Business Lessons from the GRAMMY’s® Red Carpet

I just got back from an amazing trip to Los Angeles with my wife, Kristina, and my business partners, JW Dicks and Lindsay Glass, where we attended the 51st annual GRAMMY® Awards Ceremony. I’ve been involved in music for most of my life, and one of my crowning achievements was in 2006 when I was awarded a vote on the GRAMMY® Awards.

The show was incredible, as you already know if you watched it on TV. We had the honor of walking the red carpet, and I can tell you we saw basically every big star in the music business today. We were in row 16, in the first section of seating just beyond the nominees and performers, and we were actually seated in front of Rev. Run’s daughters (you may have seen these famous Hip-Hop princesses on the reality show Run’s House or on their new VH1 reality show Daddy’s Girls). We were merely rows away from Paul McCartney, the Jonas Brothers, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, ColdPlay, U2, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Robert Plant… the list goes on and on and on! Afterword, we went to a private party hosted by multi-GRAMMY® winner Ne-Yo. It was a media circus.

As you may know, I can’t help but analyze every situation I’m put into, compare it to business, and to learn how I might improve our business by utilizing some of the strategies other successful businesses use. The GRAMMY® Awards were no different. So, here are a few great takeaways from the GRAMMYs:

1. Create Scarcity to Thrive in Any Economy

Tickets for the GRAMMY® Awards ceremony are extremely hard to come by (not to mention expensive). You have to be a member of the Recording Academy, and you cannot sell or even give away tickets. You can only get two of the Platinum- or Gold-level tickets (the best seats money can buy) and two of the Bronze-level tickets (the rest of the seats), and you must be physically present to pick up your tickets.

I don’t know about you, but just knowing that perks my interest. I start thinking about the challenge of getting great tickets, not to mention the fact that this will obviously be a very exclusive event, and I get the urge to take on the challenge. Don’t you? Even if music isn’t your thing, can you see how your clients would want a similarly exclusive offer from you and would be willing to pay more for it if it were hard to come by? The good news is you can use this strategy in your business. Let’s take a look at how:

We’ve all heard that in terms of the economy, “the sky is falling.” While I’m not discounting the fact that, unfortunately, many businesses and families are struggling during the current economic shift, you can increase your chances of survival, as well as profitability, by using every tool in your bailiwick. One tool that you should utilize is this concept of scarcity. If someone can get your product or service anytime, anyhow, anywhere and there is never a limit to how much of it you sell, you’re setting yourself up as a common commodity, which can lead to the market knocking your prices down when supply exceeds demand.

For example, if I know I can hire you for the same price today as I can tomorrow, I’ll likely wait until tomorrow. But, if you only can take three more clients, and you just sent out 4,000 prospecting letters, or if you are only going to honor the “2008 pricing” for the next three clients who engage your services… that’s a different story!

It’s human nature that when something “limited” or “scarce” is put in front of us, we decide quickly if we want it or not. And in most cases, since it is in scarce supply, we also make the inference that since others desire it, we probably should too because we don’t want to miss out.

So, I challenge you to think about how you can create scarcity in your profits. It WILL increase your margins of profitability, so give it a try.

2. Continuity is King!

In order to be a member of the Recording Academy (the Academy that produces the GRAMMY® Awards and picks the winners, etc.) you have to pay yearly dues. While that may be expected in an “association” setting, such as this, consider how you can get your clients to continue paying you on a regular basis instead of paying once and going away. If you don’t do this, you are forced to remind them you are in existence and they should come back sometime to spend money with you again. This is a hamster wheel; it’s a miserable existence. On the other hand, recurring income, like the Recording Academy’s yearly dues (in this case it’s yearly, but you can utilize a monthly strategy or even weekly) is what we call “continuity income.”

I haven’t found a business yet that couldn’t utilize continuity in their business. I know of some pretty unique businesses that have created continuity income that even surprised me! Businesses like funeral homes, cosmetic surgeons and the list goes on.

The point is you should look for a way to continue to keep your clients connected to you by giving them consistent value, not merely letting them come and pay you once, and then hoping they will come back again… someday. A lack of continuity income makes the first of the month for most businesses a very nerve-wracking experience, and rightly so! Without continuity income, you open your doors on the first of every month and all you can do is hope you will get enough business to stay open another month. To that I say, no thanks!

I can assure you there is a better way, and that way is through the creation of a continuous stream of income. Take a look at your monthly credit card statement and you’ll get some great ideas on how to create continuity income by seeing who you pay monthly.

3. Great Service, Support and Hospitality

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this because it’s self explanatory, but I can tell you from the moment I stepped onto the red carpet, to the moment I picked up my gift bag and left the official GRAMMY® after party, I felt like a king. The staff was always aiming to please, answered questions intelligently and made sure everything was in place for me to have a great time. They were even proactive about looking for people who looked lost and directing them to the right area. It was almost like Disney!

It seems like every business should do this, but we all know execution is the tough part. We can all dream about how great our businesses are at customer support and service, however the reality is that if you were to mystery shop your own business, there is a good chance you would find a lot of holes in the customer service and support process that cause clients and prospects to have a less than perfect experience, which ultimately leads to lost profits.

So, there you have it, some business lessons from the GRAMMY® red carpet. Take a look around the next time you’re having a great time and try to turn it into a profitable experience as well! And when you do, be sure to share those nuggets of wisdom with me!

Nick Nanton, Esq. has been named “Best of the Bar” and has been referred to as “One of Orlando’s Top 10 Young and Powerful,” but prior to becoming an Attorney, Nick spent more than a decade immersing himself in the entertainment industry, as an award winning songwriter and television producer, and surrounding himself with celebrities. He has worked on projects and negotiated deals, from large scale events to reality television shows, involving celebrities from many genres including: President George H.W. Bush, Comedian Bill Cosby, Coach Don Shula (The Miami Dolphins), Bobby Knight (Legendary College Basketball Coach), Roy Firestone (Emmy Award Winning Host of ESPN’s “Up Close” and “Up Close Prime Time”), Stan Lynch (Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer, Multi-Platinum Recording Artist, #1 Hit Songwriter and Drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), and many, many more. Nick has taken his years of experience with Celebrities and has “Cracked the Celebrity Code” and now teaches business owners to become celebrities in their business niche to lock out their competition.

An energetic speaker and author of the books Celebrity Branding You™, and the Dicks & Nanton Business Law Library as well as the educational courses “7 Secrets to Making Real Money With Your Music” (co-authored with Bob Baker, author of the Guerilla Music Guide to Music & Marketing), “Celebrity Franchising You™” and “Blueprint to Millions,” Nick is known as a taste-maker and has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur®’s Start Up Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, The Arizona Republic, The Dallas Morning News and many other national publications on subjects ranging from branding, marketing and law to American Idol.

Nick is a Managing Director at the Law Firm of Dicks & Nanton P.A., is a member of the Florida Bar and holds a JD from the University of Florida Levin College of Law as well as a BSBA in Finance from the University of Florida’s prestigious Warrington College of Business. Prior to founding Dicks & Nanton P.A., Nick served as CEO of Cinemark Music Group LLC a subsidiary of Cinemark USA, Inc., one of the largest motion picture exhibitors in North America with 3,288 screens in 33 States and Internationally, as well as CEO of Loud Entertainment LLC and Director of Business Development and Assistant Corporate Counsel for PremiereTrade LLC.

Nick is a currently a member of The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (Also Known as NARAS, Home to The GRAMMYs) and casts a vote on the annual GRAMMY® Awards, is the past Chairman of the Orange County Bar Association’s Entertainment Law Committee, serves on the Executive Council of the Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section of the Florida Bar, the Board of the Florida Hospital Foundation and is a member of Florida Blue Key – “Florida’s Oldest and Most Prestigious Leadership Honorary.” Nick spends his spare time rooting for the Florida Gators with his wife, Kristina, and their two sons, Brock and Bowen.

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