321. Q&A With The Audience, The Finale (For Now)

In Episode 321, Sean and Andy wrap up a last handful (for now!) of listener questions, touching on routines for decompressing after a show and re-entering “civilian” life, balancing long work days and/or travel with coming home, talk a little bit about day rates, and then dig into one of Sean’s long-standing business book recommendations, Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality, and how both business owners and freelancers can take the lessons from that book to heart in the live audio and event world to build better relationships with clients and customers!

Episode Links:
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, by Will Guidara
Episode 321 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 321 - Let's Be Unreasonable!

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com 

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Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:58] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal of Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss with me. Zoes the Benson to my hedges. Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?

[00:01:09] Sean Walker: What's up buddy? How are you?

[00:01:10] Andy Leviss: That, that is actually, I think that is like more like that is older than like the time I pulled out Bartles and James.

[00:01:17] Sean Walker: That is dude,

[00:01:17] Andy Leviss: I, I like, yeah, it's uh,

[00:01:20] Sean Walker: We're,

[00:01:21] Andy Leviss: sometimes just the voice

[00:01:22] Sean Walker: today, bud.

[00:01:23] Andy Leviss: right?

Uh, let's do it, man.

[00:01:27] Sean Walker: No, nothing particularly new. Just the same old, same old, you know, husbanding daddying, accompanying audio ing podcasting, the uch.

[00:01:36] Andy Leviss: Yeah, all of the above. Supporting, supporting the kids, supporting the wife, supporting all the customers.

[00:01:43] Sean Walker: totally,

[00:01:44] Andy Leviss: It's, uh, yeah, no, so we're like catching up. We're, we've got like a couple low hanging, you know, things that we left that we didn't make to in the last episode of q and a we wanted to kind of chat about and then we were just kinda kind, see where things went.

'cause apparently y'all don't actually hate when we do these episodes, so we figured why not do another one. Um. Either that or the filter. I have to block all the hate mail is working either way. I'll take it.

[00:02:07] Sean Walker: Perfect. No, the best part is I don't get any hate mail. That all goes to Andy, so he has to sift through it. It's fricking amazing.

[00:02:13] Andy Leviss: I mean, I think it goes to both of us. You just don't ever read it.

[00:02:16] Sean Walker: Fair enough. I'm pretty sure I don't even know the login.

[00:02:20] Andy Leviss: Yeah, no. It, it should. I think it, I think it just forwards to both anyway. I wonder if they did is just forwards to a ghost address that you don't actually use.

[00:02:28] Sean Walker: Perfect.

[00:02:29] Andy Leviss: That could be, that could be.

[00:02:31] Sean Walker: what I need. I love that for us. Well, let's get into it, dude. What are we doing? What's, what's up? What's the first question?

[00:02:36] Andy Leviss: well, what's the first question? Uh, let's see. 'cause some of these we still, there's definitely, we need to get like Ryan or like a couple of other touring friends on for some of these.

'cause there's a bunch of like, stuff about touring relationships and stuff like that, that you and I could kind of make up answers to. But I feel like it would be a better service to folks to, to phone a friend. So I'm gonna hold off on those.

Um. But, uh, here's one. And I know, I know, like Sean, you're not, you're not, you know, mixing as many shows these days, but you're still, like, even when you're on site as boss, I think this still applies, is folks asked, uh, uh, what's, what's your routine for decompressing after a show?

Like, do you like to sit in silence, relax with some gentle music in a beverage of choice, whether, you know, sparkly, you know, alcohol, whatever. Go straight to sleep. 'cause well-rested is what matters the most. Um. What's, uh, what, what's your thing after, whether it's after a show or after just a long day of yelling at people on a show,

[00:03:33] Sean Walker: Uh, I don't yell. It doesn't make it sound any better, and nobody likes to work for somebody that's yelling at him. Uh,

[00:03:38] Andy Leviss: we're gonna come back to that.

[00:03:39] Sean Walker: yeah, totally, uh, it's changed over the years. It used to be a beverage of choice for sure, like for sure. Uh, but as you get older and you, you know. Don't, you can't do that as often anymore, as in as high quantities.

It's changed to Sparkle water and just, just kinda chilling. Maybe do some reading, read a book or whatever, but I definitely need like some time, an hour or so of chilling in. Reasonable peace and silence to wind down. 'cause you're like, once you get that much energy blasting into your body, you're, you're fired up, dude.

Even when you're exhausted and like cross-eyed, it's still hard to just come home and go to bed. You know? At least for me, everybody's gonna be different. This is definitely like a personal preference thing. This is not like right or wrong, you know?

[00:04:26] Andy Leviss: yeah, there's that adrenaline crash. And I've certainly had times in gigs where like that adrenaline crash is so hard that like, you don't have a choice, you're just out, which happens too. But yeah, there's, if you can like, yeah. I find too, like if I can like wind down somehow, whether it's a book, a movie, a, a, a podcast that I can kinda half listen to and tune out.

Yeah. Something to just kind of. Let that dissipate a little more naturally. Um, I think it's both

[00:04:53] Sean Walker: about somebody else's reverb, compression settings, whatever it takes.

[00:04:56] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Look, man, if your phone won't load the cheat sheet of Ryan's settings that you saved, that's, you know, that's on you for not memorizing it.

[00:05:05] Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. Oh, that's a screenshot bud. Just snatch screenshot. Done.

[00:05:13] Andy Leviss: Um.

[00:05:13] Sean Walker: about you, dude? Same thing. Chilling. I.

[00:05:16] Andy Leviss: yeah, I think the same thing. Um, it depends, like I, you know, like I, I do, do still, uh, you know, part partake in, in, in the, um, reasonable quantity of, uh, of, uh, fermented beverages for, for a lack of

[00:05:29] Sean Walker: one to three. I would do like 30 of those mother FOIAs, dude. You know what I'm saying? Like, I, I didn't have an off switch, so I had to knock that stuff off. You know what I mean?

[00:05:37] Andy Leviss: Well, and I certainly, like, as I've gotten older, I will do that lesson and I've also come to realize that as much as like, it feels like that's gonna help you chill and put you to sleep, it's often just gonna fuck you up more in the long run.

Um, or even in the short run. Um, so yeah, or like there's, yeah.

Um. But like some, some sort of like snack, chill out, you know, like I've got a wife and kid to come home to as you do. So if I'm not coming home too late, it's nice to, you know, just have a moment to kinda turn off with them and whatnot. Um,

[00:06:09] Sean Walker: Totally.

[00:06:11] Andy Leviss: yeah, and just, and the one thing I've been trying not to do as I get older is not to like obsess on what went wrong, right after.

Like ideally nothing goes wrong, but like that's the worst way to get sleep. And particularly with like the way like my autistic brain fucking latches onto things like, that'll keep me up all night. Like I try and like if there's anything I need to make a note of right away, I am gonna make a note of it and then we're gonna put that aside.

I'll come back to it tomorrow 'cause I will have all the time to obsess on it tomorrow too.

[00:06:43] Sean Walker: You know the cool thing about problems, they're still there tomorrow.

[00:06:46] Andy Leviss: Yeah, no, that's. That that is, that is true. Um,

I

[00:06:51] Sean Walker: What's next?

[00:06:52] Andy Leviss: let's say, well there was actually, there's a question. I'm trying to find it in this list. 'cause there was one that like led perfectly from where we just left that off. Um. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna sort of tweak this question a little bit. 'cause originally it was, it was, um, it started as a question about how folks cope with the massive differences between touring and home life, which again, some of that I think we want to come revisit with, you know, a couple of friends and a future episode.

But, um, this person in particular is in a region where it's more of that like weekend warrior type of thing. And I feel like that comes back around to like the type of stuff you and I do too, obviously. Like I'm doing a little less of it right now of like even where you're just going away for a day or for two days, or you're just doing a long 15, 18 hour day and then coming home and having to switch that off.

And, you know, like we've even talked on past episodes, like when we had like Kenny Barnwell on and stuff about. When you're doing like full on touring, how to like integrate back into life. But I feel like it's a different question and how to do that when it's just a day and we're working in a career that just doesn't have the same hours that like a normal office job would and how to manage that.

And, and I know particularly for you as like a business owner, it's, you know, you can't always, at a certain point in your company leave the work at work and how, how we balance that, I mean, what do you think?

[00:08:18] Sean Walker: Balance. Now there's, there's a challenging word. Uh, it's hard, man. It's hard.

[00:08:27] Andy Leviss: Yep.

[00:08:27] Sean Walker: uh, it's easy to say like, here's this routine, or here's this thing I do where yada, yada, yada. Right? But really like, it takes a little bit of time, like you gotta air gap that a little bit, where you're like, cool, gig is done and I need to find. 30 to 60 minutes or whatever it takes for you to like turn off the work, you know what I mean?

And be ready for family time when you get home. And it's harder, it's way harder said than done, dude. But like, somebody explained it to me one time and it was about business, but it applies to the, to this also as like, dude, when you're out fighting the world and you get your armor on your sword and you're freaking, you know what I mean?

Doing. Doing what? Doing battle for the day. family or your, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, they don't need that same treatment when you get home. Like take the fricking armor off before you come in the door. Put the sword over the mantle. Right. And like they need the gentle you, not the like, why does my snare suck?

What's going on? Why is this pa whack? You know what I mean? You so I need, I need some space, some time. So I, when it's a long drive home, that's perfect. 'cause by the time I get home I'm like, alright, I'm beat, I'm ready. Let's do this kid, kid and wife thing. You know what I mean? This is awesome because they, they deserve the best version of you that you can give 'em.

Not the like frazzled, right after a gig, snare sucked. You're just pissed at yourself. You know what I mean? Whatever it was. Right. So that, that's, that's what I got on that, that's all I have to say about that.

[00:09:56] Andy Leviss: Yeah, I think that's a big one. And like I said, it's as, as I've gotten older, I've certainly gotten better at. Compartmentalizing and being able to like step away from it like we were just talking about, which is why I thought this question kind of flowed well into that. And also a thing I've learned and even been working on like the last year or two.

'cause you know, like I've talked on the show before, like I'm in like the last 10 years, you know, realize like, oh shit, a lot of the weird shit about me is that like I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum. Or you know what, like what folks years ago would've called

[00:10:28] Sean Walker: No, you don't

[00:10:29] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Um, yeah, there was a lot of that too at the time.

Um, but like, one of the things I've learned to be aware of with that and communicate and is, is the knowing when I do or don't have capacity for certain things and being able to communicate like in advance, like, Hey, today was really frustrating. I'm gonna try not to take it out any, all, but like, I just, I don't have a lot of bandwidth for anything extra.

On that. So like as much as like if, if there's anything you need from me that can wait till tomorrow, can that wait till tomorrow? And like communicating that upfront and, and having that two way and, you know, rather than just letting it pile on from whatever it is, whether it's friends, you know, partner, spouses, kids, whatever, bosses, you know, rather than letting that pile on till you blow up.

'cause you're just over bandwidth and outta capacity. Communicate it upfront and I think everybody gets along a little better.

[00:11:26] Sean Walker: All right. All right.

[00:11:27] Andy Leviss: It is, it's, it's, it's Andy, Andy learning to grown up, uh, late, late in life.

[00:11:32] Sean Walker: Whoa, whoa, whoa. That, that might be too adult for this podcast. We go back to like something,

[00:11:38] Andy Leviss: I, you know,

[00:11:40] Sean Walker: That's good though. That's good. All right. What's next? What do we got next?

I.

[00:11:43] Andy Leviss: um, let's see. That's a travel question. We're gonna hold off on that one.

I dunno. I feel Do, do you feel like we got, we got a couple more questions on day raid, and I'm trying to think of how much we've like beat day raid for. I feel like we've kind of flogged that horse a lot over the last handful of these episodes.

[00:12:07] Sean Walker: Totally,

[00:12:08] Andy Leviss: Um, I'm trying to think if there's any, I'm trying to say if there's like

[00:12:10] Sean Walker: hard because it's, it's so. Personal and regional. Right. So I'm, I'm happy to like, share about it candidly, but it doesn't apply. Right? Because like, if you're talking about what is your day rate in London or Paris. or Seattle or New York or LA or Miami, like those are all different rates, you know what I mean?

And your rate might be the same each place if you're working for companies that are traveling, but like the people in each of those places aren't making the same rate,

[00:12:42] Andy Leviss: And the, and the cost of living and,

[00:12:45] Sean Walker: Even within the same country, right? Even when I, when we send quotes out for places around the country, oftentimes they balk at the price and you're like, well, that's just what it costs.

And they're like, well, not here. It's not. And you're like, oh, oh,

great.

[00:12:57] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And then

[00:12:58] Sean Walker: here.

[00:12:58] Andy Leviss: parts of the country where, where your quote is the bargain.

[00:13:01] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. Yeah, exactly. They're like, that's all. You're like, oh shit, I should have bid higher.

[00:13:05] Andy Leviss: yeah. So the the, there's one thing in this question. I wanna, I wanna. Mention an answer, and I'm gonna caveat this before I even ask the question with the, this is the, Sean and I are not lawyers answer. Um, which is, um, the question was like, should we as an industry be in solidarity about like a guaranteed day rate?

Should we be in solidarity for an hourly wage?

And agreed. And, and the point I wanted to make there is there's a, there's a weird agreed broadly, I think generally like I am all for like. Establishing trends that, like the trend is we tend towards a day rate versus an hourly rate on, on top of what Sean just mentioned in terms of rates being very different in very, in different parts of the country, and frankly, with different experience levels.

The other issue is because we're independent contractors. This starts to tiptoe very carefully towards like antitrust kinda shit that none of us wanna get into. Like as soon as like, we can share our rates on like the discord with each other, but as soon as there's a conversation of like, you know, five or 10 different folks in the same industry all saying, oh yeah, we should all be charging this rate to everybody, that's where it starts to get people into, into trouble with lawyers and government.

And you gotta be careful.

[00:14:22] Sean Walker: Totally. I will say that globally, as I've talked to, talked to and hired. Countless people over the years, they, the trends trend from like 300 ish to nine 50 ish per 10 hour day is about the window of where I, I see things going and the upper end scale of that are gonna be. People that when you're on site with, you're like, holy shit, what a badass.

And they just make everything look easy and they make your day easy. It's not just that they want to charge a lot.

[00:15:07] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:09] Sean Walker: Predominantly here in I, I'll speak to the United States. Here. In the United States, typically speaking, I'm finding people between five and 700 bucks a day that are kick ass at what they do.

Right all over the country, kick ass at what they do, whether that's music or corporate or whatever. That kind of window in there in the last couple years has been, been rocking. But to say like, oh, everybody needs to be blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't go there because some people are just, they're just better.

[00:15:38] Andy Leviss: Yep.

[00:15:39] Sean Walker: the technical skills, the whatever, you know, and sometimes you just need the right person for the job. And sometimes, you know, like if you're still learning, you're not. You're not getting top scale to just figure it out. I mean, we're all, we're all learning, right? We're all, we're all figured out, let's be honest.

Right? Even the, even the top, top, top are still learning. That's one of the things that I've, I've noticed about, you know, the names that we all know from plugins or gear endorsements or whatever, like, they're all learning too. They're not like, this is what I do and it's how I do it, and I've never, never changed it ever again.

They're like, what's the new thing? How do I do it better, faster, more efficient, less CPU processing, less whatever, like they're. They're obsessing like we are just at a different level, right? But, uh, everybody's trying to learn. So if you're trying to learn, you're not gonna be commanding top day rates as whoever's gonna want that squirrel tangent off to the side there,

[00:16:30] Andy Leviss: No, all good. I mean that, that, that, that's what this show is. Come on. Um, and I was actually gonna go on a little tangent there too and explain, so folks who are on the Discord know we as a role on the Discord, if you post a job posting, you have to post a good faith pay range for the job with the listing.

And this seems like a moment to kind of explain a little of the why of that, which. The easy answer for that is there's a bunch of states that legally require that right now. So since folks are posting in all different states, it keeps everybody out of trouble. The bigger answer past that for why states are requiring that is it's, it's both a fairness thing to make sure that like folks aren't getting, both aren't getting screwed on rate.

But it also, it really benefits employers too, because if you can only afford to pay a certain amount of money. And that is way less than I'm ever willing to do the job you're hiring for. You're gonna waste time interviewing me, I'm gonna waste time interviewing with you, only for us to finally get to the point where you tell me your pay range.

And I'm like, oh yeah, no, that would never work for me. Sorry man. Peace and we've wasted all of our time. So it sucks for everybody. And then on the flip side, there is that equity of like, there's folks, you know, like you and me who like have a general good idea of what. The pay range should be, there's folks who may be very good, but because they're coming out of an area where they don't, you know, talk to a lot of folks, or they just don't know what an acceptable range is, they might just be under billing.

And yeah, if you're like kind of a douchey employer, you can be like, great, I can get 'em cheaper and, you know, rub your little, you know, evil hench fingers together, but. Everybody kinda wins when all that information is communicated. You know, folks learn what the market will bear. And that includes folks who are like, well, I'm better than the average bear.

That was a terrible pun. I just did, but I'm wrong with it.

[00:18:23] Sean Walker: Nah.

[00:18:23] Andy Leviss: Uh, um, you know, and, and will increase their rates higher. Or folks on the loan who are like, oh shit, people are making that much. I had no idea. I've been doing this for 15 years, struggling to get by. I didn't think anybody would pay more. So it, it works out for everybody.

So that's again, kinda the flip side to the rate question and also a little inside baseball for why we made that a rule on the discord. Again, that, but also like California and New York, I think New Jersey now, a bunch of states actually require that, even for informal job postings on, uh, online forums. So while we're talking about money, I figured that was a good time to kind of throw that in.

[00:19:01] Sean Walker: totally. And you know the thing that's really a bitch about all that,

[00:19:04] Andy Leviss: What's that?

[00:19:05] Sean Walker: some of those day rates sound like a lot of money until you have to pay rent and buy fuel in those places, and you're like, oh, actually, it's not as much money as it thought. Right now as we're recording this, diesel fuel is $6 and 50 cents per US gallon here in Seattle, Washington.

[00:19:22] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:24] Sean Walker: Get outta here. Six 50 a gallon.

[00:19:26] Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, what is it? I'm, I'm wondering what it is near me.

[00:19:30] Sean Walker: I'm not, I'm not going on a political tirade. 'cause that is not how this show do. Like we are straight up not going there, but like six 50 a gallon's. A lot of fricking money bud. Like that's a lot of dough.

[00:19:42] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Let's, yeah. What is it? Oh, wow. It's actually cheaper here. Crazy.

[00:19:48] Sean Walker: Yeah. We just

[00:19:49] Andy Leviss: that's surprise.

[00:19:49] Sean Walker: state in the union.

[00:19:51] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Yeah. I think the highest I'm seeing is like six. Okay. We're going down a weird little, little squirrel

[00:19:57] Sean Walker: saying is people that go, oh my God, 600 or 700, or whatever it was, right? Like if you're in a place where gas is still two 50 a gallon, like Texas or Missouri or whatever, that means that rent is not $3,500 for a single apartment or a studio apartment. Right? And the, the whole thing just shifts.

You just move the decimal point, man. It's not like all of a sudden you got all this money. Right. Those things all move based on your cost of living and where you are, you know, so it's, uh,

if you're smart and you've got it nailed, like one long or friend of ours that does corporate where you live someplace that's not terribly expensive and you can charge a premium rate, you freaking got it nailed.

[00:20:38] Andy Leviss: Yep. Yep. It's, uh, he, he's speaking of smarter than the average bear.

[00:20:43] Sean Walker: A hundred percent. A hundred percent, and a hell of a singer.

[00:20:48] Andy Leviss: Yep. Yep.

[00:20:49] Sean Walker: All right. What's the next question?

[00:20:51] Andy Leviss: Um, I was just gonna go like, go free for all at this point. Um, so I, I, I mean we could almost do, not that I wanna steal the audio in nerd book club's thunder, but like we could almost go book club here 'cause I finally just finished reading a book that you've been telling me. And like every listener of the podcast we need to read for like almost as long as we, like.

You may have actually mentioned it in like that first episode when you were a guest,

[00:21:16] Sean Walker: I didn't, I didn't know that I. Talked about smart things like books. I thought I was just the

[00:21:22] Andy Leviss: I, I know, right? But, uh, no, you've, you've been, uh, you've been, you've been, uh, pushing hard, like both in the, in the Discord and, and on the podcast, a bunch to read, um, unreasonable Hospitality by, well, Guera.

[00:21:35] Sean Walker: dude. Such a great book. It should be, it should be required reading for everybody. I.

[00:21:40] Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, so for, for those who, who don't know or haven't caught Sean's previous mentions, will was the co-owner and general manager of 11 Madison Park of the, their spinoff restaurant at the, at the Nomad and like a bunch of other, you know, sch mans restaurants in in New York City.

Um, you know, started as like part of the, the Danny Meyer group and kind of grew and it's, the book tells the whole story of how, you know, as a kid who got thrown into this restaurant, you know, as, as the gm, a little before he was ready, he, you know, teamed up with the new chef they had and, and wanted to make it, you know, be a three star restaurant and, and how they, you know, got along to there and eventually became literally the number one restaurant in the world.

Um. And with like a really unique approach, which I mean, like you've, you've told us the hotdog story before, Sean, but if you wanna, uh, you wanna recap that again for folks who haven't heard that one? Like that's sort of the typical example folks give of what they were doing there and, and what kind of start of the bowl rolling for their approach.

[00:22:42] Sean Walker: I'll beat that story to death. But that's such a great story and it applies here, you know, for for audio AV production

[00:22:51] Andy Leviss: We're, we're gonna get, we'll get into that once we.

[00:22:53] Sean Walker: yeah, so in the book there, the GM is busing table. So first and foremost, he's doing it because he wants to be involved with the people and, and have a pulse on things, not because he can't hire a buser, right? So as he's busing this table one day, and he's not always busing tables, he just was busing, you know, periodically to, to keep the pulse on busing tables one day. And he overhears this table that he's kind of cleaning out of some business people that were, had their luggage and they were ready to head straight to the airport and they basically said something to the effect of.

Man, we've eaten every place in town. The only thing we didn't do is get a New York hot dog and they were like, ah, we'll get it next time, blah, blah, blah. We gotta, you know, we gotta get jammed to the airport. So, without saying a word, he keeps clearing the table, goes off, does his thing, brings the dishes back, runs outside to the fricking dirty weenie cart, grabs a New York hot dog, brings it back to the chef, chops it up, all fancy.

And you know, I mean, this is like, what, an $1,100 a plate dinner or something like this is, this is a super schmancy Michelin star restaurant at this point. So chopped up this hotdog made it all, you know, ketchup, mustard, squiggle. So it looks all squiggly fancy on the plate, drops it off, doesn't say a flipping word to these customers.

And the table roars. As soon as this table plate hits the table, he said that he can track hundreds of thousands of dollars of business back to that one $2 hot dog. because all those people, like if you're eating at a place like that. They're all executives, you know, CEOs, CFOs, whatever, right? They're all C-suite, all, all directors of something.

So they're all having business meetings. So they all came back, he said they all remembered him by name, came back, made reservations for other meetings. He's like, it was the best $2 that's ever been spent ever. Right.

[00:24:36] Andy Leviss: And to, to the point that it spurred them to, like, he eventually had like a department and a team that was dedicated to just doing the weird, like the crazy spontaneous stuff like that. And that's kind of what they became known for. Like, you know, somebody, somebody else in town getting ready to, you know, go to the airport and she's like, oh shit, I was supposed to bring my kid back a teddy bear.

And like someone like went back, grabbed some kitchen towels and they literally had a. Craft station with a sewing machine back there where like this one person could sit there and like literally made an impromptu like teddy bear, like stitch together at a kitchen towels to like here That's for your daughter.

[00:25:12] Sean Walker: Like build a bear style dude.

[00:25:13] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Like, like wild, wild stuff. So yeah, I guess, I don't know. Do like, do you have examples of like how we can take that same approach to, so I mean, the whole thing, so the name is Unreasonable Hospitality and like their whole approach to it is to literally do that unreasonable thing and you know, do whatever it takes to like.

Both make yourself stand out and, and make the, make the customer just feel like they're getting like value they couldn't get anywhere else. And yeah, I mean, like Purdue, like you as a business owner, I feel like,

[00:25:43] Sean Walker: I'll do a little one and I'll do a big one.

[00:25:45] Andy Leviss: all right.

[00:25:46] Sean Walker: So two examples from my own, from my own career. So a little one chatting with a, with a event producer on site, and they were like. Busy, busy, busy for the day and hadn't really gotten their coffee going. They had a crappy hotel coffee and they were like, what?

I would kill for a blah, blah, blah latte or something, you know what I mean? I don't remember what the order was, you know, this was years ago, but I was like, dude, I hear you. Me too. Too bad. We don't need time today. And they're like, yep. Right. Totally. And we went our separate ways. Well, it turns out I did have a little bit of time to run to the fricking Starbucks in the, in the lobby, get whatever they wanted.

And obviously something for myself. 'cause it was one of those days, showed back up, not a word, just handed the latte piece back to my station. They still call us to this day, like, just make the day better, dude. You know what I mean? It's little things like that, like. You don't acknowledge like, oh my God, you gotta do this, or Here's this thing I did for you.

You know? It's just like, yeah, here, boom latte, let's go back to work. Let's do this thing. Like it's fricking couple bucks, right? Uh, so you know that that person still calls us for work and they don't beat us up on the quotes as much anymore, right? Because it's like, hey, if this team is on site, they're just taking care of things.

'cause if you're so willing to do the coffee. Which is not in your job description or scope. You've probably already sorted all the details that are in scope and then some, if you're that attentive in our conversation about how our morning was, how attentive are you to the speakers on stage, or the bands that are gonna be here in a minute.

Like you're already all the way down the rabbit hole of the nerd stuff for that. Plus having that kind of hospitality to other people and they just know that everything's gonna be okay if you and your team are there. Right.

[00:27:37] Andy Leviss: Yep.

[00:27:39] Sean Walker: The other one is, uh, we had an engineer come work for us. that flew in, did a show for us.

Crazy, kind of a, you know, it's one of the, one of the boat gigs, bud.

[00:27:50] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:52] Sean Walker: Crazy, kind of fricking in the islands, boats everywhere, right? Kind of, kind of one of those gigs. And there was sea planes coming in and out to get people on and off island. And this, this engineer had said, Hey man. That looks like fun.

I've never been on a sea plane before and I kind of was taken aback from it and going, I mean, been all over the world. They've been on a sea plane before. So I ordered up a sea plan. I was like, boom. 'cause I'm coordinate the schedule anyway, right? I'm like, cool man, you're going home on a sea plane instead of on the fricking the rest of the thing.

And they were like, what? It was rad, dude. So I got plenty of texts about how cool that flight was. Here's the, here's the problem though. Best intentions, but you know, when you're tired, you bone things up. And I'm not perfect. I'm human like the next person. So I got, so there was the wonderful thing. And then here's the part that I fucked up, which I sent him to the wrong airport.

[00:28:44] Andy Leviss: Oh no. Oh.

[00:28:49] Sean Walker: uh, so they had to, they had a long Uber ride. It's not a big hour, an hour Uber ride to the next day, the ride airport. It wasn't, it wasn't the end of the world, but it was just like, yeah, that was slick until it wasn't. Uh, at least we have, we have good laughs about it. It's good. But dude, those little things were like, you know, you, you, you can't, depending on who you are, what you're.

What, back to rates, what your day rate is, right, what the scope is. It's easier for the boss to, to do stuff like that than it is for a, a freelancer or somebody that's on an hourly rate, right? You can't be buying airplane tickets for people.

[00:29:24] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:29:25] Sean Walker: But those things mean that when I call this person again, they're like, hell yes.

I'll clear room my calendar for you. Of course, I'm, I'm, I was busy, but I'm not busy anymore. You know what I mean?

[00:29:37] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:29:37] Sean Walker: Rather than like, Nope. See you in a good space. You know

[00:29:42] Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like, and one of, one of the points like he makes in the book too is like, even as like a fancy restaurant, like they don't have infinite budget to like do stuff like that, but like sometimes it's the really small things they can do it to like, you know, like he was Yeah. Or like he's

talking about like how they had somebody trying to close a deal and you know, as he was wrapping up meals like, ah, you know, like yeah.

Now and. You know, an after dinner cocktail would be great. What I really need is like another million dollars to close this damn deal. And like they slipped out to the, you know, the pharmacy across the street and brought him back 1,000 grand candy bars. They're like, we gave me a million dollars, but closest we can do.

[00:30:18] Sean Walker: And I bet he thought it was hysterical,

[00:30:19] Andy Leviss: Oh. He's like, the guy came back and talked to about it a year later,

[00:30:22] Sean Walker: A hundred

[00:30:23] Andy Leviss: you know, for, you know, like 9 99 worth a worth of candy bars. Really? Now I'm, now I just want a damn a hundred grand bar,

[00:30:30] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally.

[00:30:32] Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, and like as

[00:30:33] Sean Walker: bucks for the candy bars. Got you. Another couple thousand dollars worth of fricking meals like winning Done.

[00:30:38] Andy Leviss: And like, and as a freelancer, there's stuff that you can do like that too. It's not, and it's not always, I mean, it's often about the client. Like if you're the A one on the gig that like, makes the client feel really well taken care of, they're gonna, they're gonna love you. They're gonna ask, you know, the provider for you, you know, is, you know, is Andy or Sean or whoever available next time.

Um, and also like, there's also things along those lines that'll get you, you know, like that'll make you the person that everybody else on the crew wants to work with, which. You know, does, does come back into like how you got hired and by who? From all of like the, Hey, we're gonna have so-and-so back on the show.

You know, are they cool to somebody else's on a show? And it's like, shit, our audio engineer, you know, just had a family emergency. Does anybody know anybody good who might be available? And they'll be like, that guy was awesome. Let's see if he's available and, and call you. And that's. It can be all sorts of like, I mean, I was on a, uh, I was, you know, the production sound engineer for a, a Broadway tour a bunch of years ago that we were prepping and, you know, the lighting programmer and the production electrician needed like a dedicated like private calm line between them to both to coordinate stuff and I'm sure to just like, you know, snark and, and you know, vent steam when nobody else was listening.

[00:31:51] Sean Walker: you wouldn't say that doesn't happen on calm.

[00:31:53] Andy Leviss: they were like, yeah, you know that like fourth channel in our stations, can that be, you know, just like, just the two of us is, is. And I'm like, yeah, no problem. Like, what do you want me to call it? And they're like, I don't know, something funny. So I was like, oh, gauntlet throne. Understood. And it became, there's like, there's a Facebook gallery of.

It got a different name every day. 'cause I knew as soon as a funny name showed up, they knew what it was. So like, there was like, yeah, there was like, it was days of, of, uh, you know, it was calm as you are, you know, calm from away. Uh, don't come at me. Um, and then just a bunch of just like random, yeah, there, there was, uh, and you know, but like, having fun like that with the crew is like, how they're like, oh, this is an audio guy with a sense of humor.

We want, we want him around more. Um.

[00:32:40] Sean Walker: The, the really, the premise of the book and the, and our conversation is, how can I make today better?

[00:32:46] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:32:47] Sean Walker: Right? How can I make every interaction with everybody today better? That's, that's simple. Like how do I leave this place better than I found it and how do I make it fricking better today? And you know, by and large, that's what all of our favorite referrals and friends do. They just make the fricking day better.

[00:33:07] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:07] Sean Walker: It's not, it's not always that. It just sounds great. 'cause like, dude, there's a lot of people listening to this that can make a great sounding show of whatever that is.

[00:33:17] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:18] Sean Walker: But you know, you need to up your fricking soft skills game and be awesome to hang out with and helpful and kind and you know what I mean?

[00:33:26] Andy Leviss: Yeah.

[00:33:27] Sean Walker: the, the people that, like, here, here's a, here's a one, one more nugget from my own, my own company or treasure trove. I often buy dinner for the crew while we're out and about. Right. And I often, because, because I'm fancy, you wouldn't know it by listening to me talk, but I off, I like. I like nice dinner and steakhouse, right? I often will take the crew and that that starts to add up for a while. Well, one freelancer noticed and was super thankful and grateful. They bought one night of this multi night show. They were like, no man, you bought every single fricking night. Like I, this is on me. Thank you for having me out. This is great.

Blah, blah, blah. Well, that stuck with it. And that person gets called all the time.

[00:34:10] Andy Leviss: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:11] Sean Walker: They're like, oh, yeah, it's the only time they've ever bought. I've been buying it every time since, but they bought one time, and I was like, alright. noted. They're, they're, they're grateful and thankful, like, you know, so that, I don't know, a couple hundred bucks for dinner or whatever.

I don't know what it was. I don't remember the tab number, but has gotten them tens of thousands of dollars worth of work over the years. You know what I mean? It's just those little nuggets and. You know, for, for those of you that aren't in a position to be doing that, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that's the one ticket I'm saying think about how you can be

helpful. Exactly. It's the gesture, not the cost. Totally. It could have been coffee, it could have been a pack of gum. It could, you know, it's not the number, it's the, like, you're grateful, you're appreciative, you're helpful. You know what I mean? We're just, we're trying to be great humans here. You know what I mean?

No. No matter how smart ass I get sometimes where I'm like saying other things, like we're all trying to be great humans here.

[00:35:01] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, and it's like, I mean, like my, my day gig now, like I'm doing, I'm doing, you know, tech support. Like, I'm not, like, I'm not giving away, you know, consoles or stuff to people. I couldn't, if I wanted to, you know, like I'm, I'm not even talking to folks in ways that like, I can give them something tangible

[00:35:16] Sean Walker: I got this warehouse that's got space for days. Doug come out, send them over.

[00:35:21] Andy Leviss: Um. But, but like one of the, like one of the things that like our manager, like on my team has like empowered us to do and encouraged us to do is like within reason when we can try and be the last person somebody has to talk to. So like, look at a point, like if somebody calls for like, you know, home stereos or keyboards, like, I can't necessarily help with them with that.

Like I'm gonna have to transfer them to somebody else, but. I will try and make it so, you know, like if here, you know what? I don't wanna put you on hold again. Let me see if somebody can pick you up right away. And if not, I'll have somebody call you back. Or like, there's been times where there's like repairs and stuff or you know, checking up on that.

Like it's, I'm not the right department for that, but I have the tools or know the person to ask to get the answer so I can take like five minutes out of my day to get the person that answer so that they don't have to sit on hold again and get transferred and ask three more people.

[00:36:14] Sean Walker: I could take five minutes to save you 55 minutes on hold right now.

[00:36:18] Andy Leviss: Or frankly, it may be like 10 minutes for me or 10 minutes you, but if I can take the 10 minutes for you and then call you back instead of you sitting there for the 10 minutes. And also because I'm internal, I might be able to get you a faster answer from the right person. Like, I'm gonna do it. And it's like, it's super cool to be able to do that for folks.

And it's super cool to have a boss who's like, yeah, like if you gotta go a little bit out of, you know Arlene, as long as you're not like pissing anybody off to. To, you know, help folks out and, and make, you know, you are the face of the company right now. So like, do it. And like, I think that applies regardless of whether you're doing tech support, whether you're on a show, whether you're a project manager, specking the show, you know, like

[00:36:58] Sean Walker: dude. Exactly.

[00:36:59] Andy Leviss: if to take, that's, I guess that's what I'm saying is a, a big way to, to that doesn't involve spending money necessarily, is you can also spend time or spend knowledge. In ways that that help improve somebody else's experience.

[00:37:13] Sean Walker: Absolutely. Yeah. It doesn't have to be about money. It, it, it's absolutely could be time and knowledge. You know what I mean? We did steal along the same line. We did steal a, a. A, uh, a trick outta the Ritz-Carlton Playbook in addition to unreasonable hospitality. It's along the same vein, so I, I read someplace.

and I don't, I don't have any insider knowledge of the Ritz-Carlton workings, but I read someplace that they empower. All or most of their employees to spend up to 500 bucks or 200 bucks, whatever it was to solve a customer's problem. Like solve it. Like you were just saying, be the last person they have to talk to.

Right. Just solve their problem. So I do the same thing for my, my team, which is you got up to 500 bucks on the company card to solve somebody's problem. No if, ands, or buts about it.

[00:37:57] Andy Leviss: Yep.

[00:37:58] Sean Walker: we, we will ask how to categorize that. I won't, I won't ask why or what it was for. Like, I, I don't, you know, I don't care. And when I. Rolled that out, rolled that initiative out and told the team, like watching everybody perk up and going like, oh dude, I've gotta say I've got power. I've gotta, I'm a, I'm a whole, I'm not just a wheel in the cargo. Like I can, I can make decisions here. You know what I mean? Everybody felt like big kids.

It was, it was pretty cool to like watch everybody's faces and the amount of money that has been, you know, swiped on those cards is pretty minimal compared to like everybody having free reign, you know what I mean? Which they kind of do, but the. Times they've done it. They're like, Hey, I did this. Was that okay?

I'm like, I said it was okay already,

[00:38:41] Andy Leviss: I already told you.

[00:38:42] Sean Walker: Move. Like cool move though. That was great. You know, event producers have been loving it. It's lots of coffee, bro. Let's be honest. It's lots of coffee,

[00:38:50] Andy Leviss: Oh yeah, I've bought coffee for Cruise on shows, on, on, like, I've, like when, um, mask Sound, which is one of the Broadway shops out in Jersey, is um, it used to be like almost a walk. It's now like a 10 minute drive to this place, Annabel's House of Mozzarella. It's like Italian, like kind of

[00:39:07] Sean Walker: Annabel Mozzarella.

[00:39:09] Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, it's like, it's, it's in East Rutherford, it's, it's the place that they actually do have a sit down restaurant now, but.

You go, I think it's Thursdays God folks are gonna yell at me. 'cause it's been so long since I've done a shop build that I'm forgetting what day of the week it is. But there's one day of the week that they do the pork and mutts, uh, special. That's like, you know, long roasted, you know, like seasoned like pork loin, sliced.

Thin actually sliced fairly thick. I'm like this nice, beautiful, you know, like Italian red roll with like thick, sliced, fresh mozzarella on top of it. And then the yu just sit and it's so fucking good. And like that's always my thing. Like for a while folks knew like, if you were on one of my shop builds, like I would treat the whole crew to pork and musay and like, you know, if I had like anybody who didn't eat pork or didn't eat meat, like I'm like, I'll get you whatever else you want.

Like I just. It's the spurge day. Like I know sometimes it's on these, you know, off Broadway or like, you know, touring builds. The pay isn't super great. So like, you know, let's have fun and enjoy it and like that, you know, 30, 40 bucks I would spend on, you know, lunch for the crew for the day went so, so far.

[00:40:13] Sean Walker: Totally, dude. Totally. Yep. So the, the thing that we, we, you know, are empowering our team, our freelancers, and everybody with now is like, Hey, find those moments. Like don't just wait for them to happen. Like, find those places to interject yourself and make an impact on those things. And it's really been paying dividends for us.

So I would encourage everybody listening to, you know, it, it doesn't have to be about the money, it can be about help. Grab somebody and help 'em push a case, right? What, whatever it is, like it could be little things. It doesn't, you don't have to spend any money, but find moments where you can really, like, really help somebody out or make an impact that's outside of the scope of what you're, what you're there for.

People will never, ever forget that, you know what I mean? They'll remember how you helped them, how you bailed 'em out, how you something they said one time and, but whatever, like it, it'll be huge.

[00:41:06] Andy Leviss: Yeah, like, I mean like my, when I'm on a gig, my, you know, pelican, nano, whatever, like always has a nine vol or two a clip on guitar tuner and a drum key. You know what, I have never personally needed on a, on a show. A drum key or a fucking tuner. But you know what's made me the best friend with more than one musician on many shows.

'cause

[00:41:25] Sean Walker: drum key in a tuner.

[00:41:26] Andy Leviss: where'd mine go? Where mine died? I'm like, here, I got you Bo.

[00:41:30] Sean Walker: Yeah. Also maybe carry a cigarette lighter. 'cause for some reason smokers can never remember where their fricking lighter is.

[00:41:38] Andy Leviss: It's like, oh man, I got, I got a solder right here somewhere. Hang on.

[00:41:41] Sean Walker: Totally.

[00:41:43] Andy Leviss: Uh, um,

[00:41:44] Sean Walker: That's funny.

[00:41:45] Andy Leviss: and. Yeah. And I, and I guess I, I wanna flag that too, particularly for the folks who are in charge, whether a crew head or a boss is the other thing you were just saying, which is the other thing that like Will makes big points of in unreasonable hospitality is that sense of like ownership and empowerment to like all the folks on the team.

Like, it was like, it was always a big thing for him in those restaurants to make sure everybody felt like if there was something they felt they could take care of and handle, like he wanted to give them the power to do it and run with it. Maybe it would work, maybe it didn't. Like he wanted them to always feel like they were invested and not just like a

[00:42:20] Sean Walker: Totally. And you're not in trouble if it doesn't work. Like if you swing and miss, that's okay. Thanks for swinging, dude. You know what I mean? Thanks. Thanks for being in the game with us. That's, that's just part of the game You. Like pro ball players are superstars, batting 33%. You know what I mean? Nobody's batting a hundred percent.

[00:42:37] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Uh, you know what? That, that reminds me of a thing that a, a very good friend and, and, uh, former boss of mine said when he was hiring me a for a position in part because, uh, we had been friends for a long time before he hired me. And in part because he is like, I'm not an audio person. I'm hiring, you know, like I had audio for this thing is like as, and I know how the people on this.

Project work. You know, we're gonna talk through how to do stuff in advance before we do it, and there's gonna be times where you want to do it away different than the way I'm telling you to do it. We can talk about it at the end of that. If I tell you I hear you do it my way for right now. It goes bad. I will take the blame.

'cause you did it my way. Likewise. If you convince me and I say, okay, do it your way. Let's see how it goes. And it goes bad. I signed off on it, so I will still take the blame. The one place I won't back you up is if we talk about it. I say, I hear you, but I want you to do it my way. And you go ahead and do it your way and then it blows up in your face.

Then I

[00:43:41] Sean Walker: That's on you. That's on you bud. Totally.

[00:43:44] Andy Leviss: that's,

[00:43:45] Sean Walker: to the

[00:43:45] Andy Leviss: like the, the flip side to that. Um, I don't know. You got anything else? I feel like I, I picked out some questions like we went down our little book club rabbit hole. Uh, any other random, random, uh, Shauna brain droppings coming up?

[00:44:00] Sean Walker: No, man. Most of the, most of the messages I get are about how to get more work, and I think we have beat that to death. I, I don't know. I don't know how to say it any different or anymore other than like,

[00:44:10] Andy Leviss: Yeah. There, there's nothing new. Yep.

[00:44:12] Sean Walker: Be cool and do a good job and reach out to everybody. Don't be shy. Call, email, text carrier pigeon.

You know,

[00:44:19] Andy Leviss: Yep. And I mean I think that's like more than half of you know this like, you know, almost 45 minutes we've had here has really kind of been on how to get more work.

[00:44:27] Sean Walker: totally, dude,

[00:44:28] Andy Leviss: So, um.

[00:44:29] Sean Walker: 'cause that's what I mean, that's what everybody needs. Even when you're, even when you're busy, you need to be looking for work when you don't, when you're not busy, you know?

[00:44:35] Andy Leviss: And I mean, I'll throw it out there too. Like I, I don't wanna actually start a startup book club like, like power to like Hannah and David and everybody who've like done like the actual audio nerd book club with like. Books that, you know, fit under that heading. But I will say, like, if anybody, like we both now encourage y'all, like read Unreasonable Hospitality, like check it out and like talk about like if, if, if you know you picked up on something cool and how you can apply that to what we all do, like drop it in the Discord man and let's, let's chat about it.

[00:45:04] Sean Walker: Totally,

[00:45:05] Andy Leviss: I, I don't think we need to do meetings. I don't think Sean or I have have the focus or the time spent to actually do a,

[00:45:11] Sean Walker: Nope, nope, nope,

[00:45:12] Andy Leviss: read book clubby kind of thing. But like, like read, read the book. It's, it's a pretty quick read. Like it took me a, a few days and, um, you know, let us, and let us know what you think.

[00:45:23] Sean Walker: Totally. Totally. Well,

[00:45:26] Andy Leviss: mean, that's where

[00:45:27] Sean Walker: good place to wrap it up.

[00:45:28] Andy Leviss: I was gonna say we're round about right on 45 minutes. Let's do it.

[00:45:31] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us Yap about audio for another week. That's the pod y'all. See you next week.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green