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Speaker 2: All right, guys, welcome back, earn you a Lisha. We
Speaker 2: got a very special episode today. Yeah, these are my
Speaker 2: favorite episodes me. You know, me and Troy we grew
Speaker 2: up on music before anything, so anytime we get to
Speaker 2: hear backstories on music, entertainment and the whole industry, like
Speaker 2: it's always special for us man.
Speaker 3: To tell you.
Speaker 2: He was just telling Chris got the shout out to Chris,
Speaker 2: shout out to Kenny Burns, shout to all the guys
Speaker 2: that that came on and was giving us hilarious stories
Speaker 2: and all that, but also also informational absolutely education. Yeah sure,
Speaker 2: so yes, I say that to say, we have none
Speaker 2: other than the legendary Nick Stormy. Thank you, yeah, one force.
Speaker 2: And so if you don't know Nick, Nick is a
Speaker 2: very interesting guy. He kind of the brain behind the
Speaker 2: blow up of Sorak, is that safe to say?
Speaker 3: Safe to say that?
Speaker 2: Former national brand ambassador for Sarak. So he's a wizard
Speaker 2: in the spirits industry and he got his start in
Speaker 2: the music industry. So we on E Y L we
Speaker 2: cover every aspect of business, and the spirits industry is
Speaker 2: a billion dollars billion dollar industry and it's something that
Speaker 2: we haven't coverage yet. And you have twenty years of
Speaker 2: experience from working with him now, they from working with
Speaker 2: rock from all over, so we thought she was the
Speaker 2: perfect guest to bring on. So first and foremost, thank
Speaker 2: you thank you for coming.
Speaker 3: No, no, thank you for having me. He's the first
Speaker 3: guest who brought his.
Speaker 2: Own one, you know, and had a long day, and.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I don't know if
Speaker 3: I can drink on the thing. I know, drink Champs,
Speaker 3: you can drink, but I had to bring my own wine.
Speaker 3: Just you know, the smoothing the night. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: fitish's the spirits industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my man Wall Street Trapper shot out to him.
Speaker 2: He was like, you know, the one thing I like
Speaker 2: about your podcast is you got just the guests just
Speaker 2: comings they are. There's no dress code, there's no rules.
Speaker 3: Comings you off okay, because you know I had a
Speaker 3: button down on the Yeah I did. And Jay was like, now, Nick,
Speaker 3: go just I was like, shout out to Jeff Tweety
Speaker 3: because he's gonna have some Sean John on on the
Speaker 3: on the shot.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah my favor Yes, shot shout to my man
Speaker 2: j crew Love. Yes, Lesure in his own right, thank
Speaker 2: you for putting this together. We appreciate you. So all right, Nick,
Speaker 2: So can we get your backstory? So you started in
Speaker 2: the music industry. Yeah, right, and that's when people was
Speaker 2: actually making real money in music, right.
Speaker 3: Whoa like real money? This is CDs? Yeah, this was
Speaker 3: CD time, you know, like I interned at Sony and
Speaker 3: it was passing out CDs at night, like at all
Speaker 3: clubs that was popping at that time, Like.
Speaker 2: You name, it was so all right you started as
Speaker 2: an intern.
Speaker 3: As an intern at Sony, I think I got my
Speaker 3: real I want to say this, I got my real
Speaker 3: movement in the music business to learn the music business
Speaker 3: more importantly with a gentleman by the name of Dave Hall.
Speaker 3: Because when Dave got me, he not only just had
Speaker 3: me as like you know, like I was Dave's assistant,
Speaker 3: but slash general man of his studio. And that was
Speaker 3: that entitled a lot because Dave at the time, I mean,
Speaker 3: mind you that day's discography was crazy. So you know
Speaker 3: he did all of Mary like biggest first hits on
Speaker 3: on her first one, right, So he did all of
Speaker 3: those tracks and then he was like really his biggest
Speaker 3: next movement was like from Brownstone, Mariah Carey, dream Lover,
Speaker 3: did Fantasy Madonna, you know, Horace Brown intro Now I'm
Speaker 3: Bringing you Back, Yes, you know, and you know, so
Speaker 3: crazy Dave and Eddie f like even think of the
Speaker 3: Living Color, like the song that yeah. Yeah, So Eddie
Speaker 3: and them had the Intouchables and the Untouchables had the
Speaker 3: producers that was under him, you know, because back then
Speaker 3: my guys had like the you know, like you know
Speaker 3: how bad Boy and so yeah, so Dave was a
Speaker 3: part of the Intouchables with Eddie f and them. But
Speaker 3: Dave really gave me like the full movement of like
Speaker 3: knowing exactly studio time, knowing exactly on sampling, like that
Speaker 3: was one of my jobs too. It was like when
Speaker 3: he sampled the record, you had to get it and
Speaker 3: then see what sample it was and then send it
Speaker 3: off and see exactly how much it costs. That was
Speaker 3: like a really big part of the business back then.
Speaker 3: That was like honestly, I used to think it was
Speaker 3: a fun part of my job. So that was when
Speaker 3: you were entering it. Yeah, no, no, that's when I
Speaker 3: got a job.
Speaker 2: I was like a job, go with your title.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: Actually Dave had talked to me as general manager of DMH.
Speaker 3: So DMH was like Dave Michael Hall, like that was
Speaker 3: his whole production company, you know, and and that was
Speaker 3: like a thing of that and it felt good because see,
Speaker 3: David was for my vernon. I was because it was
Speaker 3: like that whole now, So yeah, so it was like
Speaker 3: it was a good time, not only a good time
Speaker 3: with him, but just a good time of being in
Speaker 3: the business at the time.
Speaker 2: So all right, so the music business, you kind of
Speaker 2: scaled that up right at that point in time. At
Speaker 2: some point you was working with nas.
Speaker 3: No, actually no, I was working I was working for
Speaker 3: a lot of the records like. So then it was
Speaker 3: that's how when I got into the business. I took
Speaker 3: like some of my musical background, and I always wanted
Speaker 3: to be a promoter because like even in college, I
Speaker 3: was like doing promotions right right, I was like doing
Speaker 3: my little like at Sneaky Pete's, right to doing little
Speaker 3: parties up there. And then I took I took some
Speaker 3: of that knowledge and I went to I met a
Speaker 3: gentleman by the name of John Vasquez over at Justin's.
Speaker 3: And John was the one who was like, Nick, you
Speaker 3: know what, I got a Tuesday night open, how about
Speaker 3: you put something together. I was like, bat, let's do
Speaker 3: it like a little industry Tuesdays. So what I was
Speaker 3: doing was taking the little snippets of the albums that
Speaker 3: was coming out on Sony and Colombia. So I would
Speaker 3: take those albums bring them to Justine like on Monday
Speaker 3: and start promoting like your industry Tuesdays and be like yo, yeah,
Speaker 3: sneak peaking of Lauren Hill's album Tuesday Night at Justin's
Speaker 3: Like Lauryn Hill's gonna be there, No but the snippets,
Speaker 3: So I would I would do that. So any artists
Speaker 3: on Columbia, So anything on Columbia, Fuji's Cypress Hill. I
Speaker 3: mean the list goes on Riah, but the list goes
Speaker 3: on any but anything out of not only Columbia. But
Speaker 3: I was Sony as well. I was taking Epic was
Speaker 3: big too, so I was taking anything from there as well.
Speaker 2: So the promoter, so pretty much promoter.
Speaker 3: I was a promoter.
Speaker 2: So promoters always was curious about this. They get how
Speaker 2: did they get paid? They get pieces of the bar.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Well see back then you had a scalable
Speaker 3: rate of the bar, right like today, everybody's promoter today,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like Jesus, but but back
Speaker 3: then it was like you could, you could, you could
Speaker 3: just take. But back then the door was like a
Speaker 3: big thing, right because that's when people had to pay
Speaker 3: to get in the party. Right, those are the good days.
Speaker 3: Let me just stop there. Okay, those were the good
Speaker 3: old days, like pay for to get in the party,
Speaker 3: go to the bar, buy a drink and dance your
Speaker 3: ass off. Go back to the bar, get some water,
Speaker 3: and go back on the Hans floor.
Speaker 2: Those are those days about.
Speaker 3: And come on, that was that? I mean, yeah, that
Speaker 3: but that was vi P. That's when you when you
Speaker 3: was VIP back then, you mean something oh god like that.
Speaker 3: But beyond that velvet rope that was really really Now
Speaker 3: anybody's in the velvet rope. My man Joe from the
Speaker 3: block is on the velvet rope. But no, but but yeah,
Speaker 3: so I think, but promoters get paid on bar sales.
Speaker 3: So but back then when I was getting I mean,
Speaker 3: how I was getting paid was just bringing a good
Speaker 3: night to the venue. So they were just doing like
Speaker 3: a flat ray like you do this, that's good that
Speaker 3: this is what you're gonna get probably like make three
Speaker 3: hundred four hundred bucks. I was good though, Like that
Speaker 3: was like a good night for me. It was cool
Speaker 3: and then and didn't really put the pressure on you
Speaker 3: with you know, like bar guarantee, like everybody like a
Speaker 3: bar guarantee, Like somebody give you a venue for a
Speaker 3: bar guarantee of three thousand and four thousand dollars. You
Speaker 3: better hope that you make that guarantee.
Speaker 2: You that bar.
Speaker 3: Guarantee is like, okay, I'm gonna give you I'm gonna
Speaker 3: give you justice on a Monday night. Your bar guarantee
Speaker 3: is four grand. That means my bar gotta make four grand.
Speaker 3: Now you going there, and you better do your promotion.
Speaker 3: Now your bar come up short at three grand, you
Speaker 3: got cover. You better cover that thousand. Yeah, and now
Speaker 3: you got to cover that thousand for that four even
Speaker 3: to guarantee, are you just taking a percentage of it
Speaker 3: or you getting the whole thing? The whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's just like that's but even now we have
Speaker 3: a scalable right now, so now people are doing like,
Speaker 3: all right, let's just say your bar guarantee was three thousand, right,
Speaker 3: but now I'm gonna make the three thousand. But if
Speaker 3: my ball makes four. So it's like if you if
Speaker 3: your ball makes four thousand, you're supposed to get ten
Speaker 3: percent your ball makes a See that's sometimes they do
Speaker 3: this so they you can go between three thousand and five,
Speaker 3: you're gonna get fifteen percent of the bar. You do
Speaker 3: five to ten, you're gonna get twenty percent of the bar.
Speaker 3: That's why, like everybody, that's why, of course you push
Speaker 3: ball service so much, because you want your ball to
Speaker 3: really ring numbers as a promoter so that you can
Speaker 3: get paid out a lot more at the end of
Speaker 3: the night.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you this as far as if
Speaker 2: you get ten thousand, Like once you reach that ten thousand,
Speaker 2: do you get twenty percent of everything or just a
Speaker 2: ten thousand twenty percent of five to ten? Like it's
Speaker 2: you said it's ten.
Speaker 3: Well, see most places, that's that's that's that's different place. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's different from everybody else, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like most places will do that off the ten or
Speaker 3: most places will be doing off the twenty. So you know,
Speaker 3: it depends on their account.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, all right, So then it's from there, all right,
Speaker 2: So you got it. And then you say you got
Speaker 2: the Monday Night football.
Speaker 3: I had Monday Night Football popping. I had Industry Tuesdays popping,
Speaker 3: and and I just I just wanted to be with it.
Speaker 3: Like that's when like New York was like New York,
Speaker 3: and it was like it was like a really good
Speaker 3: scene and you and then and you just really wanted
Speaker 3: to be a promoter at that time because it just
Speaker 3: I mean there was a lot of promoters at the time.
Speaker 3: I mean I think the biggest promotion company at the
Speaker 3: time that you wanted to be a part of, but
Speaker 3: they already had their crew was Black Diamonds. That was
Speaker 3: like Derrick Carley, like from aj Callaway, like all of
Speaker 3: them they had is like this grew and then and
Speaker 3: it was like like they did really good events, but
Speaker 3: it was really for like us. It was like African American,
Speaker 3: you know, with jobs like like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like I remember this place, Derek Wild laugh if you
Speaker 3: ever hear this, because a place called all bet on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: All the women in there that were all women with jobs,
Speaker 3: all guys. But you know it's funny. You couldn't even
Speaker 3: come in there with sneakers. That's how crazy it was.
Speaker 3: Like you had to have your shoe game on the people.
Speaker 2: People forget about the like I remember that era where
Speaker 2: you had to actually dress up hard bottoms and all that.
Speaker 3: I had to have a college shirt. It was like
Speaker 3: button down and some shoes and then if you didn't
Speaker 3: have a shoe, like I remember one time he said
Speaker 3: if you didn't have a shoe. You had to have
Speaker 3: a sneaker. You know those sneakers like they almost look
Speaker 3: like the shoot, like a Bally's something like that. You
Speaker 3: were good with that, like the right on the prod yes.
Speaker 2: Favor all right. So so so you became a big
Speaker 2: name in the city from promoting parties.
Speaker 3: Small name, but small name, but making big relationships. Yeah,
Speaker 3: relationships was very a bit a bigger key.
Speaker 2: So what's the next thing. Because you're a renaissance man,
Speaker 2: you do a lot of different things. So you you
Speaker 2: build a name for yourself in a party, then do
Speaker 2: you go to the spirits industry after that or this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well right then and there I met a me
Speaker 3: and a partner of mine Ebone Brown. She was actually
Speaker 3: a partner of mine that he was doing some summer
Speaker 3: parties together and one of the she ended up meeting
Speaker 3: a guy that wanted to meet me, and I ended
Speaker 3: up meeting both of them, two gentlemen by the name
Speaker 3: of Raphael and Solomon. And I met them at her
Speaker 3: at a coffee shop on forty ninth Street and ninth Avenue.
Speaker 3: And I didn't even know what the meeting was about.
Speaker 3: She was just like Nick, meet these two gentlemen. I
Speaker 3: think they want to sponsor our next party, but they
Speaker 3: have this liquor brand. I was like, okay, cool, this
Speaker 3: is me. This is the mean, this is this is
Speaker 3: the pulp fiction me.
Speaker 2: This is the mean.
Speaker 3: When you have like the good brother which was Solomon
Speaker 3: and the bad brother Raphael, and he was talking about
Speaker 3: what they had and this that, and they had a
Speaker 3: briefcase on the table. So every time he would say, so,
Speaker 3: do you think you can get this product to puff Daddy?
Speaker 3: And I'll be like, well, I promoted at his restaurant,
Speaker 3: so maybe. So the brother will be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: so we want to show you, and as soon as
Speaker 3: he lifts up the briefcase, his brother will slam it
Speaker 3: down boom.
Speaker 2: Not yet.
Speaker 3: Do you think you can get this product into the
Speaker 3: hands of the African Americans consumers? Yeah? I think I can.
Speaker 3: You want to open up that suitcase and let me see. No,
Speaker 3: not yet. And it was like a really funny meaning,
Speaker 3: but it was like, okay, let me step back. So
Speaker 3: I got the product in my hand and I didn't
Speaker 3: know anything about liquor. I knew how to drink it,
Speaker 3: but that was it. But then he took it and
Speaker 3: then the funny story is, uh, I got a call
Speaker 3: that week from a friend that was doing a party
Speaker 3: at a mansion and he asked me, He said, Nick,
Speaker 3: do you have any you know, anybody I can get
Speaker 3: some liquor from. And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I got six cases that I could actually give you.
Speaker 3: It's a good story. And he gave me the six cases,
Speaker 3: and I brought it up to Bedford, New York and
Speaker 3: was a mansion party and had everybody there from music
Speaker 3: execs on down to the whole industry, from fashion, sports,
Speaker 3: a lot of I would say, stylists. It just was
Speaker 3: everybody that you can imagine. And I brought it down there.
Speaker 3: We were having a good time, and I remember the
Speaker 3: creative the catering lady came to me within inside the party,
Speaker 3: mid into the party and said that I'm a need
Speaker 3: more product of that blue stuff that you had. I
Speaker 3: was like, what is it? I mean you couldn't have
Speaker 3: because wait a minute, I gave you six cases, six
Speaker 3: in the case six times? How many how many in
Speaker 3: the case six cases? It's six in the case, six cases.
Speaker 3: That's thirty six. No way in the world that someone
Speaker 3: went through half that product already and the party is
Speaker 3: just like two hours in. So she's like, no, you
Speaker 3: need to come with me. So I came to her
Speaker 3: and it was like a beautiful deck but over deck,
Speaker 3: overlooking the deck was the pool and like the area,
Speaker 3: and there was two bars set up. And as I
Speaker 3: looked over, you know, and she was trying to show
Speaker 3: me what the bar was doing, I noticed that everybody
Speaker 3: in their clear cup. Everything was blue. But I'm not
Speaker 3: talking but I'm talking about like this everybody. I'm not everybody.
Speaker 3: I'm trying about male, female, Latino, white, black unit like
Speaker 3: everybody and just enjoying it and having a good time.
Speaker 3: And I remember walking up to one of the guys
Speaker 3: and I said to him, I said what you drinking
Speaker 3: and he was like I don't know, man, but this this,
Speaker 3: this is good. I think it's like some alis a
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh okay. But then I went
Speaker 3: around and asked girls. Everybody was like yo, listen, yo,
Speaker 3: this is fire. So I was like, oh okay. So
Speaker 3: I went to the car and never said nothing in
Speaker 3: that car. I remember calling around Phael and I was say, hey,
Speaker 3: I need to see you monday. So yeah, ever I
Speaker 3: feel was like back. So I met him on Monday.
Speaker 3: I told him that I'm in. I said, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: give this to go and and and let's go and
Speaker 3: and and and I don't want to stop with this.
Speaker 3: And he said, listen, I just sold my condo. I'm
Speaker 3: living with my parents. Now I took the money. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna put it into this brand and and then we're
Speaker 3: gonna write, don't I don't have money to pay you
Speaker 3: very key, but if you believe in it, that there'll
Speaker 3: be money to come. And I said, all right, well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna need a couple of dollars just to move around.
Speaker 3: He said, no, I got that, but I know you
Speaker 3: don't have money for a salary. But you know what
Speaker 3: I'm in. So I took we took on the brand
Speaker 3: and it was called Hypnotic. It's very right. So it's
Speaker 3: called Hypnoteak. So for the first three months, I sat
Speaker 3: in the car and drove with him around the city
Speaker 3: for three months with hypnoteak. For three months, guys, and
Speaker 3: went around for every club, every bar, every restaurant, you
Speaker 3: name it. And we sold nothing. Ninety days ninety days
Speaker 3: of nothing, and I mean we couldn't sell anything. And
Speaker 3: one night we were about the FDR drive because he
Speaker 3: was getting ready to go back home to the Queen's
Speaker 3: and I had a paper with me and I was
Speaker 3: writing down. You know, he was listening to Gypsy Kings
Speaker 3: and the music was melolic. He's he's feeling himself. He's like, man,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I could do this anymore like
Speaker 3: and he's, you know, he's like feeling down and depressed
Speaker 3: because you know, he's we've been rocking and rolling and
Speaker 3: we just don't know what's going on. And he said, uh,
Speaker 3: I was writing down something. I said, you know, is
Speaker 3: it possible if we could just change the H to
Speaker 3: the Maybe we could put an I in front of
Speaker 3: the P, or maybe we could put a Y, and
Speaker 3: maybe we could change the que to a K. Maybe
Speaker 3: like try like a hypnotic. He was like, no, he can't.
Speaker 3: But he paused. He said, you wait a minute. Barrows
Speaker 3: is called sparrows, but he ain't spelt like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3: You know what liquor store you got tomorrow? I said,
Speaker 3: I got a store in Harlem, And he said, you
Speaker 3: know what, try it. I don't just try it, just
Speaker 3: just see what happens. So the next day I go
Speaker 3: up to a store in Harlem and uh. Guy comes
Speaker 3: in and had to model with me and a minute
Speaker 3: the girl said, excuse me, would you like to try
Speaker 3: some hypnotic? And the guy turned around and said, oh,
Speaker 3: I'll try something. He tried it, He's like this is cool.
Speaker 3: I came to buy something else. She was like, oh,
Speaker 3: no problem. Next guy came in, young black guy. She
Speaker 3: was like, would you like to try some hypnotic? He
Speaker 3: was like gnadic? Oh man, what's that like? Alise? She
Speaker 3: was like, oh no, it's different.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's made with fine grapes. It's Kangniac with a little
Speaker 3: touch of vodka.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: She did a little spiro. She gave it to him.
Speaker 3: He was like, Yo, this is this is good.
Speaker 2: How do you like the name?
Speaker 3: And I looked at him and like the name? Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I walked back called Raphael. I said, Raphael, the
Speaker 3: brand's called Hypnotic period and he was like, Yo, how
Speaker 3: many boles you saw? I said, man, I just sold one,
Speaker 3: but yo, I'm gonna rock with this. So yeah, so
Speaker 3: we rocked and we changed your name and we went
Speaker 3: with Hypnotic. And that's not the good part yet, guys,
Speaker 3: because I still only sold three bottles that day and
Speaker 3: about a fifth month. It's a good story right here,
Speaker 3: I'm and I hope you'll understand this. It's like when
Speaker 3: you take a risk in life and you and you
Speaker 3: take a leap. You got understand that leap and you
Speaker 3: got to stick with it. Because five months and I
Speaker 3: was probably like two months behind on my rent car
Speaker 3: insurance is probably three months lapsed. I'm still working on
Speaker 3: my dream. I'm still going out every day, and I
Speaker 3: can't sell anything. And I was gonna give it all
Speaker 3: up on that. I was like, you know what, guys,
Speaker 3: I don't think I can do it anymore. And I
Speaker 3: had a long talk with my child's mom at the time,
Speaker 3: and I just had to figured out I was probably
Speaker 3: just gonna go back with my degree and just you know,
Speaker 3: and go out and get a job, you know. And
Speaker 3: I was sitting at home. It was late. You know,
Speaker 3: when you when it's home at late, you put that
Speaker 3: bottle of wine out. You just start watching movies and
Speaker 3: you know your brain is going all over the place,
Speaker 3: like you know, because you broke and you're just trying
Speaker 3: to figure it out. And movie came on, Sure Shank Redemption,
Speaker 3: Classic Classic classical Life, and I was watching it and
Speaker 3: the minute Morgan Freeman said it's either I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: and do one or two things. I'm gonna get busy living,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get busy dying. And that right there sparked me.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh man, I'm going to get busy living.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 3: And I got up that morning and I thought like
Speaker 3: I was fifty percent of not giving up yet but
Speaker 3: going in that morning, I got in my car because
Speaker 3: in hallowed me at the movie Your Car, Ultimate Side
Speaker 3: of the Parking or Early in the morning, Jay Crew
Speaker 3: love you, you know oh so well about that early
Speaker 3: morning and now yeah he got money now. But but
Speaker 3: then I got up and yo, guys, Fellas I turned
Speaker 3: on the radio BLS, I was getting ready to move
Speaker 3: my car and Michael Jackson and the Jackson five, I've
Speaker 3: never heard this record for my life, had a record
Speaker 3: call We're almost there and when the horns start with
Speaker 3: the music, and then when the music starts with it,
Speaker 3: it just I didn't know what it was. It touched me,
Speaker 3: and Michael says the first lines of it says, it's like,
Speaker 3: no matter how hard times may seem, don't give up
Speaker 3: on your plan, don't give about your dream. Yo. Yo, Yo.
Speaker 3: He's talking to me yo, and then yo, it's like
Speaker 3: and he's talking about yo. We're almost there. And I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, man, and I remember that I found parking,
Speaker 3: put my outfit on. I went to the store and
Speaker 3: the guy said, you know what, I don't know anything
Speaker 3: about you right now, but I got my bag with me.
Speaker 3: He said, but the glow that you got, I'll buy
Speaker 3: a case. I said, serious, because I usually hear nose
Speaker 3: like I used to walk in. Excuse me, sir, you
Speaker 3: have a chance. I want to show no, ma'am, I
Speaker 3: just want to tell you something on ma'am, you look
Speaker 3: good today, thank you. But ma'am, you want to know
Speaker 3: I've been hearing that so many times. I got a
Speaker 3: black book that I always laugh about, but I always
Speaker 3: show my friends. And I had forty one nose until
Speaker 3: I had I spelled like Jackie Robinson, right number forty two.
Speaker 3: But on the forty second one, I felt like that
Speaker 3: was the one that was the key, and that lady,
Speaker 3: I mean. The guy in the store was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but listen, I'm gonna take this case. But if I
Speaker 3: don't sell us over the weekend, you're gonna have to
Speaker 3: come back in here on Monday and buy it back.
Speaker 3: And I was like, damn, all right, how much this
Speaker 3: case is going for? Oh back? I think we were
Speaker 3: probably at like one twenty two five, Like we weren't
Speaker 3: that expensive because they're talking about like a seventeen eighteen
Speaker 3: Alabado Times about that. Yeah, about that, that's what we're
Speaker 3: selling at. So we went yeah. So I got the
Speaker 3: case and he said, listen, you're gonna have to come
Speaker 3: back here on Thursday. No, he said Friday and do
Speaker 3: it tasting. So I was like, okay, you know when
Speaker 3: you're happy because I sold the case. So I'm just happy.
Speaker 3: I'm just running out, like, yo, thank you a liquor
Speaker 3: store tasting got you Friday back. I slammed the door
Speaker 3: about going to the car, and I said, what the
Speaker 3: hell is it tasting? The tasting that he kind of
Speaker 3: wanted was different the ones that I was doing was
Speaker 3: just regular. He wanted something a little bit more uplifting.
Speaker 3: So I was like, man, you know what, I know
Speaker 3: how to take this to the next level. So I
Speaker 3: went and got my I was like, ya, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: spend a couple of dollars. I had to buy a
Speaker 3: beautiful table, beautiful cloth. I even bought some flowers from
Speaker 3: the guy at at at the count at the corner.
Speaker 3: And so that Friday when I decorated my area, I
Speaker 3: made it feel so appealing, you know. And I even
Speaker 3: had like mic and ikes. I remember bought like like
Speaker 3: light blue mic and nikes, like the spread of them
Speaker 3: like in a candy jar. This when the customer came
Speaker 3: in the he just felt like a different vibe.
Speaker 2: So what is tasting? It tastes like a hosting tasting
Speaker 2: is like, yeah, so you have a you.
Speaker 3: Have a table, you have a model, and you do
Speaker 3: it for two hours inside the liquor stores. So someone
Speaker 3: comes in and you're going to offer them a sample
Speaker 3: of it, and you just pull them that one out
Speaker 3: you said it.
Speaker 4: I was thinking like when I go into SAMs, like
Speaker 4: the people like they asked you for like, yo, you
Speaker 4: want to sample?
Speaker 3: You want to sample? Yeah. The presentation wasn't like yours
Speaker 3: obviously yeah, yeah, but nowadays they stepped it up. I
Speaker 3: was just sitting, like Stuart Lennard said this, they were
Speaker 3: sampling some meat and had like a whole barbecue going on.
Speaker 3: I was like, what these tastes have changed? I take
Speaker 3: that uh what's that bacon? I take it. I'm just kidding,
Speaker 3: but no, but yeah, no, so that's what the tasting
Speaker 3: really is. So I did that and uh so, But
Speaker 3: the thing is, guys, this is this is this is
Speaker 3: marketing one on one. How do you get a case
Speaker 3: that is sold in the liquor store in Harlem? And
Speaker 3: he says to me, if I don't move these six bottles,
Speaker 3: I gotta buy it back out of there. What do
Speaker 3: you do?
Speaker 2: Well, you know what you do?
Speaker 3: You call your cousins, go six, said So I called
Speaker 3: my cousin that was a kind of big time at
Speaker 3: the time at one of the projects in Harlem, and
Speaker 3: I told him, I asked him, Yeah, I said, I
Speaker 3: need a favor. And I went to him on Thursday
Speaker 3: and he could not wait to do this favor. He
Speaker 3: thought that this was like a mission, impossible thing because
Speaker 3: I told him what I wanted you to do is
Speaker 3: I need you to bring in six friends every half
Speaker 3: hour to this store and buy this bottom And he
Speaker 3: just thought like this. He's never had a job, so
Speaker 3: this was like a job for him. So he was
Speaker 3: so happy. He's like, bet I got this. So king
Speaker 3: five o'clock that day at five point fifteen. One guy
Speaker 3: walks in and Buza balla hypnotic walks out, only looked
Speaker 3: at me the thing and goes yeah. Twenty minutes late, no,
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes later, two girls walk in, Hey, what's up? Oh,
Speaker 3: we come here to get Aliza and the girl like
Speaker 3: they doing the whole show. Whole show, all right, and
Speaker 3: I know they're from the block. That's the funny part,
Speaker 3: not Damn Brendan and tay Shall. Yeah, come on now,
Speaker 3: but they're doing a whole skit. And all of a
Speaker 3: sudden it takes in and saying, oh this is good,
Speaker 3: what all girl? We gonna buy this. They buy two bottles.
Speaker 3: Now I got three more to sell. I'm like, oh please.
Speaker 3: So now about a third bottle manager comes over to me.
Speaker 3: Yo owner said, you know, I'm actually a let me
Speaker 3: buy another case. I said, hold on, I don't know.
Speaker 3: He said no, no, no, no, For some reason, I
Speaker 3: feel this. I was like, oh yeah, I feel it too,
Speaker 3: So I get him another case. So the all of
Speaker 3: the story was my cousin had operation shut down. He
Speaker 3: not only sent six, but he sat like twelve people
Speaker 3: were coming in that store buying a bottle, walking out
Speaker 3: buy the bottle. But the crazy part about it was
Speaker 3: it was a good summer, like it was a good
Speaker 3: Friday night. So they were going back to the block drinking,
Speaker 3: having a good But now everybody was coming back. My
Speaker 3: promotion was only two hours. I got a call. I
Speaker 3: left him with three cases, which was eighteen bottles. He
Speaker 3: went through eighteen that night around nine thirty, and now
Speaker 3: he called me and said, I need five cases by
Speaker 3: tomorrow morning. Again, I was like, I got three now,
Speaker 3: but I'll be back in the morning. The crazy part
Speaker 3: is not only did I sell out in that store,
Speaker 3: he said, yo, I called my brother who has a
Speaker 3: store on one hundred and forty fifth Street up on Broadway.
Speaker 3: He wants five cases as well on Saturday. So now
Speaker 3: I did go there. We had to drop off uptown
Speaker 3: and then I had to call my other cousin. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna blow him up in Saint Nick Projects because he's
Speaker 3: closer to that niquor store and do the same operation
Speaker 3: and blow up that store. And the crazy part is
Speaker 3: like by the end of the weekend, we were fifteen
Speaker 3: cases in and all of a sudden, the buzz started
Speaker 3: like hitting around the Projects. And now was the like
Speaker 3: that we just started. That was like the start of it,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, it's just visually appeasing. Man,
Speaker 3: when you first see that blue liquor, it was like
Speaker 3: for us, when I first saw it, I was like,
Speaker 3: damn they drinking kool aid? What did they really drink it?
Speaker 4: Because like when we see it, it's like, yo, that
Speaker 4: looks like the fruit punch plate or the raspberrying.
Speaker 2: And it was like so but all right, so now
Speaker 2: you okay, so but we're really skyrocketed. The whole thing
Speaker 2: was a placement fab tablished, right, that's what really.
Speaker 3: So after the fifteen are you calling Raphael like, yo,
Speaker 3: we got this? After yeah, we got this. We got this.
Speaker 3: Then we started knowing that we noticed that the name
Speaker 3: change was very key, and then we just started working
Speaker 3: really hard, right and then now was the beginning of
Speaker 3: the summer. And then I got my first big break
Speaker 3: in November. Before we get to that one, which was
Speaker 3: about to say, I want to bring you a little
Speaker 3: bit closer, just one. This is a good story. I
Speaker 3: got many stories. Get ready, we uh, I get a
Speaker 3: By the end of the summer, I got a few accounts,
Speaker 3: but not that many. We're about to go to Labor Day,
Speaker 3: weekend and my partner John at the time for promotions.
Speaker 3: He was like, Nick, I got some good news. I'm
Speaker 3: doing Puff Daddy's Party, White Party, Hampton's. That was the
Speaker 3: remember the Hamptons scene. Yeah, doing that Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 3: Good way to put your brand out there. I need
Speaker 3: about you know, six cases eight k I'm like whatever
Speaker 3: you need, John, I'm there. We went out to the Hamptons.
Speaker 3: Party was hot, blew it up. John had made a
Speaker 3: concoction he called it the Biggie Hypnotized, So he had
Speaker 3: like the hypnotic, a Malibu and a pineapple and man,
Speaker 3: that joint was off the chain and everybody was like
Speaker 3: rocking to it and had a little menu placement. At
Speaker 3: the end of the night, John said, yo, were gonna
Speaker 3: gonna do We decided to take it in and we're
Speaker 3: gonna do the release the following Tuesday of that week.
Speaker 3: I was like, bet, I'm at Justin's finally perfect. Can't wait.
Speaker 3: Justice Restaurant. Yeah. Justice was Puffed Addy's Restaurant, twenty first
Speaker 3: Street between fifth and six. That's right, and it was
Speaker 3: it was one of the It was it was the
Speaker 3: who's who of who in New York was always at Justice,
Speaker 3: you know, so I was like, you know, I was happy.
Speaker 3: Everything was good. Let's let's rock. Monday comes and Monday
Speaker 3: I can't wait. I'm doing everything I possibly can. I'm
Speaker 3: getting like flyers done, I'm getting everything ready. So my
Speaker 3: man works like all the way down by Wall Street
Speaker 3: and he's you know, he's gonna make my menu cards
Speaker 3: because I ain't even have no money. Like we didn't
Speaker 3: even have money for Staples. Okay, there was no like, yo,
Speaker 3: go to Kinko's. I had to go to a friend
Speaker 3: with a copy of machine okay that we had that
Speaker 3: type of money, So we had to go. I had
Speaker 3: to go there. I had to. About eight o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, Ed Lover was on the radio at Hot
Speaker 3: ninety seven and I begged at Lover to, you know,
Speaker 3: like to come to the party. He's like, nick, I
Speaker 3: got you. So I got up at morning seven o'clock,
Speaker 3: got downtown at eight o'clock Wall Street. Mind, you got
Speaker 3: to Hot ninety seven around like eight thirty, walked out
Speaker 3: of the building. Everybody's happy. It's a good day, sun
Speaker 3: is out, beautiful day, gonna launch my brand. This is
Speaker 3: like my turning point in my life. It's that following Tuesday,
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, eight forty six in the morning,
Speaker 3: Tower one is hit on my day, on my day,
Speaker 3: this is this is this hit can happen any other day.
Speaker 3: Actually I didn't want to have it never Oh my god,
Speaker 3: but damn on this like nine eleven, he's supposed to
Speaker 3: launch hip now on nine to eleven, adjustice and whose party?
Speaker 3: Whose record release that we were going to listen to
Speaker 3: Fabulous Boo fabulous drop at the same year, So we're
Speaker 3: gonna listen to the albums, like hey, that was like
Speaker 3: an important thing. Of course that never happened. And then
Speaker 3: so then we had to really sit back and we
Speaker 3: had to wait, and then we waited, and then I
Speaker 3: had to figure out another launch day for New York
Speaker 3: as New York was down, and I chose November one.
Speaker 2: That year.
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan was coming back to Madison Square Garden and
Speaker 3: then he was playing with the Wizards and he was
Speaker 3: coming back to New York and just as it was
Speaker 3: like actually it was on a Tuesday, and we started
Speaker 3: that night and we did a promotion at Justin's Lost
Speaker 3: It that night. But the biggest thing was the biggest
Speaker 3: club in New York on Tuesday night was Club Cheetah.
Speaker 3: So Club Cheetah was the after party. That's it. We
Speaker 3: did the after party Club Cheetah, and I remember going
Speaker 3: in with the manager and the manager and I believe
Speaker 3: in me, and he's like, I'll take six bottles, but
Speaker 3: I doubt it's gonna sell and lo and behold, like
Speaker 3: we killed it that night, and here came a rapper
Speaker 3: named Fabulous Brooklyn. He bought two bottles, but Treell Spreewell
Speaker 3: bought two bottles. Yeah, Clarence Weatherspoon. On the next they
Speaker 3: bought another bottle, like, yo, we sold out to the
Speaker 3: manager was like, yo, I need another case, but I
Speaker 3: didn't have another case at that time. I was like,
Speaker 3: I gotta come back, you know tomorrow. He was like, man,
Speaker 3: I wasn't sold out. But it was a good feeling.
Speaker 3: But then I ended up getting to meet fab which
Speaker 3: was even better, you know what I'm saying. So then
Speaker 3: I then so that was like a really like good
Speaker 3: start of the movement going into next year, because going
Speaker 3: into next year, we started to like really like start
Speaker 3: like a real grassroots marketing plan, hitting as many bars
Speaker 3: and clubs and restaurants we could, was getting a name
Speaker 3: for ourselves. We still was growing a little bit. Then
Speaker 3: came spring of that year of O two, and I
Speaker 3: was able to put a little bit of my budget
Speaker 3: together two do a video with Fab. Trade it All,
Speaker 3: Trade it all, and trade it all. Guys, when I
Speaker 3: tell you, when I tell you, Jagged Puff Daddy Jagget
Speaker 3: as Barber SOPs soundtrack, Ice Cubes first movie, you know,
Speaker 3: like whoa to do that? And then to come back home?
Speaker 3: And mind you, we didn't even have a distributor in
Speaker 3: New York yet.
Speaker 2: So how did you? All right, you put the you
Speaker 2: put the product place, when you put the bottle in
Speaker 2: the video, this legendary whole situation. How much did you
Speaker 2: have to pay Fab for that?
Speaker 3: I wish I could just pleate the fifth ones, But
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be honest with you. Guys. You you you
Speaker 3: probably will be like you wouldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean I could probably tell. I mean it was
Speaker 3: years ago, I mean whatever, Like, all right, so we
Speaker 3: paid under ten grand, how about that? Under ten under
Speaker 3: ten right for a video of that magnitude under ten thousand?
Speaker 3: All right, something for him, something for they manager. Hey,
Speaker 3: we're good.
Speaker 2: The whole team.
Speaker 3: Hey, let's just you know, give me one second. But
Speaker 3: he gave me that one second. You know, they gave
Speaker 3: me the whole, the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to the point.
Speaker 3: Where first commercial. Yeah, and to the point where we
Speaker 3: got remember by telling you, like we started, we still
Speaker 3: was rocking. We only had an import license and we
Speaker 3: was working out of a place out of Long Island.
Speaker 3: We didn't have no distributor. And when that video hit, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm imagine being in a small office with three people.
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Speaker 3: In the guys art, which is probably like seventy years old,
Speaker 3: is answering the phone and she's like, hello, okay, hold on,
Speaker 3: we have Delaware on the phone, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: Not what that video did was not only for clubs
Speaker 3: and restaurants. The distributors in cities were calling, so.
Speaker 2: How quick everybody saw right? So they saw the blue
Speaker 2: looker in the video. Nobody really knew what it was,
Speaker 2: but it was just the whole vibe. And then how
Speaker 2: quick did that turn into people just asking it?
Speaker 3: Yeah it was. It seemed like it was wildfire overnight.
Speaker 3: It seemed like it was overnight because we signed on
Speaker 3: with a distributor who jumped on it like asap. We
Speaker 3: signed on with them like within a week, and then
Speaker 3: they had a sales force of like fifty to sixty.
Speaker 3: So we were able to like start flooding the gates
Speaker 3: in New York, not only in not only in clubs,
Speaker 3: but the most important thing was the stores. Stores were
Speaker 3: more than anything, and they were taking twenty kse drops.
Speaker 3: They were taking ten case drops because people were looking
Speaker 3: at videos and going into the store and being like, Yo,
Speaker 3: I need that bottle, that blue bottle what I don't
Speaker 3: even know what it was, that blue bottle that was
Speaker 3: in the video.
Speaker 2: So you did the influence to marketing before influencer marketing was.
Speaker 3: Before there was product placement, especially in oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well and influence marketing that's real big now social media,
Speaker 2: but influences, but I mean, rap video has always been
Speaker 2: a product placement.
Speaker 3: Has always been a product placement. But it was like
Speaker 3: nobody was really like on top of it to be like, yo,
Speaker 3: this is what I want because that's what like everybody
Speaker 3: was like putting a brand in it, but they were
Speaker 3: using it. Nobody was really getting paid. That was a
Speaker 3: good thing too. They were just using I mean, they
Speaker 3: was putting Crystal Is probably in all the videos probably
Speaker 3: before that, you know, that was like the number one,
Speaker 3: like hey Crystal, you know, until you know that was
Speaker 3: a status symbol, right, you know, But I tell you
Speaker 3: the video that put me on status symbol when we
Speaker 3: had to work a deal deal out was making sure
Speaker 3: that it was like you know, when you really want
Speaker 3: to work with the artists, but you really want to
Speaker 3: put it up and make sure that it was like prominent.
Speaker 3: Was when I got I did a video with Billy
Speaker 3: Woodruff in Miami Short Club Who sixty Bottles on the Wall? Director? Yes?
Speaker 3: Who exactly? I men do the song I did. I'd
Speaker 3: rather do the song and say the name. At this point,
Speaker 3: like is everybody going to back? Why can't no bash me?
Speaker 3: I don't want he was hot. I don't give a
Speaker 3: damn R Kelly Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, ignition.
Speaker 3: I'm ya, sixty bottles, damn sixty bottles on the wall.
Speaker 2: So so how how? How? All right?
Speaker 3: So what was it?
Speaker 2: What was the numbers that y'all was selling before the
Speaker 2: fab and what was the numbers like a year later?
Speaker 3: Like how did we I mean, we probably were selling
Speaker 3: maybe be like five hundred cases. Maybe we maybe we
Speaker 3: were close like six hundred k total total until the
Speaker 3: video comes out. Video came out, we was up to
Speaker 3: five thousand, five thousand cases. I saw I read someone
Speaker 3: that the price point changed to like you the bottles, yeah,
Speaker 3: because at one point it was that sixteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3: And then when you get with a distributor, so I
Speaker 3: keep hering distributed. Can you just elaborate on the role
Speaker 3: of a distributor. They're they're the real salesforce when you
Speaker 3: don't have a sales team. They're the salesforce. They're the
Speaker 3: ones with the backing, you know, they have they have
Speaker 3: a they have what you call a real salesforce team.
Speaker 3: And then they have what you call a pamphlet of
Speaker 3: everything else that I'm going to sell with your product,
Speaker 3: a portfolio, right, so they have a portfolio of things.
Speaker 3: And at that time the distributor we went to probably
Speaker 3: only had like two or three. I think we had.
Speaker 3: They had patrol, which was rising back then. Back the year,
Speaker 3: they had patron, which is like a key, and then
Speaker 3: they had like I think they're like piers you had.
Speaker 3: They had like a Champagne and then they had like
Speaker 3: something else. I think they had like a I think
Speaker 3: they had a cognact, but nothing like really big. But
Speaker 3: it was a small distributor. Actually, it's funny because it's
Speaker 3: up here. It's up in Prochester. Yeah, they were called
Speaker 3: Eber Brothers.
Speaker 2: So five thousand, that's for the year or five Yeah,
Speaker 2: for the year, So you were from five hundred to
Speaker 2: five thousand, five thousand, it's like a thousand percent increase
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the thing was down. But the thing, well,
Speaker 3: I'm just talking about New York. We got opened up
Speaker 3: in five states. That's the real big key thing. Like
Speaker 3: now we had to now we had to move a container,
Speaker 3: which a container you know holes that's coming from France
Speaker 3: all the way over here, you know, by water. So
Speaker 3: we was figuring out like, yo, you gotta get that
Speaker 3: ship excuse my language over here quickly. But of course
Speaker 3: it's gonna still take time because it's by freight. But
Speaker 3: we're looking at places that was taking in containers. So
Speaker 3: a state was calling in like y'all need a container.
Speaker 2: So you wasn't making a liqu in America. The liquor
Speaker 2: wasn't made in America, was made in France.
Speaker 3: What's that? What's that process like from getting it? Obviously
Speaker 3: for me, it's a lot. It's a process that when
Speaker 3: people always say, yo, you need to come up with
Speaker 3: your own liquor. You needed you need to do your research,
Speaker 3: you need to really go back over and really see
Speaker 3: exactly a lot of the there's a lot of there's
Speaker 3: so much movement inside of getting a product done in
Speaker 3: France and bringing it over from France to the US.
Speaker 3: And there's so many like laws and there's there's things
Speaker 3: that you've got to tackle, and there's red tape, and
Speaker 3: there's a.
Speaker 2: Lot it can't be made in America.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, there's oh yeah, well now now of today,
Speaker 3: I mean you can see there's distilleries and there's things
Speaker 3: that's popping up all all around the country now, which.
Speaker 2: Is like, you know, great, So I have to peak
Speaker 2: how how big was Hypnotic like at its peak?
Speaker 3: What was the oh million cases easily a year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because we did in the stretch that I was in
Speaker 3: there in three years, we did a million cases.
Speaker 2: How much money? How much money is that?
Speaker 3: Like in the millions, in the double millions, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: in a double millions, you could. You could sometimes everybody
Speaker 3: always says that you can. You can do the numbers right,
Speaker 3: so you can times either times, but the case would be,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever the case is. So let's just say
Speaker 3: a case was a one thirty right times that by
Speaker 3: a main cases do it that way. But that ain't
Speaker 3: the like, that's not overall. There's so many other cuts
Speaker 3: that you have to do. But it's a lot of money.
Speaker 3: So it's Raphael and his brother, then it's you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's Raphael. Solomon really wasn't a part of it. He
Speaker 3: just was like helping out in the beginning. But it
Speaker 3: really was just Raphael and me, and it was a
Speaker 3: gentleman by the name of Jim Goldstein who had an
Speaker 3: importer's license that really helped us with the importance of
Speaker 3: everything outside of it in Long Island.
Speaker 5: So you got up to at the peak, you said
Speaker 5: a million no, no, So up to the peak when
Speaker 5: we we sold in two thousand and.
Speaker 2: Three, the company.
Speaker 3: We sold the company. Yeah, okay, we sold the company
Speaker 3: in two heaven hell out of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: That's a that's a liquor company.
Speaker 3: Yeah so that Yeah, so they're they're they're like they're
Speaker 3: like the fourth biggest family and bourbon in the country.
Speaker 3: There we Yeah, so they're the biggest one is like
Speaker 3: you know, Evan Williams, like they're like huge, how much
Speaker 3: you for sixty million? I know, right, well it was
Speaker 3: your cut. I had a lot, you know, I always
Speaker 3: tell everybody's things that I got. I got broke off
Speaker 3: pretty nice. Wasn't as nice as everybody were like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, you should have got no, because at that
Speaker 3: time I took I took a point. Not disappointed, but
Speaker 3: I took a couple of points, but really wasn't adapted
Speaker 3: to the knowledge of that I have today, Like you know,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, like just learning, just learn, like you know,
Speaker 3: just like any like producer, like yeah, you know, I'll
Speaker 3: give up half of my whatever on this track and
Speaker 3: the track becomes so great and you're like, oh, I
Speaker 3: didn't know, but you know, you you live and you learn.
Speaker 3: But it was, like I always say this, it was
Speaker 3: it was good enough for me to at least say,
Speaker 3: I bought my mom and dad the condo that they
Speaker 3: kind don't want it for a long time. And I
Speaker 3: wasn't a ballplayer, and I wasn't a rapper, and I
Speaker 3: didn't sell drugs, okay, so hey, I accomplished a lot.
Speaker 2: The fact where Fabulous sees you, now, does he ever
Speaker 2: feel a way that he got paid less than ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a company?
Speaker 3: No, fab is like, oh, I mean, fab is like been.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been my friend for god knows how
Speaker 3: many years, Like he's been the biggest support of me,
Speaker 3: not only from Hypnotic. But remember we went on to Sorak,
Speaker 3: and we're gonna get that.
Speaker 4: That's what makes it legendary, is right, Like if you
Speaker 4: can do something once, great, if you do it twice,
Speaker 4: that legend it is, right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so you've done that twice twice.
Speaker 2: With Rak, So can we talk about Sarak?
Speaker 3: So we finished with Hypnotics because that was I mean,
Speaker 3: and I didn't even get to tell my incredible Haalk story.
Speaker 4: But we're doing because a legendary drink because it has
Speaker 4: two classics in the black culture, Hennessy Hypnotic.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it changes the color of the drink. It
Speaker 3: changed the color and and and how I did it.
Speaker 3: Guys like it, Oh the homework. Can I check these notes? Yes,
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna tell you the true story. I did
Speaker 3: the marketing of it. Well, I said I created it,
Speaker 3: like when I when I was in double XL magazine
Speaker 3: when they wrote me up and talked about how I
Speaker 3: blew this drink up. It was really somebody, Anahonymus, that
Speaker 3: was in Brooklyn. Okay, no true story. Kid walked in.
Speaker 3: He told my model sampling girl that said, nah, baby,
Speaker 3: we know how to do this. So he grabbed a
Speaker 3: Hennessy bottle and then he grabbed a hypnotic bottle. He
Speaker 3: brought it to the table and he poured the hypnotic first,
Speaker 3: and he pulled the Hennessy after it. And I was
Speaker 3: sitting behind these boxes because I didn't want to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, because you know, I'm just doing some like
Speaker 3: store reports and like just seeing who's coming in, and
Speaker 3: I'm working with the girl, and I didn't notice that
Speaker 3: both of them stood together. But he put his finger
Speaker 3: in the drink and made it turn around and made
Speaker 3: it turn green. But the crazy part about it is
Speaker 3: that after he did it, he was like so amped
Speaker 3: about it. He called it the money shot, and he's
Speaker 3: about to walk away. And he went back to the
Speaker 3: girl and he said, yo, Ma, can I get your number?
Speaker 3: And she's like, no, you know, I can't do that.
Speaker 3: And he's like, all right, no problem. You know it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it turns, you know, the Green sometimes makes me
Speaker 3: feel confident, just like make me feel like the Hulk.
Speaker 2: And I was like.
Speaker 3: The Hulk. Green liked the Hawk. So I wrote it down.
Speaker 3: Green liked the Hawk. I sat with it for an hour.
Speaker 3: Called my friend Mark in La. I said, Mark, you
Speaker 3: always talk about Tupac because Alise is my that's my
Speaker 3: arching assist. And I'm like, I can't beat Alixe and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to And Mark, what's that song? He said, Yo, Nick,
Speaker 3: it's a thug passion record. He says, passed me at
Speaker 3: Alex and at Hennessy. I was like, you know what, Mark,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do the Hulk. He said what I said,
Speaker 3: he is, if you put Hennessy in hypnotics, it turns Green.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do the Hulk. So he was like, oh okay.
Speaker 3: So I went back told Raphael my plan. He thought
Speaker 3: it was ludicrous. He thought you were spending the money
Speaker 3: on marketing money for so I'm stupid, right, what are
Speaker 3: you doing? I was like, Raphael, just trust me on this.
Speaker 3: I went to Aberkadava on twenty first Street. I ranted
Speaker 3: the incredible home costume. I'm about to put somebody's name
Speaker 3: on blast. I had to call my cousin, Raheem just
Speaker 3: came home from doing college time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And Raheen came home big as a house. And Raheen
Speaker 3: was looking for a job. And I said, Raheen, meet
Speaker 3: me here at a place called Baba Loo's and I
Speaker 3: need you to meet me here. He couldn't wait. He
Speaker 3: dressed all in black, he got his outfit ready and
Speaker 3: he met me there and he was like, what do
Speaker 3: I gotta do? And I was like, what you gotta
Speaker 3: do is wear this costule. He was like, yoah, I'm
Speaker 3: not wearing this castle. I was like, nigga, you gonna
Speaker 3: wear his castle. He was like, I was like, listen,
Speaker 3: you want this two hundred bucks. That's what we're paying
Speaker 3: for the promotions. You want this two hundred He's like,
Speaker 3: I you know, I'll wear it, but that's it. The
Speaker 3: funny part of the story is that I had him
Speaker 3: dressing in an incredible Holt costume and walk around with
Speaker 3: a Hennessy bottle and Hipnolic bottle for all night. The
Speaker 3: manager told me that I was only going to sell
Speaker 3: at least ten drinks, was not going to come close
Speaker 3: to the thug passion. I ended up selling forty five
Speaker 3: drinks that night. The manager told me, if I could
Speaker 3: bring this incredible Hult guy in here for the next
Speaker 3: four fridays, he'll take in ten cases a week. And
Speaker 3: that's what we did. I blitzed out New York from
Speaker 3: Justin's Baba Loo's all the way to Jimmy's Brons Cafe
Speaker 3: on an incredible Hul costume for three and a half
Speaker 3: months until I embedded it inside of New York. That's
Speaker 3: how an incredible Hulk was really made.
Speaker 4: If you've ever been to a party in New York
Speaker 4: City in the two thousands, and that drink was in
Speaker 4: the environment, that changed the entire envire, changed the entire.
Speaker 2: All right, So we're gonna talk about the rack situation.
Speaker 2: So I remember the first time I saw Sarak did
Speaker 2: he had like a New Year's Eve commercial and He's like,
Speaker 2: what ad tuxedo want's drinking. So I'm like, what the rock?
Speaker 2: I never heard of Sack before? And then fly.
Speaker 3: Let's Fly.
Speaker 2: Six months later he's on a jets with man. It
Speaker 2: has like a tightal way.
Speaker 3: So all right, up until that point, we were drinking
Speaker 3: Greg Goose.
Speaker 2: Greg Goose was the champion of the champion, Champion, and
Speaker 2: that Goose was a champion, and Rack changed the whole dynamic.
Speaker 3: So sitting with the reason, yes, yes, yes, so all right, yes,
Speaker 3: what is what is?
Speaker 2: Yes? What's the deal with? Well?
Speaker 3: I mean it actually is crazy because it started at
Speaker 3: It started when I went to a party at a
Speaker 3: mansion on like sixty second Street and it was actually
Speaker 3: a release for Unforgivable the Colone. Yeah, I forget what
Speaker 3: it was the release and I went there and I'm
Speaker 3: walking down and as I'm walking down the block, I
Speaker 3: hear this two women screaming like not Nick next Storm.
Speaker 3: Look over and I know one of the ladies because
Speaker 3: I knew her from another company, and she'll tell a
Speaker 3: story better than me and Erica Pittman, who's like a
Speaker 3: powerhouse in the business. She'll tell her like I was
Speaker 3: running down in to Lettos and I jumped over the
Speaker 3: car just to get some but yeah. So she jumped
Speaker 3: over and the XT there was an Erica and d Sims,
Speaker 3: both powerhouse women up today, that's right, and she they
Speaker 3: both said, hey, Nick, we need you to come and
Speaker 3: meet with meet with Sean. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything what was going on. He was like,
Speaker 3: we're going to give you a call this week. We
Speaker 3: need we've been we've been looking for you, were trying
Speaker 3: to find you. We got to find you today. But yeah,
Speaker 3: we need to come and sit with him. I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, just let me know. And uh. The next
Speaker 3: day I got a call from a woman by the
Speaker 3: name of Jackie Lee who was at Diagio at the time,
Speaker 3: very powerful black woman, African American woman. Sorry, and uh
Speaker 3: she was, uh, you know, she was like, Nick, there's
Speaker 3: some things happening up at Diagio, but you're going to
Speaker 3: get a call, so just be prepared for it. And
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, cool. So, anyway, is a company
Speaker 3: that owns the Rock right exactly. Yeah, And they own LVMH,
Speaker 3: which is Hennessy m Mowatt and and everything from Johnny
Speaker 3: Walker on down from Crown Ray, you know, all the
Speaker 3: way across the board. So there. So I ended up
Speaker 3: getting a call and to come meet with mister Koombs.
Speaker 3: So my first day I'm like, oh, okay, I don't mind,
Speaker 3: but I have no idea what it really is entailed.
Speaker 3: But when I get there, I get to the office
Speaker 3: and he's like, yo, what's up. I was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: what's going on? I sit on the couch now mind you.
Speaker 3: At this time, this is like Puff Daddy.
Speaker 2: Did you know him before that?
Speaker 3: Seven? Yeah, well, not knew him like chilling, but I
Speaker 3: knew him like I would do like I was doing
Speaker 3: like a lot of events, and a guy by the
Speaker 3: name of Jeff Sanchez at the time worked for Puff
Speaker 3: and he was plugging me wherever Puff was at. But
Speaker 3: because Puff was like a hypnotic, so wherever Puff was at,
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, I got your cases over here.
Speaker 3: I got your cases over here, Like what do you need?
Speaker 3: So Puff is funniest thing is like, and he was like, yo,
Speaker 3: I just want to know one thing before this whole meeting.
Speaker 3: I was like yo. He was like, how'd you do it?
Speaker 3: A million dollar question? So I was like how how
Speaker 3: I did what? He was like, No, how'd you do it?
Speaker 3: How'd you how'd you get hypnotic everywhere? I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: and then you you you go into a trance because
Speaker 3: he's looking at you with those you know, like how
Speaker 3: he looks at you on the floor when he goes
Speaker 3: like this we've heard some story, right, like, and you
Speaker 3: just get so and then mind you, he's got the
Speaker 3: Biggie poster behind him Grammy's I mean his office. You've
Speaker 3: ever been a puff's office. His office is a maculate
Speaker 3: like it's like every picture from Quincy Jones on down
Speaker 3: to the President's And so you already and like you
Speaker 3: better like figure it out, right, But then you got
Speaker 3: like your dad and like, you know, like nothing, you know,
Speaker 3: the good cop, angel, you know, the devil, like you
Speaker 3: don't know what to do. And then I said, you
Speaker 3: know what, I did a little bit of this, and
Speaker 3: I did a little bit of that, and I was
Speaker 3: like and he was like, oh, good answer. I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I did some videos. I did some you know,
Speaker 3: street marketing. I try to keep it really. He was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'll see what you're saying. And he's like, listen, you
Speaker 3: ever heard us a rock? I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've heard it. We were about to do this. He
Speaker 3: told me a little bit a he broke everything down.
Speaker 3: He was very animated. He was like getting up. I
Speaker 3: was like, ooh, I feel the energy. I feel a vibe.
Speaker 3: And he's like, Yo, you just got Yo. I'm telling
Speaker 3: you you got to get on this train. Like, Yo,
Speaker 3: you got some good ideas. Yo, you got to bring
Speaker 3: him over here. Let's let's rock and roll. Talk to deer.
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, cool. So like the next
Speaker 3: week I spoke the deer and then was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: bring you on. I was like, you know what, perfect timing.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to go. And I went on board. And
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight was like the real official, like
Speaker 3: we're gonna make this thing happen, and uh yeah, and
Speaker 3: I got on and I put some programs together. These
Speaker 3: are very key programs in anything that we've done. The
Speaker 3: number one key program was the Ambassador program. And the
Speaker 3: key about Ambassador is what I did with Hypnotic and
Speaker 3: I never wanted one company for us to give the
Speaker 3: marketing budget to one company and have them run the promotions.
Speaker 3: I mean there's companies out there now like Team and
Speaker 3: these other companies that like they just do the promotions
Speaker 3: for the company. But there's nobody that's living and breathing
Speaker 3: the brand. And when we were at Hypnotic, they were
Speaker 3: going to give our money to like one promotional company
Speaker 3: and then I would fly in and be with them.
Speaker 3: But I was like, I want somebody that lives and
Speaker 3: breathes the brand every day. I want someone who knows
Speaker 3: that Fab is doing a party of tonight, Meek Mills birthdays, tomorrow,
Speaker 3: the Nike releases at the Nike store. Like, I need
Speaker 3: that person that's in the market every day, breathing, living
Speaker 3: the brand. And that right there is what a real
Speaker 3: ambassador is about. Now. I did that with Hypnotic, and
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I'm gonna do it with We're
Speaker 3: gonna take that same blueprint and we're gonna bring it
Speaker 3: over here. We're gonna do it over here. And that
Speaker 3: was very key to the brand success. Not only that.
Speaker 3: One second part was doing a DJ program DJ program.
Speaker 3: I had Hypnotic, but I only had three DJs. You know,
Speaker 3: I had like S and S Clue of Big Tigger, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: he was saying, yeah, I had Big Tiger, I had
Speaker 3: Clue Tigger and Clue Tay. I was the first person
Speaker 3: we went to Hawaii together because we was doing like
Speaker 3: Hypnotic at the Naval base, baby, you know. But and
Speaker 3: then I had Camello and Puerto Rico when he first
Speaker 3: was coming up. But when we got over to Siraq,
Speaker 3: you know, Sean Press shout out to Sean Press. He
Speaker 3: was able to really because he had like a lot
Speaker 3: of DJs for the musical side of so he was
Speaker 3: able to put the program together to able to do
Speaker 3: it on the Sirox side. And that's when we had
Speaker 3: kind of like actually created the Sarraq Boys and the
Speaker 3: Iraq Boy's name. I will always still tell you it
Speaker 3: was a puff Daddy thing. But I think that I
Speaker 3: have to give just a little bit of credit to
Speaker 3: Terrence J for some odd reason, because yeah, man, because
Speaker 3: it was one he was on one on six and
Speaker 3: Park he was the young boy. He was rocking. And
Speaker 3: we was actually at the forty forty getting ready to
Speaker 3: do the Rock Boys video, and I was putting product
Speaker 3: placement in there and Puff Nas Jay and everybody was
Speaker 3: getting ready up in their rooms and this and that,
Speaker 3: and I was getting something for the guys, and I
Speaker 3: remember Terrence J walking in and he was like, yo,
Speaker 3: we're here, and you know, he slapped with father puff
Speaker 3: and this and that. He's like, yo, you know, you
Speaker 3: know we here man, you know rock boys is here, Yo,
Speaker 3: Nick we Sirocki.
Speaker 2: Oh oh come on.
Speaker 3: I remember I was giving him the bottle just to
Speaker 3: joke around and her It's like, you know it was
Speaker 3: a rock boys. Oh good, Yeah, that nigga. Puff was like, nah, Nigga,
Speaker 3: we all sir, rock boys and Puffa was like, na,
Speaker 3: we rock boys and we just was rocking with it.
Speaker 3: And then the next week, I mean that next week
Speaker 3: we had to come up with a name for the DJ,
Speaker 3: and beholds like yo, rock boys and there it was.
Speaker 2: So why did you choose the DJ? That's interesting? Why'd
Speaker 2: you choose the DJs? Because DJ's kind of get left
Speaker 2: looked over a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because the DJ is very important.
Speaker 2: Very important.
Speaker 3: They went from breaking records and now listen. So I
Speaker 3: always say this, I utilized my bartenders as DJs when
Speaker 3: I was really was trying to break a brand at
Speaker 3: the bar. The bartender is going to tell you what
Speaker 3: to drink. Sometimes he will change you, sometimes he will
Speaker 3: influence you. Bartender is very important inside of the business
Speaker 3: of the bar. The DJ to me was very important
Speaker 3: at that time for the people to know what we
Speaker 3: were drinking tonight, what were listening to, what we dancing to,
Speaker 3: what we're rocking tonight. If you ain't got that rock
Speaker 3: in your part, if you ain't got that with that's
Speaker 3: the rock bart with rock boys. And it just kept
Speaker 3: going on. I mean, when you got people like Flex
Speaker 3: and Clue and Enough and Camillo Pro Style self just
Speaker 3: in New York Cologne, you're looking at almost five six
Speaker 3: nights of none stop in your ear in your face promotions.
Speaker 3: Then you go across the country up in Chicago and
Speaker 3: you got Ferris Ll. I mean, I l a fairly
Speaker 3: fell Atlanta drama like like we like, you know, like
Speaker 3: DC Quicksilver. We had them all the way across the board.
Speaker 3: And when whether whatever city you was at, it was
Speaker 3: like a stamp. We had a stamp on the Serac
Speaker 3: boys across the country. And then and then, and that's why,
Speaker 3: that's why when you said me earlier, was everybody in
Speaker 3: a rock boy. I mean, if a guy was in
Speaker 3: the club and he probably five six bars of hey, he's.
Speaker 2: Then people started calling themselves rock boys.
Speaker 3: They were.
Speaker 5: It's no promotion, they just yeah. Some of them became
Speaker 5: bad because we had to call from local market.
Speaker 3: Like one of us, a rock boy showed up and
Speaker 3: took two bottles and said he was a sack boy.
Speaker 3: There was nowhere and bridge for Connecticut. That wasn't me.
Speaker 3: We got DJ.
Speaker 2: So you said something that was interesting with the hypnotic
Speaker 2: that I just realized because I see, like even with
Speaker 2: fifty cent with his thing, that he's going to like
Speaker 2: different states. So when you roll out a liquor, it's
Speaker 2: like it's not it doesn't just go nationally like it
Speaker 2: has to go like different markets, like one market at
Speaker 2: a time.
Speaker 3: No, it can go nationally once you go with a
Speaker 3: national distributor, it'll go nationally once you go to it.
Speaker 3: Like so Diago of course has distributors all across the country.
Speaker 3: Once you know, when you were with Diago, it's it's
Speaker 3: flooded across all fifty states, you know, like that's how
Speaker 3: it is. You know, whether you were Southern Wind of
Speaker 3: Spirits or whether you were Empire or what you know
Speaker 3: with Young's market in l A like each each n
Speaker 3: DC down in DC, like each state has its own distributor.
Speaker 3: So once if I was to bring a brand tomorrow,
Speaker 3: and it's called evolution and Diadre got this new brand
Speaker 3: called Evolution. We're not going to do one state at
Speaker 3: the time. It's going to be actually be flooded out
Speaker 3: all all the way across the board. That's why you
Speaker 3: got to come up with a national plan, and you
Speaker 3: got to come up with a national marketing plan to
Speaker 3: make sure that you'll be able to, you know, move
Speaker 3: the product inside the states. So the first part right
Speaker 3: in eight when the rock takes off, that the plan
Speaker 3: was like we have the guy, right puff is the guy? Yeah?
Speaker 3: In my mind I'm thinking, like this guy is James Bond.
Speaker 3: Was that the vision? Like I seen him he was
Speaker 3: on jet skis, He's jumping out a helicopter. Yeah he was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he he knew how to It's one thing about him
Speaker 3: is in being around him and working when I'm like
Speaker 3: you're you're very you're very on your toes. But he
Speaker 3: he always has a vision that you'll be like wow,
Speaker 3: like I can see what you're saying, like you know,
Speaker 3: like it's just it's it was really a really incredible
Speaker 3: time to be around a man like that. To be
Speaker 3: honest with you, like he motivated, He motivates you from
Speaker 3: every aspect.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: But the plan was we wanted just to celebrate life
Speaker 3: and we wanted to have a celebration moment about it,
Speaker 3: and we wanted to be about life, about the celebratory
Speaker 3: side of it, Like no matter whether you know, if
Speaker 3: you if you lost your job, we're gonna celebrate because
Speaker 3: you don't get a new one. When you got a job,
Speaker 3: we're gonna celebrate because you got a job. Like it
Speaker 3: was just we're just trying to find bright moments within everybody.
Speaker 3: And even when it was just like a circle like
Speaker 3: we had did a campaign like circle, Like a step
Speaker 3: into the circle was like a step into the circle
Speaker 3: of friends and friendship and love and love your friends
Speaker 3: and hang out with your family more and and just
Speaker 3: you just try to figure out a lot of things
Speaker 3: that we wanted to come up with. But the most
Speaker 3: part about of it was mostly thing about it was
Speaker 3: about being celebrated and to celebrate life. And that that's
Speaker 3: what the main thing about the whole branding about Sarraq was.
Speaker 3: So how quick did the rock from WHOA I can
Speaker 3: tell you those numbers, they went quick. They went from
Speaker 3: like I mean, this was a brand that was out
Speaker 3: for five years between two thousand and two and two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven until you know, mister Combs basically took
Speaker 3: it over. Sixty thousand, sixty thousand case brand up for
Speaker 3: five years. Two when we got it, I think we
Speaker 3: I mean, we doubled the numbers in one year. So
Speaker 3: we did like we did from sixty to like one
Speaker 3: seventy in one year, and then yeah, one year, and
Speaker 3: then in two thousand and nine we really killed it
Speaker 3: because we came out with the flavors and the first
Speaker 3: flavors we came out was with Coconut and Red Verry.
Speaker 3: So two thousand and nine we really took the movement
Speaker 3: crazy because one, it was a good time because we
Speaker 3: was coming out with a Last Train of Paris, which
Speaker 3: was an album, and he was coming out with album.
Speaker 3: Good album, like very underrated. Yeah wow, yeah, good album.
Speaker 3: But we was like we was coming out with the
Speaker 3: album and we was doing album release in certain markets,
Speaker 3: and we were releasing the brand at the time, so
Speaker 3: it was very key. Timing is is very key in
Speaker 3: a lot of things. So we were coming out with
Speaker 3: the album and branding the brand and coming out with
Speaker 3: the Coconuts, the rock and the red Berry in certain states,
Speaker 3: it just everything was moving.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the first three years, I think I read
Speaker 4: a million cases. Yeah, first three you with a million.
Speaker 3: Again? Did it again, so being a part of it.
Speaker 2: But so you do that and then so what's your
Speaker 2: vision now as far as like I know, you said,
Speaker 2: now you do your consultant. So yeah, you did it once,
Speaker 2: you did it twice. Like where do you see yourself
Speaker 2: in the in the in the spirits industry moving forward?
Speaker 3: I think I could do it again. I could do
Speaker 3: it again. But I think now is I'm at a
Speaker 3: point in my life where I can look back and
Speaker 3: reflect and and and be happy. And one of the
Speaker 3: things I can I can really be happy about is
Speaker 3: I had got a phone call the other day from
Speaker 3: a young lady that really gave, like really told me
Speaker 3: about working up under me. You know what she learned
Speaker 3: where she's at today would have never been there because
Speaker 3: of me. And then I look back at about eleven
Speaker 3: or twelve people right now withinside the business and inside
Speaker 3: the liquor industry right now with jobs that look back
Speaker 3: and say, I came up undernixt door. And if you
Speaker 3: can't point someone in a direction, and I always feel
Speaker 3: like you really look good when you can really point
Speaker 3: somebody to make money, Like I always feel like that, right,
Speaker 3: Like I feel good to know that I put certain
Speaker 3: people in good positions to really make some money and
Speaker 3: feed their families. You know. In my job now, I
Speaker 3: think is really educating the youth and understanding about hard work, dedication,
Speaker 3: and most importantly, it's like getting a lot of more youth,
Speaker 3: I mean more of us. I'm sorry with being Latin
Speaker 3: American and African American, as I said, my mother's Puerto Rican,
Speaker 3: in my father's book African American. So I'm both, I'm
Speaker 3: best of both for us, how I say, yeah, But
Speaker 3: I would say as educating them on the business of
Speaker 3: the wine and spirits business. You know, I had stayed
Speaker 3: it before. I've been in the game twenty years, making
Speaker 3: six figures for twenty years. There's so many good jobs
Speaker 3: withinside the wine and spirits business that people don't know about,
Speaker 3: whether it's marketing, whether it's advertising, whether it's public relations,
Speaker 3: whether it's salespeople, you know, Like you know, a girl
Speaker 3: told me the other day, and this is a good
Speaker 3: one too. She was a bartender at a strip club
Speaker 3: and I'm sorry, a gentleman's a gentleman's club. And she
Speaker 3: was really good at sales and she would say to me,
Speaker 3: you know, I wish I could blow this night life.
Speaker 3: One day and I said, you know what you are,
Speaker 3: and when you're really serious, you let me know. And
Speaker 3: I think a week later she was very serious. She
Speaker 3: asked me for advice. She put a blue suit on
Speaker 3: with her shirt. I told her what to wear. I
Speaker 3: told her what to say. She went for a job
Speaker 3: at a distributor, at a sales position. She got it.
Speaker 3: The reason why I'm telling the story is last two
Speaker 3: weeks ago she said, I wanted your address because I
Speaker 3: wanted to send you a gift. Because for a year
Speaker 3: and a half she's been doing really well. But this year,
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen, she made Sales Girl of the Year.
Speaker 3: She changed her life from the night life of what
Speaker 3: she really didn't want to do and really became a saleswoman.
Speaker 3: And it's so happy and proud. But that made me
Speaker 3: feel proud because she was able to change your whole
Speaker 3: lifestyle and really, like you know, and she had a
Speaker 3: daughter and she's doing really well, and that's like a
Speaker 3: like that right there, you could change one person's life.
Speaker 3: Sometimes when I speak in front of kids, and if
Speaker 3: two kids come up to me, after it kick king
Speaker 3: to the other day and said, you really get paid
Speaker 3: the party, like yeah, but not but but you know,
Speaker 3: and but I always feel like, you know that that's
Speaker 3: my mission now because I'm no good without giving the
Speaker 3: knowledge that that what I was doing. One there it
Speaker 3: is and that's so that's where I'm in my life.
Speaker 3: I want to consult with from brands on down to
Speaker 3: the younger generation and and I want to and I
Speaker 3: want to speak. I want to do public speaking with
Speaker 3: inside of schools and and trying to educate them on
Speaker 3: jobs withinside the business. So how would they find those jobs?
Speaker 4: Right to the young lady, that's incredible that she did that,
Speaker 4: but she knew, yeah, she knew me. So how would
Speaker 4: the average person say, you know what I want to
Speaker 4: get in the spirits industry?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm looking lately and then a lot of
Speaker 3: people have been hitting me up. But it's it's a
Speaker 3: lot of people, like a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: jobs like online now, like you know, you can go
Speaker 3: on d Augio's website, you can go on put over
Speaker 3: Cards website, which is another big look a brand. But
Speaker 3: you can on these websites and honestly, do you do
Speaker 3: your knowledge like a friend of mine went at liquor store,
Speaker 3: went in the back of a bottle, found where the
Speaker 3: bottle was being imported from, and wrote the company up
Speaker 3: in Connecticut and found the website to it and then
Speaker 3: found the hr person to it. Like people are really
Speaker 3: like knowing how to do that. They're hungry enough to
Speaker 3: do the work now, which is good and it's funny.
Speaker 3: I'm really only telling the story because he got the
Speaker 3: job's crazy, but yeah he got and there he's working
Speaker 3: in Connecticut right now. But but yeah, so that's that's
Speaker 3: that's where I'm at now.
Speaker 2: That's dope.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for joining us, man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: How can it? How can the people contact you? Can
Speaker 2: they contact you?
Speaker 4: Or yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, contact social Yeah, you can DM me. Listen, I
Speaker 3: answered everybody. My email is nixt Storm twenty nine at gmail.
Speaker 3: Can email me. But my I G is I am
Speaker 3: next Storm meaning content me or my manager. His name
Speaker 3: is ja Cool. His instagram I don't know. His instagram
Speaker 3: is Jake Cool Love. Yeah, d M him. He'll get me,
Speaker 3: you know, at any speaking engagements, you know whatever. You know,
Speaker 3: my manager's right there side to the town of Greenberg. Yeah,
Speaker 3: lovelands on for a little bit. We call him Stephen
Speaker 3: a j.
Speaker 2: That's a good one. That's actually a good one. That's
Speaker 2: a good one. Troy House housekeeping item.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, shout out to everybody on patreon dot com. We
Speaker 4: have hit one hundred on it. We had a goal
Speaker 4: to hit one hundred people and that's our proudc pay program.
Speaker 4: We hit one hundred. We got something special for those
Speaker 4: those people. Like we said on the site, we're gonna
Speaker 4: do something real special till five or six. Y'all also
Speaker 4: be on the lookout for that and keep supporting.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: We have five tiers.
Speaker 4: We're actually gonna do some remodeling on our Patreon. We're
Speaker 4: gonna change some things up. But keep supporting that and
Speaker 4: everybody that's supporting the Merchre dot com. It is hoodie
Speaker 4: season here in New York, so it might be hoodie
Speaker 4: season on the East Coast. So our sweatshows are up there.
Speaker 4: We have their assets overliability Sweatshare. We're also going to
Speaker 4: have a hustle for your last name, and we're gonna
Speaker 4: have some new merge coming.
Speaker 3: Man. Shout out to all our.
Speaker 4: Earners, that is, you know, the people that follow an
Speaker 4: Allsia and support craziest community. And if you'll see you
Speaker 4: shall see Nick after this episode is what the earners
Speaker 4: are all about them.
Speaker 3: They are allsion of supporters.
Speaker 2: Shout out to them, Yeah, shout out to them for
Speaker 2: showing patreons the community. And that's it. Ah, see you
Speaker 2: guys next week.
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