Building a Business Empire: Insights from Lisa Vanderpump

0:00Make sure that you bring you to it because none of us are the same, but really do your research, check out your competition and know and look for the niches. that's to me the most important part. How much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with insanely successful entrepreneurs who shared their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success? Grab your seat at the table because this is Business Lunch with Roland Frazier and Ryan Dice.

0:32Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch and today's a snackable episode with Roland where he's going to get into some more tactical strategies that you can start using to live a rich and happy life. If this is the first snackable episode you're hearing, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other episodes that Roland has put out. And if you want to get notified every time we release a new episode, go to the new businesslunchpodcast.com website, and we'll send you detailed notes along with every episode. That's businesslunchpodcast.com, www.businesslunchpodcast.com, and you can sign up for the free email newsletter where you'll be able to get all the highlights and resources from the episodes.

1:07Welcome, welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So, and you just recently had a birthday, I believe. Is that true? I did have a birthday. I did indeed. And I had a wedding anniversary of 40 years. 40 years. That's awesome. And you know what? I chose not to celebrate my birthday because I figured I'd celebrate my wedding anniversary because it's easier to stay alive than to stay married for 40 years. So, yeah. How did you celebrate? What did you do? Oh, I had a massive party, and it was all red rubies, because that's what you're supposed to do on your ruby wedding anniversary. And it was beautiful, and I think I just passed out.

1:49We didn't consummate the night, because that's what happens on your wedding anniversary. You've been around in the entertainment world for a long time, since you were about 13 years old. Yes. So a long time in the industry. What are some of the big takeaways that you'd say you've had for staying in that industry for so long and being continually relevant and reinventing yourself? Wow. It's been a very, very unusual ride. I came to America about 17, 18 years ago. We'd sold out twice our restaurants to a public company in England. and ostensibly we thought we'd retire. But I think anybody that's here, you have ambition, you have energy, and you have drive, know that you might think that's what you're aiming for, but once you actually get there, it's not what you want to do because you get bored.

2:44So then we started again. We moved here, and we opened a restaurant which has actually been very famous and worldwide called Sur, which has been the focus of Vanderpump Rules. It was actually a coincidence because we walked in there and we needed a visa to stay in America. And we just basically said to this guy who had this 30-seater restaurant. I mean, now it's like a 400-seater restaurant. And we said, do you know of any restaurants for sale? He said, well, I'm looking for a partner. And I'm like, okay. And he said, but I need to move quickly. And I'm buying this guy out. So I said, okay, well, I've got the cash in my handbag.

3:29So he said, I'm serious. I said, I'm serious. Anyway, we ended up shaking hands that night, and that was the beginning of that story. And we developed that restaurant. We expanded it, we expanded it, and expanded it again. And now it's been on this show kind of worldwide for 10 seasons. We just finished our 10th season. And, yeah, I can honestly say it's been a great success. That's awesome. it's not normal for us to have partners as a rule ken and i are pretty kind of autonomous and we like to work alone so to speak but in this case we needed to invest in a business and you know i don't know whether it's because i'm a narcissist or i believe i like to have complete control but we had just 51 so it's a very minute percentage difference but it makes a difference when it comes to making decisions.

4:26So always be aware of that whenever you go into anything. Yeah. I like that. So, and as far as, uh, from the entertainment standpoint, you have a lot of people here who are either influencers themselves trying to build personal brands or they are working with influencers. Anything that you would say kind of take away from the experience you've got that would be helpful maybe to either side of that equation? well I think really you know when I start a new business and like we've just opened our god no I think I think it's 37th restaurant in Las Vegas which is so unique and it's so different I would say it's arguably the most beautiful restaurant in Vegas I think whatever you do really do your homework know your competition I think that's one of the biggest things I always thing.

5:15Know what you want to deliver and make sure that you're delivering something different than everybody else. So put your unique spin on it. You know, it's very easy to see success and think, I'll follow that. But always have your bring your own personality to it. Because if you look around the room, every single person is different. And I've done a lot of inspirational women speaking. And I think one of the most frustrating things for me is the fact that people don't have the confidence to be themselves, but it's you being yourself that makes you different, that makes your brand different. Couple that with hard work, tenacity, drive.

5:57You know, people say, like people said to me today, where's all your people? You know, I don't have any people. I am my people. I don't even have an assistant. I have a lot of people, probably 500 people that work for me on the ground boots on the ground but as a team is Ken and I and my new design company is my partner and I which has kind of gone on to become very successful but I can always say that I've always known the direction that I want to go in and I've really sought out all the avenues you know for instance opening a restaurant in West Hollywood is not going to be a Michelin-style restaurant.

6:39It's going to be something that people in West Hollywood, the casual vibe, want to go to. So I took this car park and ended up putting 10 huge olive trees in the middle of this car park and created a garden. Normally people change a garden into car park. We change a car park into a garden. But it was a great success because that's what people needed. So my kind of message is, is always find out, bring your own vibe to it, but find out what people need and find out what you don't have in your area of expertise. What was that, would you say, with Sur? What was that thing that wasn't there and that special thing differentiating?

7:19With Sur, well, that was different. I mean, Sur had been in existence for a long time, quite a few years. It was a little kind of hole in the wall, you know, 30-seater restaurant, but it had potential to expand and I always look for potential to for growth and I saw the place next door and the place after that and slowly we started to build it into the business it is today. I'm somebody that my mind never stops working. I wake up I'm thinking about it. I go to bed I'm thinking about it. I enjoy that kind of rumination of really kind of letting my mind build. And, you know, I also view stress as something that's quite good.

8:07A lot of people think of stress as very negative. But if you think of stress as excitement, like going back there, I'm not like, oh, I'm so stressed. I'm like, I'm excited to go on and talk to you guys. So sometimes when you guys feel really stressed and overcome and overwhelmed to think, no, this is the engine that's driving me, that's giving me fuel, that's going to push me along. And that's a good thing. You know, as long as you don't let it get too debilitating, you start shaking and pass out and stuff like that. You have had a long relationship with a lot of different celebrities that I found out when I was...

8:45No, I haven't. That makes me sound like an old tart. You have been connected to. Connected to. Connected to, right. But you were on the Rolling Stones, or you went along on the Rolling Stones. No long relationships there. Tell us a little bit of what that was like. Oh, the Rolling Stones. Where did you find that? You've been doing your homework. Well, that was in 1989. Oh, my gosh. This was when there was no political correctness in the entire world. You know, everyone is free to grab everybody else's ass and to talk inappropriately. You know, it was like that. I mean, it was the ages. Yeah, exactly.

9:22Now we're all very well behaved. And I'm not sure that I can say I like it better like this. But anyway, life sucks, right? So Bill Wyman, who was the bass player for, I think, 40, 30, 40 years, was actually one of our closest friends. No relationship there either. Don't start these tongues fucking. and my husband was actually his best man and my daughter was his bridesmaid and we went on tour with them and Bill was actually, I can't believe I'm talking about him actually, Bill was actually the really normal one. When you see the Rolling Stones they're so kind of crazy and their whole experience, every backstage was like a nightclub but Bill was the one that would never go by helicopter, he would only drink a vodka and tonic, he would always have an English cup of tea, so he was a very, very down-to-earth one, and he taught me quite a lot, you know, it was 1989, so I was 29, yeah, 29 years old, and to see somebody that was at the height, very pinnacle of their fame, the Rolling Stones have really been second to none, so down-to-earth, humble, and not kind of at all patronizing how so many celebrities that I've seen are guilty of.

10:43He didn't really have a clue. Like if we went into a supermarket, I'd be like, no, it's this way. What are you doing? You're going to pay over there. He was kind of like a little clueless in terms of people managing his life and what he had to do. But he was very, very down to earth. And he taught me a great lesson just about treating people the way you want to be treated. I think that's a big one and things I see in this life, especially in the celebrity culture. Simon Cowell said to me, I'm always gracious to everyone I meet because that person will tell 10 people and those 10 people will tell 100 people.

11:21So sometimes it's hard, especially when, you know, you live in a life where you're very, you know, I'm in my restaurant. people come and sit on my lap if they want almost but you always have to remember please don't do that though um you know you have to remember that um it might be their first time and it might be your hundredth time so however successful you become I think my message is always be you know have a humility about it be humble and remember you know just because like you might have been treated like an asshole for long enough you know your whole life you don't have to turn into one You know what I mean?

11:59Like once you get to the top of that ladder, treat everybody the way you want to be treated. You do such a great job of that on the on the shows we see. What like particularly at the restaurant, you have some very challenging personalities. Oh, yes. What do you tell yourself not to just actually have them killed? Well, not to slap them. Yes. Well, yeah, we edit that out. If I actually jump across the table and I slap around the back of the head, we edit that out. sometimes it is challenging but you know we could make a show about the other say it's about 12 characters or people that work for a long time on the show it could be about the other 400 that deliver the crispy chicken to the table and it gets there very successfully and you guys would all change the channels you know so you have to understand that to be a great reality star it's got to move quickly you've got to have people that are happy to express their sentiments and emotion and with that it gets complicated but one thing as a producer on that show I think the main thing I can always say is authenticity is absolutely key in business in programming in producing you see some other shows where they plant people in and they expect them to be part of a friend group where the stakes aren't high because nobody really cares if it's somebody that's just but when you really see you know like a group of people that have been friends for years and years and years the stakes are much higher and that's what I always strive for everything I do is you know coupled with authenticity if you see all the brands and the things I'm involved in albeit design well we've designed all our own restaurants our own houses over the you know and we used to have a property company um the wine business we sell it at our restaurants it's always authentic so i think we're always better when we have our passion and it's something that we believe in and we're authentically um entwined in it i really do believe that so yeah i'm not selling bullshit anyway if i could find a way to sell bullshit i would but i can't you have a whole lot of different businesses i have a question about that but just so that we can all understand would you mind sharing kind of what you and you and ken are into as far as business wise across the spectrum of the different things you're doing right now as opposed to personally wise yes yeah i was trying to help you with that either way we're here well we've had many yeah no there's not much it's just the two of us here right yeah No, no, no, right.

14:43Our little secret. Well, we've had many restaurants. Ken is looking forward more to retiring now. I mean, he's very involved in us setting up a new restaurant. Me, my passions are design, and Ken has done so much with his life. I have so much admiration because Ken started with nothing as a young boy. And I always say when I interview people, it's great having a college degree. It's great having that. But also you want to see that scrapper in some way where you can fight your way out of it or you can fight for survival. You know, and Ken was very much that, you know, he he was neither of us. We came from, you know, I had nice schooling and that, but I didn't go to college.

15:30I was signed by a television company at the age of 17. So but I had a job since I was 13 years old. So I was always a bit of a scrapper and Ken was very much like that. and we worked together. We had 12 restaurants we sold out to a public company. We started again, we sold out again. Now we have the family wine business, which has done very well. But again, authenticity, I taste that thing until it gets onto the shelf. It's been, in fact, I quite enjoy the process. We taste it and we taste it and taste it until we get it right. And one of the things as well, because I'm very aware of the people that follow me, and I've met so many thousands of people at wine tastings.

16:19I stay there till the last person is seen, and they've turned up at these vents. Unbelievable, unbelievable turnout. It's authentic, but it's also not too expensive. Our wines are kind of hovering around the late 19, 20, and we score 21 on Wine Spectator next to some of the big guys. you know that are really expensive so to me to bring in a great product that looks beautiful and is attainable is ideally what we want to do we want to do that in our restaurants we want to do that in our design and we want to do that certainly in our in our wine business some of what's your favorite wine do you have a favorite wine or top five um well i mean we now we've just launched a cabernet and a chardonnay both from sonoma um we decided to go californian because to spend so much time here.

17:10Our rosé came from France. We lived in France for seven years and I loved every minute of it. So we brought over the French rosé. At the time, the rosé market really was like pretty minimal here. It wasn't like it was in Europe. Now it's kind of oversaturated in a way, but we've managed to find a niche in the market and it's done very well. But again, And it will be curated and it will be tasted and the bottle design by us as a family. Another thing, I talk about my book that I'm writing, second book. I'm going to ask about that. Yeah. If I had a dime for every time the publisher said, when's it ready?

17:55I wouldn't have to write it. But I brought my kids up to be able to, you know, my son started washing dishes and then he started bussing tables. running tables and then waiting tables. And now he can manage. And my daughter is like that as well. I encourage you to always with your children, you know, teach them from the ground up. Then they have the confidence to speak to others. Because my son as a manager in our business can say, oh, that, that, that, that, because he's done it and he's been there. You see these wealthy people putting their kids in at the top level without understanding the tears.

18:37that doesn't garner respect. So, sorry, what was the question? I'm trying to figure out what's your favorite wine. Oh, yeah. Other than the wines that you sell. It depends what I'm eating. In fact, we just had a wonderful wine pairing contest because when we talk about reaching out to the audience and getting people engaged with our brand, we had a wine pairing contest and we said, okay, everybody's going to come up with their menu, choose their wine, and then it will end up on the menu in one of our restaurants in Vegas. and it was so much fun. I encourage you to come up with innovative things, you know, where you can engage your audience and things like that.

19:14Like when I go to wine signings all over the country, COVID did shut us down, but I would go all over the country and it was an incredible experience. And for me to engage with people that, you know, have followed me really and have kind of really supported me over the years is very, very important. That's awesome. So with all the different things that you have going on, from a business standpoint, how do you keep up with it? How do you monitor to see that things are going the way you want without being sucked into so much of it that you don't have any time for personal fun? Well, I actually, I think I find business fun.

19:55And one of the things I always say is if you find a job you love, then you never have to work a day in your life. I mean, of course, that, you know, I don't mean to take that too literally, but I enjoy working. So I enjoy going into my restaurants. Unfortunately, I nearly always see what's wrong rather than what's right. And sometimes the manager will say to me, why, look, it's really busy. And this, that, and the other. I go, yeah, but the lights on over there or that. So sometimes I have to remind myself of the good job they're doing rather than the things that, you know, aren't. but I really do get involved.

20:34Like I could spend a whole day designing and get carried away with it. I'm very, very involved in everything I do. Otherwise I don't want to do it. And maybe that comes down to being a control freak or a narcissist, but I just love to make my own decisions and really be involved with it. Now, do I have fun? Yes, we do take our downtime. Do we take as much as everybody else? Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. How do you keep track of kind of what's going on? You're very on the curve for trend and design and across a lot of different things. Yeah. How do you stay up and what are some of your favorite resources for keeping abreast of what is current?

21:17Oh, that's a good question. When you've got a lot of young people working for you, you do see a lot of, you know, there's a lot of interaction with that. and my feet are firmly on the ground on social media. I see a lot. I really engage on Twitter and Instagram and I follow people, you know, that I think are just fabulous and kind of, but I suppose, I suppose I just kind of, I'm in that and I look at what's changing and we've all had to change. If anybody's running their business the same way they were prior to COVID, you probably wouldn't be in it. So we all have to be aware of what's changing and how we're going to change it and adapt as things move along.

21:59And I just I do keep my finger on the pulse. But I don't sit there, you know, reading magazines, pulling tear shoots out. I think those days are gone for most people. We snoop around on the Internet. We go out. We see, you know, other people's businesses excite me as well. I enjoy seeing it. You know, I enjoy seeing what happens in Vegas. I still want to be the best, but I enjoy seeing other people. Like Martha Stewart just opened next door to me. And to me, they put the Arc de Triomphe, they put this huge picture. I mean, when I say huge picture, it's like 90 foot, this picture. Nobody wants to see themselves, their face 90 foot.

22:36But anyway, luckily Photoshop and airbrushing. They put Martha Stewart next to me, who's like iconic to me. And I always thought, wow, Martha Stewart, I'd always looked at her and, you know, she'd been this household name in America. I suddenly thought, how did this happen? I'm right next to her. And I learned that it was her first restaurant she'd ever opened. And she was looking to me and saying, wow, you know, you guys have opened. And I was thinking, how did this happen? So I'm always looking to other people for inspiration and their ideas. And a lot of our friends are in the restaurant business.

23:14Equally, a lot of our friends in the restaurant business have gone out of business, as the same as the 110 ,000 restaurants that closed down, you know, across America through the pandemic, which was very, very disheartening. And it was hard to keep going. How did you deal with that? Because you guys have clearly impacted by the shutdown. What did you do to when you found out that it happened? How did you deal with it initially? And then how did you adapt? And is there any change that's going to be enduring as you go forward that kind of sticks through, do you think? Well, I've had so many conversations with people and seen so many things I'm involved with, with suicide prevention and being an advocate for the Trevor Project, LGBT youth.

24:02You know, there's been a lot of depression around and feeling of hopelessness and people thinking. But I have to think that this, what we've been through, is certainly one of the toughest things I've been through in my generation. This has been our war of our lifetime. I mean, my parents went through the Second World War. My grandmother went through both of them. So this has been something we have to fight and we have to pull together and we have to make it work again. But it was very difficult. You know, suddenly shutting everything down. Initially, we thought it would be for two, three weeks.

24:37That's what we thought. Nobody envisaged two years later that would still be. So it was very disheartening to see the way that it was being handled. I don't feel the government did exactly, but it was an unknown quantity. It was like the blind leading the blind. And to see so many people just give up, I mean, we still see the empty spaces all around us. And retail took such a hit as well. What do we do? Cup is half empty, half full. it's an old adage but it's how you look at it I did say to my husband also we live in a big house that we worked hard for nobody gave us for sure but I always had help I was in the door out the door running here suddenly I was in this big house and there was nobody there and I was thinking okay our businesses are all shut down what should I do and I was like I'm gonna keep our life keep our standards we prepared for a rainy day financially but now it was fucking thunderstorm it was pouring it was just like roofs were leaking literally in our mind everything was just it seemed like a hopeless situation but we got through it and we came out of it the other side and I'm proud to say so many of our friends did but at times it was like where will we go from here what will what will we do we shut down and we made the most of it there was nothing to do and as we opened then we started to change things we started to pivot or spin you know we had to learn qr codes masking sanitization distancing you know moving it was a very different animal to the animal that we'd worked before you know before it was open the doors and everybody kind of coming and trying to get a table.

26:25Now it was it was much, much different. So is there anything that you think will be enduring, like that you started doing different, that you were like, hey, this is actually kind of a positive thing that will carry forward? Or was it just kind of adapting and then going back? I think it's just adapting and going forward and really understanding that, you know, we are fallible. You know, it's like we see these pandemics and everybody's kind of cautious now, but also maybe just to in the event of something happening in the future you're a little more prepared but you know how could anybody be prepared for that that was uh yeah it was a surprise so um you mentioned before you uh just recently celebrated a 40th wedding anniversary and you've worked with ken for how long now could you uh 13 485 days all right like almost Yeah, it's been a lot.

27:20It's been a lot. We've certainly had a lot of experiences and it's been an incredible experience. It's great. People say, how do you work with your partner? But it's also wonderful to have your partner on your side and have somebody that you can trust as well. But there are times when you get frustrated. I don't think any relationship is going to, you know, you can work side by side your partner without wanting to punch him in the face at some point or strangle him. Is there anything that you like maybe separating responsibilities or because it's hard to own a business together. Any any tips for people that are working with their spouses?

27:56I think to draw the line sometimes and also to be able to say to each other, OK, now let's not talk about it. Let's actually, you know, pretend we're married rather than business partners. Pretend we have a romance instead of that. I think that is a very important part of. But also, you know, you see on Vanderpump Rules this season, when lines are blurred with partnerships, another thing that I've learned being in business, when you get into bed with somebody in business, make sure those lines aren't blurred. Make sure you know this is what you're going to do. This is what I'm going to do. Because that's when it can get really messy.

28:35And on the season of Vanderpump Rules, it sure gets messy. It gets messy. so over the roughly five decades that you've been in the public eye what uh you you've had to evolve your brand personally and a lot of people especially here have personal brands what would you say are some of the takeaways to help people stay relevant and also just not go insane during that well as i said before make sure that you bring you to it because none of us are the same but really do your research, check out your competition and know and look for the niches. That's to me the most important part because when I started a restaurant, there's a million restaurants out there.

29:20How am I going to make mine different? How am I going to make that more unique? You know, opening my restaurant in Paris, I suddenly looked at this incredible venue of the Eiffel Tower right in the middle of Vegas and I walked through it and there was nothing really in this whole Eiffel Tower situation that really reminded me of an authentic Parisian restaurant. And I said to the owner of Caesar's Property, that is what I'm going to deliver. I'm going to make you walk in and feel that you're in Paris and that's what we achieved. So I think when you really, really think, okay, what's out there?

29:58What can I do differently? How can I do it better? and you know just research research and then put you into that that make this and nobody can guarantee success that you know it would be foolish to think that and don't be afraid of failure because you know we've had ups and downs and sometimes no is sometimes no actually pisses me off and then I really get going when we had our Vanderpump cocktail garden in Caesars they tried to give me Elton John's restaurant with a terrace this big. Well, I'm like, that's not going to work. I ended up with a terrace 40 foot. I did a couple of lap dances. I don't care how I did it, but I got it going.

30:42You know what I'm saying? Sometimes you've got to fight for what you want. And if you're really confident in what you want, you've really got to lay it out there. And I knew that me having a restaurant with a five foot terrace wasn't going to work. So I think, you know, hold out for what you want. If you know what you want, you've done your research, suddenly say, hey, give me a break. Trust me and let me show you. And that restaurant went on to take five times the forecast profits that Caesar's envisaged. So, hey, my lap dance was worth it. That's awesome. So you mentioned that you are involved in some partnerships now, but that you generally don't move in that direction.

31:19Tell us about, like, what are some of the partnerships that you're doing right now and what do you like about what caused you to want to get into them? Well, I think we opened a cocktail bar restaurant. One of the things we were blessed, I have to say, is through the pandemic, the restaurants we had had beautiful outdoor spaces already. so that really really helped us because a lot of people just did not want to be inside but we opened tom tom which is a great brand and it's a great restaurant cocktail bar we came up with these really innovative cocktails and we asked tom and tom before we named it tom tom if they wanted to be involved in this restaurant but they bought in at five percent each so obviously they're not kind of operating partners or five percent each but to me I felt it brought a youth you know it brought like excitement and their crazy kind of activity to it and Tom Tom was voted the number one cocktail bar in Southern California yeah yeah it was yeah really good but you know what I think don't be afraid to take chances as well it's like if you look at our restaurant and our menus and our cocktail lists, especially in Paris, our newest one, they're innovative.