Moment 192: The Fire In The Booth That Would Have Destroyed My Brand: Charlie Sloth

0:03When it comes to B2B marketing, the goal is often the same. Turn up the volume and 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 give 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.

0:37So 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 and I think it has integrity 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.

1:14I feel like if it challenged my morals, I wouldn't want to do it because I'll be like, well, that's that's not a real reflection of me. Why don't I 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 feel like something's wrong or it's not going to work, it doesn't look right for the brand, they know before it even come to me because they know what my feels right. So it's got to the point where I didn'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.

2:04I feel like if something goes wrong with one of 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. I've never done anyone day ever. I've never backed out than 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.

2:50And what I've got from all of that is because you're so clear in your head and 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 fine -and -a -proof Bible, a handbook to do's and don'ts. And especially now because, you know, the vision of fine -and -a -proof 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.

3:31And I feel like now the brand really is going global. Everyone wants to know what's in that Bible. What kind of things are in there? I mean, it's, you know, it goes from camera set up to edits, colors to use, right through to how artists are treated once they're once they arrive, communication with teams. One of the things I found really interesting is I read that you're 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 it because, you know, a rapper and artist comes down, they perform, they might think it's gone off, they might think that, you know, they killed it.

4:14And 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 a booth and an artist later on has gone on to thank me because, you know, it's a big moment in an artist career. And I feel like if it doesn't do you justice, it's not about me. It's not about the wife thing this is going to do well for the fire in a 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 face and say, yes, it's okay. I'm going to be like, you could do better.

4:48If 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 later day. And there's been so many that I've 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 going to, 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, there was still a big artist then, but they weren't as big as they are now.

5:28And they came in and done their finer booth. And you know, we, everyone was excited and we were prepared for it. And they came in and it was possibly one of the worst finer booths I've ever recorded. And I could see that the artist was quite excited by their performance. And you know, there was like, when we're going to release it. And in my mind, I'm thinking, is this just me? Is it because I expected it here and they delivered here that I'm judging this and they're talking to me and they're mad just moving. And I'm processing all this information in my head because I'm like, I don't want to write to the artist.

6:12I don't want to be disrespectful to the artist. All this information is swearing in my head. And I was like, I'm going to go back and listen to the finer booth. Give me 10 minutes. So I went back into the studio, replayed it. And this is garbage. This is garbage. So I checked the producer at the time. I was like, how's best to handle the 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 you're in the country. And regretfully, I didn't do that. I didn't go out and give the artist the opportunities to do it again.

6:54I 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. It's a bad decision. But it just went 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 a lady, and she says, you know what? I appreciate you not putting that fine if you've got. Let's go again. Why do you regret that decision? Because in hindsight, I could have given them the opportunity to record that again, they're in there. But because I had no faith in the situation, I was like, I'm not going to waste their time.

7:34And 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 this is comments for the time I've spoken about this before, where people like release it, release the finer booth. This person is huge right now. We've got a sign off on it. We can release it. But I just wouldn't, you know, like I don't do things for that reason. I'm not going to shit on the artist. Now, we put something out of that thought was shit back then. I put it out now for views. It's counterproductive.

8:12It goes against everything that I say and stand for. So it will never come out.