Latest / The Action Catalyst / Crowd Surfing, with Cassie Petrey (Social Media, Music, Marketing, Business)

Transcript

Crowd Surfing, with Cassie Petrey (Social Media, Music, Marketing, Business) · The Action Catalyst

0:53
Stephanie Maas: Well, hey, I really appreciate you being
1:11
here.
1:11
Cassie Petrey: Of course..
1:12
Stephanie Maas: So you obviously have such an incredible
1:15
background, especially for being, and I'm just gonna say
1:18
it, so young. So I kind of wanted to start there. One of
1:22
the things I read about your background is that when you were
1:25
12, you had 10,000 followers to a AOL accounts for the
1:31
Backstreet Boys.
1:32
Cassie Petrey: Yeah, I would say like today's version of that
1:35
would be if I had a tick tock about an artist, or a Twitter
1:39
slash x, or Instagram account that was dedicated to an artist,
1:43
but we didn't have that at that time. So the way that a lot of
1:46
younger people who were big fans and like digital showed their
1:50
appreciation for the artists they love was by basically
1:53
making a newsletter, we all called them zine. So I had a
1:56
zine that I ran, and would curate several times a week and
1:59
send it out to you know, other people in the fandom who had
2:02
subscribed. And it was, it was a really good like, sort of
2:04
business learning experience for me, because I learned a lot
2:07
about the first thing you learned about when you run an
2:09
email list is about rules and regulations around spam. So in
2:13
order for me to be able to send that amount of emails out at
2:17
once, because at this time, we didn't have things like
2:20
MailChimp, and rules to send email us. So you would send it
2:23
from AOL, from the email account. And so I had to get
2:28
apply and like be on this, you know, be on a whitelist to be
2:31
allowed to do that. So I learned a lot about the rules of spam
2:35
and the internet at an early age because of that, but I'm really
2:38
grateful for that experience.
2:40
Stephanie Maas: Okay, so I gotta put this in perspective, you're
2:42
12 What is that seventh grade?
2:44
Cassie Petrey: Yeah, sixth, seventh grade is like when I
2:45
really really liked the Backstreet Boys, but beginning
2:47
of American Middle School.
2:49
Stephanie Maas: That's a legit thing to like. When I was 12
2:52
years old, I was worried about making sure I had enough
2:55
hairspray for my bangs, got braces in the seventh grade, who
2:59
liked who. Where did this come from? Just talk to me about
3:03
that.
3:05
Cassie Petrey: I think that I get a lot of actually this
3:07
interest in technology from my grandfather, I lived with my
3:11
grandparents growing up. And he was always a very curious person
3:15
about not just about technology, but about everything. So he
3:19
always had the new gadgets, kind of like nerdy, but also like
3:22
really adorable. But as I've gotten older, I realized how
3:25
awesome of a quality that that isn't him. So he always had like
3:29
computers before everyone else said, you know, like a laptop
3:31
that, you know, will, you know, kind of more similar to what we
3:33
have today. And we had AOL before a lot of other people.
3:37
And I think that his curiosity kind of sparked that curiosity
3:41
in me as well and like wanting to, to learn about that sort of
3:45
stuff. So I think a little bit of it came from there. But also,
3:48
I think a lot of it came from the friend group that I was in
3:51
not that they are all building websites, but we all really
3:54
enjoyed pop culture. We liked going to concerts together. So
3:58
doing this stuff was a part of my social life and some of the
4:01
stuff I was creating and posting online and showing my dedication
4:05
for the Backstreet Boys was also like a part of my friend group,
4:09
we all really liked music and watching TRL and liked watching
4:14
VHS tapes of concerts and like going to concerts when they came
4:17
into town. So I think that my friends having you know, maybe
4:20
not the exact interest in terms of like internet marketing, but
4:22
in terms of being interested in pop culture in general made me
4:26
comfortable really like being my true full self in that activity
4:31
of mine.
4:31
Stephanie Maas: So do you have any idea how this internet
4:35
marketing was gonna just explode? When was your first
4:40
like, Hey, I'm on the cusp of making some major history?
4:44
Cassie Petrey: I don't know if I ever like envisioned myself, you
4:46
know, being a part of that trend coming to life. I think I always
4:50
just saw it for what it was going to be as soon as I see it.
4:53
As soon as I like hold a tool in my hands. I know what it's going
4:57
to become when I saw musically for the First time I knew what
5:01
it would become today I didn't need I didn't know it'd be
5:03
called tick tock but I knew what that was going to lead to and
5:06
what that was what that is now, but I saw that like at the end
5:10
of 2016, like I just held that tool and I was like this is you
5:14
know, Instagram revolutionized how we socialize with with
5:17
photos. And Tik Tok has revolutionized how we, how we
5:22
socialize with videos. And I don't think we'll see another
5:25
big social media platform shift until there's a big shift in
5:30
like hardware that's being widely used by everybody.
5:33
Because hardware has always dictated what social media does.
5:37
So everyone's like, what's next. And like, I don't know if
5:39
there's something significantly different next, until there's
5:43
something significantly different that we all have
5:45
access to. And we're all holding in our hands every day. So more
5:48
people having laptops created MySpace, more people being able
5:52
to text from a phone created Twitter, more people being able
5:58
to have photos on their phone, created Instagram. And then more
6:02
people having videos on their phone created Tik Tok, that it
6:05
really is what dictates what platform comes next. You know,
6:08
we'll obviously have new tools and new things come into the
6:10
market. But I don't think we'll see as drastic of a shift in
6:13
social platforms until there's hardware to sort of inspire that
6:17
shift.
6:18
Stephanie Maas: And I think, to your point hardware available to
6:21
the masses, yeah, like, I think VR is a big thing. But it's
6:24
still at a price point that not everybody...
6:26
Cassie Petrey: VR, there's a lot of limitations as to how much
6:30
time you can use it for, it'd be for a lot of reasons you
6:33
couldn't be in that situation in a VR Room for more than 20
6:36
minutes. One, it's going to be difficult for people to figure
6:38
out how to take a break and go use the bathroom because you're
6:41
gonna have to like gear off and gear off and mid experience.
6:43
It's probably not good for your brain. I don't know, like the
6:46
science behind that. But I imagined that it's not great to
6:49
do that kind of experience for more than 20 minutes, I think
6:52
that there's some limitations to in terms of like one it being
6:55
mobile, being able to carry it with you, but to like how long a
6:58
person can engage with that in a healthy way. So I think that
7:02
that has a second to sort of develop before we see major
7:07
changes because of that.
7:09
Stephanie Maas: Here you are today, co founder of your own
7:12
social media, music management firm, you're young...
7:15
Cassie Petrey: I like that. I feel old all the time. So call
7:18
me young as much as being you know, young and female. Both of
7:23
those things, either together or separately, can definitely
7:26
create adversity. Sometimes I will say though, I haven't had
7:30
some of the horror stories that other people have had. Luckily,
7:33
like I've had my moments where I can call where like, I know that
7:36
if I said the same thing on the phone or in an email in a room
7:39
and I was older I was a man or I was both of those things that I
7:42
wouldn't be taken more seriously. And I see some of my
7:46
clients who have older white male managers, and they, I feel
7:51
like those guys do nothing for the artists and the artists
7:55
idolizes them strangely, I'll never understand some of that.
7:58
So there's some frustrations that I have for that. But
8:00
overall, I just, I think I just a voice, I've kind of had the
8:03
mindset like, I'm going to do this no matter what. And I will
8:08
keep pushing no matter what. And, you know, I have those
8:11
moments, but I'm not going to let it stop me. And I actually
8:14
had, I feel like this moment happened at the right time in my
8:17
life, not this year, but the year before I attended a Forbes
8:20
summit in Abu Dhabi. And because of some world conflicts, Hillary
8:24
Clinton was supposed to be there in person, but she wasn't able
8:27
to do so. But they had her like conference in and I was
8:30
fortunate enough to be selected to like, ask her a question
8:34
directly, which was a really awesome moment for me. And the
8:37
question I asked her and I was kind of dealing with a couple
8:40
different things that work that were challenging not because of
8:43
the people that I work with, but because of external
8:45
circumstances with some of the clients I work with. And I asked
8:48
him like, you went through like the greatest like one of the
8:51
greatest career losses that you can you lost a presidential
8:54
election. Why are you still here? Like, how do you keep
8:57
going after that? Because I think a lot of people if they
9:00
lost the presidential election would be like, bye.
9:03
Stephanie Maas: Yeah. Where's the nearest rock I can crawl
9:05
under?
9:06
Cassie Petrey: Yeah, and she's just like, I don't want people
9:08
to think they're right about me. Like, I don't want the naysayers
9:12
to think they're right about me. i It's like, I almost have too
9:15
much ego or too much pride to do that. But I think that's a
9:18
really positive thing. And I feel the same way. Like I, if
9:21
somebody thinks I can't do something, it's, you know, kind
9:23
of secretly like a not a negative motivator, but kind of
9:26
a fun motivator. Like, that's kind of how I am. It's
9:29
motivating to be like, Hi, I'm here. I know you didn't want me
9:32
to be but here I am. You can't get away from me. And I'm going
9:35
to change your mind because I'm going to do great things for
9:38
this project that are going to make you look great, too, then
9:41
it's going to happen one way or another.
9:43
Stephanie Maas: Oh my gosh. Okay. So do you consider
9:46
yourself more of an artist or more of a business person?
9:50
Cassie Petrey: Definitely a business person. I think I'm
9:52
very creative, but definitely like in a business way. I think
9:56
I'm really good at creating new processes. All problems that
10:00
like nobody would have pieced together the same way, I think
10:03
I'm really good at looking at somebody's art or product of
10:07
being an artist and figuring out how they can make some changes
10:10
and make their business operate more efficiently or marter.
10:14
market their products more efficiently. But I'm definitely
10:17
business like, through through for sure.
10:20
Stephanie Maas: So this whole genre of business is relatively
10:23
new. I mean, what is it? 20 years old, maybe?
10:27
Cassie Petrey: Yeah, I've been working at it since the
10:28
beginning. And I would say like the birth of it, I would say,
10:32
MySpace was like, the main moment, I think birth of social
10:35
media, but here volume, which was a couple of years before
10:38
that. And it goes an important predecessor to what like the
10:42
music player on MySpace was so pure volume, Myspace era is kind
10:46
of like the birth of modern social media, as I see it now.
10:50
Stephanie Maas: So knowing now all the platforms that we have,
10:53
what advice do you give to folks that say, Hey, now? I mean,
10:57
let's say it's been 20 years. I mean, now it's flooded. So how
11:01
do you differentiate yourself, if you were just now coming up
11:05
into it.
11:05
Cassie Petrey: There's still a lot of problems to be solved in
11:08
the music business in general, I think attaching yourself to a
11:12
problem that you feel like you have insight on that people may
11:15
not have thought of is a really good way to get into a business.
11:19
It's competitive, like the music business. And the problem I saw
11:23
is, there's this platform called MySpace, and I see a bunch of
11:27
local college bands using it, but I'm not seeing big artists
11:31
use it. And I'm not really sure why. But I know that fans would
11:34
like engaging with popular artists in this way. And so I
11:38
just kind of went for it. Because I didn't see anybody
11:41
doing it. And I, I thought about me, and I'm like, this would
11:45
have been so cool. If like the Backstreet Boys could like send
11:48
updates on MySpace bulletins, and, you know, share new songs
11:52
on a player and DM people back and post content in real time, I
11:56
was like, This is so cool, I would have loved this. And I
11:59
want to help other artists do that. And I'm going to take the
12:03
burden off of artists having to think about that. And I'm going
12:07
to be making some of their fans happy and feel more seen and
12:10
communicated within the same time. But I you know, I really
12:14
attached myself to this problem or thing that wasn't being done
12:18
yet. And I think that's always a good way into a business, it's
12:22
easier to win in business, if you pick a lane that isn't as
12:25
crowded, but might have problems that affect a lot of people on a
12:29
frequent basis.
12:30
Stephanie Maas: That's great counsel. So running your
12:33
company, what are some of the business things that you wish
12:37
you knew that you had to learn the hard way?
12:40
Cassie Petrey: One of the biggest things I had to learn
12:42
the hard way is that it's a very different payment schedule, in
12:45
terms of how you get paid as a business versus how you get paid
12:49
as an employee. So there's a lot of laws protecting employees in
12:52
terms of you having to be paid, you know, on time, in the way
12:56
they were promised. In business, it's a little, it's a little
12:59
more dicey. Like, I would say, most companies aren't going to
13:02
pay you for at least 30 days. And sometimes they tell you,
13:05
they're going to pay you in 30 days, but they actually don't
13:09
pay you for six months. And sometimes in worst case
13:11
scenario, people don't pay you ever, you get ripped off. So I
13:15
you know, I've I've obviously evolved like my policies over
13:18
the years to protect myself from different situations like this.
13:21
But when you pick up a project you're having, you're kind of
13:25
having to invest a little bit like you have to invest in staff
13:28
and resources, before you get paid, especially at the bigger
13:31
companies like a warner or Sony, or universal or Disney, they're
13:35
gonna up they're gonna pay at least the minimum, they'll pay
13:38
30 days, a lot of times, it's 9120, sometimes it gets lost in
13:41
the shuffle, and you don't get it for like six months or a
13:44
year. So you just have to plan your cash flow schedule
13:47
accordingly. And know how much cash you have to have on hand to
13:51
run your business and have a really good system in place for
13:54
keeping track of what's owed to you and when to cut off projects
13:57
when they haven't paid. So I'd say that's one thing that
14:00
especially understood better because I didn't start a company
14:04
with like that knowledge or funding. And at the beginning,
14:07
the first year, it's really hard to like, you know, be like, Oh,
14:10
I thought I would have gotten paid by now and I can't pay my
14:14
rent. And this is scary. So I have that under control now. But
14:17
people don't pay the bills on time. It's just not the same as
14:20
being an employee. So really think about that, when you're
14:24
starting a business if you want to do that. So that's part one.
14:27
And part two, probably the hardest part of your job is not
14:30
going to be the service you offer or the product. You're
14:33
making the hardest part of the job for me and I think a lot of
14:36
other people who run a business is like the personnel and staff
14:40
side of it. It's really tough. I feel like there's not a lot of
14:43
education on how to live while you're in school anyway on how
14:47
to hire the right people manage them the correct way. And then
14:50
that's evolves per generation to and what's happening in the
14:53
world. How you manage people, before and after. COVID is
14:56
pretty different, how you manage people and the office versus
15:00
work from home. Very Different. And that I would say, that's
15:03
definitely the hardest part of my job. And I think I've learned
15:06
a lot. And I give a lot of other people advice now on those
15:09
topics, but it was a hard journey, one from a business
15:12
standpoint, but too emotionally, because it's hard to not take
15:16
things personal when somebody that's worked for you for five
15:19
years quits that you really liked, and you feel like you had
15:22
a friendship with too, or somebody leaves and goes to
15:25
another company. Or it can even be like, emotionally daunting.
15:29
Sometimes when you delegate a task to somebody and they don't
15:32
do it, you get in your head, and you're like, am I not
15:35
delegating, right? Do they just not like me? Do they just not
15:38
care, and it really has taken a lot of work to be able to have a
15:42
better like, emotional relationship with, you know,
15:44
employees, you know, leaving or not doing their jobs correctly.
15:48
Stephanie Maas: Thank you, by the way for the vulnerability of
15:51
sharing that.
15:51
Cassie Petrey: Of course.
15:52
Stephanie Maas: One of the things I think you really hit
15:53
that nail on the head with is the people side of the business,
15:56
what are some of the resources that you've leaned on to help
15:59
develop your leadership and management styles?
16:02
Cassie Petrey: So I've gone through different phases in my
16:06
life, about how to handle these different things, because I will
16:09
say it is like, I still have problems with it today, it is
16:12
still an ongoing journey. I don't I don't think it ever
16:15
won't be I think it's managing people and groups of people is a
16:19
hard job. So, you know, I for a while I had a business coach, me
16:25
and my business partner would actually do some of the sessions
16:26
together. And I think that that served us really well. At that
16:30
point in our life, we're doing it I don't know if that's the
16:33
right situation for me anymore. But I think that if you're
16:36
looking for a place to start, even like a monthly session with
16:40
like a career coach or business coach can be super helpful just
16:43
to gain insight. And it's kind of like having a therapist in
16:47
business is how I say it, but it is super helpful. And you're
16:50
able to, like address a specific situation and work through how
16:54
to deal with it. And also why like, you may be emotionally
16:58
feeling about it a certain way. And I actually I, you know, I do
17:01
therapy every week, and I talked to my therapist about some of
17:05
the issues I have with employees to not really like, um, the
17:08
decisions I should make, but why I feel a certain way about them,
17:11
or why what is this drumming up inside of me in resolving that
17:15
issue, because it actually probably has nothing anything to
17:17
do with work, but you know, work in your history of your life,
17:20
you know, they do affect each other. So it is, you know, I
17:23
think it's important to figure out some way to analyze why you
17:26
may feel like you're overreacting in certain
17:29
situations at work, and not have that conversation be happening
17:34
with people that you work with. So I think that that's something
17:37
that's, that's really important. I've read a lot of different
17:40
books over the years, but I would say and a lot of them have
17:42
helped me in different capacities. But I will say the
17:44
one book that always helps me when I'm struggling with
17:47
personnel issues and how I feel about them is the Four
17:50
Agreements. I know that's not really a business book, but I
17:53
have a mini version of it actually, that I keep in my
17:56
purse. And if I go through it and think about each agreement,
17:59
and then this like the mini version of the book, you can
18:01
read in like five minutes, but I find if I go through it, I can
18:04
pinpoint like, what's out of balance with that issue, and
18:08
kind of bring it back into perspective and bring it back
18:10
into logic. And once I bring it back into Logic, I feel like I
18:13
can make a better decision. And also for me, I'm lucky I have a
18:17
business partner. So I would say that's another thing that's kept
18:20
me grounded deck, I got really lucky with my business partner
18:23
situation, because I've seen a lot of people go into business
18:26
together, and it was not the right partner for them. And the
18:30
reason why I think we work is purely just luck. Like we didn't
18:33
ask each other the right hard questions at the beginning of
18:35
this, I wouldn't have known the right hard questions to ask when
18:38
I was 20 years old. And we did this, we got lucky in terms of
18:41
being really aligned on the big stuff, what's important to us.
18:46
And just I think being having a good moral compass and being
18:49
generally good people has worked out but I've seen a lot of
18:53
people not be in the same situation as me. So I got lucky
18:57
on that one. But it's nice to have somebody like her to be
18:59
able to talk to you about these issues as well because other
19:02
perspectives are important than these tricky personnel
19:05
situations sometimes.
19:06
Stephanie Maas: Absolutely. So totally shift gears; when you
19:10
unplug, what do you do?
19:12
Cassie Petrey: When I unplug? It depends on how much time I have.
19:15
I think that if I'm if I'm trying to wind down to like go
19:18
to sleep. I love television. Apparently I love first
19:21
responder television. I didn't realize that was a genre until
19:25
one of the streaming platforms gave me a category that was like
19:28
first responder TV and I'm like, Oh, I guess that's my thing.
19:32
Television is kind of like a I guess sort of an easy lift to
19:35
take me out of my head if I've had a rough day. My favorite
19:38
thing to do to relax is to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch on
19:42
Hulu. I like even if it's just like 10 minutes. I like to like
19:45
turn it on. It's strangely like such a peaceful sitcom for me,
19:49
but I like to watch that even if it's like in a small dose or
19:52
like five to 10 minutes before I go to bed while I'm eating
19:56
something like that. I really like it. I love Going for a
19:59
walk, I walk a lot, I walk a lot when I'm on conference calls,
20:03
actually, but I like to walk and maybe call a family member,
20:06
sometimes that's helpful to kind of take me out of my head and
20:09
relax a little bit and, you know, brings me brings me joy.
20:13
And if I have more time, I like anything to do with the water. I
20:16
love swimming, there's a nice swimming pool complex that I can
20:20
walk to from my house. That's awesome. That's one of the
20:23
reasons actually, like why we moved to this area, we also
20:26
moved to this area because we live in Santa Monica, and we
20:30
wanted to be closer to the ocean. So I like being around
20:33
the ocean. And if I have the most time, I like to travel
20:36
somewhere and go somewhere where I can swim and do snorkeling and
20:40
other nice things in the water. But I really enjoy swimming,
20:43
snorkeling, and finding sea turtles in Hawaii. That is my
20:46
ultimate way to relax.
20:48
Stephanie Maas: That's awesome. What's next? As you look to the
20:50
future, where do we go from here?
20:51
Cassie Petrey: I think I have a couple lanes for next, there's
20:53
still a lot of problems to be solved in digital marketing. And
20:56
there's more work than ever for artists to do. So I think that
20:59
my business will still be evolving on that front and
21:03
continuing to figure out how to make artists lives a little bit
21:06
easier on the digital marketing front. And this like ongoing
21:09
need to create a ton of content. So I think that's going to be
21:12
one important thing. The second lane artists management, I
21:16
really want to find one or two more artists to really get
21:20
behind and be a part of their team. So I'm kind of looking for
21:23
those projects right now, it would be like a couple more of
21:26
those over the next few years, I think Lane number three is I
21:30
really want to figure out how to evolve how digital marketing
21:35
people in the music business are compensated. So right now we
21:38
operate very much on a retainer basis. So you get, you know, a
21:42
monthly fee for the work that you do. But the amount of work
21:46
that we're doing is just becoming so astronomical, that
21:50
I've recently struck a deal with a record label on a project
21:53
where we're taking a percentage of master versus getting paid
21:56
per month. And I think that's going to work great for the
21:59
artists because they're not going to have that you know,
22:01
upfront cost going against their advance in their record deal,
22:06
though record label, it doesn't have to front that cost up
22:09
front. But if this project does work, I win. And I feel good
22:14
about the work I did in the beginning of their career and
22:16
getting them going on the digital front. I'm really hoping
22:19
to see more projects that are formatted on a percentage basis.
22:23
And that's a legacy that I want for me, but I want to be a part
22:27
of other digital people being able to do that, too. So that's
22:30
why I'm openly talking about these deal structures, because I
22:32
want other digital marketing people to maybe think about a
22:36
percentage might be a better option for them. Like in the
22:38
music business accountants slash business managers is what
22:41
they're called, and lawyers and artists, managers are
22:44
compensated on percentage. And I think digital is oftentimes just
22:48
as important as any of those roles. And I want digital to be
22:52
compensated and rewarded in the long run in a respectable way,
22:57
if they're an important part of an artist's career. And then
23:01
item four, I want to make a book about evergreen principles of
23:05
social media. It's something I'm working on right now. But I see
23:08
because I've done this for so long. I've seen there's a lot of
23:11
things that change, but there's a lot of things that stay the
23:13
same. So I'm working on that right now. I want to put that
23:16
out in the next couple of years. And then five, I do have a goal
23:21
of doing some sort of television production at some point,
23:24
whether it's a reality show or a drama, I have a couple of things
23:27
in the mix, but I you know, want to bring one of those ideas to
23:30
life at some point. But those are like my main focuses at the
23:33
moment.
23:34
Stephanie Maas: I really don't say this lightly, but I think
23:37
it's super inspiring to see the path you've paved. I mean,
23:42
you're wise beyond your years.
23:44
Cassie Petrey: Oh, thank you.
23:45
Stephanie Maas: I really appreciate you being here. Thank
23:48
you very much.
23:49
Cassie Petrey: Of course. Thank you for having me. I appreciate
24:09
you all.