Season 3 - Episode 7 - Special Guest Mike August - Part 2
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Cousin Bill 0:01
From the books and podcast one, this is give them the business boot CEO john Tavis news girl Katie Rotolo and me, cousin bill. Welcome back to give them the biz. If you listened last week, you heard part one of our interview with Mike August. Please enjoy Part Two right now. And if you didn't go back and listen and then come back and you're all caught up.
Mike August 0:26
Jimmy was holding down. He was a sports guide, you mean the sports guy, and he cultivated his relation with a guy named Adam Carolla who's literally a carpenter and a boxing coach who came on the show one day to coach Jimmy up and in a stunning boxing match thing that turned into the bleeder and receita. And you know that Jimmy then saw Adams comedic potential, started mining it put him on the air and his character called Mr. Bertram, who was his shop teacher who hated kids but love would just became overnight success right so Adam then became like, locally famous here in LA is this Victor burcham character, he started getting gigs going out and playing Mr. burcham. And then a show called love line, which was already on k rock was changing their their co host. They had Dr. Drew young Dr. Drew just fresh out of USC med school, and they were getting rid of the other guy. So they tested out Adam Carolla and he tested very well. So overnight, that show blew up without him on it went from locally on k rock to being syndicated nationally, and MTV picked it up. So as the funny thing is, here's Jimmy Kimmel has been in radio 15 years finds a carpenter named Adam Carolla puts him on his radio show, right? The show he's just producing, he's barely on. And within three months, Adam is now you know, on a nationally syndicated show, and then gets an MTV show. So when they would travel together, Jimmy was taking the pictures because Adams on MTV, right getting stopped in airports and they'd hand the camera to Kimmel and Jimmy was great about it and then Jimmy you know came up with the idea let's go let's do something together and that became the man show and so we were representing them in the man show got sold as a pilot ABC so
John Tabis 2:05
really quickly though, so you're you have this gig in New York Yeah, you have your you're working with all kinds of amazing talent. Yeah, as this story is brewing, how does your relationship with those two change over that period? Like when do you go from being Mike August who knows these guys and they're just another set of clients right to them becoming really sort of the the ecosystem that tend to sort of be a part of
Mike August 2:30
wealth because we made a huge my myself and another guy to William Morris named James baby doll Dixon is very famous on our show, made what looked like a really smart move, and in the year 2000 that turned out to be just a complete disaster and that's another teachable moment. Because a guy named Mike ovitz remember Michael, its greatest agent, obviously are believed to be in the history of the business created an agency called CIA lethwei Morrison 70s CIA powerhouse agency represented major movie stars and television packaging and all that. He left CIA and became the president of Disney when Michael Eisner had a heart attack and his best friend was my classroom. Mike ovitz was brought in to take over Disney. It lasted 13 months before they exit him out of the building with $140 million. buyout, right. And so Mike ovitz goes, I'm going back in a representation and I'm going to start a management company called artists Management Group. It's going to be talent centered, but we're going to produce and distribute, like Lew Wasserman tried to do in the 60s when those Feds came in and broke him up. And that's what created universal MCA was Lew Wasserman trying to be a he was a great agent, then he became a producer. You got to dig back in the Hollywood lore. So obits knocked on our door because we had had so much success out of New York. You know, we had Raymond on the air and Kevin James on the air and so like, come do for us what you know, you do for William Morris will pay a double. You get to run your own business out of New York
John Tabis 3:57
and sound terrible.
Mike August 3:58
It's not a you know, listen, I it was fantastic to start on paper, it looked great. Everything is you know, just this is going to be the bonnets mic open, most likely, he's never failed. Yeah. How can you fail, right? Well, he failed. And we all failed with it. Because the business just wasn't ready to accept a guy who was wearing so many hats, you know, show business is a very kind of collaborative affair.
John Tabis 4:24
Very, it's very, you know, not traditional in the sense of like, it doesn't ever change. But again, we talked about this apprenticeship piece of it is still today, the way it works like tradition, like heritage in entertainment is, is everything.
Mike August 4:38
Absolutely. And the lines are very defined. I mean, studios, you know, produce networks, distribute, agencies, agent, right and package managers manage everybody has kind of clear lines of what they do. And when you set up a company, like obits did in the middle of show business and said, we're going to do everything. We're going to manage talent, represent talent, produce talent and distribute talent with this new thing. The Internet. Everybody freaked out on these other places that said, we're not gonna support this company because we you know, he hired Robin Williams agent away from CAA. So also now we've got Robin Williams and he hires you know the managers Rick and Julian who bring over Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese and they fire ca as their agents all sudden everybody tells like, hold it. You're not we can't do business with a company that's not being collaborative because man if your management company or its management group, why are these guys firing their agents so ca shut down any relationship with AMG? no more no word conversations no more clients no more nothing. Some of the studio funds dried up so writers check started bouncing on you know, you had sold like 13 network shows. I mean, the company was really happening in its first years done phenomenally well, because ovitz went out wrote big checks to major show producers, you know, and we had budget. So getting back the Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla thing, they had management. We're now at AMG saying, Listen, we are your agents. We don't want to mess with your management. We do want to get you going here. So we offered at the time, we offered him a million dollars as a holding deal to come to AMG and their managers refused to even, you know, discuss the deal. And that's what we knew we were really cooked. Because Jimmy and Adam, could you use a small amount of money? 20 plus years?
John Tabis 6:17
It's not an amount of money today.
Mike August 6:18
Yeah, exactly. It's like that's for one. Yeah, it's just a holding deal. You know, we were literally bribing them, because we needed to get guys on the roster, right. So the whole thing kind of imploded. And, you know, we all just kind of like, just like a big hammer comes down and hits Mercury, we all get scattered, you know, my partner from from William Morris, goes back into the agency business. I go to business school, I literally just took a year off, moved from New York to Denver with the University of Denver and crash to an MBA program in a year. I was representing jon stewart for his personal appearance stuff at the time. So it was great. I would, you know, sell john into Vegas, right? So I just hop a plane, and we do you know, a couple of shows in the Tropicana or something, or colleges, whatever we were getting done. And then after that was done
John Tabis 7:02
really, really quickly, just for the listeners and my own personal sake, like, give us a whatever story you can give. It's John's theoretical list and john Stuart, right. But you've obviously hung out with a lot of very famous people. Like, tell us a good fun story that you can, I can't tell nothing. Right. But like, I think, you know, a lot of us wonder about what's it like to hang with so and so behind the scenes, right? And it could be, you know, recent or old, but just say, a fun anecdote about, you know, maybe it's like a night in Vegas with Jon Stewart where he did this thing. And he did this funny thing, you know, whatever it might write.
Mike August 7:41
I think the greatest story is when we all get around to talk about stories. Everybody who's touched Gilbert godfried has great Gilbert Godfrey stories, right? And I have two of the greatest ever. I mean, just if when the book is written, I have two of the greatest. They're quick. The first one was, I booked Gilbert into the Boston if you're in Boston, at the time, I think it was called. I can't remember the name of the club. I think it's closed down. So he's gonna do four nights Portnoy's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Gilbert Godfrey, right. So the first night they get him in the club. They give him a menu for dinner, right? And they give him a Chinese menu. And he orders literally the entire left side of the menu, right? gigantic amount of food like enough for 10 people. So the food comes and that's all part of this deal. They got to feed them. And as the food comes, they think he's ordered for everybody like for the staff, right? So some of the staffers for the club come over. He's like, Hey, no, no, no, right. Okay, Gilbert, whatever. So, job replaces his week there. And on Sunday, they pack him up and bring him back. You know, the kid who runs him to the airport takes to the airport. And I hear from the guy book it with that when the kid picked up Gilbert's bag, it smelled like Chinese food. Gilbert is the cheapest human on the planet. As everybody knows. He goes in strategically he goes he ordered enough Chinese food because that we just have to go to pocket right. He takes it all back to the hotel room, eats at all weekend and still has enough leftover to take out. Throw that away. We're putting it in the bag, going home back to New York City.
John Tabis 9:11
It's like packing it out.
Mike August 9:13
I would get calls from Gilbert, because he would always try
Katie Rotolo 9:16
to do I can appreciate that so much. I would get
Mike August 9:21
calls from him. You know, because whenever you booked him you had to book him twice because he always wanted two jobs. Right? He wanted if you can't do it tonight show you'd have to get a date right you have to put in the Romanian province are like that, but he wouldn't tell the tonight show he was doing the comedy game he would tell the comedy gives you and tonight show that when he gets to airfares, right and he always wants cash to per diem to hotels everything but everything's got to be cash you don't get he doesn't check your locale
John Tabis 9:45
he has no reimbursing. Yeah, cut me a check.
Mike August 9:48
So then he said he would do the funniest things. He would then book himself but you always do the cheapest economy flights and sometimes he would come up short. Like one time he he was coming back from California and he only got us Philadelphia. He calls me I can't I got no way to get up because he won't buy a plane ticket I need to get from Philly back to New York. What's How? What are we going to do? So I had to go find somebody to literally book him in a place in Jersey then transport him to do a night in rascals in Orange County. But that jersey, they'd have to bust him. He really took a bus. I was just taking the bus to worse he would come to our offices. And this is before cell phones and make long distance calls from our offices. Like he would get fan mail. Get Gilbert, give me a call. I live in New Mexico and there's a foreigner he come to my office and call the girl from my office. So I
Katie Rotolo 10:43
wouldn't call people from his fan mail. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, I know, people send letters, but I've never heard of call. Oh, yeah,
Mike August 10:49
he would communicate he. He come in our offices. And there would be a document that comes out every day. I forgot what it was called. But to tell you everything was going on in town like in New York, every red carpet every opening every premiere and get over Look at all this stuff and go, Hey, tell this premiere, I'll come by tonight. So you call them up and put him on the list. And then he come on the red carpet, take pictures. He was only there for the food. He would go and hit the buffet, whatever it was. And then right out the door, go down the red carpet, right to the food. Get some of the movie right out the back door.
Katie Rotolo 11:22
I mean, he was there.
John Tabis 11:24
He was he he paid his way. Gilbert would show up for the opening of an
Mike August 11:29
envelope. It does not matter. He will be there. His entire apartment was lawn furniture. And whatever swag he got. He got an arsenio robe. He will have no crates. I mean, this is a guy. And the best part of Gilbert was he made so much money never spent it now he never asked you where the money is because a lot of times you know guys go to gigs I go down we get paid Let's pay what do we make whatever never. He would beat you up for the money where you book The overdoes. If he you know got an offer for say 10 grand for four nights. You would say Gilbert, I got to Sunday 500 for four nights I got act we get some more money. Your wait a day you come and go. You already got your 10 grand, great. Every time worked every time. I remember when you were We got a call
Katie Rotolo 12:17
no that no. Now he does.
Mike August 12:20
He doesn't listen, he podcasts He doesn't listen to podcasts but because he was gonna call one time Yeah, we're sitting here with Mr. godfried we're trying to do his taxes and you know he's telling us he made like $3 million last year. This is an h&r block. Down in the village. We never had a client with this complicated he's a multi millionaire he is going to h&r block for $140.
John Tabis 12:47
a day and radio commercials like 40% off
Katie Rotolo 12:49
how do you even write off his stuff? Because he didn't really pay for it?
Unknown Speaker 12:52
Well, exactly. There's
Mike August 12:55
money there is no expense. And it's all cash. So I mean, you can go on Gilbert. God,
Cousin Bill 13:02
I love it.
John Tabis 13:03
I love it. So you're in Denver. Yeah. One year MBA your MBA repping. JOHN. Yeah, Thunder Vegas. Yeah.
Mike August 13:08
Once once Well, yeah. Working with john, just, you know, it was fun because I made I would like do I was in one class where I made the other guys in the class create a website book, Jon Stewart calm. I had them. And I was getting, you know, offers. I'm literally making money off the back of my other.
John Tabis 13:28
You have to be the coolest guy in school. Like we had a guy who was like, just came out of the NBA. He was in the NBA for like six seasons whenever the n n Yes. Like the national talking about MBA national. And but like, so that guy was cool. Sure. Wow. Sure. You're a professional basketball player. But you were you're a guy who's actually wrapped all these famous folks packaged all these deals. I got nothing.
Mike August 13:53
Zero. I remember because these guys are younger than I was. I was at that point, probably in my late 30s. And all these other kids, they're like 2425 years old. I had to tell them, they're also super high. They're really conservative. I was nothing I do.
Unknown Speaker 14:07
The MBA program.
Mike August 14:09
The funny thing was, I had to tell them who Jon Stewart was because he was he was the host of The Daily Show. This is 2003 it's before he started winning a lot of Emmys. He wasn't a household name. But I'd make them watch the show. And they got very turned off because he's he's very liberal. They're very conservative. They're a Jesuit school. Right. And they are, you know, Denver is is a little bit more conservative. I'm used to Boulder Boulder, a liberal University. Denver's a very conservative place. I got no credit for repping. JOHN stone.
John Tabis 14:40
So then, so then you finished up the program? Yep. And then what happens next?
Mike August 14:44
So at that time, Jimmy had just started the Jimmy Kimmel show. So I came out to LA and Jimmy so we'll just come on. And you know, just let's do talent, right? Just start bringing me comics because, you know, I know everybody in the comedy world. So I spent I was on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show for 12 years. And for the first time we just did talent. What years was that? 2003 to 2015.
John Tabis 15:06
So when I was dizzy, just really quick side. When I was at Disney, I probably went to the Kimmel show 15 we had a cross. So we probably were like,
Cousin Bill 15:16
yeah, feet from each other. And I did. I did background on it during that time,
Mike August 15:20
did you? Oh, nice. There you go. No, it's a great environment you've been on? Yeah,
John Tabis 15:23
it was so let me kill like, familial
Mike August 15:28
in New York tight as a drum. Everybody's terrified because he's just Dave so quirky. But Jimmy, half his family's working on the show. You know, he keeps it very, very light and fun. You know, he didn't want to succumb to the ratings pressure because your ratings challenged early, you know, for a while, obviously a fixture now but it wasn't always that way. It was. It was tough. Couldn't get guests you know, because Jimmy didn't have he's a radio guy turned it on man show guy figure. Oh, you got a late night show guest has been a path to your door. No, they don't
John Tabis 15:59
know his brand was definitely man show dude trying to do late night at that time.
Mike August 16:03
So they asked him to do by the way, you know, they said we want to do counterprogramming. We got Leno and Letterman, they're holding down kind of the conservative or the what we know is the regular way to produce a talk show, late night variety show. You can do the man show approach, you know, so Jimmy didn't do a monologue. He didn't wear a tie. You know, he was very kind of, you know, man showy. And all that really didn't work. It didn't work at all. It worked horribly. But they loved who he was as a guy. They loved his work ethic and your ABCs primetime lineup. Back then, and still now is very female oriented. So you really had to pivot the show. So say you see the demo the the Kimmel viewers a 53 year old black woman. Seriously? That's that's a large constituencies. So you really I mean, what happened was Kimmel shows
John Tabis 16:53
shows right there that were popular, at least, you know, Grey's Anatomy is like the quintessential ABC
Mike August 16:59
stars, the bachelor Grey's Anatomy scandal. I mean, they don't even have sitcoms, I mean, literally, they got out of the comedy business. There was
John Tabis 17:07
during the day it was soap opera.
Mike August 17:09
Yeah, there's no men watching, you know, Primetime hardly at all, and certainly not ABC. Yep. So that flow through is very difficult to corral into a late night show. But, you know, Jimmy pivoted and you know, change the complexion of the shows on a man show writers kind of, you know, drifted in and out. And what happened is, you know, he started bringing in women, you know, his, his co head writer, who's now his wife, Molly, you know, rose to the ranks very quickly as a writer, and she's got great comedic sensibilities, and really,
Unknown Speaker 17:38
that's how they met. That's,
Mike August 17:40
Oh, that's so she was an intern on the show. She was the intern to the executive producer. And then she got on the writing staff as an assistant writer and just always had great ideas. And she Molly is very talented. She could have been an SNL cast member. She does voices and does you know, characters and has really great ideas. I mean, she was doing kind of sketch around town. She was part of improv west on the side while she was working at Kimmel Kimmel was her job at a college. I mean, all she's ever worked on is Jimmy Kimmel on. It's been like her graduate program. You know, now her full time, occupation full
Katie Rotolo 18:13
time, full time, full time.
John Tabis 18:16
Outside of the Jimmy Kimmel Live show exactly why.
Mike August 18:19
It's going very well. So yeah, I was there till while while I was there, then you know, Adam Carolla got the shot to be the replacement for Howard Stern, Howard Stern in 2005. Went to satellite radio. And so basically Adam Crowell was offered the opportunity to take the 13 Western markets 13 markets west of Mississippi, by CBS radio that syndicated stir nationally, were given Adam Carolla and so we started a morning show here in Los Angeles, with Adam and Jimmy, you know, put me into that show is the talent executive. And we still doing
John Tabis 18:53
Yeah, Kimmel at the same time, yeah, it's your sort of double dip and I was just double dipping. You know, I
Mike August 18:59
do radio in the morning and television the afternoon because on Kimmel, you know, we kind of got budget challenged, and we had to start getting corporate sponsorship dollars in so I became like the corporate sponsorship guy, I just went out into the marketplace, and just started cutting deals every night. It'd be Hey, I'm Jimmy Kimmel here for Samsung phones, the greatest funnel Well, if you don't believe me, ask my friend Guillermo. And there'll be gamma. We don't get me to attack. Whatever it was, yeah, we were I was literally every night doing that. And it was just exhausting for Jimmy because we'd have to write that it would come out of the nightline nightline with sign off at 11 1359. And then we come to a hard cold open with Jimmy Hocking a product that we get out of that and do the cold open for the show. Right. And it was, you know, a way of not having to, you know, essentially cut budget we didn't have to lose writers wanted more editors because Jimmy is on a stand up. Jimmy doesn't come out and tell jokes like Letterman or Leno or even Conan does. He comes out in presents. I mean, we go out every day and shoot on Luke And video bits, audience stuff, what have you and it's compiled into a 17 minute presentation that he, you know, writes the context to with jokes, and presents every night. It's like doing a sitcom every night. It's credibly writer intensive. It's not like the gold days, Johnny Carson would roll up at 230, from Malibu riders would hand him 10 jokes, you know, at 530 he's on stage just come out of makeup and tells 10 jokes off a prompter. This is Jimmy's in the building at 10 in the morning, and the the editors are coming in and showing them rough cuts of stuff and then re cutting it and the writers are coming in. I mean, it's a process that goes on, right, it'll take time at 530. And he does that every day. He's got tremendous energy, but that's why he's been able to innovate and I think, really, you know, survive and thrive. Because he's brought a new new face to it, you know, then you add on all the all the great work he's done with the celebrities and the YouTube stuff. You know,
John Tabis 20:57
I was gonna say that I think that's the place where it really started to feel like it started. Yeah, flick was when he started to really embrace the short form internet distribution celebrity.
Mike August 21:06
Yeah, cuz I started running around the studios and getting money like we want to Clio award, I actually have a Clio award, and a Clio award winner. For we did a campaign for Warner Brothers and Matt Damon on the informant. And it was Matt Damon, Joel McHale and Guillermo getting into a fistfight in a hotel room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Yeah, I was just hilarious. You know, it was a send up of a sting gone wrong. But you know, that's what we were we we get paid for that. Right. So we made a whole cottage industry out of brands paying us to make those pieces whether it was we do the Bourne thing with you know, we did a lot with Damon. But we did stuff with everybody over time.
John Tabis 21:46
So So Adam gets this morning show, right? I from what I remember, it doesn't last three and a half years. All that long. Yes. About three years. Yeah. And then he's looking for sort of the next. The next thing Oh, yeah.
Mike August 22:01
Because it's, you know, he ran his course, radio was this was 2009 by now are coming out of the financial crisis. advertising revenues have, you know, fallen to the floor. There is no next gig. He comes out of that gig. Literally, there's nothing there. Right. So his buddy at the time said hey, you know, there's this thing called podcasting, which nobody had heard of podcasting? What's a pot First of all, was cat I mean, literally, it sounded ridiculous. But the more we thought about, hey, we were on this station here in Los Angeles, Kayla sex. And what we what we found out just by sheer happenstance was the Adam Carolla show was served up digitally off that website, right on the Cal sex website. And the cable sex website was in the top 100,000 of all websites on the internet for traffic. We were getting literally 2000 or 2 million streaming minutes a month of listenership to the enclosure. They weren't monetizing it because those even a decade ago, who would monetize digital space, it was always a value add. Yeah, in those days, they had websites where they'd say, by the broadcast, and we'll throw you on with a banner ad and some type of click through or something but it costs it costs you nothing but it makes you feel good as the sales guys were plussing it up right? Yep. And so now it's like, well, we're gonna go after that listenership. There's no money there. No money, right? But, you know, what are we going to do? Let's take a stab at it. Adam still had, you know, he got canned in March of 2009. And they started paying for the end of the year, so at least he had some incomes to fund it. Because we did it. He went down on a Friday, I think at the end, the middle of March and on Sunday, Jimmy came over. And then on Monday, Joel McHale came over on Tuesday, we got Seth MacFarlane so we started just making podcast conversations, just those two. You know, whenever guests coming in. We did that for like three or four months showing our show every day. Getting good numbers. I mean, we started out at first show Jim has 100,000 downloads we never saw less than 100,000 after that, but that's
John Tabis 23:55
kind of the same thing that we've had. At least that's about the sack Great.
Unknown Speaker 23:59
Great. Congratulations. Oh, you said you said 100,000
John Tabis 24:03
I thought you said 100 oh okay
Mike August 24:05
100 times 1000 a few
Katie Rotolo 24:07
1000
John Tabis 24:09
was pretty fun before we got access to the the analytics right? We were thinking the 10s of people listening are like all 10 of you Thanks so much. And then we saw we actually have you know 1000s of years ago
Mike August 24:19
that's a good Nicholas because those 1000s are listening you tell your network brings in 10,000 right cuz everybody's got a network Yeah, share the show people with your friends give it like a gift that's how we grow like an average pyramid Rola success
Katie Rotolo 24:33
give us like a gift guys yeah
John Tabis 24:35
giving season. Give us you love as a gift some love. Exactly. So so you start off with with decent numbers because it's very good. got amazing. Yes. Like, yeah,
Mike August 24:46
we're getting a yes. There's nothing like it right. But the bandwidth charges are crushing us because at this point, ballad, very expensive.
Unknown Speaker 24:53
Yeah. Much more
Mike August 24:53
expensive than it is now. like crazy. We started getting bills for 810 $12,000 a month. Right? And with no money coming in. And so Adams like we this is just a really expensive hobby. This is a, you know, ridiculous expensive hobby. How am I going to maintain this? Well, so CBS who we were in business with the radio side said, Hey, you know what? We want to help you grow this business. So we'll take on some ad sales, and we'll pick up your bandwidth costs. And we'll give you, you know, a little budget for the staff because we're all doing this free. I came in day one, and just booked a show and kind of produced the show for nothing. We had a couple other people working, nobody's making any money. So they came on. And you know, they didn't sell anything for six months. So we don't have anything coming in the door. But with everything going out the door, but and the numbers are growing, but there's no revenue. And then finally, I remember the turn of the year we got the big call, we've got our first advertiser. Fantastic. Is it Chevy is it for this is CBS Radio, right? We've done all that stuff. We were in radio business, then they go. No, it's Adam and Eve, dildos. Add, you know what, glad to have them. very steady customer. For a year, they bought a ton of inventory at very low prices. We took no trade was all ad sales. You know, then finally, as we got stronger and stronger, they eventually became too expensive for Adam and Eve dildos. But they were very first advertised.
John Tabis 26:16
Oh, man, that's classic. I was trying to think of like, what's the smallest business I could imagine? I don't actually probably not a very small business. Oh,
Mike August 26:25
it's a bit what happens. Nobody takes her ads. like nobody wants to be in the Adam and Eve build a business. But if you have no advertisers, and they're really to write a check, right,
Unknown Speaker 26:33
what are you going to do? Yeah, that's right.
Mike August 26:35
So that was our first immerse campaign.
John Tabis 26:37
So So talk a little bit about how, how you all made it go from that? Sure. Just like hacking it together to to now podcast, one in the Corolla network, you know, what was? What were the big milestones along the way? And how did that, you know, change for you over time? Or, you know, you, you, you were on the you were helping out? Right, you've always had these relationships. But how did it become sort of what you're doing?
Mike August 27:02
Well, what happened was, there wasn't enough revenue coming in, and Adam had gotten the next gig. So we had to start figuring other ways to create revenue. And so we started putting him he's not a comedian, Adams Adams, a boxer and a carpenter. You know, who's a funny personality, but he's a joke teller, but people think he's a comic. So let's put him on stage. With material stories, things he can do. And let's let him present himself as a cop, right. So we would take great stories of his get pics of those, put them up behind walls like an adult, see and say, and I kind of turned him into a headliner. And I booked them all over the country. We went around this country in from year two of the podcast a year six, we hit every major mark in this country three times, just evangelizing the podcast through his ability to get on stage. And you know, be funny, right? Where you actually recording the podcast, we started, we started doing live podcast, but when you do a daily show, doing another Live podcast is kind of a waste. Because we don't need you know, we never show like a hole in the head. What we need is revenue. What we need is to is to find ways to get him into local markets, get him on the radio, get him on the television, talk up the podcast that are there, but do something else that doesn't trample the podcast that he can get paid for.
John Tabis 28:19
I don't remember what year it was. If I'm going to guess I'm going to go with like 13 years ago, so 2005 Yeah, there's not hadn't been after that maybe started 2009
Mike August 28:30
with the podcast. Oh, radio for 2005 to 2000 2006 2009.
John Tabis 28:36
So then I'm going too far back. So we must have been married. I was thinking it was before I got married, but we must have been married. So must have been 10 maybe it was like early days the podcast. I bought my buddy from lives and lived in Chicago at the time. Huge fan as well. Right. We bought the VIP tickets to a show in LA okay. And it was like we were gonna meet and like, he paid an extra 50 bucks or whatever. This is probably during that time, right? So we're gonna go do it. Man shake his hands. We're super excited about it. And and this was like one of those weekends was this epic weekend like there was I think I was going to a football game as long as Corolla thing and it was my buddy's wedding. And it was gonna be an amazing wedding because they were like, a lot of cash. And it was gonna be like this crazy fancy wedding. And I got the frickin flock swine flu. Two days before this weekend started. I had the real swine flu like they shoved a swab up into my eyeball. It goes through the nose, your eyeball, and they confirmed it was the actual swine flu. And I I remember walking around I was so drugged up and so feverish. At one point touched the wall was like, Wow, it's real.
Unknown Speaker 29:49
I was so gone.
John Tabis 29:51
And and I so I missed my chance to probably meet you again. So yeah, so I think I miss my wedding. I miss the Pope. ballgame. I missed the gorilla show now
Mike August 30:01
here we are podcasting. Yep,
John Tabis 30:03
that swine swine flu HDMI out. Yeah.
Mike August 30:05
Well, so you were that was that was the next transition because that what that did was that really solidified the show as as the next radio thing because that's really what I think the Adam Carolla show is done is because we do a radio format, we're doing the same show that we produced, you know, in terrestrial radio, we put the whole we have the same engineer, we have the same writers, we have the same of different co hosts now.
John Tabis 30:27
Why is it not also a terrestrial radio show? Like why is there not a deal to do terrestrial radio sucks? Well, I
Mike August 30:34
understand that cpms are in we've had offers literally, we've had many offers all the markets that we were in when Adam was doing terrestrial radio, once we started podcasting, every single market club said, why don't we just license the podcast from you run that that was my
Unknown Speaker 30:47
thought. So I said, Hey, for you guys, right.
Mike August 30:49
So I'd said to them, okay, so like Seattle? what do you get for a 62nd ad? You know, morning drive in Seattle? 60 bucks. 60, not 600 or 6000 like the LA gets like six Grand 60 bucks. So 60 bucks, gross. I gotta get a sales guy to sell that he takes a commission. Right? But I tell you hack it all up. We're making no money and we're cannibalizing our distribution of our ads because you're taking you're you're literally
Katie Rotolo 31:18
right, you're shifting Exactly. A free platform versus
Mike August 31:22
terrestrial radio, less so in the toilet. It can. The CPS, we get, you know, between 15 and 25 and even 45 for the Adam Carolla show daily art cannot even be touched in terrestrial radio, even in large markets now, I mean, you seen Radio cpms just plummet in the business clear channels out of it. You know, cumulus is
John Tabis 31:43
essentially because you're you're the network yourself. We are the network. So everything goes straight through we do handle all your star the production.
Mike August 31:50
We are the syndication We are your AMG. We are by Daisy. Exactly. So you're Mike ovitz that's what happened I in the Miko, it's a podcast.
Unknown Speaker 32:01
Full Circle. Yeah,
Mike August 32:02
it's really it's like having your own station. It's like having your own network.
John Tabis 32:06
It's amazing, man. Congratulations, super excited.
Mike August 32:09
And the beauty part is we haven't scratched the surface of what this I always say to everybody, you know, the water is still fine. Jump on, if you think, you know, there's 5000 podcasts on iTunes, you know, oh my god. But next six months, or now there'll be 600,000 podcasts on iTunes. And of that 500,000 there Now 350,000 will be gone because they're churning when the
John Tabis 32:29
quality of the content just gets better and better. You have like cereal? And so yes, yes, the quality of it is so great. Yeah. And what's awesome about it, too, is my thesis on business in general, I've talked about this a little bit is that as the world gets more and more capable through digital distribution of really fine tuning content for more and more niche audiences, having one massive hit is harder and harder and harder. Yes. So you have to do is super serve a bunch of audiences on a given network. longtail is literally the definition. But that longtail can be mass.
Mike August 33:02
And I would say you can do more with less. When we were in the trustor radio business. We did a million people a day right? In in those 13 markets. Now we do a million people nationally. Right. But you're a micro basis, you know, it's as much smaller footprint than what a broadcast show would have who was nationally syndicated right. But through them through basically being with so ask them to drive revenue from merchandise and live events, and the mangria which is our wine brand and our beer brand. You know what you can buy digitally online and get shipped to you across the country and through our Amazon affiliate sales program, which is the greatest gift ever to anybody in podcasting. You know, if you're out there hitting that Amazon button for your show every day, you need to do that. Yeah,
John Tabis 33:43
I've thought about that. I actually thought about that because do it do it do it. So we can get an affiliate link and just say like, hey, look, if you're gonna shop Amazon anyway, three of us could do it.
Mike August 33:52
You would actually get revenue for the operating budget is covered annually by Amazon salaries. And I felt
John Tabis 33:59
like that went away at some point. But that's still that powerful.
Mike August 34:02
For us. It is I mean, we have tremendous conversion. I mean, that's Amazon loves us we do about 75,000 shipped items a month for them. We do about 33% conversion so they're seeing millions
John Tabis 34:12
so hey everybody our sponsors books.com amazon.com program
Katie Rotolo 34:19
by charity.
John Tabis 34:23
We're gonna start stealing it for the show. Sorry people that love dogs. Food. You have time for a quick game. Sure. Bill aiming love it.
Cousin Bill 34:33
Yeah, this is gonna do the lightning round. Are we doing the
John Tabis 34:38
rounds real quick, real quick wrap up here and then we'll do a quick game and call it the game.
Cousin Bill 34:43
Alright, so lightning round. I'm just gonna name two things and you tell me right away. Which one you prefer? A B iPhone or droid?
Unknown Speaker 34:51
Oh droid.
Cousin Bill 34:53
Coke or Pepsi, coke. Ford or Chevy, Ford, Playstation or Xbox. Xbox, Netflix or Amazon Prime,
Mike August 35:03
Netflix, Amazon Prime
Katie Rotolo 35:08
final answer
Cousin Bill 35:11
Marvel or DC
Unknown Speaker 35:13
Marvel
Cousin Bill 35:15
sec or big 10?
Unknown Speaker 35:16
sec kidding me? You
Cousin Bill 35:21
Facebook or Twitter?
Unknown Speaker 35:23
Neither
Katie Rotolo 35:26
John's really rallied no Twitter was
Mike August 35:28
literally put out I mean, the guy was named Dorsey Yep. He wanted to be he wanted to create podcast calm his vision was I'm going to create the site that hosts the podcast, sell the ads, I'm gonna own podcasting, Steve Jobs gets wind of it right and literally puts podcasts on iTunes for free thereby killing his business. He pivots then to 144 characters that's how Twitter was created. Shut down by jobs that's why iTunes is the biggest player in podcasts saw I'm going to take that traffic and turn it into music biz.
John Tabis 36:01
Yep. Hi. lightning round become really and drop
Mike August 36:08
my Twitter because it's the most ubiquitous well known name that makes no money Yeah, everybody tweets the president lives off of it. It's the most biggest media platform time How does this happen? It's becoming a public service jobs did these guys in and they just you know
John Tabis 36:23
Wow, crazy. No, good bill.
Cousin Bill 36:25
All right. To left NFL or NBA
Unknown Speaker 36:28
NFL, football football. Football Coach is coaching.
Cousin Bill 36:34
Last one Reno 911 or Upright Citizens Brigade
Mike August 36:36
oh I Jesus I've worked with the state and I put Upright Citizens Brigade on Comedy Central State
Cousin Bill 36:43
the state was my as my all time favorite
Mike August 36:46
kids as a greatest kids we just said Tom Lennon on the show the other day I got to go UCB because those are my guys
Cousin Bill 36:53
awesome awesome nice.
John Tabis 36:56
So we we've we've sort of CO opted from the the Carolla show this idea of games but yeah, he's around the world so smart. Bill tell us what we're playing.
Cousin Bill 37:08
This week's game is called up in your bidness b ID and E SS okay good name all up in that bail net I've been asked so this is you know prices right rules I'm going to name a product or service and you are going to guess what how much you think it costs without trend without going over?
John Tabis 37:29
Is it prices right rules closest without going over wins? Correct. Alright, so we offer all three of
Katie Rotolo 37:35
us all playing or is it just Mike playing
Cousin Bill 37:39
we should all play all everybody
Katie Rotolo 37:41
else should we all guess oh well you sent me your notes bill so I can't wait.
John Tabis 37:45
But but so we're just gonna we're just gonna think our number in our head and we're on the honor system that okay, changing and after sure after the ACE I won't turning it in Yeah, yeah, exactly. Guy we're not gonna make everybody write it down. Okay, scouts on it. All right.
Cousin Bill 37:58
product number one is a Han Solo Carbonite refrigerator so it's on solo trapped and steel on the front of an actual refrigerator.
John Tabis 38:07
Oh, I want one
Katie Rotolo 38:08
this is what I wish we had video
Mike August 38:12
that's priceless. Yes the price I never saw Star Wars never went not one time
Unknown Speaker 38:16
not any.
Mike August 38:18
But because all the marketing I can actually probably take and pass now your dad's a football coach you don't go see Star Wars
John Tabis 38:26
so here's my my main question bill is it before I guess the price is it actually made out of Carbonite?
Cousin Bill 38:33
It is not it's made out of I'm not sure what it's made out of but
John Tabis 38:35
no it is not made out of those is Carbonite actually a thing. All right. All right. So okay, um, so
Mike August 38:45
this is an eBay bid basically. This is a custom item This is an A production I
John Tabis 38:50
have just did this have to imagine there's 10 of them in the wall or something? Alright, I
Katie Rotolo 38:55
guess first go ahead, john.
John Tabis 38:58
I want to go with 4800 bucks. Wow, really?
Katie Rotolo 39:02
Not much.
Unknown Speaker 39:03
I was thinking 500 like,
Katie Rotolo 39:07
I guess five 500 is 500
John Tabis 39:11
I'm thinking I mean I'm picturing This is like a full size fridge No way. Like a mini fridge I'm thinking like like Harrison Ford full height for leaving Carbonite Okay,
Katie Rotolo 39:22
it's that's why I'm I'm gonna go like 600 bucks.
John Tabis 39:27
I guess you're supposed to have decided before I say my number.
Cousin Bill 39:30
I like my close so close. 599 99
Unknown Speaker 39:35
when i when i when
Unknown Speaker 39:39
you're $1 off.
John Tabis 39:41
Over I was picturing this as like a collector's item. It was like big and like what what
Unknown Speaker 39:47
is
John Tabis 39:48
but also it's really silly, but a regular refrigerator like a good one is like 1800 bucks.
Katie Rotolo 39:54
I'm with Mike I don't think this is like a full size good refrigerator.
John Tabis 40:00
I didn't know we were selling.
Mike August 40:02
Which $500 dorm room fridge so
John Tabis 40:04
Mike won that. Nice work look and I was only over by 4300. So clearly skilled at this business. I was told there'd be no math.
Katie Rotolo 40:17
That's right. We've had that.
Unknown Speaker 40:19
All right, well,
Cousin Bill 40:20
this next one is a little bit smaller. It's a Elan musk air freshener. So it's Ilan Musk's face. hanging from your rearview mirror
Mike August 40:30
this bat Ilan musk face or thin Elan mother's to guide a yo yo.
Unknown Speaker 40:36
What does it smell like? Money? It smells like musk smells like money burning.
John Tabis 40:42
The cash burning electric. Okay, what's it retail for? I think Yeah, I got mark, you're guessing first? versus 1010
Katie Rotolo 40:51
bucks.
John Tabis 40:54
No way. 599 249
Unknown Speaker 40:57
know what it might say?
Mike August 40:59
599.
Cousin Bill 41:03
It is 1199. Wow.
Mike August 41:07
Next item.
Unknown Speaker 41:07
I want Katie
Unknown Speaker 41:10
in the New Testament.
Unknown Speaker 41:13
Pay 11 bucks. Jesus.
Unknown Speaker 41:17
We learned so far as them. I don't know how much anything.
Mike August 41:20
Yeah, you're like George, the first bush guy didn't know what a carton of milk costs. Yeah. Good thing though. For a CEO.
John Tabis 41:26
You want to know how much things cost? You know
Mike August 41:29
how much a bill of lading costs in Ecuador.
John Tabis 41:33
I can say I know exactly how much it costs to ship two kilos. from Ecuador to anywhere.
Cousin Bill 41:46
Sorry, guys. I'm on a delay. So I apologize if I'm jumping in on you talking. It's okay. We talked so
John Tabis 41:51
offended
Cousin Bill 41:55
Alright, next item is the money to burn fire starter. So it's basically like fire starter logs look like little rolls of like $100 bills. throw money in the fire. Oh, nice. Six. So you're, you're pricing out a pack of six of these.
John Tabis 42:15
versus what might go first on this. I'm
Unknown Speaker 42:16
gonna say 30 bucks.
John Tabis 42:18
Okay. 2499
Katie Rotolo 42:21
Oh, you guys are both so close.
John Tabis 42:23
You're supposed to have already decided Katie. You don't need to wait until you hear our numbers.
Katie Rotolo 42:29
Alright, 25 bucks.
Unknown Speaker 42:32
2499
Cousin Bill 42:35
How much did you say? The correct. The Actual retail price. 3999.
John Tabis 42:43
Yay, Mike's got to the gate. Got one. And I got a big goose egg.
Unknown Speaker 42:51
Who's gonna pay for that? One?
Katie Rotolo 42:53
How many more? Do we have?
Cousin Bill 42:54
This is the last one. All right. So it's
John Tabis 42:57
like I gotta get on the board. Come on. Right.
Cousin Bill 43:00
So this one is a service. It's called the personal Papa Razzi service and you hire this company and they This is the mega star package. There's different packages build a mega package. You get picked up. people follow you Where do you go take pictures of you act like you're like big shit. And then you like get the pictures when you're done with it too. But people you know, while you're around town like you're a real celebrity.
Mike August 43:29
what point do you get to Baldwin them? What's At what point do you get to pummel them like Alec Baldwin? Got to be part
John Tabis 43:38
insurance has to be included. Come on.
Mike August 43:41
You and you have to cover my legal fees.
John Tabis 43:42
Yeah, exactly. All right. Is this for a day bill or a certain amount of
Cousin Bill 43:47
like? it's I think it's like seven hours or something like that though. All right.
John Tabis 43:52
Okay, I got my number. I got
Katie Rotolo 43:55
my number.
John Tabis 43:56
for real this time. I'm gonna change it. Alright. Yeah, remember? Oh, yeah, I'll go first on this one. $699 699
Unknown Speaker 44:07
You don't get to think about 100 bucks. 1500. Wow.
Mike August 44:10
I'll go seven hours. I say they got to be more than 100 bucks an hour but not It can't be 200 bucks. And I'd say like give do it for 1000 1000 bucks a day.
Cousin Bill 44:20
It is 2500
Unknown Speaker 44:27
that takes real luxury. That's that's a tie game.
Cousin Bill 44:32
I have a backup so we can bring the tie.
John Tabis 44:34
You guys can just you guys play for the tiebreaker? I'm clearly out of this.
Unknown Speaker 44:38
I've been paying attention. I'll just
John Tabis 44:40
get john. I got 00 No, I just wanted. Like so engaged in the game. He has no idea that he was winning. Last question. He cares for me while I'm so competitive. I'm like, inside of rage. I'm so angry.
Katie Rotolo 44:57
John's outside splitting.
Unknown Speaker 44:59
You're all fighting
Katie Rotolo 45:01
What you get from this job
John Tabis 45:02
that pays you zero? Until Amazon starts the gravy train,
Mike August 45:08
start that Amazon button. I started right now,
John Tabis 45:11
though biz.amazon.com people?
Cousin Bill 45:14
What's our tiebreaker? Right bill? Alright, the tiebreaker is a an online service called invisible boyfriend. So if you, I guess it could be that it started off as being invisible boyfriends. That's a company name. But if you don't want to feel questions from your family and friends about having a significant other, you basically could build this perfect version of someone online and they'll send you text messages and pictures of themselves. So you like show your friends like oh my god look like a pen
John Tabis 45:45
pal. At one point side story. I wanted to launch a George glass subscription for books where we would send you flowers from your fake boyfriend because George glass was what was the middle class? What was the middle from the Brady Bunch, Jan? Jan. Jan had a fake boyfriend, George glass and one of the episodes Wow. And she get on the phone. She's like, Hi, George. Oh, it's so awesome to hear from you. And then like the whole thing, so it was gonna be the George glass subscription idea. Yeah. Next time, but somebody already created a whole business around this which text message you and sends pictures and stuff?
Unknown Speaker 46:22
Maybe.
Cousin Bill 46:25
Alright, so So this, this is a monthly service. So you have to price out how much this cost per month per month.
Mike August 46:37
Can't be a ton. Because you know everything is can It can't be that custom. I'm
John Tabis 46:43
gonna have my guests in my head just to see if I would have one one. Okay, but I'll hold it. Hold it. I
Unknown Speaker 46:47
got my number on one. Yeah,
Mike August 46:49
I'll go first. 1/5
Katie Rotolo 46:53
wait 150 a month. Yes. Oh, wow. I was gonna go 20 bucks. Really? Yeah,
John Tabis 47:00
I had it at 39 Wow, Bill.
Cousin Bill 47:03
Your winter it's still champion Katie Rotolo
Unknown Speaker 47:07
dollars a month boy boyfriend's come cheap.
Mike August 47:12
To do a lot of like, they have to do some research and some work.
John Tabis 47:15
Apparently not scription
Katie Rotolo 47:16
services or so. I don't know they're cheap. But they're it's like they make their money on the on the monthly not that it costs a big amount of volume by subscription.
John Tabis 47:30
Nobody stays probably like a real like robust business. Yeah.
Mike August 47:37
What is a one off business? You do it for a weekend, right? Because you're going home for Thanksgiving, and then you're done. You're not subscribing next
John Tabis 47:45
week, we're gonna have to have the founder of this business on as a guest to dive deeper into the George glass business and why they didn't call the George glass business because George may be invisible. Mike. Thank you. Thank you guys.
Mike August 47:58
I really love having you huge fan of the books obviously and everything you've done here so you know any way we can help support it. Happy to do the show. Bring us all your great initiatives and our dollars and your dollars are always always welcome here still, we're still operating a deficit.
John Tabis 48:16
Really awesome to have you and thank you everybody for listening. Please make sure you give us you rate us on iTunes but only if it's five stars. If you're gonna rate us lower than that then don't do it. Subscribe, Share and pretty soon we'll give you an Amazon link because of Mike's amazing advice. And follow us and and and contact us at at given the biz gi ve m th e bi z. And until next time, we will catch y'all later. Bye everybody.
Cousin Bill 48:45
Thanks for listening to give him the business podcasts from the books and podcasts one. Be sure to download new episodes every Tuesday right here on podcast one on the podcast one app on Apple podcasts. And don't forget to rate review and share. also find us on Twitter and Instagram under the handle at give them the biz g i v e m th e bi z
