September 3, 2025 • 37 mins
From Sidelines to Center Stage: Marketing That Moves
Greg Herring has worn a lot of hats in the world of sports and entertainment marketing - college, pro, and now the performing arts as the Director of Sales and Marketing with the Nashville Ballet. He knows how to spark new ideas, grow audiences, and deliver big wins. Self-described as a “Builder, Fixer, Starter” - he combines a broad perspective with attention to detail. He is results-driven, while creating experiences that connect with audiences in meaningful ways.
In this episode, Michelle and Erika dive into his journey, the lessons learned along the way, and what it takes to bring big-picture vision to life on any stage.
Greg Herring has worn a lot of hats in the world of sports and entertainment marketing - college, pro, and now the performing arts as the Director of Sales and Marketing with the Nashville Ballet. He knows how to spark new ideas, grow audiences, and deliver big wins. Self-described as a “Builder, Fixer, Starter” - he combines a broad perspective with attention to detail. He is results-driven, while creating experiences that connect with audiences in meaningful ways.
In this episode, Michelle and Erika dive into his journey, the lessons learned along the way, and what it takes to bring big-picture vision to life on any stage.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey Michell, Hello Erica, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We are officially back. Do you feel like you're in
the groove yet?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I know I wasn't in the groove on the last one,
but yes, I'm in the groove. Yes, I'm in the
podcast group once again.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, I feel like you said something the other day, Oh,
we haven't done podcasts for a year, like what's with
all these ads? So I don't know that we ever
addressed it in the group chat, but I feel like
I've taken a little break from listening to podcasts. So
I mean, maybe we just have ads because we just
kind of do this. I mean, it's not our job.
We do it for fun and personal you know, appreciation.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yes, we do it so that we can visit with
each other and have something to say, Hey, where are
you this week?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
So what's up with the ads? Are they just break
in or what?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
They just break in when they want? Our producer told
me that if there is more than a one second pause,
then the ads will jump into the podcast, and so
they think you're like taking a break, and so they
just jump in automatically.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Now we're just being polite to see who's going to
ask the next question.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Right, Yes, yes, there are times we did do a
little texting like it's your turn, or maybe you should
ask a question.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well that's all the behind the scenes goodness. So what
else has been going on? I guess you've got your
chords right. We're all set on tech.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
All set on tech. I wanted to let you know
that I made a candle.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh you did.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Now you know the big candles that you get at anthropology,
the really big.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Ones, very expensive ones.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Very expensive like seventy five or ninety dollars. Well, mine
burned down, but there was still a lot of wax left.
So I cleaned out the container, through the wax into
a ziploc bag for a couple of weeks, and then
bought some wax, some soy wax to go with it,
and I bought a little pot to put I know
(02:06):
I'm probably talking too much, but I bought a it
looks like a tea kettle and put all the wax
in there and melted it and then put in new
wix and poured it. I'll take a picture. It's pretty awesome,
little d yi.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Okay, Well, I see that you use your candle container,
so that's very sustainous.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I do. Yeah, I definitely do that for almost all
of the candles.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So well, when you're not candle making or podcasting, what
else have you been doing this season? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I mean that candle making took quite a bit of time.
I had a client.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Text me and ask me something on because I did
it on a weekend, and I was like, I'm sorry,
I'm making a candle right now. I'm gonna have to
get back to you. And she's a good friend of mine,
so she was dying of laughter when we talked later.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
All right.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, you know, I rarely like to toot my own horn. However,
I recently celebrated of thirty years at my you know,
primary place that I've worked. I should have been the
one bringing that up, right, because the reason I did
bring it up is because our guest today, who I
worked with quite long ago. You know, I just feel
(03:23):
like he's one of these guys that I look on
his LinkedIn and I'm like, man, he's doing something so cool.
He's doing something so cool, and here I am just
in the same place. Thirty years goes by. But I
was excited to kind of have him come on the
podcast today because he lives in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Now.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
His name is Greg Herring. He's the director of sales
and marketing at the Nashville Ballet. But we knew each
other way back when when he worked at Southern Miss
and East Carolina and sports marketing.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I'm excited to talk with him.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I think he's got a really cool background and I'm
excited to hear how he brings you know, professional football,
college sports, NASCAR to a ballet.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So should be exactly. He's had some cool, like I said,
cool opportunities, cool steps, but all of it has been marketing, marketing, marketing.
So hope to get a few good pieces of advice
and just some good stories. So glad to have Greg
Hering joining us today. Well, hey Greg, thanks for joining
us today on the Spin Chicks.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Well thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I've heard a lot about you, Greg, so I'm excited
to get to know you better.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I don't know if I have to pay off Erica
for all the good things she said, or if I
need to pay you off to not know the bad
things she said.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
No, all good, listen, Greg, I think you're just one
of those people that when I see you update, you know,
whether it's LinkedIn or wherever we're connected on socials, I'm
always like, man, that's so cool whatever you're doing or
in the moment, whether it's an event or work. And
so that's why I just excited to have you on
as a guest today. But I think we just have
to take it all the way back to the beginning
(04:58):
sports marketing. That's kind of where I know you from,
where you got your start, and maybe just tell us
a little bit about how you did get the start
in sports marketing.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, it was certainly a journey, I think, you know
my first you know, I did sports marketing in college
as an undergrad and Miami University in Ohio, and started
out I wanted to be I thought an athletic trainer.
Did it a couple of years, then moved into the
weight room and became a student strength coach and worked
some of the best that are now NFL coaches in
(05:28):
weight rooms, but realized I was kind of hypocritical, that
wasn't what I was passionate about, and then took on
an internship with our hockey arena and became in charge
as a senior in charge of all intermural marketing and
running events. And I mean I was a senior and
I had keys to their building. Not many college kids
know they have access to athletic venues when they're in college.
(05:50):
So that led me to in my fifth year in
college to working with the varsity teams and back with
varsity hockey, where I'd had experience working in other capacities
in sports. So, you know, when I came out of
college in the late nineties, you know, sports marketing was
the new term, and I thought, you know, I want
to be fine to work for as Bush or Nike
(06:10):
or Coke and be the one stroking the check and
putting my logo on a wall somewhere. But my experience
in college kind of you know, I always when I
was looking for internships and jobs coming out of college,
I said, I knew sports from the front office, from
from the field of the front office. And quite frankly,
I did because of my five years of experience and
working in different capacities in college sports.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And so that it how is it that you didn't
want to be an ad with you you had marketing experience,
you were in the strength and strength and conditioning, and
you were in the athletic training. I mean, the only
other thing you needed was maybe an internship and compliance.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
That and I didn't want to be a fundraiser.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Quite frankly, you know, I was going to say fundraising too.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, It's one of those things that you know, in
my time throughout the college sports landscape, and over time,
a couple of things changed for me, and that was
my level of accepting hypocrisy. Quite frankly, I think there,
you know, I was. I was fortunate that I was
a national sports Marketing leader for college athletics. I was
the president of NAKMA in twenty twelve twenty thirteen academic year,
(07:16):
and then through through being on a board, being the
president for over you know, be on the board for
over ten years, and then being the president, I was
fortunate to be in other meetings and rooms where high
ranking athletic directors. We're sitting in rooms talking about revenue,
fan experience, all the things that we that we talk
about as a business. But yet then we're sitting publicly
(07:37):
and it's all about this twodent athlete experience and it
was all about, you know, letting these kids run a
muck in terms of well they've had three drug tests,
but how do we get them back into the onto
the field. And I just got kind of frustrated by
that hypocrisy and speaking out both sides of your mouth.
I'm not somebody who does that. Air has been rooms
(07:57):
me and meetings before. Well, I'll call out. I was
talk about their day, I was calling. I remember calling
out of TV, you know, ce CEO of television station
go or TV, going well, what are you do? Why?
Why are you doing these things? And so I just
kind of looked at myself. And that was one too.
I didn't want to get into fundraising. You know. I
had seen our fundraisers at the one of the last
(08:17):
schools I worked at, just you know, taking phone call
a phone call after a loss on a bus ride
back to the airport, and I just I didn't want
to do that. I don't necessarily want to have to
bow down to get the dollar I want to do.
I'm going to perform and do my job to be
able to reap the benefits. And then thirdly, I watched
one of my mentors just get absolutely slaughtered in the media,
(08:42):
local tabloids, local fans and things. He made. He made
a decision for UH to make a change in football
coaching hires that that hired didn't work out, and so
it's it's one of those things that we I just
saw him go through, and I didn't want to face that,
and so I thought, you know what the thing it
is time for a change.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So what is that what led you to leave athletics?
Speaker 4 (09:08):
It did, and you know, some of those things, and
I felt like I was getting passed up for job
opportunities that I was overly qualified for, and so I
was just kind of getting frustrated. And so you know,
after you know, I'd done done college sports almost ten years,
became a professor for two years full time, missed missed
doing it. I talked about every day. So I wanted
to get back in and got back into it. Spent
(09:30):
another six years in sports marketing and leading departments and
im packing change. But then all those things kind of
just led to let to me going, you know, I'm
frustrated by this. Let me just go be the best
sports market or best marketer or best executive whatever that
path would lie versus being an athletic director. What I'm
beholden to, you know, an eighteen to twenty two year old.
(09:55):
Now we could say athlete, not student athlete, because that's
that land escape has changed so dramatically. We're beholding the
people with the dollars in the check books. We're bolding
to our board of trustees and to our campus, and
just it just got very It wasn't fun. It wasn't
the same business I got into, you know, in the
early two thousands, and so it was time for change,
(10:16):
and I figured if I went to professional landscape or something,
then you can make your own path a little bit
and do what you want to do with it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So you did join you with the Memphis Memphis Express,
with the Alliance American Football, and then I know you
spent some time in corporate So what challenges kind of
surprised you the most in those roles?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, you know for me going to Memphis to help
start when an opportunity presented itself with the former I
think colleague, you know, a friend of yours as well,
koche Herby, you know Kocha calls and says, hey, I
think I want you to come be our VP marketing
for the startup professional football team. I didn't think twice
because what an opportunity house? And can you say you
(10:59):
helped start a professional football team from the ground up.
Yes it was an NFL, and yes it didn't last.
But the opportunity to be a part of thing so
unique and different, and to do it with friends and
to be a part and I think other than other
than koshe our GM and our coach, I was, to
think the fourth hire of the team, and so I'm
helping him shape our staff and shape where we're officers
(11:22):
are going to look like and what are we going
to do and what a unique fun thing to do.
I think you know that experience. Well, if I didn't
know the outcome that we would collapse eight games into
our ten game season as an entire league. If I
didn't know the outcome, I'd still do it again. I
think that was such a unique experience to launch a
team and a brand from scratch at a thin air.
(11:45):
But what I was surprised most by was that kind
of I gillel for me. I was surprised by the
the level of irresponsibility at corporate in terms of they
didn't know where what kind of money were blowing through
through and they still couldn't tell you this day how
many laptops each team had, or how many helmets. You know,
(12:05):
I have helmet in my office actually, so I hope
I don't get fined for it, be honest. But there's
just a level of incompetency at the corporate Like I
think about, like how how much I think it han't
done college sports for fifteen twenty years, and then having
to be so accountable for every little detail, and then
you get in there and they want to hold its
accountable for every dollar we're spending and advertising and what
(12:27):
we're doing and being precise. But yet they couldn't have
done turn around and done the same thing and just
blew through through money.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Is that like eight games in the season collapses? What
was that? I mean, the whole league collapses.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, they just locked the doors and you went home,
like how well you're working one day and then not
the next.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
So ironically, you know, we knew there had been some issues,
you know that we knew there was some trouble. We
knew there was you know, at one point players didn't
get paid in December, but they blamed it on having
changed accounting payroll software that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
It was client I've had.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Well, you know, it's funny. We were on the way
to like league meetings before the whole league started in
San Antonio, and that's about when the Firefest documentary came out.
And so as we're going through this league, we're like,
are we starting to see similarities to Firefest? That it
was smoking mud? And so it's like at very much
of felt very much like we were in a documentary
(13:22):
of our own living this reality in the football versus
some performing arts or some concert thing. But to your
point of going through it, you know, we at the end.
So April first comes along as the Monday after we
had just had a home game that had some drama
on the field and some things aired on TV that
(13:42):
shouldn't have been set over speakers in a fight and
different things, and so that next Monday happened to be
April Fools. April first, and Koche being a little bit
pranks to our team president, kind of caught us all
together quickly in the conference room. It was like, hey,
Lee didn't pay our didn't pay our rent, didn't pay more,
(14:03):
you know, on the the offices, we've got twenty minutes
pack up. We're getting kicked out, and we're like what
and so we all run in get our stuff. I'm
making a couple of Cone calls to tell people what's
going on the external partners, and then he yells, April
fools got you all go back to work, okay, And
the next day calls us back and says, this one
(14:25):
is in the fire, drobe. We just got noticed that
we're being plays being suspended. We don't know what this
means for jobs or teams or players. It is you
will get a letter in your inbox by two o'clock
this afternoon stating that we are all being kind of
furloughed or like suspended. So take the next three or
four hours, go take a long lunch. Some of us
(14:46):
went to the bar. You know, we just we didn't
know what to do. So literally the bad prank became
reality the next day on April second, So we.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Know that was gonna happen or do you have any idea?
So probably if Findze was twenty twenty, he never would
have done that on April.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
No horrible, worst joke he's ever told. But but prank,
But but I mean it was it was kind of
funny in the moment. Were also like, all right, Coachy,
this isn't funny because we know that the reality of
this is that it could collapse at the end of
the season, we could be done. And it didn't even
finish the season because the next day, on April second,
we got the notice that we were being being shut down.
(15:25):
That's entirely not just Memphis.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
How do you bounce back from that? I mean, I
know you're obviously very resourceful, but still that's pretty shocking,
you know.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
It's it's interesting. You know, I've gone through several job
transitions over time, and I was in alnership at the
time when the lead collapsed in Memphis, and and so
like I remember calling calling my partner and I told her, head,
doesn't hey where this is what's happened. I'm going to
be in the office afternoon, packing up boxes, getting things done.
Can you bring car over, We'll load the car up,
(15:57):
gets the valley office, and kind of wrap up because
I know next day, on Wednesday, the third, I'm gonna
have to be there making phone calls to partners externally,
helping our other younger staff figure out. I'd been through
job transitions quickly in moving, our younger staff hadn't, so
I wanted to kind of be there to help them
process and pack up or do what they needed to do.
And so a couple of days go by and she
(16:19):
said to me, you've never stopped to process, and I said,
there's no time. It's I got to jump back on
the hamster wheel to find a job, use the networks,
use use my contacts to get back into the business
or stay in the business, because I had been out
before and I wanted to kind of jump on. And
I also thought that, you know, my marketing brain kicked in, going,
people are going to be a little sympathetic that we
(16:39):
all closed a league. And then the rest of these teams,
eight teams are going to have thirty staff members also
looking for jobs. So let me jump out this quickly.
And so literally, I think, you know, Tuesday, we noticed. Wednesday,
we packed up the office, and Thursday, I'm already in
the phone call talking to headhunters, talking to friends, dropping
emails to people, reaching out to other colleagues, saying, hey,
if you know anything, let me know. That is what's happened,
(17:01):
and kind of using the sympathy card a little bit
because they all felt bad that here we are haven't
taken a risk professionally and it backfired on us.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Wow, that is amazing.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I can't I mean, you know, you hear things like
that happening, but it's interesting to hear the behind the
scenes part of that in terms of what happened. So
you call yourself on your resume a builder, a fixer,
a starter. In your current role, what do you think
is the most important title?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yeah, jack of all trades, you know, I think it's
in my current role, I'm doing a little bit of
We're definitely building, but I think there had to be
some fixing started. I had to fixing things. I think
when I first took over our advertising, I didn't feel
(17:56):
as though it was really penetrating into the market and
reaching people where they wanted to be or how they
wanted to be, how we need to meet them in
the moment. Nashville is a very competitive market for advertising,
for events and entertainment dollars and for what we do.
You know with Nashville Ballet, every show is different. You know,
if I said to the two of you, hey, Nutcrackers,
(18:17):
Swan Lake taking beauty, you already have an automatic understanding
baseline of what to expect. But if I say to
you attitude unbollow, if I can dream, you don't know
what those are. And so I have to find a
different way to reach you with messaging that gives you
more context. Because if I can reach in a way
that says, if I can dream featuring the music with
(18:39):
Elvis Presley, you go, oh, well that's different, tell me more.
But our previous folks and the marketing staff, we're just
kind of buying on impressions and reach and digital ads
and all these things that just and it was the
same strategy show after show after show. But every show
is different, every budget's different, and so we really change
some of that modeling and and luckily had our highest
(19:02):
revenue year ever in ticket sales last year in my
first year. So very fortunate that we had some good titles,
great performances, and all the things, all the things kind
of came together to to be able to have that success.
And then right now I'm I'm I'm kind of I'm
also helping fix our culture in our organization. Uh. And
in doing that, I'm building a brand new team. I've
(19:23):
just we just locked locked in the fifth my fifth
higher of the summer. We've gone through too new. We've
got two new people in our box office. We split
a role that was a project manager on social media
into being two different distinct full time positions so that
we can be better and be great at what we do,
not just okay uh. And then we brought in our
(19:44):
first graphic designer ever. We've always outsourced to a person
and so we were bringing we were paying kind of
full time wages. Why are we not just bringing somebody
in house? And so we've added that. So what I've
kind of done now is we're building this team back
and kind of as I've explained it to our internal staff,
the way I'm envisioning this to kind of go as
(20:05):
everybody actually gets in, gets in the room, and kind
of start building out processes as such, is that we
become more of an agency to our own internal clients.
Marketing is here to serve not only the ticket sales
and try to do productions, but development team helping them
align better with all the messaging and help them some
better strategies. As well as our school. I mean, we've
(20:25):
got a thousand kids that come in and dance in
our school and adults and we have to grow enrollment.
So we're going to hopefully serve a greater a greater
good by having more bodies in the building to be
able to sit in more meetings to be able to
hold hands and kind of pull them along when they're
not sure what we need to be doing. And so
I've just you know that that builder, fixer, starter mentality
(20:47):
and mo of kind of my very first job at
a college at the University of Missouri was Hey, we
needed to fix our group ticket sales. Or I've been
places where fix our game day experience, fix our marketing department.
Start a class as a full time professor. It's never
been taught, and you have two weeks start a professional
football team in Memphis and you've never done that. Or
(21:07):
I came to Nashville originally because I got into NASCAR
and it was a track that had been closed ten years,
and so hey, help reopen, help build a new brand
for this track that's been dormant for ten years. So
everywhere I've been, it's always been something to start, build
or fix.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Well so has so what from sports that was kind
of like your first the thing that you first loved
that you were first into. What have you taken from
that into each of into the corporate world, into the
professional sports, and now into more performing arts.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, I think you know, for me, what I love
is is I love putting together the pieces of the
puzzle that create whatever that is. And so in college sports,
one of the best things on a Saturday mornings to
walk in seven am. The stadiums all set, TV cameras
are up do on the grass, a little haze in
the fall, and you're like, oh, the quiet before the storm.
(22:00):
And that's the relaxing moment, because what's going to happen
then is you've got fifty thousand plus people screaming having
a great time. That you control their fun and their memories.
That's the outcome. And so part of that is putting
together the puzzles, the piece pieces of the puzzle to
make sure that you have that. So I love the
strategy behind what we do to try to sell a tickets,
(22:20):
you know, create a memory, get experience, build a brand,
and so to be able to kind of orchestrate all
these things that kind of come together from advertising, the
public relations, community engagement, that's what that's what I love
what I do. And so when I you know, unfortunately
we were at the NASCAR track here at the super
Speedway in Nashville. We got bought out by a bigger
(22:41):
track operator. I then unfortunately lost my job shortly thereafter,
and understandably that they want to, you know, bring in
people and do things their way. I took a job
working for a healthcare company and even then it was hey,
help build a website, help do these things, and it
was to kind of again, they ran conferences for healthcare
and so help us draw membership, get more engagement, get
(23:03):
them going. And so it's that I guess it's that
engagement with the constituent group that I just kind of
get drawn to.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So how doing you measure success of a campaign?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is it you know, having a packed house or having
three fourths of a house but everybody walks out with
a big smile and a five star Yelp review or
social media views?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
You know, how how.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Is it that you measure I mean, I know you're
going to say all but if you had to pick one,
what would you say?
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, I would say I tend to be more corporate minded,
So I tend to focus on where's our revenue goals?
You know what, what did did we achieve our revenue
that we needed to be able? For us at a
nonprofit world, at National Ballet, the revenue is critical to
our success to be so we have to get certain
metrics to continue to fund the arts. And I know
(23:54):
that once people come in, I'm not as I don't
control their people's experience at the ballet and performing arts,
whether it's symphony or ballet. I can't control that as
a marketing person, So I'm not the performer in influencing
that like I do in college sports and pro sports,
where you're directing the music and the video boards and
those things. And so I know people are going to
come out being amazed by the athleticism and artistry from
(24:17):
our performers. So I know that's going to be great.
But I take you know, my success is measured by
did I achieve the revenue goals? And every year just
performing arts is no different than sports. Every year gets higher.
If you did you did it one year, you got
to do it better next year, and you keep growing
upon that. So my metrics and my judgment is based
(24:39):
on where we're at from a revenue standpoint.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So how do you stay creatively inspired in today's landscape?
Because it seems like, you know, revenue is pressure.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Just is it sounds like an athletic director almost, I.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Know, but just how do you just how do you
stay on top.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Of your game. You know, it's it's tough sometimes, right
if you get into you get in cycles. You know
this This has been a tough uh spring and summer
because I had a lot of staff transitions moving out
and so it's falling on me to try to manage
the best I can, juggling for jobs of people that
were left or my job and being creative, and so
(25:19):
you do get levels of burnout. But I think for
me right now, where I find inspiration is for creativity
is you know, I'm excited by the fact I get
to build a new team. I get to build this culture.
I get to set the direction of how we're going
to move forward. And so while I don't have all
the answers and what the best strategy and best management
(25:39):
leadership strategies are, I'm excited to work with a team
that want to be in the positions that are excited
to be a part of our team and figure out that.
So that's that excites me to help do that. They're
also younger, and so I get to also mentor them
and kind of guide them, and I do take pleasure
and helping the next generation get to where they're going
to want to go. Or connecting the dots and helping
(26:01):
them become the best versions of themselves that they don't
even know maybe exist. And so that's part of it.
The other one is, I think it's for me it's
exciting is that I am taking things from like my
sports days, that we would take as common sense and
applying them to performing arts that they've never seen. And
I'll give an example. You know we always think about
(26:21):
you know, it's boy Scout Day, it's Pride Day, it's
Military Day, whatever day we've designated at a sporting event. Well,
I learned that another performing arts group. I think in
New York we're treating performances the same way that when
they when they had to run in a nutcracker for
us in Nashville's twenty one performances over a month span,
(26:44):
and so it gives you a bit of a season.
If you will to have different nights that you know,
of Friday night's not going to draw as well, and
if you're having something midweek, it could be tough. And
so we're going to look at creating days for designated group,
sales type things to try to engage in bring them in.
That's something that we don't think twice about and lean
so heavily on particularly in college sports, but with performing
(27:06):
arts doesn't do that. A lot don't do that.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Really, that is so interesting because you would think they
would a long time ago. I've stole that page out
of the book. I mean, oh, our ticket sales right
before Thanksgiving or low for football. So and it's a
non conference game, so let's make it military day.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And when I was at South Carolina, Mike McGee loved
the military and just was like, I have a big
budget for this, I want to blow this out. And
I think he was probably one of the first ads
to do it. Now everybody does it, and I don't
think he invented it or anything. But it's very interesting
to hear you say that performing arts doesn't really do that,
and now you're going to I really am anxious to
(27:49):
or excited to hear how that comes out.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
And maybe they do it quietly. Maybe we just still
haven't talked. I don't come from that world. For the
last year and a half now, I've sat on zoom
meetings where it's you know, my colleagues are part of
associations and you just sit and listen and talk. So
I haven't. I've only heard about it once from one
other group, and I'm like, why wouldn't I have thought
about given my sports background. But I'm also consciously very
cautious of not coming across as the sports guy in
(28:14):
a performing arts world that's already pretty well known that
you know, I'm not. I'm not a dancer. I'm not
you know, I don't come from that world, and so
when I look at things very differently, and so I
think it's helped us, you know, think about ways of
selling like that, or even just you know I mentioned
earlier with the advertising changes, you know, how do we
you know eighty let's see, eighty sixty percent of our
(28:39):
first time attendee first sixty percent of our attendance for
Nutcracker annually, our first time attendees to the ballet and
then eighty percent of our attendees for Nutcracker come from
Middle Tennessee. So they're an our hour and a half
radius from around around the city, and so you think
about how do you stand out, how do you tell
that story? And again, if you're not, I think a
(29:00):
lot of times before I arrived, they may have been
very using very much of the ballet world language and
performing arts type of things, and I kind of, I said,
I kind of dumbed it down a little bit because
you're trying to reach people like me that didn't know
we had a ballet before I started with them to
go hey, you know, I use the example my very
first day on the job a year and a half ago,
(29:20):
two weeks later was Romeo and Juliet. They said, if
we give you ten thousand dollars more in advertising budget,
what could you do with it to help impact? And
I was like, well, I do X, Y and Z
and thought that was I'm going to reach out to
a younger audience to some of our local media, and
I'm going to use the use the kind of the phrase,
hey Romeos, bring your Juliets like it's getting if you
(29:41):
can create this opportunity for them to see how they
can use it or it's girls night out, or it's
date night, or it's how can you package from that
messaging to help them see themselves in the moment, which
is no different than we do for sports, right, So
a big picture of a stadium, full crowd and you
belong here. It's the same thing, and just how you
how you message it and be a little different.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I one of the things that I've been reading about
recently is the Braves Reds game at in Bristol, Tennessee.
And you know, they just had I mean, I hate
to say perfect storm. They had the perfect storm of everything,
and then they had the unperfect storm and then restarted
and then had to go to the next day. And
(30:22):
you know, some people are blaming Major League Baseball, some
people are saying it was amazing, some people are blaming Bristol.
But like as a marketer, it's kind of a dream
undream like nightmare scenario.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Again. I know that folks at Bristol, having worked for there,
you know for a while, the parent company who bought
us out here in Nashville. Bristol's known for the creativity,
right they've done. They did the dirt races, which was different.
They've done the football games. There's now apparently talk about
NHL coming and doing a hockey game. Yeah. I you know,
to do something that creative in the middle of the mountains,
(30:57):
you know, in the middle of nowhere, it's pretty cool.
And so my heart broke for them a little bit
when the rain delay happens. I also kind of chuckle
as a Marketer going, you know, it's a bit big
bits like, oh, of course, you know, this is what happens.
But what I also think is interesting is, and you
probably have seen the same things. Concessions ran out of
(31:19):
buns for hot dogs, they ran out of nacho cheese
for nachos, but yet they were selling hot plain hot
dogs at the same price. They sold chips at the
same price as nachos. They didn't somewhere if they weren't
ready for the moment, So there was some sort of
level of like, we're selling you something that we aren't
(31:41):
prepared for. And again, could you have been prepared that
you'd had have a many hour delay, But even then,
like those people were still going to be buying food,
whether you're under the concession stand or in the stand,
you're still going to go get that food. So somewhere
they underestimated what they'd be selling and the level of
those things they just weren't, you know, they weren't prepared.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
And their folly will if when this happens again someplace
will be a learning curve. Their learning curve will be
somebody else's genius moment, Like we have to make sure
we have this and we have to make sure you know, so,
while it's not great, it's it also will teach so
(32:23):
many people. Hopefully people will listen to that and say, Okay,
we've got to make sure that some of these things
that we didn't really think we're all that important are
very important.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Well. I think back to was it might have been
even a twenty twenty when the when the NHL did
their game was a Lake Tahoe and it was fifty
degrees and sunny and the ice start of them out.
They had to cancel the game because you know, they
weren't thinking about, let's play Tahoe in the middle of
the winter. It should be fine. Well, it ended up
being a beautiful day, you know, a beautiful spring day,
and they create slush.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah. Yeah, the unexpected weather. It doesn't always cooperate with
marketing goals.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
No, no, So, Greg, what would you say, is like
the biggest lesson that you've carried with you from your
marketing career as.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
A whole, take chances. I think that's you know, I
think I you know, Eric, you joke you always see
me bouncing around a little bit. I have I have moved.
I've been in nine states in twenty five years. Nashville
now be coomes the fourth third longest place I've lived
with them in my hometown, and so I've always gone
I just kind of let I have some freedoms that
(33:28):
allow me to go and do and so I just
kind of follow the path where it goes. And so
it's I think the opportunity is to take chances and
just trust that things will work out or you'll figure
it out along the way. You know, I've given that
same advice to younger you know, graduate assistance or younger
staff who get opportunities to maybe move states away from
where they're from or parents, and I'm like, take it,
take the opportunity you need to go explore and have
(33:51):
to take that on yourself. And then they all call me,
you know, three years later ago, I was the best
thing everdict I'm still here, and so yeah, I just
I think take chances is the thing that's that's kind
of stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Well, you've had an I mean, it just shows you
just had a lot of incredible opportunities and have made
the most of them. So well, thank you for joining
us to day. I think before we close, want to
just jump into that spin cycle. So just quick answers.
It's really easy.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
We're putting the detertion in. Okay, texting or.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Talking text cats are dogs?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Neither hot chicken or barbecue.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Barbecue, check bags or carry on?
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Carry on?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
And Greg, what's for dinner?
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Sheet pan roasted veggies and chicken sausage.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh you are so healthy? Love it don't sound delicious though, too.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Come on over, well we got funny.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Seriously, Michelle and I love Nashville, and I have to
say that going to Nashville maybe top of mind wasn't
going to the ballet, but now after talking to you,
I think maybe that's got to be on my bucket list.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
So you have to come. You know, I know you
come for CMA Fest in June, but we don't perform then.
So you have to do two trips, once in the
winter and once in the summer.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
We need to do another winner trip Erica totally, totally.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Or bring bring the podcast on the road. There's a
bunch of sports professionals here including there are three other
former NACMA board members that live here in the area
that we all within. Three of the four of us
have been past president. So we could do a Nakma
College Sports round Table pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Well, and you mentioned Koche so Koche. If you happen
to be listening, you may be up next because I
worked with him a conference USA two and I mean, yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
He's a career from wrestling to PBR to football, the
college sports and in between.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well, no, I'm envious of all the stops you've made
and just the different things you've been able to do.
And look, I mean, this guy's the limit. You're not done,
you know, so we really appreciate you coming on today.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yes, thank you so much for you.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
This has been great.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Wow, he was really fascinating, Erica, thank you very much
for bringing a guest from one of your thirty years
at your real job.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Okay, no need to emphasize it. We said it once,
We said it once. No, I agree, Greg is an
awesome guy. A lot of things I didn't even know
too kind of came up through that. But now I
wish I I forgot to ask him about working with
Mike Singletary, who's like one of my childhood favorites being
a Bears fan, you know, but we could probably do that,
if you know, you and I head to the Ballet
(36:47):
in Nashville. We can.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah, I never told you I interviewed him one time
when he wasn't he the head coach at the forty
nine ers?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Oh yeah, I believe.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So yeah yeah. And where did he work with Mike Singletary.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
At Memphis Express in that Alliance of American Football that yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So anyway, I'm sure he may have a good couple
of good Mic Singletary stories.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
We might have to have a part two with Greg.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Share privately exactly. But yeah, great to have him today.
So hopefully you and I can meet up see the ballet.
I'd love to do it.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Thank you so much for listening to us. We're really
excited to be back. You can follow us on social
media The Spin Chicks c h I c KS.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
You're welcome, and maybe check out a few of our
archival episodes. We got season one, a very short Season two,
and now we're back for season three. It's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Here we go.
Hey Michell, Hello Erica, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We are officially back. Do you feel like you're in
the groove yet?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I know I wasn't in the groove on the last one,
but yes, I'm in the groove. Yes, I'm in the
podcast group once again.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, I feel like you said something the other day, Oh,
we haven't done podcasts for a year, like what's with
all these ads? So I don't know that we ever
addressed it in the group chat, but I feel like
I've taken a little break from listening to podcasts. So
I mean, maybe we just have ads because we just
kind of do this. I mean, it's not our job.
We do it for fun and personal you know, appreciation.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yes, we do it so that we can visit with
each other and have something to say, Hey, where are
you this week?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
So what's up with the ads? Are they just break
in or what?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
They just break in when they want? Our producer told
me that if there is more than a one second pause,
then the ads will jump into the podcast, and so
they think you're like taking a break, and so they
just jump in automatically.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Now we're just being polite to see who's going to
ask the next question.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Right, Yes, yes, there are times we did do a
little texting like it's your turn, or maybe you should
ask a question.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well that's all the behind the scenes goodness. So what
else has been going on? I guess you've got your
chords right. We're all set on tech.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
All set on tech. I wanted to let you know
that I made a candle.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh you did.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Now you know the big candles that you get at anthropology,
the really big.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Ones, very expensive ones.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Very expensive like seventy five or ninety dollars. Well, mine
burned down, but there was still a lot of wax left.
So I cleaned out the container, through the wax into
a ziploc bag for a couple of weeks, and then
bought some wax, some soy wax to go with it,
and I bought a little pot to put I know
(02:06):
I'm probably talking too much, but I bought a it
looks like a tea kettle and put all the wax
in there and melted it and then put in new
wix and poured it. I'll take a picture. It's pretty awesome,
little d yi.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Okay, Well, I see that you use your candle container,
so that's very sustainous.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I do. Yeah, I definitely do that for almost all
of the candles.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So well, when you're not candle making or podcasting, what
else have you been doing this season? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I mean that candle making took quite a bit of time.
I had a client.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Text me and ask me something on because I did
it on a weekend, and I was like, I'm sorry,
I'm making a candle right now. I'm gonna have to
get back to you. And she's a good friend of mine,
so she was dying of laughter when we talked later.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So yeah, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
All right.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, you know, I rarely like to toot my own horn. However,
I recently celebrated of thirty years at my you know,
primary place that I've worked. I should have been the
one bringing that up, right, because the reason I did
bring it up is because our guest today, who I
worked with quite long ago. You know, I just feel
(03:23):
like he's one of these guys that I look on
his LinkedIn and I'm like, man, he's doing something so cool.
He's doing something so cool, and here I am just
in the same place. Thirty years goes by. But I
was excited to kind of have him come on the
podcast today because he lives in Nashville.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Now.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
His name is Greg Herring. He's the director of sales
and marketing at the Nashville Ballet. But we knew each
other way back when when he worked at Southern Miss
and East Carolina and sports marketing.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I'm excited to talk with him.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I think he's got a really cool background and I'm
excited to hear how he brings you know, professional football,
college sports, NASCAR to a ballet.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So should be exactly. He's had some cool, like I said,
cool opportunities, cool steps, but all of it has been marketing, marketing, marketing.
So hope to get a few good pieces of advice
and just some good stories. So glad to have Greg
Hering joining us today. Well, hey Greg, thanks for joining
us today on the Spin Chicks.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Well thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
I've heard a lot about you, Greg, so I'm excited
to get to know you better.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I don't know if I have to pay off Erica
for all the good things she said, or if I
need to pay you off to not know the bad
things she said.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
No, all good, listen, Greg, I think you're just one
of those people that when I see you update, you know,
whether it's LinkedIn or wherever we're connected on socials, I'm
always like, man, that's so cool whatever you're doing or
in the moment, whether it's an event or work. And
so that's why I just excited to have you on
as a guest today. But I think we just have
to take it all the way back to the beginning
(04:58):
sports marketing. That's kind of where I know you from,
where you got your start, and maybe just tell us
a little bit about how you did get the start
in sports marketing.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, it was certainly a journey, I think, you know
my first you know, I did sports marketing in college
as an undergrad and Miami University in Ohio, and started
out I wanted to be I thought an athletic trainer.
Did it a couple of years, then moved into the
weight room and became a student strength coach and worked
some of the best that are now NFL coaches in
(05:28):
weight rooms, but realized I was kind of hypocritical, that
wasn't what I was passionate about, and then took on
an internship with our hockey arena and became in charge
as a senior in charge of all intermural marketing and
running events. And I mean I was a senior and
I had keys to their building. Not many college kids
know they have access to athletic venues when they're in college.
(05:50):
So that led me to in my fifth year in
college to working with the varsity teams and back with
varsity hockey, where I'd had experience working in other capacities
in sports. So, you know, when I came out of
college in the late nineties, you know, sports marketing was
the new term, and I thought, you know, I want
to be fine to work for as Bush or Nike
(06:10):
or Coke and be the one stroking the check and
putting my logo on a wall somewhere. But my experience
in college kind of you know, I always when I
was looking for internships and jobs coming out of college,
I said, I knew sports from the front office, from
from the field of the front office. And quite frankly,
I did because of my five years of experience and
working in different capacities in college sports.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And so that it how is it that you didn't
want to be an ad with you you had marketing experience,
you were in the strength and strength and conditioning, and
you were in the athletic training. I mean, the only
other thing you needed was maybe an internship and compliance.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
That and I didn't want to be a fundraiser.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Quite frankly, you know, I was going to say fundraising too.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, It's one of those things that you know, in
my time throughout the college sports landscape, and over time,
a couple of things changed for me, and that was
my level of accepting hypocrisy. Quite frankly, I think there,
you know, I was. I was fortunate that I was
a national sports Marketing leader for college athletics. I was
the president of NAKMA in twenty twelve twenty thirteen academic year,
(07:16):
and then through through being on a board, being the
president for over you know, be on the board for
over ten years, and then being the president, I was
fortunate to be in other meetings and rooms where high
ranking athletic directors. We're sitting in rooms talking about revenue,
fan experience, all the things that we that we talk
about as a business. But yet then we're sitting publicly
(07:37):
and it's all about this twodent athlete experience and it
was all about, you know, letting these kids run a
muck in terms of well they've had three drug tests,
but how do we get them back into the onto
the field. And I just got kind of frustrated by
that hypocrisy and speaking out both sides of your mouth.
I'm not somebody who does that. Air has been rooms
(07:57):
me and meetings before. Well, I'll call out. I was
talk about their day, I was calling. I remember calling
out of TV, you know, ce CEO of television station
go or TV, going well, what are you do? Why?
Why are you doing these things? And so I just
kind of looked at myself. And that was one too.
I didn't want to get into fundraising. You know. I
had seen our fundraisers at the one of the last
(08:17):
schools I worked at, just you know, taking phone call
a phone call after a loss on a bus ride
back to the airport, and I just I didn't want
to do that. I don't necessarily want to have to
bow down to get the dollar I want to do.
I'm going to perform and do my job to be
able to reap the benefits. And then thirdly, I watched
one of my mentors just get absolutely slaughtered in the media,
(08:42):
local tabloids, local fans and things. He made. He made
a decision for UH to make a change in football
coaching hires that that hired didn't work out, and so
it's it's one of those things that we I just
saw him go through, and I didn't want to face that,
and so I thought, you know what the thing it
is time for a change.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So what is that what led you to leave athletics?
Speaker 4 (09:08):
It did, and you know, some of those things, and
I felt like I was getting passed up for job
opportunities that I was overly qualified for, and so I
was just kind of getting frustrated. And so you know,
after you know, I'd done done college sports almost ten years,
became a professor for two years full time, missed missed
doing it. I talked about every day. So I wanted
to get back in and got back into it. Spent
(09:30):
another six years in sports marketing and leading departments and
im packing change. But then all those things kind of
just led to let to me going, you know, I'm
frustrated by this. Let me just go be the best
sports market or best marketer or best executive whatever that
path would lie versus being an athletic director. What I'm
beholden to, you know, an eighteen to twenty two year old.
(09:55):
Now we could say athlete, not student athlete, because that's
that land escape has changed so dramatically. We're beholding the
people with the dollars in the check books. We're bolding
to our board of trustees and to our campus, and
just it just got very It wasn't fun. It wasn't
the same business I got into, you know, in the
early two thousands, and so it was time for change,
(10:16):
and I figured if I went to professional landscape or something,
then you can make your own path a little bit
and do what you want to do with it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So you did join you with the Memphis Memphis Express,
with the Alliance American Football, and then I know you
spent some time in corporate So what challenges kind of
surprised you the most in those roles?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, you know for me going to Memphis to help
start when an opportunity presented itself with the former I
think colleague, you know, a friend of yours as well,
koche Herby, you know Kocha calls and says, hey, I
think I want you to come be our VP marketing
for the startup professional football team. I didn't think twice
because what an opportunity house? And can you say you
(10:59):
helped start a professional football team from the ground up.
Yes it was an NFL, and yes it didn't last.
But the opportunity to be a part of thing so
unique and different, and to do it with friends and
to be a part and I think other than other
than koshe our GM and our coach, I was, to
think the fourth hire of the team, and so I'm
helping him shape our staff and shape where we're officers
(11:22):
are going to look like and what are we going
to do and what a unique fun thing to do.
I think you know that experience. Well, if I didn't
know the outcome that we would collapse eight games into
our ten game season as an entire league. If I
didn't know the outcome, I'd still do it again. I
think that was such a unique experience to launch a
team and a brand from scratch at a thin air.
(11:45):
But what I was surprised most by was that kind
of I gillel for me. I was surprised by the
the level of irresponsibility at corporate in terms of they
didn't know where what kind of money were blowing through
through and they still couldn't tell you this day how
many laptops each team had, or how many helmets. You know,
(12:05):
I have helmet in my office actually, so I hope
I don't get fined for it, be honest. But there's
just a level of incompetency at the corporate Like I
think about, like how how much I think it han't
done college sports for fifteen twenty years, and then having
to be so accountable for every little detail, and then
you get in there and they want to hold its
accountable for every dollar we're spending and advertising and what
(12:27):
we're doing and being precise. But yet they couldn't have
done turn around and done the same thing and just
blew through through money.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Is that like eight games in the season collapses? What
was that? I mean, the whole league collapses.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, they just locked the doors and you went home,
like how well you're working one day and then not
the next.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
So ironically, you know, we knew there had been some issues,
you know that we knew there was some trouble. We
knew there was you know, at one point players didn't
get paid in December, but they blamed it on having
changed accounting payroll software that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
It was client I've had.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Well, you know, it's funny. We were on the way
to like league meetings before the whole league started in
San Antonio, and that's about when the Firefest documentary came out.
And so as we're going through this league, we're like,
are we starting to see similarities to Firefest? That it
was smoking mud? And so it's like at very much
of felt very much like we were in a documentary
(13:22):
of our own living this reality in the football versus
some performing arts or some concert thing. But to your
point of going through it, you know, we at the end.
So April first comes along as the Monday after we
had just had a home game that had some drama
on the field and some things aired on TV that
(13:42):
shouldn't have been set over speakers in a fight and
different things, and so that next Monday happened to be
April Fools. April first, and Koche being a little bit
pranks to our team president, kind of caught us all
together quickly in the conference room. It was like, hey,
Lee didn't pay our didn't pay our rent, didn't pay more,
(14:03):
you know, on the the offices, we've got twenty minutes
pack up. We're getting kicked out, and we're like what
and so we all run in get our stuff. I'm
making a couple of Cone calls to tell people what's
going on the external partners, and then he yells, April
fools got you all go back to work, okay, And
the next day calls us back and says, this one
(14:25):
is in the fire, drobe. We just got noticed that
we're being plays being suspended. We don't know what this
means for jobs or teams or players. It is you
will get a letter in your inbox by two o'clock
this afternoon stating that we are all being kind of
furloughed or like suspended. So take the next three or
four hours, go take a long lunch. Some of us
(14:46):
went to the bar. You know, we just we didn't
know what to do. So literally the bad prank became
reality the next day on April second, So we.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Know that was gonna happen or do you have any idea?
So probably if Findze was twenty twenty, he never would
have done that on April.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
No horrible, worst joke he's ever told. But but prank,
But but I mean it was it was kind of
funny in the moment. Were also like, all right, Coachy,
this isn't funny because we know that the reality of
this is that it could collapse at the end of
the season, we could be done. And it didn't even
finish the season because the next day, on April second,
we got the notice that we were being being shut down.
(15:25):
That's entirely not just Memphis.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
How do you bounce back from that? I mean, I
know you're obviously very resourceful, but still that's pretty shocking,
you know.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
It's it's interesting. You know, I've gone through several job
transitions over time, and I was in alnership at the
time when the lead collapsed in Memphis, and and so
like I remember calling calling my partner and I told her, head,
doesn't hey where this is what's happened. I'm going to
be in the office afternoon, packing up boxes, getting things done.
Can you bring car over, We'll load the car up,
(15:57):
gets the valley office, and kind of wrap up because
I know next day, on Wednesday, the third, I'm gonna
have to be there making phone calls to partners externally,
helping our other younger staff figure out. I'd been through
job transitions quickly in moving, our younger staff hadn't, so
I wanted to kind of be there to help them
process and pack up or do what they needed to do.
And so a couple of days go by and she
(16:19):
said to me, you've never stopped to process, and I said,
there's no time. It's I got to jump back on
the hamster wheel to find a job, use the networks,
use use my contacts to get back into the business
or stay in the business, because I had been out
before and I wanted to kind of jump on. And
I also thought that, you know, my marketing brain kicked in, going,
people are going to be a little sympathetic that we
(16:39):
all closed a league. And then the rest of these teams,
eight teams are going to have thirty staff members also
looking for jobs. So let me jump out this quickly.
And so literally, I think, you know, Tuesday, we noticed. Wednesday,
we packed up the office, and Thursday, I'm already in
the phone call talking to headhunters, talking to friends, dropping
emails to people, reaching out to other colleagues, saying, hey,
if you know anything, let me know. That is what's happened,
(17:01):
and kind of using the sympathy card a little bit
because they all felt bad that here we are haven't
taken a risk professionally and it backfired on us.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Wow, that is amazing.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I can't I mean, you know, you hear things like
that happening, but it's interesting to hear the behind the
scenes part of that in terms of what happened. So
you call yourself on your resume a builder, a fixer,
a starter. In your current role, what do you think
is the most important title?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yeah, jack of all trades, you know, I think it's
in my current role, I'm doing a little bit of
We're definitely building, but I think there had to be
some fixing started. I had to fixing things. I think
when I first took over our advertising, I didn't feel
(17:56):
as though it was really penetrating into the market and
reaching people where they wanted to be or how they
wanted to be, how we need to meet them in
the moment. Nashville is a very competitive market for advertising,
for events and entertainment dollars and for what we do.
You know with Nashville Ballet, every show is different. You know,
if I said to the two of you, hey, Nutcrackers,
(18:17):
Swan Lake taking beauty, you already have an automatic understanding
baseline of what to expect. But if I say to
you attitude unbollow, if I can dream, you don't know
what those are. And so I have to find a
different way to reach you with messaging that gives you
more context. Because if I can reach in a way
that says, if I can dream featuring the music with
(18:39):
Elvis Presley, you go, oh, well that's different, tell me more.
But our previous folks and the marketing staff, we're just
kind of buying on impressions and reach and digital ads
and all these things that just and it was the
same strategy show after show after show. But every show
is different, every budget's different, and so we really change
some of that modeling and and luckily had our highest
(19:02):
revenue year ever in ticket sales last year in my
first year. So very fortunate that we had some good titles,
great performances, and all the things, all the things kind
of came together to to be able to have that success.
And then right now I'm I'm I'm kind of I'm
also helping fix our culture in our organization. Uh. And
in doing that, I'm building a brand new team. I've
(19:23):
just we just locked locked in the fifth my fifth
higher of the summer. We've gone through too new. We've
got two new people in our box office. We split
a role that was a project manager on social media
into being two different distinct full time positions so that
we can be better and be great at what we do,
not just okay uh. And then we brought in our
(19:44):
first graphic designer ever. We've always outsourced to a person
and so we were bringing we were paying kind of
full time wages. Why are we not just bringing somebody
in house? And so we've added that. So what I've
kind of done now is we're building this team back
and kind of as I've explained it to our internal staff,
the way I'm envisioning this to kind of go as
(20:05):
everybody actually gets in, gets in the room, and kind
of start building out processes as such, is that we
become more of an agency to our own internal clients.
Marketing is here to serve not only the ticket sales
and try to do productions, but development team helping them
align better with all the messaging and help them some
better strategies. As well as our school. I mean, we've
(20:25):
got a thousand kids that come in and dance in
our school and adults and we have to grow enrollment.
So we're going to hopefully serve a greater a greater
good by having more bodies in the building to be
able to sit in more meetings to be able to
hold hands and kind of pull them along when they're
not sure what we need to be doing. And so
I've just you know that that builder, fixer, starter mentality
(20:47):
and mo of kind of my very first job at
a college at the University of Missouri was Hey, we
needed to fix our group ticket sales. Or I've been
places where fix our game day experience, fix our marketing department.
Start a class as a full time professor. It's never
been taught, and you have two weeks start a professional
football team in Memphis and you've never done that. Or
(21:07):
I came to Nashville originally because I got into NASCAR
and it was a track that had been closed ten years,
and so hey, help reopen, help build a new brand
for this track that's been dormant for ten years. So
everywhere I've been, it's always been something to start, build
or fix.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Well so has so what from sports that was kind
of like your first the thing that you first loved
that you were first into. What have you taken from
that into each of into the corporate world, into the
professional sports, and now into more performing arts.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Yeah, I think you know, for me, what I love
is is I love putting together the pieces of the
puzzle that create whatever that is. And so in college sports,
one of the best things on a Saturday mornings to
walk in seven am. The stadiums all set, TV cameras
are up do on the grass, a little haze in
the fall, and you're like, oh, the quiet before the storm.
(22:00):
And that's the relaxing moment, because what's going to happen
then is you've got fifty thousand plus people screaming having
a great time. That you control their fun and their memories.
That's the outcome. And so part of that is putting
together the puzzles, the piece pieces of the puzzle to
make sure that you have that. So I love the
strategy behind what we do to try to sell a tickets,
(22:20):
you know, create a memory, get experience, build a brand,
and so to be able to kind of orchestrate all
these things that kind of come together from advertising, the
public relations, community engagement, that's what that's what I love
what I do. And so when I you know, unfortunately
we were at the NASCAR track here at the super
Speedway in Nashville. We got bought out by a bigger
(22:41):
track operator. I then unfortunately lost my job shortly thereafter,
and understandably that they want to, you know, bring in
people and do things their way. I took a job
working for a healthcare company and even then it was hey,
help build a website, help do these things, and it
was to kind of again, they ran conferences for healthcare
and so help us draw membership, get more engagement, get
(23:03):
them going. And so it's that I guess it's that
engagement with the constituent group that I just kind of
get drawn to.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So how doing you measure success of a campaign?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is it you know, having a packed house or having
three fourths of a house but everybody walks out with
a big smile and a five star Yelp review or
social media views?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
You know, how how.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Is it that you measure I mean, I know you're
going to say all but if you had to pick one,
what would you say?
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, I would say I tend to be more corporate minded,
So I tend to focus on where's our revenue goals?
You know what, what did did we achieve our revenue
that we needed to be able? For us at a
nonprofit world, at National Ballet, the revenue is critical to
our success to be so we have to get certain
metrics to continue to fund the arts. And I know
(23:54):
that once people come in, I'm not as I don't
control their people's experience at the ballet and performing arts,
whether it's symphony or ballet. I can't control that as
a marketing person, So I'm not the performer in influencing
that like I do in college sports and pro sports,
where you're directing the music and the video boards and
those things. And so I know people are going to
come out being amazed by the athleticism and artistry from
(24:17):
our performers. So I know that's going to be great.
But I take you know, my success is measured by
did I achieve the revenue goals? And every year just
performing arts is no different than sports. Every year gets higher.
If you did you did it one year, you got
to do it better next year, and you keep growing
upon that. So my metrics and my judgment is based
(24:39):
on where we're at from a revenue standpoint.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So how do you stay creatively inspired in today's landscape?
Because it seems like, you know, revenue is pressure.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Just is it sounds like an athletic director almost, I.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Know, but just how do you just how do you
stay on top.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Of your game. You know, it's it's tough sometimes, right
if you get into you get in cycles. You know
this This has been a tough uh spring and summer
because I had a lot of staff transitions moving out
and so it's falling on me to try to manage
the best I can, juggling for jobs of people that
were left or my job and being creative, and so
(25:19):
you do get levels of burnout. But I think for
me right now, where I find inspiration is for creativity
is you know, I'm excited by the fact I get
to build a new team. I get to build this culture.
I get to set the direction of how we're going
to move forward. And so while I don't have all
the answers and what the best strategy and best management
(25:39):
leadership strategies are, I'm excited to work with a team
that want to be in the positions that are excited
to be a part of our team and figure out that.
So that's that excites me to help do that. They're
also younger, and so I get to also mentor them
and kind of guide them, and I do take pleasure
and helping the next generation get to where they're going
to want to go. Or connecting the dots and helping
(26:01):
them become the best versions of themselves that they don't
even know maybe exist. And so that's part of it.
The other one is, I think it's for me it's
exciting is that I am taking things from like my
sports days, that we would take as common sense and
applying them to performing arts that they've never seen. And
I'll give an example. You know we always think about
(26:21):
you know, it's boy Scout Day, it's Pride Day, it's
Military Day, whatever day we've designated at a sporting event. Well,
I learned that another performing arts group. I think in
New York we're treating performances the same way that when
they when they had to run in a nutcracker for
us in Nashville's twenty one performances over a month span,
(26:44):
and so it gives you a bit of a season.
If you will to have different nights that you know,
of Friday night's not going to draw as well, and
if you're having something midweek, it could be tough. And
so we're going to look at creating days for designated group,
sales type things to try to engage in bring them in.
That's something that we don't think twice about and lean
so heavily on particularly in college sports, but with performing
(27:06):
arts doesn't do that. A lot don't do that.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Really, that is so interesting because you would think they
would a long time ago. I've stole that page out
of the book. I mean, oh, our ticket sales right
before Thanksgiving or low for football. So and it's a
non conference game, so let's make it military day.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And when I was at South Carolina, Mike McGee loved
the military and just was like, I have a big
budget for this, I want to blow this out. And
I think he was probably one of the first ads
to do it. Now everybody does it, and I don't
think he invented it or anything. But it's very interesting
to hear you say that performing arts doesn't really do that,
and now you're going to I really am anxious to
(27:49):
or excited to hear how that comes out.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
And maybe they do it quietly. Maybe we just still
haven't talked. I don't come from that world. For the
last year and a half now, I've sat on zoom
meetings where it's you know, my colleagues are part of
associations and you just sit and listen and talk. So
I haven't. I've only heard about it once from one
other group, and I'm like, why wouldn't I have thought
about given my sports background. But I'm also consciously very
cautious of not coming across as the sports guy in
(28:14):
a performing arts world that's already pretty well known that
you know, I'm not. I'm not a dancer. I'm not
you know, I don't come from that world, and so
when I look at things very differently, and so I
think it's helped us, you know, think about ways of
selling like that, or even just you know I mentioned
earlier with the advertising changes, you know, how do we
you know eighty let's see, eighty sixty percent of our
(28:39):
first time attendee first sixty percent of our attendance for
Nutcracker annually, our first time attendees to the ballet and
then eighty percent of our attendees for Nutcracker come from
Middle Tennessee. So they're an our hour and a half
radius from around around the city, and so you think
about how do you stand out, how do you tell
that story? And again, if you're not, I think a
(29:00):
lot of times before I arrived, they may have been
very using very much of the ballet world language and
performing arts type of things, and I kind of, I said,
I kind of dumbed it down a little bit because
you're trying to reach people like me that didn't know
we had a ballet before I started with them to
go hey, you know, I use the example my very
first day on the job a year and a half ago,
(29:20):
two weeks later was Romeo and Juliet. They said, if
we give you ten thousand dollars more in advertising budget,
what could you do with it to help impact? And
I was like, well, I do X, Y and Z
and thought that was I'm going to reach out to
a younger audience to some of our local media, and
I'm going to use the use the kind of the phrase,
hey Romeos, bring your Juliets like it's getting if you
(29:41):
can create this opportunity for them to see how they
can use it or it's girls night out, or it's
date night, or it's how can you package from that
messaging to help them see themselves in the moment, which
is no different than we do for sports, right, So
a big picture of a stadium, full crowd and you
belong here. It's the same thing, and just how you
how you message it and be a little different.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I one of the things that I've been reading about
recently is the Braves Reds game at in Bristol, Tennessee.
And you know, they just had I mean, I hate
to say perfect storm. They had the perfect storm of everything,
and then they had the unperfect storm and then restarted
and then had to go to the next day. And
(30:22):
you know, some people are blaming Major League Baseball, some
people are saying it was amazing, some people are blaming Bristol.
But like as a marketer, it's kind of a dream
undream like nightmare scenario.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Again. I know that folks at Bristol, having worked for there,
you know for a while, the parent company who bought
us out here in Nashville. Bristol's known for the creativity,
right they've done. They did the dirt races, which was different.
They've done the football games. There's now apparently talk about
NHL coming and doing a hockey game. Yeah. I you know,
to do something that creative in the middle of the mountains,
(30:57):
you know, in the middle of nowhere, it's pretty cool.
And so my heart broke for them a little bit
when the rain delay happens. I also kind of chuckle
as a Marketer going, you know, it's a bit big
bits like, oh, of course, you know, this is what happens.
But what I also think is interesting is, and you
probably have seen the same things. Concessions ran out of
(31:19):
buns for hot dogs, they ran out of nacho cheese
for nachos, but yet they were selling hot plain hot
dogs at the same price. They sold chips at the
same price as nachos. They didn't somewhere if they weren't
ready for the moment, So there was some sort of
level of like, we're selling you something that we aren't
(31:41):
prepared for. And again, could you have been prepared that
you'd had have a many hour delay, But even then,
like those people were still going to be buying food,
whether you're under the concession stand or in the stand,
you're still going to go get that food. So somewhere
they underestimated what they'd be selling and the level of
those things they just weren't, you know, they weren't prepared.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
And their folly will if when this happens again someplace
will be a learning curve. Their learning curve will be
somebody else's genius moment, Like we have to make sure
we have this and we have to make sure you know, so,
while it's not great, it's it also will teach so
(32:23):
many people. Hopefully people will listen to that and say, Okay,
we've got to make sure that some of these things
that we didn't really think we're all that important are
very important.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Well. I think back to was it might have been
even a twenty twenty when the when the NHL did
their game was a Lake Tahoe and it was fifty
degrees and sunny and the ice start of them out.
They had to cancel the game because you know, they
weren't thinking about, let's play Tahoe in the middle of
the winter. It should be fine. Well, it ended up
being a beautiful day, you know, a beautiful spring day,
and they create slush.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah. Yeah, the unexpected weather. It doesn't always cooperate with
marketing goals.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
No, no, So, Greg, what would you say, is like
the biggest lesson that you've carried with you from your
marketing career as.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
A whole, take chances. I think that's you know, I
think I you know, Eric, you joke you always see
me bouncing around a little bit. I have I have moved.
I've been in nine states in twenty five years. Nashville
now be coomes the fourth third longest place I've lived
with them in my hometown, and so I've always gone
I just kind of let I have some freedoms that
(33:28):
allow me to go and do and so I just
kind of follow the path where it goes. And so
it's I think the opportunity is to take chances and
just trust that things will work out or you'll figure
it out along the way. You know, I've given that
same advice to younger you know, graduate assistance or younger
staff who get opportunities to maybe move states away from
where they're from or parents, and I'm like, take it,
take the opportunity you need to go explore and have
(33:51):
to take that on yourself. And then they all call me,
you know, three years later ago, I was the best
thing everdict I'm still here, and so yeah, I just
I think take chances is the thing that's that's kind
of stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Well, you've had an I mean, it just shows you
just had a lot of incredible opportunities and have made
the most of them. So well, thank you for joining
us to day. I think before we close, want to
just jump into that spin cycle. So just quick answers.
It's really easy.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
We're putting the detertion in. Okay, texting or.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Talking text cats are dogs?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Neither hot chicken or barbecue.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Barbecue, check bags or carry on?
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Carry on?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
And Greg, what's for dinner?
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Sheet pan roasted veggies and chicken sausage.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh you are so healthy? Love it don't sound delicious though, too.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Come on over, well we got funny.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Seriously, Michelle and I love Nashville, and I have to
say that going to Nashville maybe top of mind wasn't
going to the ballet, but now after talking to you,
I think maybe that's got to be on my bucket list.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
So you have to come. You know, I know you
come for CMA Fest in June, but we don't perform then.
So you have to do two trips, once in the
winter and once in the summer.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
We need to do another winner trip Erica totally, totally.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Or bring bring the podcast on the road. There's a
bunch of sports professionals here including there are three other
former NACMA board members that live here in the area
that we all within. Three of the four of us
have been past president. So we could do a Nakma
College Sports round Table pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Well, and you mentioned Koche so Koche. If you happen
to be listening, you may be up next because I
worked with him a conference USA two and I mean, yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
He's a career from wrestling to PBR to football, the
college sports and in between.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well, no, I'm envious of all the stops you've made
and just the different things you've been able to do.
And look, I mean, this guy's the limit. You're not done,
you know, so we really appreciate you coming on today.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yes, thank you so much for you.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
This has been great.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Wow, he was really fascinating, Erica, thank you very much
for bringing a guest from one of your thirty years
at your real job.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Okay, no need to emphasize it. We said it once,
We said it once. No, I agree, Greg is an
awesome guy. A lot of things I didn't even know
too kind of came up through that. But now I
wish I I forgot to ask him about working with
Mike Singletary, who's like one of my childhood favorites being
a Bears fan, you know, but we could probably do that,
if you know, you and I head to the Ballet
(36:47):
in Nashville. We can.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah, I never told you I interviewed him one time
when he wasn't he the head coach at the forty
nine ers?
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Oh yeah, I believe.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
So yeah yeah. And where did he work with Mike Singletary.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
At Memphis Express in that Alliance of American Football that yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So anyway, I'm sure he may have a good couple
of good Mic Singletary stories.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
We might have to have a part two with Greg.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Share privately exactly. But yeah, great to have him today.
So hopefully you and I can meet up see the ballet.
I'd love to do it.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Thank you so much for listening to us. We're really
excited to be back. You can follow us on social
media The Spin Chicks c h I c KS.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
You're welcome, and maybe check out a few of our
archival episodes. We got season one, a very short Season two,
and now we're back for season three. It's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Here we go.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com