You Gotta Have Balls E-Book

Brandon Steiner

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 290

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A Brooklyn kid hustles his way to the top of a sports marketingand memorabilia empire Brandon Steiner went from a kid who sat in the nosebleed seatsat Yankee and Shea Stadiums to CEO of Steiner Sports MarketingInc., one of the largest sports marketing and memorabilia companiesin the United States, with an inventory of more than 10,000collectibles. You Gotta Have Balls details Steiner'smultiple entrepreneurial adventures, where he has both learned andtaught others his fair share of "rules." Along the way, hedeveloped some of the most innovative approaches tobusiness--methods that many of today's companies would be wiseto observe and employ themselves. You Gotta Have Balls follows Steiner on his pathway tosuccess by demonstrating the business philosophies that allowed himto become the powerful magnate that he is. These idealsinclude: * First to market is everything * Ask "What Else?" when working with clients to enhancerelationships and elicit more business * Don't expand just for the sake of expanding; do it in areas andindustries where your passion lies * How to train employees while they're in the minor leagues toprepare them for the majors Learn to clearly identify ways to help others rather than sellto them, to align employees and partners with their strengths, andto discover a path where you're most likely to succeed.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue: Last Call at Yankee Stadium

Introduction: Being All In

The Grind

Chapter 1: What's with the Water in Brooklyn?

Chapter 2: The Secret of ‘What Else?’

Chapter 3: Life, Death, and Soda

Dewey High School

Syracuse

Chapter 4: Yes or Yes

If it Isn't Easy, it Isn't Possible

Chapter 5: Getting the Raise, Then the Job

Chapter 6: The Only Sports Bar in New York

Chapter 7: Waiting to be Struck by Lightning

Making Connections

The ‘86 Giants

Meeting Mara

One Thing Leads to Another

On My Own

Making the Market

Dreaming Up Appearances

Medicine Men

Our First Major Deal

You Never Know

Chapter 8: Play the Game, Not the Score

Relationships, Not Transactions

Chapter 9: Turning Memories Into Money

Expanding Our Business

My Favorite Collectible

Chapter 10: The Big Break: Yankees-Steiner

Chapter 11: The Light in the Other Room

Chapter 12: Turning Dirt into Dollars

Chapter 13: A Jewish Kid Meets Touchdown Jesus

Chapter 14: The Final Days of Yankee Stadium

The Frieze

The Original Bricks

The “I want to Thank the Good Lord for Making Me a Yankee” Sign

The Black

The Foul Poles

The Clubhouse Carpet

Chapter 15: Nothing but a Dreamer

Chapter 16: Sandlot Wisdom

Get Everyone to Buy In

Make Sure Individuals Know What's Expected of Them

If You Can't Motivate, Incentivize

Make Everyone Feel Important

Conclusion: What Makes You Tick?

Index

Brandon Steiner

Supplemental Images

Cover image: Anthony Causi

Cover design: Michael J. Freeland

Copyright © 2012 by Brandon Steiner. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Steiner, Brandon.

You gotta have balls : how a kid from Brooklyn started from scratch, bought Yankee Stadium, and created a sports empire / Brandon Steiner.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-17207-0 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-33035-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-33104-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-33319-8 (ebk)

1. Sports—New York (State)—New York—Marketing. 2. Sports—Collectibles—New York (State)—New York. I. Title.

GV585.5.N4S84 2012

796.0688—dc23

This book is dedicated to the three most important women in my life:

For my mother, Evelyn. Everything I've ever learned can be traced back to something she once taught me. I try to live up to her no-fear attitude and her limitless compassion for people every day. Her favorite saying was: “You gotta have balls.”

For my wife, Mara. My most unsung, but biggest hero—I still get butterflies when I see you walk by my office. You are and always will be the love of my life.

And for my daughter, Nicole. I like to count myself an avid collector of people, but even at her age, Nicole brings them together more quickly than I ever have.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my son, Crosby, who will be anything he wants to be and more.

Thank you to our stepson, Keith Martinez, who reminds me that anything is possible. What an amazing story you turned out to be.

Thank you to my brother, Adam, who made the biggest comeback of all time, and has helped more people stop smoking than I imagined possible.

I'm grateful to my fellow Brooklynite and dreamer, Colby Brin. I started this book with countless threads of memories, experiences, and ideas in mind; I wanted to share them with the reader, but I wasn't sure how they fit together. Colby helped me weave them into the narrative that makes up these pages. I couldn't have done it without him.

The same goes for Steve Costello, Eric Levy, A. J. Romero, Andrew Rasero, Chris Amoroso, Brett Schissler, Kelvin Joseph, Sean Mahoney, Margaret Adams, and the entire Steiner Sports family. Thank you for making my dreams come true every day. It's an honor to work with all of you.

And of course all my friends from the Brooklyn schoolyards who have been there from the beginning and I know have my back until the end.

I'll always be grateful to Alzie Jackson, my old camp mentor.

Thanks to Matt Weinberg for always making sure Steiner Sports has had the best transportation.

Thanks to Shannon Vargo, Elana Schulman, Heather Condon, Peter Knox, Linda Indig, and the entire John Wiley & Sons team.

Thanks to my in-house marketing squad: Cassidy Mara, Thomas Hanvey, and Zachary Karow.

I am deeply grateful to the New York Yankees and the entire Yankee family. And the Steinbrenner family.

Special thanks to Randy Levine, for being the original visionary behind Yankees-Steiner, and my biggest fan; and to Randy Weisenburger, for being the Yankees-Steiner closer.

Thanks to the Dallas Cowboys; Notre Dame and Notre Dame Football; Madison Square Garden and Jim Dolan; Scott O'Neal; the Syracuse University Athletic Department; my friend Daryl Gross; Michael Veley and David Salanger; David Falk, for bringing me closer to Syracuse and having the vision to build the best sports management school on the planet.

Thanks to my idol Oprah Winfrey, for so much inspiration and so many aha moments. Over the 25 years she aired her show, I didn't miss many episodes. Now she has her own network. Talk about balls.

Thank you to Frank Bisignano, one of the smartest guys I have ever met, who taught me how to adjust when “the circumstances have changed.”

Big thanks to Harvey Mackay and the Mackay Roundtable for constant help and mentoring, and for showing me how to put together a book I could be proud of. As we like to say, None of us is as smart as all of us.

Prologue

Last Call at Yankee Stadium

When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I lived for the summer. Summer brought the gifts of camp and all-day sports, as opposed to the burdens of school and studying. It was in summer that our little apartment on Kings Highway wouldn't be freezing when I woke up in the morning. And maybe most importantly, summer days had the potential to turn into afternoons spent at my favorite place in the world: Yankee Stadium.

My family didn't have season tickets or anything. My father was out of the picture; my mother was often sick, bouncing between the hospital and our house; and my two brothers had their own problems. For God's sake, we could barely make rent every month.

Yet whenever I could, I scrounged together the $1.50 it cost to go to a Yankees game with my friends. That $1.50 bought each of us a seat with a view obstructed by a steel pillar, but the seats were on the lower level, along the first or third baseline—the best value in the house. We went to as many doubleheaders as we could to stretch that $1.50 even further. We watched the seats in front of us like hawks so we could swoop in and grab the more premium spots as soon as their occupants left. I usually ate food that I snuck in, because the cost of the ticket itself was all I could afford.

But that was all just fine with me. Those two hours watching the Bombers were a sacred respite from a home life that wasn't exactly ideal. It was a chance to sit among an entire crowd of people who were focused on a shared love. The state-of-the-art facility stood in stark contrast to the ramshackle conditions of my family's small home. I could let my eyes feast on the very stars I read about in the paper and heard about on the radio every day: Mantle. Maris. Yogi. Whitey.

When I was a kid, Yankee Stadium was my personal paradise.

I thought back on those summer days some four decades later, as I drove to the last game that would ever be played at the old Stadium. It was September 20, 2008, and the Yankees were hosting the Baltimore Orioles one final time. It was a big day for my marketing and memorabilia company, Steiner Sports. We were hoping to sell countless items commemorating this day alone.

During the game, I sat in a field level box along the third baseline, with my son Crosby and a few friends. The air was warm, the sky was clear; it was a perfect fall afternoon.

Except for the guy sitting next to me, in the adjacent box.

He looked to be middle-aged, and was wearing tan pants and a blue shirt; he was dressed like he was part of the grounds crew. He pestered me throughout the game, asking me what items my company was going to sell to mark the occasion.

I politely ignored him.

After Mariano Rivera secured the final out of the 5-3 Yankees victory, Mr. Tan Pants leapt out of his seat and ran onto the field. He made it out there before the police even had a chance to set up a barricade.

He ran straight to third base, squatted down, and yanked it out of the ground like a weightlifter hoisting a barbell. Then he ran right back to our section.

As he was climbing back over the railing, I extended my hand as if to help him. Then I lifted the base from under his arm. Before he realized what had happened, the entire section erupted in a cheer.

“Caught stealing!” someone yelled.

Everyone went crazy.

With all eyes on him, Tan Pants didn't go back to his seat. He fled the section, running up the steps and through the closest exit, before security could get to him. At least he was empty-handed.

I went back to my own seat and sat down. I scanned the stadium, trying to pinpoint those old seats my friends and I used to sit in, the ones with obstructed views.

I couldn't stand by while that guy stole not only a piece of history, but something that now belonged to me.

That's right, me.

When that final game ended, I was responsible for Yankee Stadium and almost everything in it.

But we'll save that story for later.

Introduction

Being All In

Not long ago, I was the keynote speaker at an event held for local residents who were out of work or looking to make a career change, at my synagogue in Scarsdale, New York. About 400 people attended. After my talk, the attendees met with representatives from businesses in the area who were hiring. It was a good opportunity to network.

I spoke about my belief that people who are unemployed have to view finding a job as nothing less than a job itself. They must marshal the very same skills and discipline in a job search that they would bring to bear in a job. It's a simple idea, but a difficult mind-set to fully adopt.

After I finished speaking and the audience dispersed, a woman approached me and introduced herself. She explained that she had recently left her job in book publishing to pursue a career as a real estate agent. She had long been passionate about helping people find their dream homes, and renovating and decorating them. She had a good friend with the same passion, and they had started their own real estate agency. They had a lot of clever ideas, and had put a lot of hard work in, not to mention some money. But the business was not yet profitable.