683 Charlie Fusco:

Do you love your clients? Do you work with people you like, people who you would go to the ends to the earth to support? All too often the fear of scarcity makes us compromise, makes us ‘settle’ for clients that are not aligned with our mission. Clients who don’t really appreciate your value because they simply aren’t aligned with it. My guest today – Charlie Fusco  – is all about engineering transformational outcomes for her clients – and she knows how to be uncompromising about making sure you’re attracting what’s in alignment with your mission.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game-changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who grew up in film and television, both in the “acting world” and in the “business world”, and now uniquely combines these both to ensure transformational outcomes for her clients.

Charlie Fusco is the CEO and founder of TGC Worldwide, a company which manages personal brand evolutions. TGC has put clients on the New York Times Bestseller lists, secured them movie deals, expanded their charities, and other achievements most think “impossible.”

Charlie is a force of nature, and I met her some time ago because we were both in the same entrepreneur group, Maverick. In fact, Charlie was the very person who told me I must launch a podcast, and here we are.

Today we’re going to talk about how to play a big game in alignment with your purpose – and why it’s vital to work with clients who want to play as big a game as you.

Charlie Fusco grew up in film and television, both in the “acting world” and in the “business world”.  Her father was a screenwriter who owned both a finance and film distribution company, and her mother was a top real estate agent in Los Angeles. Charlie’s been on-set, off-set, on-screen, off-screen, in editing suites, and in funding meetings since the age of 6. Creativity, sales, negotiating, business, and entrepreneurial grit are in her bloodline. So it’s no surprise she pulls off extraordinary outcomes for all her clients.

She started out back in 1995 doing copywriting for clients like Tony Robbins and radio hosts like Howard Stern before moving on to produce TV infomercials, 50+ radio infomercials, managing talent negotiations and more.

In 2001, she started her agency, Synergixx. Quickly, her agency hit $10M in annual revenue and maintained a yearly revenue average of $15M. Charlie produced hundreds of TV and radio commercials, print campaigns, and online campaigns, while expanding Synergixx’s service offerings by creating a 200+ seat inbound call center as well as a full media buying agency. You name the product, and she has probably helped sell it. Charlie has also been sought out by hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, and angel investors for her advice on acquisitions based on her industry reputation. Then in 2018, she turned her full attention to starting and scaling TGC Worldwide, which manages personal brand evolutions. TGC has put clients on the NYT Bestseller lists, secured them movie deals, expanded their charities, and other achievements most think “impossible.” Whether ghostwriting a book, directing documentaries, developing social media strategies, negotiating reality show deals, or directing a photoshoot – That Girl Charlie – still considers herself a master storyteller with a passion for putting more good into the world.

Today we talk about the necessity for a strong personal brand, plus how to qualify your clients, social impact and much more, including Charlie’s “no jerk list”. So, listen on and be sure to join the conversation with Charlie and me over on Podopolo, the must-download app for personalized and interactive podcasting.

Now let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Charlie Fusco.

Melinda Wittstock:

Charlie, welcome to Wings.

Charlie Fusco:

Thank you, Melinda. I really appreciate the invite.

Melinda Wittstock:

I know. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, so I’m so excited to get to know everything that you’ve been up to, and it’s a lot. I mean, you have yet another company now that’s doing amazing things for your clients across everything, from ghost writing their books, to their PR. Tell us about some of the folks that you’ve been helping lately and what impact that you’re have having, because I know it’s big.

Charlie Fusco:

Well, I appreciate that. Everything seems bigger from far away or close up, but we are really poorly focused in TGC working with a very specific set of people. I’ll just define those people first because then it’ll make sense the type of people we’re working with and what we’re doing with them. We really have a criteria of five things, if you want to be a client of ours. The number one is that whatever you’re doing selling, teaching, talking about passionate about today has to be relevant in 10 years, or we don’t want to work with you. Because we don’t want to be developing people or products or brands or messaging that’s temporary. So that’s the first thing.

Number two is that whatever you’re talking about selling, teaching, passionate about today a 15-year-old, you have to explain it to them in two sentences and they have to say, “Hmm, not for me, but I understand why it’s in important.” I think that’s a really great litmus test because in 10 years, the 15-year-old is going to be your audience, and if they don’t get it now that it’s important, it’s not going to be important in 10 years. Third, we only work with people who are seeing their personal brand as a business and that business is meant to propel something forward. People think we’re in PR and publicity, but we don’t just want to put people on the front of a magazine. There has to be a reason and they have to look at themselves like a business so that we can judge that success.

The fourth one is that in some capacity they have to be doing give back where they have a foundation, they donate to charity, they’re raising money with their project for a certain thing, but it’s very important that they’re giving back in their platform. And then number four, and this is our biggest one. We make all of our clients sign a no jerk clause, which I actually paid my attorney $5,000 to draft. And it defines what a jerk is in our real relationship. And if you do any of those things, we can terminate the relationship immediately.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that. The no jerk clause. So like what is in the no jerk clause? I think everybody in business needs to copy this.

Charlie Fusco:

I mean, I’ll hand it away. You guys can all have it, but you know, anybody who’s been in business Melinda and has had multiple companies and started young, you just get to that place where you’re like, “I’m done working with jerks.” And that doesn’t mean you don’t work with people that you don’t agree with or that maybe you don’t like personally, or you wouldn’t have a cocktail with. It just means that when people exhibit poor manners, you don’t have to continue. So what we’ve found is if anybody asks us why they have to sign the jerk clause, we know right away that they’re not going to be a client.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. If you’re afraid of the no jerk clause, then chances are you’re probably a bit of a jerk.

Charlie Fusco:

Exactly.

Charlie Fusco:

So one of the reasons that those five things are so core to our business is because I spent about 18 years, almost two decades selling anything you could possibly sell on TV, print, radio, endorsement in the infomercial space. So pills, potions, lotions, if it could kill you, we cured you on television. I woke up one day and I just had this moment and I was like, “Wow, look at that. I have seven fish oil infomercials on TV right now. Seven different companies hired me. The infomercials are all doing really well. The stories are all different. Oh my goodness, I am an ex expert literally at selling fish oil on TV.” So it ends up in the CVS aisle on discount and I went, “This is like a complete waste of my powers.”

And so when we started TGC, I sold that other agency in 2018 and I said, “Look, we’re not going to represent products anymore. We’re not going to make billion dollar brands that come in a bottle and can get replaced. We are going to go and find the people in the world who have the means, have the desire and the follow through to put good in the world.” And if we can amplify those platforms and those personal brands and connect them to each other, then by definition, our company TGC Worldwide becomes a literally responsible for more good in the world.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s a flywheel where there’s benefits all along the chain. I love what you’re talking about, about social impact, but also about connecting people in a way that allows business to be used for transformation.

Charlie Fusco:

We have one company that we work with and when this pandemic hit, everyone just went, “Okay, who’s going to get a paycheck and who’s not? And that was when it first started. And now you’ve got huge companies going, “I just need to hire people. I can’t fill the positions fast enough.” So two ends of that drum and what we were so fortunate to do, because honestly Melinda, when they said shut down, and non-essential businesses, I thought, “Well, there is nothing more non-essential than what I do for a living.”

So I was like, “Great, well, you’re into this new agency, I’ve got to start over.” The exact opposite happened. We had so many CEOs primarily initially from all over the globe calling us and saying, “Hey, you need to help us tell our story. You need to help us transition through this. What do we say? What do we tell our employees? What do we tell our customers? How do we our models and transition them? How can I get my story out there. And so we actually had knock on wood, a boom of business because there was such a need to identify the right story to tell.

Melinda Wittstock:

All crises, particularly pandemics are catalysts for change. Looking at the pandemic now two years in, I guess, because it’s two years. Looking at it and you think of how fast change accelerated during that period. So when you’re sitting in your house or apartment, you can’t go anywhere. It’s a great time to reflect. It’s a great a time to see how the world is changing. Either people seized it or they binge watched movies. Maybe a little bit of both, but you know. But that’s so interesting. So all these CEOs of companies what they realize now it’s a completely different environment and so they need a personal brand to represent their business brand. Is there a tie in there in terms of the people that you work with?

Charlie Fusco:

I think most people in business could put themselves in one of these three categories. So we have what I call the Steve Jobs CEO. They invented the iPhone, he has this huge company and now he’s on the legacy portion of his life. Richard Branson has all these companies, but right now they are using their personal influence, their brand and their time to create change in the world, whether it’s through their foundation work, through mentoring, through using their celebrity to raise money for things. That’s what they’re doing. So who they are and what they stand for increases their ability to create that change.

So, I’d say about half of our clients fit into that category and they could still be working in their business as a founder or CEO, but they’re not in the business. And of course, their personal brand reflects on that business, but they really are now moving on to legacy and significance and making real change in the world. So, we have clients in the UK that Forbes named the the Godfather of Impact Investing. The man never has to work again, but he is committed to bringing transparency to how people invest their money in products and services that aren’t doing good in the world. And so there’s some brilliant tech coming out of there.

We have worked with a gentleman who owns a company that employs 3,000 women at any given point in time and allows them to work the way they need to, where they are in their family. And it’s around sales, but he built this engine for women who want to have children or who want to go to school or who want to be in transition from career-to-career to come in and have this secure paycheck.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing.

Charlie Fusco:

He has a transgender child. And so he has a foundation. And so he puts these women to work and at the same time, a portion of profit he makes from their sales goes, and now he’s opened three educational centers in and around where parents who need more education if they have a child that is transgender or coming into that awakening can go and actually get education. So that’s an amazing person that we worked with during the pandemic. One of the clients we’ve had for the longest is the founder and CEO of a company called Aegis Living.

They’re out of the Pacific Northwest and they own what I call this four seasons luxury assisted living and memory care companies where you go there and you’re just like, “I would stay here on a business trip.” But they’re taking care of America’s seniors. Our mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers are going there. Some just to live out their days comfortably and not feeling worried or nervous about falling their homes. Some because they have advanced memory issues, but they’ve created this massive environment where it respects the senior population. It nurtures centurions and really brings a lot of awareness to that group. But this company in particular pours in so much to their employees.

We do this amazing event every January called EPIC, Empowering People, Inspiring Consciousness, which is the founder’s whole goal is to bring his senior leadership together for three days, talk no business, but bring to them speakers and authors and celebrities and activities in a three-day-period that make them better humans around a theme. And so we executive produce that every year.

Melinda Wittstock:

How fantastic I’m just so moved by it because I’ve always seen business as a way to do good in the world. I mean, you can build a business, it can leave the world a better place than you found it or not. And increasingly now it’s imperative. People have to do it, but the other thing that I love Charlie, about hearing you talk is that you are so crystal clear about exactly who your customers and clients are. There’s has a lot of people who flounder in business because they don’t know that. Was that something you always knew through all the different businesses that you’ve run?

Charlie Fusco:

Oh, is this the part of the podcast where I lie and say, yes?

Melinda Wittstock:

No. We love it when people are transparent about we can destigmatize the inevitable fail forwards along the path.

Charlie Fusco:

Well, I think there’s two comments to that. The quick one I think is that we have to understand that one, in 2022 I think the number is like 70% of the globe is now digital. All that means in is that our campfires and the stories we tell at the campfire are more closely and quickly connected than ever before in history. And I think in 2022, the Fundata math was that something like 1.7 megabytes of data was being transferred every second. And so now two years later, you that it’s in the trillions. Like people are spending like 12 trillion hours online. And so what that is, is huge opportunity for businesses and people to be really clear with their messaging, and at the same time, it’s a huge black hole of, you can get lost if you’re not saying the right stuff to the right people at the right time.

So that’s one answer. I think the answer you’re looking for is have I always known that? What I know to my core is true is that I’ve been a storyteller since I think I came out of the womb. My dad was in the film scripting business. I have grown up on television sets and film sets. I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker since I could remember. I actually went into Northwestern to pursue that and then Boston University and was going to get a master’s in publishing because for me writing about other people’s stories has always just been something that comes naturally and is passionately part of who I am. But life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it.

And so, I don’t know, age 14 through not too long ago, I always felt that girl running. I was just always running from my environment, what I grew up in and that poverty. And then I was running to try to get through college and pay through college and succeed and get a job that I could get there. And then when I got a job, I was running to figure out, could I get good at that job and would they keep me, would I get fired? Then I started my own company and I was like running, because I didn’t have any business training and I didn’t have anything. So I was always running away from failure or running away from that thing I wouldn’t be able to fix if it happened to me whether that was financial or business hack or any of those.

Charlie Fusco:

So I just spent a huge portion of my life running. I think when you’re running, it’s figuratively right. Everything’s blurry in your peripheral vision. I think that’s the one big takeaway that when people say, “Hey, I’m in my place of success.” I just always think about it like, “Okay, is anything blurry?” And if it is, it means you’re still running from something. Running from bad systems or bad teams or bad financial planning or bad business practices or you just being bad at being clear on your own of what you want as a business owner. So I got to this place where I thought, when am I going to get to that place where I can just walk. Where I don’t have to run.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. You can just enjoy and just be uniquely you and all your talents.

Charlie Fusco:

Exactly. And so I feel like there’s these phases of business ownership and specifically I would think women can see this a little bit clearer sometimes because we have these moments when all of a sudden we decide to have kids and that’s a great idea. And that becomes part of the business we’re doing or we have these moments in our life, but I feel like all women and entrepreneurs, especially can identify with this concept of running? You’re just running to make it happen. And then you get to this point of awakening where you’re like, “You know what, I’m going to give something up. I’m going to sell the business. I’m going to bring in a CEO that knows what they’re doing. I’m going to ask for help. I’m going to change my business model. I’m going to do whatever it takes, because I’m way eating to walk. I just want to walk and be not a crazy person.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, it does take a while because I think for a lot of women, I think it’s changing now, but where all the role models were meant. So, we were trying to fit ourselves into what we thought or this life of should’s, what we thought we should be doing and of just reinventing business. I think women are finding a lot more confidence to do business in a different way to really create it around their unique abilities. Basically, double down on your strengths, hire your weaknesses, have that awareness and have the awareness of what you actually want and the confidence to just go for it.

Over the last 20 years or so, that’s changed a lot. I think there’s still a lot of women who are stuck in that running realm as you talk about it and tend to, for instance, hire too late or have this perfectionism drive that makes them think they have to do everything, which no, you don’t.

Charlie Fusco:

I totally agree. The phase for me is once you figured out you could walk, it’s not like walk, run, jump. It’s like you figure out you can walk and then you’re like, “Wait a minute, now I’m going to just jump.” Because you get to a place where you’re like, “Yeah, if that doesn’t work out, I’m okay. If this relationship doesn’t work out, it’ll be fine. I can do it again.” And that I think, comes with repetition in your career and in your work, but also being adaptive. One of the most concrete examples of that I think is two years ago, nobody really thought about QR codes.

Charlie Fusco:

They were this thing and maybe they’d work and we don’t know. And now everyone looks at QR codes cause it’s how you go to a restaurant. Now that has become commonplace and it was that adaptability of restaurants and people to say, okay, we’re not going to shut down. We’re going to give people what they want in a different way, and then people adapting to that change.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Now that’s how you sign up for a Coinbase account via the Super Bowl as well.

Charlie Fusco:

Exactly. Right? [crosstalk 00:18:03] like the brilliant. It is simple as that. I think that is all of a sudden, whether it’s a pandemic or your business partner screws you, or guess what the product and service you’re selling is no longer important, you just have to… you know you’ve made it as a business entrepreneur if you’re like, “All right, no problem. I’ll just jump to the next thing. I’ll just jump.” And it no longer becomes like an endurance event. Can I run faster and longer? Can I walk further and farther? It’s like, “Okay, I’m cool making hard decisions. I’m going to jump to the next thing because I’ll land on my feet.” And you just know that to be true.

So that is, I think, a mental journey that every woman entrepreneur and I’m positive men do too but speaking for us ladies. I think just to go back to one of your other questions, which is why are women not making the right decisions in business? I don’t know that I can make that as an overarching statement. What I can tell you based on what we do at the agency is that I think a lot, we are so focused on the wrong story and storytelling has never, ever been more important than it is right now in this moment. And the world is in such an incredibly open and liberating place. Some may not think that’s true, but it is in the sense that pretty much in the story goes now.

You can talk about race and gender and wealth disparity, and you can talk about changes in business, and you can talk about politics and you can talk about the environment and what is important to you and people. The world is open to hearing all those stories and people have passionate opinions, but the world is open. It’s not like in the past that you couldn’t talk about things openly. What I think is so brilliant is that our storytelling, I always say that we’re media agnostic or storytelling agnostic.

When we put an author on the New York Times Bestseller list, that’s as important to us for our client as when we sell their life story into Netflix for a docuseries or when we produce a live event for them that accomplishes their charitable outcome or when their social platform, their TikTok goes to 5 million. They’re all the same thing. Their story and their message reaching the right people in the right way at the right time. And so I think when the problem I would tell you is that a lot of people come to us and they say, “Hey, I want to write a New York Times bestselling book and we heard you’re the girl to come to.” “Okay, sure. Let’s talk about that.”

A lot of times the story they’re telling is just not the right story. A lot of times, it’s very like inter-focused. They want to tell their story of growing up poverty stricken, or they want to tell their story of how they struggled in business and somehow believe that their story is going to translate to the masses. Well, the masses can tell the same story. So I think in business, it’s not like what the business owner has created and it’s not what the business owner has struggled through to create this amazing thing. The story a business needs to tell is about the other person.

And so I think that’s been very much crystallized for the last four years. We’ve been very focused on… I think we have 40 books a year that we put out for our clients. We have seven different film and streaming projects happening at any one point in time from life story rights to films, to docu-series. We have seven live events that we work through the year.

Melinda Wittstock:

Congratulations on all that. That’s amazing. but something you said here is just so important that needs to stand out. It’s about the other people. It’s not the narcissist me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Look at me, look what I had to go through, but what’s the impact that you made on other people? What was the change? I think that’s what I’m hearing you say, which is critical to all things marketing. Why should anyone else care?

Charlie Fusco:

Right. It’s like your sad story is no better or less than my sad story, but our two sad stories combined don’t fix anything. There’s a colleague of mine who I’ll have to give this credit to because for long time, I couldn’t articulate what we’re talking about right now, which is like, “Okay, now what, who cares about that story if I cannot take something from it that’s applicable and change worthy?” And there’s a gentleman by the name of Michael A. Hall, not the actor, but generally just Michael A. Hall and he is one of the principle guys over at a company called Culture Index. They do data analytics on people.

He talks about what he calls the platinum rule. We all grew up with the golden rule which is be nice to the other person, because that’s how you’d want them to treat you. Do unto others as you want done unto you. And so we go out in the world and we’re like, “Well, I’m going to talk to my customer the way I want to be talked to, or I’m going to talk to my investors the way I want to talk to, or my friends or I’m going to write a book about how I want other people to see me.” But the platinum rule says, no, you should do one to others as they would want you to do to them. How do you want to be treated? You should find out from the other per and then you treat them the way they want to be treated and that’s what he talks about is the platinum rule.

And when he goes in and does corporate consulting and things and you start thinking about, oh, I’m talking to my employees the way I would want to be talked to, but then we’re all different humans. Some of us thrive on stress. Some of us are introvert. We have to meet people where they are not where we are. I think whether you’re writing a book or having a film about your life, I think part of the way women get stuck is they get stuck telling their own story. It’s so hard to emotionally disconnect because there’s pain in your story. I think women like to hang out in their pain, because it feels powerful that they lived through it. But sometimes that’s not really the story that helps transform anyone. It’s more of the joy you can bring other people or showing them that. Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes, it does. It absolutely does. It ties back to what you were saying about the five things to qualify to work with you. The two sentences you tell a 15-year-old who can say yes, I can see why this is important and will be 10 years from now. To me it ties back to that. And how many people, Charlie, with all your experience and everything done. Like really, since you were a six-year-old, of course. How many people can actually do that? Actually have the clarity of that or actually have a business model that is able to do that where they can see 10 years ahead and know what they’re doing is truly transformational. I mean, not very many.

Charlie Fusco:

You, well, I agree and I would say, but you have to because that’s where an adaptation and being able to adapt to change happens. The last two years flew by. It feels like call it the blip. We all were somewhere, somebody snapped their fingers and it’s two years later and we’re all peeking through. But if you can’t see something like flaws 10 years, then you need a business coach or you need a spiritual coach or you need a marital coach or you need somebody to come and just slap you and go, “Wait a minute, lady, you’re the girl running because you can’t see where you’re going to be in 10 years or where your product or your service or your charity or your passion or story is going to be in 10 years.”

And you got to get to walk in so you can just see things more clearly.

I think the process is when we have clients come to us, we do what we call a workshop with them, or we’ll go for a day. And it’s very difficult to explain to anybody why they would go through this. They’re like, “I wrote a book, I just want to market it.” I’m like, “Nope, we’re going to go and make sure you wrote the book the right way that the marketing’s cracked. That you can pre-sell the book. That the book is open to foreign distribution rights. That maybe it does qualify for a film adaptation. But more importantly, we want to make sure you wrote the right book because who cares if you make USA Today or Wall Street journal or New York Times, if nobody wants to read the book. Who cares?

And when we go through those days, we spend a very long day and there’s white boarding and all sorts of things that happen. And 9.5 times out of 10, the client will look at me and go, this has been the most crystal clear I’ve ever been about myself, my personal brand and what I want to do in the world.

Melinda Wittstock:

God there’s so much going on there. Because the longer I’ve been in business, the more I realize that if you want therapy, just become an entrepreneur because it brings all your personal shit. I mean, it does and you have to contend with it because you’re… If you’re doing it right, there are going to be more times than not when you’re out of your comfort zone because that’s where you’re growing. But it is a constant at growth curve where you’re becoming more self-aware and more clear about your unique differentiator.

Like who are you? Why are you here in your earth suit right now and what’s your why? It’s reminding me of that great book by Jim Collins, Built to Last, where the great companies are the ones that drive towards innovation. Do you think women think big enough about that?

Charlie Fusco:

I could answer that question a couple of different ways. Again, I don’t know what most women would feel. I know the women I’ve met in life and what I’ve observed. I do think that people in general, whether they’re male, female, or other business CEO with 20 years’ experience or just getting started, I think there’s always this potential that they don’t invest enough in themselves as the top of their brand or the top of their business whether it’s in education or getting out there networking or even doing it correctly.

We get a lot of off that will come to us. Most of our clients are authors just because it’s a platform building, but how people get to us is they want to write a book. And so they’ll say, “Yep, I’m going to self-publish on Amazon and I want to be a bestseller and I want to do all these things.” “Cool. Who designed your book cover?” “Oh, I got it done by a graphic designer that I know.” “Has that graphic designer ever done book covers? “No, but they did a good job. Look at the book cover.” They don’t even invest enough time to figure out what makes a great book. Just like you’ve heard tons of podcasts. They’re not all great.

Melinda Wittstock:

They’re not all great. We have five million of them. It’s one of the reasons why we have our recommendation engine actually evaluates them for quality as well as matching them to people’s interests for that exact reason. Some of them are amazing and undiscovered, others are not so good and very well covered because there’s lots of money behind them or they had a head start or lots of different reasons. [crosstalk 00:30:07]

Charlie Fusco:

Good. So when you ask the question about women and building companies that could have transformation as part of their output, I don’t actually believe that everyone can be transformative. I don’t actually believe everyone can be inspirational to others. I don’t believe that they can create change. Just in the same way that not everyone’s going to be a great podcast host or be able to write on a most amazing book or have a life that’s worthy to be binge worthy on HBO Max. I don’t think that we’re all made that way. But we want to. We want to be change makers and transformational. I just don’t think that’s accurate.

When it comes to building companies right now, whether you’re female or otherwise, I think we should really start thinking about building communities or tribes and calling those companies because right now, I mean, my kids, they don’t want to work for a company. They want to work for something they believe in.

Melinda Wittstock:

For a mission. Oh God, that’s so true. I mean, so when everyone talks about the great resignation. What people are resigning from is just being a drone, doing something mindless that has no mission, has no purpose. Because Podopolo itself has a social impact mission right at the heart of it where it’s the only podcast app where, fully realized, you’ll be making an impact just by listening to a podcast. We have no problem recruiting people. No problem at all.

Charlie Fusco:

Think about this, that is great that your business model is able to have that impact and that transformation. But I don’t know that everyone has the ability to build that into their company or their business model, but they do have the ability to create a tribe or a community with the people in their business life to say, “Hey, we’re all going to be around shared values and common interests and we’re all going to support whether it’s charities or other transformation. I think the transformation comes when people feel like they belong. They work harder. They work better. They work smarter.

I mean, I’m not the only one saying this. It’s the future of work. But I think as business builders, if we really think about our job, our job should be sure to have something unique and different and price properly and all those things to read in the business books, but our job really should be creating a community or tribe. And so now if you go back and you ask yourself that question in 10 years, will, what I’m talking about teaching, selling or passionate about today, be relevant? Well, maybe you have to change your paper menu to a QR code, but you’re still relevant because you created a community or a tribe of people that are going to help you adapt, that are going to help you move as fast as technology is moving.

Melinda Wittstock:

Not only that, but they’re going to, whether they’re your customers or your employees, they’re more likely to refer others like them to that community or tribe where you get them into a situation where your employees are referring other great people to you when it’s time to hire or your customers are promoting you to others. To get to that sweet spot, I think you’re absolutely right there has to be some sort of community or mission where people feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

Charlie Fusco:

Yeah. I mean, I think that there’s that. And so that’s a long-winded way to say that when you’re struggling in business or when you’re struggling to scale or when you’re not sure if you want to get bigger, smaller, or even start another business, I think that’s separate. That’s business logistics. That’s do you have everything priced correctly? Do you have the right profit margin? Are you in the right location? All of that. But when it comes to you as a business owner and who you are, and if inspired even by your own daily life, I think you have to come back to what story am I telling? And will anybody care in 10 years that I told the story? That’s I think the very clear indicator of where people can answer their own questions.

Melinda Wittstock:

So people listening now, given that the world is changing so fast, who knows what the world’s going to be like 10 years from now? I mean, there are certain trends. Maybe we’ll all be using crypto. Maybe there won’t be any offices. I don’t know. You know what I mean? So when you’re looking at those opportunities and what we take out our crystal ball for anyone listening here, how many people actually really know, and how do you help people figure out like do they have something that’s going to be relevant 10 years from now?

Charlie Fusco:

Those are all great questions. What I would say is that there isn’t a magic formula. There’s not a survey or a workbook, or I’m definitely not out one of those online take a course gurus and at the end of the course you’ll know everything because there’s a blend of logic and opportunity and passion and wherewithal that goes into building a personal brand or a platform. I’ll tell you, we have another client that we’re lucky enough just to bring on board. He was in a place and I think this will answer some of that question.

He was in a place where he was retiring. Retiring early and never having to work again. And he was happy with that because he had been working since he was 17 and great life, family, the whole thing. And right when the pandemic hits, the other thing that hit was his son came down with a very rare form of cancer. And so on one hand, “Great. I’m retired. I can spend of my time trying to help my son heal.” Would’ve been one option. There’s another option of, “I can keep doing what I’m doing and see what happens.”

Well, what he decided to do was he opened a foundation, took all the money that he had been donating for years to other charities and put it all into this foundation and then he reopened two businesses specifically to generate more profit, to put into those foundation, so he and his son put sponsor other kids that don’t have their resources that have the same cancer. When you tell that story, first you can say, wow, that’s pretty unbelievable that he would do that. But I think your clarity, a lot of the times comes to you in a weird way. When we talk through with people, this is a guy who said, I don’t want any publicity. I don’t want to have a personal brand. I just want you to make these two platforms successful to drive more traffic and profit to this charity because I want to help these kids.

By the time we were done, he said, “No, I absolutely understand why I have to be the face of this and I understand how my face is going to propel it. I also understand how my son seeing me put a face to this is a measure that he has of how much I believe in his recovery.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, how beautiful. I love the transformation in that. The reluctant hero in a way because it wasn’t really about him and he knew that instinctively, but then came to understand that actually in order to achieve his objectives, he had to step into this bigger, more public role and then the benefits of that. I mean, what you’re talking about, Charlie and I get the sense people working with you are going through not only a business transformation, but a very personal one.

Charlie Fusco:

Yeah. Very much so. Guess what? Business is personal especially if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re laying it on the line.

Melinda Wittstock:

It is. Oh my God. Does it have [crosstalk 00:38:36]

Charlie Fusco:

It’s personal. It’s your marriage or your relationship. I think that’s where a lot of the times it comes back to the me story, like my pain, my personal risk, my this, I want to tell you about it. And I’m like, “Okay, you can but we’re all in this together. We all have the same personal story.” But I think what I love doing and we’re working with people is that now this gentleman is going to tell a very different story that’s going to be very helpful. I think right now, just going back to storytelling and may be people listening to this, this will be a great business idea for them.

We talked earlier about how much content’s being delivered in the world and whether it’s digital or on television or books or whatever. Just people are consuming, consuming, consuming at a rate we’ve never seen and that’s not going to go away. So now big boy brands. The red bulls of the world on down, they’re looking for great content that doesn’t have to even be about them. Red Bull Studios right now is looking for amazing stories that exemplify their brand ethics but they don’t even want to say that it’s a Red Bull production. They want to sponsor it. They want to put more of their ethics into the world.

So there’s big money out there that says, “Hey, help me tell the right story. Just point me in the right direction.” And then you’ve got mid-level companies that are saying, “Hey, I’ve got products and services that would do well attached to the right story.” And then you’ve got reality shows that are literally manufacturing new stories. You can see people you’ve never met before do amazing things. TikTok is unbelievable right now because there’s women that are supporting their entire family based on the stories they’re telling there.

And so what love to do is to say, how can we connect everyone’s need for content in the way that makes sense. I’ll tell you one of the projects we’re working on right now that I’m super excited about for two reasons. One, as I mentioned earlier, we wanted to be a company that put more good in the world. Our personal contribution outside of doing that is that we want to take on certain personal brands pro bono. Stories that don’t have the means to be told, but we would do it for them because they deserve it. And so this year we were able to sign a lady named Erika Sandor-Zur and her story’s pretty incredible, but the business lesson is what I want you to take out of this.

For 20 years, she was a crack addict. She had a hit of crack at her first job in high school and it was one of those that she was immediately hooked and spent the next 20 years, I think it was 19 times in and out of rehab, doing everything horrible you could possibly imagine you would do to self as a crack addict, including losing her two children. And where she and I met when she was referred to me by a producer that said, “Charlie, I just have this woman and I don’t know what to do with her, but would you watch her reel?” And I did.

When she was in high school, she was moving on to be a tennis pro. She was doing the circuit. When she lost her children and some other things happened, she looked to tennis and said, “If I’m going to stay sober forever, I need to replace some habits in my world.” And so she started playing tennis, but she got her story told to Nick Bollettieri. She got it because she went there. She tracked him down at IMG. She made sure he saw her play and then she told him her story and he agreed to take her on and coach her because her dream is to win the Grand Slam at the age of 45. She’s 41 now

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing.

Charlie Fusco:

She’s gotten her children back and she’s got… Nick’s this assembled this amazing coaching team for her. She’s actually in the Dominican Republic today at a tournament. But she doesn’t have the ability to tell her story. She is the most positive inspirational person and she has actionable items, not just about how she kicked this addiction, but the work she’s put in. And she also looks unbelievable. Like her physical transformation is incredible. She trains eight hours a day and I’ll tell you this in a moment.

So the story I want to write about her in a book that I believe would be turned into a movie is not about how she was a crack addict or how she wins the Grand Slam am or any of the juiciness in between. It’s about when she made the commitment to become sober, she had to learn how to do a lot of firsts again. Have her first real romantic relationship that wasn’t in trade for money and sex. She had to learn how to have her first job. She had to learn how to be a mom for the first time again, because she never did those things when she was an addict. I think it’s so powerful in people having to commit to saying, “I’m going to learn how to do this at 40 years old.” And committing to doing it. Where we have-

Melinda Wittstock:

For everybody, which is so many people who have to do something for the first time and have a fear of it and therefore not don’t do it. I mean, I see the through line there which is so strong. I mean that’s…

Charlie Fusco:

Yeah. Now, let’s jump to business because nobody’s going to hear this woman’s story if she doesn’t get sponsorship to go to the Grand Slam because it’s about $800,000 a year to compete as a tennis player to even get to the Grand Slam because you need to bring your coaches on tour. You need to qualify for the tournaments. You have travel and there’s three to four tournaments a month. Every month you have to do in order to qualify. You don’t just get to be Venus Williams overnight. There’s huge amounts of money there, but nobody knows this woman.

Charlie Fusco:

So what our team is doing is we’ve now gone out and secured her three initial sponsors that are paying for her road travel. We are sponsoring her and redeveloping her whole brand. So we’ll be launching her new site and things. We’ve just got her a part in the documentary about beating your genetic health and longevity, but we’ve gone out to big brands and we’ve said, “Hey, even if this woman doesn’t win the Grand Slam at 45, wouldn’t she love the next three years to follow her story as a brand supporter so that mothers that are struggling or women or addicts or recovery, you can track that with your brand. The brands are like, absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s a no brainer because any brand that has exactly those customers will want to be associated with that.

Charlie Fusco:

At the same time, she has a decent Instagram following like 100,000, but then we’re also then going and saying, wait a minute, you need to have another job besides tennis that doesn’t pay out any money until you win the big games. So we’ve then come back and said, “Hey, we’re going to get you brands to pay you to obviously talk about their product on your Instagram while you’re on tour. So there’s two sides of that core and really shaping that for her and guess what? The brands are willing to do it because they’re like, “We need another influencer that has a story that’s authentic and people want to follow and is inspirational and makes sense.”

She’s a mother at 41. She’s got two kids. She’s training every day. She has to pay her bills. She’s married to the love of her life now. Those are all great stories in a influencer campaign. So now that’s the story connecting that I think businesses and women could look at and say, “How are my customer stories connected to the end product? Or how’s my end product can benefit somebody else’s story?” And really looking at your business as a seat at the campfire. How do you tell that story so that it makes your business stronger and more communal and have more longevity?

Melinda Wittstock:

I love it. Charlie, I could talk to you for a lot longer. So you will have to come back on this podcast. I feel that we could dig deep into any one of these themes and do a full 40 minutes on any one of them. But I want to make sure that people… Okay, so you can’t be a jerk. You’ve heard all the criteria, but if you’re listening to this and you want to work with Charlie, what’s the best way Charlie, for people to find and figure out whether it’s a good fit to work with you?

Charlie Fusco:

Sure. I appreciate it. So my personal website, which is like one page big, there’s not a lot on there is thatgirlcharlie.com. Our company website is TGC Worldwide, which stands for That Girl Charlie Worldwide. That’s a long story. And on there, you can reach out to me directly. Email is on there, which is just simple, charlie@tgcworldwide.com. I’m on social. I’m not as active as people would think, but I’m on social and it’s pretty easy to find me. I’m just Charlie Fusco.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Thank you so much for putting on your Wings and flying with us, Charlie.

Charlie Fusco:

I super appreciate the invite and Melinda, congratulations, because people didn’t hear before, but whatever it was number of years ago, I said, “Hey, I think you’d be good at a podcasting.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes you did.

Charlie Fusco:

Here you are seven episodes. I mean, that’s stamina and you really built a business. You didn’t just build a podcast. So I’m super, super proud of you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, well thank you so much. I remember we were at, I think it was Camp Maverick and I said, “Hey, I’m thinking of writing a book about the female entrepreneurial journey. I had this whole book and all the chapters mapped out in my mind and you were like, yeah. But you’ve been a tech entrepreneur. You don’t really have the… I forget you said a whole bunch of things to me that made a lot of sense. Why don’t you start a podcast? And within six weeks…

Charlie Fusco:

You were in jump mode.

Melinda Wittstock:

I just absolutely did it. But it’s amazing because not only just all the benefits of podcasting. I think every single interview I do is just such a marvelous conversation. I always learn a lot. I’ve hired people who guest on my podcast. They’ve hired me. And it really led me to Podopolo. Really understanding the big pain points in the podcasting industry. So, gosh, no, thank you for that.

Charlie Fusco:

If you have two minutes, I have one thing I’ll just share with you that I think it answers one of your earlier questions. When it comes to women in business, I think the number one mistake women make is that they shouldn’t be in business a lot of the time. They think they want to and so they start a company and then it’s like a company of one or three. I’m so frustrated by this on two fronts. One, it leads to a life of stress and anxiety and Botox because you want to be a business owner and you can’t. And the reason I know this is true is because I’ve been trying to acquire two businesses this year.

I’ve called on small agencies and said, “Hey, listen, what if I come in and I buy 51% of your company and make sure you never have to worry about clients again? I just want to take your cool business, model your expertise and bring it in. Are you down?” “No, I’ve built this company for the last, however long.” I’m like, “I know, but you’re not even hitting six figures and you’re working in the business and you don’t have client flow.” And they’ll fight me on it and I’m going-

Melinda Wittstock:

You’re shortsighted.

Charlie Fusco:

Right. I think that that is the one thing women need to do is look in the mirror and say, “Am I happy running my business? If I’m not go be brilliant as part of somebody else’s team and join that community and own that part of the community, but don’t just get wrinkles all over your face because you think having an assistant and a part-time temp makes you a company owner.” Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Yeah. Like being a 49% owner or a 30% owner of something much, much bigger without all the stress sounds pretty good to me. So right. But it is really getting out of that scarcity way of thinking into much more of an abundance mindset and just understanding concepts like leverage. This is something that comes very easily to men, but a little bit harder for women, but it’s changing.

Charlie Fusco:

It’s changing. It’s all good. All right. Thank you so much again, Melinda.