The Business of Athletics, with Chris Hartweg

Welcome to the Athletics of Business podcast. This is episode 36.

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.

Hey Chris, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. I am humbled, fired up and excited to finally be able to connect here on the podcast.

Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm flattered and honored to be invited to be on. So thanks, Ed.

Well, you know, this has been a long running conversation with us since we first connected and I think it was just about actually a year ago when we first met over there at Spilt Milk and had a great conversation and you know, we really connected on a lot of different levels. But I wanted, I want to jump in just to what you're doing right now and then we'll sort of work backwards and talk about how you got to this point. So can you fill the listeners in on what exactly you're doing right now.

With Team Marketing Report? Sure. I've taken over Team Marketing Report, a sports business intelligence resource now used to be a publication is what us old timers would call it. You know, you get a newsletter in the mail and all this printed stuff, well now it's gone digital and so now it's a, a digital website focused sports business information company that may have heard of us from the Fan Cost Index, which is the cost of a family of four to go to Major League Baseball or NFL or NBA or NHL game. But all other kinds of potential insights for helping folks basically make money is the simplest way to put it within sports business. Helping sell sponsorships, tickets, season tickets, promotions. But really about my focus is my hashtag is fancentric, a word that the spell check keeps kicking back at me.

But the idea of that if we don't have the fan, if you don't keep fans coming back to the game and enjoying the game or growing the game by bringing him under the tent in the first place, nobody in sports is gonna have a job. And so it's trying to remember that fan centric perspective. And so that's where the content that will be in TMR, which is teammarketing.com you can find us nice easy URL, but you can find, you know, get connected to people at teams or sponsors or brands or agencies or media that are in the sports space and kind of shortcut your way but not cheaply, but shortcut your way to solutions and finding. Maybe it's. We talked about this before, the mic's on. But a little bit of a pivot in a solution that. Oh, now I got it.

If I look at it a little bit differently this way or position it differently, this sponsor now is going to want to jump on board or this is going to be a promotion that fans are going to get behind those kinds of things.

So how do you go about. First, let's talk about who uses this, the content in this. I keep, I keep wanting to call it a publication because you and I.

Are right from the day when it.

Was like a 5,000 page book and you kid, you could injure somebody with it.

The doorstop is what the sports sponsor fact book. It was, it was a couple ,ousand pages and 40, 50,000 people and teams and agencies and brands. We were talking about all listed, who's doing what and where in sports.

And.

Bringing that back now, but in a digital format. And so we talk about the primary users, folks that will be the day to day users of Team Marketing Report. I think the quantity, it's people with teams or brands and organizations that.

Are,

That maybe aren't necessarily the best equipped or the best funded, that minor league teams, minor league baseball and hockey teams organizations that are, you know, not that this won't help with Fortune 500 type companies, but companies that need. Basically we're kind of like an extra staff person, a business services person for a team or a sponsorship valuation service for a company. How are, how are people being successful out there getting involved with a team or an event that, you know, I just don't have this. You know, I could see a lot of people say I don't have the time, I don't have the experience to do this. Well, how are they doing it? You know, we're here in Chicago, the Kane County Cougars or even the Chicago Wolves or somebody like.

That.

How are they finding something? Turning over a new stone and like I said, everything from ticket sales to sponsorships. And so you could be from any side of that equation. You could be from the team, you could be from an up and coming startup, a car dealership or you've got some product that you're trying to find a way to get in that it makes sense to be in sports, but you can't afford to be at the Cubs, the Bears, one of the major league teams. Well, this is. What are people doing and how much does that cost? What do I need to be prepared? How do I need to measure that. So, I mean, I think that's the core.

Beyond that, fans, students and professors and things that they love getting their hands on this kind of data, though it may not be their job, but it's folks like that. And then the other ones you talked about, the large brands, the major leagues, the major league teams and the leagues and things like that will also find a lot of value in this to see who is doing what, where, connection, connecting with somebody like, you know, the Cubs person doesn't know, somebody with the Mets and wants to find out about a deal that they just did and can find them through.

This. So it's powerful and it seems like it's a lot of data to gather, and it seems like it'd be quite the process. So you must have a team of about 15 people.

Well, if you want to count all my split personalities, we might get that.

High. Talk a little bit about the price, because obviously I said that tongue in cheek and you can't see it when you listen to the podcast, but I was blown away when you first started telling me about the commitment you have made and how you dove into this and the whole process of gathering this data. Can we talk a little bit about that? Sure,

Yeah. Well, it's, you know, I say it a lot, people hear it a lot, that they might even think it's a little bit of an act or something from me, but it's not. It's that the space in sports marketing and sports business, most of this stuff, it's literally, truly. It's not brain surgery or rocket science where people are living and dying off of. Off this minutiae that's extraordinarily complicated. It's not. And so I think that it comes down to as much of anything we've talked about this many times, you and I, of what's the passion? What's the thing that you see yourself doing? What are you know, what's driving you every day, where you're learning a lot. And it came across basically, the backstory on Team Marketing Report is Team Marketing Report has been around since 1988, since I was a kid and.

And I was in college at that point that they launched and I said this would be a great place to go to work. Or these guys are providing great information and stuff to help people get going in the business and stay in the business. So I've always had a fondness for tmr and they've had a great reputation over the years. They put out great content that helps people succeed in sports business. And about two years ago or so, I'd been thinking, well, what happened to tmr? I used to love getting that newsletter, and that Factbook was crazy about information. Where'd that go?

Well, a friend of mine, Kevin Adler, one day reached out and said, this was after I had been at big agencies, couple of them, over the last 10, 12 years, and the latest agency job went away when a procurement exercise took the big piece of business that we had to another agency. And I was kind of fed up with that big agency process and getting lost and sucking all the really creativity and enjoyment out of most of your job. And so I was looking for something different. I'd been around startups and with friends and some clients and things like that, and the enthusiasm, the excitement, the positivity, those are all things that you can really feed off of. That energy is fantastic. But I looked at this.

Kevin came to me and said, hey, this the buddy of mine that owned it for a long time. He had sold to somebody and it just didn't work out. It kind of went dormant because it just didn't work for these other folks. And he's trying to find somebody who's got the passion and interest to bring back tmr. And so I said, was.

It. I'm sorry, I mean, was it still a publication? Was it still a book at that point, or was it digitalized.

It? The Factbook had gone digital, but it had not. They had not continued to put the resources in, both the technology to keep it up to date as well as the information itself.

Right. I was just trying to really establish the massive workload that you took on. Go.

Ahead. I'm sorry. No, no, no, that's okay. So we'll get to that in a sec, I guess, because it's so like. Kevin introduced me to Scott Bronstein, who's the. Was the former owner. He had basically bought TMR back from these guys, but he had some passion for it, too, saying, I think this is a really good thing. It's a great resource, and there's a lot of. There's still a tremendous viability and there's a great brand awareness to TMR name and the reputation out there. So Kevin said, you and Scott should get together and see if maybe there's, you know, there's a fit here. And very quickly I did, and. And then that got to the nitty gritty of trying to go through all of that data.

The fan cost index is, you know, roughly 30 teams in each major league, you know, give or take a Couple, of course, but try going all the way back to 1991 is when they started this fan cost index data. And that was never really digitized. And so that's where it came like there's your data, there's your information that you want some unique value proposition. Nobody else has fan cost index data, which for listeners is, it's calculating, pulling together the costs of the average ticket price, a beer, a soda, a hot dog and a hat. And parking. And then there's two or four of some of those or you know, one parking spot, but four hot dogs and. And then you're calculating within each team.

It's not just, you know, you go to the Cubs games that you're not buying two different ticket price points anymore. It used to be like that, but no, you're talking about dozens. And now they have dynamic ticket pricing and they have different pricing tiers. When the Yankees or Red Sox are in town, it's a lot different than when the Royals are in town.

Right. Just bring back the $10 bleacher seats, please. Oh.

God. Right. And so there's also a whole weighting calculation that has to go and in the first place capturing how many seats are in this section, how many seats are in that section and what's the pricing and then what are the tiers and when are they doing variable pricing. And so yes, there was a lot of work and it was grabbing all the first 25 plus years of that data and getting it all into one spot and then recapturing the last couple years and then the most recent season, 17, 18, now into 19 and getting it all up to date while concurrently trying to build out a brand new website because the old one was pretty static. It was not all in one place.

It was some stuff was not to get too in the weeds, but some stuff was HTML, some stuff was Java, some stuff was just PDFs put up like it needed to be blown up. And so talk about the work there was that the things that you don't every.

Year.

Yeah. Putting that together and building out the website and going back and archiving all the 30 years of the newsletter that had been put out. And so you know, it's been a long tedious process but and I had, I've had three or four interns last good chunk of this last year that have been a huge help in listing a few other folks including my college age sons and things like that. But you know, it's what it drills down to though we talked about again, it's passion keeps coming back I'm sitting here, I'm not making money at this point because we're building this out, starting almost from scratch, but like every day. I loved getting out of bed. And what can I learn today about this process? Everything.

Like I said, how do I build the website the right way and how do I build membership and what's the right way to figure out the pricing for that membership and access to that and then how is it going to look? And all at the same time, going to all these teams and rebuilding and repairing relationships like, oh, tmr, you're back. I loved you guys. That's so great to hear. Yeah, here's, you know, some of them, here's the information. Other ones, we don't give you that info. So now you're digging, digging, researching, calling people, finding old blogs and news articles and you know, yada, yada. So it's what's, you know, some other people might be like, oh my God, that's torture. That sounds terrible to me. I found all that stuff fascinating. So it was worth the struggle.

It was worth the working through all those things to get this to.

Launch. Well, you know, it's funny because I was writing a keynote earlier today and it's on the champions mindset. And one of the things you talk about is when you have that purpose and you're committed and you want something bad enough that you're not going to stop until you achieve it, all the work you put into it's just sort of a way of life, you know, it's just, it is what it is. It's, it's, you know, it's like when you ask great athletes, well, why do you put all those hours in, you know, the gym or why do you do that? It's because what I do, you know, that's just, it's just what it is. And regardless of your, your purpose and your passion for. Because it's unmat. I've been blown away by it. There had to be some struggles, though.

There had to be some times where you were banging your head against the wall like, you know, what in God's name am I doing? And the big thing I like to talk about is not getting through adversity, but growing through it. Can you talk a little into that about those times when you found yourself like, okay, I don't just have to survive here, I have to get.

Better? Well, frankly, I mean, I think that kind of approach.

Is,

I think often if you're Doing what you want to.

Do.

It's that combo of the passion versus the adversity that you have to fight through. And I think every day you're seeing adversity in some kind of a role like this that what am I doing? Ask yourself that all the time. But, but I think some of that we joked a little bit about getting older, but with some of the experience though, right? Some of the experience comes like, you know, I sat here and I said, well, what could I do? I could go back and put my tail between my legs and go work at another big agency for the paycheck and from day one be in the mindset of I got to get out of here, right? And a 10 hour day feels like a hundred hour day.

Whereas when you're doing this stuff that you're enjoying and I'm seeing maybe it's way down a little pinhole of light down at the end of the tunnel, right? But you can see that. And it's something I'm working for and I'm going to get the value out of. I'm not doing this for somebody else, I'm doing this for me. And we're not on video but looking around, I'm working out of the house and doing it for me and my wife and kids and the crazy dog. We finally got to be quiet right before we switched the mics on. But right, like I see that and it's worth it. And somehow, you know, if you look on paper that two years ago or something you go, I can't do this. I have two kids in college.

I can't sit here and risk that and risk savings and not have a steady paycheck coming in, I said, no, there's no way. Just don't. And as I looked of trying to keep an eye, you know, keep an open mind and eyes open about going some other like another agency thing, it was like there was nothing going. I can't. I just. Not an option. It's, it's okay. So it's a short term solution. I don't want any more short term solutions. I want something that I can see that I can build. And, and so I would have liked a bigger safety net like you know, not even lotto, but you know, maybe a little small, little scratch off ticket for 100 grand extra or something here to have some cushion. But it doesn't happen that way.

And so you find a way to make it work. And to me then it has more value on this back end of seeing it coming to life. Because didn't I did it. I did it myself. I didn't do it for somebody else.

Or. Yeah, I mean, your emotional attachment to this is phenomenal, just because of the investment, you know, you made. You know, it's funny. And I don't know if you had a chance to see. I put it on social media, but the video of Johnny Dawkins, the head coach at Central Florida when they lost at Duke the other night. And you can hear, you know, and Porter, that Moser, good friend of mine, and he was talking about when he was on set of CBS doing the post game and they had not seen or heard the video till commercial break before they were going to talk about it. He said, I can hear the players in my ear sobbing. He goes, it was, he goes, because we've all been there, right? We've all.

But, but when you make that big of an investment in yourself like you have, okay, it's going to end one of two ways. And it's, there's no gray area. There's no in between. And I'm talking into. When you said, well, I could have gone and worked for some big agency as a short term solution for me with what I do. I was always fearful if I did something that could get some instant revenue and keep running the business. You know, a couple years ago, I was fearful that the answer I was looking for would come when I was distracted by something.

Else. That's a great point,

Ed. Does that make, I mean, it really makes perfect.

Sense. It really.

Does.

Yeah. I think that's where people, you know, you do miss that. You can miss that window of opportunity because of that. And I've never really had it crystallized that way, but that's a really good way to look at it, is that this has allowed me to really focus on this and see if you can make it work. I mean, you know, I'm sitting there thinking about that and first of all, ucf, how they did not win that game. They, they have those, either one of those shots at the end, I just, I, you know, oh, I'm still.

Hurts. Well, and then, you know, I said to somebody yesterday, I was talking about it and they're like, oh, they should, they have everything to be proud of. They should just be, you know, just love it. And I'm like, you don't get it. Aubrey Dawkins played the game of his life against his dad's alma mater, against the school he probably wanted to go to. He went to Michigan to Start with it. But he probably wanted to go to Duke and he forget all the big shots he hit, forget all the big plays he made. What 95% of young men will remember is the tip. And they missed. And he didn't even miss it. Someone not. I mean it was, there was some invisible hand that knocked it out of the basket. It was unbelievable. But it's just, it's gut wrenching.

It really, it really is gut wrenching. And, and for me, I was sitting in my chair watching. I'm like, my first thought went to like, what's going through? You know, I was, I played for my father and my career ended on a half court shot in a championship game. And my first thought is what's going through, you know, Johnny Dawkins mind? What's going through? Aubrey Dawkins mind. And what kind of conversation are those kids gonna have with each other when they wake up the next day and realize that it's just not a bad nightmare?

That. Yeah, that's why we, but I guess that's why we play the game. I think that, I mean that is extraordinarily painful of you know, in the sports world, it's so much harder to get that close now. Right, right. To me, I mean that's why I always say it's like just, you know, whip my ass, like I better lose by 30 points and I'm done. And it's like, okay, I was so schooled it, I didn't even deserve to be on the court with them. But at the same time, I think it's in the long run, I would say the difference is, yeah, that will eat at you. But at the same time like to put yourself. They put themselves in that position and it's not like, I guess I also have fresh in my head, Fletcher McGee, right?

He was the kid from the Waffer Kid that all time three point shooter. And then he went what? Oh, for.

12.

12. Yeah. Now see, that to me is the one that will, that would really eat at me that now he performed and the fluke thing and you know, probably never happens again. But at least, I mean, at least he had the opportunity to do it. But the, to put yourself in that position and like UCF did and feel like, I mean, I don't know, maybe the flip side is with McGee, like, okay, I did this to myself versus the fluke thing with UCF of those balls going three quarters of the way down and coming back out. But that's the beauty of sports Like, I've always keep coming back to. I think that's why we've had such good conversations is even in the business world, it all comes back to the.

There's so much of teamwork and chemistry, the locker room chemistry and things like that is as a philosophy of how you know, approach life and business, that it makes so much sense that, you know, we live so vicariously through these guys in the.

Tournament. Let me ask, Let me ask you this, because you just said something that really resonated with me. The more I think about, you know, that where you're at and your world. One of the things we all have learned through athletics is that if you. If you do things the right way, it doesn't guarantee you that you're going to be successful. But if you don't do things a certain way, it's going to guarantee you that there's absolutely no way you're going to accomplish what you're setting out to accomplish. Okay, so you still, with all this work you've done, I mean, with everything you've done, you still had the unknown. I mean, I don't have any doubt. Okay, that's gonna be a massive success. Which for me, looking on the outside in, I know how that feels to be right. Everyone's telling you.

That. Yeah, it's.

Easy. Thanks. Here, walk in my shoes one.

Day. But, you know, for me, that's.

Easy to say, but there has to be times where it's like, what if this doesn't work out? Because I'm telling you what you're like, you've got the family, you've got your livelihood, you've got your sweat equity, you've got two years of your life that you have just dug in. I mean, you said to me the other day, you get up, you go to work, and you work till you go to bed. You know, we both kind of talked about how sometimes we feel like we're putting our lives on hold on the outside of there's our family and there's our projects and there's our work and everything else is. That's just there, you know, and so how do you keep yourself. Let's set the purpose to the side. But when you're in the moment and you're.

You're being present, how do you keep yourself dialed in when you know there's like 10 fires that could be going on all around you? How do you. How do you stay on task?

Denial.

I love that. I've never had that.

Answer. You know, I think it's some of it. I think it, you know, it equates to. I think some of it is my, you know, the way I'm wired and all the ADD guy in me. That's why I've always been drawn to. I think sports and event marketing in general is you're working towards the game or, you know, putting on the tournament or, you know, whatever kind of the race, whatever kind of a thing. And that, you know, you're focused on that. And this is what keeps me on task was getting this site up because. And that experience and confidence of saying, like you so kindly said, that you think this is going to take off. I think it is too.

And I think one of those of, you know, the Fletcher McGee analogy is if he, if, you know, it's one thing if he went out and partied the night before and was like, you know, hey, I'm. If I can say this, my shit doesn't stink kind of a thing, didn't prepare himself right. That I could never look at myself in the, you know, in the mirror again. It's. But if he prepared. And it's just. That's what happened that.

Day.

Okay. And so I think that's. That's kind of the philosophy here is like, let's. Let's just. Well, my argument and my. I drove my website guy crazy because he wanted everything. He's meticulous, which is why he's good. But he wanted everything perfect. And I was. That whole line of, you know, perfect is the enemy of good or creative or whatever term you insert in there was like, let's get this up and figure. Let's start figuring this out. Let's get feedback from people because I believe in it. And like you said, you touched a little bit on it. Like, you almost get in this bubble. So let me get this out into the world and get some feedback from people that I trust and admire and, you know, see if we're on the mark.

And instead of it being like, we built everything and here you go, everybody take it or leave it, and then it doesn't. Nobody takes it. I've also still left myself some wiggle room here. Like, okay, we need to pivot and focus more on the content selling or sponsorships and tickets or it's more on the LinkedIn of sports element of the factbook of connecting people. And it's gotta be about events or it's other types of content, the creative and unused types of promotions and marketing stuff that's going on out there. I don't know, it could be any of those. I think all of those are interesting. So let me get this out in front of people. And I mean, you know, I'm a sensitive guy that you may not know, but can tell. But I'm a sensitive guy. You know, I need the feedback.

I need some positive reinforcement that you can only go so far to that point. Like, I think I can. I believe, I believe. I believe. Well, you know, what am I insane? Right? Like, I keep telling myself that and it keeps me going, but have I talked myself into something that's actually not true? So let's get some feedback on it. And so, you know, it's, it is like you said, how do you keep it going? It's. I have a few different trusted folks and friends that will check in when I'm worried about that of, you know, not being grounded and get a little feedback and a little, sometimes it's a little bit of a pump up or whatever and it keeps you going. Yeah,

Yeah. And you know, you just said something. I want to, I want to get back to it. You Talked about the LinkedIn of sports and connecting people. And you have a passion for connecting people. And I want to talk about. Because tmr, as much as it consumes you, it's not all that you have going. I want to talk a little bit about Painless Networking. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to that by you and obviously Dion Thomas and I attended an event the other night. And I'm sitting here, you know, a stack of business cards from phenomenal people from the other night. And tell us a little bit about Painless Network, the whole concept behind it, what drove you to do it. And I believe you have, am I correct? You have over 5,500 members in painless.

Networking? Yeah, well, painless. And that's when I talk about my sounding boards and friends, buddies, whatever that are, advisors, a couple of those guys, Ryan Carter, TJ Nolan, the three of us back in early 2000s. So we're coming up on 15 plus years really of Painless being around as this grassroots organization. It was a real simple kind of mindset. Like, you know, we would frequently. And I, you know, we have the same conversation. Do you know so and so? Have you ever met so and so? Have you heard so and so? You know, and it's like, oh no, somebody else just brought his name up or somebody else just said that she's somebody I need to talk to. And.

You know,

Through. I know. Well, if Ed vouches for him or the Dion or Ryan or somebody vouches for him. Her. I almost don't even need to. I don't need to worry about it. I just, I can go ahead and say, you know, give me a proposal or, you know, give me your thoughts on this or whatever, and I can live with it. I know they're not going to rip me off and I know that they're going to give me quality work and they're going to work hard for me. And so really, it was that simple of an idea that were like, let's meet after work. What's better than hanging out and having a beer after work and unwinding and talking to.

Meeting a new person and getting to know them a little bit so that the next time you need somebody that's a T shirt vendor or a fabricator of an event site piece or ticket sales software, whatever, you're like, I need to have a stable of backup of options and things. This is it. Or you're in crunch already and you're like, I don't know what else I'm gonna do. And you've. Now you've got somebody you can go to immediately. So anyway, the idea was we got around, you know, at a bar and six, eight of us, and like, this was cool. Just this was pretty painless. Let's do this again in a month or two and invite a couple more people. And so it's just, it just grew organically from that soon it was a couple hundred people that were on the emails.

And Today it's over 2,500 people that are opted into the emails that we send out. And the website painless.network very easy to find. And job board on there. We do events every couple months. The LinkedIn group is 5,500, 6,000 folks in there. That's an easy way. Again, like you could go to that group and you're okay, well, look at. I see. I want to talk to somebody at this place. I see Ed is connected to them. Can you make an introduction or do you have any background for me on this? And yeah, Chris. So and so. Oh, he's great. Or, you know, just. They don't do so well on this, but they're great for this thing. Oh, perfect. Okay, can you send me an intro note to them or. Oh, don't even worry about it. They're great.

If you just reach out and drop my name, they'll be cool. And now you've something that may have taken a week to build a relationship or find Somebody on. Through a series of calls and emails and all that kind of stuff, you write directly into somebody to help make your job life easier. So that's really the idea. My philosophy is pretty simple of that. I enjoy connecting people. That's why we use the hashtag getconnected. I think more in this day and age with social media and things being digital and being behind emails and texts and things like, how great is it to actually interact and connect and learn something about somebody? So it really comes down to that. Giving back, I think, pays you back. And so it's. I just get a lot out of that, of bringing.

Because, you know, the simple example, somebody will say, hey, can you, Chris, can you do this? And it's like, well, I wish I did, but I'm just. They're not comfortable with it. I don't have the experience to do it or don't have the time. But my buddy over here, Ed, he's awesome. And he's in between projects right now or whatever. And so let me get you guys together. It's a perfect match. And now I've got. Ed's happy, Jane is happy. They're getting their work done. I feel good because I brought these people together. I was gonna be able to help them anyway. And now we've all, you know, strengthened our different relationships and helped each other out. Yeah,

Yeah. Can you talk into a little bit about what types of jobs are on the job board and what types of folks are in the LinkedIn in the painless.

Environment? Yeah, sure. Painless. I mean, it's. It's pretty. It's pretty broad within the business, but it's sports and event marketing folks. And so you've got people that are at teams, you got people that are at agencies, brands that are involved in sports business, whether they're sponsors or, you know, equipment or whatever. And that can be sales folks, it can be people in media, it can be communications, it can be event production, and any kind of combination of those folks. So it's a pretty healthy cross section. And it goes from now that I've been around a while, I'm aging up here into the close to hitting that 50 plus mark. And we've got. My peers are as well, but we bring in a lot of kids that are college students or, you know, young folks that are just out of school.

And so it's a neat cross section that it's anybody looking for starting out and internships and trying to find a mentor. And I have a lot of people that will come that are, you know, looking for to be a mentor, to find a mentee to help, you know, bring somebody on, maybe even as an intern or, you know, part time person and get them started and get them, you know, get me some help, but give that young person some experience. And so it's just. It's a neat, healthy. I think it's a neat, healthy community. And like I said, the personal interaction, like we get together in the events and it's looking people in the eye and, you know, getting a better feel for them.

We've gotten so many ways, so far away from that to bring people together and in a positive way that it's no pressure. You get to sit around and hang out. Like you.

Said. What.

It's free to be in this group. I'm not making money off of it, but I really do feel a tremendous reward from exactly what you said, Ed. I've got some great new relationships. It was. Was worth my time to come meet some new people. I hear that all the time. I find a new piece of business out of this or, you know, we hired this person that we met at Painless or found through Painless. How great is that? That's karmic, I.

Guess.

And. And it comes back to you.

So well, and to speak to what you're talking about it being painless and the vibe and the whole concept, there's no pressure. What I loved about the last event that I went to, people were genuinely interested in yours, in your story. It wasn't like your typical networking event where they got. People have their outdated elevator speech, which they shouldn't. They should just burn that thing, you know, there should be no such thing as that. But anyways, I digress, but people were generally interested in your story, and they told their story not in a hurry, but like in a way that just connected with you. And you talk about. You talk about chasing 50, and I'm. We're the same age, so I'm right there. So let's just stop that.

Conversation. All.

Right. Yeah. In my mind, I haven't turned 30.

Yet. Yes, same.

Here. Yeah, My body doesn't agree with me. But anyways, we're sitting there the other night and it's. It's Dion, my good friend Sean Jacob, who will be a guest on the podcast. But someone walked up and introduced a young man who just got done playing professional soccer, and he went to my alma mater crate and played at Creighton. Oh, that's.

Right. Yeah. You know, good.

Kid. Yeah, great.

Kid. Really necessarily say that now? Because I'm Getting so old. But yeah. And interesting. And he tells me that, you know, he was out last night with a friend and she was like, you should go check this thing out tomorrow. That's perfect. It was.

Awesome. Yeah, yeah. But then speaking to the aging. So of course, me being me, I start, you know, asking about like, hey, did you have wings at the Chicago bar when you're in school? It's been gone for 15 years. Did you eat a Greek Aisles burned down like 10 years ago. Maybe it didn't. I'm just saying, okay, Like, I was way outdated. Like, the bookstore hasn't been a bookstore for 25 years. Right. But no, what a great. I mean, what a great concept to just. It's something. And you know how it is with these networking events. Younger people think, oh, I have to go to this. I need to go to this. That was one of those things that was just. It was an event. And.

And truth be told, you know, we don't normally timestamp podcast, but the first round games, Ron, there was nobody paying attention to basketball. I mean, so engaged in the.

Conversation. That's what tells you that it was. That you were right. That exactly you were in getting engaged and having some good conversation with folks. And it's funny because both you and I being big college basketball fans. Yeah. That really tells you that the conversation was good. And so, yeah, I mean that, you know, that lights me up to hear other people say that. That's that whole, like, am I in such a bubble? I think it's a great thing. But that's my first question, typically to anybody both new or old, like, hey, did you have a good time? Did you meet some new people? Was it. Was it worth it? Okay, cool. Then let's keep doing it, because you never know how it can pay.

Off.

And. And that philosophy, that's huge to hear that of the people feeling that. That's the whole point of, like, actual locking in, having it, being engaged and getting to have a conversation, getting to know. Getting to know somebody, because you get out of it. It's just any networking situation. It's not just painless events. It's right. It's what you get out of it. But I think you do have so many people, and it's not necessarily more often than not younger people, because you're just kind of, you know, intimidated, not as experienced, not as confident as you should be, but you can come and you can hang out at the edge and maybe never even engage, but okay, that's your loss. But there's no Pressure. It's not like you've paid or you're wearing a name badge and everybody's like, what is that guy's problem over there?

It's just, okay, it wasn't for you. But usually you come up and somebody in the group's oh, hey, I'm, you know, I'm Chris and this is my buddy Ed. And where are you from? Oh.

Really? Okay,

Cool. Well how did you get here? And you're off and running and now that person like they're all their apprehension and we're like, oh, this isn't difficult. I'm just talking to these people and oh, this Ed guy, he coached college hoops and now he's doing, oh, this is kind of cool. I wonder what, you know, what other kind of things I could learn from him. And you never know and you.

Never know where the relationships are going to take you know, and even if it doesn't mean a job, even you have no idea what that relationship is going to do for you or Dr. How. Let's talk a little bit about relationships and what they've meant to you because you've had quite the journey since you started on your professional career. And I mean that in a great way. You really, it's unbelievable what you've done, how much have relationships and strong, powerful relationship showed up in your.

World. Oh, it's all, it's all, it's non stop, it's all the time. It's, you know, and I should be, it's interesting. I haven't thought about it this specifically but just because I'm trying to think of who it was that gave me the don't burn any bridges advice. And it's probably comes from first and foremost from my parents just learning that very early and understanding that you never know how it can come back around. I mean that's the thing is like you could say, well oh my God, there's 6,000 people in your LinkedIn group and 3,000 people get your emails and 3,000 people across social media, like that's huge. And it is a good number. But it's fascinating how you know the six degrees of separation even in a city like Chicago, especially with a group like Painless of good people.

It's never more than three. It's usually, it's usually two or one degree. Like it's very, it's a big city, but it can be a very small world. And so that's the point is you never know where the relationships are. And, you know, and I've seen it that I've had some junior folks that did burn some bridges at agencies in the past, and that cut them off from a whole lot of resources. Because now the 15, 20 people who they were around the most all know them as somebody that did that. And they're now, instead of at one place, they're all of them at different places, basically. And so that word is out all over and. Because they were just a little immature. And then the flip side is that you have some of them that are like, I don't know about this guy.

But, like, you know, you don't. You're not gonna go be an asshole to them. You find out later on like something clicked for him. And it's literally, I say it to the good interns and young folks I know, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna be working for you someday. And it's half joking, but it's half not. Like, you can see when somebody's really driven and what if that is what happened, that they, you know, they blow up. And, you know, because you thought you were, you know, you had to talk down to them or whatever, now you've missed your opportunity.

Right. That's a, that's a lesson, you know, I learned in coaching college basketball. And you see it happen so much. And I don't mean to just talk about basketball, but it's my point of reference. It's my world. And I learned that because you get some young guys that come up and they come up fast, and, you know, in their mind, they're just going to keep blazing the trail and create their own career, and they don't realize there's anything can happen. You can have a kid get hurt, you can have a kid do something, all of a sudden you can find yourself, you know, unemployed. I mean, I'm not going to get into how many of my friends are unemployed right now. I've been there, you know. Right. 21 years ago, I was on the end of a pink slip. And.

And it's just, it's what happens. But. And first of all, you should treat people the right way because it's the right thing to do. Right, Exactly. But if you need some sort of other incentive and motivation, you don't know where that person's going to show back up or. Or when they're going to show back up. No. Right. You know, and if people, I always tell people, if you have a hard time grasping how small of a world it is, go spend like two or three hours on LinkedIn and just start navigating the waters. You know, the more, the more connections you have, the more third degree connections, the secondary connections and your reputation and whether it's good or bad or indifferent is going to get around fast for.

Sure. You know, sure. That's these days, it's with social media and face the facebooks of the LinkedIn of the world. It does, it can fly around and so it's just important to. Yeah, I mean I always try to do the good thing, but I also can have a temper and I also get frustrated and combine those two things and all of a sudden, you know, you can fly off and do say some things that you regret even if you're meaning to do the right thing. And so that understanding, some of that's just coming from experience, but understanding that you never know how it could come back around. And it's.

The thing is that nobody ever really talks about because, well, it's certainly hard to quantify but like, it's not necessarily even that you may run into Joe Schmo that you have the problem with, but Joe Schmo works with Jane Doe and she's like, oh, I see, he worked at this place and you worked there, didn't you? And then they're like, yeah, that guy was a D bag. Well, you never even know that you got completely, not thrown under the bus necessarily, but you lost your opportunity because of something like that. Like, just like you said, I guess that's what keeps it helps keep it real, is understanding that almost kind of selfishly, I mean, if you are trying to live by the golden rule, you are trying to just do the right thing by people, that won't happen.

But people like me, far from perfect, you get close to slipping up. That's what you have to keep in.

Mind. So before we end and wind down here, I want to ask you one more question on that note. It's a perfect segue, no? So if you're at a, let's say just to draw a picture here, let's say you're at a painless event, okay? Or you're speaking to a group of grad students in this sports marketing work world and you are going to give them advice on how to be a success and not just an instant success, but be able to have the type of journey like you've had and to be able to evolve over the course of that journey and to be able to be driven by Your purpose? What sort of advice would.

You. Would you give.

Them?

That is the question. I think that I'm trying to think of the way to sum it up well, of where my head's at today. But I just think it's kind.

Of. It.

Just. It's as simple asking questions and always learning is. It never hurts. Because I think it's one of those that. And that's what I see maybe of what's so enjoyable about this team marketing report stuff is I'm just learning, like, trying to drink sometimes info out of the fire hose. Right. But that's fun to be. Always learning. And instead of. I've just taken this approach of, you know, these days, these millennials, all their selfish. Oh, my God, When I was 22, 23, 24, I was an idiot and an.

Asshole. It's a bad combination, by the.

Way. Oh, my God. And thinking you're so much smarter than you are, like, that's just what you are with. Like, it's not even intentional most of the time. And so it's like, don't. Don't turn this into. It's like, that's the same people that were a generation older or two older than me said at that time about me, okay, so let's get over that. How about turning it around? That instead of it being like, oh, that's, you know, they're the problem. Like, well, wait, how would they like to be communicated to? And what are some ways that they're looking at things differently? So I'm not so set in my damn ways that I've got to do it or think about it this way. They're actually thinking of something like this. Like, oh, my God, that is such a better way to look at it.

It's more efficient, it's more creative, it's more fun, it's more whatever. Like, how about just keeping an open mind about learning? And I think with that's this asking questions piece. The advice, like, you know, we get stuck on, you think that there's a certain path I have to do this job, and then it goes to this one and to this one, and if I don't do each of those, then I'm not gonna get to this step that I want to be a general manager of a minor league team or I want to be a, you know, director an agency or whatever. Like, it's not. It doesn't work. Like, I mean, it can, but it more often than that doesn't. So how do you do I go to. I find somebody like that I admire or think has taken that. How did you get there?

And then you're like, oh wait, you did one, what you started as a teacher and then you worked in a bank and then you did, you know, you were doing door to door sales but now you're doing this thing over here with this media company. Like that's not what I thought you had to do. And well, how did you get there? Well, because I found this and then I saw this and then I had my eye to that whole point. We came in full circle back about like keeping your eyes open. Like I stumbled onto this thing and thought, well that's kind of where the TMR piece is. Like there's networking to it, there's content sharing and the mentoring kind of piece to this thing. Just connecting people in general, bringing people around the business together.

We're all learning, we're all trying to give fans a good experience. That's what I've always been around is client service and giving people a good show. That's to me the way I see tmr and I think we all just need to find that kind of, well, what's the thing that I can maybe bring multiple pieces of interest and this random different type of experience together. And if you're not asking questions and you're not saying what can I do next to learn more, how did you learn this thing so I can add it to my arsenal, then you're stale and you're going to get left behind.

Right? That is perfect and that's a perfect way to wrap it up. But before we do, can you share with our listeners where they can find TMR again as well as Painless and anywhere else on social media that you might have a.

Place? Well, the easiest way, we're all over the social medias, the interwebs on both of these, with both of these organizations, the websites have the links for the Twitter, Facebook, Insta, all those things. So it's teammarketing.com and painless.network. Are those two nice and easy to find sites? Part of it too is like the Twitter handle. It's not long enough to be Team marketing report, so it's Team MKTG Report for example, Ed. So I'm sure everybody's now got that written down. But I mean, you know, if you're interested in either of those organizations, check them out. You can find me on LinkedIn. I love connecting with people and it's Chris Hartwig with an E H A R T W E G and you know, let's get connected. There's ways we can help each other out, ways we can learn from each other.

And I think that's, you know, the healthy approach. That's why these things are out.

There. And Chris, if they want to get on your mailing list so they have updates or emails or however for events coming up, they can do that right on your website,

Correct? Either.

Site.

Yeah. There's free memberships on both. The TMR does certainly have paid memberships. I got to make some money somewhere. But there is a free starter level@tmarketing.com that will get the emails and basic information. And then painless, same thing. Sign up free membership. You'll get into the. The online community and that also signs you up for all of the email blasts. So it's pretty easy. We try to keep it that way. Pretty painless, right,

Ed? There you go. You stole my thunder. Hey, Chris, speaking of painless, this was way more than painless. This was awesome. I really appreciate you carving out some time because I know how crazy your schedule is right now. And this has been another great episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. And we would greatly appreciate if you go to itunes and rate and review us as that helps our reach and helps us reach some more folks. And to see previous episodes, obviously, itunes, stitcher, Google Play, and our website, the Athletics of business dot com. Excuse me. The Athletics of business dot com and to find out more about the Molitor group, you can go to the Molitor group dot com. Chris, thank you so much again. I appreciate.

It. Pleasure was all mine, Ed. Thanks for having.

Me. Thank you for listening to the Athletics of Business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, visit theathleticsofbusiness. Com. Now get out there, think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.