What The Funk?

0:00 We are back With mr. Daniel Nethway checking in from just north of South Beach, Miami, Florida. What's up Daniel? I'm doing good. My man. They're good. No completes and yeah, it is a sunny

0:15 sunny day here in South Beach Miami friend my friend so earth no plan. It's all is good. How are you? I'm doing great everybody at the GDS office rocking shorts today. We're not quite there here

0:25 in Colorado it's been raining non-stop for the last week which is pretty rare but we'll take it but this is a this is going to be fun you know we were hoping to do this sadly when Tim was my co-host

0:40 right but you have a relationship with Tim obviously he was my my road dog for a while miss podcasting and Tim was was my original connection to GDS and we'll talk about GDS a whole bunch and jump

0:53 into what you guys are doing great stuff from an events standpoint some of my favorite and some of the best people that I've gotten to know. and build really good relationships with, go back to GDS

1:04 conferences, Newport Beach, California, 2013, Barton Creek, Austin, 2014, 2015 either. Love, and Creek, loved by Creek. I mean, I kind of preferred Newport, but I didn't see the beach for

1:17 a second anyway. You know how those shows are, you're just grinding the whole time. Yeah, yeah, you're living off three, four hours sleep, you're up early, up late. Especially one in the

1:26 event anyway, it was - Oh, yeah You're the last one up at the bar with your sponsors, your delegates, and you're the first one up in the morning, make sure everyone's ready to walk from all

1:34 against stuff. Yeah. Minimum sleep, but good fun, good fun to say. Great fun, yeah, we'll get into all that and how you guys do conferences differently, but before that, obviously, you don't

1:44 have what sounds like a traditional Florida accent, whatever that is, so why don't you tell the listeners, Mr. Nethway, who you are, man, where are you from, and how did you end up, where are

1:55 you at you There? go, yeah, sure, so yeah, the Florida accent is not too strong. I speak zero Spanish and I've been in Miami seven years.

2:05 I don't think I can upload or my braids are not there to take on another language now, but yeah, man, I'm from a little town called Cleveland. It's just outside the city of Bristol, which is

2:15 southwest London in the

2:19 UK. That's where I was born and raised, done a little bit of traveling, lived in Thailand for five years, Australia for a year, done a little bit of backpacking, now that most people do, I

2:28 guess, and I've been in South Beach, Miami now for, god, 2016, I think I landed so a good seven years now. Yeah, good seven years. And you're a sales guy, right? I think you're a VP over at

2:42 GDS Group. What got you into sales as a career? Do you know what it was? Believe it or not, I used to be a bricklayer, right? So I was on a construction site at the age of 15 years old. I

2:54 didn't really go through college job is out working at a young age. And I remember shoveling sand, shoveling cement. And I remember this guy rolls up in

3:02 a nice Mercedes suit. And he was trying to sell my boss, build a merchant's

3:06 materials. And you cement, you product, new materials and things. And I was like, Oh, that guy looks good, man. He's driving a nice Mercedes. I'm there, covered in dirt, dust, shit, and

3:16 all sorts of stuff. And he was like, and I was chatting, and I was like, What's

3:22 he doing? He's like, You hear the sell me stuff. I was like, What's he selling? And he was like, What's he selling? He was like, What's he selling? He said, He's selling me comparison

3:24 builders merchants And I remember from that day, I was like, I don't think the construction's gigs for me. I want to drive this car. And I thought to say, If people don't earn, well, they're

3:35 not the same. You don't earn a lot of money construction 'cause they certainly can. But it wasn't for me in that. Yeah, not for my day forward idea. I wanted to jump into sales. So yeah, I

3:45 think our first sale job was at 18 years old, knocking doors, selling an accident and health care insurance at the time. Oh, wow. It's for the door. Yeah, commission only, too, which is a

3:53 struggle. Oh, man I mean, that's like, I love that story. Right, 'cause I think that everybody that is money motivated, that gets into sales, kind of has that experience. It was similar for

4:05 me, like I was in college, and I've told the story on here before, but it bears repeating, like I went to Brandeis, which is just outside of Boston, really challenging liberal arts school. A

4:16 lot of the people who went there went on to law school, or they became teachers, or they got them to the finance world, and I'm like, I don't really wanna do any of those things, but I wanna make

4:24 money, how do I do it? So I saw some of my fraternity brothers driving nice cars, having nice watches, wearing nice suits, just a couple of years older, I'm like, how do you do that? You don't

4:35 have an advanced degree, you got a nice apartment, you got a nice car, and they're like, oh, I'm in pharmaceutical sales, or I'm selling software for Microsoft, I'm like, I wanna do that,

4:48 right? So I had it set in my mind over 20 years ago, I'm like, I wanna get into sales, I don't know what that means, but I think technology sales. is what I want to get into. And it was as

4:58 simple as that, like it's been, you know, sometimes flush with cash, sometimes a struggle. That's sort of the deal when you're - Ah, the peaks have dropped. So it's saying in the sales game,

5:07 one minute your flux, the next minute you're asking that your boss made some throw off a friend, but especially when you first started out. But yeah, I know it's, I love it, I always have loved

5:16 it. I never forget my friends, they said, when I left school, they were like, Ah, it's all got the construction. I said, I'm getting into sales game And they quoted, Oh, you can be one of

5:26 those uneducated guys who's driving a 100, 000 car. I do not drive a 100, 000 car, by the way. But yeah, to the point, and I was like, Yeah I think, that's me, you know, I think that's me.

5:35 But yeah, I love the sales game. I think I'll always be in it too. I don't think I'll ever leave it at this point. Well, I will compliment you on this. And this isn't just you, it's everybody

5:45 at GDS. You guys have a way of finding people who are driven and mold them into really good salespeople, right? Talk to me a little bit about your path that. at GDS and maybe even before that,

5:57 kind of set the stage for like, what is GDS? Like what does GDS Group do? What kind of events do you throw? And then talk a little bit about how you train up your sales team. Sure, so yeah, I

6:08 mean, GDS Group are about a 30 year old events company. We generate about 100 million a year in annual revenue. We've got six, 700 clients across the globe from your IBM's to your Silicon Valley

6:19 startups, right? We're a UK based company We've got about 700, 800 headcount now, which for an event company is pretty big. Yeah. And for me, I started my career in Bristol, where I'm, where

6:33 I'm from, I'm based, and then I did a year and a half, and I was actually ready to quit. I was like, Hey, I want out. I want to go back to Thailand. I want to go back to the tropical weather,

6:43 the wet, cold, cobbled streets of Bristol wasn't for me. And then, yeah, I moved over to Miami, and as I mentioned earlier, I've been in Miami a while, GDS group, our events, definitely a

6:52 little different. I don't want to sell it on your podcast, obviously, but yeah, I mean, we, you know, we host anywhere from 60 to 200 buyers, attendees. I mean, I know that me and you met

7:02 through my oil and gas event, right? A long, long time ago. So what has the hundred operators and they typically be at the direct to level and above, right? Um, so directors, VPs and sea level

7:11 execs. And then what we then did for, for 25 years, up 30 years in business, we start selling to sponsors, defenders, the software companies, the contractors, the large service organizations.

7:21 Slumbergé and Halliburton's and Snyder Electric's of the world with big sponsors for our events for a long, long time. And then we're big on the one to one meetings, right? I think that's the

7:29 biggest, the biggest difference between us and your typical trade shows and your conferences is it's more of an invite only type of event. It's not a nape, an OTC where it's thousands of people, a

7:40 lot of forced conversations, um, a lot of, a lot of footwork, a lot of walking about. Um, there's no booths or there's no pop ups or banners It's 70 buyers and maybe 20 sponsors. really small,

7:51 really intimate, it's over three days. And historically, we used to run these in four to three, four, five-star results across the US and Europe. And we would contract us sponsors kind of

8:02 guaranteed one-door meetings, right, with people that they want to meet with, the right level, the right companies, stuff like that. So I guess big picture, that's the GDS model we've been

8:11 running events if industry's for a long time now. I hope you're like, does that give you an eye overview? I guess, is that what you're looking for? Yeah, it does, it does And I want to kind of

8:20 go back in time to my experience with GDS. So I was an energy navigator and I remember Tim saying, this is probably 2011, 2012. He's like, okay, I think we're going to do this event. It's like

8:34 not cheap, right? This is like a bunch of napes, right? But these are the people we're going to meet with. Or this is a list of people we could meet with help me prioritize this list. Like this

8:44 is kind of cool. Like I want to go to this He's like, no, this is just going to be like the sea levels that go. This is like, you know, you're not. you're not fancy enough, you're not smart

8:52 enough chairman. Well, yeah, okay, all right. But you know, he took like the seven or eight meeting package and I think you guys also have like a 14, 15 meeting package and of course it

9:02 cascades up and down in price. And of those seven people, like two of them turned into really good leads. I think the rest turned into like decent personal contacts but like you can't guarantee

9:13 that everybody you sit down with is gonna have a need or wanna buy your product. You do a good job of vetting all that out But a couple of those leads are really good. So I leave, I go to seven

9:23 lakes and at that time, I mean, seven lakes kinda turned into a much bigger company that are eventually acquired by W Energy Software but I was the only one in sales and pretty much everybody else

9:34 at the company was like, you know, East Asian, to Southeast Asian, to some like Indian guys. I'm like, man, I need to find a way to get as many meetings as I can in a short concentrated period

9:46 of time particularly from larger operators How do I do that? And Matt Rose was calling me one day, the next, he was calling me non-stop. He wasn't deserving of energy, he wasn't deserving of

9:57 energy company, it's not me, not. Yeah, that's right, that's right, yeah. He's good. So he kept hitting me up, he was like, dude, I think you can crush this. I've looked at your website.

10:07 You guys have the right thing. We've got this guy from Devon. We got this person from Lynn, this one from Continental, this one from Conical Phillips. We got a woman from Oxy by the name of Vicki

10:17 Hollab, who actually attended one of those events This was 10 years ago. And I said, all right, like how much would it cost for me to go and get one-on-one meetings with all of these people all

10:30 over the country? And it's a lot, right? So if I can really get in front of these people and get 40, 45 minutes to get that icebreaker meeting going, then this could actually turn out to be a

10:41 good deal. And that was November of 2013 and oh man, was it ever? I think we had 14, maybe 15 one-on-ones. I had dinner with Vicki Hollub, great experience, kind of getting the head of an

10:53 executive, working for a publicly traded, larger oil and gas company, and understand what her values and priorities were. And some of the people there, they referred me to other decision makers

11:04 in their company. Some of them we were eventually able to get back in front of and sell to directly. And I think ultimately if I were to look back at Seven Lakes, like the first GDS event we went

11:13 to and at the Fairmont Newport Beach, really kind of helped shape the trajectory of that company to A, build the confidence of what the pitch even is in front of these like very senior decision

11:25 makers and then B, the revenue opportunities that came out of it. So it was unique and I think that at least in oil and gas where it's such a relationship based sale, the GDS model makes a ton of

11:38 sense. So we went to a few others. We even went to some of your competitors. I didn't get the same vibe necessarily from some of your competitors. Um, it was, it was really cool and I was very

11:49 impressed with how professional the whole team was and if somebody had to miss or skip a meeting, you guys would be all over them. Like, Hey, you can't do that, right? These people paid us a

11:57 bunch of, yeah, we were all on that. Yeah, especially what we charge. I mean, we're not a cheap events company, right? And people are buying to get in front of directors, VPC level contacts

12:06 from, you know, super majors, majors, large public to small, even independent West Texas. All in gas, right. Right. So when they're paying us money to get in front of these guys, yeah,

12:14 we've got team with what we used to call runners But, you know, when they get dragged, we get calls from their office and things that's fun around, make sure that they're in the meetings and

12:22 things. We've could take that a little bit now. We've tightened up our matchmaking model quite a lot. And maybe we could talk about some digital versus physical later, but, um, but yeah, yeah,

12:32 I mean, I miss it. I mean, we're now digital, but I don't know how much you know about our model, but we no longer want these in, um, in physical locations. We still have a physical aspect,

12:41 but it's all digital now. Well, I want to jump into that in a second because I think that that's significant and I'm really curious, 'cause you said it's actually working better now, which is

12:52 interesting to me and I hope you're not just saying that 'cause you're a company man. But I really felt a lot of value in the face-to-face focused sessions. And because I was able to ascertain a

13:02 decent amount of success from the various GDS conferences I went to, they would ask me to be a reference. They're like, Hey, look, these people are like, should we really invest our events and

13:13 marketing budget in this event? And I would always be cautious with people and say, you need to make sure that you have a product that's concise enough that you can pitch the people, but also you

13:24 need to do your homework beforehand, right? The GDS guys provide a pretty decent amount of information and background on the people and their priorities. And like, I spent days, like really

13:35 prioritizing what the list was, of who we wanted to meet with, what we thought their priorities were based on information you guys gathered and really came prepared. And I think that sort of set us

13:44 apart from some of the other companies that just went and said, Oh, okay, we're meeting with this guy. Let's just go pitch our stuff. It's like, Well, we understand that you're interested in

13:53 data management and that you have a significant budget ready to allocate to that. This is what we do from a data management standpoint Let's. start there. They're like, Oh, okay, you actually

14:02 paid some attention. Right, so I've always - I'm always conscious. Yeah. Yeah Remember, you're doing a good job, and Tim did an amazing job of doing that too, like re-prepping. And, you know,

14:13 we started to now kind of extract projects from our attendees ahead of time, so requirements, budgets, and timelines, and providing that information to a sponsor ahead of an event now is really

14:23 valuable, I think, at this point, because they can qualify in. Yeah. They can also qualify out, right? Yes. A lot of people will chase the VP of operations from Devon. I remember Clay Gasper

14:34 used to come to my event He was now president of Devon now, he used to be WPX. and everyone needs to chase them off stage, everyone needs to fall in and round one of our drinks 'cause these are big

14:44 hit ovenies, it's pockets are deep, right? But if Clay's mindset is, Clay's challenge is here and your product's here, there's not a connect, there's no reason, you're just trying to force pit

14:55 someone. So we've started to extract projects ahead of time, now provide that intelligence to you guys, and you can fill it through and choose meetings based on their active problems and projects.

15:05 But yeah, you were prep, you were doing way more prep before law, before we started collecting data from our operators, I think, which was good for you. Yeah, I'd even call Matt and be like,

15:16 all right, this is what we got. Like, which of these people should we meet with? You know these guys, right? Oh, you should be with this woman here. You should meet with this company in

15:24 Oklahoma. These guys, maybe you think, and it actually what it did for me, which is always important in sales, is it challenged my assumptions. Because you see VP of operations at Company X,

15:35 and you think, this is a perfect fit for my product. But then you look at what their priorities are, what you have is actually their lowest priority. So you're like, wait a second. Do I really

15:44 want to burn this 45 minute meeting with them? Right? Because it sounds like this is going to be a dead end right away. And that's important information, right? So your assumptions definitely get

15:51 pushed up against like, is this really somebody I

15:58 should meet with? You know? Because I thought we should maybe, maybe. It's like China.

16:05 Yeah, I think, I mean, you nailed it. I think you were prepping before, but China fit like a size 10 foot into a size eight, right? If they're focusing here and you're trying to sell them this,

16:16 there's no camera, there's no disconnect. And then you end up burning the relationship because you're just trying to force the product down the throat. So I think it also helped the operators,

16:24 right? I think if you look at any other conference in the world, when the big hairs go, they always get pested and chased and people trying to sell them anything they got, right? And I think from

16:34 the operator standpoint now, it's a value exchange, right? in any attendee that comes to the events, now is the more information they can give us at GDS, the more we can align them with the right

16:43 products, the right software, the right technology. So when they meet in a wonderful meeting with you guys, they've already pre-approved it, they see a fit and it makes sense. So they're coming

16:51 with their barriers down, they're not like, they're actually accepted a meeting with you at the box. Yeah. Yeah, I think the matchmaking side of what we do is definitely unique coming. Yeah,

17:01 that was always fun. It's like, oh my God, this person just requested a meeting with us Like, that's amazing. Yeah, I did do wait. Didn't expect that to happen. So yeah, I do want to talk a

17:13 little bit about Daniel. The going away from in person, moving to digital, was that something that was in the works before COVID or was that like a learning that you took out of the pandemic?

17:26 It was very reactionary for GDS. And I got to give credit to my chairman, Spencer Green I mean, heat pivot while we hide digital leaders. Pivot, but I mean we're 30 years old 25 years. We've won

17:40 these physical events by COVID here And I'm not joking Jeremy. I was like, I'm done Yeah, it's often eight years of my career Physically getting people to shake hands meet have drinks sit down up

17:53 dinner together do one-door meetings. I'm like I'm like it's over I was I was looking at jobs. Why I was panicking. Yeah, I was thinking I got my visa is expiring I figured back the miserable

18:03 England. Yeah, and I was and I was not I wasn't sure how we were going to pivot We highly go called Harlan Davis and bit of a digital girl I guess and he come in and built this digital first studio

18:17 We we actually hired a third party at first and then we built our own and Now are you know all of we still have a I guess a live aspect or our ends fits more the dinner piece but did we're just fully

18:29 digital first now and It's very cool. The studio looks good. It's definitely not a zoom webinar or teams type of platform. But yeah, I mean, at first, we like any business in COVID, we were

18:41 panicking that everyone was running around, walls were shifted and budget cuts and everything like that. And salaries were getting cut. And the first six months of running it was a huge challenge,

18:53 but a year, year and a half, two years, and now we're what three and a half years in, right? And the value is now, the sponsors just get a better return. We never thought, and I knew it sounds

19:08 crazy. I know it sounds crazy, because you think surely it's better to shake hands, share a steak, share a whiskey. But from an attendee standpoint, they just get a better return on their time,

19:18 they're not getting chased out the toilet by a sponsor or someone trying to sell them some in. We can level up in terms of the authority digitally, I felt like, because it's hard to if you got clay,

19:30 gasper, for example, over in Tulsa, I think he's up Now we're running an event in Houston.

19:35 You know, but it's going to get to the airports half day of its time, then another half day back, then three days at the conference with no time for him to do what he needs to do, where digitally

19:43 he can come in and out of some content sessions. But I think the biggest aspect of digital physical thing was because we were big on the one-to-one meetings already. Jeremy, all we had to do was

19:55 take that digitally in whichever one was doing anyway,

19:59 and it improved. And now the products cool and stuff like that But data-wise, sponsors are genuinely getting more return because I just felt like, I hate to say it 'cause I used to be in a physical

20:12 game, but a lot of people will go to the event for the Jolly, right? The Whiskey's to get away from that. Get away from the wife for a couple of days, right? Get away from the boss, go and

20:22 knock down some whiskey, sit by a five-pint and kick it. And there was none of that draw card to a digital event, so people that do actually attend a digital platform There, nine times that, 10

20:33 for the right reasons, right? So yeah, with some transition, it would start extremely fast, but it ended pretty smooth. And now, say we're digital first now, which is crazy. That's cool.

20:46 Yeah. And I should probably check out what some of your upcoming events are, since my clients would be a lot of the logical companies that would gain value from your events. But you touched on

20:58 something that I think is really fascinating, which is you kind of leveled up with the personas who would attend, like one of my friends, I have a number of friends who are executives at oil and

21:10 gas companies. And one of them said, I always feel bad because I'm planning to go to this event. And then it gets to that week and it's like, I have a board presentation to do or I have something

21:19 and I really can't go or if I go, I'm not going to be focused. So I end up delegating if I'm a sea level or VP, I send like a director. And that's like the worst case scenario, right? like,

21:29 you're paying this money, you want to go meet with the VP, I'm wondering. Do you feel like because it's virtual and they don't have to get on a plane and travel somewhere and get out of the office

21:39 and get away, that you're able to get more senior people because they can actually carve out that time? 100. We've started this and

21:48 the feedback and we've done a ton of customer experience calls, feedback calls. It's just a better return on their time.

21:55 Yes, we've got some panels and keynotes and networking sessions in the mornings, but when you're doing one more meetings, they can opt in and opt out for which means they want to take based on

22:02 Jeremy's portfolio of clients that Jeremy represents. I've looked at what Jeremy does, I want to meet Jeremy, they can prioritize that one. Hey, this guy's not really a fit, I don't want to

22:11 reject a meeting. Whereas when you're at a conference, every conference, physically, you can't just walk away from someone, it's just rude. So they can manage their time better, which does

22:22 elevate the level of seniority quite a lot in terms of who we can bring into our events now. So yeah, I think I think direct to VPs was always where we was. I think now we're kind of more VPC-free.

22:32 right? So 100 since going to Joel, we've for sure elevated up in terms of seniority. Um, 100 yeah. Yeah. I mean, which makes total sense, right? Like I have a couple of guys who, who work

22:44 for me as, as sales consultants. And I like to go to conferences if I can, to work with my clients, but I can't go to all of them, right? So I send, I delegate somebody else to go, right? I

22:56 got enough going on where I can't go. It's not a matter of me not wanting to go It's just I can't. I can't physically be everywhere. So that's, that's fascinating. And have you seen this with

23:06 your competitors as well? Have they all been able to transition to digital or have some, some of them literally just folded up shop and said, well, we had a good run as an events company. Now

23:16 it's over. There was a ton of holders to be fair. There was a lot of companies that went under, I think some of the smaller, you know, self-funded companies, right? Then after back in the

23:26 numbers, I guess, yeah, I'm in a lot of them fold, a lot of them are competitive, I won't bring them up, of course, but. Yeah, a lot of people went and a lot of people tried the digital but

23:35 when people think digital event they think Zoom teams or webinars. That's the first thing that comes to their mind. We've got these kind of studios It's very immersive and stuff, but yeah, a lot

23:44 of people folded a lot of people went and a lot of people just They couldn't renew. I mean it affects events companies revenue like if you've got an event in June then that event gets canceled They

23:54 that money stays with the events companies. Oh, we're just delay your sponsorship to next year Following you and obviously it dragged out for so long so that they lost out and then they couldn't we

24:02 up So they couldn't renew their sponsors and double down on the on the sponsorship packages for next time Hey, do you want to get to see at the next event and stuff? So yeah, I mean there was a lot

24:11 of people who went out business But I think that's where we grew like twenty twenty one we grew a hundred fifty percent and then a hundred fifty percent again in twenty twenty two Because I guess we

24:21 adapted first, you know, I think and other people do a good job of it There's a ton of cool digital events out there though still Yeah, I agree with that Um, it's. still doesn't hold the same

24:32 cache for me. But if I were a decision maker at an oil and gas company, in some ways, it would be more appealing so that I don't have to get people waiting for me when I come outside the bathroom

24:43 or dragging me off the stage after I speak or getting just like, you're in those meetings, right? And it's like, it was like table people staring be would I And. style down,

24:52 like, man, the second this one ends. I'm gonna go talk to that guy 'cause we didn't get a one-on-one. Yeah, and I'm just hawking. But yeah, it's fun. It was tiring, for sure, because you're

25:08 giving this pitch over and over and over again. And it sort of tests your mental fortitude, especially in some cases where, I mean, it still sails at the end of the day. So you're getting shot

25:18 down a bunch. You have high expectations, high hopes for some of these meetings, and they don't pan out the way that you think they are. But you only got 10 minutes, you got to bounce back for

25:27 the next one. Right, so it's like, it's almost like speed dating, but the dates are longer than just the speed component. Talk to me a little bit about living in Miami. So are you guys

25:40 headquartered in Miami? No, we're headquartered in the UK in Bristol, where I'm initially from. That's pretty much where like, I guess, four, five hundred staff are not headquarters. And we've

25:52 got an office here in South Beach, Miami, and then we've got another one in New York, and then another one in Eastern Europe, a country called Cospo,

25:59 which next to Serbia. I'm

26:03 based out of Miami. This one of our smaller offices on Miami office, actually in New York office, it's right. And Walter Street went to front end to district, New York, and headed out in Bristol,

26:12 Queens Square. I never forget when they said, OK, we're going to send you to the US. And they'd be like, hey, you want to go to New York, and Miami was like, it is no brainer. I was like,

26:22 New York City, that's no different to London I was like, no, send me to Miami. Oh, you know, wearing shorts to the office all day. I was like, no, you're Miami for me. Yeah. So, so no,

26:33 we're not head caught in Miami. Head caught at the UK, UK based company, two offices in the US. But most of our revenue now comes from the US. People spend more of it. You're a pimp to cheap,

26:44 you know.

26:46 Australians too. That's what I've been talking about. So with with the

26:51 Miami office, like your team that reports to you, do you have? Like, do you train up your staff and kind of teach them how to do this and how to close sponsorships? And is that something that

27:03 happens remotely? Or is that something that happens like in your office? Like, tell me a little bit about the setup of your company. So, yeah, I mean, our office is right here on Lincoln Road.

27:13 What in the heart of South Beach is a beautiful office? Um, we were in office company. There was no aspect of what we do. I know that sounds crazy in this, in this given where we are today, but.

27:25 Yeah, we're physical, we're in the office, got about 50 staff here in Miami now and we're hiring and yet on-boarded training, a quite complex recruitment process first. And then, when you're

27:36 selling events that are not cheap, you've got to be selling to CEOs, Chief Marketing Officers Vice President's Marketing from 50 man companies all the

27:45 way up

27:48 to 20, 000 person organizations. So the training is tough. I mean, I've been here eight years, nine years, and I've run training sessions, I've helped crew, I guess I've helped manage teams

27:58 over the years and things like that. But now we've actually brought on, we have a full-time sales trainer now to come down and I mean, he's here at the office this week actually running over just

28:08 five more people. And yeah, I mean, it's competitive, right? So you've got to have the edge. There's so many event companies out there. You've got to come across different, you've got to

28:17 demonstrate the value of being different. Hey, we're not a traditional trade show. There's a lot of training, it's a lot more boring. over the years, I don't do as much as it now. I guess I

28:27 prefer this. I prefer speaking to clients, speaking of prospects now. I've held different roles. I still have, I guess, a CDO role here, but I'm still very much active, right? I'm still very

28:39 much on the phone. But the trainings, the trainings, good. People who left my company, my company, GDS, and they've left as like, they've been sales executives for us. They've left and got a

28:49 VP of sales role for each company. Like just based off the back of the training that we've developed, like how to sell to a CEO, right? How that a lot of people just can't grasp it. They can't,

28:60 they can't, they can't do it. And they get nervous and they get, they panic a little bit. So yeah, the trainer that GDS is definitely good. The sales training is good. The onboarding and just a

29:08 constant learning, constant training of how to, how to sell to a vice president and how to differentiate yourself to thousands of different events coming out there. What I find funny about what we

29:19 sell, and I've always believed this, I much rather sell an event than a software. I don't know why you guys do it. 'Cause there is so much software that is so similar. I know. And everyone's got

29:30 this, Hey, we're unique because of this. And I think what's exciting about an event, if I sell to you, Jeremy, and you say, Yeah, come to an event. The end goal is, it's an exciting sale to

29:41 sell an event. You can come, you can meet this guy, you can potentially close a seven-figure deal with this guy. There's like, there's already an indirect carrot people to buy into when they're

29:51 buying an event, as opposed to this software will save you 30 of your annual revenue and produce your OPEX cost to X. And then it's like, what do we need to do to implement it? What do we need to

30:01 whip out your legacy system? We need to do this, do that. And it's just like, ah, it's just a hard sell, I feel like, outside of the events. That's why I've been in it so long, I guess. I

30:10 guess I'd be scared to go and sell software. Yeah, that's a really good point. Like, you get to sell excitement, right? You get to sell potential of something great happening. It may not happen

30:23 for everyone, but some of them will have their companies transformed and changed and significant revenue come from your events. Software is just not as exciting. Like it doesn't matter. You can

30:36 make it sound as exciting as you want, but ultimately it's like, yeah, we're really excited to do this. It's like, well, like really how excited are we to do this? Right? This is the great

30:46 checking a box. Maybe this is, is somebody's gonna be disappointed because they wanted to go at the competitor of ours. There's some political posturing internally. It's not always fun for them.

31:01 But it can still be fun. I mean, it's just a different type of challenge, right? You're also going for, if I can get you to this event, you're gonna keep coming to this event. In software a lot

31:13 of times, it's like if I can sell you this piece of tech, right? well then you need to use it for the next four or five years. It's more similar to a consultative sale, where if I can get you

31:26 this one project, if I can sell you this one dashboard, if I can give you this one audit, now you're going to buy more services from me. So you're going to know, if you get somebody to your shows,

31:39 you're going to know if they had enough success relatively quickly after the show to see if they're going to sign up and come again. And for the people that gain success, they'll just keep coming

31:49 forever

31:51 I mean, well, look at OBS and Tim, I think momentum's in that it was, you know, that six to one is the return I think they got, you know, for every dollar they spend with us, they were getting

32:02 six back over a course of multiple events don't get me wrong. That software, the point you mentioned about selling a software to an event I've over my career has like showed, it's someone says,

32:14 hey, who's coming or who come to the last event, right? And then you show a list of people that, hey, these are those at my last oil gas I've had people be like, why I'm coming. just because

32:23 one hit as that. One guide that they just can't get hold of, that kind of one guy in the decision-making process that will pull the trigger on this, all his influences are behind the cell. This

32:34 one guy just needs to sign the technique. He's not bought into it. He's coming to an event. I've had people spend fortunes just to go and have dinner with that guy, right? Oh, definitely. And

32:43 that's how easy it could be sometimes, you know? Whereas other times it's definitely a difficult cell, I think, and again, we're not cheapest event 'cause we host quite senior people. But yeah,

32:55 I mean, again, selling software for me, I don't think I'm gonna take my house off to you guys 'cause I got the last day of the event's cake. I just more fun anyway, I think. And you tend to have

33:06 pretty young resources over there, but I remember being really impressed with the salespeople at GDS, because you do get a lot of rejection too. And sometimes it's rejection where it's like, I

33:19 know this would be perfect for you. That's the hardest rejection to take. And same thing with me in software. It's like, I know you can benefit from this so much. You look exactly like this

33:29 company who got all this benefit. And I know even if you meet with this person and then you still get a no. And eventually you just have to be like, well, I don't know what to say. Like, I know

33:39 this would be perfect for you, but you can't see it, right? Right, yeah. And you try, you know, you pull out all the stops and see if - Storytelling and yeah, case studies, you just say,

33:49 Yeah, yeah, that's tough. That's the, you're right. The worst part of that Excel's process is when in your head, you just know that if they come to the event, they can nail it. And they're

33:57 probably gonna close a ton of business and just a white audience, white contacts. That product matches the projects in it. Indeed, you're like, I couldn't, I could've put it on more of a platter

34:06 for you, right? But they still say, Nah, we're gonna pass this year. You go, a lot of people get burned in the event industry, don't you know? There's a lot of,

34:15 there's a lot of bad, not. And I'm never bring up. names, but there's a lot of overselling, over-promise. These guys are going to come in, I think you mentioned earlier, like that C-suite's

34:26 going to go in any councils, right? And then he ends up sending a management level executive, but the sponsors already speaking to it. They paid us because they want to get in front of the C-suite.

34:36 The guy cancels it as an event company like, Ah, because you belong on people.

34:41 But there's also a lot of companies out there that will promise you that these people are coming, but they're never really coming. Yeah, that's one of the things too, where I would always ask,

34:50 Well, can you give me a list? You know, we really don't like to do that, but here's a list of people that came to a past event. It's like, All right, you just gave me six years worth of names.

34:60 I don't know if any of these people are coming to this one, so now my hopes are here, and the results are actually here. But yeah, it's interesting, and I didn't even know companies like yours

35:09 existed until about 11 years ago when Tim first put it on my radar. We're We're gonna pivot here real quick. I wanna know a little bit more about you, right? outside of work. Like what makes you

35:21 ticked, Daniel? What do you like to do? Oh, God.

35:26 Our big, big, big football player. When I say football, I mean soccer, right? So I played my whole life, played to, I was about six years old. I actually won a Sunday league soccer team here

35:38 in Miami, sponsored by an Irish pub, right? Please share your help, but. That's massive. And Irish guy, I drink at his pub every weekend All the football players go in there drink. We watch

35:49 the football games in there. We watch all the boxing fights in there. And one day I said, Hey, man, I'm putting together an 11-side football team.

35:57 I said, What are your thoughts on? You sponsor in the team. We'll get the shirts for your logos. And then after the game, we'll come back for sausage and chips, fries. And yeah, and it was all

36:08 for it. So now we've got, I run this 11-side soccer team every Sunday, a Sunday league. You should see the state, some of my players turn up 9 o'clock Sunday morning for the outage. in 11

36:19 nightclub on Saturday night or one of the big space nightclubs. Like some of the players that played me like 25 years old, so they're still writing their party season, right? They're coming in,

36:29 throwing up off the side of the field. It's good fun, but yeah, I mean, I'm a big football fan, a big, big football fan, I watch most games. I used to box a lot when I was in Thailand, but

36:39 Muay Thai. I love that stuff. But yeah, I guess I've always been pretty active. I like to go and hit the town too, you know? I like to have fun, I like to work hard, I like to play hard It's a

36:49 type of guy. But I guess what makes me tick is money. I think money's dipped it. I know it sounds so obvious to say, doesn't it? But I grew up quite poor, funnily enough. I grew up, like,

36:59 cancerous day in the projects. You know, like single-power-in-home sort of thing, struggles eating canned food for dinner. Like, it was quite a rough upbringing for me. So when you always used

37:10 to see other friends with nice clothes or Nike stuff and all that brands and stuff, when you go in a school, that always had me ticked and it

37:19 always has. People say your past shapes your future. It really really does. It's definitely motivated me to To get into sales to make money to to buy nice things why it's superstitions that it

37:31 could sound but Yeah, I think money is what made me tick and um, and I like I like making I like spending it Jeremy There's never never there's never limit to it. You

37:44 always spend what you make no matter what I remember my my therapist. Yeah, I grew up like I'd say lower middle class I wasn't poor, but definitely wasn't rich and I remember her saying to me that

37:59 It's never gonna be enough right like I promise you Jeremy no matter how much you make like You're always gonna feel like it's not enough Yeah, and as you buy a house right and then you have kids and

38:12 then you travel more right and there's all these different things Well, now if I want to go to a football game or something. Well, that's five tickets for us, right? And so it's, things are,

38:23 and she's right. You know, it's fascinating. If I were to tell myself at 25,

38:30 the money I was making now, I'd be like, well, I'd just be retired, right? Like I would do that for like two years and I'd be retired. And meanwhile, like we're having budget meetings. My wife

38:39 and I during date night, like how are we gonna do this? Yeah, I know you, yeah. 'Cause it's tight, you know? And of course with inflation and all the craziness And I run my own company. I was

38:49 just talking to somebody about this earlier today that like when I fly places, I still kind of seek out the cheapest flight. And it's just a little bit different than when you're expensing it to

39:02 somebody else, right? Oh, cool. I'm the one picking up by myself first classed. Yeah. In the back. I'll say to the money for someone else, sure, yeah. And you might even argue like, well,

39:12 you know, it's

39:15 a little bit foolish right on your part to do that, right? Maybe you could be more comfortable and do this. It's like, man, I don't know. Like if I can save 400 bucks sitting in Emmittal Seas

39:27 versus sitting in the front. As a hundred percent, especially like a quick flight across the US, right? I think I don't think that's spent. But like you said, the difference between your expense

39:35 and not on a company to an WB itself employed and evidence, it's definitely different. When I fly to England, I'm blessed to not to bother. By the way, my friends are pilot, so I'm on the body

39:44 pass system. Oh, that's nice. Oh, God, I just paid the tax Direct to London for 600 bucks. Business class in the pod, you know. But then the problem is it ruins you, sports you. You never,

39:55 if you ever hate that, you're like, what? Like, yeah. Yeah, 100, right? That's all you chat, fly it.

40:05 I've done a lot of it. What a flying experience. You know, I was supposed to be in Dallas today actually, but I got up yesterday and I'm like, man, I've been too busy. I don't want to go. But

40:16 also I didn't want to cram into an airplane for two hours each way for a flight down yesterday and a flight back today. But like you said, that's a whole different story. Talk to me about American

40:26 football. Do you like like the dolphins? Do you go to any American NFL games? God, I better just figure out. I better just figure out what second down is, my guy. Ah, second down, is that

40:39 what I'm even saying that right? Like, yeah, sounds really arrogant, but I'm so bad with it And I'm like, I've been to Dolphin's games. Yeah, I've been to a fight four or five, but I've been

40:48 here seven years, and I prefer the basketball.

40:53 I've gone to ton of heat games, but I've just started actually getting into it. Like, when they played the sour, 'cause the other day, I was like, it was a neck and neck. Jimmy Butler, and I

41:03 was just like, wow, just getting into it. And I guess I'm, I've got ADHD anyway. So I'm like, I need to keep it moving. I think that the fast pace of basketball, but America football, no.

41:11 But the tail games, good fun, no? and the car boy, yeah.

41:16 down to beers. That's probably the best part of American football, I think. For me, it's just in the car park. It's sunny, hot. There's good people around you smell of like fresh barbecue food.

41:26 You can hear another kind is open in every 32nd.

41:30 Plus you got that, you got that Miami weather. So it's a, it's a natural backdrop. Final question. Um, on the personal stuff. Do you think you're going to be in Miami now for like, for life?

41:42 Is this where you're going to be like, wait, where do you see yourself in five years? I do know what if you'd have asked me that before the increased rent mortgages and the property that the entire

41:51 Miami now I think is would be well up there with the most expensive cities now to live. It's crazy in the whole of the US. I think it's even overtaken New York and Sam Fran. Um, it's nuts. I mean,

42:03 35 increase in rent. If you're renting property prices through the roof, homes that were 500 000, an hour, 12 million, right? It's like becoming a little tough here in Miami. And because of

42:16 that, it's just bringing it in more money. You know, the more expensive it comes, that's when the money comes in and then that's it. What have you been here for seven years? I mean, you can

42:23 live in Miami for sure, but I think, to your point and to answer your question, I think it's gonna be tough to leave. Like, I think it's gonna be tough to leave Miami. It's such a vibrant, cool,

42:34 fun city, the weather helps, right? I mean, I guess when you've grown up in England, it rains 300 days a year, right? So, I'm coming to England I don't think so, I think I'll probably stay in

42:45 Miami for the long haul, I don't think I would ever leave. I was so tempted at one point to go and buy Lake Travis just outside Austin, Texas. Yeah, it's nice out there, man. But even that now,

42:59 all the Silicon Valley money is just coming to drove all that, really state through the roof. So, yes, I mean, it's tough, it's tough out there now, but yeah, I think Miami's for me long-term

43:09 to be fair. I don't think I'll leave.

43:13 When you come in, when you come, Miami, you know, I'm actually do I'm

43:17 due to come down there, man It's been way too long and and I love it like It's hard like it's so dry out here and it's so humid like down there that it's like it just hits me to the core So I don't

43:30 know. Let's talk winter months. I'll see when the Patriots are gonna go play the the dolphins I'll show you around town I love to say come to the office come and sell the gang and uh and then we'll

43:41 go yeah we're going go and seek the couple at the same time yeah yeah man that sounds fantastic uh where can people find you um link in I guess down your left way yeah just add me up say hello always

43:54 happy to chat with anyone business personal wherever it is yeah oh let's let's have a chat but yeah I guess it's the best part what is it unless I'm missing the boat here Jeremy is there another there

44:03 are no fuck no what's what's your company website oh of course got you yes it was gds group dot calm is is our company website Golf Delta Sierra Group dot com is the is the website. You'll see all

44:17 terms of events. God. God damn son Group dot com. There you go. There you go. I just want to say Daniel. I really appreciate you coming on And of course for being available on short notice and

44:31 also just kind of a final thought like You and I have talked business a number of times But it did mean a lot to me when you reached out a couple of times to pass on your condolences about Tim You

44:42 know how great of a guy that he was and and I think that says something about you that this isn't just about sales It isn't just about money even though. That's what drives you ultimately It's about

44:50 human connection and I think I understand that Tim and I had that and I'm glad you have that with him So much appreciated, you know, hopefully that's a lesson you can pass on to some of your younger

44:59 sales guys as well that Connecting authentically as as people will ultimately lead you to more doors opening for business as well So good on you for that brother. No, I appreciate it my mind and you

45:10 certainly can't you can't fake Relationships right they have to be real and they have to stem from something real I'm and I think half of me wanted to get on it was because of because it's him right

45:21 He was telling me a lot of times Danny come on a comfort coming at the podcast Talk about some events staff talk about just kick it right. I think it's just and they I quite enjoyed this My first one

45:31 by the way, I've never done a podcast. Oh, well, you're a natural. You got the gift of God We all knew that though. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on and thanks so much and let's let's get a

45:40 cold one soon My man, let me know when you next to Miami in that the first couple of hours on me I'll see I'll see you in Miami brother. Meet you in Miami. Nice one, brother. Lovely to catch up

45:49 with you. Thanks for having me