Highlight: The Fire In The Booth That Would Have Destroyed My Brand: Charlie Sloth

0:28It takes a little bit of time to realise this as a founder. scale-up mode and that's the stage where we found it mission critical to use NetSuite. We no longer have to juggle multiple systems and having everything together has reduced the number of manual tasks and of course the number of errors. Over 43 ,000 businesses have chosen to future-proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, right now get the business guide Demystifying AI free at netsuite.com slash Bartlett. That's netsuite.com slash Bartlett.

1:00When it comes to B2B marketing, the goal is often the same. Turn up the volume on what makes your brand irresistible and stand out from the competition. But guessing usually doesn't get you there. LinkedIn Ads does. They're also the sponsor of this episode. Here you can accurately target your audience and leverage engagement tools and analytics to help you reach the right people. LinkedIn Ads also gives you access to professional network of individuals who influence your business. With over a billion members, 130 million decision makers and 10 million C-suite executives, In this clip, Charlie Sloth talks about dialing up your brand's most desirable traits.

1:34So if you're ready to kill the guesswork and show the best version of your brand, LinkedIn Ads is where it starts. Give them a try now with a$100 credit to launch your first campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash DOAC24. Terms and conditions apply. Here's Charlie. When it comes to building a brand that has integrity, what matters? You know, this is a brand. Yeah. And I think it has integrity. But I think because you have integrity, I think because you have integrity You install your morals into the brand And this brand is a reflection of you I think like pretty much Everything you do speaks about you as a person Because I feel like I'm the same I feel like if it challenged my morals I wouldn't want to do it Because I'd be like Well that's not a real reflection of me Why am I going to invest my time or my money My energy into something that doesn't represent me And I feel like my team you know i have an amazing team do an incredible job of managing the expectations of all of the brands that i'm involved with and i don't even have to say it no more if i if if i feel like something's wrong or it's not going to work doesn't look right for the brand they know before it's even come to me because they know what my morals are they know what i stand for what i don't stand for what i feel is right so it's got to the point where i don't even have to have those conversations because I have such a great team who have those conversations for me and they protect the brand I feel like if something goes wrong with one of the brands it's a reflection on me and something that I've always believed is one of my biggest assets is my reputation I feel like you may not like me you may hate me you might find me annoying but one thing you can't challenge is my reputation.

3:22I've never done anyone dirty, ever. I've never backstabbed anyone. I've never said I'm going to do something and not done it. And my brands have to hold up that same ethos. In order for your team to know what decisions you'd make before, you know, it even comes to you as it relates to the branding, the positioning of it and all those things, that must first start with you being really, really clear. And what I've got from all of that is because you're so clear in your head a non-negotiable about what this brand is you've been able to kind of like install that in all of the people around you so now they are like disciples of the values for sure well we actually have a bible oh really we actually have a fire in the booth bible a handbook to do's and don'ts and especially now because you know the vision of fire in the booth has gone from being a feature on a radio show to being a global brand you know obviously now we're of apple you know one of the biggest companies in the world who i believe share the same ethos as we do in terms of vision in terms of content consumption and i feel like now the brand really is going global everyone wants to know what's in that bible oh what kind of things are in there i mean it's you know it goes from camera setup yeah to edits colors to use um right through to how artists are treated once they arrive, communication with teams.

4:55One of the things I found really interesting is I read that you deleted potentially hundreds of episodes of Fire in the Booth that just didn't cut it. Yeah. Which I think a lot of people would be surprised by because, you know, a rapper, an artist comes down, they perform, they might think it's gone off, they might think that, you know, they killed it. And then you're sat there thinking, this doesn't meet the standard. Yeah, I feel like, you know, I feel there's times when I've not released a fire in the booth and an artist later on has gone on to thank me because, you know, it's a big moment in an artist's career.

5:26And I feel like if it doesn't do you justice, it's not about me. It's not about why I think this is going to do well for the fire in the booth brand. Like anytime I have a conversation with an artist and they say to me, do you think it's good? I can't sit there and lie to the artist's face and say, yes, it's okay. I'm going to be like, you could do better. if you want to come back and go again we can if not let's just park it off for now and come back to it at a later date and there's been so many that have not gone out but that's because i felt it's not a good reflection on them not on the brand because no one's gonna you know attack the brand as much as they would the artist there's one of the biggest artists in the world right now Stephen one of the biggest globally right who come in to do a finer booth and I can't tell you how excited I was for this moment even though it was a few years ago they were still a big artist then but they won is because they are now and they came in and done their finer booth and you know everyone was excited and we were prepared for it and they came in and it was possibly one of the worst fine aboos I've ever recorded and I could see that the artist was quite excited by their performance and you know there was like oh when when we're gonna release it and in my mind I'm thinking is this just me is it because I expected here and they delivered here that I'm judging this and they're talking to me and their mouth's just moving and I'm processing all this information in my head because I'm like, I don't want to lie to the artist.

7:08I don't want to be disrespectful to the artist. All this information is swelling in my head and I was like, I'm going to go back and listen to The Final Booth. Give me 10 minutes. So I went back into the studio, replayed it. All right, this is garbage. This is garbage. So I chatted to the producer at the time I was like how's best to handle this situation I don't want to go out and say that this is not going to go out but at the same time I want to give them the opportunity to redo it while they're here while they're in the country

7:44and regretfully I didn't do that I didn't go out and give the artist the opportunity to do it again I was like you know what I'm just going to say that it's not going out and for me that was a bad decision i look back at that now and it's a bad decision um but it just weren't good enough it weren't good enough and there's so many artists that have come through and not performed but again like i said some that have called me i later said you know what i appreciate you not putting that final booth out let's go again why do you regret that decision because in hindsight i could have given them the opportunity to record that again there and then but because i had no faith in the situation i was like i'm not going to waste their time and i'm not going to waste my team's time i just think it's best that we kind of keep it moving but now on reflection i should have given them the opportunity to do it again you know and there's comments all the time i've spoke about this before people like release it release the fire in a booth this person is huge right now we've got sign off on it we can release it but i just wouldn't you know like i'm i don't i don't do things for that reason i'm not gonna shit on the artist now we put something out that i thought was shit back then and put it out now for views it's counterproductive it goes against everything that i say and stand for so it will never come out it takes a little bit of time to realize this as a founder but once you do It's something you can't unsee.

9:23That having the right systems in place with your business is critical. One that's helped me across all of my investments is NetSuite, the number one AI cloud financial system and sponsor of today's conversation. Through their streamlined platform, you'll find all of your accounting, finance, management, inventory, and HR in one place. And their technology has been a massive unlock for all of my companies, especially for my team at Flight Story. As over the last year, we've moved out of startup mode into scale-up mode. And that's the stage where we found it mission critical to use NetSuite. We no longer have to juggle multiple systems and having everything together has reduced the number of manual tasks and of course, the number of errors.

9:58Over 43 ,000 businesses have chosen to future-proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, right now, get the business guide Demystifying AI free at netsuite.com slash Bartlett. That's netsuite.com slash Bartlett.