Jonathan Perelman, President of ICM Stellar Sports | How to Grow Your Digital Footprint

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott DeClaire. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts for you to check out like remarkable people hosted by Guy Kawasaki. Of course, brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. The remarkable people podcast with Guy Kawasaki helps you better understand the changing world with interviews from thought leaders, legends, and iconoclasts. If you are interested in business, leadership, entrepreneurship, he interviews the best of the best leveraging connections that he's built over his career. Here's some of the episodes and interviews that he's done. He's spoken to Seth Goden, marketing god, blogger, author. He's spoken to Pat Flynn, entrepreneur, power podcaster, and popular YouTuber. He's spoken to Jen Lim, happiness evangelist, and author of Beyond. Happiness, he's spoken to Steve Blank, author, entrepreneur, and startup whisperer. If you want to listen to incredibly intelligent conversations with some of the most remarkable people on the planet, listen to remarkable people podcasts by Guy Kawasaki wherever you get your podcast. Today, my guest is Jonathan Perlman, the president of ICM Stellar Sports. Now, ICM partners is one of the world's leading talent agencies dedicated to the representation of artists, content creators, broadcasters, authors, journalists, and artisans. 2020 Perlman helped over CICM partners acquisition of the powerhouse London agency Stellar Group. They represent over 800 athletes. Before orchestrating the ICM Stellar Sports deal, Perlman served as ICM's head of digital ventures. He previously spent time at both Buzzfeed and Google as well. He was an early employee at both of those companies. Right now, he of course heads up ICM Stellar Sports and serves as a board member for several sports and entertainment startups. So we spoke about Perlman's career, how he went from Google and tech to Buzzfeed in media and then eventually to ICM partners and ICM Stellar Sports. He was an early employee at both Google and Buzzfeed and he saw their growth in the ground up. So some great lessons there. We also spoke about what is digital? How can companies go digital? How some companies are doing it right? Some companies aren't doing it right. How to grow your digital footprint as a brand. But then we also spoke about how to grow your digital footprint as a personal brand. Some lessons that he's learned from managing athletes with huge social media followings, what to do to help grow their brand, their community, monetize their audience, all the things that you can test at scale when you're managing an athlete with millions of followers. So some great business lessons, some great personal brand influencer marketing lessons, let's jump right into it. This is Jonathan Perlman, president of ICM Stellar Sports. I'll start at the beginning. I'm a Pisces. I enjoy, I am in fact a Pisces. I grew up in Connecticut, went to probably most relevant to start in college where even before college it was sort of active in a number of things, especially politically that was where the conversations around the dinner table. And when I went to college, I studied political science, I got an opportunity, well first to intern over the summer for a local city councilman in Newark, New Jersey, I was in college in Philadelphia and worked for the city councilman who my then girlfriend, now wife, introduced me to and super impressive guy. He said he was running from, he was going to run for mayor of Newark and what I like to join his campaign. And I said, well, I college in Philadelphia, it's not a far train ride. I could maybe do my classes during the week and I mean, condensed my schedule to which he said, no, I mean actually take a leave of absence from college and come work on my campaign. And I had interned for a member of parliament previously in the UK. And I love the idea. But I said, I don't think you can do that. I don't think you can take a leave of absence from college. He's like, no, you can, you go to the register and just say you want to take a leave. Okay. And so I did. So I moved to Newark, New Jersey with half a college education and worked for a guy who was a city councilman running for mayor. So my name is Corey Booker who's now a US senator. So all is well that ends well. But we lost that election. We lost that campaign for mayor. And I believe in instances when you lose, you often learn more than when you win. And it was an incredible experience for me to be involved at such a level at such a young age. I think we really tried and wanted to have a big impact on the people of the city. And it was not where I'm from. I'm from Connecticut. I was in New Jersey, but I felt this connection and loved the process. And it was a really, really meaningful time. I'll say in my career as a as a young person to get that experience. And I treasure it. We're still close to this day. But the things I learned on that campaign, I've taken with me in every step along the way. I promised my and I should say there was an Academy Award nominated documentary that followed that campaign called Street Fighter. So I do there was. It's great. It's great. It's a great watch. I allow myself once a year to watch it. It's a tear jerker for me. It brings back all these emotions. But Marshall Curry directed it. It's an unbelievable film and really insight into urban politics in America in that year almost that I'd spent half a year working on the campaign. So that was incredibly meaningful experience that I had and went back to college. I promised my parents I would go back to college and get my degree, which I did. I then went into financial services for a couple of years and great experience. But I realized I wanted something more entrepreneurial. So I had actually in the interim gotten married and met somebody a joke. I met someone on my honeymoon. And he was a is still is unbelievable guy. A very very big job at Google at the time. We talked about careers. We talked about what I was doing. He you know a little bit older than I am had more experience had had children. I did not at the time, but we talked about careers in the advancement. And I went to him for advice, which is something I like to do a lot. I like to go to people seek their advice to ask a lot of questions. And I said to him, I'm looking to make a move. What do you suggest? And he said, well, why don't you come look at Google? I said, it's not something I considered. This was 2005, 2006. And lo and behold, I went to Google. I took a job at Google. And it was again one of those really transformational experiences starting at Google. So it was in New York. It was I started that it was a, you know, not tiny, but a small-ish office in Midtown, Manhattan. Couple hundred people in New York felt like I knew not all of them, but most of them. You'd see people around six, seven years later when I when I left having done a number of couple different jobs. There were thousands of people in the office. You wouldn't go to lunch. You wouldn't recognize anyone. So it was a fun time to be there to experience the growth. I went from the very internally facing role to an externally facing role, which I felt suited my skillsets very well. Google was, I assume, still is still some friends there, which I think is indicative of how great of a place to work. It is and how much you learn. But for me, I had a little bit of an entrepreneurial itch that I wanted to scratch. I used to joke at Google that if I was gone for six months, if I just didn't come into the office, people might wonder where I was because I'm a little bit loud and boisterous, but it wouldn't really matter to the business at all. And that, that was certainly an indication of the work I was doing, maybe the level I was at, but I wanted to have more of an impact. And I went again to seek advice from somebody who I had worked with at Google who was at Buzzfeed at the time and just got coffee just to say, hey, it's been six, seven years. I'm looking for something different. What do you suggest? What do you know? And I left with a job offer for to go to Buzzfeed, which is not after one coffee. After one coffee, he's a very persuasive guy. It was not my intention, but it seemed like a great opportunity and there were about, you know, 115 employees. It was still pretty young and new. And I took the job and took a leave. It was it was quite a thing to try and explain to people leaving Google where everybody had heard of Google. They knew what a great place it was to work, to go to to Buzzfeed what. People just didn't know what it was. And I certainly believed in the business. That's why I didn't. But I realized I wanted to stay as much ahead of the curve as I possibly could. And what I realized was that Google was this amazing platform. I called them the tracks that they had laid that carried the content of the internet, the trains on it. And I thought I wanted to be on the trains. I wanted to be the content and see how that works. And went to Buzzfeed, which was really, I mean, it wasn't entrepreneurial in the sense that we weren't two guys in a garage tinkering, but it was 100 people in a, you know, a six story, not a walk-up. But in an office that was cramped trying to figure out how content worked on the internet. And that was fun. And we tried a lot on the business side. We convinced advertisers and partners to come on board into something that they didn't know about and had a lot of questions. It was some time into that experience that they asked if I would move to Los Angeles from New York to help open what was called at the time Buzzfeed motion pictures after raising money from venture capital, wanted to really do this very early pivot to video that was at the time. And I had a young family from the East Coast, loved, loved and still loved New York, but was ready for a different challenge. And so we packed up the wagon and headed out west and had a learned a ton in that experience about how to manage groups of people, how to get, how to start something and how not to be afraid to just make decisions because I wouldn't say we all knew what we were doing at the time. We just had to analyze something and make a decision. And we did. And built it into something, I think we could all be proud of. I was interested in transitioning it into other elements of the entertainment business. And that's when I went around town, went around Hollywood to start asking lots of questions of people from agents, managers, lawyers, studios, really how does the business operate? And I became clear, I'm now trying to go back. This was probably 2015, 14, 15, 16, something like that that digital was still new in Hollywood. It was a thing. It wasn't at one point. It was new media and now it was called digital, whatever it was, but there was still a lot unknown. And that's what I what I liked about it is that there was no answer. There was nothing easy. There was nothing specific. There was not an element of plug-in play. There was a lot of experimentation. And I liked that. So I had been connected to somebody, to the CEO, the guy who ran ICM partners at the time. And we got together a bunch and talked about what digital looked like within the confines, the entity of a Hollywood agency. And I was interested in the opportunity and the challenge of going inside an agency, which are pretty traditional places. They can be very entrepreneurial, if done well, but to do something like digital. And the people had done it before me. So my friends today, but there was not a clear path that was not an easy transition. But I made a deal with the company and I said, here's the thing. I don't think an agency should have a digital department. I think every department should be digital. Doesn't make sense to think about it differently. It should be just part of what every group does at the agency. So I said, give me a couple of years to try and integrate this. And if I'm successful, you'll have to find me another job either within the company or within Hollywood. And if I'm unsuccessful, you'll have to find me another job within the agency or within Hollywood. I said, this is not a forever project. This is a finite, we are going to integrate this into the rest of the business. You need subject matter expertise and you need to have the right contacts and sure you need all of that. But everybody should know this digital thing. I'll never like the nomenclature because it connoted something different. Well, it wasn't different. It was just a new way of having a product, if it's film, if it's TV, some sort of entertainment come across. So I did this. It didn't take me three years to probably fail at the job. But I realized along the way that there were other aspects that I thought the company should be doing. One was a speaker's bureau. We talked a little bit earlier about when I went on the speaking tour. And I thought that something that the agency should be doing more of. And to his credit, the CEO said, okay, great idea. Go make it happen. What do you want to do? And that's, I love that about him and about the environment that I was in, which is if you have a good idea and you can prove the thesis, you have the ability to go make it happen. And so bought a small agency. And as I joked for my sins, I then said, well, now you have to go run it. So I ran that. And I think one of the most important elements of what I've been able to do is find people far better than I to go to hire to go run certain things. And so I found an amazing person who to this day still runs that business who's phenomenal. Just I think a great leader of the business and an even greater person. And so transition from there to do corporate development type of stuff and raised a bunch of money from private equity. And ultimately, fund that with into getting into the sports business. So after raising money from private equity, identified an asset in sports based in the UK that we were able to acquire. And again, as a thank you, I got to run it. Yeah, which I'm doing now. And I absolutely love it. And sort of to cap this off, I'll say, in the businesses that certainly I'm in now, but that I've been in recently, it's it's a people business, right? You're, you know, professional services. And it's really just about the people. And I have been so incredibly lucky to work with and for really great people and have great partners along the way that make the work that can be difficult and challenging, fun and exciting. So it's really about and it's been about for me finding myself with and around really great people. And I've been been really lucky to have that. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode NetSuite. Now picture this. This is it. The putt to win the tournament. If you sink it, the championship is yours. But on your backswing, your hat falls over your eyes. Is this how you're running your business poor visibility into what's actually happening because you're relying on spreadsheets and outdated finance software to see the full picture you need to upgrade to NetSuite by Oracle. If you are a business owner, you need visibility into what's happening in your business. 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That is NetSuite.com slash Scott Clary. Amazing. I love the progression and I'm glad you unpacked it because when I was first looking at who you are as a person and what you've done, I wanted to walk through that career because you've gone into different industries per se, but there's sort of a thread that follows you between all of them. And I think that it's probably I want to unpack what you do at stellar sports at with sporting teams and athletes and professionals. But you focus on you focus on this overarching theme of turning the business and making an entire business digital and making an entire and describe what that is because that was something that you were discussing at BuzzFeed that you carried over into ICM. Does digital mean media company? What is digital? What is the definition of digital for a company? Well, Scott, I think that's the issue is that digital can mean different things to different people to different companies to different entities. I I really think, I mean, there are there are super tactical approaches to what it to what it means. We are speaking on digital platforms right now, right? People are listening to us on a digital platform, but you take some of the giant streaming services of today. Is that digital or is that television? Well, yes, both. I mean, I don't know. It comes into both. Yeah, exactly. It comes through one pipe or another. What difference does it make? And I think that's been one of the misnomers about digital is that people want to put it into some box and say it's something else. It's not. I don't know. That's why I was very intentional, but this idea of doesn't make sense to have a digital department. Every department should be digital. Now there's a maturation of that. You don't start one day and say, okay, everything's digital. Let's retool everything. But today it must be part of whatever you do, whatever if you sell a product, if you make a product, if you service a product, whatever understanding how people communicate, understand how understanding how people buy how people sell, how people interact and transact. It's so important. It could be very old fashioned, very new, whether it's digital or terrestrial. I don't think it matters. I really think about digital almost as a mindset, this nimbleness, this idea that there is so much change happening so quickly. How do you stay in front of it and be nimble to adapt to whatever comes next? That's not a product necessarily. That's a mindset. And that's how I think about digital. Amazing. So, okay, so this is something that, and I completely agree that digital has to be a mindset. I guess other buzzwords that you probably would have heard would be like digital transformation. Or, and you write it's not just one thing. It's not one aspect of the business. It's quite literally everything that you do. I love how you actually, I don't want to re-describe it. The way you describe it was perfect. So, with ICM Stellar Sports, first let's tee up what you're actually doing there. And then let's speak about some of the high level lessons that you implemented across your career that you're implementing at ICM. And some things that people can think of as they try and sort of modernize or digitally transform their business, they keep up with marketing habits, sales habits, what their customers care about. Like you said, how their customers communicate. I think those are very important things. And I think that's why you've been so successful in what would look like without talking to you or speaking to you first, a whole bunch of different industries and different types of jobs. Because you've gone Google, you know, that's fang, that's tech. And you've done BuzzFeed, that's media. It's a true digital media company now. You're at a sports talent agency, right? But you've done similar things across all of them. So yes, let's go into it. So, Stellar Sports, what do you do there? Yeah, well, let me first pick up on one thing before I get into that is, you know, this podcast has success in the title. We think about success. I was talking to a very close friend of mine who's in the sports business. And we often talk about this success. I don't, I guess, objectively sure I am successful on some level. But I think part of the reason that I don't know that I'm successful. I always struggle with that and always work harder to become successful. But it feels elusive to me what success is. And so it motivates and drives me every day to find that thing. I don't think I have found it. I don't know that it is something that will be found. But having the desire and the motivation and the purpose to look for that thing that is success is kind of what drives me. What do I do with a day one thing? One thing on that point though. If that mindset you just described is the exact mindset that a business has to have when they think about how do we stay up today? How do we future proof? How do we digitally transform? It's the mindset that you will never, you will never achieve the, you know, you will never perfect your organization. You will never be the most relevant. But the mindset of always trying to do that is like quite literally what you said on a personal level. That's how businesses have to think. That's right. I don't know today, I'll say, there's no endgame, right? You don't get to a point where you say, I have conquered it all. I'm done. What do you do? You close up shop? No, you got it, you got to keep going. So that's right. I think about that from a personal perspective, but also from a business perspective, how are we always striving to be better at what we do, but it's never done, right? In the minute, I think you think that you are. There's a belief that you are. Your competitors have written right value. That's what, yeah, that's a sort of a sort of sort of a slow death, like that's when you start, that's when we look at like the, you know, I use this analogy so much, but like the blockbusters or the taxi or cab industry or the hotel industry to the air be like, you know, that's, that's right. I, you know, like innovators dilemma, I've read, you know, like a lot like there are all these books, these management books that I love to read and it's all kind of a play on the same thing. It's like, when you think you got it, that's when you got to put the pedal down and always I try to see around corners. It's really hard to do, but, but you've got to continue to evolve all the time, even when you think you've nailed something because there's someone else or something else that will, that will come around the corner. So, so I seem stellar sports. What do I do? I'm the president of I seem stellar sports. That means I just help an absolutely first class, best in class team of agents and scouts and executives look after and represent the best sporting talent in the world. The majority of our business is football was all of our businesses football that is both both sides of the pond, European soccer football and NFL American football where we look after the careers of the best athletes in the world. And so, it means slightly different things if we talk about NFL as opposed to European soccer, but ultimately it's the same thing, right? We work with amazing talent, get them and find them the right deals both on the pitch and off the pitch to ensure that they're in the best possible place for their career, for longevity in the game as well as helping them build brands and monetize that off the field. So, it's my job specifically is to help run the business of the business. I have very strong opinions on who should be transferred where, you know, what kind of offense our quarterback should be running, but that's not why they pay me. They pay me to help to help think about how, you know, how to run the business as operationally best we can, as well as really thinking about growth and where the opportunities are and how we can grow the business that we have into something even bigger. And that's the fun part. I'm incredibly lucky to work with just the best people in the business, which makes it a lot of fun and I think, frankly, just makes me look good from time to time. And we're in a business that people that people like. I mean, there's literally Monday morning quarterbacking and is talking about the business that I'm in, which means there's a lot of scrutiny, there's a lot of pressure, but I like that. And if I can do my little bit to help make us the best in the business, that's what I do. So let's talk about, let's talk about some of the things that you do that you've implemented at Stellar Sports. Now, do you want to do it? We can do one of two things. If you can talk about the strategies that maybe you use for athletes in terms of how to grow their brand, or we can talk about some strategies that maybe you've picked up from Buzzfeed that you've used to grow the digital footprint of Stellar. So I don't know which way you want to take it. It's up to you. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot. Now, with the holidays in full swing, we're that much closer to a new year, which means new year's resolution. And we often focus on what we feel we failed at. Health, relationship, finances, but what if we tried something new this new year? And instead of acknowledging what we failed at, let's acknowledge what we did right. The things we want to continue doing more of. The relationships we want to show appreciation for and what if we did that for our businesses? HubSpot is challenging businesses to focus on how to grow better, starting with our customer because the HubSpot CRM platform is dedicated to making the connection between you and your customers better than ever. How? Well, new tools like native payment links and recurring payments that directly embed in HubSpot's quoting tools and emails mean seamless delivery and payment collection. And custom surveys easily capture feedback unique to your business share insights with your teams and help you understand what makes your customers tick. Learn more about how HubSpot CRM platform can help build, maintain and grow your customer relationships at HubSpot.com. Well, I think they kind of combine because what I'll say is, well, first of all, the digital brand if so, we're not a we're not a public facing company. We are a B2B company, not a B2C company, but we have people that help our clients on social and digital platforms and these people that do the work are amazing. I mean, they do stuff I could never I never even dream of from a content perspective and help really grow the brands of of our clients and they've got strategies. They know how to do it. They know how to capture moments. They know this planned spontaneity of when something's going to happen. They just do really incredible work and all credit to them. I don't I would never in a million years try and teach them a thing or two about how to make it work. We do at philosophical conversations about social media, the web content, the good side of it, which there's plenty of good and the bad side of it, which there is plenty of bad and especially some of our clients in in European football. There's there's been a lot of stuff that's been done on social media. That's I mean, by any objective member measure, not okay. I mean, the the the racism and other aspects is is important and you know, I can't can't be condemned strongly enough. But there's also another coin a lot, right? You can you can tell your stories in new ways and athletes have the ability to build brands today that they've really never had never had before. And so our first job first and foremost is always to look after them with contracts and what's happening on the field to make sure that they are set up in the best possible position for success. And then we help build their brands and do some deals off off the field, which is important for them to continue to grow and be seen almost as influencers. And that's another term, another, you know, if you use it as a verb, I guess that that I question, you know, in influencer short, there are professional influencers. And then there's the person your friend or your parent or your colleague who can also be an influencer in the decisions that you make. Professional athletes hold a very special place for that influence because they are they are icons and people look up to them. And I think there's a there's a measure of that that we need to be cognizant of when doing commercial deals or you know, things that they say from a social political sort of world moment that that really matter because it resonates because athletes are are seeing and held in a slightly different light for for better or worse, you know, whether or not people think they are role models, people do look up to them and and they are influential in decisions that that people make. And then Scott, if I could I think what I learned from sort of very short career in politics to to tech to digital media is it's it's not one thing in particular, but it's this idea of adaptation of agility of not standing still, right? Those are industries that are constantly evolving and constantly changing and you've got to keep up with what's happening. And that's how I've approached what I'm doing now is let's look for best practices, but let's never rest on on what we have and how do we ensure we've got the best people doing the best work possible it's it's a people business at the end of the day and we've got to find and retain and keep happy the best people that's that's hard that takes up a lot of time but is probably the most important thing that we could do because without the people we don't we don't have a business, right? We don't we don't we don't make a product. No, I appreciate that and it's then you are dealing with okay so you're you've always been working in organizations and been successful at like you said staying out of the curve. So how do you find people that are on that same wavelength because every business in the world would want to find people that can keep up with trends. I you know at ICM you're dealing with athletes and they're massively exposed even at previous roles like you know at Buzzfeed you're putting out content all the time trying to find what's relevant. There's always things that are in the public eye which makes it even harder to find to you know anything you screw up everybody sees as well even even more so in politics like you've never worked in a in a low exposure industry where the stuff that you're putting out into the world isn't scrutinized you be like so so tell me how do you how do you find people that can keep up with that pace that can like at ICM what's your what even your hiring your strategy what do you look for and people that you bring on. Well I can't tell you that's got that's that's a secret. No I'm just kidding. I never thought about the the high exposure. I don't think there's a it's the great it's the right wasn't asked and I talk to people about this all the time I don't have a great answer for it. It's you've got to you've got to dig and find the right people. I'm a believer in it's about the people or the person not necessarily the experience so someone could come with the perfect resume but if I don't think it's a cultural fit if I think they're going to come in and be a bull in a china shop and mess up what we have if if I think yeah they're great but they're not going to speak up when they see something that they don't think is right it's not going to work and so do we it's about the right it's people more than product people than the experience and listen I'm this is me personally and I think this is makes for great people that you work with and for a great environment but I like to say I'm an expert not and this is a this is a famous quote but an expert nothing but passionately curious about everything I you could have someone that is the best at this one thing but I won't well rounded people I want to have a well rounded team I want to work with people that have interests you know outside of the stuff that they do every day that can be their main interest I'm in sports I love sports the business of sports is what I read is what I want to do I happy to work seven days a week I don't my family doesn't always love that but I I'm passionate about it I'm passionate about it I'm passionate about it but there are other things that I do that that are outside and I think finding those kinds of people that are are well rounded and you know there needs to be all these things I was at at at Google at Google about finding Googlers right do they pass some sort of tests would you want to sit next to them on a cross country flight with that work all that I mean it might be silly and then the not scientific but I think it's really really important at the end of the day that's how you find the best people that's how you get the best deliver the best output is by having good honest debate and you know not having people that always agree with you but coming up and in that madness in that chaos in that in that debate is where I think you create the best the best product the best outcome and so it's an imperfect science but one that is really important the it's a bit in my business it's about the people you know that's you you have even gotten all of your career advancements next jobs you're not going on you're not going on indeed and linked in and applying for these things this is entirely who you know that's interesting as well yeah that's also you know well I mean that's true Scott that also worries me right because if there could be a great person who is for the best job to work and help us grow the business but if they don't know the right person are we going to miss them I get concerned about that that is in fact you're right how I've gotten to the point I'm not sure success but I'm it's elusive but I'm looking for that success bye you still but you've still done you've still done well by any any standard throughout your career and it's all been handshakes with the right people that's not a that's not a bad thing by any means by the way it's just it's a it's a point that you're right you could be missing on a good people but it's also another point to people that aren't getting into the right rooms or talking to the right people are networking maybe you do more of that here's what I'll say Scott I think that's right the challenge is that can only take you so far though you could they could say oh wow you're great come on into this to our organization and do this stuff but if you can't perform if you can't give something back that is good you're not going to last very long and so I totally agree it is important to put yourself out there I I don't know how people necessarily network in a covid world in a just post kind of ish covid world maybe not quite yet we talked earlier about travel that we're that we've done and and starting to do more and how out of practice we were but yeah you know it's important to put yourself out there it's important to to you know meet people and I got a lot of young people asking me for advice in their in their careers and that's one of the biggest things I say is you know go go meet somebody and go talk to them and this is you're doing as as your podcasts do right people are always pretty much happy to talk about themselves in their career and what they've done and when you find someone that you connect with maintain that relationship follow up keep going back ask them questions I think the idea of mentors and mentees are that's one of the things that I think people talk about but we don't do enough of and it's really important when when people look to make moves and and grow their career but also I don't have the answers to everything and there are times I just want to call somebody and ask them for advice and I do that with with peers I do that increasingly with people younger than I am not necessarily just an age thing but the people that are maybe at slightly different levels because I want to know how they're thinking about things and I'll ask people that have been out of business for years how they dealt with some of these challenges or some of these questions and for me that's what how I've always learned and grown and developed is by it's really important to be a very good listener you got to know the right questions to ask but when you do listen to what the answers are how do you how do you find people to ask questions or how do you find your mentors rather I mean there's no I don't have a playbook for it it's people that I come into contact with through business through life and you know I have to respect the work that they've done how they've done it and ask them questions and you know these things kind of build organically I think a lot of the stuff can't be forced and if you do force it it never really never really works out but I've got I mean I've got tens dozens of rabbis that I go to for different things different people for different things to to ask questions and seek advice and you know I think when you when you think you have all the answers that's the sign that you definitely don't you know you mentioned something before and and you just said you don't you don't have the playbook for it but you mentioned something before we even started recording you said you know what's what's common sense to you may not be common sense to everyone else and what I wanted to drive home there is regardless of what the you know what what you're looking for to learn from in in your life have a mentor for different parts of your life but also again I think it comes back to the relationship thing you're not for example um looking at a mentor is a transactional thing this is not like a you know send an email get a piece of advice you're building the relationships far probably far before you actually need that advice so when you do have a question about something you have that network to reach into and to and to access and to tap into and I think that people look at mentorship the wrong way and they think about it like okay so I am gonna reach out to somebody and I'm gonna say hey can you be my mentor and I'm gonna ask them for one hour every single week and that's that's how I do mentorship and I don't think that's right and I think that that is I think that that's unfortunately the way that people look at mentors that has to be some transactional relationship but it can be they said rabbi friends family peers anyone and just and just ask just ask for help and that's that's mentorship I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode playbook now what is playbook playbook is an app that gets to know your unique financial situation and helps you get the most out of every dollar you save the best part you don't have to do any crazy budgeting or change a single thing about your lifestyle so if you're just making money but you're not sure what to do with it playbook is the app for you for the average user playbook helps boost their net worth by over 1.3 million 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you can finally stop working you don't even have to sign up for the service yet you get a free playbook impact that's going to predict your net worth if you follow the guidelines that they set up for you so remember go to helloplaybook.com slash Scott that's your special link for a free assessment and basically road map for your future net worth sign up for playbook today so you can enjoy financial freedom and beyond yeah I gotta I gotta call I gotta call this earlier this week from somebody who I used to work with I haven't spoken to her in probably three years and the reason I know that is because I didn't know she had a baby but she said I'm thinking of making a minute it's been a minute she said I'm thinking of making a move a career move you've always been helpful in helping me think through this stuff can I pick your brain about I mean it had been years I with COVID my time frame has just it's all sorts of messed up but it had been years and yeah I think you know if we had had a solely transactional relationship over that time I it would have failed it would just not have been something but she could easily pick up the phone and text her call and say hey can I just pick your brain on this move I'm thinking of making and how would you think about it and a really nice chat and yeah we might not talk for another two or three years and and that's okay you know she's wonderful and I wish her all sorts of success but I think we think about it to you articulate this well but we think about it as such a transactional thing about when are we meeting how are we doing this and sure maybe you have some of those but you should have lots of different kinds of relationships with people who can be who can be helpful I mean I I remember a time when I was at Google where I sought advice from somebody about careers and that was a I assumed still is but was very often things that were talked about at Google about what what movie you're going to make where are you going to go how's it going to work and so I encourage those I think those conversations are very healthy to have all the time it's a it's a sign of strength and out weakness if you're talking to people that you work with about how you're going to grow and evolve in this person said to me the way that they think about it is they write a resume what they want their resume to look like five years from now and sort of back into how they're going to get there and I thought that was a really innovative approach I'd not heard that and I told that to somebody else at Google who said well that's crazy you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow so if you're so set on making this plan happen you're going to lose opportunities because you're just not you're going to have your blinders on and not think about it and I said well that's a really great piece of advice I hadn't thought of that and so it's doing those two things kind of at once this this mash up of you should have a plan for yourself you should have a plan for your business you should have a plan for what you want to do and you also have to be looking at the thing that could be right next to you that is outside of that plan because that could end up in turn out being a lot better for you and if you're so focused on one or the other you're going to miss the opposite very good advice I love that advice because everybody gives you advice to have that you know one three five ten year plan but that's also important that's also important to keep your head up okay one thing that I did want to I did want to get your insight on is the people that you manage now because I think that's also interesting managing really ultra high performance individuals walk me through walk me through what it's like and I know and I know that you are manage people who probably do this while you manage agents that manage a lot of these relationships but you still probably have a pretty good idea of what it's like to manage some of these athletes so what's what's that like walk me through that well managing people that manage high performance athletes or high performance artists whatever is these are high performing people so yeah it's it's my sort of style is pretty loose I think if you're if you're managing micro managing people down to certain details you don't trust them you don't have the right people back to the one of the earlier parts of our conversation and it's just not going to work it's not going to work for you as the manager it's not going to work for them working I think really what's most you got to give people leeway and the ability to do it their way you can't implement your way upon them and again have the trust and have the faith that you have the best people that will do the best work and they shouldn't do it in the in the shadow of how you want it done they should do it their way understanding it what it is and how the business works and where they should be spending time but I don't think you can dictate exactly how they do what they do now as far as managing athletes or artists today I really think you have to stay ahead of the curve you've got to know what's going on in the business yes some parts of being a football agent which technically I am not so easy for me to say but some parts have never changed you've got to look after the athlete you've got to make sure they've got the right contract you've got to you are their advisor you are you are you are you are together with them you are on the same team do the best deal for them make sure they are protected make sure they're happy you need to do all that that that hasn't changed that will not change that's really a huge part of the business but you've got to be understanding of what new things are happening and the opportunities I think about this with NFTs and a year ago I think whatever the time frame was if you had said to agency you know what's your NFTs strategy it was said enough who right that's that that's not in the lexicon that's not what they do today you need to be able to talk to as an agent you need to be able to talk to your clients answer questions from them bring them opportunities in the NFT space maybe it's not right for them for any number of reasons but for those that are you need to be on top of it and that's a it's a very new development so staying on top of and abreast of the latest trends and how things happen I don't have to tell you or most likely the listeners about how quickly things change today that's to me you need to have this sense of how to represent somebody how to look after them how to ensure that they are giving their faith in you to to help them with their career that's a massive responsibility and you need to take that responsibility and and do your best with it it doesn't mean it will be perfect every time but that's a huge amount of pressure for an agent to have to look after somebody's career but that's not it you also need to be and we'll get say again look around corners understand what's coming up and what's coming new and where opportunities are that didn't weren't available weren't a thing some time ago but you need to at least be open to learning about what those new things are you don't have to be an expert in it you can you can take someone with subject matter expertise to help get there but you really do need to understand that things are changing things are evolving the pace at which we all live our lives is just maddening so being on top of that stuff is really important to help bring the best opportunities to to your clients and what what do you see the future of of managing personal brands where do you see people getting the highest ROI on certain activities when it comes to putting out social going on tours maybe setting up different lines of business and increasing revenue that way what do you see these like these athletes really focusing on or what's I guess I'm just wondering like and what I'm trying to pull out of you here so I'll explain what I'm trying to think through so if somebody wants to start a personal brand the way that I see it is an athlete is the epitome of what a personal brand could eventually be so if we follow the trends that athletes are focused on then perhaps somebody who wants to start their own personal brand at a much smaller scale will know where to spend their energy and time and that's what I'm trying to understand and pull out from what you're seeing with some athletes I wish I had a very concise answer but that's a that's a complicated and good question to it here's what I'll say I think it's important for athletes and non-athletes celebrities talent entrepreneurs individuals people you know start of their careers wherever one of the one of the agents that I work with who I have a tremendous amount of respect for and he's an amazing guy he he he always says you got to be known for something right and and you know his approach to that is you know maybe you you wear colorful ties or you're very outspoken about this thing whatever it is you know he says you really should be known for something I do think in in the world today you know being outspoken is important right it's how important is your Twitter account and your Instagram account well I mean important but that's not yet right I think you stand for something you stand for a cause you stand for a belief you stand for whatever it that is important the the idea that in athlete is seen once a week on television and that's their face to the world is old-fashioned right I mean they're they're faced to the world is whatever whatever they want to eat whatever they want to say I think it's important that they if they want to because they not every athlete wants to do this some athletes are very happy being the best that they can be in their particular sport but if you do want to build your brand it's having the right message on social standing for certain causes that that you believe in writing a book helping to create a television show there are some athletes that have done this exceptionally well not only is he a great basketball player and I think a great human being but LeBron James has a lot of different businesses going on and he's built this unbelievable brand for himself he's put himself out there I think there are lessons we can take from everybody can can take for that and you can't necessarily as a person working in a big corporation to go start your own TV show but you can you know have your you know if you feel passionately about something within the confines of whatever the organization allows you should be you should talk about that you should you you should build that you should build that into your brand and I think it's it's important for athletes and it's important for entrepreneurs and it's important for you know people starting out and people in mid-career and later in career you should you should there should be things that identify you there should be again I'll go back to that expert and nothing passionately curious about everything you should be well-rounded you should not be you know so focused on one thing that thing that you do if you were a professional athlete and you say I just want to focus on being an athlete that is great because your career is short frankly and there's gonna be a lot of stuff that you might want to focus on later if you're if you're an employee at a large company think about the other things you can take advantage of that are part of your interest I know you know join groups whatever it might be I think be interested in things is really really important to building your brand I I do like the the thing that you said that um what one of your agents says about having a taking a stand on something because I feel like when people put out content they miss the point of of social which is to put your personality out there and they turn it into like a business like a just a constant constant stream of business content or or if you're an athlete you know content about that one thing you do but what resonates with people is personality it's it's with getting to know the person not just knowing that they're an athlete that you know okay they play for that team or a business owner that does this one thing or sells this one product all the most successful people in the world that have personal brands they're they're raw on camera about what they believe in and they're very they're I would say something to a fault but like but but still they build a tribe around their convictions and their passions and you're not gonna you're not gonna make everyone happy but you are going to find that tribe of people that believes in what you believe in what you do and and that to me is better than just being vanilla to everybody totally agree the only thing I will say though is for some people it's absolutely right for others it's not and if that's not your thing and you're forcing it it's not authentic it's not gonna work and so you know maybe the best answer to it is you know be yourself whatever that brand is whatever it is really be yourself and you'll find the tribe or the tribe will find you maybe equally as importantly but if you feel like you're forcing it then if you feel like you're forcing it other people will most likely read through that and it won't work so if it's something you want to do be authentic about it but don't force it very good okay um okay so I want to I want to ask some rapid fire and and tea this up I want to before I go into the rapid fire was there anything else we spoke about brand we spoke about uh you know focusing on always having the mindset of growth and digital transformation so we covered a few good topics some thoughts on some really important things for you know for our listeners for entrepreneurs for um people that do want to either stay ahead of the curve for their business or for themselves was there anything else that you wanted to dive into that we didn't touch on I don't think so I think we covered a lot of ground yeah you got a lot yeah yeah we did cover a lot of ground that's good you got a lot of different places there yeah no I that I don't think specifically that I had good good no I just give you the floor just in case because I I know that you were um there was a lot of stuff that we could have gone into so I wanted to make sure that I remember to touch on everything okay so um before I pivot into some rapid fire people that want to connect with you where would they go what's the best social email website you can drop all that so people go check you out yeah I am I'm not as active on social anymore um because frankly I've been so focused on my on my day job and so uh that's where I that's where I've had the focus um if people have questions or want to reach out jonathan dot pearlman at icm stellar dot com j-o-n-a-t-h-a-n dot p-e-r-e-l-m-n at icm stellar dot com okay perfect okay let's go into some rapid fire career questions um biggest challenge you've had in your career what was it how did you overcome it I mean there's so many challenges uh I think the biggest challenge um I'll say I think the biggest I face is every day when when you don't have when the answer is not a hundred percent clear having faith in your conviction to to make the best decision that you can given all the data and information that you have on hand in your experience um you just got you sometimes you just have to make decisions even with a imperfect set of uh data set and you just got to you just got to do it you just got to make the decision that's that's leadership good um one person that has been there's probably been several but one person that's been very impactful in your life who was it what did they teach you been a lot of people as I mentioned I've got a lot of a lot of mentor isn't a lot of rabbis I will say I think the most impact was probably been my wife who's just you know supportive in there to always listen doesn't always have the context had a given answer but we'll always listen and sort of keep me true to to who I am and so she probably helps me even not understanding all the intricacies and um aspects of the business but but to sort of find the right decision on things that I might be struggling with amazing um your favorite source to learn or grow could be a book podcast audible something you'd recommend people go check out I'm gonna punt on this one too and say I don't think to say single source I don't think it's a single thing um I read a lot I read stuff about the industry that I'm in I read a lot of management books I read history books foreign policy is the thing that I'm I'm really passionate about so I read and listen to podcasts about all that stuff I think it's it's really about a consuming as much information about as much stuff as possible that makes you super well-rounded very good okay and yes agreed smart um if you could tell your 20-year-old self one thing what would it be trust the process and it's not the business whatever you're doing is not linear it's not a straight path there will be there will be ups and downs and bumps in the road but but trust the process because you'll get there and last question what does success mean to you success is elusive I don't I I thought about that I didn't know you would ask this question but I thought about that you know I guess success to me is every moment of every day striving to to be the best that you can be in whatever it is that you do um and it's something that's truly elusive it it is not um I don't know that you ever find it and reach it I promise to have me on when I finally reach success when you finally reach success yeah what I get there we'll do the thing um but but I think it's you know constantly evolving and working and trying all as hard as you can to to to be the best that you can be and do as well for yourself and others that's what really success is awesome that's all I got cool beautiful you