in the last couple of yearsall of them have a story about two
thousand and eight, right, Alot of Homan, a lot of boom
(41:30):
and bus stories in the real estateindustry, and even the Harsher story had
had an element of that because thatcompany changed entirely in two thousand and eight.
They were positioned well to take advantageof the downpricing and the market position
right. They were under flippers,right, and so they did acquisitions and
they built their business. You know, they came out of that better than
(41:53):
before. So so businesses I youknow, obviously I tend to write for
multi generational family businesses. That isanother example, and that's a local company
for those foods and yeah, that'sChelsea, Massachusetts, which is cam hot
Dogs. I don't know if you'rein New York, so, oh you're
(42:16):
busting guy. Okay, So soyou know, the brand and hot dogs
I learned in doing that book arevery provincial. Like they in Maine they
eat certain brand of hot dogs.In this part of Connecticut they eate a
certain brand of hot dogs. Andthey're very loyal to their brands, right,
Hey, I am. Actually oneof their growth strategy was to acquire
(42:36):
those brands but keep their branding,you know. And so they were producing
those brands, but you know,keeping the branding because of the community,
the geography was so loyal to thatbranding. Keep well, as I learned
the recipe for hot dogs, isn'tthat much difference, right, very little
(42:57):
difference that Yeah, that's funny.Yeah. So uh so all manner of
companies. But you know, inthe case of of of KM, that's
a company that was celebrating it's it'sPolish heritage. There's a huge Polish community
in that in that Chelsea area thatgenerations of families have worked in that business.
(43:19):
Right. So again, why youknow, when I talked to the
guys that came, then why areyou hiring me, what is the point?
And and and for them, theyliterally wanted to to to preserve,
capture and preserve their history in thiscity of Chelsea. And and and to
make clear that, you know,they reinvested a lot. They could have
(43:42):
moved that business a lot of places. Chelsea's you know, a tough,
pretty tough part of the city.Right, So, but they stay loyal
to that area. And and andyou know there hopefully will be part of
a resurgence in that area. Butthe point is they were they were driving
home their roots in the community andnot only just the business, but all
the people all around who generations ofthose families have worked in the business.
(44:07):
So well, we're running against theclock. Tell us a couple of examples
on the reunion side, the collegeuniversity side. So I started with Holy
Cross univers which is right in Worcester, right in my backyard. And I
had gone to my college reunion,and a buddy of mine and got to
his and he went to Harvard,of course. And so Harvard has their
(44:28):
little Red Book that they do forall their classes every year. Right they
I said, nice product allows theexecution. Right. The Harvard Red Book
is an annual a reunion book thatis put out for that reunion class.
It is very dry, you know, no pictures, a lot of cookies.
(44:49):
It looks like a dictionary, right. I said, let's take let's
take that and do something much morecompelling with it. So we have the
full color version that has you know, people's pictures and pages. People get
to upload their stories and pictures totheir class. It's like an old fashioned
version of a faithbook page right,But for a generation you know, fifty
(45:13):
three d in classes are average aboutseventy two years old, right, And
so this book I sell it tothe college as listen, it's a way
to do something really great for youralumni at a significant anniversary tranquily. And
it's also a period of time whenthey're getting into their estate planning and you
know, donating money to the institution. So it doesn't hurt to have a
(45:35):
reminder that's sitting on their coffee tablefor the next five years of their ties
to that. And it's brilliant,you know. So I pitch it to
the alumni office as you're doing somethinggreatful reunion. I pitch it to the
advancement office as it's a trojan horse. I hate to call it that,
but you know it is very mucha trojan It is kind of it giving
(45:55):
you intelligence on the people who aremost likely to give you money from that
institution. So it's a coffee tablesee if another you know there's reference.
It's a coffee table book in theshape of a coffee table. It's a
hard yeah, right right. Youknow me tell you I really resisted calling
it a coffee table book because ofthat Snifeild episode. But when I started
(46:16):
to realize that, it was instantrecognition. You know, in anything,
you want people to figure out whatit is you're selling as quickly as easily
as possible. He spoke, historydoesn't really tell you that automatically. But
everybody knows what a coffee table bookapparently is, thanks to Jerry Seinfeld.
So it's there for a long time. It's it's consumable. This is what
(46:38):
I see anyway. It's consumable.It's what's the word has longevity it again,
I use the word embedding. Youknow, you're embedding your school's brand
and your school's nostalgic connection too inthe home, and it's designed to stick
around. It's not a pamphlet,it's not a soft cover thing that's going
(46:59):
to look all gear and I'll holdthat up one more time. Absolutely,
it's a hardcover book, will color, very comprehensive. We also for those
on the radio, it is beautiful. It is full color, just gorgeous.
You know. We also interview,so we do something that's different.
There's other companies that do reunion books. We took a big spoke history angle
(47:22):
at it. We interview twenty thirtyguys from that class, and we write
this really comprehensive retrospective of what itwas like to be at Holy Cross from
nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy andusing their voices from the interviews to tell
the stories, and we gather picturesfrom the archives and from the old yearbooks
and present this twenty four page articlecalled Flashback. That is the other component
(47:45):
of their book besides all other pages. And that's something that only a be
spoke history is going to do foryou. Nobody else in our little niche
of reunion yearbooks will go to thatlane. And that's so go ahead,
love that. I love that.Sorrt interrupt. We have time for just
a couple of questions here. Whoare in the listening and viewing audiences should
(48:05):
reach out to you and one willput the crawl up your contact information up.
Now, sure who should reach outand why? Well, obviously multi
you know, anybody who cares abouttheir family history, who has a big
family of future descendants that are inheritinga family name or a family business,
(48:29):
they want to pass on that story. So everybody's got a family. So
that's a pretty you know, broadgroup. Small to mid size family businesses
fit very well for us, right, multi generation, three, four and
five generation family businesses. Those areespecially a good fit for us because they
(48:50):
tend to be regional, you know, they tend to be of a scope
and size that works well for usin terms of the number of people that
would be involved in interviewing and research. So family businesses, families who want
to preserve their history, and obviouslyin the in the bespoke reunion, realm
small and medium colleges. This doesn'tyou know, I couldn't do this at
Cornell where I would school. Right, it has to be a school that's
(49:15):
of a medium size. Hol acrosshis own is perfect, right, you
know, class sizes of about sixseven hundred as opposed to five thousand.
Right, that's that's so anybody who'sinterested in uh people with a lot of
grandchildren and a lot of future generationswho have a story, they want them
(49:37):
to know that that that basically mightinform them how to live their lives.
You know, have some kind ofa moral and ethical compass to their lives.
That's important. Teach them a workethic, teach them that we didn't
just get here to this level ofof you know, socio and economic status.
(49:57):
It took something to get here,and it gives them a more of
a respect for what they have,right, It's an awesome way to pass
that on. That's what I said. Absolutely as well. For those that
are on the radio, share yourlistening on the radio, share your phone
number and email address. It's uhbespokehistory dot com, so b E s
(50:20):
p o k ehistory dot com andthe phone is five zero eight two five
four five four four to two.Perfect. This has been fun for me.
It's it's kind of a different typeof business and we've focused on in
the past, and that's why Ijumped at the opportunity. And so thank
you for being here, and Ireally appreciate you making the time. Yeah
(50:42):
me, you're happy. I'm happyto provide it and thanks to everybody for
watching and listening. This is ashow about business, uh sometimes business challenges.
If you've got concerns about the growthof your company, feel free to
reach out to me. You canfind me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning
Business Radio or drop me a note. One of my many email addresses is
kevinat Winning Businessradio dot com. Ourcompany is Winning Incorporated. We're part of
(51:05):
Sandler Training. We develop sales teamsinto high achievers and sales leaders into true
coaches and mentors. Listen, We'renot right for everybody, but hey,
maybe we should have a conversation.Thank you as always to produce or an
engineer wan f another job well done. Thank you onan. Be sure to
join us next week. That's Monday, October ninth, when my guests will
be Rosa Sophia, managing editor ofMobile Electronics Magazine. She does a lot
(51:28):
of other things too, but that'sthe context in which that interview will take
place. Until then, thanks forbeing here. This is Kevin Hallanan.
You've been listening to Winning Business Radiowith your host, Kevin Helenan. If
you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for
podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more informationand questions, go to Winning Business Radio
(51:51):
dot com or check us out onsocial media. Tune in again next week
and every Monday at four pm EasternTime to listen live to Winning Business Radio
on W four CY Radio W fourc y dot com. Until then,
let's succeed where others have failed andwin in business with Kevin Haleanan and Winning Business Radio
The topics and opinions express in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
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Any questions or comments should be directedto those show hosts. Thank you for
(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history
are condemned to repeat it. Kevinhelen n believes that certainly applies to business.
Welcome to Winning Business Radio here atW four CY Radio. That's W
(00:44):
four cy dot com and now yourhost, Kevin Helena. Thanks everybody for
joining in today. I'm Kevin Hallan, and welcome back to Winning Business TV
and Radio on w f C whydot com, streaming live on talkfo tv
dot com, in addition to Facebookand that's at Winning Business Radio, as
(01:07):
well as available in podcasts after thelive show on lots of platforms including YouTube,
iHeart, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, pretty much wherever you listen to
your favorite podcasts. The mission ofWinning Business Radio and TV, as regular
viewers and listeners now, is tooffer insights and advice to help people avoid
(01:27):
the mistakes of others, to learnbest practices, the how tos, the
what too's, the what not tos. You know, to be challenged and
hopefully to be inspired by the successesof others. But you know, virtually
every successful person I've ever had achance to talk to has had some form
of failure in their lives and careers. So while we all have to get
(01:47):
our knees skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from
needing major surgery. Let's endeavor tolearn from history so we don't repeat it
today. My guest is Tom Hostage, founder and president of Bespoke History,
Bespoke Bok Reunion Publishing, and partnerof Hostage Brothers Printing. Here's his bio.
As one of ten children, TomHostage first wrote a book about his
own large and lively family as agift to his parents and their descendants.
(02:12):
That book became the foundation for hissecond business, Bespoke History. After graduating
with a BS and Communications from Cornelleighty nine, Tom spent six years in
corporate media sales prior to founding HostageBrothers Printing, a Massachusetts based commercial printing
and design firm, in nineteen ninetyfive. Tom founded Bespoke History in two
thousand and six after writing and producinghis first privately commissioned family history. He
(02:38):
and his core team have produced overthirty Bespoke History books since their founding as
a member of the association or excuseme, he is a member of the
Association of Professional Personal Historians and affiliatedwith the Association of Professional Genealogists. That's
kind of a mouthful. Bespoke hasworked with captains of finance and industry,
including two NFL families, producing privatelycommission and books to capture family and institutional
(03:01):
legacies. Bespoke History produces privately commissionedmemoirs and comprehensive family, corporate, and
institutional histories. Bespoke History's goal isto help families and organizations preserve and celebrate
their history and memories for the enrichmentand enjoyment of future generations. Additionally,
he refined the genre of college reunionbooks after founding Bespoke Reunion Publishing in twenty
(03:24):
eleven, working with top universities,including Holy Cross, Fordham, Lehigh,
and Providence College for more than adecade. He's a resident of Northborough,
Massachusetts and a native of Bethesda,Maryland. Tom, Welcome to Winning Business
Radio. Thanks for being here.Good to be here. I know you're
busy. I appreciate you taking thetime, so tell people who may not
(03:46):
be familiar with Bethesda tell us alittle about the city and what it was
like to grow up there. Sobezzda. Maryland is right in the hub
of Washington, DC metro area.It happens to be where the Marriott corporate
was located, and my dad wasa Marriott executive growing up. I'm the
like I said, the eighth ofhis ten kids, and we were all
(04:10):
raised in Bethesda. Anybody in Bethesdaknows one of the hostages, most likely,
but very you know, right inthe heart of I grew up right
around the DC monuments, going intoWashington, d C. On a regular
basis for any reason. I veryspoiled in that regard. We left Bethesda
when I was about eleven years oldand relocated up to Boston, and I
(04:33):
spent my formative years up in Boston, and that's where I've made my my
business ever since. But so whatwere this grow up? That's awesome,
that's that's awesome. What were yourearly interests during that time period. Well,
you know, I was a sportsguy. I was an athlete.
(04:55):
You know, I played football andlacrosse growing up. When I when I
got in the college, I gothurt playing football, and my dad told
me. I told him when Itold my dad, Pop, I don't
think I'm gonna you know, thisis my last injury. Nobody's going to
pay me to play football when Iget out of here. And he said,
well, then you better get ajob then while I was at school.
So I went to the local radiostation in fact and and got some
(05:20):
experience, and that's how I endedup in sports marketing and media sales when
I got out of college, whenI gravitated towards the only way to make
money at the college radio station wasto sell advertising, so I wasn't interested
in being on the air. Iwent and sold advertising, made a little
money, and figured out how todo that for a living for the first
(05:42):
five or six years of my professionallife. And it was at that point.
I have five brothers. There's fourof us that could be called Irish
twins were born like you know,right in a row and basically you know,
and they were all working in theprinting business up in Boston. And
(06:05):
I was doing very well in mediasales, but I really very close with
my family, and there was anopportunity to take over another printing business,
and my younger brother was graduating rightbehind me at Cornell, so I decided
to pick it up and move upto Boston. After this is after I
spent five years in New York aftercollege, right went up to Boston,
(06:29):
started a smoke, took over areally a dying little printing company and kind
of turned it around with my brother, both of us having learned the business
through working with our older brothers andvacations in summers and things like that.
I was going to ask and Iran that business starting in nineteen ninety five
with my younger brother, and weyou know, we grew one business,
sold, got a bigger shop,had more employees, grew that And my
(06:56):
story is very similar to a lotof stories I now write, which is
two thousand and eight came along andthe printing industry changed dramatically. It was
you know, it had impacts onevery industry but in the printing industry,
obviously people were going right to theirbudgets to figure out where they could trim
down and slice down. And alsoyou have to remember we're into the digital
(07:18):
age, where so many of thethings that we used to produce, print
products we used to produce are nowpdfiles and whatnot. So on a number
of levels that industry changed to adegree that I looked at my brother and
to put a pin in that.By two thousand and eight, I had
written my first book as a sidegame, just as something I was interested
(07:40):
in doing. I wrote the historyof our family, the Hostage Family,
which I had to figure out howgoing to be a long book with ten
kids? Yeah, well you know, and I traced our ancestry back to
the fourteen hundreds in England and literallyproduced a very comprehensive family history. I
was the white whale was trying tofigure out how we got the name Hostage,
(08:01):
but I wasn't able to necessarily answerthat question. But I produced a
really comprehensive book that detailed our familyhistory. And in the process of doing
that, I learned a lot andI really enjoyed it. So when two
thousand and eight came along to theprinting industry. My brother came to me
and said, listen, we gotto stop taking paychecks for about six months
so we can pay off these notes. Because at the bank we had a
(08:24):
lot of big equipment that we hadles is on. So the bank calls
in our note, we're in trouble. So I decided you do this.
I'm going to write books for awhile. And I haven't looked back.
That's thirty one books ago, andI still co owned Hostage Brothers Printing with
my brother, and I still havea presence there. I was the outside
(08:45):
man, he was the inside man, so I do have a connection there.
And frankly, I looked at Bespokeas a way of helping my printing
company because we designed and produce allof my books. And I started Bespoke
re Union because when you do afamily or a corporate history, it's a
one off job. You do onebook. It's not like continual renewable business,
(09:07):
right right, right, Whereas I'vejust fatted the Reunion Company, which
produces fiftieth college and reunion yearbooks forcolleges like Holy Cross, Providence College,
Fordham University, and that business isrenewable. There's a new reunion every year.
So and I looked at that asa way to help my printing companies
(09:28):
to stay around because there's been tremendousattrition in that industry. And that,
you know, Hostage Brothers is stillkicking and we're still in business and doing
very well. And I'm now fullbeen full time writing books now for a
dozen years. Well tell me juststick on the printing company for just a
(09:50):
second, just two minutes there,maybe not even two minutes. Who are
your clients and what are your specialtiesin the printing company? So in printing,
like in anything, we we foundourselves in a niche of the restaurant
industry. And it really only happenedthat way because when I we made an
acquisition of another we moved our businessfrom Newton, Mass To Framingham, Mass.
(10:15):
Bought another company where the owner wantedto retire. He had a book
of business. One of those clientswas Legal Seafoods. Oh, the restaurant
chain at the time. Today it'sa great restaurant, great chain now.
When this was nineteen ninety eight,and Legals only had seven restaurants back then,
and they were a very local,preventional, little company family owned and
(10:43):
we grew with Legal Seafoods. Basically, I went down there, made relationships
with the key people there, andthey said, listen, we're about to
go on a huge growth expansion.They expanded the thirty five restaurants in the
space of five years from that point, and they gave us a has to
grow with them, and we did. You know, we kept adding equipment,
adding people to facilitate their growth,and we became their primary vendor for
(11:09):
men us back a house front ofhouse marketing materials. I mean, the
great part about it was a hugepiece of business. The bad part about
it is that it was too muchof a ratio of our overall business.
Right, you lose an account likethat and suddenly there's a giant hole.
Fortunately we never lost Legal Seafoods,so that's the good thing. Until COVID
(11:31):
came along, and then COVID changedeverything in the restaurant industry. But for
Hostage Brothers Printing, we developed this, you know, because of Legal Seafoods.
We were able to attract brands likeBertucciese and Margarita, you know restaurants
and add other similar regional change toour network of restaurant groups. That we
(11:54):
did work with so that that kindof we worked that niche really well.
We have other corporate clients. Obviouslywe're a business. We were business to
business printers. So we're not lookingfor people walking in off the street saying,
you know, I need to doa funeral brochure or something like that.
We are looking for businesses that haveyou know, value needs for and
(12:16):
design needs. You know. Inthe printing business, it's so competitive,
it's so price sensitive, turnaround sensitive, quality sensitive that it became a The
price became the driving force, andthe only way to overcome to make any
money, frankly, was to findother ways to make money besides the printing
(12:37):
parts. So we became a designcompany that happens to print. Right.
How big is the team? Wehad a dozen people at our at our
peak. You know that that hasshrunk a bit with digital printing. We
don't run presses anymore, right,so I don't need pressmen and I don't
need a lot of the other peoplethat I need. So we're doing similar
numbers with sick people that we usedto do with. It doesn't so it's
(13:01):
not a huge company. Was ait was a regional business. Uh,
we did well with it. Andquite honestly it I went into that business
to be self employed. I didn'tgo into that business because I was I
was. I dreamed of being aprinter right right, and and and I
(13:22):
the the mental exercise of taking thisbusiness and figuring out how to make a
living at it was stimulating for aboutfive six years, and then between that
between it's a tough business. It'sa real grind of a business, just
expressed. You know, price sensitive, quality sensitive, turnaround sensitive, you
name it, it's sensitive. Andso for a lot of reasons, uh,
(13:46):
you know, we decided that weneed to evolve a bit. We
became a design you know, graphicdesign company that happens to print, and
printing became a lot less of theratio of what we do. And when
you when you control it clients designand branding, you're designing all their materials,
you're designing their signage. It's justeasier to do work with the guy
(14:07):
that's designing it than go to anothervendor to go get it produced. So
because they can do the way toembed with our clients in essence, So
that was and I, you know, I always say, I tell my
daughter, who's twenty two and I'mtrying to advise her on a career now
she's out of college. I saidto her, Listen, I never I
never wanted to run a printing company, but I wanted to be self employed.
(14:30):
And frankly, I never really dreamedabout writing books for a living either,
Right but bye, where by whereby running a printing company. I
decided to write my first book becauseI had the infrastructure to produce beautiful printed
products. I have designers, Ihave all the you know, print infrastructure.
I happened to have a degree inhistory and communication for Cornell that I
(14:54):
wasn't putting too much use. SoI was like, well, I actually,
you know, stretch my legs alittle bit, and I really conceptualized
a family history book project product thatreally was just a gift to my family.
Right but the reaction that book gotfrom people really put an idea in
(15:16):
my head to put a shingle outand see if I see if somebody would
pay me to do that for them. Right hould that thought right there?
We're going to come right back tothat thought. We're going to take our
first commercial break. We'll be backin about one minute with Tom Hostage,
founder and president of Bespoke History,Bespoke Reunion Publishing and partner of Hostage Brothers
Printing. Will be right back.You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin
(15:41):
Helena on W four CY Radio.That's W four cy dot com. Don't
go away. More helpful information iscoming right up right here on Winning Business
Radio. Hi Christmas, Roger McGlenn, and you're listening to a company your
Fury Radio. Have you ever dreamtof being on the radio, Well,
(16:15):
now it's your chance be a radioshow guest on the number one ranked internet
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to one. Get your free advertisingnow. And now back to Winning Business
Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting excitingtopics and expert guests with one goal in
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again, it's Kevin Helena.
(17:04):
Welcome back with Tom Hostage. Tomtell us about the reactions from whom
and what did they sound like?That's with regard to that first book.
Yeah, so obviously the family,anybody's family history is interesting to that family.
I found that there were a lotof people outside of our family that
(17:26):
were interested in the historical components ofwhat we do. I mean, our
family lived through a lot of historyin both American and even over in England.
So the reaction that I would get, the most commonly heard phrase was
I would love to have something likethis about my family, right. And
it only took somebody. It onlytook hearing that for a year I think
(17:48):
before I decided maybe there's something here. And but like anything else, I
had to give some get somebody togive me my first break, right.
So, because the fact is Iworked for a year and a half on
that book, and it was alay and night, I mean, really
(18:10):
a lot of research. I interviewedprobably thirty forty people, my family members,
other people, gathered genealogical research toreally understand that, you know,
the true underpinnings the framework of ourfamily history, and then add detail and
you know content, you know,color and onto that all of that.
(18:32):
So you know, that reaction,like I said, was I said,
well, well, if people everybodywould want something like this, for their
family? How am I? Howcan I craft a business that could possibly
do that for them? But thenthe hard part is how do you how
do you charge for something like this? Right? I always said to people,
if I ever added up the manhours I spent on that book,
(18:55):
I probably, you know, curlup into a ball and I so that
it's there's no automated way to dothis. It's a man now. It's
hardcore research, writing, editing,design work. And so how do you
quantify that? How do you puta number on that and then make a
proposal to somebody? So? Andthen how do I get somebody that?
(19:19):
And what I came back to isthat this is going to cost tens of
thousands of dollars per book, Right, this isn't something I can do for
five grand or something like that Ineed. So therefore that has everything to
do with the name be spoke.Right. I had a dear friend at
the time who actually helped me writemy business plan. He had gone to
(19:42):
Yale, then he went to Oxford, and then he went to Harvard,
and while he was in Oxford obviouslyspent a year in England. He's like,
you know, you really have toconsider the name be spoke, because
what you do is really tailored,right, custom customized to that family,
to that organization that you're writing for. And it's a word that the people
(20:02):
who can afford your product will understand. And so let me pause you on
that because I'm smiling because we justcame back, my wife and I from
two weeks ago in England and Ilearned the word be spoke and it's,
you know, something you do forsomeone specifically, and we were in Oxford,
it's an amazing city, but goahead, go ahead. Well yeah,
it was really I think, originallyassociated with tailoring, right, you
(20:26):
want to be spoke to suit,right, But then somebody, you know,
I created bespoke in two thousand andsix. It's quite annoying to me,
frankly that about five or ten yearslater I see them you spoke somewhere
along the way. It was ina movie or was in something, and
it became the popular name. Nowthere's a bunch of bespoke businesses out there,
(20:48):
right. But the idea was tocreate to brand. It was in
a way that it appealed, Ittargeted a specific and at the time I
started be spoke to write family histories, right, and you've done a lot
more. We'll get into that,but you've done companies that I looked at
the handcock of You Go Right inMaine. That's the actually the book I'm
(21:10):
currently writing. So you were seeingwork in progress. But the fact is
I wanted, you know, II'm very passionate about my family. You
know, the story of Bespoke isthat I was sitting around the family dinner
table one day and one of mybrother I was the kid of the of
the ten kids who asked all thequestions about where we come from, right.
Nobody else seemed to care. Andone of my brothers asked the question
(21:33):
of my father. That told me, I can't even remember what the question
was, but it told me thathe knows absolutely nothing about our history,
about our family, right. Andthat was the idea for writing the book.
I said, you know what youdon't It really bothered me that he
didn't know. You know that mymom's family came from a dairy farm,
and they were German and Irish,and my father's family had come from England
(21:53):
and this and that. So thatwas the that was the motivation to write
the first book, and it waspurely out of a gift to my family.
Then that turned into recognizing that otherpeople might like this. So I
founded a business to write family histories. And like I said, somebody had
to give me my first break.This gentleman, who I actually who met
(22:17):
I met who advised me to givethe name be Spoke, is a dear
friend of mine named Michael Danziger.He passed away a few years ago.
Michael had founded a foundation in Bostoncalled Stepping Stone Foundation, and it helps
inner city kids who are good studentsin low performing schools get into some of
the top prep schools in the NewRegion and you know, get a leg
(22:41):
up in their life and just afantastic human being. And so Mike said,
well, Michael's the one who said, you know, you know,
he suggested he spoke, and thenhe said, I'd like to be your
first customer. And of course that'swhat I needed. I needed that first
break, you know, because otherthan writing your own family story, how
(23:03):
are you going to ask somebody topay you fifty grand to write a book
when you've you've really got only onebook in your history. How are you
gonna how you gonna yet, There'sno way to do that job for you?
Know, depending on the on thebook, you know, the range
of the books goes quite a bit. We can talk about that. Yeah,
you've also learned to scale, rightof course. Yes, yeah,
(23:25):
so, I mean but at thetime, all I knew knew how to
do was this incredibly constant, comprehensivehistory. And that's all I was thinking
this business would be. And Ilearned over time that there's there's a whole
number of books, you know.I usually have one or two massive major
book projects and left the little onespiled up on top of it typically.
(23:47):
But yeah, so family business eventually, no family stories eventually brought me to
my first family business story, right, And that's I think part of why
I am here. But enough,what is the process for capturing history?
Talk about interviewing people and doing genealogicalresearch. Tell us about that. Yeah,
(24:11):
so that's part of the bespoke aspectof it, is that every book
project has its very unique requirements toget it done right some families, most
families want to know at a minimum, when did our ancestors come to the
US, right, maybe a littlebit of the why and the how,
right, and then mostly tracking thatfamily family. However, many generations since
(24:37):
they came to the US, right, and being in New England, I've
met a lot of families that goquite a ways back, right, So
that was sort of the initial thrust. And so therefore genealogy sort of like
when you're building a house, youbuild a foundation. Well, genealogy is
(24:57):
your foundation when you're doing it familyhistory. So before you know, so
the process is, first of all, you talk to your client enough times
to understand what the perfect book forthat client is, right. So I
don't go into a project knowing whatthe book is going to be. I
go in and have conversations with theclient about why they even reached out to
(25:18):
me in the first place, youknow, and learn enough about their story
to understand what the what they knowand what they don't know, what they
want to know. So it's sounique to each situation that there is no
cookie cutter, you know, processor menu or price sheet. Every project
is very unique in its challenges.Uh. Some families want to know the
(25:41):
history in the old country, right, So I've I've hired researchers, and
I learned early on, right thatI'm not a genealogist. I can do
genealogical research. All of us cango on ancestry and do all that,
and there's a really real genealogy ismuch more boots on the ground type of
(26:03):
stuff, and you got to knowwhat you're doing, and it's it takes
a certain type of person to doit well right, And I realized I'm
not that guy, so so Iyou know, that's why I joined the
Association of Genealogists, so that Icould tap into a network of researchers who
are all more than happy to youknow, there's not a lot of guys
knocking on their door to hire themto do stuff, so it's fairly easy
(26:26):
to hire people. And I lookfor researchers who have an expertise in the
very specific you know, whether it'sa geographical region or a type of business,
whatever you know it is. Ihire researchers, both genealogical and other
types of researchers to help me gatherthe content I need to turn and assimilate
(26:49):
it into a story, right souSo the process, like I said,
first things first is to spend enoughtime with your client to understand to turn
around and be able to show thema book plan for exactly the book that
they would want, right and andonly when we agree on what that is
(27:11):
do I then start making a planto create that book. Right. I
learned that are you able to seta budget earlier? Is that over time?
Yeah? So I learned the hardway. So my first few books,
my strategy was get them to commitas much money as I could possibly
get them to commit. That wasthe strategy. And you know, feel
(27:33):
them out enough and know enough aboutthem and feel them out to know what
range would work for them, becauseand depending on the book. In most
cases, I was pitching books thatwere you know, year two year type
projects, right right, So,and so what would happen is I go
in and agree on a number withthem, which was a wild wag,
(27:56):
as they say, a wild assguess, right, But you know,
based on how much time I thoughtthis and that would take. It was
purely learning by experience. So whatI learned is you have no idea what
you're getting into until you start workingon it and get deeper into the story.
So if you try to say,somebody, I'll do this book,
I'll tell the story of five generationsof your family for sixty thousand dollars and
(28:21):
it'll have this it'll cover all thesethings and it'll have whatever genealogical research,
research on your whatever whatever it iscalled for in the book. That line
I would get commit to a numberup front and then just go work on
the book and end up probably overdelivering by many times. Right. And
I learned that I need to changemy strategy for how I'm going to pitch
(28:45):
these projects if I'm going to makeit not a bleeding experience for me.
So I learned to go in andsign phase one agreements. Right, So
phase one allows me, is itrelative to the total cost of the project?
Phase one is probably ten to fifteenpercent? Right, Whatever I think
(29:07):
the total project's number is going tobe, this is probably ten to fifteen
percent. So if I get themto commit to a Phase one number,
it's typically in the ten to fifteento twenty grand range, maybe you know,
maybe less on a smaller book.That allows and for phase one,
we agree what we're going to doin phase one and phase one, I'm
going to interview this many people.They may give me a list of people
(29:29):
they want to interview. I mayput together that list. Whatever it is.
We agree on a number of interviews, interview subjects, people to be
interviewed. We agree on parameters ofresearch that we're going to do right,
very specific, like you want toknow where your family came from in the
old country and you want to knowdetails, or you want the story to
(29:51):
start here in the US from thepoint they came whatever that is, we
define what those parameters of research are. So Phase one covers interview research and
the third item is image sourcing.Right, our books are very visual,
a lot of a lot of pictures, a lot of I like. I
like that. I liken it tothe ken Burns approach to family history books,
(30:15):
where it's lots of pictures and coolmemorabilia, letters and documents and stuff
that brings the story to life.Right. I always said that with my
uh, with my nine siblings,it's like I got some siblings that are
voracious readers, and I got acouple that move their lips when they read.
So how do I get how doI write the book that this sibling
can appreciate all the content and informationthere, and this sibling might be tricked
(30:40):
into reading it by all the picturesan interesting visual component that that's how he
knows he's been reading this book.Right. So, so again Phase one
is is interviews research image sourcing,and so image sourcing really means we're going
to come. You're going to giveus access to the family. In a
case of a family, they're goingto give us access to old pictures,
(31:02):
albums, basements, addicts, whereboxes of whatever, an attic once in
a while, Oh hell yeah,absolutely, and we you know, a
lot of times I'll have to showup with a laptop and scanner and scan
on site, or I'll send somebodyto do that if it's going to be
you know, days worth of scanning. But where possible, we get clients
(31:27):
to let us bring boxes and cratessome material back to our facility, scan
everything and catalog and organize it sothat at the end of phase one,
I've recorded a number of interviews,I have transcripts from those interviews. I've
done whatever research we agreed that wewould do as part of phase one,
and I've gathered hundreds of images thatwould potentially be used eventually in the layout
(31:52):
of the book someday. And atthe end of all that, I have
a much better you know, theimage sourcing aside from the interview in research,
I have a much better understanding ofthe story that's to be told here,
and how hard it is going tobe to do that, because some
stories are easier than others. Right. I did an Icelandic family that was
(32:14):
hard. You know, their wholenaming patterns are very different. Obviously I
don't speak the language. I hadto hire translators and hire a researcher in
Iceland to gather material, translate itand send it to me. So some
projects are harder than others, andthere's degrees of difficulties, right, And
sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes youdon't know until you get you've done your
(32:36):
research and interviews to know like,oh wait, this is a way more
complicated story than we were. Youknow, we were thrown around at the
lunch the other day. You know, this is this is growing and expanding,
and so that that conversation can behad within phase one and at the
end of phase one, the deliverablefrom phase one as a book plan.
(32:57):
Right, Yes, it's also thearchive of images we've gathered and it's research,
you know, the interview transcripts we'vegathered. But that's all just raw
materials, right that we're going touse to put the meal. So so
again, so at the end ofphase one, I have I'm much better
informed to tell them to put forwardto phase two proposal. Phase two is
(33:21):
the writing, editing and design ofthe book. Right at the end of
phase two, you have a digitalfile for a book that's ready to go
to press. Right fase, pleasepull that thought. Between phase two and
phase three, we got to takeone more commercial that'll take us to the
end of the show. We'll beright back with Tom Hostage in about one
minute. You're listening to Winning BusinessRadio with Kevin Helene on W four CY
(33:50):
Radio. That's W four cy dotcom. Don't go away. More helpful
information is coming right up right hereon Winning Business Radio. Hey, this
is Elliot Lewis of Holland Oates andyou're listening to W four CY Radio.
Whatever. The yp dot com websiteis your local search engine. If you're
(34:15):
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(34:36):
it, So go to yp dotcom or download the app to search local,
find local, and save local.And now back to Winning Business Radio
with Kevin helenan presenting exciting topics andexpert guests with one goal in mind to
help you succeed in business. Hereonce again, it's Kevin Helena. We're
(35:05):
back with Tom Hostage, founder atpresident of Bespoke History and Bespoke Reunion Publishing.
Take us now into phase three.We've got phase one, Phase two.
What's phase three? So Phase twois writing and designing the book,
right, that is by far themost lengthy and expensive component of the whole
project. You know, at theend of phase two, we delivered We've
(35:30):
been delivering chapters for the client toread and bet and feedback. So at
the end of phase two, thebook has been approved by the client,
the client has read drafts, we'vemade revisions, we've made design changes,
and the book file is ready togo to print. And then phase three
is pre production. And phase threeis obviously that feeds back into my original
(35:51):
printing company and that helps that business, right, But obviously printing is a
variable cost, so it's never partof the package up front, camera here
and getting in the sun. Soyeah, so that's that's really where the
rubber hits the road in phase two. That's that's the big price point of
the project. And and it's youknow, phase one is pretty easy to
(36:15):
quantify what it's going to take toget done. Phase two is is the
is much more unknown. And you'vegot to do phase one before you even
try to price and outline phase two. And these are limited publications, correct,
Yeah, we produce you know,as I think I put in the
name, you know, we privatelycommissioned histories. Right now. Having said
(36:40):
that, I've had a couple ofclients I've done I've done memoirs for for
individuals, interesting personal you know.A lot of the clients, a couple
of CEOs along the way, havewanted me to write their personal story or
help them write their personal story.I've actually been the ghostwriter writing and the
first person voice for this person,right And I've had one guy who who
(37:02):
decided that book was so he gotsuch great feedback from all his friends and
family that this book should go onAmazon. And so we've had a number
of those, but they're really notproduced with that in mind that you know,
for instance, Hancock Lumber is apretty good example. This company in
Maine that's hired me to write theirone hundred and seventy five year history.
(37:22):
One of the first read questions Ihave for a client like that is,
what are you going to do withthe book? You know, why are
you hiring me? Right? Theywant to obviously celebrate their one hundred and
seventy five year anniversary. But right, so, who's going to read this
book? Who's my audience that I'mwriting to, right, And typically that
audience in a family, it's I'mwriting to the descendants. I'm writing not
(37:45):
just to the family that's here,but to this future generation. Right,
I'm speaking of that when I writethose books. When I'm writing a corporate
history, I find that I'm writingto an audience of people who work in
the business, or who do businesswith the company, or obviously you know,
board members or our books in thebusiness sphere are used as public relations.
(38:10):
Uh, They're used as to establish, you know, obviously the story
of the company and the culture.I would say corporate culture is the biggest
reason companies hire me to write theirhistory. They want to capture the essence
of who they are. It's justyou know this out here just like I
just as I said to my brother, you know, you don't even know
(38:30):
who we are, you know,as a family, if you don't know
where we come from. Right,same thing with the business, you know,
if you if you want, ifyou have a great corporate culture that's
been in place for four or fivegenerations of a family business, how do
you sustain that? How do youkeep the same value system and you know,
uh culture that you work so hardto create? And this these books
(38:52):
really drill down on establishing what thatcorporate culture is, but that value system
is, and how it can beyou know, sustained into future generations of
the company. So give the audience, Uh he can name names if you
want, you don't have to,but just describe the different projects you've done.
Sure, and by the way,we haven't talked much about reunion yet.
(39:15):
You can introject some of that aswell. Absolutely on the business side.
For instance, there's a company HerschelHospitality in Philadelphia. I read on
that one. Yeah, it wasinteresting. Yeah, And so I mean
that's that's an immigrant story, that'san American you know dream story, right
head to the title. You know, we call it an American story because
(39:38):
that family is so proud of havingcome over here in the sixties with nothing
and built their business from from onelittle, you know, dingy motel in
the Harrisburg you know, on theoutskirts of Harrisburg into a hotel empire of
hundreds of high end you know,four and five star hotels. Right.
(40:00):
So that's that's an example of acompany that hired me. Both from the
family perspective, they wanted this isthe second generation that hired me, but
you know, the third generation waswas maybe ten and you know, in
their teens, and they wanted thatgeneration to really appreciate where they come from
and how we didn't just arrive hereat this level, right, We got
(40:22):
here by a lot of toil andhard work and sacrifice. And that's the
story that they want to bring forward, you know, the line, you
know, to celebrate, but alsoto inform future generations. Right. It's
it's not just to capture the storyto glorify the story. It's too so
you learn something from it. Youknow, the next guy is going to
(40:45):
learn something either he's about him orherself by by knowing your ancestors. You
get to know yourself by knowing whatthey you know, the different characteristics of
them and what they went through.It helps with you understanding yourself and understanding
how your company was built and puttogether and what went into that story helps
workers and you know, people inthe company and people in its atmosphere understand
(41:09):
you know who they are and whythey do business. So other examples,
I mean in terms of I've donea lot of real estate executives, it
seems in the last couple of yearsall of them have a story about two
thousand and eight, right, Alot of Homan, a lot of boom
(41:30):
and bus stories in the real estateindustry, and even the Harsher story had
had an element of that because thatcompany changed entirely in two thousand and eight.
They were positioned well to take advantageof the downpricing and the market position
right. They were under flippers,right, and so they did acquisitions and
they built their business. You know, they came out of that better than
(41:53):
before. So so businesses I youknow, obviously I tend to write for
multi generational family businesses. That isanother example, and that's a local company
for those foods and yeah, that'sChelsea, Massachusetts, which is cam hot
Dogs. I don't know if you'rein New York, so, oh you're
(42:16):
busting guy. Okay, So soyou know, the brand and hot dogs
I learned in doing that book arevery provincial. Like they in Maine they
eat certain brand of hot dogs.In this part of Connecticut they eate a
certain brand of hot dogs. Andthey're very loyal to their brands, right,
Hey, I am. Actually oneof their growth strategy was to acquire
(42:36):
those brands but keep their branding,you know. And so they were producing
those brands, but you know,keeping the branding because of the community,
the geography was so loyal to thatbranding. Keep well, as I learned
the recipe for hot dogs, isn'tthat much difference, right, very little
(42:57):
difference that Yeah, that's funny.Yeah. So uh so all manner of
companies. But you know, inthe case of of of KM, that's
a company that was celebrating it's it'sPolish heritage. There's a huge Polish community
in that in that Chelsea area thatgenerations of families have worked in that business.
(43:19):
Right. So again, why youknow, when I talked to the
guys that came, then why areyou hiring me, what is the point?
And and and for them, theyliterally wanted to to to preserve,
capture and preserve their history in thiscity of Chelsea. And and and to
make clear that, you know,they reinvested a lot. They could have
(43:42):
moved that business a lot of places. Chelsea's you know, a tough,
pretty tough part of the city.Right, So, but they stay loyal
to that area. And and andyou know there hopefully will be part of
a resurgence in that area. Butthe point is they were they were driving
home their roots in the community andnot only just the business, but all
the people all around who generations ofthose families have worked in the business.
(44:07):
So well, we're running against theclock. Tell us a couple of examples
on the reunion side, the collegeuniversity side. So I started with Holy
Cross univers which is right in Worcester, right in my backyard. And I
had gone to my college reunion,and a buddy of mine and got to
his and he went to Harvard,of course. And so Harvard has their
(44:28):
little Red Book that they do forall their classes every year. Right they
I said, nice product allows theexecution. Right. The Harvard Red Book
is an annual a reunion book thatis put out for that reunion class.
It is very dry, you know, no pictures, a lot of cookies.
(44:49):
It looks like a dictionary, right. I said, let's take let's
take that and do something much morecompelling with it. So we have the
full color version that has you know, people's pictures and pages. People get
to upload their stories and pictures totheir class. It's like an old fashioned
version of a faithbook page right,But for a generation you know, fifty
(45:13):
three d in classes are average aboutseventy two years old, right, And
so this book I sell it tothe college as listen, it's a way
to do something really great for youralumni at a significant anniversary tranquily. And
it's also a period of time whenthey're getting into their estate planning and you
know, donating money to the institution. So it doesn't hurt to have a
(45:35):
reminder that's sitting on their coffee tablefor the next five years of their ties
to that. And it's brilliant,you know. So I pitch it to
the alumni office as you're doing somethinggreatful reunion. I pitch it to the
advancement office as it's a trojan horse. I hate to call it that,
but you know it is very mucha trojan It is kind of it giving
(45:55):
you intelligence on the people who aremost likely to give you money from that
institution. So it's a coffee tablesee if another you know there's reference.
It's a coffee table book in theshape of a coffee table. It's a
hard yeah, right right. Youknow me tell you I really resisted calling
it a coffee table book because ofthat Snifeild episode. But when I started
(46:16):
to realize that, it was instantrecognition. You know, in anything,
you want people to figure out whatit is you're selling as quickly as easily
as possible. He spoke, historydoesn't really tell you that automatically. But
everybody knows what a coffee table bookapparently is, thanks to Jerry Seinfeld.
So it's there for a long time. It's it's consumable. This is what
(46:38):
I see anyway. It's consumable.It's what's the word has longevity it again,
I use the word embedding. Youknow, you're embedding your school's brand
and your school's nostalgic connection too inthe home, and it's designed to stick
around. It's not a pamphlet,it's not a soft cover thing that's going
(46:59):
to look all gear and I'll holdthat up one more time. Absolutely,
it's a hardcover book, will color, very comprehensive. We also for those
on the radio, it is beautiful. It is full color, just gorgeous.
You know. We also interview,so we do something that's different.
There's other companies that do reunion books. We took a big spoke history angle
(47:22):
at it. We interview twenty thirtyguys from that class, and we write
this really comprehensive retrospective of what itwas like to be at Holy Cross from
nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy andusing their voices from the interviews to tell
the stories, and we gather picturesfrom the archives and from the old yearbooks
and present this twenty four page articlecalled Flashback. That is the other component
(47:45):
of their book besides all other pages. And that's something that only a be
spoke history is going to do foryou. Nobody else in our little niche
of reunion yearbooks will go to thatlane. And that's so go ahead,
love that. I love that.Sorrt interrupt. We have time for just
a couple of questions here. Whoare in the listening and viewing audiences should
(48:05):
reach out to you and one willput the crawl up your contact information up.
Now, sure who should reach outand why? Well, obviously multi
you know, anybody who cares abouttheir family history, who has a big
family of future descendants that are inheritinga family name or a family business,
(48:29):
they want to pass on that story. So everybody's got a family. So
that's a pretty you know, broadgroup. Small to mid size family businesses
fit very well for us, right, multi generation, three, four and
five generation family businesses. Those areespecially a good fit for us because they
(48:50):
tend to be regional, you know, they tend to be of a scope
and size that works well for usin terms of the number of people that
would be involved in interviewing and research. So family businesses, families who want
to preserve their history, and obviouslyin the in the bespoke reunion, realm
small and medium colleges. This doesn'tyou know, I couldn't do this at
Cornell where I would school. Right, it has to be a school that's
(49:15):
of a medium size. Hol acrosshis own is perfect, right, you
know, class sizes of about sixseven hundred as opposed to five thousand.
Right, that's that's so anybody who'sinterested in uh people with a lot of
grandchildren and a lot of future generationswho have a story, they want them
(49:37):
to know that that that basically mightinform them how to live their lives.
You know, have some kind ofa moral and ethical compass to their lives.
That's important. Teach them a workethic, teach them that we didn't
just get here to this level ofof you know, socio and economic status.
(49:57):
It took something to get here,and it gives them a more of
a respect for what they have,right, It's an awesome way to pass
that on. That's what I said. Absolutely as well. For those that
are on the radio, share yourlistening on the radio, share your phone
number and email address. It's uhbespokehistory dot com, so b E s
(50:20):
p o k ehistory dot com andthe phone is five zero eight two five
four five four four to two.Perfect. This has been fun for me.
It's it's kind of a different typeof business and we've focused on in
the past, and that's why Ijumped at the opportunity. And so thank
you for being here, and Ireally appreciate you making the time. Yeah
(50:42):
me, you're happy. I'm happyto provide it and thanks to everybody for
watching and listening. This is ashow about business, uh sometimes business challenges.
If you've got concerns about the growthof your company, feel free to
reach out to me. You canfind me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning
Business Radio or drop me a note. One of my many email addresses is
kevinat Winning Businessradio dot com. Ourcompany is Winning Incorporated. We're part of
(51:05):
Sandler Training. We develop sales teamsinto high achievers and sales leaders into true
coaches and mentors. Listen, We'renot right for everybody, but hey,
maybe we should have a conversation.Thank you as always to produce or an
engineer wan f another job well done. Thank you onan. Be sure to
join us next week. That's Monday, October ninth, when my guests will
be Rosa Sophia, managing editor ofMobile Electronics Magazine. She does a lot
(51:28):
of other things too, but that'sthe context in which that interview will take
place. Until then, thanks forbeing here. This is Kevin Hallanan.
You've been listening to Winning Business Radiowith your host, Kevin Helenan. If
you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for
podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more informationand questions, go to Winning Business Radio
(51:51):
dot com or check us out onsocial media. Tune in again next week
and every Monday at four pm EasternTime to listen live to Winning Business Radio
on W four CY Radio W fourc y dot com. Until then,
let's succeed where others have failed andwin in business with Kevin Haleanan and Winning Business Radio
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