The Sun Also Rises

“This is about condoms?! No. No. No. Take it down, now, get out!”

He was a Hong Konger of yesteryear, the type of grey gentleman whose age was so well worn he could have been living in it for fifty or one hundred and fifty years. He is also one of the greatest tailors of his generation, a purveyor of an elite men's boutique in Beverly Hills who started as a simple shopkeep in Hong Kong nearly a century ago.

On this day, at this moment, he was about to cost us six figures.

We were three-quarters of our way through a shoot with an elite NFL wide receiver on a 24hr break from training camp. Somehow, over the course of three months, we had coaxed him to LA for this shoot, for a new condom sub-brand being launched by a global leader in sexual health.

"But sir, we were clear about this upfront. Didn't my head of prod-"

"No! Not like this! There are condom boxes, everywhere, all over my store, this isn't a porn shop. You all need to go, now!"

There was no debate to be had. The empty shop began to fill from every angle with staff, angry staff, literally taking down our lights.

Was it not clear during the interview we already taped (and he had listened in on) that this was a tongue-in-cheek discussion about condoms? The whole concept we drew up was for our wide receiver to take us through the metaphor of how being custom fit for that perfect suit makes it all feel better... you get the idea.

The last line of the piece was literally "the only thing I don't catch is STIs." We must have shot seven takes.

Yet, the shop owner blew his gasket over the boxes. The boxes of condoms that Tim Simenc, our head of production, the same head of production who had cleared the location's use, had diligently placed all over the store as we prepared to shoot hero b-roll. They were meant to be little easter eggs that the camera could pan in and out from, catching a glimpse here and there.

As the wide receiver was about to be fitted for his custom suit and b-roll played of his metaphorical journey, we'd dot the landscape with a box here or there. Subtle, yet tasteful, you know, like an adorable ornament on a Christmas tree...but like, a condom box.

Maybe there were too many. Sixty boxes? Probably more... we shoot two cameras and a lot of angles.

Can you imagine what was going through this man's brain? Fifty, or possibly one-hundred-and-fifty years of hard, merciless work building his name and good-standing would come crashing down in a pile of condom boxes.

From Hong Kong to Singapore to Shanghai to London to Beverly Hills, this man had reached the apex of his career and we were about to destroy it... in his mind.

All of his regular customers, gone. The Beverly Hills Courier would probably do a piece on how his famed boutique had fallen into smut shop disrepair.

But yet... none of this would be of concern to him any longer. Within 5min of his outburst, the set was broken, the talent had fled, and we were being served with a formal cease and desist.

Tim and I went to lunch. WTF.

Step 1 in a crisis: throw up, rinse off your face, eat, get hydrated.

Step 2 in a crisis: call the client, in this case, the fantastic PR firm who we work with on all of this client's creative work. To their credit, they saw the humor in the situation, while trusting us to 'figure it out.'

Step 3 in a crisis: analyze what went wrong. In big business there's this annoying saying that always seems to be true, "success has many parents, failure is an orphan." In a small entrepreneurial business like ours, it's the inverse. Success can only be a team effort, failure is owned by the leader. At our organization we believe deeply in accountability and mistake transparency -- we get better this way. Tim went first, he said he should've had a more ironclad conversation with the shopkeep, he should've been clearer about the reason why we were there.

Not exactly the whole story. Tim had had concerns about this place from the start, he delivered them to me in his own way, which I should've done a better job identifying. He had clearly been trying to push me to select a second location, a more enthusiastic location, who clearly understood the assignment.

But here's the kicker. I hadn't wanted to hear it. I had fallen in love with this location, a place I knew well and thought was perfect for the shoot. Tim knew this and likely suppressed his own well developed opinion to tell me it wasn't right.

Tim's mistake wasn't in persuading the shopkeep, it was in not pushing me to see an inconvenient truth; the shop wasn't the best custom fit (or feel) for this project.

What did we learn? Don't let me dictate anything on a feeling, push back with hard facts when they exist and present the alternative as the better option.

Step 4 in a crisis: clean up the mess. Owning a six figure loss this early on in a business could be catastrophic. The talent and all our crew had performed their duties that day. They deserved payment in full, no questions asked.

We, on the other hand, with an empty hard drive (the shop made us physically delete all the files), had nothing to deliver to our client.

We didn't deserve to be paid, no questions asked.

We called the talent's reps. This began a multi-day conversation built on apologies, empathy and understanding. To their immense credit, they could see how bleak the situation was on our end, and while they could have raked us over the coals with all the leverage in the world, they didn't. Why? It's not just that they're genuinely good people (they are), we had also built such a strong comraderie during the initial dealmaking process that they trusted us to make it right.

Lesson for another day, the real world isn't Ari Gold world, leaving leverage on the table actually helps you win in the long run. Appreciation and respect will always win the day.

It just so happened the wide receiver would be back in two weeks, at the edge of our delivery deadline, but maneuvarable enough to build into our existing production schedule.

Here's how they (rightfully) did use their leverage... we'd only get 30min of his time (down from 3hrs). We'd make due with anything.

Step 5 in a crisis; deliver. While failure would've rightly resided with me, the only reason this project would turn out to be successful was because of our incredible team and partners. Our new location, the original location Tim had found and recommended, Carroll Customs, was generous, understanding and all about the condom boxes...everywhere.

Our incredible crew, working a loooonnnng day, was more than willing to sprint to Beverly Hills for our manic afternoon production after an early call time deep in the Antelope Valley for another project.

Talent and his reps were remarkable; he was on time and game ready to work through everything he'd already said and done (nothing more annoying)... in a slightly different set up, and in 1/6th the time.

The result -- client happy, talent happy, crew happy... and a bottom line hit of less than 10% of what it could've been when the lights got pulled down two weeks earlier.

Listen to your teammates, trust their advice. In a tough situation, it's better to have banked respect and appreciation than leverage.

Happy new year everyone! See you in 2022.