From Cigars to Business Deals: Norm & Kevin’s Best Stories | Marketing Misfits #020

From Cigars to Business Deals: Norm & Kevin’s Best Stories | Marketing Misfits #020 Kevin King: We're sitting there talking to a guy and Norm finally looks at me and he's like, so how many cigars do you smoke a day? And you remember his answer? Norm Farrar: I remember his answer. He goes, 17. Oh, no, this is my 18th cigar today. Unknown Speaker: You're watching The Marketing Misfits with Norm Farrar and Kevin King. Kevin King: Hey, Norm. What's up, man? How you doing? Norm Farrar: I have not seen you in a long time. How's it going? Kevin King: I know it's been what was it? Norm Farrar: Yep, the cigar fest. At your house, 11 straight days of two, three cigars a day. Kevin King: That's right. In case you guys haven't noticed, you see in the logo for the podcast there right behind us, this way, this way, and right behind Norm, you see two dudes with their heads. That's me and Norm. The guy with the beard is not me. That would be Norm. Norm Farrar: That's me. Kevin King: Smoking cigars. But I remember when the guys designed the logo, they gave you a freaking pipe. I was like, Norm, I think you were the same way. Like, what the heck is this pipe? Norm Farrar: It was a meth pipe. Kevin King: That's what I kind of figured, you know. I was like, are you going back to your Hawaii days? Norm Farrar: Yeah, yeah, right. Kevin King: Are you going back to the Hawaii days? Norm Farrar: I had no idea. I had no idea why a pipe, but it's a cigar. I'm glad we got that changed. Kevin King: Norm and I got together and I think it was in Hawaii at your event and we smoked a cigar out on the beach. And I think we told that story in the last pod. Since then, every time we get together, it's become a tradition to smoke cigars. So that's the only time I smoke. I don't smoke daily. I only smoke socially and I've done it a few times without Norm with other people, but it's usually with Norm that I'm smoking a cigar. Norm Farrar: But you know what? A cigar is a way that we can sit down, we can relax for an hour, hour and a half, or when Kevin and I get together, three cigars, so three hours later. Kevin King: Sometimes five hours, like four in the morning. Norm Farrar: Yeah, like that's what I was just going to say. We talk not one, not two, but we'll talk the whole night through like the sun's rising and we're finishing up our last cigar. But just being able to do that. I don't drink. I have my Coke Zeros. Kevin wants to have a drink. Go ahead. But it's a brotherhood. You go anywhere. And we did this just recently. We went down to Las Vegas, and this is all leading to something, by the way. But we went to our first Big Smoke. Kevin King: Yeah, that was awesome. That was really cool. Norm tells me, Kevin, we're going to the big smoke. I was like, what's the big smoke? He's like, oh, this is like this big cigar event, like 2000 people smoking cigars. You get all these really cool cigars and I'm like, all right, that sounds cool. I'm in. When is it? He said, oh, it's in early November. I said, oh, that's when my birthday is. He's like, even better. I'm buying the tickets. We're going VIP all the way. Don't worry. This is on me. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So, we went to Vegas for the big smoke and this was, this event was really cool. It was like trick-or-treating for adults. So, you remember that? So, we go into this event, you pay, what do we pay? Yeah, you know, it's like $1,000 or something for this VIP ticket. But what that got us was like early access, got to go to a couple special other little events where they're passing out cigars and stuff. First night, everybody goes, they have a really nice little cigar bar and resorts world in Vegas. So we go in. And I have a meet and greet and they're passing out some really good cigars. And like you said, you're just sitting there having a cigar and people sit around you and you instantly have a camaraderie, instantly like a brotherhood. It doesn't matter what they are, if they're a doctor, if they're a lawyer, if they're a construction worker, whatever. Norm Farrar: And this brotherhood of this camaraderie that you find with these people has led to a lot of things. We started out doing this in Hawaii, like we talked about the last podcast, and there's like 16 people out there. Kevin King: Yeah, on this balcony overlooking the street, yeah. Norm Farrar: We were having a blast and what this allowed us to do, not intentionally, but you start to build up business relationships. And I think this is what I want to talk about a bit today is, you know, finding that niche. One of these ways of not having to go out there that, by the way, this happened. I went to this multi, what is a multi level marketing event about 20 years ago. And I get into the event, and I knew this wasn't for me when the guy at the door came up, shook my hand, says, you know, hi, I'm so and so. And he gave me a piece of paper in his hand. I opened it up, it was folded. And it was like a photocopy of a check. And he goes, Oh, yeah, that's what I made last month. And I like it was like, Big deal. It's not all about the money. And we talk about this a lot. I'd rather break bread, smoke a cigar, get to know a person, and then possibly get into business with the person or be part of my network. Because birds, what is it, birds of a feather flock together. And that's like us. We would never have got to be as close as we are right now and we wouldn't have had, well, I know a lot of my network has come through these cigar meetings. You know, even with my other podcast, what's happened? You've met a lot of the guys that have listened to my podcast. We go out there, I tell people, oh, you know, we're going to be at this event, come and have a cigar with Kevin and I. All of a sudden, you know, all these people show up from listening to, you know, either my podcast or Kevin's podcast. It's really cool. And the other thing, Kevin, have you ever seen, ever seen an argument In any of the circles or tables or clubs that we've ever gone to, have you ever seen one. Kevin King: No, I haven't. Not when we're smoking cigars. No, there's never been. Sometimes someone might get a little political or something, but usually that gets cut in the butt pretty quickly and we change the direction. But no, never anything. And like you said, Norm and I now, you know, we're older guys. We're not in our 20s anymore. Norm Farrar: We're fossils. I hide my own Easter eggs. Kevin King: Did you find them this year? Unknown Speaker: I don't know. Norm Farrar: They keep popping up. Oh, I forgot about that one. Kevin King: There's a quarter inside. Like, oh, this one's got something in it. Norm Farrar: 1975, you know? Kevin King: What year is this one? Norm Farrar: I started losing it a long time ago. Kevin King: Yeah, so we hide our own Easter eggs. Exactly. No pun intended on that. But so, so yeah, we, we, you know, we're not going out to the clubs, you know, sometimes you go to these events that we go, we go to quite a few events, ecommerce events, and some of the younger ones, they want to go out and drink and like, nope, Norm and I like, since Norm doesn't drink, I do drink, but I'm not a big drinker. We're like, nope, we're going to the patio over here, we're going to this cigar lounge, or we're going, whoever wants to join us can join us. And we go out there, sometimes it's very rare, but sometimes it's just the two of us. But usually, remember in Chicago, it ended up being like 15, 20 people coming out there. And you just, you know, you're meeting people, you're having decent conversations, you're not talking over loud music, and you're not in their ear, you know, in their face trying to have a conversation, which I hate that about networking parties. They just suck for the most part. But here you can actually have decent conversations, get to know somebody, have a good time in a chill environment. And we just did it on a cruise. We went on a cruise in January, a seller's cruise, and we did the same thing. Every night after dinner, it's like, all right, me and you had our little cases with cigars. Norm Farrar: Our biometric cases. Kevin King: Yeah, biometric cases look like a gun case. These things, these are badass. They're really badass. And we go down and we have our cigars and and anybody wants, we put the word out, anybody wants to come can come. And we're on this deck where the smoking deck on the ship. And sometimes there's five or six of us. We had a lot of nights, 10, 15, 20 people were having to like grab chairs from other areas and bring them over and then we share cigars. So if we know, if we know you're a real smoker and there's a couple of like real smokers there, all right, you get a good one. But we always have a few cheaper cigars, I guess you could say, or ones that are not quite as high quality because we know there's always going to be somebody that wants to try and it's their first time smoking. Inevitably, it doesn't matter how good the cigar is or how bad the cigar is, they take six or seven puffs and they leave the rest. So I don't want to give somebody a $100 cigar to take six or seven puffs of it and then sit it down. Remember that, what was that place in, where were we, in New Jersey? Where, okay, in New Jersey, me and Norm went to this event, I spoke at it, Norm was there, and then at night, you knew the fellows that owned the cigar stuff, and you called up this guy, that's a, you have to tell this story about him, he just had a baby and he dropped his, left the hospital to come have a cigar with us. Norm Farrar: Left, hit the, this is, that's his, Connie's over there. She would kill me if I ever left when, when any of the kids were born to go and have a cigar with some, with some friends. Unknown Speaker: This guy just had a cigar. Kevin King: This, this guy just had, one of his workers was at this event and he brought a few cigars because he knew Norm and I ran into it. So the event, everybody's leaving. It's 10 o'clock at night. Everybody's like, it's a school night. I got to go home. Norm and I know, with the fellow's worker, we're like, we're going to have a, let's have a cigar. So he calls up his bosses. Hey, I'm here with Kevin and Norm, have a cigar. He's like, I'm on my way. And he comes and literally they had like, they swept up the place. They tore all the tables down. We're like sitting at this one little table in the middle of the room. And like, they shut off all the lights, except us. And then when they left, they're like, make sure you lock the door. I mean, we're in the middle of a freaking warehouse, like a warehouse, like a real warehouse. I just spoke in the cigars and the guy comes and we're talking, everything's good and he's, how are you? He's like, well, my wife just had a baby two hours ago or something like that. I'm like, what? He's like, what are you doing here? He's like, no, you guys are here. I want to have a cigar. This is important. That's my sixth kid. Who cares? Unknown Speaker: Something like that. I'm like, what? Kevin King: Are you crazy? But back on that ship, you know, people would come out at night. Sometimes the talk would be just about life or, you know, cool stories about other business things we did. I remember one night Abe was out there, you remember Abe, and he was just, he was giving us like a lecture, not a lecture, it was a presentation, an oral presentation on how to do something. It was like step by step how to do some sort of thing. I was like, that was really cool. Unknown Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. Kevin King: You get, and some people come in and out of these things, but it's really cool. But Norm, And we did this at the F1 event when we did the Collective Mind Society. We went to the cigar lounge the first night, took everybody to the cigar lounge the first night, and then the last day, some of us still left before flights, we went to another cigar lounge. So you might say, someone's listening is like, damn, you guys, is that all you do is go to cigar lounges? Sometimes, but it's cool. So what is it though that people are listening and they're like, hey, I want to try a cigar. I've never actually smoked a cigar. What would you recommend for a new person actually? Because you're way better at this than me. I mean, how do you get into the cigar? What's the first steps? Norm Farrar: Well, there's some things that I see a lot of people doing that are, especially in a humidor, that you don't want to do. So the first thing that turns me right off is when somebody brings it up to their nose, you know, and that's a no-no. So you'll go into a humidor, a lot of people will be, you know, handling them and that's fine, but don't bring it up to your nose. That's just, you know, and typically I see a lot of newbies, what they'll, somebody wants to smoke a cigar and they'll just pass it to somebody to take a drag on, right? If they don't do that, like typically I won't do that, but I've seen people cut them in half and that's not correct either because tobacco or when you're making a cigar you're not using just the same tobacco all throughout the cigars, you're using, like you'll have a different experience as you smoke the cigar. So if you just cut off the end, That's not what the cigar maker intended. So you can do it if that's your last cigar and you want to share it with somebody, but I would never do that. I always like going with a, when you take a look at cigars, there's all sorts of leaves. I like the lighter or milder cigars to recommend to people. And that's called the Connecticut leaf, but it's the very light brown leaf. If you start smoking some of the darker leaves, like the Macanudo, not the Macanudos, the Maduros, it's a darker leaf and it could be stronger. So you've got mild, medium and like a full body cigar and Cubans are usually full bodied. So I would recommend going for a Connecticut Leaf and usually the company that I would go to, the go-to company for me to recommend is just a Macanudo. They're so mild. There's a variety of different types of cigars that you can have. And depending on the, oh, my go-to would be a Robusto style. So that's, you know, a five, six inch cigar. And it's usually around a 50 gauge, I believe. And that's just the roundness of a cigar. But that's probably what I would suggest people do. And also a couple of other tips. When you're cutting a cigar, you don't take off a quarter inch. The best way to do it is if you have a cutter, if you're brand new to it, you just want to take off the tip. So you've got three layers of tobacco, the binder, the filler and the wrapper. You're just taking off that little piece, like if you take the cutter and put it on the floor or on the desk and cut it, that's all you need. So, inexperienced people will take the whole chunk off, you know, it's half the cigar. But those are a couple of things and then lighting it is very important too. So when you're lighting a cigar, you don't want to just have your cigar buried into a match or the sulfur because that's going to go right through your cigar. You're going to taste the sulfur. You can have a longer wooden match and you bring your cigar just above and you turn it and you want it to have sort of a gray ash. Okay. It's called toasting your cigar. And if you do it the right way, it might take 30 to 60 seconds. And here's some really important points. Just because like a lot of people are trying to get it done like a cigarette and then you start smoking it and then you're only getting a certain edge, you want to make sure that it flows evenly. And the last point I'm going to say is if you're new to cigars, no, there's two points. If you're new to cigars, the average person smokes it way too quick. And you'll notice that it's burning weird. It it'll run too hot. You don't want to smoke, I would say, at least 30 seconds before you bring it up and try it again. And my last point is, if it's the first time smoking, you might not feel that great. And just put the cigar down if you feel lightheaded. One of the things, and this is for experienced cigar smokers, one thing I've learned is some cigars have put me on my butt. And I've taken a package of sugar, And I travel, Kevin knows, I travel with sugar. People go, what the hell are you traveling with sugar for? Well, if I have a bad, or not a bad cigar, too strong, if I haven't eaten and it's just not right, like I start to feel a little dizzy, I'll just take a pack of sugar, put it under my tongue. If I don't have sugar, I'll just have some ginger ale or something with sugar in it. And that usually calms that dizzy feeling, that nauseated feeling down, but it's great. Oh, and by the way, Kev. Kevin King: Well, I'll just say thank God you have those sugar packets because I'm tired of giving you piggyback rides when you feel dizzy. Norm Farrar: I really enjoy those piggyback fights, you know. Kevin King: I'm tired of giving you piggyback rides and like dumping you into the bed and tucking you in. That just is not my jam. So, just to let you know in the future, you better have those sugar packets ready. Norm Farrar: All right. All right. Very good. Very good. Oh, man. Lots of piggyback rides. But you can get a lot of people that you'll bring out more information about that person than you ever would. And if somebody is just coming up and they're sitting there, maybe they're not smoking a cigar because a lot of people don't either. They don't want to partake in it. That's fine. Have a drink, have whatever, sit down. We're open to conversation. But one of the things that I think you'd agree with is that the people that are A lot of people that come and want to sit down, all of a sudden they want to talk business right off the bat. And I don't mind answering a question or two, but just chill. We're here to, you know, enjoy each other's company. I remember in Paris. I think it really came out in Paris with a lot of people when we were at, Kevin and I went to this event, a friend of ours put it on, Howard Tai, and we were in this 9th century castle and every night we'd go out and we'd have this fire and people would just sit there and have a drink or cigar or both and just talk story. Unknown Speaker: It was so cool. Kevin King: No, that was cool. I mean, it was around this like little bonfire and there's a stack of like real wood over in the corner like 30 feet away and every once in a while, someone would get up and go get another log, throw it on and keep the thing going and we're just sitting around there. I think it started, it was after dinner. One of these things after dinner started like around 9 o'clock. And I remember it got to be about midnight or so and we're just some of us business talk, some of us just general. And then I remember Rich was there with us and Rich was like, I got a like a 5 a.m. flight, I got to go get some shut eye. So he starts to walk away and gets about, I don't know, 40, 50 feet away and he hears us laugh or someone says something. And he's like, he turns around and comes back. Because he's afraid he missed something. And so he's standing in his chair, you know, a little chair, a little folding chair. So he's standing behind the chair, like, I'm not gonna sit down, I just want to hear the rest of the story. He's standing in that chair for like an hour. Because the stories keep going, and the stuff keeps going. And he's like, I really got to go to bed, guys. This time, I'm really leaving for For sure, he walks back in, we can see him walk into this little hallway, there's these windows on the glass of the hallway once you get back inside the castle. And we can see him get about halfway up down the hallway and it's one of those, ah, screw it. He turns around and comes back out and sits there until I think it's time to go to the airport almost. So it was, but that's the power of these types of things, whether you smoke a cigar or not, it's the chill. And remember when we were in, In Vegas. We were there for this big smoke and while we're there at night, we're like, let's go try some of the different cigar places around Vegas. We've been to Vegas, you and I, a hundred plus times probably each. We've gone to a few of the places, but there's this new one that people are saying, oh, it just opened up tonight in the Venetian. So you should go, or it opened up last night. It was the first weekend anyway. And then we're like, oh yeah, let's go check it out. So we head over to, truck it over to the Venetian one night. And we're sitting there having a cigar in this nice little lounge. Norm Farrar: This is the Monte Cristo, right? Kevin King: Yeah, the Monte Cristo. Just having a little talk and this guy that's sitting next to us gets up to go leave. Norm was like, oh, that's a better chair. We can have a better conversation. So Norm looks around, looks like the guy had left, takes his chair, moves spots, moves his drink, his Coke Zero and everything over. A few minutes later, the dude comes back. He's like, that's my seat. And Norm's like, oh, I'm so sorry. Let me move back. So Norm moves back. Turns out this guy is like a serious freaking player in the cigar world. Norm Farrar: It was his lounge. Kevin King: It was his lounge and his company's lounge and we're sitting there talking to this guy. I mean, he's telling us stories about the music industry, about cigars and you know, we're marketing guys. That's why this is Marketing Misfits. Of course, we're going to be like, you know, what's the demographics of a cigar smoker? You know, this guy, anybody knows he's, oh, the average, It's like $212,000 a year. They live in this kind of house. They do this and this and this. So we're grilling on some marketing stuff. But then we're telling stories about the music industry, how his son knows all these rappers and has a studio and does all this stuff. He whoops out these cigars like this is like a special edition. Sorry, this is the last one where I'd share it with you. Norm Farrar: Yeah, that was the Monte Cristo one. Kevin King: Yeah, and then he's like, inside the humidor there, you should go try this particular one. So, I go in there and grab a couple for me and Norm. Excellent cigar. We're sitting there talking to the guy. Norm finally looks at me and he's like, so, how many cigars do you smoke a day? And you remember his answer? Norm Farrar: I remember his answer. He goes, 17, oh, no, this is my 18th cigar today. But I forget what he said, how many he smoked on a normal day. Kevin King: It's like nine to 10, I think he said, somewhere around in there. It's a lot. I was like, have you been to the lung doctor lately? What's his cardiologist and his lung doctor say? But the guy looked good. And it turns out there's this other guy that was sitting there. And he joins into the conversation. He knew him somehow or he met him before, maybe met him the night before. Norm Farrar: He was skittish though, you remember? Kevin King: He's a little skittish. Norm Farrar: He didn't want to approach him and he couldn't believe he was talking. And we're sitting there kind of looking. Kevin King: Yeah, this guy was like starstruck. And me and Norm were like, who's this dude that wants Norm's chair? It's like some dude wants his chair back. And we're like, oh, sorry. But other people are like starstruck. Waitresses are coming up to the guy like, yes, sir, what do you need? You know, like treating him like a king. And normally, who's this random dude? But turns out, it was awesome. I mean, he was a cool guy, told some great stories. And this other guy sits there and he starts telling us about Here's just asking about the marketing stuff, because we're misfits, we wanna know about marketing. And so he's like, oh yeah, you gotta check out this chick on, she's the cigar girl on social media. She has an Instagram following of this, she's this hot chick that just smokes cigars and talks about the latest stuff and all the dudes follow her. And then you gotta check out this one and this one. So he's given us all this stuff to check out and to follow. A lot of it we'd never, some magazine we'd never heard of and a whole bunch of other stuff. So it was really cool. And then some fascinating stories about working with one of the big rappers or something. Norm Farrar: Oh, there's tons. Yeah. Kevin King: Tons of them. Working with the Eagles or something like that, you know. Norm Farrar: The Eagles. Kevin King: Yeah. That's not a rap group, but you know, one of them I think was the Eagles as well. Norm Farrar: Yeah. He worked with just so many people, but this is Cigars. It leads you from one person to another person. And by the way, Kevin, I want to say something about politics and religion. I don't believe that in a cigar lounge you should ever bring up politics and religion. Kevin King: I don't either. Norm Farrar: But I have been in cigar lounges, and even at that event, when politics and religion have come up, and it's not, I have to hate you now because you disagree with me. Is that, I'm gonna go back to it, is that you can have an opinion, you can state your opinion, and nobody's going to hate you because you have an opinion. And that is powerful. Kevin King: Yeah, I don't know what it is, it's like an unwritten code, when you're smoking cigars with a group of people that you don't know, it's just like, it's like an instant bond, it's kind of like, I kind of relate it to like, I went to Texas A&M University. So Texas A&M University, everybody has their college, but Texas A&M University in Texas is kind of unique. Just to give you a little backstory, just to illustrate how unique it is, it used to be an all male military school. So until the 1970s, the school was founded in the 1800s. So until the 1970s, it was strictly a military officer training school. Men only. They opened it up to women in the 70s and then now it's probably half women and student population is like 70,000 or so. It's one of the biggest universities in the world. I did not originally go to this school because my dad, when I was growing up, he was in Vietnam. He was anti-military, basically, because of his experiences in Vietnam. So he didn't want me going to this school. Even though it was now co-ed and it was considered a good school, he was like, nope, you're gonna go to University of Texas or Texas Tech. So, I ended up going to Texas Tech for one semester and that one semester, I'm out in the West Texas, it's flat, it's out in Lubbock, Texas, in the panhandle of Texas, there's tumbleweeds blowing everywhere, there's huge cattle. So, one weekend, I took a road trip about eight hours by car from West Texas to College Station because I had a couple buddies that were at Texas A&M University. You know, I'm 18 years old and I went to a football game there and when I went to Texas A&M, it was a totally different experience. All these traditions of don't walk on the grass around the student center. Everybody says howdy to each other. It's not hello or how are you. You're passing someone on the sidewalk, it's a constant howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy. The traditions they did at the football game, everybody stood for the entire game. You never sat down. You never sat down unless you're like, you know, handicapped or have a disability or something. You never sat down because 75 years ago, the team had some injuries and there's nobody left to play the game. So somebody came out of the stands and and help finish the game. So it's this tradition of 12th man, the Seattle Seahawks and a few others in the NFL copied it. You know, we had to sue them, make them stop doing some of that. We came to an agreement. But anyway, they there's always still traditions. And I was like, it's almost like a cult in a way. But it's a university. I was like, this is this is cool. So I called my dad. I'm transferring, said, Oh, no, you're not. And I said, I'm transferring. So he wouldn't talk to me for like a year. And he and so I transfer my mom was supportive. I transferred. But the fact is, I found my tribe, I found my people. And there's an unwritten rule there that now, I can be in Colombia. And this happened literally, I was in a little island, San Andres, off the coast of Colombia is actually off the coast of Nicaragua, but it belongs to Colombia. So it's a couple hours from the Colombian coast. And it's a little tropical island. And I went there with my ex-wife and a friend of hers and I'm sitting in a restaurant in this random place in the middle of nowhere and in comes a guy with a cowboy or the A&M baseball cap says ATM on it. Instantly, we have a bond. Instantly, there's a connection. This is one of my guys. I don't know him from Adam. But instantly, he's one of me. The same thing happens with cigars. When you sit down and you have cigars, it's almost like there's this instant, like you said earlier, brotherhood, instant camaraderie. And then as you get to know people more and find out their business, like you said, there's relationships that come out. Me and your relationship is fundamentally based on that in the beginning. And it grew from there. How many other people have we met doing this that you and I end up doing business with? We have them on one of our podcasts or we see them on another event and we get special privileges. I mean, look at Here's another perfect example. I was at Amazon Accelerate in Seattle last year, a conference that Amazon puts on, 2,500 people there, sellers, and this guy that I don't know at all, really, he was in Chicago when you and I were at this event in Chicago. He came out one night and smoked cigars with us. You know what, I'm really bad with names because I don't always remember everybody. Norm Farrar: Let's play charades. Kevin King: Yeah, he came out and smoked cigars with us that night and we were talking, all of us were talking. Well, we're in Seattle a couple months later and I get this text message to the show one morning and said, hey, what are you doing tomorrow night? I said, I don't know, maybe going to dinner with some people or something. He said, you want to go to Beyonce. Beyonce's in town at the Seattle Seahawks Stadium. My company that I work for has the owner's box or the box, you know, the one of the main VIP suites. I'm like, hell yeah. I say, all right, I'm inviting a handful of people, these other people. So there's like 10 of us. They go into this badass owner suite with full on drinks and food, perfect view of the stage. No crowds, no nothing, like easy access to get in really quick in the stadium and get out. Would that have happened if I had not been smoking cigars? No, I would never met this person, never would have had that experience. So these things lead, just by putting myself in that situation, these things lead to a lot of other things, either business relationships or experiences that you're not going to get sitting around or just going to a club and yelling at somebody over loud music in their ear. It's just not going to happen. Norm Farrar: And those clubs, especially for a guy that doesn't drink when you pay 500 bucks to sit in VIP and have Red Bulls. Economically, but it's still fun. Kevin King: I think you paid more than that. Norm Farrar: I think I did. Kevin King: So in Vegas, our buddy Tim, Tim Jordan, I think it's like 2018, this guy, he's a really good guy, really smart marketing guy, really smart networking guy, but he decided that, this is before he knew a lot of people, he's like, man, I need to actually figure out how can I meet some of the movers and shakers in this. He's like, I gotta look like a baller. So he's like, all right, I'm gonna go to Hakkasan, which is one of the biggest clubs in the Vegas. They have a couple clubs, one in the MGM and one in, Caesars, and he meets the guy that books the clubs. He says, how much to book a table? I want a VIP table for this for this DJ on this night. I don't remember who the DJ was. Decent DJ. Norm Farrar: Zed. Kevin King: Zed, okay, Zed. And he's like, it's whatever the price was, 12 grand, 15 grand for bottle service. He's like, oh, shit. So he scraps up the money, robbing Peter to pay Paul, you know, moving stuff around his credit card. And then he's like, who can I invite now? Now I've just wiped out my savings, who can I invite? And so he invites several people to come. And one of them was Norm, one of them was, wasn't me. It was my buddy Manny and Guillermo, but I got invited by them and we ended up going to this and it was a great time. So the next time and the next year, there's another conference in Vegas and he's like, hey, do you want, I was like, you're doing this again. And he's like, I'm not sure I said, Well, I'll do it. And, but I'm not gonna pay for it. I'm not gonna be I'm not paying 15 grand and let everybody come and just drink free alcohol on me. I'll organize it, but I want everybody to pay their fair share. So it's like, okay, we can have 12, whatever the number was 12 people in the booth. The price, the minimum guarantee is 10 grand or whatever it is. And these are bottles that, you know, a bottle of vodka is $650, you know, it's a $30 bottle in your local liquor store, but $650. And so you have to commit to so many of them, that's basically the $10,000. And it's cool, they bring out, you have a private server, they bring out all the ice and all the accoutrements and the mixers and everything. And the alcohol and then you sit there and you don't have, you're not sweating and grinding with people in a club. You have some space and it's cool and you get good views. But Norm decided, we messaged Norm like, Norm, do you want to come? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I'm there. I said, well, you know, it's, I forget what the price was. I think it was like seven or 800 bucks a person. Norm Farrar: Yeah, something like that. Kevin King: And Norm's like, yeah, it's Omnia nightclub. And Norm was like, That was his cut out because we took the price of the thing and divided it by 12 people so it came out to something like 800 bucks a person. And we told Norm, all right, this is the price. And he's like, yeah, no problem. I'm there. And Norm shows up. Everybody else is drinking like, I'm going to get my damn money's worth out of this thing. Norm was like, another Diet Coke, please. Unknown Speaker: Diet Coke, please. Diet Coke, please. Everybody's getting sloshed and figuring out which strip club they're going to go to when the thing lets out. And Norm is like, one more Diet Coke for the road, please. I hope you got $800 worth of Diet Cokes that night. Kevin King: They weren't even Coke Zero. You had to suffer with Diet Coke. Norm Farrar: They were $150 a can. Slightly overpriced. Kevin King: I hope they weren't expired. Norm Farrar: Yeah, I hope so. I hope not. But you just talked about, Tim, talk about a marketing misfit. What a great way to get exposure into a business. And right after that, that was the talk of the town. And now it's kind of expected when we go out to Vegas, something's going to be happening at one of these clubs. Now. Kevin King: That put him on the map. It put him on the map. Out of that event, you know, there's eight of us at that first one, not the one where he had to pay $800, the very first one. And I remember I showed up there and he's like, who's this guy? Who the hell is this dude? I didn't invite this guy. And now, you know, we do a lot of business and we've done a lot of stuff together, but I got invited by Manny as a tag along or a plus one, but look at what's come out of that and what he's done just by being innovative and thinking differently outside the box. And he took a big risk. You know, his wife wasn't too happy about what he put on those credit cards. And with that 15 grand, because I remember it was 10 or 12 grand and then he ended up doing another round. So I think it actually might have gotten up into the 20 something thousand. Norm Farrar: That's what I heard. Kevin King: Yeah. But look at what's happened as a result of doing that. That's marketing. That's having a good time but it's also marketing and it's paid off immensely for him and that's the kind of stuff that I'm always trying to think of. I call it guerrilla marketing. It's how can you do something differently and how can you set yourself up and that's what you've done your entire life as well and that's most people are like this is how you make relationships. This is how you do this. No, some of the best ways are the non-conventional ways. Norm Farrar: Yeah and he pulled it off like you said. Kevin King: Yeah, he pulled it off really good. So the other cool thing about cigars is we're on this cruise and he'll be on the podcast on one of these episodes, but our buddy Ed, on this cruise, we figured out this guy was a major smoker and he knew his stuff. So once we figure out, okay, this guy's really serious, he gets the good cigars out. We have two cases. We have the good case and then the other case. So you can have a $100 cigar or a $150 cigar We know you're not gonna leave it half smoked on the table. So we're giving these things like no, you don't have to give these to me like no, no, no, just you're one of us. It's just our treat. You know, it's fine. He's like, you really appreciate it. So then he starts talk telling us like, Oh, all right. There's this cool event called smoke week in Atlanta that we got to go to and he's like this club that who was it one of the football players. One of the quarterbacks, I'm drawing a blank right now for the Carolina Panthers, owns it, owns this club and it's like you said, it's like the best cigar bar I've ever been to and he's like been, turns out he's been all over the world to cigar bars, so he's like we got to make a trip there. But then he's like, you know what? You guys took care of me. I've got a connection in Cuba and I can get some really good stuff. Norm Farrar: The real McCoy. Kevin King: The real stuff, not the stuff they send through the secondary market that you can buy in the US or buy in the airport shop in Cancun or whatever. But this is like the primo, primo stuff. I'm going to hook you guys up. Norm's like, no, you don't have to do that. Just bring something next time. He's like, no, no, I'm going to hook you guys up. So I show up, this was in January, I show up in March. You weren't able to make it, but I show up at the Prosper Show in Vegas. And here he comes, he's like, message me, hey, I gotta give you a package. Since Norm's not here, I got Norm's package for you too. I'm like, all right, cool. So last day, he's like, I haven't been able to meet up with him to actually, we've met up on other things, but we didn't have, he didn't have the cigars with him. And so we, I messaged him, I go, and he gives me this huge freaking bag. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. It's like, no, these are like real things. There's like a $300 cigar in there, one for you and one for Norm. And there's this and this and this. So I've got Norm's bag here, because Norm wasn't there. So I got he gave me his bag. And I've been going through it going and normal never know what's in this bag because if I take this one out and swap it with this one. Norm Farrar: That's what I thought. I knew you were going to do that. Kevin King: So I'm like, Norm, these are pretty good. Look, look what we got. Norm Farrar: You know what you're going to do? You're going to go and you're going to buy like a case of White Owls and then you're going to take the label off and put them on the White Owl ones. So I'll get all these $0.50 cigars. Kevin King: You'd be like, this is a $300 cigar? This tastes like a $5 cigar. What the hell? This is no good. Norm Farrar: There is another cigar story that I think we should tell. And this actually led to a lot of business. We became business partners. But I was at a club in Tampa. And a guy over at the bar, just sitting there, and this is a tradition that Kevin and I have adopted, but I went over to the guy, and I was just at the bar, and he was smoking a cigar, and he said, are you a cigar smoker? And I said, oh yeah, I'm a cigar smoker. And then he tested me. He asked me a few questions. He reaches into his, he had a suit jacket on. He reaches into his right pocket and he pulls out this really nice cigar and he gave it to me. I said, Oh, thanks. And then he said, he says, I have a, I have two pockets. The right that has all the good cigars and the left they have all the bands taken off. And these are the so I don't have to, you know, waste good cigars on people who are just going to put them down. And you know, let's let the cat out of the bag. When we go to these events, we've got the labeled and the non-labeled cigars. So some are in one case, some are in the other case. Kevin King: All of CMS cigars are in one case to give out to the people in the other. Unknown Speaker: Don't say that. Those are good cigars. Norm Farrar: Last time I make cigars for us. But this turned out to be Ronald McDonald, the nephew of Dick and Mac McDonald. And he worked at the first McDonald's in San Bernardino. He worked with Dave Thomas. He worked with Colonel Sanders when they started their franchising all up the East Coast. He was the chairman of the, what is it, Young Entrepreneurs. President Bush gave him this title. Just a wild guy. And I met him just at this lounge. And we ended up starting a company called Tenth Power Media. And it was it was cool. I got to work with him for a few years and he's still an awesome guy. We've gone on a few really awesome fishing trips together. Kevin King: It's amazing what it can do. I mean, so even if you're not a cigar smoker and you're like, like you said earlier, like, oh, that's gross. And there's a lot of women that smoke cigars, too. You know, our friend Elena will come and smoke with us. Remember at the Driven Conference in LA, we had quite a few women out there smoking with us as well. But still, if you just come and just sit, drink your water, drink your whiskey or whatever your drink is, and just hang. And what you're going to learn About life, about marketing, about opportunities, some of the relationships you're gonna make can be extremely, extremely powerful. When you have like-minded entrepreneurs put together and you hear stories of some of the stuff that they've gone through, their trials and their tribulations and their wins, it's really, really cool. Norm Farrar: Yeah, so this is, probably a great example and our first example of just kind of going back and forth about a marketing misfit tale. And it's so incredible. A lot of people would never consider cigar smoking any form of marketing whatsoever. But sometimes these types of situations and these types of just events Kill it. And you don't mean to. And it's not about profit. It's not about business. It's just about coming together, sitting down, chilling, and, you know, talking story. Kevin King: I think it's like you just said, the marketing side, it's a branding thing too. I mean, look at yourself. For me, my branding, at least in the ecommerce world, the Amazon world where I'm mostly known, is hacks. It's hacks and now it's becoming cigars. Yours is, you're the beard guy. That was a marketing thing. You've admitted that, that I grew this beard because it's a marketing. How am I going to stand out? Everybody's going to remember the guy with the beard. But look at that logo that's right over your right shoulder there. That logo is you with a beard and a cigar. So those two things, if they don't remember one, they're going to remember the other. But when you put them together, that's a unique USP. And that's something that most other people are never going to be able to compete with. And when it comes to marketing and standing out, whether you're offering services, whether you're selling products, whether you're representing a company or just in sales, these are important things that matter and can help you be different. You're not just another guy in a suit or another woman in a dress. You stand out and you make a mark and that's part of branding. Norm Farrar: So at the end of the day, don't be afraid to be a misfit. That's all I have to say. Kevin King: Well said. Awesome. This has been fun. Norm, we'll have to do this again sometime. Maybe next week, right? Maybe next week we'll have some more cool stories for people or who knows, we might even have a really interesting guest that we'll be chatting with too. Norm Farrar: Absolutely. Well, we can guarantee we'll always have a cool guest and love doing this. This is actually one of the things that I was looking forward to is just kind of going back and forth with you, Kev, because we've got so many stories, so many adventures that we could be talking about. And yeah, that's it. So if you know of any marketing misfits, make sure you let us know and we'll try to reach out to them to get them on the show as well. All right, everybody. I think that's it until next time. Kevin King: Peace out.