HOW TO AMPLIFY YOUR GOALS BY HAVING A HOST

In this illuminating conversation, we shine a light on corporate events with Howard Werner, Principal of the New York office of Lightswitch, and lighting designer extraordinaire. Howard is a super-bright guy filled with enlightening insights. 

You can read the transcript below or listen to Episode 14 on the episode page, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

EPISODE 14 TRANSCRIPT

JEREMY: Alright, so I am here with two incredibly charming, loquacious raconteurs who can often be found, among their many other talent skills and abilities, hosting corporate live events. I am here with Mario Armstrong and Jeremy Brisiel, JB. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being on the ProCast.

JB: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

MARIO: Glad to be on with you. Yeah, if you're going to make me a raconteur just by showing up, then I'm in. That sounds great.

[JB & JEREMY LAUGH]

JEREMY: Make it nice and easy.

MARIO: Super.

JEREMY: Before we dive in, we are here to talk about hosting live events, but I know that you guys both run companies. You've got media presence, you've got a lot, and your fingers are in a lot of different pies. I'd love to hear a little about you and your company and what it is you're up to.

Mario, why don't I kick it over to you to start?

MARIO: Okay, cool. I'm a content creator. I create content that shows up in all types of shapes and forms, so whether that's a short-form video with brands or a long-form video of shows that we actually create for people that are trying to pursue their passion, overcome obstacles, and really be the best person that they can be.

We do interviews and things of that nature. We have won a couple of Emmys for those types of programs. I'm also an NBC Today Show contributor, so I go on the air on the Today Show to talk about everything from entrepreneurship to motivation and inspiration. It's those things combined that really create the company, Never Settle Productions, which is a team of six of us. We do live events, live streaming, podcasts, and branded content for corporations and companies.

JEREMY: JB let me kick it over to you. Tell me about your company. Tell me about some of the things you're up to.

JB: Sure. I have a company called Sweloquent Arts. I'm the chief creative officer over there, and I would say, predominantly, what I've been doing is creative development for the last 30 years.

I'm old enough to remember when postage stamp-size streaming content was how things were made, and that's how the first baseball game was sent over the internet. I was there, and I was at baseball for about 13 years developing a lot of content around the broadcast game. I did some in-studio hosting and regular traditional sports broadcast, but that wasn't really my jam. I realized that when I was at mlb.com, which was predominantly a tech company disguised as a sports company because, ultimately, they became Disney's Streaming. That's who they are now. That's what that company became.

I started working with a lot of their vendors, clients, and a lot of the engineers in-house to just talk and be able to have a conversation that wasn't lost in the weeds of technical details. I got to hang out. I got to create a bunch of content.

We did a bunch of branded content, and then I spun that off for tech companies for my own business, much like Mario’s Podcasts, which were for highly regulated industry programs for finance and for pharma. Then a lot of tech company work.

JEREMY: Great, and one of the things that I love about both of you guys is, obviously, you've got the sort of theater chops, the media, and the entertainment. You know how to tell a story, how to create energy on stage, but you also have this business sense. You understand what it means to run a business. You understand that a corporate event is meant to be entertaining, but there is a point also. You're both very keyed into what that's about and how you can help, along those lines.

I want to start off this conversation by talking about hosting and almost playing devil's advocate by saying, what do we need a host for anyway? An awful lot of events don't have a host. If I'm producing an event and I've got my speaker lineup with my CEO, CMO, and whatever it is, they're going to get up to talk about the things they talk about when they get on stage. What do I need you guys for?

JB: Does an event need a host? No, but do you need an electrician for wiring in your house? Do you need a plumber for the plumbing work in your house? Sometimes no. If you want to poke around with the wires, see where the OS is, the vaults, and how that all works together, feel free.

Let's say we're all on a bus even, right? Do you need a professional bus driver? No. We're all adults. We have licenses. We could drive a bus. Are we going to get where we want to go without wrecking it? That's less likely without a pro, so one of the ephemeral parts of the job is that you can't name it when it's not there. When it's there, it elevates the whole thing.

I'm a believer in two parts of it, which is you need a pro, but also having someone who's not completely within the organization and has that half step outside that is freer to do some things both either humor-wise, energy-wise, or hype man wise, then you have a just better opportunity to have a bigger success as a collaboration.

With somebody who's one step removed from all the sales meetings, all the organizational meetings, and all the quarterly reports to say that people are looking for some guidance on the messaging and in the marketing. What are your goals; just having that dialogue with people in discovery. I do a big discovery process that leads to a better outcome, right? It is knowing we're going to have a great show. It's going to be a blast. You got fireworks, we've got big lights, and it's going to be the jam.

What are we actually trying to do in that meeting? Was it a bad quarter? Was it a great quarter? Is the messaging changing? Is the strategy completely different? A pro helps.

JEREMY: That's a great answer. I've got a dozen follow-up questions for you, but I want to get Mario in here, too.

[JB LAUGHS]

What would you add to that, Mario?

MARIO: Look, I'm going to go a little bit on the aggressive side, and I'm going to say that every single event that you produce needs a host. I don't think that you actually need a host. What I think that you actually need is a professional moderator, you need a professional host, you need a professional ad-libber, and you need a professional listener. When JB talks about having that half-step outside, that is crucial because that half-step outside covers the blind spots that you just can't see.

You're just too close to it. I think hiring a host can have this kind of thought that people think we're going to get this cheerleader or this person that can kind of string things together and keep the energy moving. All of that's true, but I don't take it that lightly. I'm going into it trying to really understand what's the problem you're solving. What's the morale right now? What are the real issues like? How transparent can you be with me so that I can do a better job trying to accomplish a thing for you? That requires a lot of discovery.

As JB said, it requires a lot of listening, and then it understands how to use that and amplify that in a way that doesn't scare the brand or go off into tangents but comes back to the points that are really important.

I call it controlled chaos, and that's why I think the best hosts are those that have had live experience. Those that have been in the fire where you have lots of people watching you or listening to you, and it's live in real time because that's the training that you can't just make up when things go wrong, when things don't happen, when something misfires from the tech, or when a guest doesn't show any of these things.

That can happen, but it's really, to me, someone that can listen, is willing to do the research, and has proven experience in life. I think that, to me, are the reasons why you need a host, because JB said it perfectly, when you don't have it, you don't know what you missed. When you have it, it's night and day.

JEREMY: Yeah, and I have to say, having worked with each of you, I can vouch for that firsthand. I've done plenty of events that don't have hosts, and I've seen what each of you guys can bring. It really is a massive difference.

I want to key in on what you're talking about in terms of that sort of one step removed, right?

Here I am again, I'm imagining myself in the role where I work for Coca-Cola or whatever it might be, I'm planning my event, and I think I've come around to the idea that I need a host, but I want someone who understands my brand. I want someone who within the company who knows what we're talking about and will be relatable to everybody in the audience. They all know this guy. It's got to be the right person, but I happen to have that person. In my opinion, I have someone who's funny, charming, and outgoing, and I really think that he or she could pull it off.

What am I missing? What is it that you guys bring that is different from that?

MARIO: Creativity is the most valuable asset. I think that when you can bring in someone that has really worked hard in several years of experience of being creative, that enables them to amplify what your vision already is. You got this great person that you think is going to be awesome, fantastic. I'm not second-guessing that. How could I?

What I can say is that I can amplify. I can absolutely amplify that. You want that to go from what you think is a 10 to 100. Put me in play and I'll show you how I'll make that person, help that person, or assist that moment to become even bigger than what you see it as right now.

JEREMY: Can you give me an example of that? That sounds great but how does that play out?

MARIO: I can give you an example. We did a recent, amazing event with the UPS store. They brought me in as this host, and one of the things was, they had a new CEO, who's great, for the UPS store and could have done routine keynotes and things. There's no doubt about it, she's personable, approachable, accessible, and she would deliver an amazing keynote, but having me there enabled her to not have to really think about all the things she had to hit in the same way when she's on an island by herself. She can now be even more relaxed.

The thing about that was, you all noticed that in the discovery talking with her, specifically, that she likes to be in that relaxed space. That's what will help her actually communicate the best. If that's the case, what can you do to put her in that position for like a fireside chat or an interview kind of scenario?

That is a real-life moment where they could have had her and it would've been great, but being that I was involved, I studied her, we got a chance to meet, we talked beforehand, and we got to really feel each other out, I got to understand how I could help amplify her. I could tell from just being someone that interviews a lot of people that your job, as an interviewer, is to read the interviewee and the audience. You got to be reading both of these things.

It's like a DJ that's trying to understand it. Is this record making the crowd move or do I need to switch to a different genre or a different song?

JEREMY: Yeah, that's a great example. When I think back to that interview that you conducted, she was the CEO, and if it had been an internal host, then by definition that person works under her. The dynamic you have with one of your direct employees interviewing is very different than what the two of you were able to establish.

JB, let me throw that over to you, as well. In terms of having an external host as opposed to an internal host, what are the benefits there?

JB: As an example, I worked with a big tech company for a long time and their internal quarterlies were an hour-long shell that they streamed around the world. I had a good relationship with everybody over there for a long time.

They had a new CMO come in. She's amazing, but that wasn't her wheelhouse. Live was not her jam, so she knew that I was great at live, to put it bluntly. She asked, “Can we do this as a co-host thing each quarter?” I was like, “Sure, let's do it.” It was great because then the second part, in terms of amplification, is that each of our specialties for whoever it may be that's not in the organization, can bring a facet of their specialties.

I'm pretty good with being funny, like not really funny, but like a little bit funny. In tomorrow's point about being live, in the live events, I also know where those guardrails about humor are. I coach against jokes all the time, but humor that happens live and around the space I'm all for it. I can take all that on.

Going back to the earliest art forms, I can play a bit of the smart clown and the gesture role next to a CMO and a CFO. The other part, too, is you got to be able to actually have conversations with bright people. If you get the right host, then you can do both of those things. You can make it lighter, more entertaining, but you can also amplify their intelligence, their visions, and their ideas.

You can say that you don't have to pitch it. It's not a presentation. It's not a keynote. Just tell me about it. Just tell me about what you think we should do for the next quarter. That eases everybody to have a laugh or two. It's done. The hour goes blazing by with the quarterly reports, great. That was another core example of the internal and external combo, which I think is a sweet spot.

MARIO: Honestly, that was so good, man. That's so powerful. That's the secret sauce. When I think about leadership and all these people, they're making decisions on whether this person is going to be good for us. Is this or is this person going to work out? They're making these decisions.

JB: Mm-hmm.

MARIO: They got a lot on the line that they want to communicate. I think that to me, leadership is achieving results through the efforts of others, so don't you want to try to achieve that through somebody that's got professional experience and understanding of that?

JEREMY: I think that's all very well said. I think the other side of it that you bring, in addition to standing in as the employees without being employees, is standing in as the customers. It is being able to ask questions and bring a perspective from outside the company as someone who might use that product or brand in a way that anybody inside the company simply can't because you're selling it.

MARIO: It's different, Jeremy. The research process is a completely different thing. I've worked in companies before, and I've been asked to participate in events. When I'm doing the research from that perspective, it felt different than the research when I'm outside of the company. I have to now put on your hat and shoes with this outdoor lens with this background of experience, professional delivery, and amplification.

Then it's like, oh wait, I'm reading press releases, digging into LinkedIn, looking at social media posts, actually going to the store if it's a physical location or I'm buying the product online, and I'm going through the customer experience so that can feel it personally. It's a whole other level of research to really make sure that I'm seeing as much of this equation as possible so that I really can help bring in those nuances that make things different.

I think that does not only build credibility as a host because it's all about trust. That is what we're talking about here. Do they trust the host with this decision? Do I trust to put you in front of the CEO? Do I trust that you're going to go on stage and say the right thing? It's trust so how do you build that? You show that through demonstration of your portfolio, your work experience, and your ability to listen. Are you open to taking meetings with clients prior to the event? Are you willing to be the customer and do that on your own time to really understand so that you can bring in those nuances that you share with them?

They go, “Oh, you actually did that? That's amazing.” Then, collectively, they go, “We're going to be okay with this one.”

[JB LAUGHS]

They got several pieces of weight that they're carrying, but with that particular weight at that moment they go, “Okay, we're in good shape here.”

JEREMY: Yeah, that is a hundred percent true. I have experienced that with you guys. Well, you have that moment of release when they mention that we are in good hands here.

I want to dig deeper into this idea of research or what you both alluded to in terms of talking to the clients themselves. I want to hear your perspective on when you have a meeting like that. You're going to be hosting this event for Brand X. What are you looking for out of that input meeting? You've got half an hour or an hour with the events team, the CMO, or whoever it is who's going to download you. What can we do to set you up for success?

JB: Mario hit on the key points, which I wanted to just highlight. If you want to hand me a script, have me show up on the day of the shoot, and pay me X amount of dollars, thanks. You can get me, or you can get Mario. You can get just about anybody to show up and do that. Everything Mario describes is true where are they in the customer journey? What are they trying to do?

If they're a business and they're trying to solve a problem, what problem are they actually trying to solve? Are people wary about where we're headed? Are people excited about where we're headed? Does the recession talk freaking people out? Are we completely changing brand colors and brand style? What is the ultimate reason? We have a show every year. We get together, we collected, we have a keynote, we say this is where we're at, and this is what we're going to do, but what's the actual goal? When somebody leaves that room or leaves the stream, what is their take? What do you want them to feel?

You can tell them anything and talk about this a lot. It's just a big bunch of grown-up show-and-tells. I can tell you that we got a whole new vision and that we got a whole new brand strategy. It's the neatest one we've ever had for like the last five years. I can show you in my role that I don't even work here, and this is pretty cool.

Then we help people bring that out and show their enthusiasm about the new solution or whatever their concern is. I think the research goes into all that. That's what the discovery is. I go back to my performance days in improv and theater and the fundamental question was always, why am I speaking? If I don't have a good answer for why, then I should probably zip it and move along. I think people fall into a lot of norms in organizations that are just like, “This is what we do.” I do the presentation, it's 11 minutes long, and then we clap and have stale chicken.

[JEREMY & MARIO LAUGH]

Isn't there a better way to do any of that? The chicken we can fix, but for those 11 minutes, can we do anything different?

MARIO: I would say that a series of questions that I think any event planner or organizer that is putting this together with a host ask is, how can I make this as successful for that host as possible? As JB said, this isn't about the Xs and Os on the playbook. It's more about the feelings, the emotions, and the characters.

To me, I need to know about this person's personality. I need to know what they're passionate about. I need to know what to stay away from. I need to be able to see them on video and send me clips. I need to see how this person already communicates. What's their communication style? Are they laid back and slow delivery? Do they talk super fast and have a lot to say in a short amount of time? Do they go high pitch?

I'm looking at body language. I'm reading these nuances that are really helping me understand the players, whether that's someone I'm going to be interviewing, a panel, or just moving parts from one to the next. What's so important about this part versus what's the next part? That can help me understand what powerful transitions could be to make those parts really come together or really come to life.

JEREMY: I love all of this. This is really valuable. JB, I loved what you said about what we want the audience to feel when they're done. You touched on this a little bit, but I just want to shine the spotlight on the idea of what the audience is coming in thinking.

If you're unveiling a new product, do they already know about the product or is this a surprise? Are they excited about the product or are they weary that this product isn't going to sell? What's in their minds, generally speaking, makes a big difference in terms of tone, and I think people, like you guys were saying, are sometimes so in it that they forget to even deal with that.

MARIO: Can I just say something, just on that point? Are they forced to attend?

[JB LAUGHS]

Like honestly, I need to know that, or do they want to attend? What I am trying to uncover is whether they are willing participants. That's why I'm asking this question because then you can put that on me. You don't need to take on that weight. That's my job to take that weight and to be that person, so like JB said, be the gesture, that influencer, or be able to be the one that can make the joke about themselves to loosen everybody else up because they're laughing at me. I'm cool with that because I know what goal I'm trying to achieve for the client.

JB: Yep, and just to follow really quick, put the red flags up early, please. That's great. This merger is not going well. Let's talk that out from the beginning.

[JEREMY LAUGHS]

Don't wait till the 11th hour to say, “By the way, half this audience hates you.”

That's not an “on the flight there” kind of conversation. That should be said in the first meeting. Mention that we're trying to unveil this new organization and not everybody's wild about it because now, I have a genuine framework that I can bounce. I won't sound like a buffoon by saying something overly enthusiastic about a change in the business to people that aren't buying into it yet.

JEREMY: I just wanted to transition over a little bit. I'm curious if there are things that you guys feel that you bring to an event that someone might not think of when they think of a host. If you have things that you feel are another skill or another aspect of it that brings value that is beyond the obvious.

JB: We're in a world of digital content and there's no bandwidth. There's not a 24 hours of programming day. It's infinite and stacked. I argued for a decade about hybrid events before the pandemic, and every single planner and person I met was like, “Nah, we'll cannibalize our audience.” You're not, you didn't, but now you're doing it; I was right. It doesn't help me.

[JEREMY LAUGHS]

It's not a great thing, but I know in my heart that like I was right for 10 years. Now the beauty of digital content is that the audience can be five people at a time. You don't need to hit the friend's most generic thing on the wall to get the biggest, broadest audience. You need to get a handful of people to love what you're doing.

There was an event that I helped develop where we basically spun up an entire podcast studio in another ballroom while we did them off the main stage. There are a couple of different companies I worked with where I've essentially done broadcast networks inside their organizations.

We run a news coverage of the event with a live desk and interviews, but then I said, “Hey, podcasts are pretty happening and they're pretty easy. If we already have all this talent in-house, 20 minutes at a pop, just send me over there and set them up.” We did, and I think we did 22 in the end. It was nearly effortless for a tiny budget increase. When I'm hosting, what I try to bring, in addition to the concrete, is more content and a bigger vision. This is a content event, and the live shows are part of it.

It is streaming, which most are now, but which parts are streaming? Are you covering the brakes? Are the brakes just slots? Are they just graphics? People aren’t sticking around. What do you do? Are you bringing in Mario or me and having an interview with the CEO later in the afternoon after his or her keynote? There's an incredible opportunity for digital cost, which is much lower than old broadcast costs, to completely flood the zone with your content.

I would say that idea that it is one big bundle of stuff that is not the keynotes, live show, or the band, is messaging. It's an event and around that should be a complete content ecosystem, and you should do that twice a year. You'll be set for months on end.

JEREMY: I think that's an incredible point and there were a lot of takeaways in there, but one thing you bring up is this notion of hybrid events, which I do think are becoming more and more prevalent. There is a cost involved. I think people sometimes make the mistake of thinking that a hybrid event means turning a camera on the stage, streaming it, and we're done. That it couldn't be more wrong.

If anything needs a host, it’s that live stream, so I think hosting the people who are watching at home is at least as important as the live host.

MARIO: I think that part of the skillset that you're looking for today has got to be someone who is extremely experienced in doing live. They all go live on Instagram. They’ve been doing Facebook Live forever. They may go back to Periscope and all these other live tools like live Twitter. They've already been doing that. They know how to grab their phone and go live on Twitch or on YouTube and just do their thing.

I think that's crucial because number one, that typically means they're also a content creator. They understand how to take one moment, as JB put it, and break that into chapters upon chapters and episodes upon episodes of content and streams. When I'm being hired for an event, I'm thinking pre, during, and post. You may be thinking that you’re hiring me for these two days, and I'm like, “No.” I'm thinking about what I am creating before and what I am creating while I'm there. Then what am I doing after the fact? All of that is messaging, and that can be done on your channels. It can be done on my channels. It can be done on my partner network channels. There are a lot of different things that could be done to it, and that is a very tough thing to do.

It's not just about how you guys feel watching from your computers, typing in the chat, and the dead of all these kinds of generic things that sound so robotic. It's a much more orchestrated feel where you have some players that are there right in front of you, but you have other players that are in different environments that you can't see. You've done it so much that you know how to make them feel like they're actually a part of it and not missing out because they aren’t there. They're still a part of the same experience, and that shows up glaringly obvious.

When you have not thought out your host, your moderator, or your MC while doing it virtually, you can really see the difference between the varying levels of expertise from it.

JEREMY: The answers to that question are worth the price of admission right there. I know you guys do a lot of these events. You were talking about how having a host can be so useful when things go wrong. I'd love to just hear some of those stories.

Was there a time when you were on stage, something bonkers happened, and you figured out a way through it? Is there just a funny story that you like to tell?

MARIO: I'll give you two short ones. There was a keynote speaker at a big event. We're talking 10,000 people at the Boston Convention Center. The keynote speaker is late due to a flight delay. Nothing they can do about it. The event planner, the client, the corporation, and the marketing team are scrambling backstage. I'm sitting there noticing that there's this buzz happening.

No one’s telling me anything yet because they're still trying to figure out how they are going to get here on time. How are they going to get here? A police escort was even brought up. There was talk about getting a police card to zip them through from the airport to the destination.

I'm hearing all this, and I mention that this is a great opportunity for you to have a conversation with your CEO and CMO about flexibility. You guys talk about being agile all the time.

[JB LAUGHS]

It's right in front of you, and they go, “Holy crap, can you do that? What could you do?” Instantly we're backstage scheming on how we're going to do this 35-minute impromptu with nothing on the agenda session about agility.

We go out on stage and pull this thing off. No one knew anything. The next thing you know we're announcing the keynote speaker to come up on stage, and it was magnificent.

The one other quick story was that I found out that I was going to be on stage with Spike Lee. This was at South by Southwest, and I found out the night before. I'm getting a bunch of text messages from the brand, as well as other people, saying, “You have no idea of what you're going to get with Spike. He is an enigma. You don't know if he's going to clam up. You don't know if he's going to blurt out curse words. He’s a New Yorker. You don't know what you're going to get, bro. Are you ready for this?”

I'm getting all this energy coming at me, and I just had to diffuse it. What I ended up doing is deeper research than normal on Spike. I wanted to find something to mention to him that he would know I really dig dug deep for. I found this student film that he produced, and I watched it. It was deep in the YouTube barrels. I pulled this line out and thought to drop this line on him from his student film whenever I get the chance.

I go to the green room. He's got a phone in one ear, and he's writing notes. He's talking to Netflix people about his show. I'm reading the room thinking this is not the time to inject, so I wait and finally, he gets off the phone. I introduce myself. He says, “Hi,” and goes right back to his phone. I'm like, okay, no conversation. Here we go.

I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to break the ice with this man so that we don't get on stage and feel icy, like how this green room feels. Eventually, the PA comes to get us out of the green room. I knew that was the moment when he was going to have to break his attention from what he was doing to now focus on this thing. In the hallway, as they were getting ready to announce us, I bumped him, and I said, “Spike, remember that line you did in your student film?” He looks at me with a squinted face. It almost made me feel scarless and thought, “Should I even say this?”

I just step into the role and was like, “This line killed it.” Then I go, “We made 10 million dollars at the box office. Can you believe it?” He goes, “Say it again.” Then I go, “We made 10 million at the box office. Can you believe it?” He goes, “That was a damn good line, wasn't it?”

Next thing I know, they say, “And welcome to the stage, Spike Lee and Mario Armstrong.” We come out. I kid you not, every person that knows me and every person that watched that video was just like, “Yo, what did you do to Spike? Why was he so comfortable? What was going on? What was the exchange? He was hugging you and touching you. Do you guys go back? Do you know each other?”

I just met this guy, but I think it's indicative that we as hosts are trying to really pay attention to these moments so that we can deliver the best thing for everyone else. We have to do such a good job of getting out of our own ego. It really forces us to figure out how can we be used in a way that helps everybody else.

That thing opened him up. He was great with the audience. That thing made a world of difference. You would've thought we were best cousins or something. Those are probably just two quick stories. Sorry, I thought they were quick.

[JB & JEREMY LAUGH]

JB: Before we go to my story, which is less exciting, I just want to point out that what Mario's doing is important. 99.9% of the world doesn't like to do any of the things that we do. Public speaking is still number one. That's not comfortable. To stand in front of people and speak is not a comfortable thing. We have deep neurological stressors that are triggered and have to master.

By essentially saying, “Hey Spike, I love all your work and everything about you. I have spent this extra time.” He got that and that made him feel connected to somebody.

JEREMY: Do you guys know that Seinfeld saying about public speaking? I'll probably get this wrong, but I believe it goes something like this, “the fear of public speaking is people's number one fear followed by number two, which is the fear of death.” This means that people would rather be in the casket than give the eulogy at a funeral.

[MARIO & JB LAUGH]

Anyway, back to you JB. Go on.

JB: That's good. I have a couple of stories. I think I've been stuck on the other point with Mario's story about what a pro-host is for. You don't know anything went wrong.

We did that for Adele when Michael Dell's sat link didn't work for a report. He was 30 minutes late. We just reorganized the entire show in my ear with the other participants. The producer did their job. I stayed on stage and traffic-copped the whole thing. He was 30 minutes late. We just rotated things to accommodate. That's why you have a pro so that nothing looks wrong. You can't see it. You can't see it until it's gone.

JEREMY: Alright, I'd love to transition to the Lightning Round.

[AUDIBLE THUNDER]

This is just three quick questions. I'm sure you've seen a lot of fantastic speakers, but who's your biggest get? A speaker, entertainer, or subject matter expert that you would either love to see at a live event or someone who you would love to coach.

MARIO: I’d like to see people that don't like to talk at live events. I would like to see someone like Tyler Perry. He's got a wealth of experience. He's done it on his own. He's got a story that, for the most part, people know about in terms of being homeless, producing these plays, and wanting to have these dreams. Then he buys acres upon acres to create his own Hollywood in Atlanta.

BETHANY: This is behind the scenes Bethany breaking in with a fact check. Tyler Perry is an American actor and filmmaker. In 2015, he acquired a former military base that is 330 acres and converted it into studios that have been used to film shows and movies like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Walking Dead, and Black Panther.

MARIO: If you've ever seen any of his drone footage, it’d just blow you away. There's like another Hollywood being developed with his sets and all his stuff.

I just think that he has a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. From what I could tell, he is easy to talk to, so I just think he would be a phenomenal speaker or a phenomenal fireside chat with someone.

JEREMY: Yeah, you're right. JB, how about you? Whom would you love to see?

JB: Honestly, it would be a fireside chat with Oprah, but it would have to be a full hour where I get to talk to her. That would be amazing.

JEREMY: I know you guys have seen tons of executives present. What is one thing you wish presenters did more of or less of?

JB: Stop being so rote. Don't write a script. Don't write or try to memorize a script. It’s boring. You need bullet points and blocks of thought. That's it. Trust that you know how to communicate. You're going to do it. You'll do fine. Memorization of word-for-word scripts from a PowerPoint is just doom. That would be my advice.

MARIO: If you're not experienced at reading script, it's you're reading a script. I think you have to be very experienced in reading a prompter to do it well enough to the point that no one knows you're reading a prompt. When you leave those blocks, you actually have nothing to do but talk from the heart. When you have nothing to do but talk from the heart, that's when people think you can get in trouble. No, not if it's from the heart.

One thing that I try to say to other executives that I do this myself, is watch yourself on mute. I will rehearse or I will look at a previous event to watch myself on mute to, specifically, not hear what I'm saying. I just want to see how I'm saying it. I'm looking for the body language. I'm looking for my nonverbal communication. Am I smiling at a point that probably shouldn't have had that smile? Am I frowning at a point where it really wasn't that serious?

I just think that if you lightly look at how you use your bodily gestures and see that they are communicating. People are so focused on just the words that they don't focus on what they look like or how those words are being delivered. I think watching yourself on mute can help you see that.

JEREMY: That's great advice. Okay, last question, what is something, could be a book, a movie, a song, whatever you like, that was a big influence on you and particularly, if possible, influenced your professional career?

JB: It was theater. Particularly Adobe Theater Company. I was surrounded by some people that were more talented than I was. They were all more creative. They were all more industrious. They were kind. They were collaborative.

BETHANY: This is behind the scenes Bethany breaking in with a fact check. The Adobe Theater Company was an off, off-Broadway theater company. Jeremy found it and ran it in the nineties. JB appeared in several Adobe productions, such as The Talking Dog, Hercules the Greek Demigod, and Santa's Reindeer Dasher.

JB: They were a little bit crazy and all of it was just enough to the point where I was just a little bit underwater the whole time. When you're just a little bit underwater the whole time, you get really good at swimming. You're not drowning. You're not just treading water, but what the percentages, in terms of productivity, say is that when you're reaching for things that are about 4% beyond your grasp, that's like the wheelhouse that'll keep you engaged and fired up.

Those theater days and being surrounded by so many amazing creative people, along with the collaboration, broke some of the ideas that you're not alone in doing it, even as a host. It's a conversation. Every presentation is a conversation. As soon as you get your brain around that, you're just going to be better. If we look at our lives as stories with theater, particularly Adobe and all those folks, and UCB a little bit, they just helped me. It's collaborative. It is creative. It is a little bit like tissue paper of art, which means it's going to be gone. You're going to do it and it's going to be gone, but it's still a real blast to do it, even when it doesn't go perfectly.

JEREMY: Now you're just trying to make me cry.

[JB LAUGHS]

We will hopefully link to this. I don't know if it's live yet. JB, I'm sure you don't know this, but one of our old Adobe friends is making a Wikipedia page about Adobe.

JB: That's excellent.

JEREMY: If it's live, we will link to it. Mario, how about you?

MARIO: I feel influences come from so many sources and so many moments. I'll just name three quick ones. It became something that I just incorporated in every facet of my life that I could, honestly. I was on this quest to remove the word “but” from my vocabulary. Not the butt that we're sitting on, but the “but” in conversations. I just always felt that there's gotta be a better word than that because it always seems like whatever comes after that is going to be negative.

Then I would say Rocky movies, too, because I'm just a big fan of the underdog. I'd say any movie that's got an underdog.

On the book side, I've read two books that I keep repeating. One is by Kevin Hart, which normally is not a book that I would recommend. Kevin is so transparent in his comedic upbringing and the challenges that he was having with his family with not having his dad, being picked on, being so short, and all of these things of how he had to break through. You really understand the perseverance, the grit, and the pain that he went through. Through that, you can make that into tangible lessons and influence for you.

Then the other book would be Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. It's not because I'm a sneakerhead because I am, but you would never know Phil Knight was on the brink of being broke like 20 times. The biggest thing that comes back from the Phil Knight story that really influences me today is that everyone thinks he created Nike to create a shoe. That's not what he was creating. What he was creating was a running shoe for runners. That's all he was doing. That portrays his idea of niche, focus, being really spot on, not trying to be too many things to too many people at once and being too broad.

It got him to the point where he could have a broader impact, but it was only because he was a runner himself who wanted to better running shoes. Then he only hired people that knew running. He didn't hire a great marketer. He hired a great runner and figured out how we could come up with marketing. I think those things inspire me the most.

JEREMY: Those are great stories. I want to thank you guys so much. I feel like I learned a ton by talking with you and listening to you two. You were both talking about collaboration and as a theater person, that was one of the things I absolutely loved the most. It was collaborating.

As a creative director, I still love collaborating, but when I think of collaborating, it's usually with my tech team, executives, fellow staff members, and freelancers. As I said, we don't always have a host, but when I've worked with each of you, you were basically the physical embodiment of everything I'm trying to do. You are the energy of the show, the connectivity of the show, the messaging of the show, and everything that I'm trying to put together.

I've handed things off to you guys to carry, and it's been such a pleasure working with you two. As we talk, I just think, “Why would we do a show without them?” They're just so good. They bring so much.

I very much look forward to being back in a cold ballroom with bad carpeting with each of you guys and making some magic for the audience. I really appreciate you taking the time and talking with me today.

Well, getting to talk with Mario Armstrong and JB about how hosts amplify the goals of events was so great. For me, there were tons of takeaways, but these are the four tops.

         • Number four, a host is a pro who can get you where you want to go more efficiently and amplify your messaging with less chance of problems. If they're outside the                organization, it allows them to do certain things that someone inside the organization just can't do.

         • Number three, hosts can inspire you to turn your event into other content like streaming podcasts and videos on demand.

         • Number two, having a host allows your presenters to relax. Let the host worry about the audience. It simply allows them to talk rather than present.

         • Number one, hosts do a lot of research. You need to be honest with them about what's really going on at this meeting, what your message is, what the audience is                  thinking, and what you want them to feel.

Look, I could talk about this stuff all day. If you want to talk to us about today's topic or anything about live events, check out our episode notes for more information or just go to proscenium.com to drop us a line. Send us a guest suggestion or tell us why you would make a good guest. We would love to hear from you because at Proscenium, we help presenters do their best in front of their most important audiences. As we like to say, we help brands perform. I have a sneaking suspicion that we can help your brand perform.