Body Slams and Branding: Breaking Down the Similarities Between Wrestling and B2B

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pro AV today. I am your host, Ben Thomas. You know, today's conversation is one I've been looking forward to have it for a long time. And it, intersects really two of, my biggest passions in life, which is professional AV and marketing in the b to b side of the world. And wrestling, which sounds like a weird mix in combination, but I promise there's a lot more in common than you than you think. So I wanted to bring on some folks who could help break it down, not only from a wrestling, standpoint of understanding things like personal branding and and how folks have leveraged content to help elevate the personal brands and the larger brand as a whole, but also how we could pull some of those principles, into our world as a b to b and pro to b community. So my guests for today are Chris Neto, Jimmy Vaughan, and Dan Vollmayer. Gentlemen, thanks so much for coming on the show today. And, I I appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Ben for having us. You said this is gonna be fun. Yeah. No. It's it's it's it's a little weird, and I've gotta be honest about it. I don't know that a lot of folks really nowhere to even begin where this conversation starts. So we'll we'll start with this. Right? Our audiences are pretty familiar with the both of you. Both of you. But but talk about, you know, how you got into wrestling. Right? Was it younger, Jimmy? You've got a heck of a story too, Chris. I know that that we chat's still offline all the time about it. Chris kick us off. How'd you get into wrestling for the first time? So let me be straight here. I was never a wrestler. I I have no association. I'm just a fanboy. Like, this was what you did on Saturday mornings, right? Or, or Sunday mornings back in the eighties. You watch Loko again in the iron sheke at my age. That was the thing. You didn't have any paper views. It was just wrestling, right? You grew up with the Brett the hitman hearts and the Sean Michaels and that whole thing. And If you were lucky you stayed up to watch Saturday night main event and somebody got kicked in the head and hit with a coconut and stuff like that. So I go back to old school. And there was a period where I did not watch because I kind of grew up and it was not a thing that was on TV a lot. So when I got to college, it became a Thursday, Friday kind of thing when the or specifically the Monday night. So Monday night was the Monday night wars. A friend of mine who had came out of, same high school as me kind of said, Hey, man. I don't go anywhere until I watch wrestling. Or wherever we do, we watch wrestling. So we started just hanging out And then all of a sudden, the stories started to make sense, right? And this is where I got hooked because I stopped seeing it as two dudes just you know, bash and it wasn't about the fight. I started looking at it as choreography, and I started looking it as a show, end story. If you were hooked into the story, like if you were following the stone cold Steve Austin story or if you saw Rocky back in the day as Rocky Maiavee and his I see it. Oh, yeah. Jimmy has a yeah. Back in back in the day, like, to his journey from going to being the island guy to becoming the rock and the professional, you know, actor that you see today, you know, you you watch that and you you watch an evolution of it. And to me, that was the cool part is that somebody was behind the scenes, writing the stories, writing, you know, hey, we're gonna do this because if you smash into their car in the back parking lot. They go away. That covers up that they had an accident outside the rank. Maybe they twisted their ankle and needed a couple weeks to recoup So, and then they come back and they're mad and they got an edge to them, right? And that edge is gonna lead to a story that's gonna carry on all the way for the next couple months, and then they're gonna fight at wrestlemania. That to me, that storytelling, and that branding stuff all comes into my everyday work because it's kind of like my sale, it's sales minded and it gives me direction on guerrilla marketing, on marketing, on social and everything I do. Because I take the time to, to kind of take what, and, Jimmy will get to his part of this story. Like, I take those ideas and the shock values of them. And how do you how they work with the audience and understanding the audience and building that? It it kind of made sense. They're a massive marketing machine and it was all based around storytelling. The better the storytelling, the more hooked the people got into it. So And that's very relevant in today's world, especially when you're talking about SEO and content and content creation. If you don't have that that story, that engaging story. You're kind of, you're you're kind of out of it. Well, that's that's exactly right, and that's very similar to my story, right, growing up being a fan of just the theatrics and the pyro and, you know, the guys beating each other up and and kinda flipping into that creative side. Which is where Jimmy actually has had a chance to work previously. I I I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna give away too much, Jimmy. I mean, Chris kinda gave away your rock story there, but, well, have you started off? I mean, what got you interested in it? And and then how did that transition into a career? Yeah. Yeah. I was not interested. I'm still not interested in it. It's one of those things. Perfect, guys. You know, but but I think that sort of helps what we're gonna be talking about here today and everything I was I was a TV guy, and I was I was working for inside edition and Heraldo and MTV and current affair back in the nineties in New York City. And I was I I was given an opportunity to go to an interview. And I went to the interview for a company called Titan Sports. I didn't know what they were. I had no idea, but I sat in the lobby, and there was a poster of the undertaker. And I was not a fan of wrestling growing up I'm still not a big fan of the the classic or wrestling things and everything else. But I interviewed. Got the job. Went through a whole bunch of stuff and sort of learned to appreciate what's there. And, Ben, you said we're here to talk about how how AV and wrestling can sort of be correlated. Everything in the world can be attributed to wrestling somehow or another. We could go down so many different paths. But the truth is when I was there, I mean, I I I entered a world that, you know, like you were talking about Christie, the eighties where hulk, eat your vitamins, you know, all the different things that were very, very corny to me. And a lot of us there were were were sort of on the page of We need to do something a little bit different. And to your point, Chris, it was storytelling. It was a hundred percent storytelling. I started to learn a little bit even just starting to go there, you know, a lot of the rest or a lot of the wrestlers really take offense when you when you use the term wrestling's fake because really it's not fake. We actually one of the first projects that I worked on when I was there was was a video series, and it was old style video that we shot on film. You know, we were shooting on film back then. We shot on film and we did film the tape transfers. But it was it was a promotion that actually started with six foot ten. I'm three hundred and ninety pounds. I've gotten I've broken every bone of my body. I've you know, I broke my neck. I broke my back. And then stone cold comes, but I still got up. And that's what these guys do. They're they are so precise in what they do. They are the best athletes that you will ever see in your life. And the truth is they they they bash their bodies to a point that I don't think anybody should be doing, but at the same point, they do it for the love of the sport and the love of the the the game. And the truth is it's not fake, it's predetermined. And that's a key that really has to do it. And to your point, Chris, storytelling was everything. You know, as as you go back to the era that I I helped to sort of, bring in, back in the day. And by no means was I one of the influential ones, you know, I I give credit to It's talking about the attitude era, which for those of us in wrestling, it's like the Monday night wars. And for those non wrestling folk, it was basically what made stone cold Steve Austin and the rock and the undertaker to a large extent popular. So give yourself some credit, Jim. It was what twenty eight year old Jimmy wanted to see on TV. That's really what that was about was we've gotta get out of this this this stuff, but we've we've gotta tell compelling stories, and we've gotta have people that wanna come back and do things. And and So the credit of all the wrestlers, I mean, they they're their own brand, and they go out. And, you know, I know we're gonna be talking about marketing, but the truth is You need a story. You know, Einstein once said, of anything. If you can't explain this to a six year old, it's likely that you don't understand it yourself. And that's the way that you really tell stories. I I watch the south park guys who do great job of telling stories and they say, you you should never write something that says, this happens, then this happens, then this happens. It's always because, or therefore, or all of these things. So they'll put ideas on a whiteboard, and then they'll go, therefore, this happens. Therefore this happens and they base things and what you see even in movies and things like that is is a lot of storytellers don't follow basic storytelling ideas, and it's as old as time. And if you take it back to even wrestling, that's what we were doing back in the day. And and I don't know that they do the same thing now. I'm I'm I'm when I when I try to watch, I'm just I'm going away because the storytelling just is not what what what I think I I appreciate and what I wanted to see. So it's it's been one of those things that's challenging, but yes. I'm in a completely different I don't do a wrestling anymore. I didn't really wanna do wrestling, but it was something, and it was an unbelievable experience because The truth is it was like a rocket ship. We went from nothing to the biggest thing in the world with with guys like stone cold, the rock. And common names that everybody knows, nowadays because it it became a worldwide phenomenon. And, Dan, I wanna kick it over to you. Same question, obviously, as somebody who grew up, as a fan of wrestling, had a chance to do a whole lot of things in the entertainment industry and and content industry. Tell us a little bit about your story and, how you got interesting specifically. Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me. I am a producer director, comedy writer, I guess, nowadays, just call that a content creator working, television and social media. It's spent the last fifteen years really zeroing in on work, in the field of sports, worked with barstool sports, and Nickelodeon sports, done a lot of projects with the NBA NFL, NFL, NH Shell PGA. I guess I guess everybody, really, NASCAR. But, along my journey, I spent time working at WWE and AWE, specifically with WWE. I was, an on air host. I don't know how they let me talk about wrestling on air, but they did. And it was, such a blast. I really, really loved it. And as far as how I got into wrestling, I remember it well. I was about eight years old at my friend's house and we snuck up into his parents attic and found a big box of magazines. And it's not what you think. They're not it wasn't dirty magazines. It was actually professional wrestling magazines. And I just remember going through all the magazines and reading all the articles and looking at all the pictures, and I was just like, I this is amazing. I need to learn more about this stuff and started watching television, you know, Saturday mornings like we all did. And that continued on into high school and around college. Most, normal adults give up on wrestling, but, no, no, no, not me. I did not give up unresting. I stayed with it, and I'm thankful that I did because that gave me the opportunity to work for WWE. As I said as a host, on WWE's the bump. Well, you bring up a good point, Jimmy. And, Chris, I think this is this is where know, you mentioned kind of that creativity, that storytelling in those different audiences. You know, when you look at the AV world, probably the last ten ish years. The way that folks have have tried to reach their audiences looks a little different. Right? When you think of infocoms, the NABs, the seas of the world, whatever, ten, fifteen years ago, very suit and tie, very formal, very, everything's handshake, and and there was a lot of, you know, folks who were you know, I don't wanna say not creative minded, but we're, you know, very specific type of audience. And and, you know, from that perspective too, what are some of the ways that from a creative standpoint, it's from an audience development standpoint, you've seen our AV community evolves, especially when it comes to, you know, wanting things like more content, wanting to have more affiliation with a brand, things Well, I think what you're starting to finally see and is is is brands starting to accept that social media is not going away. Right? I've been in I've been doing social media for ten years. Right? You can look at social media as your marketing. If you wanna say I'm all in on social media, that's my marketing plan. There are others that still wanna go through their traditional, hey, There's a press release. We're gonna do this. We're gonna have a launch and go through the process. And then maybe they'll send it out on social. And then there's the people that are actually taking the both and kind of marrying them together because a press release is only as good as the fifteen minutes that it releases. Right? So how do you continue that conversation? Right? So you can now take if you create product x, And, well, that's a bad example considering that some folks now may be trademarking that. But you've take product x y z, and you take that and you say, Hey, this is coming out on Tuesday. And now you link that to the content. The content I think is where the where all these this conversation is really gonna go. Because before it was, here's a box, and here's my coffee cup, and this is the coffee cup, see it. It's five ninety nine on sale starting Monday. That was it. Now the coffee cup is taking a journey because me and what I do, I'll take that coffee cup the day it comes out, and I start showing that, you know what? This coffee cup was in London. Right? I had coffee cup with me in Madrid. I have the same coffee cup with me back in Jersey at the shore. Buried in the sand. I'm now you're now invested in the journey of where this coffee cup is going and guess what? It's helping you connect, I need that cuff. Right? Now that's obviously a very simple way to do it, but I think with the rise of influencers in our space, You have an additional now, the seriousness behind social. Every brand now has its own podcast. Right? And it was originally just an audio thing because nobody wanted to play with video, but now you're starting to associate brands and faces and people and places and things together, I think that it's now really starting to become a more it's more that term engagement, right? It's that engagement. It's also that, what's the word that the more I'm not a marketing folks, so I don't, say it very well, but maybe it's the activation is the term that the marketers like to use, to talk about how you bring in all these things and collide into it, right? I think that's what we're I think that's ultimately where it's going then. I mean, that's that's what I see the big differences is where this from an AV marketing and product specific thing, you can't just release an amplifier anymore. That amplifier has to come with a deeper story. Why? Because you wanna connect to the people who now know that they want it. Because you know what? It's not just about it being five hundred watts. It's a thousand watts. It's got every connector in the back. And this company x y z figured out this, which I've been asking for for years. Next thing you know, you are vested in It will lead us down a very weird conversation about like the cultish behavior of people that want to buy from a particular brand. Which also ties back into it, and I'm sure it'll go into the conversations of how wrestlers tell sell t shirts. Now they are their own brand. But there are diehard brand aficionados within our industry who've only bought simply because they know the brand and don't care what the product is. Now you're starting to see, I want this specific thing because they do it well, and they'll buy widget X from company X because that saved their butt on a Monday night install in New York City at eleven. That was the only thing that they could get and it worked. So now they're sold. And then once you hook them, they are gonna be your biggest proponent and your biggest voices and your biggest cheerleaders. Well, and I I think, Jimmy, there's a a natural parallel there between Microsoft and what Chris is talking about. Right? You when you think about even the wrestling side of the world too, there's the umbrella, which is whether it's WWE, whether it's Aew, whoever, and then there's the sub brands. Right? There's, you know, the Monday night raws. There's the the paper views, premium live events, and then there's the individual wrestlers themselves, catchphrases, merchandise, shirts, all that. Microsoft is structured at the same way. Right? Microsoft has as much brand affinity as you could probably get in the entire world, but what's happened over the years is whether it's products like windows, whether it's, you know, hardware, whether it's cell phones all the way to and including teams, there's so many different aspects. Right? How do you, you know, even point for the wrestling side of things where you have the individual performers and the individual brands How do you parallel that to even the sub bridge of someone like Microsoft? It's again in that story side. You know, one of the reasons why you go with Microsoft is because it has so many different avenues that you can do as a business. Let's just take SharePoint, for instance. I mean, SharePoint is the basis for a lot of of of the the technology that's actually out there right now, including teams. You might not know that, but again, SharePoint has to be there to to to elevate it. And if we look at wrestling, you can't have a winner without having some guy what you call a deterrent what you determine the, you know, the business as putting you over. You know, I I I watch back to the era and I watch I watch back to to to when and this is this is another story that I have. I mean, so many times we would do special things for people in the arena that came out to the to the TV events. So after the cameras were off, there were, sessions that stone cold the rock undertaker. Mick Foley, all the different guys would go out. And the goal was to not laugh, but they would all go out. Now somebody had to put somebody else over And if you see some of these, wrestling things, you'll see that a guy like the rock. Even though he's losing, he will hit the mat, but he'll flip himself over the ring ropes and completely oversell. You know, this is another term, oversell that, that move that happens. But again, that leads to the the credibility of the other guy that's that's actually doing the move. You can't have one without the other. You can't have some guy that just is sort of half putting half effort in, inside of the ring. And that's really where Microsoft and everybody else sort of has to happen as well. Everything for that marketing team to actually execute on has to execute flawlessly or else you're gonna find that Hey, I'm not that interested in this or I'm not that that engaged with it. I mean, how many times have all of us attended, a podcast or something like that? Where where people are reading slides, People are just reading the the what's on the screen and sort of talking about that. And I've heard people, you know, phrase as well, we can't do death by PowerPoint. We can't do death by PowerPoint, and and I said, well, we have to have a PowerPoint. Well, why? Because I need something to spark that conversation that sparked that interest. If you're just gonna look at me speaking, it's not as engaging as if I've got a chart, and I can explain to you what that chart is. Now I shouldn't have to read to you that chart, but this is sort of where you even see inside of wrestling. You can tell guys that have memorized their scripts versus guys that actually go in have a couple of bullet bullet points. I mean, that's one of the great things about some of the guys that that we used to work with. You could give them This is what I want you to do, and they would come out with gold. I mean, even do you smell what the rock is cooking? That was an offhanded comment that was made behind, you know, in in a videotape and with Jennifer Flowers when we were in Boston, I cracked up, you know, but it became something that he took and he worked with. And a lot of these these marketing things you don't know what's actually gonna hit with an audience. You don't know how it's gonna work. So if you're given a PowerPoint and you're just reading it, Good luck to you. I don't think you're you're selling that pen as as as all the salespeople say in the world. I think you really have to understand what's there and what the end goal is which is sort of what wrestling does. And, you know, Dan, I'm sure you can you can talk about it a little bit too, but at the same point, you know, when when there's an event, it's always working towards the next event. It's never working towards. Alright. I just have to do this. Exactly. Well, yeah. We'll we'll bring Dan in here as well and and just for some sub context. Dan, you've had the chance to work with, obviously, WWE on digital shows like the bump, but also MLB and Viacom, Nickelodeon folks like that. So you you've been able to really see firsthand some of these digital evolutions. Right? And and I think one of the cool things that wrestling has has done, and and we've touched on it a couple times, is really produce high quality content, but content that that drives an outcome, right, whether it's subscriptions, whether it's a merchandise buy, whether it's, viewership. Right? What are some of the ways now that you've seen that you've seen audiences shift a little bit more of their their content consumption habits habits? Is it is it more towards short form? Is it more, you know, they they wanna hear from an individual specifically instead of a a major brand? What are some of the the habits that you've seen from a a branding standpoint that folks can maybe pull. Yeah. I mean, there's so many different ways to to go with that question. I mean, one thing that I see is the individual is really owning their own brand identity. You know, whether it's on TikTok or Twitter or YouTube, we're now following more than just the television product. We're going to that second screen as they call it. I wanna see, you know, what Rhonda Rousy has to say after her match or before her match. It's really exciting to kinda see that develop. And I think Jimmy made a a great point that it really is all about driving to what's next. There never is an ending. There is no off season. Football basketball, sure. There's an off season. In wrestling, it it never ends. And that's really how marketing works as well. You're always building towards the next thing And even when you feel comfortable with something or how something's presented or how these wrestlers are looking on social media, you know, Vince or someone else is gonna say, hey, that's great, but how can we do it better? It's never gonna be good enough. And and that can be frustrating and daunting, especially someone like myself who needs those, pats on the back to to know that they're doing a good job, but at the same rate, it's, it's a great way to you know, evolve brand and and push forward. Well, Chris, I wanna bring you in, on this too. Right? There there is a the practical element of what we're talking about and the practicality and the direct correlation a lot of times from the wrestling and the content creation side of the world and the individual branding extends to our companies by elevating engineers, elevating sales team members, elevating product designers, and giving them a voice where traditionally it was kind of under the guise of you know, the major brand. Right? What are some of the ways that that we can draw these direct correlations as a group of marketers as in a group of of sales folks or individuals inside of a company? Where we can help take those core tenets of that wrestling and personal branding and help elevate it in our own community. Well, let's first start off by talking about, what you're asking. You're asking for a brand to put their trust in a person. That's fart. Right? That is super hard. Now, the wrestlers themselves are their brands. Right? They are owning their brands as Dan said. Right? An unknown is a hard is is a hard person for somebody to put trust in. Right? I've been doing the social stuff now for over ten years. Right? At this stage of my career, I'm finally getting to the point where people understand that if I'm gonna do a quick video about me going to infocom, I'm hyping something. Right? I'm a hype man when it comes to this. Right? Whether it's the products, whether it's my presence or my company's presence there at a trade show booth, whatever it may be. They know me for what I do on Sundays, which is my twenty four seven branding exercise that never stops. That's my it, it will happen regardless if I'm working for company X, Y or Z, right? It's now my Sunday thing. Wanna do AV in the AM, that is propelling me forward. The brands at IUs know that, hey, this guy talks about it on Sunday. I get a lot of, I get a lot of eyes. I get a lot of action from the fact that people watch what I do on Sundays. So when I'm going to a trade show, I work for a company now and Sarah that embraces that. They're like, Hey, man, what did you talk about on Sunday? I'm like, oh, we talked about, you know, this, you know, audio, you know, is seventy volts going away. And we will take that conversation. And, you know, we break it down because it's basically a focus group that essentially comes out of Sunday. If you and it's open to everybody, follow. If you watch and listen and and and follow what's going on on Monday mornings at AV and A. It's it's a it's a big town hall slash focus group. So for me, going into the trade shows, I have a plan and it doesn't align with my marketing, unfortunately. Because I look at things that that, Dan and and and Jimmy were saying. I start cleaning up thirty, sixty, ninety days out. Ninety days, I'm teasing that I'm going. Sixty days, I announce that I'm going. Thirty days, I'm there and you're gonna find me here. Right? And those those points are to find me on the floor. This should have people chasing me around for stickers and abrasive. That said I am maybe an AM. Right? And the reason why it was the only time I was gonna have it. I drew the crowd because of exclusivity. We're only going to get those if you found me on the show floor, not mailing them to anybody. It's it's it sounds like it's haphazard. But that's the beauty of it. The things that can be produced and that Dan are talking about, it doesn't have to be a Hollywood movie, and it doesn't have to be a Hollywood script. Right now, I'm watching how, you know, my my lessons for marketing, I, watch u definitely LinkedIn lessons, and I'll take classes, but the best the best information I get is on Monday nights, Tuesday nights, Friday nights. And on these events, I watch what's how they're presenting these these vignettes. Right? You you know that somebody's coming because here is just a very, very basic video of somebody who they're not announcing who their name is. They just say coming soon. I do that with products. I do that with me going to events. I'm not saying I'm a celebrity and I'm not saying I'm drunk, but what I am saying is if I give people that little bit of information, and I build it out over the course of thirty, sixty, ninety days, What's going to be revealed? What is the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the penny bump? What's at the end, right? And I've taken bumps. As genocide. Right? I've fallen for others to to get up, and I will absolutely absolutely take the touch. For somebody to rise up and that we're gonna highlight this person because it's, you know, some people call it the rub. Right, where you happen to be in the same place at the same time and the same ring with the person. Now all of a sudden, you know, the term is I'm giving somebody the rub, and the rub is that you're rubbing off some of your star power onto somebody else. It has not to do with me, but you could take the person of your company that you select to do this, right? And make them the voice of the control system, of the amplifier, of the speaker. Right? And the and the association of it, little things like the colors, like ring attire, the colors, the setting, video to show, you know, an install? That makes sense. You wanna do a Hollywood video doing an install? So much. Right? You're gonna be covered in sheet rock. You're gonna be running through tunnels and pulling wires. Like, you you have to you have to build the And I'm a former former broadcast guy too, Jimmy. So I I got my background in TV and broadcast, so I understand that There's a look and can be accomplished technically to kinda go with the story. Right? Watch movies. Some of the, you know, you watch a movie like seven. Right? An old school. Let's go old school. Seven is done a certain way with a certain look and a certain edit that plays towards the subject of that. It was an act of it. Right? You can't pull that movie off. In a, you know, who who is the director in a West Anderson style movie? West Anderson has his own style movie. That would not work for they did with the movie seven, right? The bright colors, all the, all this sort of stuff. So understanding the situational awareness, knowing the audience, right? And then building into this and taking the stories what those stories may be, whether it's the new product launch and adding to it. No. That's that's that's helpful context, Chris. And I wanna come to Dan next, and then and then, Jimmy, I'll I'll kinda give you the last word on this. Dan, you know, one of the things that keeps jumping out as Chris is having this conversation is the way that w w has handled folks like Logan Paul and superstar social media influencers and people really who have embraced the digital world, right, whether that's through YouTube, whether that's through TikTok, Twitter, you know, what are some of the things that that that you know, us as a b to b community, just from a content creation standpoint, kinda going back to what Chris was said, what are some of the things that we can embrace that that has been so successful for these folks even outside of WWE. Well, I think we see now more than ever. I mean, social influencers have such a great pull. And it's exciting because, you know, just a few years ago and if you wanted to have someone endorsed your product, you'd have to go through a Hollywood agent. You'd have to get somebody I mean, not have to, but, you know, you would strive to get somebody like the rock. He wouldn't pick up the phone most likely, but Instead, you can get people that are able to do the work for a lot less money. I mean, I'm not talking about Logan Paul. Obviously, he's gonna you know, ask for a pretty big, easy to call for a pretty big bar tab, but I think that getting the rub and bracing opportunities to bring somebody in, whether that's an expert in a specific field, like, you know, my Stude colleagues here. You know, I mean, in many ways, you know, Ben, we're giving you the rub right now. I mean, maybe not so much me, but, you know, the rest of the team here. I think, and it all comes down to collaboration and finding different ways to to work. I mean, Look, when wrestling first started, not to get into a history lesson here, a hundred of years ago, or a hundred years ago, wrestling was, it was a shoot. And, you know, that's an inside term for a real fight, and it was in Carney World. And promoters started to realize that this was kind of boring and the audiences weren't really embracing it the same way. It was just two half naked men rolling around the mat and there are some audiences out there that, you know, like that. But, back then, it wasn't working. People started going to see the the bearded lady in the next tent. So the promoters had to come up with ways to get more people to come see them. And they decided or the promoters demanded that, hey, no more working for ourselves, no more working in a silo, we are gonna communicate, and we are gonna collaborate. And there were some pushback on that. It had never been done before, but almost instantly you saw a change in the business. You saw better matches. You saw more fan friendly, exciting performances. I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever been in a real fight. I I can't say that I've had the the luxury of, of being in one, but my guess is that if I'm in a real fight, I don't have time to wave my hand in the air and see if the crowd's with me on this one because I'm gonna get decked right in the face. But that's really entertaining to see that happen. In a in a shoot fight situation, you're not doing that. You're you're fister up here and you're ducking and weaving, and it, you know, kudos to, MMA for creating, you know, what Dana White has created. But back then, in the Carnegie days, it wasn't working, and I think that's just an example of how as b to b marketers and in wrestling, you have to constantly be evolving and changing along with your audience. And that's something that WWE has done a great job at I mean, in many ways, it's this it could be the same story over and over again, but just with a fresh coat of paint. I mean, it's always about having different stories, whether it's the underdog story, like, Daniel Brian or a Coffee kingston or watching Roman Raines arguably one of the greatest champions we've seen, was gonna say in the last decade, maybe ever, maybe top five. People are tuning in to see how things are evolving. And that's something that I think started not collaboration or evolution in general, but I think it's really neat how wrestling was able to really take that off ramp go in a different direction. And it was a risky move, but it was a risk worth taking, and, it it changed the business forever. And now we could see wrestlers collaborate and have conversations. And sure, I mean, the curtain's been yanked back far enough. We all know that the guys are, you know, having chats before the matches. But that's what's made the product so amazing and it's what made it become the the spectacle that it is today. And it's just, pretty exciting to see. And, you know, I just can't emphasize enough how that sort of collaboration and ability to listen and talk and speak with other people, will lead to amazing success across the board. Yeah. And, Jimmy, I wanna, ask you to land the plane for us here as we we kinda wind this down. But you know, you think about everything that's been said right, whether it's personal branding, whether it's content creation. I I I think at the end of the day, the collective goal not only of the AV community, but also the wrestling community as a whole is to drive that revenue. Right? What are some of the most practical ways that you've seen people leverage a lot of the this personal branding, content creation, things like that to actually drive revenue, sales, awareness at the end of the day. I I can narrow it down. One thing that that Vince actually was so brilliant in and used to used to hammer into us back in the day was, you know, in wrestling, there's there's a baby face and a heel. And the baby face are the good guys. The heels are the bad guys. And the truth is when you're when you're doing character development, even when you're talking, when you're doing things like this, It doesn't matter if you like them or hate them. If that character or that product elicits a response, I got you. I got you. And that's the key to a lot of these things is, I mean, there's there's a lot of people that are on social media. I can't stand them. But the truth is I go back and I watch them and I look it, because it elicits a response. You know, there's, there's things that happen even on TV shows that you know, I I I see it all the time. I hear people say, I I I hate this. I hate this. I can't watch this. I can't watch this. But they're watching it. You know, so it's one of those things. You've gotta understand how you're you're bringing people in, how you're doing this. And and brands, especially, have to understand that. You know, lines have been blurred, you know, Dan, you were talking about the old school wrestling. It was always baby face and heels. We tried at times. I I I know there were writer meetings that I set in many times. How do we make people hate stone cold? We just couldn't do it. We didn't know how to do it. I mean, there were there was a time where We actually started a writers meeting, and we were we were gonna play Long Island, andasso Coliseum. And we said, how are we gonna make people hate them? Well, We'll have them tear down what was then called the Titan TriNet. We'll have them rip it up and tear it up, and then we're like, but then how do we do the show? And we thought, oh, we can't do that. So then it's like, alright, well, we'll have them go get, you know, do something specific events, and we ended up buying a a corvette. And, and filling with concrete and doing things, anyway, there were little things in conversations like that. But the truth is ninety percent of wrestling's history has been there's a good guy and there's a bad guy. And I don't really mind if you like me or hate me because you're gonna buy my t shirt. You're gonna do this. And and to be honest, And then I think you'll, you you you'll back me up on this when I speak to a lot of the wrestlers, back in the day. They actually enjoy being the the heel. It was a little bit of an easier character for a lot of these guys because they could do things to be a good guy and get a cheer. That's hard to do. But to be a bad guy and get a blue, that's something pretty easy because, you know, you insult the local sports team. You know, you do different things. You know, make used to always be the one that was out there, and, you know, he would he would announce the name of the city and then pause and get a cheer. You know, there's little things that happen, but but again, in in an AD world, in a branding world, it doesn't matter if you like me or you hate me. If if I've got your truck, you know, in an in an AV work, if I've got your trust and Chris, I know that I do this all the time, and I I I know that other people do as well. I won't actually talk about things that number one, I don't have experience in or number two, that I I can't sort of recommend. I don't wanna talk about the bad things or the things that are out there and everything else. What I really wanna do is I wanna take what I represent or with the company that I represent and say, here's why it's good. I see too many people, and and right now, is we need to record this you know, a a competitor of Microsoft is out there with some challenges. I I don't think that the challenges might have been what they anticipated, but they're there. And they have to address them. And I don't think it's fair for a competitor to say, oh, yeah. This is the thing and everything else. I think it's more like Hey, we're we're we're we're a solution that you might wanna look at because of this without mentioning these other people. And going through it. So it's so it's all about how you see your branding, but it comes back to any faces and heals. Who are you? How do you want your, you know, your audience to actually engage with? When it comes to the products, and everybody's like, oh my god, I don't wanna, I don't wanna have a heal, a bad guy pitching my product. The heel is not necessarily a guy who's gonna come with the curly mustache and a fun thing he had of old, right? No time. Those guys are great, though. Okay. I bring you some Vaudevillian bad guys, and we're good. But if you want to be a bad guy, all you have to do is say it in a very as a matter of fact way and then you become the heel presenting a product. The good guy is maybe your sales guy who's gonna come in and go, Now, this is how you're going to use it or your sales engineer. Well, the very matter of fact, guy gets kind of pushed off to the side, and now the people's champ comes in and the people's champ is gonna tell you this is how you're gonna do it. Right? So I have a bad habit as well where I am probably the same same as the panel here. If I use wrestling terms with my team, I have to stop and say, listen, this is a shoot. I'm a mark. This is how it works. This is what I grew up with. Right? This is just enjoyment. This is my my my my knowledge. Like I said, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, I get marketing ideas. Right? I've I've put together groups of people that were, you know, the wolf pack. I've put together people that were N WO that came from the crowd. They were That all worked because it ground the reality of things superhero movies. I'll give you a prime example and we're gonna go off top here. The superhero movie today. If you were to say a guy came from outer space and landed, great. But before you introduced the guy who came from outer space and landed, you need a here that were making their own suits and were very human relatable, right? Then you can choose the guy who came from outer space. That's the way it works. You have to be relatable. And when the guy from outer space shows up, he has to have some sort of relatable characteristics to what we're familiar with. When you're doing these marketing and you're doing these activations and you're doing these branding, exercises, where does that connection happen? Right? You wanna sell a t shirt in a wrestling world? Is it gonna come from phrase? It's going to come from a design or is it going to come from a color? What do you how are you putting that together from a marketing perspective? That is where people got to stop looking at the back, the the wrestler itself is the brand. Right? I will always wear a black t shirt. Simply because I don't know what else to wear and it's cheap and it's easy. And I'm always in black t shirt to the point where I have a little funko pop that looks like me and walks around with me, and we're always in black. The day I don't wear a black t shirt is the day people are like, what is going on? What's the special occasion? Right? You kind of always think in that I've been that's how I think, right? Everything has a purpose, everything's got a story, If we're gonna introduce a new brand, let's try soft launch. Soft launch is not something that's new. It's it's been around. But how you bring that to the table, how you introduce that new product, or a new brand to a, to the world, right? If I'm going to draw two hundred people to a bar, in Orlando. We're gonna surprise you with a launch, and you weren't expecting it, and you're gonna get the t shirt, and you're gonna hear about it because not only did we take over the bar, we also put the the speaker system became the audio speaker brand that we were launching. So it goes into a bigger conversation. It's not just here's my PDF, here's the product, here is the part you I'm not on ads. I just sell the product. It's, I think, something that's going to become a lot more, forward going, for brands to start adding people. Jimmy is the face of Microsoft on LinkedIn. He does this Friday conversation. It's great. It's ten minutes. He's got his rules. I know how Jimmy operates with this. He has to set rules. It's gotta be fast. It's gotta be eye catching, it's gotta be quick, and it's gotta be to a point. You only have so many minutes. That's why these wrestlers don't go on, on, on, their vignettes are no more than two minutes long. They're in ring, talk. Don't doesn't last. This you know, it's a segment they're referred to in in TV time. And it's cut up in segments based on TV time. And the guy who's gonna come in and break that up is because he's already talking too much. Right? So the scriptedness of it is very, very, very good information for us as marketers. You have to have that space in between. You gotta let a product. You pop it. Yeah. It's get its pop. It's cheap pop as, as Mick used to do. Right? And then you let it breathe a little bit and see what the reaction is and then boom, you hit another one. Right? It's always, like you guys mentioned earlier, You do a pay per view. It's because you're working for the next one already. By the time you get there, it's over. By the time these guys are wrestling on Wednesday. Premium live events. Premium live event. Sorry. There's no more pay per view anymore. I'm gonna do it. Sorry. I think this has hooked up I mean, I get a Zachary who can tag your paper. I I used to go to, like, make sure. Dan knows Dan knows the end of your conversation that happens with those. Stop saying. Yes. Yes. That's my point, man. I think that I think they can all learn a good lesson from me. It's something that excites me because it's more than just here. This is gonna move. It's But even even what just happened, Chris. I mean, you know, Dan, you just hit the nail on the head. Language matters and how you say things matters. And and, yes, that was something that was ingrained into us and ingrained if you listen to people, if if you don't say the right term at the right time, yes, there's somebody in your ear that's yelling at you. You know, you know, you you said it when you know, when somebody comes out, we used to roll our eyes when, when Hunter would cut out because he just took so long and it would be like, Hey, I'm in the game, and I am. Squirt some water out of my mouth. Water out of my mouth. Yep. Yep. But that's the language matters. And you've got to know your key terms. You've got to basically get your key phrases across. You've got to know these things And, Dan, to the, to your point that you just pointed out to Chris. Yeah. If you don't use that proper language, your audience starts using different language. And this is very, very specific on how announcers do things, how things are phrased inside of commercials, know when we were shooting commercials, we had to say, WWF. At that point, it was WWF, then, but we had to say WFM, at least three times in a thirty second commercial because that was the important cadence that was needed. And if it wasn't there, it would go back to the drawing board. So so there's a lot of that kind of stuff. And again, people don't realize that they're being structured like this because it's kind of what they're used to, but at the same point, yeah, you're being structured like this. Look, I I think that's a great place to, to kinda wrap for today. But, I mean, I would say in a nut shell, the best way to put it is how can be to be in pro AV communities learn from, wrestling? It would be to really embrace personal branding and and do it within guide rails and guide posts. And, look, I I I think that's the easiest way to boil it down. I mean, it's such a fun conversation. We had and and, obviously, you know, learning a lot about the industry and some of the terms and things like that. It's it's a fun conversation, but look, if if people are listening and, like, what the heck are these guys talking about? There's your takeaway. Right? Let the people in your communities. Let the people in your companies talk. Because they're the most knowledgeable people probably in the company about the product. But if you give them guide rails, give them a, not a script, but an outline, a guide post, you're gonna see them have success. And the ones who rise to the top are gonna do more, for your brand than you could ever imagine. So, gentlemen, I appreciate you coming on today. It was a heck of a conversation. Sure we'll find a way to have another one of these because look, we we always end up talking wrestling. But, look, Chris, Dan, Jimmy. You guys are amazing. Thanks for coming on today. Thanks, everyone. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on, and thanks so much for tuning in to, pro AV today. We appreciate you tuning next time, and we'll see you then.