Today I shared some band stories.
I stopped in the office to send off an offer and decided to spend the next few minutes in the office before I had to head out again. It was nice catching up with some of the agents as I hadn’t been in the office much lately. As happens when you put a bunch of agents together, stories started to come up. I thought I’d share one with you that I have found invaluable over the years.
Back in the day (I always wanted to use that phrase), we were touring the world and feeling like nothing could stop us. We were running from country to country and playing to crowds of 10,000 all on our own merits in Germany, the place we had made our adopted home. When we first started in Germany, we were small like anyone else and played in front of two drunk guys at the bar and maybe a few rats in the corner. That’s the way rock ‘n roll works. We paid our dues and rose to the top. In our rise, we met a guy at the German record label who was a big supporter of ours. He championed us when we released our new record and pushed to get the record label behind us. They eventually listened to him. His gut was right and we quickly ascended to rock royalty in Germany. I once even had Udo Lindenberg buy me a drink on my birthday. Sorry, I sometimes like to reminisce. During all of this, our champion at the record label, we’ll call him “King”, was by our side everywhere we went. He took us to dinners, bought us drinks, and made sure we made it to our interviews. I spent hours and hours with this man and we all got to know him and his wife quite well.
When you’re in a band traveling constantly from town to town in a different country everyday meeting different radio, video, record company, promoters, fans, etc. all the time, you tend to forget people’s names and sometimes, even their faces. Several of the guys in the band were masters at remembering, but when you play 14 nights in a row, even they could get hazy and let their memory slip. Of course, the music business is very much like our business. It’s about connecting, meeting, networking, and beer. Okay, maybe the beer part isn’t as much a part of real estate – at least not on the job. And it certainly doesn’t involve smashing guitars. Although, I’m here to tell you, the next time you have a frustrating day going back and forth negotiating with a bank on a short sale, go buy a guitar and get to work. You’ll love it.
The memory game.
I admit, my memory isn’t always the sharpest and it can take me a few moments to recognize someone, remember our last conversation, or know why or how I know them. I chalk that up to rock ‘n roll too. (When in doubt, blame rock ‘n roll – another hint I’d like to pass on to you.) Since I know my memory can be a bit rough around the edges, I’ve found ways to cope with it. This is what I’d like to pass on to you. I’m sure many of you have your own idiosyncrasies that you’ve learned to deal with, but this is the one that has served me well over the years and I hope you can find good use for it to.
Let’s get back to our German friend, King.
Months of touring under our belt and we’re still trucking along. King has risen in the ranks of the record label and now runs the whole thing in large part to his early successes with bands like us. We have a close relationship, but since he’s now a big deal at the label, we don’t see him as much anymore. One night in Berlin, he was scheduled to make an appearance. All of us looked forward to it and we spent hours in our dressing room meeting and greeting the many new faces at the label. The music industry probably has a bigger drop out rate than the real estate industry. We were catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. In walks King and his wife. King is a rather tall man with some very specific features that make him stand out in the first place, but this is a guy we know well. We all head over towards the door to greet him. One by one, the band members say their hellos until we get to our drummer (and no, this is not a “dumb” drummer joke) who says, “Nice to meet you, King!”
We were all slightly embarrassed, but the gaffe slipped by relatively unnoticed. We noticed, King didn’t seem to. In questioning the drummer later that night about it all, we discovered that he really didn’t recognize him at first, so he just assumed we were meeting yet another new member of the Universal Records team. That night, the four of us that had been doing this a little longer than the drummer (he was our second drummer) sat him down and taught him this:
When in doubt, never say anything that indicates whether you do or don’t know the person. Simply ask them how they’re doing. In our band the phrase was always the same, “Hey, how’s it going?” As you talk, the clues will likely come to you to give you the anwser to “who is this.”
It never gave away your position of knowing/not knowing the person and it was a friendly way to greet someone. Typically the next step involved getting them something to drink at which point we could quietly text our tour manager and ask “who is that?” It saved us from a lot of awkward situations and I still use it to this day. Although the words might not work for you – the theory always will.
photo courtesy of Rob Gallop
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Matt – I can relate to this. It seems I know a person’s name until the hug or handshake, then my memory goes somewhere else. I’ve never really figured out where it goes, it just wanders.
My children and husband remember everything – authors of books, how the story end, directors of movies, everything, they must have a huge hard drive
I guess the kids don’t take after Mom.
I use the same strategy as you – Hey, how are you? It’s been too long – anything until my memory comes back. It can be rather uncomfortable, until you realize, they may not remember either.
Matt – you’ve hit me in the gut on this one buddy! My second-to-last assignment in the Navy was as the CTI Detailer. My job was to move 1,600 Navy linguists around the world, moving typically 1/3rd to 2/5s of the linguistic war fighting personnel every year. I made it a matter of personal pride to go out and meet these folks where they lived, and spent easily one week of every month deployed to wherever they where stationed. This month it would be San Diego and Monterey, next it would be Guam, Yokosuka, and Misawa (Japan). I met personally with about 1,200 of those Sailors, I figured if it was my task to make them pick up their families and move them to yet another crapheap on the far side of the world, for the Needs of The Navy, then I ought to at least have the cayoons to look them in the eye when I did it. I formed many relationships during that time, some that continue to help me in my current trade.
Flash forward to three weeks ago, and I’m at a post-retirement party for a Master Chief and Great American, and this couple is sitting next to me smiling at me and chatting like I’m their long lost brother. Like a dumb-ass, I eventually reach out my hand and say “I’m Joe Loomer, by the way.” Seems I met them both several times over the course of my Detailer travels, and helped secure them a joint posting when it looked like they’d be split up for three years. I’d made a huge impression on them, and here they now didn’t know why I couldn’t remember it.
To summarize, “Hey How You Doing?” is now MY mantra too. Although in my neck of the woods it’s more like “Howdy Y’all.”
Navy Chief, Navy Pride
Matt, I have the opposite problem- I remember people (names not so much, but faces always, no matter how brief the meeting). I only recently realized that when someone doesn’t remember me that it is THEIR fault, not mine. I share this because your tip about not indicating whether or not you’ve met is dead on as I used to get quite upset when someone didn’t recall meeting me and I felt that *I* hadn’t left an impression on *them*. Now I realize not everyone has a sharp memory and that’s their fault, but it used to cause quite insult to me.
Being active in online social networking can either complicate or enhance this process of remembering names because you recognize people’s avatars and either (1) see them out of context and not remember why you recognize them or (2) see them in person and feel as if you’re quite familiar with them.
When President George W Bush was the Governor of Texas, he spent a great deal of time underground at the capital (as the support staff works on the basement level) and started many days out with walking from office to office saying hello- he remembered every person’s name down to the janitorial staff and inquired about personal details he recalled from spouses to dogs. No, he didn’t have an aide with him whispering intel into his ear, he was simply a natural connector and remembered the details. I aspire to be that but in the future but for now will use your tip to never indicate verbally whether I’ve met someone!
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Paula – My wife is like that. She remembers all the details. It’s nice to hear that I’m not alone. I’m okay with people not remembering my name at first (of course if I’m with you for three days in a row, I sure hope you would!). I actually have a gold record in my collection with the incorrect name on it. This from people I knew quite well. They sent me a replacement name for it, so I keep both of them. It made me laugh.
Joe – I can imagine you had a lot of people to remember and talk to at any given time. It’s definitely something I’m trying to improve in myself, but it does take work – need to re-wire the brain to function differently. I’m like Paula, the handshake is when it slips. I’ve been trying to repeat names or when I’m on the phone jot it down as we speak. Although the other day, while ending a call with a guy named Peter, I slipped and said Paul anyway. At least I didn’t call him Mary.
Lani – And the insult of it all is what scares me. What says “you’re not important to me” more than not remembering someone’s name. Instantly, you’ve created a disappointment in someone and it can be quite dangerous in a profession like this. That’s why I am working on ways to get over this, but in the meantime, my “fix” seems to work well most of the time.
As for the comment of avatars I often wonder what will happen when I meet some of the online folks I know. Will I be disappointed if @housechick doesn’t wear a cape? Will I not recognize @Ines without a mojito? What if @respres wore a wig, would I still know him? You I’d probably recognize (I better), but even if I didn’t I’d recognize your voice immediately as most of what I “know” about you is your voice.
Interesting fact about Bush that I never knew. We always tried to do that same sort of stuff when we did tours, meeting different people on crews, bus drivers, promoters – we always tried to be on a first name basis with all of them, some bands never do and they’re missing out on some great people. One of our bus drivers, Brian, was a great man and always took good care of me. He died several years later while driving the band Reef around (carbon monoxide while he was sleeping). I remember getting emails from his family because they knew him and I were close when we toured with him driving. The amount of times that guy listened to me when I was having a problem…those are the relationships I’ll always remember from tour.