THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR When You Write a Book, You Try to Be As
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THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR When you write a book, you try to be as succinct as possible. A lot of the writing gets trimmed away during the lengthy editing processes that any manuscript goes through on its way to the printer. The editor may nix something because it’s too controversial, not relevant to the topic at hand, not politically correct enough, or there just wasn’t room for it in the final pass. As a result, a cache of all the edited material tends to pile up on the side, in its own separate document. We nicknamed this document the “cutting room floor,” and when the manuscript was finished, we realized that some of the best stories were in there. They hadn’t made the cut. We decided to release this “cutting room floor,” the extra material, to fans and readers of Rock Bottom to Rock Star. What you’ll read here isn’t in the book. If you want more of these kinds of stories, I’ve included them in the bonus content through my newsletter. You can sign up for the newsletter on my site: ryanblair.com or rockbottomtorockstar.com. AT WAR: BONUS CHAPTER You’ve heard me mention Todd Goergen several times in my writing in Nothing to Lose and in Rock Bottom to Rock Star. Not only is Todd a friend of mine, but he’s also a great business strategist, from a long line of world class entrepreneurs. When I think of a battle tested entrepreneur, and someone who has modeled a winning strategy during a time of “war,” I think of Todd. I was introduced to Todd by one of my first venture capitalist mentors, Fred Warren. By 2009, Todd and I were on the board of a company together, and had grown very close. That February, we decided to take a ski trip to Park City, Utah with some of the investors of the company and spend some time with management. The night we arrived we’d gone out to dinner, and in classic “Todd and I” fashion, we’d had too much to drink. I don’t know if it was the altitude or what, but the next day we both woke up with the worst hang over ever. The worst. Determined to make the best of it, Todd and I decided to go skiing, and we started out for the slopes. Suddenly, Todd looked down at his phone and said, “Oh my god.” “What’s wrong?” I asked. Todd gave me a sobering look, and said, “I’ve got to take this call.” He stepped away. From where I was standing I could overhear him exclaiming over and over, “What? You’re kidding me. What?” and then, “He murdered her? In the office?” Todd had invested in a company called Bridges, a television network out of Buffalo New York that had been created with a mission to “bridge” Middle-Eastern culture with Western culture, in the aftermath of 9-11. The morning of February 12th, 2009, Bridges’ CEO, Muzzammil Hassan, had gone into the company’s headquarters and decapitated his estranged wife in the office. Muzzammil then went to the police station and reported her death. His wife, Aasiya Hassan, who was also the company’s COO, had filed for divorce less than a week before. Hassan had lured her to the office by asking her to drop off some clothes he had left behind at their home after moving out. He assured her he wouldn’t be in the office. Todd stood there looking at me blankly. I asked, “What can I do to help?” “I don’t know,” he said. Not a second later, both our Blackberry’s went off— notification after notification. It was already a national news story. It was everywhere. Obviously, this is a horrific tragedy. You cannot imagine something like this happening. It’s something out of a Shakespearian tragedy; gruesome and appalling. Your CEO is heading to prison for life. Your COO is murdered. An honor killing (something not so acceptable in our culture) has been performed on the grounds of a company whose sole mission was to educate and foster peace between cultures. How do you handle this? Aside from the sheer human tragedy of the situation, you also have an office full of employees who are traumatized, depressed, and worried there will be no job to go back to. Todd had to go to war. He took immediate action, creating a plan with the company’s board on all fronts – with the media, employees, customers, vendors, and shareholders. The last proved to be particularly tricky since Bridges had over 150 individual shareholders. The board called a shareholder meeting (including a security detail to protect against potential unrest—they were not going to take any chances), where Todd stood in front of everyone and said what needed to be said: “We cannot talk about why this happened. We won’t ever understand. We have to find a way to move forward.” In business I cannot think of a more rock bottom moment; this is as bad as it gets. But Todd didn’t spend any time thinking about how it happened or why it happened. There would be time for that later. He didn’t waste valuable energy fighting with the wrong mindset; he rallied from the depths, maintained a cohesive board, and did what was necessary to salvage the company. In the end, with the invaluable help of Hunaid Baliwala from Bridges and Teddy Stofer from Ropart, Todd and the board were able to stabilize the business and execute a successful sale of the company within two years. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him for that. In my opinion, Todd is a business war hero. REALITY BRIDGE As the old saying goes, perception creates reality. Therefore, everyone has different realities, based on their perceptions. In its extreme form, the inability to see or understand another’s view creates actual wars, as in the situation you just read about. Communication can be difficult to navigate for anyone; individuals trying to find resolution; businesses or business partners; companies; competitors; countries; races. So, anytime I negotiate, I’ve learned to use a technique called a reality bridge, a concept that originated from Tony Robbins, to create a situation where both parties are on the same page. Let me give you an example of what normally happens when people try to communicate from different realities. I was sitting in a public relations meeting one time, listening to a PR firm pitching me on a $25k per month spend for ViSalus, and I said, “What would Apple do?” Her response was, “You’re not Apple.” (Said in a cynical way.) I stood up and said, “That wasn’t my question,” and left the room. After I cooled down I told the Vice President in charge of public relations to fire every one of them. It wasn’t about the fact that she argued with me, it was the fact that I wanted to work with people who were going to say, “Here’s what Apple would do,” or “Here’s how we get you to have a brand more like Apple,” and I didn’t want to hear someone who was going to tell me I’m not Apple—I know I’m not Apple. I pay people to tell me what I don’t know, not what I do know. If this PR rep had known the story of Apple, like I do, she would know that once upon a time they were the laughingstock of the technology industry. They called Steve Jobs a has-been. They mocked them for even showing up at tech conferences. That’s how bad his reputation once was, compared with today, where both Steve Jobs and his brand are immortalized. Apple is the best in the world at PR. So, when somebody tells me we’re not Apple, I know that we’re not and we may never be, but I’m going to set myself to the highest standard I possibly can. And Apple is that standard. Now, obviously you shouldn’t lose your cool and yell at everyone like I did—I regret not exercising restraint—but this is a great example of how two people with very different belief systems failed to connect. Her belief is that we aren’t Apple. My belief system is that we’re not Apple…yet. If she had wanted to match my belief system, and keep me as a client, she should have said, “Well, we’re not Apple yet, so let’s take this step,” as opposed to “You’re not Apple.” This technique is a reality bridge. This is how it works. I recently attended a board meeting with a company I’d just invested $500,000 dollars into a week ago, and a week later they’re broke. Obviously, I wouldn’t have put money in, if I had known they would run out of money in a week. They were incredibly worried about my what reaction would be. And I could have raised a lot of concerns. I could have said, “You should have disclosed this.” But, as we all know, attacking someone’s defense, only makes them fortify their defense. Instead, I had to build a reality bridge. I said to them, “Look, I may be imagining things, but I thought I heard you say that you had several months’ cash in the bank. Turns out you don’t.” Now, instead of the discussion devolving into a he-said-she-said stalemate, I’ve let them off the hook by using the words, “imagining things.” I’ve made it clear in a non- confrontational way that I see what’s happened as a problem, and now that they know my expectations—let’s talk about a solution.