Matt Sullivan - Ink Stains to Emmy Wins

welcome to yes genius a podcast from epic marketing that celebrates the power of affirmative thinking in each episode we explore the power of saying yes to unexpected opportunities career changes even the unknown and the powerful results hello and welcome I'm your host for this episode Daren McBride joining me is Matt Sullivan the vice president for growth at boering a global content creation Studio a first career journalist he worked as a reporter and editor in Upstate New York before relocating to Delaware to become the founding editor and general manager of spark magazine he spent 5 years as the managing director of Delaware Shakespeare while operating a small Communications consultancy he has produced award-winning content and strategic Communications he's been a columnist blogger podcaster restaurant critic and curiously spent eight years reviewing movies that he hadn't seen I would like to know what those movies are and he lives in New York with his wife Janice and two kids Welcome Matt thank you nice to be here glad that you're here okay so your resume clearly showcases your range but I do sense a little bit of a through line you seem like someone who knows when to say yes when the opportunity is Right could you tell me about how you got to work in video production I if you found a through line through my career you might be the first person including myself uh to fine one so that's I I congratulate you and I suggest the answer might be I say yes to everything and uh we'll see if that's a time um yeah you know I was uh it was um 2018 about in in Midway through the year when I first got a I was working at that time at Delaware Shakespeare I was the managing director I was also um fairly uh fully working as a consultant uh in my spare time for a Vari of nonprofits and and other things like that in Delaware and Zach Phillips who was the head of a short order production house at that time uh texted me and said ask me out to lunch and I saide sure of course I I love lunch I knew Zach a little bit uh I had actually hired short order twice for different clients so we I'd worked with short order and we had been working in some similar circles over time but we didn't know each other personally so I didn't know what was up and so we went to lunch and uh he started saying a variety of things and it was like I know you're a good writer boy really need a writer but I know you're a good writer but we really need a writer and halfway through lunch I said Zach are you offering me a job and I'm not sure he was clear that's what was happening either uh because he just until that time Zack had done all the writing at short order uh both creatively and proposals and I think he just was starting to feel burned out and needed somebody to help out and I took it seriously because show order at the time time was I thought the best video production company in Delaware I don't think anyone else was producing work at that kind of level so so I was flattered that he would ask but sort toward the end of lunch I said you know I have a question Zach you keep saying I'm a good writer but I know you've never read my publication uh I know because he moved to Delaware after I stopped working at spark I know we haven't worked together on any projects where you've seen how do you know I'm a good writer and he looks at me goes I'd read you on Facebook and I'm like you're and I'm like really it's like yeah you can tell and uh I was really caught off guard by that because I am not like professionally on Facebook I just I had written a column for 12 years uh at spark and a couple of the newspapers I'd worked for and when I no longer had a column I just needed a place to put things I wrote and so Facebook sort of became my much sh her like column like you know I'd have an idea for a column i' just make it a Facebook post it would go out of my head it wouldn't drive me crazy anymore and so um it was it was a surprise to me as somebody who's been in the business of telling people how to build their brands that I was building my brand completely in a way that should have been intentional and it wasn't uh to the point where a sort of a job offer came out of the blue uh and uh we started doing a little writing together he liked what it was and uh six months later I was I was working at TR order almost full-time wow but that means it was it was authentic even though it wasn't intentional it was definitely yes uh I yeah it was definitely um it was definitely me I mean that's my Facebook page is just you know very specific to things I'm interested in and I'm not trying to look smart I'm I I definitely don't look smart on my Facebook page I was just you know I talk about politics or you know food mostly uh my family all those of things and um and yeah so this the through line I was at least going to lean on as like an an easy ring to catch was storytelling but I think that sometimes um you know there's like a a squishier element to a person that I don't know if it's the journalist in you like curiosity wanting to examine things wanting to talk about life um I don't know that's your through I think you're right with storytelling and I think something I've always done even in my first job is borrow storytelling techniques from other genres to so I I remember one time when I was working on a a a True Crime Story essentially right at a newspaper we there had been a a murder and years later the uh the records came out and we were like sort of tracing back as to how the murder happened based on the court records and I was editing the story with the reporter and I said at one point you know what this is it's an episode of Law and Order and I'm like we have think about this like you're writing Law and Order you have and and like we had an this of an intro section at the end of the intersection at end of this intro I want you to hear dum dum like if you don't hear that in your head we're not quite there yet and and then the next section is this section and the next section is this section and we sort of build that story out along sort of Storytelling models that people consciously are used to you know everything goes back to very rudimentary storytelling techniques built you know in the age of Homer and those storytelling techniques are the same whether we're doing a documentary about the Hope Center or a bunch of employees talk about International women's day for MNT Bank the storytelling structure is something that hits people very viscerally uh even when they're not thinking about it especially when they're not thinking about it they just recognize these familiar beats and I think those finding those beats and figuring out ways that in which those stories can engage people is is something that I've done just about everywhere I've worked is that something that attracted you to Delaware Shakespeare uh you know no not having a job attracted me to Delaware sh uh so uh I like Shakespeare I I was an English major uh I I one of my professors taught Shakespeare I took three classes with him never something I tended to do professionally uh and I was 15 years out of that when it came by I I was looking for a work I was on the board of Delaware Shakespeare Delaware Shakespeare got a lot of attention from spark magazine uh more than uh because of I like Shakespeare one of my reporters like Shakespeare so we gave them and they were appreciative of our intentions and uh so after I left spark they asked me if I'd be on the board which I said sure I can do that and then a year in when I was looking for work with just the time they were planning on hiring their first managing director and they came to me and asked me if I'd be interested so I want be very clear managing director at Delaware Shakespeare the director word confuses people I had nothing to do with the art I had I was never on stage I never acted I never directed anything I was in charge of marketing and the books and so other people got to do the fun stuff and I got you know how much money did con sell last month I do want to go back to um your pivot to video yeah um what is one thing from saying yes to going over to short order that you didn't expect what what was something successful that came out of that that was a surprise to you you know it's hard to like think about that question in the time period I was working at short order and not to answer with the pandemic because like it's the one thing no one expected right um and I had been working there for 15 months months when the pandemic hit and uh it was disruptive to everybody but video production specifically most of our work happens in a room with other people at least it did historically um and uh that a lot of how we just did work just was impossible and so there was a lot of immediate roring there was also a lot of immediate changes in my office where some of our people left to go work for other companies that were doing some more pandemic related coding work and uh we were three months into the pandemic when my boss came to me and said uh Matt we're goingon to need a new coo could you do that job so I was in video production for 15 months before basically taking over to run day-to-day operations the company but the uh right before the day before I actually took over he came to me and said so what about this job um worries you and I I and I named like all the pandemic things that worry me and he goes no I mean what about the job and I said oh wait like managing creatives on schedule to produce projects on Deadline nothing about that worries me I've that's I've lived that and I think that was the thing that really struck me this time I've changed my full career two or three times at this point and the first time it's very scary because you know how to do a thing and you don't know what the world looks like outside of that thing and and what's really needed um the second or third time you start realizing that there really are transferable skills some of them are soft skills some of them are you know the hard skills of Storytelling that get you know in my business that that play in anywhere you go um and the more different places you work the more tools you pick up um along your way to do different kinds of things so um not just was it good for me to learn more about video production all this kind of stuff in the new world but I was able to take everything I had done being an editor at a publication for years and translate that into what does that look like to run a video production company and they weren't that different I find a lot of people you know sometimes I talk to people who are thinking about doing this kind of change and that fear of the unknown is is really what holds them back and I'm not going to say that um every say yes to everything I can I can we can sit here we have a podcast series called yes idiot and talk about things I said yes to that turned out horribly wrong um because that happens too uh and and knowing how to roll with those punches and and revor quickly is part of the business if you're GNA do things that are different you have to know that a certain number of them are just going to go bad and you have to figure out how to you know keep your options open and do the other things but I think that was the the real lesson to me of the pandemic was how much of things I done in the past that had nothing to do with video production turned out to be useful again it was the QuickBooks I had done at Delaware Shakespeare and suddenly I had to manage the budget and it was the you know uh uh little podcast stuff I had done um at the beginning you know to that suddenly was useful I did I made a podcast at the beginning of the pandemic because I had nothing else to do and then six months later we started getting asked to do podcasting as a as professionally so little tools like that I picked up became really useful in ways that were unexpected yeah I think you're telling me that there are multiple through lines of your career now if you think about it yeah I mean yeah it's it's a more of a spiderweb I think it's it's it's things that just sort of like Spiral out and and come back you know in in a way that uh um I I never know when I'm G to have to draw on something I learned as a reporter in Upstate New York you know uh you know but if I have to make a call to somebody on a bad day well I have you know old skills that do that yeah I love talking to you because I hear you know from other people in my network oh I'm worried about leaving X industry or like I've built up my career in why industry but I think sometimes when you see it as industry based you're missing out on opportunities or you know exciting directions you could go in where you're really just applying you know your skills and the things that make you excited about work just in a in a different way yeah I think you know there's very few Industries I think that are so insular that they never touch other things so I do think that people's uh networks tend to be broader than they think they are um but also conversely I have seen a lot of people in hiring only want to hire people from within the industry that they have I think that's a mistake because one of the things that I think I found is valuable to video production as I go out and sell video projects to people is that I have no background in video production before five years ago so I know what how civilians think and I know not to use the words that are going to confuse confuse them and I know where the typical pitfalls are I've learned more than anything that what civilians think is expensive and hard often isn't and what they think is easy is often expensive and so I often say please call me early in the process because if you call me after you've decided what video you want to make you've probably made five decisions that are all going to make this more expensive than it needs to be and so I I and because I've been that person i' I've been the person who hired the video company and then was told we can't do that you can't do that and I didn't know why now I know why and I can explain it in ways I think that makes people understand that because I come out it from a very different place MH what is something that you understand about your decision of you know going into video production that you wish you knew then I wish I knew then uh I I'm gonna stick with pricing and say that I video production is expensive it just it just is and I used to think oh well people must be making a ton of money at this no uh because it's very expensive you know the first time I was out at a shoot and a client said to me wow I I said actually I it was me saying to a uh DP I'm like wow that's a beautiful shot and he said it better be the camera cost $50,000 and I'm like oh yeah that should be and plus you're very good at your job you know um and um you know one thing you learn this business and I don't have this as much experience with this but boow string has made commercials with stars I could name you know Chris Pratt uh that cost you know $1.5 million to make and the reality of that is that that we charge $1.4 million there's probably 1.38 million dollar out the door um just going to to pay for different expenses like are incard in this kind of work so um it's a very tricky def finding that right type of business that is you can do mostly internally and that you can with people staff you have without curring that many outside costs and do it really well uh at a decent price that is the hardest part of this business is finding the ways to to to get to the the price that works for everybody and often that means just telling you know come up with different solutions that people have you know than than where they started i i i i quite frequently when someone comes to me and says you know here's the video we want to make um I'll step back and I'll say what do you want to what do you want this video to accomplish what's your goal why are you making a video and then if there's a way we can accomplish that goal in a way that costs less money I'd rather do that way to to to solve your problems wow yeah such great insights I think oh yeah I have also worked with with clients and colleagues as well as and I mean I've done I'm guilty of this myself where I feel like before I involve someone I have to like solve the problem or I have to have an idea but then you're just like missing out on that time to step away and actually come up with the right path ahead for the project yeah I mean I I I spent some time doing event planning and and event coordination and people would call me up and say hey I'd like your help you know doing an event and my first line question always be why are you having an event because let's be honest no one wants to run an event running events is terrible it's stressful it kills everybody I so if unless you have a real good goal in mind my recommendation is don't do it but if you know why you're doing it then you can do a variety of things to accentuate that you know if it's for awareness then you know that's what you that's those are the HIDs you're trying to hit if it's to raise money well then we're going to these costs here because we're trying to maximize the amount of money at the end so understanding what you're trying to maximize for at the end and you spending your budget appropriately on the things that are going to get you to the actual goal that's what I want to try to do with any given project whether it's video production or anything so you've had some great advice for all our listeners who are can you tell me who are the three most influential people in your life who influences you and your perspective on these top ICS and life in general yeah influential in life I mean I I I'm going to I'm the first one I'm going to do a twofer and just say my parents and I'm gonna let them be one and two um both my parents are lawyers and so uh you know there's there's a different way you grow up when you know talking about curfew is a legal negotiation and uh I I I think that really has influenced a lot of my life in terms of how I I like look at the world um I have a I I'll name two teachers um uh Dr Stamo from high school and Dr Mary angle in college both of whom pulled me aside and basically said some version of um you're a good writer and better than other people and I was like really I was I didn't know that uh because you don't really know at that age what other people are are good at right and um I I think the two of them and I I I i' like to name them as often as possible because um teachers often don't get the recognition in their time they only get it in retrospect uh so uh you know neither I mean I think they both remember me but uh they're like the influence they had on my life was profound and for many teachers that's just what they're doing on a daily basis uh even when they don't know it and and the little things they do to help people like that so uh those are the folks I would name um in in terms of Storytelling I've had so many editors who have been excellent over the years I I I I would hesitate to even pull out one because I I've learned you know storytelling is a cumulative skill that develops with everything you read everything you watch and everyone who teaches you how things get put together um there's so many influences on my writing on my you know the way I put together work either it's professional like a uh you know proposals or creative writing um that it's hard to parse them because you know any given moment I'm going to draw from a comp book I read in 1986 and uh uh a treaties I read in college and you know some editor years ago uh you know the the single best piece of um uh editing advice I ever got was someone who once said to me the plural of Podium is lect turns and I says he's like don't the advice was basically don't bother trying to figure out what the plural of Podium is find a different word that people understand and use that one and I'm like oh yeah that's right that's makes sense um so yeah I wanted to ask you about uh your phrase random acts of Journalism that's something that you include in your bio and I was wondering how you came up with that phrasing and why it's important to express it that way oh well there it's a play on what was it random acts of kindness right that was an old that was a thing that was a a a saying 15 years ago random acts of kindness you know and so um after I left journalism I never pursued um a freelance career except every once in a while I get an itched to write something or someone would ask me to write something and I would just you know go back and do it uh and so every once in a while my by line would show up in mostly Delaware based Publications uh but I've written about you know the chef of snuff Mill umh for Delaware today and I've written about my kids uh in a publication about so want me write about being a dad and I used to write about I write a lot about food stuff I guess but uh uh yeah it's just I I never want to be after I left journalism I didn't want to sort of like suggest I was still a journalist but every once in a while I'll sort of fall back in that uh that place um I should proba change that a little bit now because it's getting a little bit confusing I'm involved in an effort to launch a new nonprofit Newsroom in Delaware uh Spotlight uh Delaware which is is started in Spotlight delaware. org uh but I'm a member of the board so people come say to me like oh you're journalist again I'm like oh no no no no no no they're are real journalist doing the work I do not want to suggest that's what I do I'm just uh I'm just back there cheering them on all right this has been great I want to switch over to a bit of Rapid Fire questions for you um some might hopefully you can answer them right off the bat but some might take some thinking all right you ready I have an improv Background by which I mean I took six weeks of improv classes in Binghamton New York so I am super ready for this let's go if your life were adapted into a Shakespearean play what would the title be and who would play your comedic sidekick uh it'd be one gentleman of Valley Stream uh that's where I grew up Valley Stream New York and uh my comedic sidekick would be uh dogberry the detective from much to do about nothing who is very very terrible at his job but funny so I I take on dogberry wow good answer uh what is your favorite movie genre genre is probably well science fiction I would say uh specifically science fiction movies where aliens are attacking the Earth and humans have to be smart and clever about getting them Rhythm I think that's that's my favorite oh and I don't think we've talked about food enough on this episode uh do you have a go-to lazy dinner I'm I cook at home so I don't have go-to if I was going to go lazy it's going to be something of a noodle dish that's um a really quick uh like a Ramen and um you know with uh some some sauce on it there's a garlic American Vietnamese um garlic noodle dish uh from Kenji Lopez Al that's a really quick 20 cloves of garlic with some some soy sauce and a couple of things in there and it just Cooks up really really fast so something a noodle dish I think is going to be where I would go for quick and easy okay and if you could only eat one type of Cuisine for the rest of your life what would it be and why I'm going to take advantage of the fact that uh this is a terrible answer and say Asian because Asian is not a Cuisine but it gives me access to a lot of different Cuisines that I can fall underneath that uh I think um I my wife got me a walk for my birthday three or four years ago and it was just life-changing in terms of you know my ability to cook different kinds of things um and I find Asian Cuisine to be very uh diverse um from uh you know curries of India to uh you know quick stir fries that are Chinese to more um uh you know precise kind of Japanese techniques um so I think I could within the Asian diaspora I think I could be very comfortable just eating like now like you know I do enjoy myself some Irish food but if I was stuck with Irish food for the rest of my life that might be uh you know there's a whole lot of my people left Ireland for that reason um so I get the point okay so cooking is clearly one Talent what would you say is your hidden talent hidden talent I don't hide much of anything when yeah yeah someone who's been a a columnist who primarily wrote about himself for 12 years there's not much left um uh hidden talent is and I'm not going to say it's very hidden but I I would say something you know that there are some folks who would say I'm a Delaware trivia like nerd and uh I I I I love Delaware with the love only someone who wasn't born here can have um I don't have any you know I think it's a fascinating place it's a very knowable place um I I you know I can speak for a long time about the fact that our most recent Constitution was written only in 1899 and you know when you get constitutions that are written that recently it becomes a little problematic because they get too specific which is why we have a state auditor that has to be in charge of the Board of Pardons because it's in the Constitution and we can't change it so uh yeah so I can get very nerdy on that stuff okay I wasn't expecting that Talent so you surprised me it was hidden to me but probably not to a lot of other people okay all right so we're going to switch gears again um this is our final section of the podcast it's called chatbot says um and we know that AI is only as smart as the people using it so we asked chat GPT for assistance promoting a documentary about you um we actually we didn't talk too much about this um you mentioned it briefly but you were the executive producer of the any Emmy awardwinning the pathway home a short documentary about Newcastle County's Hope Center yeah um so actually before we do would you like to say anything about your work on that and able to bring that to fruition we're very we're very proud of that piece um uh filmed during the pandemic uh because that's when the Hope Center opened um and um so I I think what I loved most about that project and it's it's like the dream project where a client comes and says he we have some money here's what we want to do do whatever you think is right and so we took a very sort of journalistic approach to it and we just went out and gathered the information and put it together um they didn't like gep on like how you know all the information need to be in there there were a few people they're like this person needs to be in that person needs to be in that's fine but um they just wanted to tell the story of of how that Hope Center was put together the story is so inspirational on its face that it wasn't hard to make a good documentary out of it uh and we got a bunch of people who were able to speak very um movingly and eloquently about how the Hope Center did help them um and uh yeah we were thrilled to win a midatlantic Emmy uh for that project and I I can't remember the category off top of my head but it was short form social something there's a lot of categories in the midatlantic emmies uh but um uh yeah and you know I we're working on something right now that I think might be uh as good if not better so uh and and I think that's going to come out in the next uh sometime it'll be out hopefully in the first half of 2024 so we'll be seeing it soon I always enjoy a little tease so uh back to the documentary about you so this is probably not going to happen much worse on a vastly different note which one of these titles are you most likely to pick for the documentary of your life um unraveling spark the story of Matt Sullivan's magazine Revolution As You Like It Matt Sullivan's Misadventures in media and monologue ink stains to Emmy wins a Chronicle of Matt Sullivan's Creative Evolution ink blots and Insanity a comedic look at Matt Sullivan's creative Foles or scribbles and scrutiny the Absurd Adventures of Matt Selvin journalist extraordinaire all right they're all too nice so I was with that last one until we got to extraordinaire and then I'm like Noah um I like that what was it ink blots to ink blots to insanity to Insanity I think that's good that's got a nice little alliteration a little twist there you think it's going to go someplace else I like that one ink stains to Emmy wins is a favorite of mine as well that might be the one I was thinking of in ink stains to Emmy wins I like that I think that really that captures your Evolution yeah I like that okay when I when I started in journalism my first newspaper didn't have an email address like you know I can't even explain to Young journalists anymore or what it was like to work in the time when I started working at a newspaper so that that makes sense did you have pasted up people we I did that in I did that in high school by the time I got to college we were using uhh software but yeah I I did paste up in high school with the old headline machines the the clear tape uh I got I cut tape for a radio class in grad school this there's all these skills that are lost to time we got to like sort of record people doing them so we can tell people the future like well it's been so much fun having you here talking about journalism and storytelling uh video Shakespeare um thank you so much for joining us and sharing your yes story uh if people want to connect with you to find out more about you or boering what should they do sure uh I'm in most of the usual places you can find me on LinkedIn it's a little tricky because there's another Matt Sullivan in Delaware we we get each other's mails um and uh but um my email is matt. Sullivan bing. TV uh that's the best place to get a hold of me I think uh for anything professional uh and uh yeah I have no website I should have a website as my old boss would say the Cobblers uh the Cobblers children have no shoes you know I do the stuff for other people and never for myself yes I'm familiar with that phrase as well on a personal level okay all right well I am sure people will find you because we certainly found you um it's great to be connected uh so until we talk again thanks for joining us appreciate it's fun thank you for listening to yes genius a podcast from epic marketing join us again to hear more unique stories in the meantime find us on social media or online at epicmc 2.com don't miss out remember to follow or subscribe wherever you get your Genius content