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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: WHat's happening Brand Nerds? It's the holiday season and we got a treat for you. I'm gonna start with a saying and you all will tell me where you heard it. The first saying is Atlanta influences everything. That is on a t shirt and it is what we call the rallying cry coming from Atlanta.
Y'all know I'm from, uh, I'm here in the ATL from the D, but claim ATL is home now. This was an idea by a couple of folks. One of them, uh, his name is Bane Joyner. Came up with this Atlanta influences everything. Here's another thing, Brand Nerds, uh, hip hop influences everything, and we are in the year of the 50th anniversary of the creation of hip hop.
And so there are celebrations all over the world about this wonderful culture that we are a part of. LT, this is what I love about hip hop and why I'm particularly excited about our, uh, our guest today. First is this. What I particularly love about hip hop is, uh, back in the day, it used to be, this is when it started as a nascent culture. You could kinda look across a room and identify people and say, you know what?
That person looks like they might be in the hip hop, like really love it, really understand it. Not anymore. Not anymore. And so who we have in the building today, LT. He is an executive who is highly accomplished in the area of law and beyond. He's also a lover of hip hop, the beginnings, the establishment of big hip hop brands.
And trust me, Brand Nerds, if you saw him walking down the street, you might sleep on this brother, but this dude is bad. I am excited. LT. Can you let the folks know who we have in the virtual building on this day?
LT: Well, I'm so excited about this. We have Jamie Schwartz in the house today. Welcome, James.
Jaime Schwartz: Hey guys.
It's a pleasure. I'm uh, I gotta tell you, I've listened and followed you guys. It's incredible. You guys do a really great job and it's very engaging and I've learned a lot. So I'm excited that, um, and I'm honored that you've asked me to be on.
LT: No, we're, we're thrilled to have you. So, okay. Brand Nerds, we love to share many different career paths.
And Jamie has a really unique and great career arc with his foundation being an attorney. He is currently president of a large commercial real estate property where marketing is central to what he is doing more details to follow. Also full transparency. Jamie and I go way back growing up together in the mean streets of New York, and he is like a brother to me.
So let's get into his background at Ardley High School. Jamie is a three sport varsity athlete. With fantastic parents, Bonnie and Gil, who are wonderful people, and may they rest in peace. Uh, for college, Jamie attends University of Maryland, where he walks on the football team for a minute, and ends up graduating with a degree in political science.
After graduation, Jamie goes to Cardozo Law School in New York City, where he earns his law degree as a full time student, and at night, puts himself through school working as a bouncer at some of the most popular clubs and bars in New York City, with lots of great stories from those years. that could easily fill up a different podcast.
But after graduation, Jamie embarks upon his career first as an in house attorney for prominent commercial real estate company, Robert Martin in Westchester County, who at the time controls more than 8 million square feet of office and warehouse space. So Jamie's doing really well at Robert Martin, but a very interesting opportunity presents itself.
And that's what, what DC was alluding to in his opening. So good friend of Jamie, Steve Rifkin. A founder of Loud Records asked Jamie to join the label as SVP of Legal and Business Operations. For those younger brand nerds not familiar with Loud, in the 1990s they were a hugely important hip hop label with a great roster of prominent and now legendary artists, including Wu Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, and Three 6 Mafia, just to name a few.
A big part of Jamie's responsibilities at Loud, is being the GM of their pioneering street marketing team. So we have been through this point in time with, with other guests who were in the music business in the late nineties and early two thousands, when something called Napster happens and that happens.
And it enables consumers to share music with anyone they want. And this completely blows up the entire economics of the music industry. Fortunately for Jamie, he has something great to fall back on. He's still a lawyer. He goes back to work for a law firm heading up their entertainment practice in real estate division too.
After a few years there, he gets an opportunity to join one of his clients, GHP commercial real estate on the business side, where he worked for 18 years, eventually becoming EVP, overseeing the leasing management and construction of GHPs multi million square foot office, Flex Warehouse and Retail Portfolio.
So Jamie's doing great at GHP. He isn't far from his office, and honestly, he has this job down pat, enabling him to nicely balance work and family with his way better half, Georgia. Shout out to Georgia, and their awesome daughters, D and Stella. Sometimes when you aren't looking, life does a way of presenting interesting options, and Jamie is presented with a great option.
Industrial Realty Group owns a 207 acre property with 2 million square feet of commercial space just over the Hudson River in Pearl River, New York, and in 2021, they tapped Jamie to be the president of its campus. The first thing Jamie does is actually rebrand the property as Hudson Valley iCampus and reintroduces the campus to the brokerage community, local governments, and the overall market.
while at the same time building a new best in class management team. Since his hiring, he and his team have closed new lease and renewal deals with life sciences, biomed, manufacturing, warehouse tenants, totaling almost 350, 000 square feet and with a value in excess of 40 million dollars. Lastly, Jamie has many other interests, including earning black belts in martial arts. Truth be told, I can't keep up with how many and what grade of black belt he's at right now. And D, you'll love this since as a drummer, you as a drummer, you earned a music scholarship to attend college. Jamie currently plays drums in a band with a number of dudes we grew up with. Brand Nerds, we know this is going to be really fun. Welcome to Brands Beats and Bytes Jamie Schwartz.
Jaime Schwartz: Wow, that's pretty, uh, it's pretty extensive. I did that.
DC: You did all of that, brother. That's all you.
Jaime Schwartz: That's great. Thanks, Larry. You do a great job at that, reading people's bios. very much. Pleasure to be here.
LT: Well, and Jamie, this, truth be told, is one of my favorite ones because, you know, I know the roots, baby.
DC: When I was reading the intro, the line that killed me was the mean streets of Arlington.
LT: And that's not mean streets, Brand Nerds. That's why D's laughing.
DC: That's why I'm laughing. That's why I'm laughing.
Jaime Schwartz: That's what we tell everybody. We, we, you know, it was very hard hitchhiking down into the village, man. It was very, very dangerous.
DC: All right, Jamie. You know this, but a lot of the brand Nerds, uh, don't know this. Uh, so Brand Nerds, I'm going to put your D on game for a minute for the iconic hip hop labels of the nineties, the, the brands that come to mind quickly are like Def Jam and it should Def Jam, uh, Death Row, Bad Boy. We've got some issues going on there.
Uh, Cash Money, No Limit. Rap a lot. So the, these labels that I just mentioned are the labels that I considered them the second phase of labels in hip hop, Def Jam, maybe more in the, uh, in the first, but then you had also like Sugar Hill and that kind of thing. But I'm talking about when it really became a business, these were the labels that were beginning that, uh, that march. Oftentimes left out is Loud Records. Loud Records. Now, what Loud Records did, Brand Nerds, in my opinion, is they started bringing in a different kind of artist. And so, they tried things that other labels were not willing to try. So let's just talk about Wu for a second. So you have this collective coming in called Wu Tang. And by the way, Jamie, you should know this. At the front door of my condo now, Is the Wu W with welcome. Okay, like literally right now. So at, at that time, um, there were groups, uh, Brand Nerds. You, you all know this, uh, mostly brainers know this, but, but the label that started two innovations that breaking groups into subgroups and independent artists, this was Loud Records.
This was Rifkin and Jamie and the rest of the crew. But here's another thing that is slept on very much slept on. And it's while loud record did recording of great artists, their innovation, I thought really was about their marketing. And so this, this notion of street teams, Brand Nerds, this came right out of Loud Records.
It did not come out of Def Jam. It did not come out of Cash Money. Did not come out of No Limit, not come out of rap, rap, a lot, and all respect to these labels. It came out of loud records. Loud is the, and just full disclosure, uh, at that time, um, I was a much younger executive. We, when I was at Coca Cola and at Boost Mobile, uh, came to Loud Records, this is where I think I first met Jamie, because we wanted some of that marketing savvy at the street level, which they had.
Okay, I'm a, now, uh, Jamie, my, my mother, her name is Gloria Cobbin, rest in power. She has, uh, sayings and one of her sayings is, baby, are you arriving at a point? So I am arriving at a point, Jamie. I'm arriving at a point with all this setup. So in our Get Comfy section here, Jamie, can you talk about how Loud was able to first identify this thing called Street Teams before it even had a name and what impact you all began to see early?
That suggested this is a different way to market, which, by the way, I'll say this and then I'm gonna turn it over to you, Jamie, some of these labels that I mentioned and many that I haven't hired Loud's street team to market their records. So what's up with the street team situation, Jamie?
Jaime Schwartz: So, yeah, that's really, um, you actually have the facts down pat.
So I will at full disclosure, I cannot take, uh, I cannot take credit for any of that. I came, I came a little bit later. Uh, I came to them around '97, but, um, Steve Rifkin, as you said, I went to law school in Manhattan. And, um, one of Steve's best friends from growing up in Merrick, we became really good friends with.
My other friend that I went to law school with, a guy named Dave Singer, who Larry knows we grew up with. So we all became really good friends. And Steve had it happened to be living with this guy, Gary, and we all became, you know, like inseparable and Steve at the time was working at his dad's label Spring Records where he did arguably the first, uh, one of the first, um, hip hop, uh, records. I've got the name of it, but he did it with Teddy Riley. He did all kinds of, and, and, and, um, and Millie Jackson. And then, yeah, I've got, I've got the name of it, but, um, so, uh, or the fatback band or something like, uh, one of the, one of those, uh, It was before, it was, it was like after Sugar Hill Gang, but he was, he was in, like, he saw that, uh, that whole thing coming. So I gotta give credit to Steve. So Steve, and then he hired, prior to me, hit one of his other childhood friends, this guy named Rich Isaacson, who was also a lawyer, who worked at a white shoe law firm, dropped everything, moved out to L. A. And Rich is really a good businessman, and Steve was doing all the artist stuff.
So they sort of came up with, I think, you know, collaboratively, the street team concept back then. And this is, you're talking about probably Maybe '92, '93. Yeah. Uh, around then, maybe a little bit later. So, and, and 'cause they used to do those things called, um, um, snipes. Right? Like on, on, on, on, you know, on on the, uh, construction places that they, and people just put stuff up there, you know, advertising a, an act or something.
So they took it to the next level. They got these groups of kids and they, they basically invented Gorilla marketing. And you're right. They, they were the innovators for that. Uh, what I did when I got there, I actually, uh, I actually trademarked street teams. I don't know if that, I don't know if that, yeah.
I don't know if that, if they ever renewed that or anything or ever actioned on that. We came up the, uh, with, with the street team, uh, moniker, but that's, that's, you know, neither here nor there. So that's really how that whole world happened. So when I got there in '97 already, so they, I think they started loud.
Probably. I don't know if it was '92. it could have been '93. so they were already working. They were a little bit. Uh, independent. Um, Steve was doing the guerrilla marketing. He did Delicious Vinyl. He did all that stuff out there with the street teams, and then they made the deal with RCA, and that's how Loud was created.
Um, and, and funny enough, if you really wanted those stories, Steve called me up. He says, uh, you know, I got a lease I want you to review. 205 Lexington Avenue. I don't never forget it's on Lexington between 32nd and 33rd. And I was their attorney. I negotiated their lease for them. So, uh, yeah. So after they signed their lease.
Um, he said, Hey, by the way, you want a job? And I, I said, what are you talking about? Um, he said, we need a, we need an in-house, you know, legal and business affairs guy. I said, well, yeah, I'd love to do that. I don't know anything about the music industry. So, uh, when the day we shook hands, the next Monday I was on a first class flight out to, um, LA and I read this Business of Music by David Passman and I learned the whole news.
I, I learned the whole music business. So that, that was my, uh, and then from there, you know, they, you know, Big Pun was signed, which was awesome. Pun was a great guy, you know, Wu Tang, I, I mean, I got a million stories, but, uh, that's, that's really how, how it started. So then the Steve Rifkin Company, SRC was, became the big marketing company.
And you're right, a lot of the labels hired them to, to do the street marketing, the street teams, but there was nobody really doing that. So I, by default became the GM of SRC. And I think that's when I, I reached out to you through Larry and we started talking a little bit, but, um, you might've talked to them earlier, but then we started talking again, but at that time, then I did deals with, uh, Pepsi and Mountain Dew, Levi's, uh, Hugo Boss Fragrances, Coors.
I mean. All, all the companies back then wanted to get to the hip hop crowd. They did, uh, marketed movies, uh, all kinds of stuff. So, um, it was very interesting. And I think that's where I sort of look, cause I'm not formally trained like you guys as marketers. You know, uh, you guys are brand managers at, at, at Coke. Our other friend, Scott Doniger, you know, is a brand manager of the end. Yeah, yeah. So I sort of, I, I basically learned my marketing, uh, you know, my marketing knowledge from the streets. So, uh, that's, that's really how, that's how, I mean, everything, everything you do builds up to where you are and you use it. Right. So that's, that's, I think that's where I learned a lot of that stuff just out of, uh, just out of doing it.
LT: I remember Jamie, I forgot the part that you did the lease. That that was the way that, you know, you actually got the job offer. I forgot that part.
Jaime Schwartz: I forgot it too until just now.
DC: That's uh, yeah, I mean, Jamie, the fact that you did a lease and that led to a job.
I mean, so many of us, Jamie, have these stories. Larry and I were talking about this. Not too long ago is, uh, yes, we've been trained in areas. You've been trained in the area of law. We've been trained in the area of marketing. And, uh, we'd like to think we're pretty decent at what we do, but a lot of it is luck, man, a lot of it is luck and doing the right thing so that Rifkin could say to you, if this dude can handle this lease for 205 Lex, he can probably do this job inside. It doesn't matter that he doesn't know the music business. He'll learn it. I think that's a super dope. And then also just so we properly credit, uh, uh, Mr. Rifkin, uh, the first rap recording. Uh, early and it's known as the first rap recording on Spring Records and the first rap recording period was King Tim the third, radio personality.
So that that's him. So Brand Nerds we are, we are giving you knowledge of the beginning of the, of the radio recording of hip hop through, through, uh, through Jamie. So thanks for sharing that story, brother.
Jaime Schwartz: You're welcome. Yep. That's, that's who it was. I forgot the name. Thank you.
DC: You're welcome, man. I just, I just looked it up.
Just, uh, just looked it up.
LT: And before we go to the next segment, James, remember. When, when, uh, when Sugar Hill Gang came out, we were, Jamie was a, Jamie's a year ahead of me, so he was a senior in high school, we were juniors, and I remember, like, almost every gym that we were playing in was, was playing that song pre game, and I knew it was special if our, our great friend Ronnie Romer were on layup lines one day, and there was this white ref who is, who is bopping to Sugarhill Gang
And Jamie's like, and no, Ronnie's. Like, look at the, look at the white guy the white ref.
Jaime Schwartz: Oh, that's funny. Yeah, we used to play it on the bus all the time. Yeah, man. That's right. That was, uh, you know, I'm going to games and it was awesome.
LT: Yeah. So anyway, wanna go to the next segment, D?
DC: Let's do it brother.
Let's do it.
All right. Brand Nerds. Again, Jamie has knowledge. He's got knowledge of the beginnings of what this thing that we call hip hop is.
And, uh, I didn't know some of these stories. Like I didn't know about the King Tim, III story. I didn't know that was one of the first, uh, releases in, uh, in '79, by the way, also in '79 was a Sugar Hill gang. Okay. Uh, and the, uh, and the, and the release of the crap that the classic that we all sort of nationally and also internationally became aware of.
So, uh, super dope. All right, Jamie, we are now going to our next section, which we call five questions. So I hit you with a question. Larry hits you with a question. We go back and forth until we arrive at five. All right, Jamie, as a attorney, trained attorney, real estate executive, marketing executive, record executive, martial artist.
Okay. Musician I could go on and on I am super curious about what your answer is gonna be to this question and it's about this What was the first experience that you had with a brand that really touched your soul? Something that you got into so, so much, Jamie, you did not want to walk away from it. You just wanted to spend as much time with the brand, admiring the brand, experiencing the brand, whatever it happens to be.
You were just into this thing a bit like a first love. What was that brand for you, Jamie?
Jaime Schwartz: I gotta tell you, D. Puma Clydes, man. Puma Clydes. Puma Clydes!
DC: Talk to him, Jamie! Talk to him!
Jaime Schwartz: Puma Clydes, man. That was, you know, the blue suede with the, with the white, with the white stripe. Clyde Frazier wore it. We all, I, I, that, I wanted that more than anything.
I mean, I had to be, I don't know, nine years old, maybe eight, nine, ten years old, I guess. Yeah. Uh, that Puma Clydes was it, man. You, you got Puma Clydes. You played Hoops and Puma Clydes. Uh, that was it for me. And then it became the Chuck Taylor's after that, right? Yeah. Just the regular cons. And then after that was Dr. J's, man. That's what I wore playing ball in, you know, high school. Uh, and then it became Nike. You know, obviously when it was, when Jordan was there, Jordan's, that changed everything. But first, I mean, I'm, I, listen, I'm not one of those crazy sneaker guys. I'm an appreciative sneaker guy. But Puma Clyde's was the first, that I can remember.
Was the first impactful brand that I had to have. And when I wore them, man, I thought I was the, the S you know, so Puma Clydes.
LT: So I'm loving this, Jamie. I didn't know what you would say, but I'm not the least bit surprised. And I want to, um, uh, just throw some context into Jamie's answer here. So again, Jamie and I grew up same place, same time, and you can't describe how huge Walt Clyde Frazier was For New York kids of that time, we wanted to do everything he did.
My shooting form was terrible because I learned later that Clyde's was terrible because we all just wanted to do, we wanted to walk like him. We wanted to do everything like him by the way.
Jaime Schwartz: So I'd interrupt you. Larry was a great shooter. I don't know if people know that the Larry was, was, was Steph Curry before of Steph Curry. A long time ago. Add me for the three point line.
LT: That's true. But so, so this is interesting. Jamie, we didn't know. I didn't learn this till honestly, like as an adult in New York and Metro New York, they were called Puma Clydes. In the rest of the country, they just sold them as Puma basket or whatever.
DC: Oh, no, they called them Puma suede. Yeah. Oh, really? Just a New York thing. Outside of New York, they were known as Puma suede. That's correct.
Jaime Schwartz: I didn't know. Yeah, that's suede, man. I didn't know that. They were not called Puma baskets. Yes.
LT: So when, when later people would say, well, Michael Jordan was the first one with a signature shoe. I was like, no, he wasn't.
It was Puma Clydes. But because again, we, that's what we grew up with and it shows how nascent and small thinking Puma and everybody was in the early seventies. Cause let me tell you something, that guy permeated everything. Like, you know, he was, he was a national, he was much bigger in New York. But that that dude was, was really special.
And, you know, they just didn't have the, uh, the foresight to really think about that should have been a Puma Clyde nationally, right? But that's what we felt the way Jamie described that every kid, every athletic kid in New York who was interested in basketball. That's what Jamie described is exactly the way we all felt.
DC: Right. So now, okay, Jamie and LT, we, we gotta, we gotta get into this a little bit more here. All right. So You all as ballers. So both of you all played ball. Um, you were into these Puma Clydes, those of us outside of New York. I was in the D and we knew them as Puma suede. However, you all knew them as baller shoes. We knew them as Fashion shoes. Yep. And so we became acquainted with them when we saw Puma Clydes, which we call Puma Suedes paired with tracksuits. Yep. This, this was the iconic B-Boy look. It's like you, you got your tracksuit on, and then you got your slot. You got you, you got your Puma. Uh, Puma Clyde. So when did you all begin to see the merging of the basketball part of it? With the hip hop culture? Part of that?
LT: Well, but Clyde wore them. That's what he wore. He used to wear Chuck Taylor's and then he say he, he was wearing those on the court, us again. And then you realize later, like those were really not good shoes at all. Like they, they were bad. No, they weren't. Yeah. Um, but you didn't know that 'cause Clyde was wearing it.
So if Clyde did it, you were down. Anything he did, you were down. So it was, I think what Jamie's really saying, Jamie, you, you talked to this, but I, I'll speak for myself. It was just because we were so enamored with Walt Clyde Frazier. That's what it was about.
Jaime Schwartz: I think it Yeah, I agree with you. But I think it was also pre hip hop B.
Yes. You know, it might've been B-boy kind of stuff, but. So D, to answer you, we like the fashion of it too. Cause we wore those everywhere. We didn't just wear, you know, we're working out Puma Clydes everywhere, man. Those things were dope, man. Sweaty, you know, you felt good, but we were young. I mean, I was like 10 years old, maybe, maybe younger.
LT: So, and then your socks all, when you sweat in them, your socks will turn blue.
DC: They turn to color. Yes.
Jaime Schwartz: Yeah, yeah. But, uh, yeah, so we did, I think it was, I think it was, I think it was both. It was fashion and, and just, you wanted to be, you know, Clyde was the coolest, you know, he was like, you know, with the big overcoats and the leather coats and the hat and, you know, he, he was just the coolest cat, man.
So, uh, and he was a great player. We loved him. They won a championship with him, you know, so, uh, it was, uh, it was definitely both. I, that was a, that's a great question. It's both.
DC: Totally agree. I must, I must say this one more thing before we go to the second question, I love learning new things. Jamie and Larry, you all have helped me learn something.
I never knew that Puma Suedes are actually Puma Clydes. I did not know that. I'm looking at an ad now, way, way back in the day. In the middle of it is Clyde Frazier he looks like he's in his 20s. Here's what the ad says. It says, Clyde Frazier plays in Pumas. And here's the copy. On and off the court, Clyde Frazier appreciates the comfort and support of Puma's full line of leisure and basketball shoes, like the comfortable Clyde Frazier shoe shown here, and it's the Puma, uh, uh, Clyde, uh, all available at your sporting goods store.
And then it tells where it is in New York and that kind of thing. And, and he's standing there, he's got on a really nice shirt. Like a colorful, a colorful shirt. I did not realize Clyde Frazier and Pumas set the blueprint for Nike and MJ.
They did not know that.
LT: Yep.
Jaime Schwartz: Well, I, I, I, I, I would argue that that Converse did it before with Dr. J.
LT: That's true, too.
DC: Okay. You know what? You're right. Good point.
LT: And I'll point this, I'll point this out, actually, Clyde and Doc had the same agent named Erwin Wiener, who, so, but Clyde was the first, then Doc came with his.
With his, uh, converse, but they never really leaned in all the way, Jamie, they didn't go to where, Mike, where what, what Nike did with, with, uh, Mike? No, no. Obviously. Yeah. And that was, again, they, they were, they didn't understand what icons these people were and to lean in all the way. Right. Um, they didn't have that, uh, vision, quite honestly.
Jaime Schwartz: No, but those guys set the table for the Mike Jordans and the Kobes and everybody.
DC: 100%.
LT: Totally agree. And Clyde is still announcing Nix Games. He's almost 80 years old and he's still the coolest guy in the room.
Jaime Schwartz: Yeah, he wears, and, and, and DC talk about learning stuff. I don't know if you, Larry knew, I didn't know that they weren't called Puma Clydes around the rest of the country.
So I, I, that's news to me. That's amazing. Isn't that crazy?
DC: All right, LT. You want to hit the second question, brother?
LT: All right, James. So, question two is, who has had or is having the most influence on your career?
Jaime Schwartz: Um, I mean, is it one person or is it multiple people?
LT: Take it where you want. Whatever you want to do.
Jaime Schwartz: I got, the most, the, from, from, from a, uh, from a, my father did. To me has the most influence on me and my career because he said to me one day and um, It was very profound to me and I think i've always Had that in the back of my mind, you know, whether I I've had mentors all along the way I have people taking me under their wing and that's how I've learned and there's a couple people that I've worked for that Uh, you know, I took the good and you know tried not to take the bad with me So that that's another thing I could talk about about because I manage a lot of people now and um But my dad said to me one day, uh, when he got out of the service,
LT: wait, Jamie, he always said, James, Jamie's dad, we kill, we call, he called him Gibby was just the greatest guy. Go ahead. I wanted to set that up.
Jaime Schwartz: He said, James, when you look out the window and you see all the people, so that's mediocrity. He says, you don't want to be like everybody out there. You want to rise above and that always resonated with me. So that message. That's, you know, I've always so you guys are, you know, saying I'm a, by the way, I'm not a musician.
I'm a hacker. I play. I'm not. I would not offend musicians. I think I think I'll hold my own, but I'm not a musician. Uh, but. I'm doing okay with that. So, but I, I think because I have that like a personality and I'm always getting tested, martial arts, this, that, you know, law school. I, I, that, that, I think that helped build my, uh, my, my work ethic.
You know, I just, I'm a hard worker. I'm not one of those guys who went into a test and study and like aced it and walked out. I always had to be prepared. If I wasn't prepared and confident, I just, you know, it just didn't work. So I think my dad is my biggest influence in my career because, uh, and my mother too, but my, my father, you know, giving me that work ethic, that is just. I always say, if you have a good work ethic, I don't care what kind of pedigree you have, or what kind of training you have. If you have somebody that wants to work hard, I'd rather hire that person than the person that has all these skills, I think, because you could teach people skills. If there's a hard worker with the, with the heart and the, and the diligence and the work ethic. I'd rather have those guys taking bullets for me any day. Mm.
DC: Mm.
LT: Yeah. Love that, James.
DC: Um, Jamie, when your father was with you and looking over the people and saying, you don't want to be like them. You don't want to be mediocrity. You want to be above. How old were you? And if you didn't get what he meant then, when did you get it?
Jaime Schwartz: I think I was, uh, I don't think I was that I think I probably was in maybe middle school. Okay. When when he when he talked to me when we when he talked about that, um, and, uh, I think I got it actually. Then, you know, and I, and I, and, and Larry knows me for a long time. I'm, I'm, well, I don't think, I think he knows that when I goofed off, but when, when I, but I, I'm a hard worker.
Everything I do is I, I, if I do something, I, I don't do it, uh, you know, halfway I go full in. So
LT: that's why I, I brought up the martial arts because, um. You know, there's some folks who try, like, when Jamie does something, he goes, he does it all the way, man. He puts all his heart, soul, everything into it, and look at him, like, you know, and, and we, Jamie'll joke, Oh, man, if, you know, some people we grew up with see me now, like, you know, because he had, uh, let's just say a fun, goofy side to him.
But when he put his, put his heart into it, when he decided he wanted to do something, nothing stopped him because he did work harder than, than the next guy. Thanks. Yeah, it's true.
DC: Let me, let me ask you this, Jamie. Um, when, um, when I hear people talk about how hard they work on something, I don't necessarily, uh, interpret that is there's a continuous like 24, 7, 365 pedal to the metal.
The way I interpret it is there are some people when they find a thing, whatever the thing is, and they go, I'm going to pour myself into this thing. They're going to do it like you have no doubt if it doesn't happen, it's not going to happen because they have not worked their ass off at that thing. And it's similar to Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.
We has this 10, 000 hour, uh, uh, prediction. If you put 10, 000 hours into something, you can become an expert at it. And, um, dare I say for many of us, we put more than 10, 000 hours into something. Uh, Jamie. I believe there's a cost to that as well. There's a cost you, you get proficient at something. You, you put your heart and soul in it, but it means some other things you're not going to do.
And sometimes, dare I say, this is, this is my story. It can be lonely, Jamie. So my question to you, brother, is as you have poured yourself into these different things, what have you had to sacrifice? Or at least modify while you're in while you're in the zone.
Jaime Schwartz: That's a good question. Um, You know, I never really thought about that and I don't feel like I missed out on anything You know, i've been married for a very long time.
I met my wife, but back in the bouncer days when I was in law school, but uh, so And, you know, I made a conscious decision. Also, Larry said, you know, I went to work. Actually, the G. H. P. was one of my clients when I became a lawyer. And then they said, hey, you want a job? I said, what do you mean? But I was, uh, you know, that was Westchester County.
So I, I think if I stayed in the city or I did something else. I probably back then could have made a lot more money, but it was more important to me to be near my kids. So I was at every school play recital. I coached, I have two daughters, but I coached, uh, you know, every single basketball, soccer, all that stuff.
My younger daughter played division one soccer. Uh, she has, I think, sort of that. Work ethic that my older daughter does too, but, uh, but so, um, I don't think I missed out on anything and, and I've always been around for the family things, you know, you'd have to ask my wife if she's, uh, thinks that I neglected her or something.
I don't think so. It's just, uh, that's a great question, but you know, you're right. I don't do, I'm not crazy. I'm not in the basement downstairs with the lights on at three in the morning, you know, practicing, you know, my weapons or my cotton's or drums or whatever, whatever it is, but. You know, a little bit.
You're right. You can put the time in over over the course of years and years. You get proficient at it. The thing I will tell you is as you get better at something, and I forgot the term. There's a, there was a, they wrote a, they did a study about it. Something kerns. The effect is as you get better and you're going up the ladder and when you finally get to a place, then you realize how much you don't know and how much, how much more you really have to learn saying, you know, I see that with drums, you know, I've gotten much better, but I'm like, wow, I don't, I wish I, I don't read, but, um, you know, I just see there's so much more that I could don't know and I can't do, uh, I've, I've, I've advanced much better than just hacking.
Um, Marshall, everything, anything you do and you become really good at, then you start realizing, wow, there's so much I don't know about it. The McDonald, the McDowell Kerns effect, or the Kerns McDowell effect, I think it's, I forgot the name. I'll have to look it up for you guys, but, um, it's a, uh, these two people did a study, and it was done, it's an experiment, and it's, it's a, it's a concept, it's a, known. Um, theory as you get better. So because as you go up, you don't really know. So you're like, Oh, I'm getting better. I'm doing this. And then actually, when you get to a level of being pretty proficient or an expert, sort of say, then you go, Wow, I don't know why there's so much more, you know, you start realizing, um, it's pretty cool.
DC: That's great.
LT: That's awesome. I think that's true. It's it goes back to the john wouldn't quote. It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
DC: There you go. Right. I think that, that's, that's a mic drop. That's a mic drop right there. We're gonna look that up though, Jamie, and put it in the show notes.
Yep.
Jaime Schwartz: Yeah, I'll get that for you, too, because we were just talking about it. Um, actually, my friend Brad was telling me we were talking about that when we were jamming. Um, and he's a Ph. D. We were talking about a bunch of stuff. So, uh, I looked it up. Yeah, it's, uh, I think I heard about it way, you know, years ago. But it just came back to my mind.
LT: As you live life, you realize that that's true. Do you want to go
DC: to the next question? I do. All right, Jamie, we all learn in life. I say you learn more from your mistakes than you learn from your successes. And with that in mind, what is the biggest F up that you have had?
And what did you learn from it, brother?
Jaime Schwartz: Interesting. So, um, you know, when LT was reading sort of my history, my professional history, there was a little piece there that wasn't in there because it wasn't for very long, but it was in between my, uh, my Loud Record days. And when I put my shingle, hung my shingle again, as an attorney, um, I started a company called VEM, Virtual Entertainment Marketing, and through the SRC marketing and, and, and connections, we.
And it was right when, you know, the, uh, uh, Yahoo and, and all the internet stuff was starting to percolate in the, this was like '99, maybe ish. And I raised a couple million dollars. And I had a partner who was this Tech guy that knew how to do all that stuff before anybody knew. And it was, you know, right around maps, all that stuff.
So Virtual Entertainment Marketing was really based on the hip hop culture because, because selling records and marketing was all, it was more than records, right? It was cultural, it was lifestyle, it was hip hop. So we, we sort of understood that and, and, and that's the street teams and all that. So then we went, aha.
Let's do this virtually and let's do so. I had hip hop. We started hiphopcalendar. com and it was everything hip hop. I had Virgin Records where, when it was, when they had a record company, they were the fulfillment. We had a section called, uh, Virtual, uh, virtual vinyl. I had a fulfillment in Brooklyn that, because vinyl wasn't around, but for DJs, they could go online and see what the records were there and get them shipped to them.
Virtual vinyl. And then everything. We had all the hip hop concerts and events and everything. And then, you know, the advertising would be from everybody from Mountain Dew to, or to Coca Cola or Sprite. Um, you know, that was the concept. And we started building it out. We also then registered rockandrollcalendar. com, Latin, music, you know, all that, all it was going to be around every genre of music was based on lifestyle too, because it's lifestyle marketing and the music is really the anchor or the central part of it. And, um, we're about eight months too late, man. And, uh, that, you know, the bubble happens. And I learned a lot about that business because that was after I left Loud and that was for I'd say maybe a year and I had to reinvent myself and hang my shingle become a lawyer again and I get a job and then I quickly got out of there.
But, um. That I learned about business was because we were scrambling to make money. We didn't keep our eye on the ball and you got to focus, man. You got to focus on your business plan or what you can't do all the ancillary stuff, because then you get sidetracked and we could have stayed. If we stayed focused, maybe.
It wouldn't have, or maybe it would have failed and just, just a bunch of stuff in business. And, um, so V E M Virtual Entertainment Marketing was the name of the company. And, um, I learned a lot about that, that failed company.
LT: I'm glad you shared that, Jamie. You know, uh, I remember when you were going through it and I, I remember talking to you and I could hear the struggle in your voice, you know, like, because you did, you, I mean, look, you raised, you raised the money, you got that going and then I don't know when, but you realize like, oh, this is not going to be easy.
This is, this is going to be tough. And, um, and then, you know, like I said in the intro, transitioning, because you had a law degree, you were able to sort of, you know, figure it out, but I know that was a tough point for you, because, uh, you know, you, you thought, like, now I'm in the entertainment world and I'm kicking ass and then all of a sudden, you know, shit goes sideways.
Right? Um, and, uh, And I'm glad you shared that because, uh, you know, I'm, I'm proud of you the way you, you figured out the way to rebound.
Jaime Schwartz: Well, I think that experience has made me who I am today. I mean, I was looking into the abyss, you know, my, my second daughter was just born. I didn't, you know, I had no income.
I had to become like a consultant and I had to hang my shingle. I had to reinvent myself. I've reinvented myself professionally a bunch of times. And, you know, it's just like, you just do it. Right. And people that's always. I guess with me, and I'm not patting myself on the back. I just didn't have any alternative.
I think some people don't just do it. And maybe they, you know, bad things happen. They don't get out of that. But, um, I didn't have a choice. And I, and one thing led to another and this and that. And, you know, I started practicing law again. I started doing stuff. When I started out, I was a landlord tenant lawyer out of college saying, I went to law school for this.
I, I, I had to go into the landlord tenant court, evict people, you know, and it was, it was like, even before that, my first job was at a collection law firm. I went to law school. I, I, I had to ask the guy for a pen when it ran out. I sat outside with the secretaries. I said, I like, where's the nearest bridge?
I'm jumping off it. But all those, all those, all those, you know, stepping stones, you know, you need that. And when, when, because the Internet bubble happened, the whole Internet advertising model, which we were based on. Blew up as you guys know, and I'm sure all, a lot of your listeners who are in the marketing world and we're like a rut row and, you know, part of it was probably my, our fault, but also that whole, it was before it's time, you know, that now it's caught up.
And, uh, so yeah, so I had to reinvent myself again and, uh, you're right. I guess it's good that I had a law degree, but I, I had to start doing landlord tenant stuff, commercial. And I doubt I would never do that in my life for a while. That's how I fed my family. I started, I had to do something that I've said I'd never do again.
Um, because it was just, you know, it's just like really crap work, but, um, commercial was a little bit better than residential. So I had to do what I had to do. And that stepping stone, stepping stone. You know, knock wood, it worked out.
LT: Anything else? D, should we go to the next question?
DC: I have nothing else. I'm just grateful for you sharing that, Jamie.
LT: Yes, James. Thanks for sharing that, man. Great. All right. So, Jamie, regarding technology and marketing, can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech? Or you can talk to us about areas you think that they should be leery or simply avoid.
Jaime Schwartz: That's an interesting question. So now, um, you know, I've been here about a little bit less than two and a half years. As you said, we, we, uh, you know, we re, uh, rebranded, you know, we do have some brokers, but I, I basically do most, I do the leasing, I oversee everything here. And, um,
LT: Jamie, before you go ahead, how many people are on your team?
Jaime Schwartz: Well, I also have a central utility plant that I'm responsible for that. We produce our own electricity, steam and water here. So that's 28 people. And then I have, I have a very small in house group here. That is, uh, we have about. I don't know about eight people, but with that, and then we, there's a lot of vendors that, but I'd say all in all people that I'm responding, you know, that report or directly report to me.
It's probably about, I don't know, 30 ish. I know probably, no, probably about 35 to 40, but with vendors, you know, you're talking, you know, over probably 50 to 60 people. So the company that I work for IRG Industrial Realty Group who owns this property also owns. Uh, 130, about 130 million square feet in over 31 states throughout the country, privately owned, uh, bond rated.
And, uh, they also have a wholly owned management company called IRG Realty Advisors out of Ohio. The ownership group is out of Westwood, um, in California. Um, so, uh, IRG, and they do the back office here. So I created my own little management thing here, but there's the management company that we work for.
They probably have about 250 people there. Um, but they do the back end billing and things like that. We, they do the construction and all that for most of the properties that a lot of their properties are in central, like Ohio and things like that. We're, we're sort of like on our own over here. So I do, I hire vendors.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm autonomous here, basically.
LT: So go back to the tech question. Cause I, uh, I interrupted you.
Jaime Schwartz: No, so I just wanted to tell you. So anyway, so when I came here, one of the things was. Um, I want to get, you know, we, I did something called, uh, I don't want to talk about it, but, you know, I'm trying to get this technology so I can generate leads, right?
Because I'm B2B. I want tenants. I want, I want real estate broker. I want other brokers, real estate brokers. I want them. We want to put this back on the map. We're, we're primarily a life sciences, um, company, uh, not company, life sciences, uh, Real estate with the infrastructure because it used to formally be Pfizer.
So we have GMP manufacturing. We have lab space. So long story short is I'm all these technologies. Oh, you know, you can go on this and we have all these click throughs. And I said, okay, what does that mean? What does these click throughs mean? How do I turn that into even a phone call or a lead, you know, and, um, nobody could tell me how to do it.
I'm doing business now with a company, I'll give them a shout out, BizNow, uh, they, uh, they are, uh, um, you know, they do an online digital thing and they're the closest thing to it. So now I just a little bit of, uh, sponsoring, you know, life science every two weeks, there's a digital magazine that comes out.
And they can, they provided me with the click throughs and some of the, you know, some of the details of who's clicking through and their emails and things like that, but it's still not perfected. So my answer to you, the long winded answer is, I still think that at least from my real commercial real estate, um, technology marketing stuff, um, digitally is still doesn't provide, doesn't give me as, as an owner.
Or, or, or a lease a first wants a lease or sell or sell the information, all the information that I need so I could go out and contact that person or that, you know, those, the, the right person to, to e at least get a phone call. You know, you turn around, what? Two, two outta 10. You, you, you're, you're winning.
You know, you still, and then, and then you, you get one person to come for a tour. Then it's up to me to do the sale, right, because it's really sales so that I think that's lacking. I think that that whole aspect of marketing and and at least in the B2B in the commercial real estate world of the technology and getting the getting the right information to really get the lead. It's still not there yet.
LT: Interesting. We, you know, we'll talk this offline. We, I think we have somebody that you that could help you on that front.
DC: Hey, Jamie. Um, what you said there was a plant that you all, uh, own or work with. What's what's that?
Jaime Schwartz: Yeah. Yeah, we have I have an onsite central utility plant that we produce. It's a 23 megawatt central utility plant and. If you ask me what a megawatt was two and a half years ago, I'd say, isn't that something at like Walmart? I don't know. So that so I went from that the to now I have to hedge gas because that we use natural gas to produce it. So I'm doing hedging this that and, uh, I, I think it's like the holiday in commercial. I a little bit of knowledge. So I slept at a holiday in and I, you know, now I'm yelling at my consultants going, why isn't it this, this, this, you know.
So it's interesting. It's, it's fun because as Larry said, it's, you know, I was, I was coming on 18 years at my, my other place, uh, you know, doing a, like the number two guy there and I was I was cruising along and then all of a sudden now, um, maybe it's what my dad said, you know, it's a new challenge and it's exciting.
It's good. And we're, we're, we're being, you know, we're accomplishing things here. So anyway, it's a central utility. I'm a mini. I don't know what the utility is in Atlanta, but Larry knows it's like Con Ed, you know, or in Rockland. It's orange in Rockland.
LT: That's great.
DC: Uh, brother, that's a long ways from the record business.
Jaime Schwartz: Yeah, it is. It is, but that was a short stop for me though. And it was good. It was great. It was a lot of fun, but, um. It was, I went out and raise that money. So I thought I was, I thought I was going to be the next Mark Cuban. So I, I wasn't, I can tell everybody that right now.
DC: Well, uh, Jamie, I'll say this before we go to the, uh, the last question of the five, um, until they're throwing dirt on you, brother, the game ain't over.
It ain't over. That's true. So there's that. All right. Uh, any more L. T. Before I go to the last question. What are you most proud of, Jamie?
Jaime Schwartz: So professionally, I'm most proud of what we've accomplished here. Uh, you know, I came here. I didn't even know what I was getting into. Funny story is it took me seven months to say yes to them.
They took some head on to tweak me. On LinkedIn, long story short, I come here and I was like, why did I get myself into, um, because this is, you know, they had owned this for a while. It's a huge property. It wasn't whoever, whatever that was going on before wasn't really, there was really whatever, but we've turned this around.
And to add to what Larry said, it's, it's actually over 400, 000 square feet. We've leased in less than 2. 5 years. When I came here, it was. Under 25 percent occupied mostly by Pfizer. Uh, and because Pfizer sold this property, they still own a little piece about 23 acres where their R and D division is, um, and, uh, and they leased back some space.
And then there's another Pfizer division called PGS. They're the manufacturing of oncology drugs. They leased space here. So they both. Not only least space they and they weren't happy with what was going on. So we, we repaired those relationships. Um, we, uh, we least they expanded here. We, we just did a ribbon cutting for a new tenant that just came here at least about 67, 000 square feet in a form of building that's been vacant for 10 years.
Um, we had to get that up and running, uh, millions and millions of dollars that they put in, that we put in, uh, we're constantly, we're leasing space here and putting this on the map, rebranding it Hudson Valley I Campus, the logo, the, the words, all the stuff that we've done here, building this team and turning this property around to almost being 50 percent occupied now.
Um, we also have a brisk movie and TV business here. So FBI was filming here yesterday. Uh, so we, I streamlined the, the, we did master agreements with all the studios, uh, NBC universal, apple. Um, S. T. U. Films here. So now that the strike has been, uh, the strike has been settled. We're going like gangbusters here.
Uh, severance parts of severance. The show on Apple plus was was filmed here. Uh, Dr. Death, Dr. Death. Second season's coming out. They did a lot of stuff here. The big building, if you ever watch it, they're walking out. They have Russian words on the that's one of my vacant office buildings here, which I just, which I'm very proud of.
We just 2 days ago that the, the town board just unanimously voted to change the zoning that we've been trying. I've been working on that for about. Um, so I'm going to, um, I'm converting that vacant office building into a Hilton hotel on site here. So that, that, that, uh, now we have to go through the process again, you know, the special permit, but we changed the zoning because it was only a light industrial zoning here.
So, that was, that was maybe not 2 years, maybe a year and 8 month process. And we just got it approved Tuesday night.
DC: Congratulations, brother. Thanks. Awesome, James.
Jaime Schwartz: So the turnaround of this, of this is really my proudest accomplishment. Um, my, the team that I built here that, that, that couldn't do it without them.
That it's, it's really, um, And if you ask me what I was going to do when I got here, I couldn't have told you, you know, it just, it was organic and, and it, and it's really, um, it's really, it's really, uh, professionally very satisfying to me. Yeah,
LT: looking from afar D like I've watched Jamie like, you know, he was talking to Scott and I like, like you said, I don't know if I want to do this.
Remember, Jamie, you were like, Yeah, we think and, um, you know, we knew this was going to be a really nice and big challenge for you because, uh, it was different, you know, you're going to leave something and, and, uh, knowing what you walked into. And I remember getting calls from you, like. Holy, what did I get into?
And the way you've turned it around, even just down from the name and everything, the way you've rebranded it and whatnot, I'm proud of you too, man. You've done an incredible job, um, from afar, you know, for what you had to what you've done now, it's really impressive.
Jaime Schwartz: We've also increased the, you know, the, the net operating income, just mind boggling amount, you know, it was negative real estate and it's in the, it's in the multiple millions in the plus zone now.
LT: There's the bottom line. There's the bottom line.
DC: Super dope brother. Yeah. Yo, entire team. Yeah, the
Jaime Schwartz: team, it was, listen, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's everybody. It's not just me. And they, they definitely support me in the vision and it's great. Yes. I'm very grateful to my team and, uh, and the support I get from the company.
It's awesome. So yeah, it turned out to be a nice situation here and we continue. We still have a lot of work to do, but thanks. Thanks. I appreciate that. All right, Danny,
LT: dad, or should we go next segment?
DC: Next segment segment, broski. All right. So
LT: James, this is our what's popping segment. This is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening in around marketing today.
Uh, and business today that we think is good fodder for discussion. So I know you've got one James. Hit us up with it.
Jaime Schwartz: Is it, it has to be marketing or is it just?
LT: No, anything. Yeah, you can hit us with it. I know you, you, you broached a topic with me. I thought that was good. So hit
Jaime Schwartz: us with it. Okay. Yeah. So, so I think, um, now I'm involved in life sciences, which if people don't know, it's, you know, it's biopharma, biotech.
It's, it's, it, it doesn't have to be only that, like this company that we did the ribbon cutting, those, uh, silicone additives. Silicate additives for everything from perfume to paint, so it's lab used kind of stuff, but it's it's also, uh, it's so that's the life sciences sort of world and engineering is a big part of that.
Right? And scientists. So my passion. I have 2 daughters and my passion was stem for girls and women really for girls. And I've been, uh, which stem is science, technology, engineering, math, science. And, uh, and we are supporting that here. We were going to do a really nice event with the, with the, with the schools, the local schools here, bring them on, let them go.
Because I have, I have tenants, I have, I have Sanofi, uh, I have Pfizer, uh, Sprites, Pharma's here, we have, and we have a bunch of small incubated, uh, companies, Pearl River. Labs. Um, we have a company called all the plex. There are women's high end women's hair product public company that actually doubling in size, but they they have they do their science here.
Um, so, uh, we were going to have them all come here and go and. and watch experiments and have a day. It just, you know, with all the schools, it just, we're still working towards that and we still support that. Um, but, um, we, I, that's something I'm striving for to do a nice big event here and maybe have the different school systems here to, to expose, you know, you have to do it for everybody.
And I, but, but when girls in STEM, because Girls sort of get intimidated in, you know, they're very good in math and stuff. And then as they get older, they, they sort of shy away from them. I think that's changing a little bit. Quite frankly, if you walk around my campus and I invite all you guys to come here 1 day, you know, it's a sprawling 207 acres, including Pfizer's 240 acres.
Uh, yeah, it's like 240 acres. And you have, yeah. People walking through like a college campus, uh, and uh, a lot of them are women and a lot, a lot of them are, uh, scientists. So it's very encouraging, but that's something that I, I, I want to, I want to, you know, bring forward and I want to support and, uh, we're working towards that.
LT: As a girl,
DC: dad, D any thoughts? I do have some thoughts. Uh, Jamie, I've got three daughters as you may or may not know, uh, three daughters. Uh, they are, uh, Haley. Lauren and Sidney, what are your daughter's names again? Thea and Stella. Thea and Stella. Okay, shout Thea and Stella. And, uh, as you were talking about, uh, STEM for girls and women, I thought, oh, yeah, we need to have more, uh, girls and women in STEM.
Then you started though, uh, Jamie, you talked about life sciences. And then my mind started to, the synapses started to fire. And I thought to myself, just easy off of Jamie's tongue was this, This life sciences. And when I was a kid, I never heard of any life sciences before, like this is a relatively new term.
And I certainly hadn't heard of STEM. I'd heard of math. I'd heard of technology. I heard of science, but I never, I never heard of STEM. And this is where brand nerds, no matter what domain you are in, marketing shows up. STEM is a, is a, is a brand. For marketing technology, and in this case, it's applied to girls and women life sciences is a brand to describe a category.
So then I started thinking, Jamie Larry. What are some other brands that have been given to movements or changes the civil rights movement that was a brand that was a brand. Me too. That's a brand black lives matter. I'm not talking about choosing a political side here, folks. I'm just talking about brand names.
So what's popping for me is that. Jamie is doing work in an area for girls and women, which is near to my heart. And he, and they are leveraging STEM as a brand to do that. And I think that's pretty dope. So that that's, that's my response. Yeah,
LT: no, I'm glad you, you hit on that D, um, because you're right, like, and now there's even STEAM that, oh yes, STEAM, yes, which is the same science, technology, you know, engineering, math, and the A stands for the arts, arts, for people to be well rounded, but I think, James, I love that you're doing that because I think if you can get young girls who, you know, when they're Coming up and they do get intimidated by, you know, it's sort of a boy thing for, you know, math and science.
And if they can see, like you just said, by going to the campus and seeing, uh, you know, other, uh, young, young females who are actually in these kind of jobs, I think that that takes a lot of courage. It opens up people's apertures right in a way that they, they wouldn't have thought if they didn't see it for themselves.
So kudos for you doing that. Um, you know, and, and, uh, and, and D is right though, it, it all goes, it all goes back to marketing, right? It's the marketing of all that and how that works. So, um, that's really cool. Another interesting point, Jamie, as you're saying all this, you know, out here in the Bay area, South San Francisco calls itself, you know, the, the, uh, basically the, Um, I think they say you and you as you go into the it's an actual city called South San Francisco, it's near the San Francisco airport.
It's a separate cities from San Francisco, and it says the biotech capital of the world. So like, all the big biotech companies are there. And what's interesting about it is that And this is what you have going like other commercial real estate doesn't have, you still got to be in the lab. You can't do that over zoom.
Right. And so that's why, you know, kudos to you for doubling, you know, the, uh, to being up to 50 percent occupancy for less than 25%. But people've got, they've got to be in the office. And that is from a real estate perspective. That's a nice thing to, uh, to have to, you know, deal with versus, uh, you know, just regular old office space.
Jaime Schwartz: Yeah. Well, office space. I used to be in that business. That's you don't have to be in an office space. You have, you don't, you can't do a lab at home. You don't get one time through air. You don't have a fume hoods, you know, all these things that are particular to labs that, that are required. Um, I'll tell you, you know, San Diego is a big, uh, site, uh, life sciences hub, Boston.
And so the New York area, and I've been on a bunch of panels, as you know, I was in the Phil, you know, I've been, yeah. Talking about creating the life science life sciences hub and how you do that. But New York is so this Rockland County, we're all we're literally 20 miles from the George Washington bridge.
So the Westchester County. These are suburbs of New York City and New York City or New York City is really pushing with the life sciences. They have a lot of incubator stuff, uh, Brooklyn, uh, Long Island City, and now we're complimentary here. This is quickly becoming a real life sciences hub. And probably because of Sanford, the South San Francisco, I think you said.
We have that we have the labor pool here. It's very important to be around a labor pool that are scientists that have the engineering degrees. That's why. So I'm very, very in tune with that because that's part of the marketing. I go out. I speak on panels and do because we have to let people know that this exists and.
The benefit we have is we have this infrastructure already to build a new lab buildings a thousand thousand dollars a square foot or to convert an existing office building with all the HVAC and the intricate that's you know it's eight hundred dollars a square foot. I got it all here. I might need to tweak it because it's a little bit, maybe it's a little, it needs to be modernized a little bit.
A lot of times the tenants do that, but I get the buildings working. That's 1 of the reasons we, you know, this team here has been incredible. And, uh, so we have this infrastructure in place already and, uh, and for small incubator. Um, lab businesses, you know, biotech or biomed businesses, they can't afford it.
So they come here, they need a bench, they need a hood. So, so, and then just like Olaplex is doubling in size. They were small, now they're getting larger. So I love when that happens. I know we're getting specifically into that doesn't really answer the question, but, um, that's part of the whole like equation.
DC: Awesome. Hey, Jamie, what we know about our brand nerds. Is, uh, they like to learn. We like to learn. We've talked about that earlier. And connections can be made everywhere. So I, I'm actually happy that you're bringing this to our, uh, to our podcast. I really am.
Jaime Schwartz: Well, I think I, and before we go, I, I, I, you guys are tight.
I think you guys are amazing. You do a great job. You should be nationally syndicated. So you should be, you should do that. Um, or do, or go into something other time. You are going into other topics now with me, but, uh, and I'm sure other people. But, uh, listen, we're all salesmen, right? We're all, all mark.
Everybody's a brand nerd because every time you go on a job interview, you're selling yourself, you're marketing yourself, the way you look, the way you speak to know if you're prepared. If you, anything you want to, you want to, you want to meet somebody, you're selling yourself, you're marketing yourself.
So everybody doesn't realize it, but every single person is a brand that should be an is a brand nerd. Right?
LT: That is awesome. Oh, man, this has been so much fun, James. Thanks for doing this. We're, we're going to get into the show close now. D, uh, shall I kick it off?
DC: Are we there already?
LT: We're there already, man.
This has
DC: been great. Okay. Okay. All right. I got to get myself together here. Okay. All right. Let's do it. All right. So,
LT: um, again, lots of stuff here, Jamie. So thank you. Uh, I'm going to call it down to five. So, uh, the first one is just do your best job always. And you never know when 205 Lexington Avenue may pop up.
Jamie wasn't looking for a job. I can tell you that straight up. I know that. But then he, he did his job really well and you get tapped on your shoulder when people see that. So just do your job and do it great, and you never know what can happen. That's number one. Number two, uh, I love and miss what we affectionately call, Jamie affectionately called his dad, Gil Gibby.
Love and miss him. I'm so glad he was brought up, James, and this, and your wonderful mom, Bonnie, too. But Gibby's thing It's about the work ethic. There's no substitute brand nerds. Number two, you got to put the work in. And it also doesn't mean that you have to do it 24 seven, but when you're in it, you got to put everything you have in it.
So that's number two. Number three, like Jamie talked about when you're hiring people, when you're thinking about filling out your team, even if you're influential as it relates, if you're a younger brand nerd and they ask you to interview people and you have a say, you should be thinking about what Jamie said, hire the person with the work ethic and the heart.
Number one, you, if you're smart, you got the smart heart and the work ethic, that's going to take you a long way rather than somebody who may be uber talented. So that's the third one. Number four, like Jamie learned with his VEM venture brand nurse, no matter what you do, focus, focus, focus. You can't go wrong.
If you focus. And you can go wrong if you try and be all things to all people. So that's number four. And then the fifth one, Jamie just talked about it. We're all a brand, no matter what you do, if you're the most, you know, um, code writing, uh, person, who's just, you know, has your head down in front of your computer, that's still your brand.
So you always have to think about that. So you're always marketing and selling yourself. Those are my five.
DC: Splendid L. T. Splendid. Often Jamie, Larry and I overlap and we've done it here. And I know you've listened to a couple of our podcasts. So, you know, this is the part of the program where I make an attempt to fully understand just for myself, what I think is the uniqueness of the human being before me. So let me pick up where LT was on his number five.
And then we're all a brand, which he took from you, Jamie saying, whenever we show up, we're selling, we're selling ourselves or marketing ourselves. So we're all a brand. So brand nerds, y'all know this, uh, there are 8. 1 billion people on the planet. As of now, when you're hearing my voice, if you're hearing it in 2023, 8.
1 billion people. It'll be more than that in January of 2024, but right now in December of 2023, which Jeff and Haley and Jay, they don't like me to time our podcast. They want to be evergreen, but right now, but he
LT: always does it, Jamie. He
DC: always does do it anyway. 8. 1 billion people. Here's the deal. Brand nerds.
We all have brains. We have bodies. Uh, uh, we have hair, we have teeth, we have these things and these are all products. They are not the brand. The brand is what makes us unique. And so Jamie, I'm going to go through and start to analyze what I think is your unique brand of the 8. 1 billion people walking around this planet.
First thing is I'm going back to 205 Lexington, just like, uh, Larry was where you negotiated a lease for, uh, Steve Ripken and, uh, and their company loud records, 205 Lex half. And, uh, you got a job there and you acknowledge this to, uh, to Steve, you say, yo, man, I don't know anything about the music business.
He's like, no, that's okay. That's okay. Then you're on a first class flight. You're headed out to LA. And you pull a book, all you need to know about the music business by Donald Passman. Okay. This is the book guys, like in marketing, there's reason trout 22 immutable laws of marketing. There are certain books in each profession that you just have to read in the music business.
This is one of those books. And the reason why Jamie, I think you pulled that book is because as it related to the details of the music industry, you were in the dark brother. You were in the dark. You, you knew squad douche and you went to this book because it was a form of light for you. So that's the first example.
Here's the second, this VEM virtual entertainment marketing company that you launched with another partner and got a couple million dollars in, um, in investment. And it went belly up. You said this, you said, I was looking into the abyss. I had to do something. I'm paraphrasing now. I had to feed my family.
So I put my shingle out, put my, put my shingle back
LT: out. And that's what he said at the time, by the way. Yeah, I
DC: remember. That's what he said. Literally that. Wow. All right. So, um, brand nerds. Um, you learn something about yourself when you are in the abyss. Yep. Cause there's nothing but you and the abyss.
That's it. That's it. And, and you start to understand your intestinal fortitude. Are you going to fold into the abyss or are you going to find some light? And brother Jamie put his shingle out. That was his light, his virtual light. That's number two. Now let's go to number three. IRG. So Jamie's at IRG right now.
And he said when he arrived, it was in a turnaround situation. All right. By the way, lt, this didn't all come to me until late when he started talking about I rrg. Yeah. And then he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we have a utility plan. Then the brother said 23 megawatts. Okay. He said, central utility plan. And then Jamie, you said, if you would've asked me what a megawatt was, you know, 23 years ago, you'd have no idea.
Neither would I and neither would most, uh, brand nerds me. Me too. But what we, but what we do know. Is that with utilities, they too can power lights. Utility can power lights. And in, uh, in Jamie's office, Brandnerds, if you all aren't able to see this, just listening to it. If you look at some of our marketing on YouTube, which is headed by Haley.
You will notice that in Jamie's office, he has plaques on his wall from his days in the music business. Plaques. And what you will notice in the plaques is because of the light. In his office, and maybe natural light, there's a reflection off of these plaques. There's a reflection of light. Let me bring it all home now.
Your father, Gil Gibby, uh, rest in power, takes his middle school son and says, Hey, look out here. Look out here, James. I don't want you to be like, That's mediocrity. I don't want you to be like that. I want you to rise above. Gibby was talking about, Jamie, he was pouring into you verticality. Verticality.
This is how I want my son to be different, but I actually think you're something different than that. I think your brand is, James Swartz is an example of the light in the abyss. And you have darkness to light throughout your life. Jamie throughout your life. That's what I believe is your brand and the uniqueness that you have offered us walking around this planet with you, brother.
Jaime Schwartz: Wow. That's deep. Now that's, that's some Wu Tang stuff.
That's some Wu, man. Yup. That. You know, they're doing a residency. They're doing two, uh, yeah, Vegas and the Super Bowl. And then, uh, and then March Madness. But, uh, yeah, that's deep, man. So, um, that's, that's awesome. You guys, you actually listen. That's, that's incredible. I mean,
LT: Hey, Jamie. And that's scary because this is somebody who really knows you like for D to Pull that out.
Like, that's scary, right? Is it
DC: Larry? Oh, yeah. Ah, wow. Okay.
Jaime Schwartz: We didn't get to my aggressive side of that. You know, people are sometimes scared of me. So I hope that didn't come out.
LT: The bouncer side of him.
DC: Here's what I can imagine back in your bouncer days. Is, uh, there were times where people were acting a fool and you and they needed to be acquainted with the, the dark Jamie to handle the situation.
And I bet the people that you were helping in the, at the same time, they saw the light. Even in the darkness of taking care of that situation. That's awesome,
Jaime Schwartz: man. I, you got, I, I'm gonna, I need you to talk to my wife. That's great. Because George just ignores him,
LT: really. That's really weird. Yeah, brother. Nah, that's awesome.
Jaime Schwartz: I really, I enjoyed this. This is fun. And, um, it's really, and it also, you know, you don't really talk about your history and, and going and, and, you know, verbalize it and. It's interesting because I didn't realize I was gonna talk about some of this stuff, but it's really it's cool
LT: Dude, james. This was awesome.
I'm, so glad we did this. Uh, we're gonna hit this We're gonna hit the real show close for uh jade here Uh brand nerds, thanks for listening to brands beats and bites The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Daryl “DC” Cobbin and Larry Taman and Hailey Cobbin and Jade Tate and Tom Dioro.
DC: The Podfather.
LT: That is he.
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