Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech & Live Events
How a guy with a broom sparked LeBron's greatest game and more this week
Never make it an argument.
Everybody loses and nobody will cede defeat no matter how silly. An example: When we first started the company, we had an investor who was connected to a major brand, AT&T. He was invited to the Final Four in San Antonio in 2008 and I went with him. We had incredible seats. Second row center court for the semifinals. Less than a year later, we had a chance to pitch AT&T, who eventually became a customer- though all the people involved have long since moved on. We do ticket management so we thought it’d be fun to ask who was in those killer seats a few months earlier- remember: it was us- and we wanted to show there were a lot better people to give those tickets to. But when we asked the question, a stubborn coordinator on the other side of the table told us “we know exactly who was in those seats and we can’t tell you. It’s for their privacy.” Remember, it was me and I had pictures teed up for a laugh. They dug into their position. Now this is usually the part where I want to show them the picture and be right. We all do. Especially in today's combative "us/them" online culture. But that doesn’t end in a sale. Too often people want to be right at all costs. I had to eat it and skip the slide. It stinks when we come across actions like that but I've learned to just let it go. The short term hit doesn’t help. In the end, I’d rather have happy customers our team can support than be right.
Some people just hate you. Use it.
Around 2016, I somehow found myself at a dinner table with Tuukka Rask, Chandler Jones and Shane Battier at a tech event in Boston.
Shane told a phenomenal story about the greatest game LeBron ever played. The night before game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals the super-team Miami HEAT traveled to Boston. The HEAT had lost to the Mavericks in the finals the year prior and there was a belief the team would be broken up if they lost to the Celtics again. Battier was seen as a veteran presence for the younger star LeBron who hadn't yet shown he could win a championship.
The team arrived at their hotel at 1am and there was a man sweeping the sidewalk who stopped what he was doing to shout "Hey Lebron, F--K YOU!" (yep….Boston).
Battier laughed and didn't think twice about it. Until LeBron showed up at his hotel door at 3am. Shane said LeBron seemed shaken by this man. Why did he hate him so much? They talked for an hour.
The next day, at warm-ups, Shane said he noticed a "different look in LeBron's eyes." Like he realized what the world is and that some people are just going to be mean and evil to you.
LeBron had 45 points and 15 rebounds in an iconic performance. Just watch his face in the opener. That was a LeBron we hadn't seen at that point.
"The truth is one sentence." Everything else is excuses and filler.
My VPS told me this one from the book he's reading on leadership. I may get it as a tattoo. I love it. Succinct. True. Powerful.