Jeff Krauss (0s):I had to learn the hard way, to be honest. I was producing events for celebrities, would want to go to the events that I was doing. But. I also was working with restaurants that celebrities would like to go to. I would curate those dinners. It's not something where I just woke up one day and had a Rolodex full of celebrities, managers take my call. That's not how
Travis Chappell (25s):It works.
Jeff Krauss (25s):I mean. It's just not how it works. It's just not. Yeah.
1 (29s):Welcome, back to the show. I'm Travis Chappell. And I believe that if you can connect with the best, you can become the best So after creating 800 podcast episodes about building your network of come to realize that networking is really just making friends if you doing it the right way. Anyway, join me as I. make friends with world class athletes like Shaquille, O, Neal, entertainers like Rob, Deer deck authors like Dr, Nicole, lapper, former presidents like Vicente Fox, or even the occasional FBI hostage negotiator, billionaire, real estate mogul, or polarizing political figures. So if you want to make more friends that help you become a better version of yourself, then subscribe to the show and keep on listening 'cause this is Travis Makes Friends. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Travis Makes Friends podcast.
1 (1m 9s):Today I am making friends with JEFF KRAUSE. Jeff, what's up man? Welcome to the show. What's
Jeff Krauss (1m 14s):Going on man? Thank you for having me.
1 (1m 15s):Yes sir. These are some of my favorite interviews because I like talking to like really understated connectors. You know, like people who are a part of all these big things, but they're always behind the scenes and so you never really see much about them until you watch a show like this and you get to see a lot about them. So that's what we're here to do today. That's awesome. If you'll let me, let's, let's rewind the clock first of all. Okay. Because I don't know if your high school or college had a, you know, connecting with celebrities 1 0 1, but I doubt that it did. So I'm always curious to see how you got to where you are. Let's go back in time. Let's talk 10, 11 year old JEFF KRAUSE. Where were you? Set the scene for me.
Jeff Krauss (1m 57s):Well, 10, 11 years old. I was, you know, in, probably in middle school and this was the furthest thing on my mind that would ever come to be.
1 (2m 8s):Where were you?
Jeff Krauss (2m 10s):Oh, I
1 (2m 11s):Geographically,
Jeff Krauss (2m 11s):Yeah, I, I grew up in Roswell, New York. Okay. In Long Island. And, you know, I just was interested in tennis and wrestling and sports and
1 (2m 21s):Sports guy. Yeah. Yeah. Were
Jeff Krauss (2m 23s):Business was the last thing on my mind. What
1 (2m 26s):Were your parents doing at the time? Were they kind of employees, business people? What were they doing?
Jeff Krauss (2m 32s):Yeah, well, I mean they still kind of are in a sense. Okay. I mean my, you know, my dad, you know, he's in the financial world. Okay. As far as like selling stocks and bonds and Okay. Kind of stuff. Gotcha. My mom manages a medical company. Oh. As far as, you know, with, works with like insurance companies and that kind of thing. Great. Yeah. So I mean they've actually both love what they do and they've been doing it for, you know, a very long time actually.
1 (2m 57s):Was there a push for you at all down the education path or like to a certain vocation in life? Was there kind of a cultural or familial push toward a certain direction?
Jeff Krauss (3m 7s):No, I mean, they basically just wanted me to go to college and they wanted me to complete college and find something that I loved doing and have the, you know, stable nine to five, you know, job kind of thing. Yeah. Which really was not for me. It really just, it just wasn't I mean. I did go to college. Okay. And I did graduate college, but as far as doing the whole nine to five thing, it just wasn't really for me. Did
1 (3m 32s):You stay in New York for college?
Jeff Krauss (3m 34s):Well, I actually went to college in New Jersey. Okay. At Ramapo College. In, in
1 (3m 39s):Mah. Okay. How was your college experience?
Jeff Krauss (3m 41s):Not the usual. Okay. 'cause it's, 'cause it's right outside the city. So I mean within the first, I would say year or two of college, I was already starting to throw parties in Manhattan. And you know, of course I was taking, you know, courses on communications and marketing and all that good stuff at, at Ramapo. But my real education as far as what I do now really came from when I was in college actually being in doing
1 (4m 9s):Things.
Jeff Krauss (4m 9s):Yeah. Doing things,
1 (4m 10s):Not studying things, being
Jeff Krauss (4m 11s):In the city, throwing parties and networking and Yeah. And doing all that kind of stuff, which kind of laid a little bit of the groundwork to, you know, what I do today in a sense.
1 (4m 22s):Did you ever have any desire to leave New York?
Jeff Krauss (4m 25s):No, I love New York City. I just, it's just in me. Fair. I mean. It's fair. Yeah.
1 (4m 30s):What's your second favorite city?
Jeff Krauss (4m 33s):I would say la Okay.
1 (4m 34s):Well, Los Angeles, well,
Jeff Krauss (4m 36s):Well, well, let me, lemme just paraphrase that. Okay. I would say Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills area, west Hollywood. Got it. Got it. And, and I would say that maybe pre pandemic. Okay.
1 (4m 49s):That's a fair, that's a fair caveat for
Jeff Krauss (4m 52s):Sure. Yeah, definitely. Pre pandemic. That would definitely be my favorite, you know, place to either A, you know, do events outside of New York City or B even just do a little vacation or quasi of both kind of thing. Sure. Those would be my two favorite. But, you know, after the pandemic, of course LA is not as, you know, great to go as far as, you know, vacationing and that's very
1 (5m 16s):True. Stuff like that. That's very true. Unfortunately. Yeah. Unfortunately, I, I was just talking to my wife about this 'cause she asked me New York or la which one would I choose? And I'm from LA area, like an hour north of LA is where I grew up. So my answer always used to be LA but I, what I told her was, at this point, I feel like if I were going to pick an objectively cooler city, I would pick New York City. But if I was gonna pick like a place to live, I feel like I would still go, as long as I don't have to live in Los Angeles, Los, like downtown Los Angeles or something like that. If I could pick something like Orange County, I think I would still choose that. Just 'cause of the weather.
Jeff Krauss (5m 52s):Yeah. Well see, for me it's more of, I love living in New York City. I love doing what I do in New York City. Yeah. But I also love the, just when you get to LA it's more mellow. Hmm. It's more,
1 (6m 4s):Especially Orange County. Competitively.
Jeff Krauss (6m 6s):Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying, you go to LA it's very more mellow. Everybody's more just chill and it's just, you know, so as far as for a zen Yeah. Kind of thing.
1 (6m 17s):Pace of life. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (6m 17s):Pace of life. LA is definitely much more like the spot, you know? Yeah. For sure.
1 (6m 24s):All right. That, that was just a personal aside that I wanted to ask you. Totally. Let's get back into your story here. Okay. You're in college, you start throwing parties, you end up graduating, what do you do after?
Jeff Krauss (6m 33s):After I graduated I actually partnered in a lounge.
1 (6m 36s):Okay. So as soon as you're done with college?
Jeff Krauss (6m 39s):Well, yeah. So what happened was, up until the point of when I graduated, I was already throwing really big parties. Okay. And in my head, my big thing was I want to be a bar lounge club owner. Go figure. Makes sense. So we, at the time, the person that I was partners with, we partnered up with a landlord that owned an existing lounge. Okay. And we took over that lounge. We did some minor renovations to it and we opened it. We called it cotton. It was pretty, in the beginning, it was pretty good. It was very difficult to keep it going.
Jeff Krauss (7m 20s):But we did end up having a niche of having the late night parties on Friday and Saturday where when people would be done with, say for example, their, you know, big nightclubs kind of thing. Sure. They would come over to us and hang out and
1 (7m 37s):Relaxed spot than a party spot.
Jeff Krauss (7m 41s):No, it was a party spot. But I would say that it was more of a late night party spot. Hmm. That's where we really hit our, our core audience. Okay. It was just that, it was one of those things where we took a niche that was not being discovered on, so to speak. Sure. And we elaborated on that and that was kind of our like, hey, okay, you know what, this wasn't really working from what we were trying to do. Yeah. But you know, we could be the cool spot where people come at two 3:00 AM hang out. 'cause again, at that time I was, you know, 21, 22. Yeah. It was like no big deal hanging out till, you know, five in the morning Yeah. Or whatever. Right. Who cares, you know what I mean right. At that time. Sure.
1 (8m 20s):It's pretty inconsequential. Yeah. Yeah. Time's just a construct, you know?
Jeff Krauss (8m 24s):Exactly. But it was a lot of fun and I had a lot of, you know, there were a lot of ups and downs with it. Yeah. But I definitely learned a lot from it.
1 (8m 31s):Can you tell us the story of your first ever event that you threw? Do you remember that event or party or whatever it would be?
Jeff Krauss (8m 41s):Well, if we want to talk about the first party that I ever threw, I was in college and I got referred to a promoter that, now again, this is me knowing nobody. Yeah. I mean absolutely nobody. I didn't know anything about the business. My friend, one of my, one of my best friends still to this day, Dave Rothwell. He, he was like, Jeff, we gotta throw parties in, in a nightclub and or, you know, promoting. And I said, nah, I don't really want to do that. It's not for me. And this went on for weeks where he was like, no, we gotta do it.
Jeff Krauss (9m 21s):We gotta do it. And I think my sister or some, yeah. I think my sister knew a promoter or something. And we got referred and, and we spoke with the promoter and he was actually promoting a very popular venue at the time. So we said, all right, we'll, you know, we'll, we'll give it a shot. And we just made phone calls for two weeks straight to everybody that we knew I mean. My friend was calling people that he hadn't even spoken to in 10 years.
1 (9m 48s):They were expecting like, network marketing and m and m l m pitch or something found these supplements. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (9m 54s):We were I mean, he was speaking to people that he was like friends with in like middle school. Yeah. And He said, we're having this party, it's gonna be the best right
1 (10m 1s):Down everybody, you know, you
Jeff Krauss (10m 3s):Gotta come. They're just like, we haven't heard who is this? Yeah. We haven't heard from you in five, 10 years. And just like,
1 (10m 9s):They're getting out the yearbook. Yeah. Trying to figure out who this guy is.
Jeff Krauss (10m 12s):Yeah. So I mean we brought so many people down. So we get to the venue, I'm underage,
1 (10m 22s):They got promoting the event. I'm
Jeff Krauss (10m 23s):Un I'm underage. Yeah. And I have a fake ID on me. Yeah. I go up to the door, I show the fake id, the bouncer looks at it and he is like, this isn't you. So, so I didn't get in at first. I went around the block. My friend was, you know, a few years older than me. Okay. He walks into the venue and he finds the promotional director of the venue or for the night or whatever. And he says, we busted our butts, you know, trying to fill this venue tonight. You know, I demand my friend get in and
1 (11m 0s):Hey, he had your back though. He
Jeff Krauss (11m 2s):Did have my back. He
1 (11m 3s):Had your back.
Jeff Krauss (11m 4s):And so they said, all right, well let him in. He can't drink. Yeah, okay. No problem.
1 (11m 8s):Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (11m 10s):Oh no, no
1 (11m 10s):Problem. I don't touch the stuff.
Jeff Krauss (11m 12s):So I get in the, the venue is is, you know, is packed. Some of our friends didn't even get in. And what do you know? I, we didn't even end up getting paid. Really?
1 (11m 23s):Yeah. So this is your first time ever, ever.
Jeff Krauss (11m 26s):My, my, my first time. 'cause apparently at, listen at the time, times have changed. At the time I didn't know any better and He said, oh, you guys had too many people in that were for free that didn't pay at the door. And Oh, okay, whatever. So, you know, I ended up meeting another promoter that was throwing a party that was competition a little bit more in Chelsea area. Okay. And He said, listen, we want to give you guys a shot. So we said, okay, great. We ended up, you know, throwing the party. And I ended up learning a lot because they gave us a lot of leeway. Hmm. So my thing was more like, okay, I wanna work with good people, even if the party isn't necessarily as good.
Jeff Krauss (12m 10s):Yeah. But it's still good enough. It was good enough for me to learn the ropes and actually actually learn what we needed to do. Do
1 (12m 18s):You remember thinking that at the time? I, I wanna learn the insights?
Jeff Krauss (12m 21s):No. Well that, that was the thing. I didn't, for me it was more about, I just wanna work with somebody that's a good person. Yeah. That throws a good party. Doesn't have to be the best party. Yeah. But it could be good enough or I can learn. I'm gonna be treated with respect. Yeah. And I can make money and
1 (12m 38s):I can get a little bit of money out of this too
Jeff Krauss (12m 40s):E Exactly. So we went that route and that turned out, you know, pretty good until nine 11 hit. Okay. And after nine 11, you know, took a little bit of a break from throwing parties and then got back to it probably about six months later.
1 (13m 0s):What about it kept bringing you back?
Jeff Krauss (13m 3s):It was just about bringing people together. I don't know. It was something about it. Yeah. Like having people in, in the room that I can introduce and show a good time to. Yeah. There's just something about it that has always stuck with me. Mm. Regardless of whether it's in my own venue, in someone else's venue, anywhere I've gone. That's just been, it's just been something about bringing people together. Yeah. That's alerted me
1 (13m 30s):Some. Yeah. It fulfilled some part of you. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (13m 33s):Yeah. I just love doing it.
1 (13m 35s):So basically all of the rest of college, you're just promoting stuff. Are, are you making like, pretty good money at this point? Is this, is this, are you making money where you're like, why am I still in college? Or was it always, I'm definitely gonna finish college, get my degree and then get a job?
Jeff Krauss (13m 48s):No, we made pretty good money. But you gotta also remember something back then, I didn't really know what was what because weren't I mean I was in college. Yeah. So, and I'm taking like, marketing and communications courses. I don't know what rent is or, or I don't know what real life bills are because I'm in, I'm in college. I don't really know much. Yeah. Other than I know what I'm making. I know that it sounds great. Yeah. But
1 (14m 15s):What does that mean for, what is that actually Navigating adult life. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (14m 18s):What does that really mean for Navigating adult life? Yeah.
1 (14m 21s):So then your first inclination outta college was like, I don't want to get a job. I want to become part owner of this lounge. That was, well,
Jeff Krauss (14m 32s):So what happened was, we met the landlord because he owned a place that was currently open. And we just looked at the numbers and we said, wait a minute. I, I just said to myself, okay, I'm not really into the nine to five thing now. I
1 (14m 51s):How did you know that?
Jeff Krauss (14m 53s):Well, a number one, I have insomnia. Okay. So that right there, and I, I've had insomnia since I was, since I was a child. Okay. Since I was a baby. So I knew right then that a number one, that probably wouldn't be the best route. But B number two is that before I graduated college, these negotiations were going on. Okay. And we were looking at the potential revenue Gotcha. That the venue could make and what could be of it. And I just said to myself, I'm gonna take the chance and do it. It was just a, I just took a chance on myself and, and, and did it. What do
1 (15m 31s):You, what did your parents think at the time?
Jeff Krauss (15m 34s):I don't think they necessarily liked the idea of it, but I think they, they did support it. Okay. They supported my decision, but I don't think it was necessarily their, their top, what they wanted, what they wanted. But they definitely show their support.
1 (15m 49s):Hey, that's good.
Jeff Krauss (15m 49s):Yeah. There was never had any issue on it. But back then, they definitely wouldn't have said, Hey, you know, we want our son to be a club owner or Sure. Promoter or whatever.
1 (16m 2s):Yeah. Or to just not have a nine to five.
Jeff Krauss (16m 5s):Yeah. I don't think the nine to five part of it was necessarily. 'cause again, times have changed. Yeah. Now you could work 10 to six, right. You could work, whatever. But back then, yeah. The big thing was nine to five. Oh,
1 (16m 20s):It's totally fair. You know, and that was like the path. Yeah. You know what I mean? There wasn't this kind of glorification of entrepreneurship or solo entrepreneurship or freelancing that exists now. Exactly. And you didn't see any of it. 'cause there was no social media. There was no way to really know that, that those things were possible. It was just like, you go to school, you get a job. Exactly. And that's what you do.
Jeff Krauss (16m 39s):Yeah. Well, back when I'm talking about I mean, Facebook wasn't even a thing.
1 (16m 44s):Wasn't even a thought. Wasn't even a
Jeff Krauss (16m 46s):Thought.
1 (16m 46s):We're talking 2002.
Jeff Krauss (16m 48s):Two three. Yeah. This was, this was back in 2004. 2004. Yeah. I mean Facebook wasn't a thought. Yeah. Or maybe it was the, the
1 (16m 54s):Internet was barely I mean. Blogs were still like coming.
Jeff Krauss (16m 57s):Yeah. I mean, I think there was, might have been something, I think, was it Friendster? Something like that. Yeah. But there, but it wasn't MySpace. Nobody was, yeah. Not even, not even MySpace. Yeah. MySpace blew up maybe within that timeframe. Sure. Within a year or two. But it still was not anything compared to what these networking platforms are today. Were,
1 (17m 21s):Were there any sort of early internet sites, any, any sort of web applications that you guys were using at the time to fill parties?
Jeff Krauss (17m 29s):No.
1 (17m 30s):When you would post or go get people, you were just doing everything. No
Jeff Krauss (17m 33s):Old school. Old school. We were just making calls, sending out emails. Hmm. Making calls, sending out emails. People
1 (17m 39s):Just get on your list to be like, Hey, let me know when you're throwing another party. And then you email them.
Jeff Krauss (17m 43s):Well, well, as I would meet them, I would get their, their phone numbers. I would get their card and we would just add them to the list. Yeah. Add them to the list. And then when we would throw parties, we would sit down and call the entire list. In fact, we had a mailing list, we had mailing list girls at that time that would go around and take everybody's contact information so that we got their friends' information and, and stuff like that. Mm. In the parties. And I would literally sit there for, you know, four or five hours on the day of the party or day before the party, or, you know, a few days before the party just making calls.
Jeff Krauss (18m 24s):Hmm. Calling the list. Yeah.
1 (18m 25s):It obviously went pretty well for you. Right. Ownership of that first lounge. How did that end up playing out for you?
Jeff Krauss (18m 31s):Well, the experience was great. Sure. As far as just seeing how things, you know, can operate, how things really can go. I would say that in the end, you know, we ended up selling our shares of it to somebody else who then took over. Okay. But the experience of it was great. As far as just learning things. Were
1 (18m 57s):You still throwing parties at other places during that time? Or was it just, let's promote the club? Promote the club. No,
Jeff Krauss (19m 2s):The club very, very little. We, we had such tunnel vision Sure. Back then it was just promote the venue, promote the venue, promote the venue. Got it. That's all we lived and breathed really was just promoting that venue.
1 (19m 15s):Describe the feeling that you felt when you exited or when you sold it.
Jeff Krauss (19m 20s):Actually, I felt relief, believe it or not. That's
1 (19m 23s):What I was getting to. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (19m 25s):I felt relief because the later part of it, I felt like a big weight on my shoulder that I wasn't really moving forward in a direction that I was happy with. So it was actually a big weight off my shoulder that we, we ended up selling and getting out. Yeah.
1 (19m 44s):Yeah. You felt a little like free to do
Jeff Krauss (19m 47s):Things again. Yeah. 'cause we, yeah. 'cause I, I felt like, okay, well, you know, yes, of course we're the operators of this venue and our responsibility is to fill it and, and run it. Whereas afterwards, I still had a desire to own a venue, but I was gonna do it in just different ways. Yeah. Bring in more, more people to work with me or more partners and maybe not have all of the pressure just on, on me. Yeah. Or on, you know, the team. But at the time I just kind of felt a little bit like, okay, now this chapter is done, I can now move on to bigger and better things and you know Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (20m 33s):Focus on other stuff. And
1 (20m 34s):This is, you're just outta college. You're 21, 22 when you get into it. And how long until you're done with it?
Jeff Krauss (20m 41s):Oh, it was about two years I would say. Okay. Nice. Yeah, we had it for about two years.
1 (20m 45s):Got a little experience under the belts.
Jeff Krauss (20m 47s):Yeah. And then actually the, so the person that bought us out, he actually brought me in to help run the venue afterward under Okay. Under his management, under his creation. And I helped with that for about six months. Okay. That was great too, don't get me wrong. But I wasn't tied down to the venue where I could still do other, other things.
1 (21m 14s):Yeah, sure. Sure. So from that point forward, again, I'm gonna ask you this again. Just, was there ever any consideration of doing anything different? You've been doing this since you were in college, you've been at it for four or five, six years already. You got into a place, you got outta the place, you're almost in a little bit of a earnout position, or you're at least took a, took the position there. Or was it ever any thought to be like, I should go do something normal? Or was it more just like, all right, what's next? What do I gotta do now?
Jeff Krauss (21m 41s):No, it was just what's next. Okay. And how can I do what I'm doing now? Yeah. But do it much, much bigger.
1 (21m 48s):Well, it seems like you definitely figured out a way to do that. So let's talk about that. You built relationships with some of the biggest names really in the world, I was gonna say in New York City. But they're also, you know, by nature of the fact that they're the biggest names in New York City. They're also the biggest names in the world. Like some of the biggest celebrities and wealthiest people that are out there. And you've done all of that through just being an expert at Curating event experiences. Can you talk about the escalation between the time that you were 19 throwing parties at clubs to now with the events that you throw with some of the people that you throw events for?
Jeff Krauss (22m 25s):Well, basically after that is concerned as far as me being a, a bar owner or whatever, I ended up leaning more into the event production side while also working with some of the hottest nightclubs at the time that were popular on their own to help them even become more popular and, and Okay. Whatever. That lasted for a number of years. And then I got hired as the director at the Chelsea room in the Chelsea Hotel. And I ran their program for about two years. That was a great, great experience. You know, I basically just did what I do.
Jeff Krauss (23m 6s):Hired, you know, promotional, promotional staff, brought in the right, the right people, the right PR firms. Brought in some celebrities to, you know, to attend here, here and there. Brought in some good events. It lasted while it lasted and their lease ran up and the Chelsea Hotel decided that they were going to renovate the whole hotel. So it wasn't gonna be open much longer. Anyway. Big
1 (23m 30s):Project.
Jeff Krauss (23m 31s):Yeah. Which was a whole nother story for another day. So I, after that I kind of just, I leaned more into the events side of it.
1 (23m 40s):Okay. Events. When you say events, you're talking like this is a, now a different category than a party, right? Right. Or is that Well, for I'm thinking about that, right. Or how would you describe it?
Jeff Krauss (23m 50s):Yeah, so for example, instead of me thinking, okay, I need to bring this event to the Chelsea room because I want to make sure that the Chelsea room is hot. My thought process now is what are the best spaces in New York? Mm. Where I can now bring this party and make this party even better.
1 (24m 11s):Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (24m 12s):Than what it would've been where it's, if
1 (24m 14s):I, it's it's my event is hot.
Jeff Krauss (24m 17s):Exactly. Not the venue. Exactly. Yeah. Where the venue might've been. So for example, we did some events at Stone Rose. Okay. Which Stone Rose is gorgeous. It over, well it's not open anymore, but it's opened under a different name. But Stone Rose overlooked, you know, central Park. So it was very high end and we did a good amount of events there. But it wasn't about the venue because I worked at the venue. It was about me choosing that venue for this event because I wanted to make this event better.
1 (24m 51s):That was part of the curated experience.
Jeff Krauss (24m 53s):And I Exactly. And I wanted to get better people in the room to network with. What
1 (24m 58s):Are the key factors of an extraordinary event?
Jeff Krauss (25m 3s):Well, number one, of course, where it is, because the space can make the place Yep. So to speak. Yep. The music. Who's performing, what's special about it? Do you have, you know, any kind of entertainment that maybe other events don't have? Hmm. I mean? I've seen stuff where, you know, an an artist will do a, a sketch of somebody in the party. It's just different. Like things that are just different.
1 (25m 32s):So it doesn't always have to be like, oh, Jay-Z's gonna perform, it's, oh, we have this sketch artist, or we have this thing.
Jeff Krauss (25m 38s):Well, that's part of it. Of course. If the event has a budget to have a celebrity perform or if a celebrity is attached to the charity and that kind of stuff. But the crux of the party, and I'm not talking about the celebrity performances, but the actual dynamics of the party of what does the attendee actually come away with when they walk away from the party? Do they say, wow, that was different. The food was great, the music was amazing. That was really a special event. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about now. That was back then. Today of course, I'm more ingrained into, you know, doing parties for celebrities.
Jeff Krauss (26m 21s):Yeah. Finding them, you know, the right venue, doing private dinners, all of that kind of stuff. But leading up to it, you have to learn how to manage different personalities. Sure. How to, you know, really dive into creativity to make whatever you're doing special. Yeah.
1 (26m 42s):I'm assuming you deal with a lot of like, management teams when it comes to some of the celebrities that you work with. Oh yeah. Do you have any advice for people on how to communicate with those teams in order to, I'm trying to think of a non salesy way to say this, but I guess garner favor with people like that. 'cause I think a lot of people drop the ball when it comes to who to focus building the relationship with. And I've seen this play out time and time again. 'cause people ask me all the time, like, Hey, how'd you get so and so on your podcast? How did you interview Shaq? Or how did you interview this person or that person? And I find that a lot of the times the answer is not about even connecting with the person themselves. It's about connecting with somebody that they're connected with, who they place their trust in.
1 (27m 25s):Absolutely. And coming across with some level of genuine authenticity to care about that person or build some sort of relationship with them. Can you speak to that at all? Yeah. From that, from that side of things.
Jeff Krauss (27m 35s):So the one thing you have to understand about celebrities is that the bigger the celebrity, the bigger the team. Hmm. Now, I don't, of course there are some major huge celebrities that don't have necessarily a huge team, but they have a big enough team where they have multiple people on there that have their ear Yeah.
1 (27m 56s):That are gatekeepers.
Jeff Krauss (27m 57s):That are gatekeepers. Now my thing is, if those people trust you and you can have an open conversation with them about what really needs to get done, what you're maybe what look I mean. There's a lot of moving parts to these events. Some of the events are, let's just say for in a convention, a convention wants to have a celebrity speaker or a celebrity, you know, doing autograph signings or whatever the case Yep. For those kind of things. The promoter of the convention, they have their waves, meaning they have what they need to get done.
Jeff Krauss (28m 40s):The celebrity has their side of it, of what they're willing to do. And my job is to try to meet in the middle so that everybody is happy Yeah. And walks and, and you know, it can move on. Yeah. Now with a, so
1 (28m 55s):We want, we want the signing and we want a thousand pictures or whatever. Right. And they're like, no, no, no. We, we don't wanna do any pictures. And it's, well, the only reason we're bringing here is for the pictures or whatever. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (29m 4s):So you have to, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of maneuvering between that. And same thing goes when it comes to getting a celebrity to perform at a charity event. Hmm. I'll give you just one example of a situation that could come up. Celebrity will do the charity event or music artist, they will perform no problem. But if you want them to walk the red carpet, they might not want to do that. Mm. They might say, Hey, we'll walk the red carpet. We'll take photos. We're not doing interviews. Now the publicist for the charity or for the venue or whoever that is on the other side of it might say, no, we want them to do this, this, this, this, this.
Jeff Krauss (29m 47s):And I have to then come back to them and say, look guys, you have a choice. You can slow down on what you're asking of the celebrity and just let them do what they're comfortable with or you're not gonna get them. And we're gonna be at a crossroad again for the next person that we're gonna go and, and, and talk to. Yeah.
1 (30m 8s):Right.
Jeff Krauss (30m 9s):And it's the same thing with planning the celebrities parties. Everybody's different. It's a balancing act of what the artist is going to be happy with. Meaning the celebrity talent and what the venue is gonna be happy with. And having a middle ground of, Hey, can we make this work to just so that everybody feels comfortable,
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Jeff Krauss (33m 19s):Are there any celebrities that you've worked with that you feel like you've built a good enough relationship now where it's No, they're, they're like a friend of mine.
1 (33m 26s):Like if I, if I text 'em about something, like they're gonna hit me back and we're gonna have a conversation about it.
Jeff Krauss (33m 31s):Oh yeah. There's plenty of those. Yeah.
1 (33m 33s):The reason I ask that question is, this is the Travis Makes Friends podcast. It's about making friends, about building relationships. And used to be specifically about building a professional network. That's why people came to listen to the show was, you know, how do you make yourself somebody worthy of connecting with a bunch of other people? And I used to get, when I would go do other Podcasts or Speak on Stages driver, I would always get asked the question like, Hey, you're the, the networking guy. And I kind of like, I rebranded the show 'cause I didn't wanna be known as the networking guy, you know, but that, those were the questions that I would get. And it would ask me, how did you connect to this person? How'd you connect to that person? How do you connect this person? How do you have a relationship with this person? The ironic thing is that the medium through which I was having conversations with people became my number one tool for connecting with those people, which is the podcast thing that we're doing right now.
1 (34m 16s):Right. The only reason that you and I are having a conversation is because I have a podcast. I've noticed that that happens to be the case with almost all of the most well connected people that I know. They have something that allows them to have some sort of a platform to be able to connect with people who are of some sort of a higher, you know, status or circle or influence or whatever the case may be. You chose the event space and events have obviously crushed it for you. You crushed it for your clients. You get good relationships. And then that starts building, you know, over time when you are distilling to somebody, Hey, this is how I've been able to connect with people. What would you say are, you know, the top couple of things that you've done?
Jeff Krauss (34m 59s):Well, one thing is, is that, you know, so say for example, I am putting together a dinner party for a celebrity, number one, I will always try to be at the dinner. Not, not not sitting with them per se Sure. But meaning I always try to stop by the restaurant or the, the space just to make sure everything is going right. I also try to make sure that I'm on the phone in constant contact with their manager, with their publicist, with their assistant. Yeah. Only for the reason that, and it doesn't matter whether I'm friends with the celebrity or not. Those people, even their agent, those people want to know that I'm, I'm looking after their client and that they're in good hands.
Jeff Krauss (35m 46s):Hmm. And that then ends up getting referrals. Sometimes those referrals end up being to other celebrities. Yeah. They could be for other corporate clients. They could be for, they could be for a lot of things. If you can manage to win over the whole team, you're in good shape because then they're more apt to work with you on multiple different levels.
1 (36m 13s):Yeah. Somebody's listening to this and they're like, this seems like a really cool thing to do. Where do you think somebody should spend their time in the beginning? Is there a certain skillset that you've worked to, to hone? Is there a knowledge base? Is there again, this isn't, this isn't a class you take in college, right. Where, where does somebody learn how to do these things? That's,
Jeff Krauss (36m 32s):That's a really tough question. I mean I had to learn the hard way, to be honest. I was producing events for celebrities, would want to go to the events that I was doing. But, I also was working with restaurants that celebrities would like to go to. I would curate those dinners. It's not something where I just woke up one day and had a Rolodex full of celebrities managers take my call. That's not how it works. I mean, it's just not how it works. It's just not, yeah. So it's, it's a really tough question for me to, to answer accurately. Yeah. Just because everybody has their own way. Sure.
Jeff Krauss (37m 12s):I, what I would suggest is maybe that person should intern at maybe a PR company that does movie premiers. Hmm. Maybe it's a PR company that does experiential events, stuff like that where you can learn how to outreach for stuff that you think that a celebrity would like to do, whatever that may be. Yeah. And that goes for anything, by the way. It goes for any, any type of type of product. You have a podcast, people want to be on your podcast, you want people on your podcast. Yeah. It's the same thing. If you have something that you represent or that you are working with or have attachment to that's of value, then you can then bring that to the celebrity and the celebrity to that piece of value.
Jeff Krauss (38m 2s):So it's, it's a two-way street. So it, somebody were to find out what PR company does the, the best movie premieres. Maybe it's a concert promoter, maybe they want to go work for a concert promoter. Maybe that's the way maybe they, you know, can see how artists' teams work by when they arrive to the building and get to know some of the teams that way. Maybe it's, they want to go work for Coachella. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's always ways of finding your way. If you set your mind to do what you wanna do.
1 (38m 37s):What, what are, what are the main, let's say two or three soft skills that you think are most important? What are required for you to be able to do what you do?
Jeff Krauss (38m 45s):Well, number one, you gotta have a level head.
1 (38m 48s):Hmm.
Jeff Krauss (38m 49s):It's level head is the most important thing because these things can be stressful if, and you may not like what's you hear on either side of the coin. There's a lot of moving parts to what? To what happens.
1 (39m 5s):It's always last minute this and change this and yeah.
Jeff Krauss (39m 9s):Accept no for an answer, but don't take no for an answer.
1 (39m 13s):Hmm. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Jeff Krauss (39m 15s):Well, no, today, doesn mean no. In one year from now. No, today doesn mean No, no. In two years from now, somebody may not respond to your email and then in three years they may email you about something or they may respond to something that you have of, which is a value to their client at the time. In three years you get on a phone call with them and all of a sudden it's like away. Wow. We hit it off. Yeah. They're actually a great person and, you know, wanna get to know that person. Patience. Very, very important. Yeah. And keeping things short and to the point, don't overdo it.
1 (39m 55s):Not wasting people's time.
Jeff Krauss (39m 57s):Well, even just when you're reaching out to them, keep it short and simple. Yeah. Short and simple always, always will be much better than creating a whole long proposal that they may or may not understand. They may or may not even wanna read or
1 (40m 14s):Look at it. Yeah. Right,
Jeff Krauss (40m 15s):Right. Or look at and yeah. That's how I did it. Look, I mean in the last six months, I've, you know, done a lot of celebrities, birthday parties or birthday dinners.
1 (40m 27s):Are you allowed to mention any names by the way?
Jeff Krauss (40m 29s):Well, I can. Okay. I mean I can name a a few I mean it's not. Yeah.
1 (40m 34s):Who, who are some of the people that you've worked with in the last six months a year?
Jeff Krauss (40m 38s):Well, I planned, I helped plan a Amal Clooney's birthday dinner with George, and that came through a referral from his publicist to his assistant. They were in town. It just so happened that he was filming with Brad Pitt for, for a movie. And he had one day, as
1 (40m 56s):You do,
Jeff Krauss (40m 57s):He had one day off and it just so happened to be Al's birthday. And they had seen something that I had sent over maybe a week or two or three before. Okay. That they liked That was referred by the publicist. The assistant reached out to me and we set it up. Hmm.
1 (41m 14s):Nice.
Jeff Krauss (41m 14s):Similar thing happened with Brooke Shields, Molly Ringwald, Alan Cumming. I just actually put together a dinner for Kevin Bacon and Ki Cedric. Well, that wasn't a birthday party, even though it was a week after his birthday, but Okay. But yeah, as far as birthday dinners, those would be three That, or four that would, would come off the top of my
1 (41m 34s):Head. Yeah. Just in the last few months.
Jeff Krauss (41m 35s):Yeah. Yeah. And I just did in the last couple of weeks, I mean I did an afterparty for Christina Aguilera. That was a referral from publicist to publicist. Okay. It, within the PR company that, that reps her, that now flourished into a beautiful relationship with her entire team. Yeah. Including her, her manager and assistant. And I just did something with Alicia Keys two weeks ago for her Afterparty.
1 (42m 5s):What, what is your team look like now when you're putting on these, these events and stuff? Is this something that you, you are kind of the orchestrator or is it so relationship based that you end up needing to be the person that's like heavily involved with a lot of the parts of the process?
Jeff Krauss (42m 21s):I have to be involved Okay. With the type of stuff that we're talking about right now. Yeah. Simply because the assistant or the publicist or the manager, they're in constant contact with me. Yeah. Over very, very little details to make sure every little thing goes through as planned. And
1 (42m 41s):They do not give out their phone number to everybody.
Jeff Krauss (42m 43s):No. Yeah. No. Yeah. No I mean privacy is very, very important. Yeah. So that's the thing is that I have to be, and, and now look, could I take a step back and, you know, have another teammate do it. Sure. But the problem with that is they're looking at me to be
1 (43m 5s):It's on you.
Jeff Krauss (43m 6s):It's on me because it's my relationship.
1 (43m 8s):Yeah. Yeah. It's a relationship based business.
Jeff Krauss (43m 12s):Yeah. It's, it's all relationships. It's
1 (43m 13s):All reputation and
Jeff Krauss (43m 15s):It's all relationships and reputation. Yeah.
1 (43m 17s):'cause like the biggest factor in all of this is like, time and trust is do I have time and do I trust this person not to waste it. Exactly. You know what I mean and it's just, if you screw that up once, then it's, well, let's try somebody else. You know, like they just don't
Jeff Krauss (43m 30s):Oh. That, that is,
1 (43m 30s):There's such an abundance of opportunity when you are somebody that's, or if you're honest, if you are a celebrity or you're working with a celebrity, that the opportunity is quite literally mind blowingly endless. The the sheer volume of opportunities that those types of celebrities get. So if you get the opportunity to do it, you better deliver to, to the point where that person has trust in you. So that next time it comes around, oh well I, I trust Jeff. Jeff. Exactly. Let's get, let's, let's get Jeff on this. And
Jeff Krauss (44m 1s):That's why i I remain very hands-on Yeah. With those kind of events, because I wanna make sure that, hey, look, they're gonna leave with a great experience in their minds. They're gonna say, you know, Jeff really, you know, came through for us. Yeah. And we had a lot of fun. We loved it. Yeah. And the next time we wanna do a party, we wanna do an event. We're gonna call Jeff first. Yeah.
1 (44m 29s):So I call you and I'm like, Jeff, come to New York. I got 50 people that are that, that are gonna be there and I need, I need a night that everybody's gonna remember when they leave. 'cause I'm trying to do some business with these folks. What's the first thing that you do? You asking me questions? Are you trying to,
Jeff Krauss (44m 47s):First thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask you questions. Okay. Number one, what date and time? You said how many people, it's 50 people. What do you envision? What type of setting? Hmm. Do you want a lounge with a dj? Do you want past hor d'oeuvres? Do you want this to be a restaurant setting? Do you want, like, I would need to know what is your ideal setting so that I can then look through my Rolodex of venues and say, okay, this would be the perfect spot
1 (45m 17s):For him. What if I just told you like a mood if I'm like, you know what, bro, I trust you, you do all that. I don't care if DJ lounge, restaurant, I don't care about any of that. I just want this to be a good night. Go. Sure. Like, do you have an idea where you're like, this is, this is my go-to. This is what this is, this is the type of thing that I would think I would wanna curate for that.
Jeff Krauss (45m 35s):Yeah. I, I have certain venues that I would say are, are go-tos. But again, it all, it all depends on what I think Yeah. Your going to Sure, sure. Because one venue may not be right for, it's
1 (45m 49s):So subjective.
Jeff Krauss (45m 49s):Yeah. It's subjective. Yeah.
1 (45m 52s):Yeah. Is there anything that stands out in your mind? Like when you look at the past, how long have you been doing this now?
Jeff Krauss (45m 58s):Well, I've been doing it for close to about, yeah. About 20, 20 years.
1 (46m 3s):I was just gonna say, so a couple decades. You look back at the last couple of decades, are there any that stick out to you where you were like, not even necessarily like the client was happiest with it, but I was so proud of this particular event or this two, these two or three events. Like I was just really proud of how this one turned out.
Jeff Krauss (46m 18s):Well, there's been a bunch. I will tell you one little story. Okay. I did an event that, actually it was at Stone Rose. Okay. This was maybe 10 years ago, I would say. We had Steven Baldwin hosting for his mother's foundation, and the event went great. It was actually, we had blackjack tables, Caesar's Casino had, or Caesar's Entertainment had supplied blackjack tables Nice. And some other stuff that, it was a lot of, it was a lot of fun. People were gambling for charity. And I would say about 30 days after I got a letter from in the mail from Steven and Alec Baldwin's mom Oh, nice.
Jeff Krauss (47m 2s):Thanking me personally for putting the event together, for raising money for the charity. Nice. So that, that felt really, that felt really, really good.
1 (47m 11s):Yeah. Super cool. Especially when it's like physical mail like that.
Jeff Krauss (47m 15s):Another another one that I, I really loved, and we can touch on this also. So I, I created with Cedric the Entertainer and my partner Faulkner, we created a platform called Fan Room Live.
1 (47m 30s):Oh yeah, yeah. Yep.
Jeff Krauss (47m 31s):And Fan Room Live, which we created during the Pandemic is a virtual live stream where celebrities meet their fans and it's town hall style. But some of the events are for charity. And one of our events, which we had Paul White, who's known as the big show in WWE, was on Fandom Live. And we actually incorporated a organization that brings sick children to wrestling matches. They couldn't do that at the time. So what they did was they brought a couple of the sick kids or kids with, with cancer and other illnesses onto fan room to meet Paul.
Jeff Krauss (48m 12s):During that conversation, Paul takes his shirt off, signs it for the charity to be able to auction. Well, since we have the video, we posted the video and maybe I would say a week after a podcaster, a friend of mine that, that just does wrestling. Podcasts Who,
1 (48m 33s):Who is
Jeff Krauss (48m 34s):It? Rob Wildes. Oh, okay. He does something called Wrestle Shoots.
1 (48m 37s):I was say, I have a partner in one of my businesses whose name's Chris Van Bleitt, and he does, he has a wrestling podcast, exclusively wrestling. So I was like, oh, maybe it's the same guy, but it's not.
Jeff Krauss (48m 45s):No, no. I, I, by the way, I, I love his his stuff by the way. Oh, Chris's. Yeah. Yeah. He's awesome. Great dude.
1 (48m 50s):Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (48m 51s):So about, yeah, about a week or two after Rob reaches out to me, he says, Jeff, I saw the video of what you guys did for that, for that kid in England. He says, listen, I have two world title belts signed. One from the Undertaker, one from the Rock. I will donate those to the, either to the charity or to the kid. In fact, why don't I give one to the charity and why don't I send one to the child? Wow. So I made a couple calls. The charity took the undertaker's belt and the one for the Rock.
Jeff Krauss (49m 31s):We had it shipped to the uk. No. Turned out. Turned out it was great timing as it, as I've said before, timing is also very key. The kid's birthday was a few weeks later. So the parents took the belt that was signed by the Rock and gave it to him as his birthday present.
1 (49m 54s):Oh man.
Jeff Krauss (49m 55s):So
1 (49m 55s):What an awesome moment.
Jeff Krauss (49m 56s):Yeah. That's definitely one of my, my proudest moments is just to be able to, you know, to do that for, for somebody you know, responsible for in some way, for, for helping organize that.
1 (50m 8s):Yeah. You know what's cool about being in a space or an industry where you, you connect to people is the serendipity. You know, we call it in, we use the term engineering serendipity a lot because serendipity is by definition un engineerable. Right. Like technically. But when you are somebody that crafts and curates like events, moments, connections, you know, meeting and all this other thing, all these other things that happen, you find that there's just these random serendipitous moments that occur way more often. You know, if you didn't do any of the stuff that you're doing, it would be almost never, which is why it's called serendipity.
1 (50m 54s):But what's really cool about the stuff that you, you do is you get those types of moments and you get them pretty frequently because you're so often putting so many awesome people together. And when you put that many awesome people together, awesome stuff is bound to come out of it. You know, it's like one of my favorite things about, about the world that you're in about doing the events and, and, and putting people in the same room together. It just leads to so many great things.
Jeff Krauss (51m 17s):Well, that's why I love what I do. Yeah. I love to see a number one, I love to just see people have a good time. Yeah. What with, regardless of what it is, I love to be able to show people a good time, put smiles on people's faces, Whether it be celebrities or, or the attendees, or Whether it be the fans on fan room or however it may be Yeah. That people come away with, Hey, this was so, such a cool experience, but then it's also great to just give back to people that would be in need. So yeah. I just, I I love what I, what I do because of that.
1 (51m 55s):Before we take off here, Jeff, I wanna be respectful of your time. It's one thing to initiate relationships, it's one thing to gain a connection. And that's an, that's a whole science by itself. Like we were talking about earlier, like reaching out to this person, oh, they didn't respond two years later, they need this thing. They remember they got this thing, then they reach out. And that's the first thing. Once you initiate the contact though, there's a whole new side of the relationship that opens up, which is usually based in some sort of follow up. How do, how do we stay in contact? How do we do this without me, like being pitchy and annoying and, you know, being the guy that clearly wants to sell them something all the time. Is there a way that you systematically follow up with people, or at least stay in people's worlds often enough to, to stay relevant?
Jeff Krauss (52m 36s):One thing that I, that I did, and I'll just use this as as an example, is I would even say to, and again, this is just, this is just me. This wasn't necessarily because I was trying to carry favor with the manager for their clients or anything like that. I would say to the, to the managers after I've even done something with one of their clients, Hey, listen, if you're ever in New York and you know you need a, a, a hookup at a, at a, you know, good restaurant or a discount or even just, you know, any of the spots that maybe I have that I'm working with, I'll hook it up. I'll get you a discount, I'll get you the v i p treatment.
Jeff Krauss (53m 17s):And that's just because we're now, you know, friends. Yeah. And sometimes that would, and I, I, I wouldn't pitch it in a sense of, I wouldn't be like, you know, constantly emailing them, Hey, when are you gonna come in? Or anything like that. I would just leave it open-ended. Sure. And a lot of the times people would take me up on it and that's how I would then, you know, go in and meet them. Yeah. Because I would set something up nice for them that had nothing to do with their client. And Yeah.
1 (53m 48s):Especially for those people when they live in a world that exists that literally revolves around their client. Right.
Jeff Krauss (53m 54s):Oh yeah. Well, I've had, I've had
1 (53m 55s):90% of communication they deal with is people who have no desire to talk to them, but all desire to talk to their client. You know what I mean?
Jeff Krauss (54m 2s):Well, it's interesting because I, I've, I've thrown parties where, let's just say the, the person organizing it would say, Hey Jeff, it's, it's cool if you bring five or 10 people that are industry people or, or whatever. And I might invite a celebrities manager that I'm friends with. Hmm. And they would say, but I don't have a client with me. Yeah. And I'm just like, so the LA thing Yeah. Is if you don't have a client, you're not invited. Right. Most of the time.
1 (54m 33s):Yeah. They forget your name all of a sudden. Yeah.
Jeff Krauss (54m 35s):Yeah. Exactly. It's, it's, you know, with me, I'm just real about it. If I want to see the person Yeah. And I want to hang out with them, you know, whether they have a client or not, it doesn't really matter. Right. So
1 (54m 48s):That speaks to why you're so successful in the space, though. People can smell that from a mile away. You know what I mean, and, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll never do business with that other person who clearly only wants them for their client because like, of course they gotta do right. By their client. But it does mean that you'll have a different connection with that person because they can tell that you have a genuine or authentic interest in them as an individual and building a relationship with them because of the value that they bring to the world, not because of their connection with this other person.
Jeff Krauss (55m 15s):Well, exactly. And, and I mean, look, today, they may only have one client out of say 5, 10, 20, 30, that I have anything for Sure. And maybe I might not have something for that client again for a couple years, but you know what, if I like that person as a person Yeah.
1 (55m 34s):Right.
Jeff Krauss (55m 35s):And I want to develop a better relationship with them. You never know. They might just gimme referrals Right. To other people. Right. You never know. Or they may not, and that's
1 (55m 46s):Okay too. What
Jeff Krauss (55m 46s):Do, yeah. That's okay too, right?
1 (55m 49s):Yeah. Well, again, I think that's, that speaks to why you're so successful with it. So listen man, I appreciate you coming on the show. This has been a lot of fun for me. I love asking these types of questions. Where, where can people go to learn a little bit more about you, what you got going on?
Jeff Krauss (56m 1s):Well, my Instagram is at IE group nyc,
1 (56m 6s):Ie. Group nyc. Yes.
Jeff Krauss (56m 9s):And Fan Room Live, which we, you know, have constant events going on. Okay. Is at Fan Room Live. You could also go to our website fan room live.com and you can go to my website, which is, you know, for IE group, which is I E G N y.com. Perfect.
1 (56m 27s):Awesome. So if you wanna learn more about Jeff, anything he's got going on, go to at IE group NYC on Instagram, check out some of the stuff that he's got going on. Go check out their website. If you wanna throw events and all that good stuff and you have the budget to do so, then go check out some of the stuff that he's doing. Jeff, dude, this is a, a lot of fun. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Jeff Krauss (56m 45s):Oh, Thank, you for having me. This was a lot of fun. So we appreciate it.
1 (56m 48s):That's it for today's episode. Thanks for spending some time with me and my friends. If you want to be better friends with me, then head over to Travis Chappell dot com slash team to subscribe to my free newsletter, your friend Travis, where I share what's on my mind about life, building a business, raising kids, being married, and anything else I would normally share with my close circle of friends. That's Travis Chappell dot com slash team. And my biggest ask of you, since I'm sharing my friends with you, is to share this episode with a friend of yours that hasn't listened to the show yet. That leaves us a quick five star rating in Apple Podcasts and in Spotify. It would mean the world to us as it helps us make sure that this show continues to be more valuable to you. Thanks in advance and I'll catch you on the next episode.
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