What I learned from Gene Simmons (the 'god' of Rock -n- Roll) about business

What I learned from Gene Simmons (the 'god' of Rock -n- Roll) about business
Scott Dennison
04-21-08


A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to attend the Glazer-Kennedy Superconference in Nashville and one of the keynote speakers was Gene Simmons of KISS fame.

To be sure, some in attendance were there to revisit their youth, and revel in just being in the room with such a powerful presence.

I had an entirely different reason to sit quietly and write furiously while Gene spoke. The reason is that Gene Simmons is an incredible marketer. If you listened and were focused on the message, he shared more wisdom in a 90 minute session than many of the rest of the speakers did in 3 days combined.

Why would I say that? Because Gene Simmons is a "been there - done that" kind of guy.

Early on he said "life is about the pursuit of more" and then gave example after example of how that philosophy has played out in his life and his businesses.

He demonstrated that he was multi-lingual by speaking in Japanese, Hungarian, German, Hebrew and claimed to be learning Mandarin now. His reason? "When you embrace the dominant culture, you make more money."

I immediately made it a goal of mine to push ahead and begin to study one new language per year.

Gene also explained that his business success started with a childhood project in Junior Achievement, that all of his life he has been "a vampire" for information and that he "loved the library" because of all of the information available for free.

You see, KISS is NOT a rock -n- roll band, it IS a rock -n- roll BRAND! They have over 3000 licensed products bearing the KISS name, have sold over 75 million albums and over 400 million concert tickets and after 30+ years are still going strong.

However, for all the swagger, he still taught us all something powerful when he told a story about the first time he earned $10 million from a business deal and showed the check to his Mom. She said "That's wonderful son! Now what are you going to do?"

I'm encouraging you, as he did for us to "wake up everyday and try to break your own records". It's an objective of mine - to continue to push ahead, to pursue more and to break some records along the way.

KeyThing continues to innovate, improve and work at delivering best of class online video solutions to our customers, which include some of the biggest names in the world of Internet marketing. In case you did not know, we are not a online video hosting company, we are an online video solutions and marketing technologies partner.

We have learned that it's not only possible, its totally likely that you can be viewed as the best at what you do, if you work at it...


~Scott
KeyThing Marketing Technologies