Blueprint for success with Steve Mandell. Chairman and CEO of Gameplan Entertainment, serial entrepreneur and Attorney. A super agent to some of the biggest media personalities and sports athletes of the world. A true master negotiator and Deal maker who has all the keys to putting the art of the deal together.
Steve shares his amazing journey about believing in yourself and having a passion for everything in life. Surround yourself with the right people, listen, be efficient and find acceptance. Always find your path, make a blueprint and that is what is important.
"There's always tomorrow. Never look back and say what it could have been, it's done" ~ Steve Mandell
Subscribe to the channel and share it with friends that will benefit from these type of content. Thank you 🙂
Blueprint for success with Steve Mandell. Chairman and CEO of Gameplan Entertainment, serial entrepreneur and Attorney. A super agent to some of the biggest media personalities and sports athletes of the world. A true master negotiator and Deal maker who has all the keys to putting the art of the deal together.
Steve shares his amazing journey about believing in yourself and having a passion for everything in life. Surround yourself with the right people, listen, be efficient and find acceptance. Always find your path, make a blueprint and that is what is important.
"There's always tomorrow. Never look back and say what it could have been, it's done" ~ Steve Mandell
Subscribe to the channel and share it with friends that will benefit from these type of content. Thank you 🙂
This is episode number three with Steve Mandell.
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Tack Lee:Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Inventions Show, a podcast about all things invention and reinvention in life and business. My name is Tack Lee entrepreneur, international property investor, inventor and the host of this show. Now, today I've got a very special guest and excited to be speaking with him, Steve Mandell, chairman and CEO of Gameplan Entertainment, serial entrepreneur and an attorney. A super agent to some of the biggest media personalities and sport athletes of the world. He's a true master negotiator and deal maker who has all the keys to putting the art of the deal together. So without further ado, welcome Steve and thanks for being with us.
Steve Mandell:Glad to be with you. This podcast is terrific. What city are you calling from again? You're in London?
Speaker 1:no Melbourne Australia
Steve Mandell:Melbourne Australia. Wow. Interesting. I just deal with a group of guys in Melbourne Australia, so that's a wonderful place. So thanks for calling me. What's the time difference?
Speaker 1:It's 7:00 AM on Wednesday.
Steve Mandell:That's great. Alright, well, glad to have this call with you. Exciting stuff, have heard things about you and the podcast is obviously very well received.
Tack Lee:Thanks Steve. Now the first thing I'd like to ask all my guests and for those who are not familiar with yourself is can you please give us a window into your background? You know, who you are and what was your first job?
Steve Mandell:You know, I've been an attorney for my whole career. So I really went right from law school, into a law firm that did a lot of stuff in the sports and entertainment space, but always been an entrepreneur from an early age. I think it started when I want to go to prom night and didn't have any money and one of my friends said let's start doing some window washing in the neighbourhood and I got addicted to that. So I raised all my money from prom sometimes out of necessity, you find really cool o pportunities and become an entrepreneur and that's what happened there. And from that actually started a window washing business. My friend decided not to do that anymore the window washing service that took me all the way through high school law school and certainly college as well. I had great pride in s tarting t hat. And then when I first became an attorney, in addition to my practice, I started doing entrepreneurial things right away. One of the things I started was a dining c lub and things like that. I started my own company and s o o n and so forth. I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit ever since I've been a young kid.
Tack Lee:Interesting, excellent. Now as an agent, Steve, and some of the biggest media personalities and sport athletes, do you choose your clients or do your clients choose you?
Steve Mandell:Yeah, it's really combinations, it's a great question. You like to choose your clients if you can, because you certainly have conversations. You know, it's always nice to make sure who you are going to work with you really like as people because you spend a lot of time together, you're having lunch, you are having dinners together and you know, you're having conversations. You certainly want to have an alignment on the personal side, as much as he can. You know, some people want to make it like their best friends right away, I am not that style, I am not that type. I like to organically grows based on trust and mutual admiration for one another. And at the end of the day, you're still servicing people. So it's nice to be able to say, you can do both. Sometimes it comes one way in you choosing them and sometimes they call you up and say they heard good things about you and love to work with you.
Tack Lee:Excellent. Now, out of curiosity, what do you think about celebrity branding? You know, you spend, companies spend so much on celebrity branding as such as it draws the crowd and people, you know, people want to see it. There is some very big names that you manage. What is your concept of celebrity branding and your view on it for today's budding entrepreneurs?
Steve Mandell:Yeah. Celebrity branding is my expertise. Branding is my expertise. And quite frankly, celebrity, and you can kind of make a bigger sphere of what that means right now, when I first started out it was actors entertainers and sports figures. And right now we're in a whole new world, nobody even anticipated that we use the word influencer, so there you go with branding. Earlier on when it's like I have to have this top athlete like Michael Jordan which is the obvious thing to do. Today, it's do I take a 21 year old college person who has been amazing in social media and has 15 million followers. Yeah. Either way. I love celebrity branding. I think it's critically important to a brand. Um, I think you're constantly giving impressions into people's brains about a product and ideology. And quite frankly, j ust b rand a nd i mage all the difference in a world of selling product or not. And that's why you're constantly g oing t o see that business c ontinue to grow certainly hurdles in a business. You might choose t he wrong entertainer or wrong influencer, somehow they get in trouble. T hen they're attached to your brand. It's really about finding out who and what is best for your particular message and messaging that you want to have out there o n a continuous basis, b ut critically important to the success of brands. That's why you see it all the time and continue t o s ee i t.
Tack Lee:Excellent. Now, in your view Steve, who's easier to deal with men or women?
Steve Mandell:I did see that question. When you sent that to me, that's interesting. You know it's just people. I can't say it's easier on one side of the other, a male, a female, or any individuals or age groups. People are people right, the distinction is who is easier to deal with in terms of like you got good people and you got bad people, right? If you're trying to lead to, sometimes you have people who are narcissistic about themselves, horrible to deal and they think they are unstoppable and top of the world and sometimes those people will be very difficult to deal with, sometimes they might be easy to deal with, because they understand the expectations are right. What is the Expectationlevel, right? Realistic or unrealistic. And those are more of the hurdles I run into, right? Somebody, whether they're famous person or moderately famous might want to accomplish something, the bigger hurdle there is, are their expectations realistic or are they unrealistic? And that's really the biggest hurdle that you get over, but it's really, it's really personality traits to make that distinction and not by gender or race or age, it's really about expectations.
Tack Lee:Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Now, as an investor yourself and also an advisor to pitch investors live, then you must get pitched all the time by, by startups. And just maybe just n the lift now, what is the one thing that you look for, a standout when someone does pitch you?
Steve Mandell:Yeah. People say you are investing in people. I get that part, but you got to invest in a great idea and product, right. If I just have a team of good people I may not win. Same thing in busienss, I have to have that person that product that can stand out. I mean, no matter how good the people are now when you're on the fence about something or you're not necessarily sure. It still always comes down to the people. So the people are usually the deciding factor, in that discussion but you still have to have that great product in the first place. And then outside of that. Right. So I think the first thing is my test, right? no.1 is the product great, I mean, it's gotta be great. It's funny when I was going, shopping for clothes and stuff like that, my whole life and people like it's pretty good grab it and then it stays in your closet all day, I don't want it and don't like it that much. It was, I'm like, wow, I'm dying to wear it. I don't want it. I really have less closing that. So really the same as picking an opportunity on the investment side and product category side, I want to know I am looking at something that's got the wow factor for me And then you look at behind the scenes and fill back the curtain and see what's behind the curtain, do I have a good team of people? Orare their heads in the right direction. Are they focused on what they're doing? Right. Because all about implementation at that point. Yeah.
Tack Lee:Right. Excellent. Well said I'm taking notes Steve. So now as a, as an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur, what do you think is your biggest area of improvement? You know, what is your biggest thing, your biggest challenge to date?
Steve Mandell:As a personality trait or my challenges. This is an entrepreneur in terms of picking deals. I use the word listen, right? Mmm. Really have to listen. I mean, I think that maybe I've improved on that a lot. Sometimes when you're in middle of conversation, I am a reactive person, I think quick, I t alk quick, sometimes I jump in real quick with my idea. W hat if I just waited two or three more minutes or seconds or whatever it m ay be. That answer may come to me. One of my f avorites, t he things that I learned just recently about a year ago, and that the exact same l etters as listen, if you scrambled them back up Is the word s ilent? So, so, u m, s o, so I love that because I, I tell myself sometimes listen and be silent. And, u h, and I get a lot further along based o n t he personality t rait s ide b ecause a lot of entrepreneurs think they have all the answers. A l ot o f t imes p eople b ecome know it alls and every speech I've ever done, I spoken for 3000 people, JT Foxx event. And, and the first thing I think I've said probably in all the c onferences I've been to maybe 6 to 10 conferences with JT is I want to be a sponge. Okay. Being a sponge i s really critically important b ecause I don't want to pretend I know everything. I don't. Right. and I am always constantly learning f rom the people around me. And the funny thing is I love YouTube. I like to train a lot with w eights a nd activities and things like that. I l ike to learn and I'm just kind of like I absorb stuff. And sometimes the information comes from people that aren't famous or successful. J ust come up with that great line or that great workout or that great something or another. O kay. I'm very open to that. Some of your g reat inventors that interview me today, but maybe, y ou k now, 25 years ago, you may not have been interviewing me. Right. That's why it's important. Listen to people younger than you, a lot more, a lot more ideas. A nd so I like to keep a broad scope. I don't think I'm smarter than anybody else? I want to be a sponge. I have confidence in that. You have to have confidence in yourself a nd say, I'm willing to listen and learn. And that's what I'm about. And that's what makes me a better investor makes me a better entrepreneur and certainly a better person in life.
Tack Lee:Well, that's gold. That's gold, It's good. Now if you could turn back time, you know, just turn it back a couple of years, you know, you look about 30 Steve. So, you know, when you talk to your 18 year old self, a bit younger, what would you tell him?
Steve Mandell:Grow hair.You know what I'd say to myself again, be patient. Yeah. I think as a young entrepreneur, you just want to go and you become stubborn sometimes even more stubborn when you're younger, when you're in love with your project without looking at it objectively. Also find mentors, find people who can help you out, right? ask their opinion, be willing to take the hit because sometimes we'll look you and they'll be like, you know, it's a bad idea. Well, my younger years would be combative. Not in a physical way, but as opposed to saying, look, I gotta be open. I'm going to learn from this. Right. You need to be open. So I would tell myself as a younger entrepreneur and younger person just be patient don't fall in love with your project, be willing to learn and absolutely be willing to take that hit. And more importantly, when you get knocked down, be willing to get up and smile. This is part of the process. I don't think I've ever met any entrepreneur, inventor or person who has success that can't point to events in their life that looked like they were going to fail in that moment when you're failing, it's easy to come back and go. Yeah. When I was failing, it was okay. In that moment it hurts. You got to tell yourself, there's always tomorrow and take a lighter approach to life when you have something like that.
Tack Lee:Awesome. Now turning point, you know, when you look back in entire life, everything that you have, your business and everything, what is that one thing that changed everything for you. A moment that you look back that made you who you are, the one thing that was the beginning to a lot of things for you, is there one thing that you can go back to and go, yes that's the time.
Steve Mandell:You know, I think it's more of a culmination of things. Um, but I would have to say that I was in a couple of different business transactions that necessarily weren't going to right direction. I wanted to put my own footprint on it. I actually wound up buying out my partners in a company that I own. And I think that was a turning point because I felt that I really, I had my own blueprint for success. And sometimes when you have partners that weigh you down, they don't have the same blueprint, they can be great people and I work with great people, there is nothing against the person. It's about the blueprint for success, it felt that sometimes it was a battle because I thought differently or quicker or more spontaneously or more risk taking or whatever it might be. So you really have to surround yourself with the right people. I t hink when I separated myself with m any partners, I had in any number of businesses and i t came really starting my own company. I was g oing t o put my blueprints on that b usiness. A nd i t r eally i s. T hat's profound when you realize that I may not be successful, but I do want to believe in myself. And I said, whatever, t urn i t's g oing t o take. I'm okay with it because I don't put my b lueprint on it. I'm not going to f eel really a hundred percent. Too many people g o to work every single day upset, miserable because the boss doesn't reflect upon you or your feelings and how many times yo ur s t ories a bout, you know, I'm sitting in a big company, they come up to me and say do it this way and I think it's wrong, either they are prevented or they're intimidated fr om c orrectly presenting their views. It's time to go if y ou can. Bu t I told everybody try and be an entrepreneur because yo u k n ow w h at, in life you can't fire yourself. Right. Only pe ople c a n f ire you. Always find your path, make a blueprint and that was important. My blueprint was important for me.
Tack Lee:Yeah. So what inspires you now Steve, you know, what makes you like your best self?
Steve Mandell:People, being around great people. Plenty of deals. Too many deals to even count that I can jump into. But I like to work with great people. I love energy and look for the diamond in the rough. I like a startup that just looks absolutely fantastic. And you're like, w ow, this is really great, it's cool. And I am involved with a few of them right now which I really just love. And so that's the passion, passion for life. And I think it's important to have passion for everything in life. You can't have just passion for one thing in life, you need to have passion for everything. I really believe that people, and I also think it's critically important to not have an ego during this whole COVID thing and stuff like that. I'm talking to people on the phone, like, what are you doing right now? You know what I am washing towels, helping my wife and folding them too. I do martial arts. I'm very disciplined fo r m artial arts. You are never too big, let's put it this way. You are never too big to do house chores. If you think you are too big to do house chores then you have a problem with yourself. Never get too outside your skin and think you are bigger than the next guy. That's important to keep yourself grounded, people like that better. you kno w, h ave humor about yourself and when things don't go right just laugh it off and move on.
Tack Lee:Excellent. Excellent. Now, in interesting times like this. What is your advice or a message of positivity for our listeners around the world? You know, some countries are starting to open up like you're in Melbourne Australia or the cafes open up table service, but in general, people are still at home and there's a lot of free time. So what should people be doing right now? Yeah, so they can come out when this whole thing is over to come out, punching
Steve Mandell:Find yourself and find yourself a new direction. Because if nothing else, I think COVID-19 has given everybody a curve ball that whatever direction they were in, or thinking about going into, absolutely gone topsy turvy and u-turn and stopping point. And even if you weren't in that situtaion, you got to look at it and say, I can take this time and be productive or I might not be productive. And so I even use this time for myself to do things I want to do personally and also professionally and change the way you're doing things and, uh, and find new direction and get inspired by what's going to happen to you in the future and not being depressed about it. I actually have 2 groups of people calling me. The real depressed, people are sitting home going. I don't want to do, my life is ruin. And the other people are going, you know what I know my life is ruin but I'm really inspired by what I can create. It's inspired me to do new things and find new directions and new purpose.
Tack Lee:Yep. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Awesome. Now, just curious, you know, about your views on inventions and how important they. Being a deal maker, where do you see the opportunities when this, y ou k now, when this pandemic is over.
Steve Mandell:I love tech, right. You know, I think tech is really cool. I love it. I think that you're gonna see a shift in some of the way we do business. For me too. I was traveling three days, sometimes a month, four days, five days a month. M mm. All my b usiness right now is on zoom. Right. B ut it's made me so much more productive. So I get the feeling and I understand the importance of shaking someone's hand and sit in a room together, but I've also gotten 10 more things done i n that same two hours I'm trying to do something like that. Yeah. A nd I think that you're gonna find more efficiencies in term of doing business because of COVID. I think, if you look at the real estate market. Commercial real estate. If I look at it right now, do I really need that big office? Yeah. Right. Who am I showing off to, who am I showing to why do I need it? Yo u k n ow? Mm m. Can I meet people at Starbucks? Co uld I do stuff on zoom? Ca n I s ave a lot of money in my business? Can I do things differently? There is remote learning? can I do remote staffing? can I do a l o t o f t hings like that. I t hink it's going to be mo re r e mote d eficiencies for people in business. On the product side. I think th e p roduct si des c o uld b e, yo u k n ow, certainly always progressing. Yeah. Great entrepreneurial fl are f l are o ut there. People always need personal goods fo r t hemselves. Hygiene products, love hygiene products, people always looking to feel good about themselves. It's not going away. Right. Supplements, sk in c a re, things like that. People always want to feel and look their best, exercise fitness, technology. All the tech, he alth c lubs and personal trainers all brought this to tech and that's changed. Do you really need a health club membership anymore. I mean, I like to go but can I do certain things at h o me. Um, y ou'll certainly get a much bigger transition right now as a result, th en p eople get used to it. So you know people are use to zoom. If I was on zoom and I did zoom calls prior to COVID, th ey're f a r f ew and far between because people really ar en't a dopting it. Sometimes they get embarrassed or sometimes they're also just like in sulted o r you don't want to meet me. Now th at's g r eat. Don't waste th e t ime flying here, it's cool. Ye ah. I mean, I see you face to face right now. I feel as much interaction with you right now as i f I were face to face. Again, step removed of course. And I' ll s till travel of course, but this ha s r eally replaced a lot. And also it c o uld b e really efficient, especially for businesses, that are so dependant upon traveling, bu t d idn't necessarily in s t art u p c ompanies and entrepreneurs and young inventors and investors and like. They don't necessary have travel budgets like I h a ve t r aveling. So they felt out of sync and maybe out of ou t t w o a n d i t's e n ded u p t he money. So I' d h ave a lot of entrepreneurs coming in the begining I am in tr ouble, bu t I want to go meet with influencers and celebrities and kind of like, ok ay, I g e t i t. Know, you don't need to, cut out a major budget for st artup c ompanies, which are major.Travel's a major line item, the busines expense. So anyway, but I go on and on now with new in ventions, alternate energy, right? Green energy ec ofriendly p roducts, we c a n s p end s o me t i me on it.
Tack Lee:A hundred percent, a hundred percent. So what's exciting for Steve Mandell at the moment, you know, what are you doing to position yourself for the new normal?
Steve Mandell:You know what? I just really kind of outlined it. I mean, I am on zoom all the time. I'm going on boards all the time, senior advisors for companies, looking for great inventions. Organizing myself on a personal level, have all this personal time I have been able to focus a little more on some of the training stuff I like to do and add yoga to my routine and weight training which I love. Martial arts. But you know, you can do that when you're really stabilized everyday as oppose to traveling all the time. So it's personal and professional. Like I said earlier by myself, a lot of the same things, more efficient, and that's the most important thing efficiencies are what we're looking for for the next millennial, because the truth is right now, look at your life and say, do I need to go to my office downtown? Do I need to go meet with the crew? You know, I may have heard about Salesforce and Google and all sorts of other social media companies. Not necessarily going to utilize all their office space that they've had to start working remotely. Um, I'll use the word efficiencies. Everybody's gonna find efficiencies. They don't want to be trapped. They won't be trapped in old thinking.
Tack Lee:Awesome. Awesome. If you could have a billboard Steve with anything on it. What would it be and why?
Steve Mandell:Oh, good question. Mmm. About me or about a product or about something okay. About me. Mmm. I would use the word acceptance except everybody around you. For whatever reason it is just accept people and that's personally. It's professionally. That's what we're seeing right now with riots run our country. It's accepting. Why would we look at anybody else or anything different? I also mean that in a business sense. I have some great conversations with young entrepreneurs and I've also when I was a young entrepreneur I'll have mentors that are egotistical you know. So in other words, equal, equal, and acceptance so that's my message.
Tack Lee:Which leads me to my next question. Steve, what superpower do you wish you had?
Steve Mandell:I wish I had, that's a good question. I like to fly.
Tack Lee:Same here!
Steve Mandell:I fly in my dreams. I like to fly in real life.
Tack Lee:Awesome. we have to work towards wrapping up and super mindful of your time. You know, fantastic chat really appreciate your transparency and willingness to openly share. Two last questions. First is where can people learn more about yourself and second is what parting words of wisdom would you like to share with anyone watching or listening?
Steve Mandell:So certainly go to Steve Mandell with two L's@me.com To reach me, u m, and p artying words a re, you know what? There's always a great thing about tomorrow, r ight? What happens in t he day? There's always tomorrow. Never look back and say what it could have been, it's done. Water under the bridge, move on, learn and go.
Tack Lee:Cool. Awesome, awesome, incredible wisdom and knowledge thanks again, Steve, and I really appreciate your time. Enjoy your dive and your swim and yeah, hopefully.
Steve Mandell:Great job, great Podcast my friend, much success to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye. Yeah.
Tack Lee:So there you go. All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this interview. You can find me on social media@iam.tacklee and also@liveternx. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you in the next episode.
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