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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast!
On today's episode, you'll hear from a music industry legend who took what he learned in corporate sales and marketing and used it to build global brands, proving that the fundamentals of marketing don't change no matter the industry. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business, even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Let's give it up for my podcast partner, Kelsi Carter.
Kelsi Carter:It is me. Hi, Dave. How are you?
Dave Charest:I'm pretty darn good. How are you doing?
Kelsi Carter:I'm doing pretty good. Happy that it's Friday here.
Dave Charest:Oh, yes. Friday is good. Hey. You know what? Actually, before we get to it, it's a Friday after the time of this recording anyway.
Dave Charest:We just came back from New York City to celebrate this lovely little podcast of ours winning a few awards.
Kelsi Carter:We did. We went to the Stevie Awards in New York City.
Dave Charest:How exciting was that? We won a gold, a silver, and a bronze.
Kelsi Carter:Three. We won three awards. And we went on stage and, did a little speech. That was cool.
Dave Charest:That was cool. Yeah. They're supposed to send us you didn't get any notifications about photos or anything yet, did you? I think that timeline was all off.
Kelsi Carter:I know they had AI, so whenever we just had to register. So whenever our face was captured, we'd get sent the picture.
Dave Charest:Maybe they just did not capture our faces. Oh, we broke it. We broke AI, folks. Sorry to tell you, but it was our fault. Sorry.
Dave Charest:We did it. So it's funny. You know, when I said, welcome, Kelsey Carter, my mind immediately went to cowboy Carter, which has some weird connection to our conversation here today. And which will make sense in a little bit. But one of the things I'm excited about this conversation, I'm excited to one, was excited to have it.
Dave Charest:I'm excited to share it with everybody today. Because I think I mean, even, you know, think about yourself, Kelsey. If you if there was a time maybe you tried something new, maybe it was something that is a big move or a new idea, you know when people around you just don't get it? What are you even thinking about? What are you talking about?
Dave Charest:In your mind, you can see it. Right? Like, you can see this as something that makes a lot of sense, and this is what you need to move forward with. And I think that's really the reality for a lot of entrepreneurs. Right?
Dave Charest:They see things and see what's possible before it even exists. And I think that's where today's guest comes in because when you get the fundamentals of the things that you're doing right, you really give your vision a chance to grow and to become something. That's why I'm excited for everybody to hear this because this is someone who has a lot of experience in the business world and also being a visionary in that as well. Why don't you tell us a little bit about our guest here today, Kelsi?
Kelsi Carter:I'm honored. Today's guest is Mr. Matthew Knowles, founder of Music World Entertainment based in Houston, Texas. He's best known as the force behind the rise of Destiny's Child and Beyonce's early solo career, but he's also a veteran of corporate sales, a serial entrepreneur, a college professor, and a cancer survivor. So over the years, he's helped artists land major brand deals, built a hair salon empire, launched a fashion label, and taught students around the world about entrepreneurship in the music business.
Dave Charest:Lots of things here. Right? Lots of things going on. And I hope now that maybe you see that, yes, this is mister Matthew Knowles, Beyonce's dad as well, who many people do know him as. And what I love most about our conversation with mister Knowles is that you'll really hear how he built his career across sales, music, fashion, and education on really a repeat formula rooted in the fundamentals.
Dave Charest:And you know, I'm a big believer in the fundamentals. Those are going to trump anything else that you're trying to do. And from understanding your audience to practicing failure, everything really ties back to knowing the basics and applying them with focus and intent. And so whether you're selling medical equipment, or you're managing Destiny's Child, right? Those core principles are really going to stay the same.
Dave Charest:In this conversation today, you're going to hear why understanding your audience is the first step to building a brand. Mr. Knowles used that insight to create success across these multiple industries. How practicing failure, which is a really cool concept and idea, can really give you the confidence to lead through uncertainty, and what entrepreneurs often get wrong about growth and what they should focus on instead. As I mentioned, Kelsey, there's like so much in this conversation beyond just what I've kind of summarized here.
Dave Charest:And I'm just, again, excited for people to hear this. Let's go to Mr. Knowles as he shares a bit about his twenty year history in corporate sales and marketing, starting in an elite division of the Xerox Corporation, before he moved to make his mark on an entirely new industry.
Mathew Knowles:I got promoted very quickly to the medical division selling a product, Zero Radiography, which was a leading modality for breast cancer, and then went on to sell MRI and CT scanners for Philips Medical Systems, and ending my twenty year career in corporate with Johnson and Johnson as a neurosurgical specialist. So this was high level technology, as we all know, with MRI and CT scanners. First generation, so you had to understand physics and a whole bunch of stuff.
Dave Charest:Well, so what I wanna know then is how do you go, especially after twenty years doing that and doing it at a at a high level, I mean, what gives you the confidence to leave the hell behind and step into the music business?
Mathew Knowles:Well, a number of things. Sales and marketing. And when you think about the music industry, we don't like referring to an artist as a product, but that's really what they are, right? And it's the same fundamental steps in sales and marketing. The fundamental basis is the same regardless of what the product is.
Mathew Knowles:So I had this amazing background in sales and marketing, which gave me the confidence to go to a new industry. I had gone from different technologies, so I wasn't afraid of technology, but to go into a new industry with a different perspective where the music industry was selling records. They were a record label. We were selling branding and endorsement and taking a marketing approach differently, where I saw that if I brought L'Oreal as a partner, that million dollar marketing budget that Sony gave me was peanuts compared to the $25,000,000 marketing budget L'Oreal had in putting my artists and music in those commercials. You know, I did 19 major endorsement deals with my artists, mainly, you know, Beyonce and Destiny South.
Mathew Knowles:So we had a totally different approach, And I had given myself twenty years and reached that that twenty year point.
Dave Charest:So, I mean, did you have any ties to the industry before? And I guess what led to that decision to do that?
Mathew Knowles:The defining moment was being a dad, as we talked about, and Destiny's Child, Beyonce, was 11 years old, 12 years old, and they went to Star Search. And my role was to carry the wardrobe. I mean, I was just a dad. I wasn't involved in the music at all, and they lost. And, you know, here I'm watching my kids crying at friends, and I asked Ed McMahon, hey, as a dad, I'm seeing what do I do?
Mathew Knowles:And I never forget, he said, for some reason, the people that consistently win on the show professionally go nowhere. It's the people that lost. And he they then started naming off Boyz II Men, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Usher, they all lost on Star Search. It is something about that defining moment of learning from failure and redefining yourself, and that's what happened. That's how I got into it.
Mathew Knowles:It was that moment that I said, hey, I'm gonna jump in here because the ladies that were managing them, I didn't think were going about it the right way.
Dave Charest:So obviously, that changed something in you hearing that. Did you notice a change in in Destiny's Child and Beyonce? Like, did they get that as well?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. They did. They did. Because Beyonce individually had won, like, 30 competitions as a solo, and for her to lose, that was her first loss. And there were more losses after that, you know, being signed to electric records and then getting dropped, cut off the roster was a defining moment.
Mathew Knowles:And oftentimes in life and in our careers, it's sometimes our mistakes and failures that propel us to the even greater success. This opportunity to grow and not a reason to quit, and a lot of people quit.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I mean, I think being in sales and marketing too, mean, no is something that you're gonna hear all the time. Right?
Mathew Knowles:Oh, yeah. That's why I always laugh the first single for Destiny's Child was no no no. It was a chuckle though. That's amazing.
Dave Charest:When you start getting into it, you're doing this stuff. What what were some of the things that you were kinda learning in the early days?
Mathew Knowles:Well, for me, I went back to school. I've always believed in knowledge, there's power. So I went back to school and I took artist management, production, publishing, and media training and public speaking. And so at the same time, went to Dave every type of seminar I could in the music industry. And then I started and began to build those relationships, which is an integral part of marketing, right?
Mathew Knowles:There's the public relations part of it as well. So I began to build relationships and get this knowledge. But most people don't realize the first person that I managed and got a record deal was not Destiny Shaw, it was a rapper in Houston, still there, named Lil O. He used to get on my case because I would say little, little O. And he would be like, no.
Mathew Knowles:But mister Nelson said, little o.
Dave Charest:It's cooler, man. It's cooler.
Mathew Knowles:Can't say little o.
Dave Charest:Well, so how many artists did you have? I mean, obviously, through the years, you've worked with some amazing people. But what was that like to just even get your first client? Right? The first artist that you're managing?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. You know, it came to me. I wasn't looking for it. He came to me. He had heard about my sales background.
Mathew Knowles:He had heard that I was getting into the industry because I was going to seminars and saw him perform at a seminar. And he came up and we started talking, and that's really how it began. And his first video, at that time, the record label he was signed to was the largest R and B urban record label. And so he was signed there and Destiny's Child was signed to that competitor. And somehow I convinced them to put Destiny's Child in his video, which is kind of unheard of, because they're like, we normally put artists with major names in collaborations, not a new artist from our competitor, but I convinced them that one day they'll work in their favor and it did.
Dave Charest:I was gonna say there's there's that sales background again. Right? There
Mathew Knowles:it is. I'm always selling, Dave. Always selling, man.
Dave Charest:Well, I'm curious as you're doing this, was there anything you know, if you look back, was there anything that was maybe harder than you expected versus, you know, the things that really came natural to you?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. I I think the hardest thing at the very beginning was the tagline of being a parent. The music industry frowns on that, and I don't understand why because some of the most successful artists, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Usher, Brandy, I could go on and on, their parents were their managers. And I never quite understood that. Although as I became more experienced, it's the emotional aspect that some parents can't separate the emotional aspect versus the business aspect.
Mathew Knowles:And being in corporate America, and at that time being an entrepreneur, my former wife and I had a major hair salon, I had to learn how to separate the two in having to, unfortunately, terminate people that were family members, learn how to separate that.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah. Well, what do you think your time in corporate sales what has that teach you or helped you as a music executive then?
Mathew Knowles:Well, I learned a whole bunch as being in sales. First, you're selling you first, people buy you first, and then your product. That's probably the number one thing I learned is people buy you first and your product. I learned from Xerox Corporation, had amazing, amazing, amazing training at Leesburg, Virginia, not far from you guys. Really the definition of marketing, you know, understanding market research, understanding who is your audience, understanding branding and advertising, sales and distribution.
Mathew Knowles:All of that is a part of marketing and targeting that market and understanding Destiny's Child using his example that their target audience were women. Most people didn't understand that female empowerment, if you look at the songs, that's what their songs were all about. We targeted that. That wasn't happenstance. Those independent women and the bugaboo, pay bills, bills, bills, I can pay my own bills, I don't need a guy to pay my bills.
Mathew Knowles:It was all about female empowerment. So we took all of those tools we learned from corporate America, understanding distribution, relationship with Walmart, which was the largest distributor actually of music in that era, in the late 90s and February, understanding, approaching the world rather than just The US that most artists and managers and record labels do, we did it differently. We 15 times, Destiny Shaw went to London on their first album for promotions. 15 times, unheard of. Still, Columbia Records talks about that.
Dave Charest:So I guess how did you identify that as, like, the opportunity? Right? Because I I think there's something to this idea of particularly when you get into an industry or, you know, I think of, you know, the small business owners that would be listening today. Right? Like, there's often this thought that there's a way to do it.
Dave Charest:Right? Or I guess what pushed you to that point where, well, we're gonna do this this way, like, to do something different. You know what I'm saying? Like, I like, what gets you there?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's called thinking outside of the box, Dave. Most of us have been conditioned, what I call box in thinking.
Mathew Knowles:Sure. That we have to do it a certain way. And so imagine if we had a box and I was in a box and you told me to walk around, all I'm going do is hit walls. But also, if you ask me to invite someone else in my box, I would invite someone just like me, right? I often use the example, if I'm a hater, then I'm gonna invite a hater in my box, right?
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Mathew Knowles:But we've been conditioned from childhood that we can't do certain things. We can't do it because we're poor, because we're LGBTQ community, or because we're a woman. We've been conditioned, and then we've been conditioned we have to do it this way. And yes, well, why do we do it? We just do it this way.
Mathew Knowles:But when you think outside of the box and step outside of that block, there's no walls whatsoever. So I used the same principle when we built our hair salon, which became the largest hair salon in Houston. We targeted our audience. We targeted our audience for black females, professional women making $75,000 or more. And we understood through market research what was the number one challenge.
Mathew Knowles:The number one challenge is the time they spent in a hair salon. So if I'm making $100,000 a year, I don't want to spend three hours in a hair salon. So we came up with a structure that we learned from the medical community of how to get a woman in and out in an hour and a half. And we charged them three times more than our competition because we understood the value of time. And we also had, at that time, we had the fax machines and we served champagne and the things that a professional woman wanted.
Mathew Knowles:So, it's about knowing your audience and thinking outside of the box. I mean, when I got to the music industry, I didn't care how everybody else did. Just earlier today, somebody asked, well, did you listen to other artists? I didn't listen to other artists. I didn't care about that.
Mathew Knowles:We had a way we wanted to do it. Win or fail, we convinced others that this is the way we wanted to do it through leadership. And eventually, without getting really technical, no, no, no. The first single of Destiny's Child was a part one, part two. One was up tempo, one was a ballad.
Mathew Knowles:There's a satellite called broadcast data systems that tells an imprint every time a song is played.
Dave Charest:Gotcha. Yeah.
Mathew Knowles:I went to Broadcast Data System, BDS, and I said, what if? What if the song is the same title, the same lyrics, but different tempo? Could it count as the same song? They're like, Mr. Nulch, nobody ever asked us that question.
Mathew Knowles:We'll get back to you. They got back to me and they said, we talked about it. Yes, it could count. So I'm in a meeting with the president of Columbia Records, and I tell him this, and he has the staff and they actually called because they didn't believe me. They said, oh yeah, we remember talking to Mr.
Mathew Knowles:Knowles. Yes, it's going to count. The ballot and the single never have been done. And that's how Destiny's Child's first single became number one, because the ballad and the single counted as one song, thinking outside of the box.
Dave Charest:That's amazing.
Mathew Knowles:And when that happened, then I became a genius. I was no longer I was no longer a dad anymore.
Dave Charest:I love that. It's amazing when you do start to think about things differently, and I love what you're saying about the audience. I'm curious, when was the hair salon? Like, what time frame was did that happen? Was that
Mathew Knowles:That was nineteen eighties. Well, we actually had it for seventeen years.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Mathew Knowles:But the heyday was at the eighties. So starting '83, we made our first million in '86.
Dave Charest:I just love that though, that idea because this is what we talk about a lot. Right? It's not like anything that you get you're gonna do or the decisions you're gonna make are gonna be based on a couple of things. Right? Like, your goals, but more even so more is who it is that you're talking to.
Dave Charest:Right? Who is the audience? And I and I love hearing how you say that, and and it speaks directly to solving a problem for them in that and making that a unique opportunity that you created for yourself with the salon there?
Mathew Knowles:Well, let me give you the two minute version, Dave. Yeah. I've worked in technology. Right? So Mhmm.
Mathew Knowles:We were one of the first hair salons that had a a computer that really gathered data from my customers, what type of products they use after the hair salon. Because successful hair salons really make their money on selling products. That's really the core. I took what I had learned in the medical community. You go to the doctor the first time, they gather all this information, you're sitting there filling all those stuff, and then they call you into the room, the nurse sees you, asks you, you're here today because you have an infection, there's a sore throat, they take your temperature, your heart, take those vital signs.
Mathew Knowles:Back then they would write that all and put it on the door, and the physician would then look at those notes, and he or she, when they walked in, they pretty much knew what they were going to prescribe and what the issue was. We took that same concept to the hair salon, we had assistants, the hairstylist never left the chair, The shampoo, condition, all that fundamental stuff, the nurses did that. So we came up with this formula that we would have flow throughout the service. The customer was always moving forward to the next step. And it was also a psychological advantage that, hey, I'm not sitting here in the waiting room, I'm actually in the X-ray Room, and now I'm actually in front of my doctor, and he or she is prescribing, we actually had a prescription pad that the hairstylist would then, after the service, give the customer, so when they checked out, the person at the front desk was, maybe see your prescription.
Mathew Knowles:And we might say, well, a bottle of this shampoo, a bottle of this conditioner. So we came up with the flow and how to sell the products.
Dave Charest:Yeah, I love that. So it's really interesting too, because to your point earlier about like, the fundamentals of things are always kinda there, but I love how you can actually look at one industry and then apply it to another in a way that makes complete sense. Right? Well, you know, one of the things that I I was reading about and you've talked about this idea of practicing failure. I wanna touch on this a little bit because I I understand it from a performance aspect.
Dave Charest:Right? Mic cuts out, my heel breaks. Right? Something goes wrong, so you gotta be ready on as a performer, how to deal with those types of things. But can you explain what that looks like in a traditional business setting maybe?
Dave Charest:And and how does that mindset how can that apply to entrepreneurs?
Mathew Knowles:Well, Malcolm Gladwell in the book Outliers is one of the best books I ever enjoyed reading. As an author, I really enjoyed it. He did this tremendous research on all aspects of young people, how their age difference, being a half year older in sports, being a grade behind can actually help you. He did tremendous research. And he came up with, to be great at anything, ten thousand hours of doing it, ten thousand hours.
Mathew Knowles:So when you look at any aspect of what you've done, I guarantee you've probably done ten thousand hours of it. I've done motivational speaking, I've done ten thousand hours of that. It requires that amount of time to really learn and fail and learn and fail and learn and fail. So I came up with this idea of Destiny's Child, why don't we practice failure? And I do the same thing when I'm speaking.
Mathew Knowles:Why don't I practice failure that the mic goes off or somebody asks me a question that I don't wanna answer, why don't I practice that? We can apply that to a whole lot of things. Right? Like, right now, if the mic went out or if my phone started ringing. Well, after you
Dave Charest:practice Don't jinx it.
Mathew Knowles:Don't Yeah. Jinx After you practice that, you learn. Right? So we actually practiced, Bill, with Destiny's Child that the mic would go out. They didn't know in practice whenever it's gonna happen or we would literally take it another step forward.
Mathew Knowles:We would have a shoe that we would almost break it where we knew it would break during the show and the routine. So what do you do? People don't know. Beyonce did the Oscars one year, and she was singing in French and English, going down the steps with a gown and her shoe heel broke. Very few people know that that she went down those steps live on Oscars had it not been for practicing failure.
Mathew Knowles:It could have been a disaster.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I mean, it's through the act of doing it. Right? And thinking through that, I mean, look, I'm a New England guy. Right?
Dave Charest:Like, I think this is big with, like, you talk about, like, a Tom Brady or something. Right? And going through the different scenarios of, okay. Here's the situation. Let's practice for that situation.
Dave Charest:I think is a lot similar to what you're talking about here. Right?
Mathew Knowles:That's exactly a great analogy to sports.
Dave Charest:So you, you know, really thinking about controlling the narrative, right, investing in your vision, what advice do you give entrepreneurs today who are trying to build something meaningful on their own terms?
Mathew Knowles:Well, you know, that's a very good question because I'm constantly learning, right? So about three months ago, I had opportunity to talk with a company that does the psychology of entrepreneurship. They literally have a Q and A question and answer that they take beginning entrepreneurs. And seven out of ten fail the psychology test of being an entrepreneur. What really is the mental aspect of this failure of they ask things like, how many hours do you sleep at night?
Mathew Knowles:Well, if you ask that I sleep eight hours, you're probably not gonna make a good entrepreneur.
Dave Charest:You'll be very relaxed though.
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. But you've gotta go get it as an entrepreneur, especially starting out. I mean, eight hours of sleep, you're not going to be able to do that for a number of reasons. One, you're putting in the time and work. Other is your brain is, you've to shut your brain off.
Mathew Knowles:You have to learn how to do that. When you're first starting out, you're wondering how I'm gonna raise capital or how I'm get customers. So that's also a psychology part of this whole entrepreneurs.
Dave Charest:And you know, just talking about, like, you're having to put in the hours and stuff. I mean, I think there's stuff that I know that you've you've talked about just in terms of, like, the traits of successful people and those types of things. Right? And so we're, like, work ethic has to come into this. Right?
Dave Charest:Being willing to do the things that other people won't do. Talk to me a little bit about even the vision. Right? Like, how do you
Mathew Knowles:Oh, you're reading about mine. I was thinking about, number one, you read DNA of Achievers, 10 traits of highly successful professionals, and then I was thinking, you know, being a visionary, what does that mean and how you see life differently than most people. And understanding that being a visionary means that it's a very lonely role because people aren't going to get you. So when you're a true visionary, you're bringing something totally new and different, and people aren't going to get that because again, we've been conditioned to be boxed in thinkers. But the mistake that a lot of people make starting out is they want to ask people their opinion rather than saying, when I open a hair salon, this is what I need from you.
Mathew Knowles:Not, what do you think? Is that a good idea to open a hair salon? Well, I've done my research, I've done the target audience, I've done my homework, I don't really need you to critique is this a good or bad idea because I've done the homework on it.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Mathew Knowles:I don't need to ask you if it's a good idea. If I'm a true visionary, I don't think Barry Gordy, when he started Motown, was asking people was it a good idea, he had a vision in mind that he was going to teach his artists not just how to go into the studio or how to sing, but also how to sit at a dinner table. At Motown, he actually taught his honest etiquette.
Dave Charest:Interesting. So I love that idea of kind of how you put it and how you said, like, this is what I need you to do, right, versus I don't need your opinion about Right. What I'm trying to do.
Mathew Knowles:We don't use the word try Dave.
Dave Charest:Yeah, there you go, right?
Mathew Knowles:Let's do the exercise. You have a pen, you're holding a pen, set it down for a second, pick it up. Did you try to pick it up?
Dave Charest:No, I picked it up.
Mathew Knowles:If you psychologically try and use those words, your brain would trick you Yeah. Into not achieving it. We don't use that word.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So that's a great point. So when you get to this place of vision and doing the things that you're gonna do, how do you bring people along for that journey? I'm assuming you have to build a team right around you, you have to have the right people. How do you bring people along for what it is that, to your point, is something new, right?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. But you said the keyword, Dave, you have to build a team. My assistant has been with me twenty four years. My accountant has been with me thirty years. My attorney has been with me fifteen, and they were experts.
Mathew Knowles:And so through leadership, you build this team, and every team has to have a coach, but you need to have really good players in every position, and every player needs to know their role. Chicago Bulls, Scottie Pippen knew his role. And when the game was on the line, they knew how I said Beyonce because that's Michael Jordan. Right? And with Destiny's Child, she was the Michael Jordan.
Mathew Knowles:But they also had Dennis Rodman who didn't wanna score. His role was to rebound. Everybody had a role, so you build this team of knowing what's needed to build this amazing team. And so we've had the opportunity, it hadn't been just high, high, high, It's been the team that was built. Some of that team still works for Beyonce, publicist, head of security.
Mathew Knowles:Some of those key roles was from a team that was built in 1997.
Dave Charest:That to me is just amazing when you just think about I mean, of course, there's a business aspect to this. Right? And just being able to build something that creates this lifelong opportunity for everyone. Right? That to me is exciting and interesting and and the things that entrepreneurs do bring to the world, right, when they can build those types of things.
Dave Charest:I'm curious, mister Knowles, is there anything from you that maybe something you believed about running a business early on that you no longer believe?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. There's a number of things, Dave. I used to think big was better. I've come to learn that, again, through technology today, you can still outperform big by having better technology and using it correctly, AI and other ways. But I used to think big was better.
Mathew Knowles:So it was one point that I grew too fast. I literally grew too fast. And my overhead, and I couldn't manage the people that I had because I had too many people and I was doing too many things. So I have learned over the years how to pace that growth and understanding that big is not always better, but having clear focus on who you are as a company, a clear focus on who your customer, who that person is, and knowing how to manage expectations from your staff as well as your customers. That's something that I really would do differently because at one point when I was working on Music World, at one point we had 70 employees.
Mathew Knowles:Just last night, Dave, just last night, I was telling my wife as we are celebrating this month our twelve year anniversary.
Dave Charest:Congratulations.
Mathew Knowles:Thank you. When I first met her, you know what I used to brag about, Dave, to her? I used to say, you know what? How many men do you know that run a business have $300,000 a month overhead? That was what my overhead was.
Mathew Knowles:Dollars 300,000 a month at Music World. And I said, that sounds like, boy, well that was stupid. I should have been bragging about probability. Because we often get confused about overall revenue, but is that profitable? I mean, you can be making a million dollars and have a million and $1 of expenses.
Mathew Knowles:That's not profitable.
Dave Charest:Well, right. Yeah. Yeah. The math ain't math at that point. When you think about I think you've used this phrase, marketing is everything.
Dave Charest:And we've talked a little bit about marketing earlier on. But what does that mean to you now?
Mathew Knowles:That still means the same thing. Marketing hadn't changed for me at all. Those key elements of market research, targeting your audience, building that brand is real. Because most people don't really know what brand identity, storytelling, and brand development, what that really means, because if you don't have a brand identity, you have nothing to market. And if you have nothing to market, you might as well shut your door.
Mathew Knowles:So most people don't know how to build brand identity. There's a reason why some people buy Adidas over Converse, or go to buy a $100 scarf versus buying a $10 scarf. There's a reason for that, because it's the brand identity. We built a clothing line from zero, House of Darion. We built it from zero and sold it for $88,000,000 We've done this now repeatedly using the same fundamental formula.
Mathew Knowles:Different product, apparel, technology, medical devices, music, but fundamentally the same approach to it.
Dave Charest:So what's the formula look like if you were to break it down? Like, what are the things that people need to do? And I know you've talked about some of this, right? I'm assuming research is gonna be in there.
Mathew Knowles:Well, it's the who, the what, the why, the where.
Dave Charest:Gotcha.
Mathew Knowles:The who, the what, the why, the where. Who is my customer? What is my product? Why should they buy it? Where do they get it?
Mathew Knowles:The who, the what, the where. The who, the what, the why, the where.
Dave Charest:So what do you think is the biggest mistake that you see entrepreneurs make as they embark on that journey?
Mathew Knowles:Well, I think there's a number of mistakes, and I've made them myself. The who again, identifying who the customer is. That requires a lot of market research and focus groups. You know, we did focus groups. For example, every album we put out, we have focus groups to come in, 20 or 30 people, they'll hear the songs, had a little simple sheet to answer, and really learn from their comments.
Mathew Knowles:Because at the end of the day, they're the customer, right? What the product is, does it meet a need? Does it really meet a need? Understanding who's my competitor? Who am I competing, I guess?
Mathew Knowles:And if I'm selling, for example, a service, is it digital service or is it brick and mortar? Because if it's brick and mortar, then location, location, location becomes important. And pricing, that's my understanding of competition. Am I underpriced, overpriced? But then I have to understand financials, how to read a P and L and understand it, how to understand and know a cash flow analysis, that requires a lot of knowledge.
Mathew Knowles:It's something that's not gained immediately. I always laugh, I get annoyed. I've been a college professor for over twenty years. I get annoyed when someone's teaching entrepreneurship and they've never been an entrepreneur. I get really annoyed with any professor, and if you're listening, you heard it from me, I don't think you should be teaching entrepreneurship at all if you haven't been an entrepreneur.
Mathew Knowles:Because this is not book, there's a difference between knowledge and education. Sometimes people get confused with that.
Dave Charest:Well, I'm curious, you know, when you mentioned earlier that you went to school, you started learning more about the business and and doing all of that. I mean, through the process of then doing and learning and how different was that for you? Like, what you were being taught versus what you were actually seeing in reality?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. Fortunate for me, the people that we're teaching actually were doing it.
Dave Charest:Were people in the in doing the stuff, right?
Mathew Knowles:They were doing it. They were actually doing it. It's just so they could share their reasons for failure also. You know, and I think as a a true litmus test, you gotta share the failures. You can't share the pluses.
Mathew Knowles:Sure. You gotta go to the minuses also. And oftentimes, that's not done. People wanna talk about successes rather than what they learned from mistakes and failures.
Dave Charest:Well, I'm curious then. What would you classify as one of your biggest learning failures?
Mathew Knowles:Yeah. I've had many. One is when I sold Music World back in 02/2002, sold it for $10,000,000 and $30,000,000 worthless stock because I didn't understand classifications of stock. Right?
Dave Charest:Interesting. Yeah.
Mathew Knowles:So and then I I became president of a division, and I brought in and bought five companies, small management companies. But we had offices in LA, offices in New York, offices in Houston, office in corporate office in London, and I just couldn't focus. I was on the road, and it really affected how I could manage Destiny's Child and the growth of the artists I had because I was spread too thin, even if bled over to my marriage and my relationship with kids. And I learned a lot from that, again, doing too much too soon and not having, at that time, the team to do it all.
Dave Charest:So what did that make you change? What shifted in you after learning that?
Mathew Knowles:Well, what shifted in me is I bought back my company in 02/2007. Let's start there.
Dave Charest:There you
Mathew Knowles:go, all right. I bought it back and I went back to the basics. But understanding that I bought it back with a strategic, people didn't understand and still don't in the music industry, catalogs, what the value of a catalog and having these assets. I'm right now at thirty years in the business and in my 70s, I'm grateful that I'm selling assets that I built thirty years ago. When I bought back my company, I bought assets I had built, and then I was able to sell my catalog three years ago for 17 times multiple.
Mathew Knowles:And for me, owning a business, really the end goal is to sell it. When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I didn't understand that. But as I got more experienced and knowledgeable, I understand, no, I don't want to be working this hard and doing this. I want to build this to a point that I can sell it. So, you know, I've sold, I don't know, seven or eight different assets.
Mathew Knowles:I'm about to sell the asset this year. And that's been the end goal is to build it and sell it. Most people get emotionally attached to it.
Dave Charest:There's an interesting thing, particularly when you start thinking about I mean, I know you've taught, and I think you're probably still working on things now about, like, building the brand of Beyonce, for example, and taking people through that. And so, yeah, what shifts? Like, how do you have to approach, I guess, building a brand that kind of lasts beyond the product or the person in that scenario? Like, how do you approach that as an entrepreneur when you're starting to think through that?
Mathew Knowles:Well, I I think you first have to understand the concept of building a brand and the value of building a brand. Mean, again, we said it earlier, a lot of people don't understand how to build that brand. We built it again. I would like to use L'Oreal as an example. And we went to L'Oreal and we said, hey, we'd like you to put these songs in your commercials and we'd to put Destiny's Child.
Mathew Knowles:And then we went to Nintendo because there weren't enough males buying Destiny's Child and Beyonce's music. So I understood gaming, where young teenage and younger adults, male were. So we partnered with Nintendo. And then we went to American Express as the brand got older to get to an older brand. All of these were strategies.
Mathew Knowles:And Pepsi, all the mini Pepsi commercials, and McDonald's. Went to McDonald's and we said, no, we are not selling hamburgers and french fries. And if you look at the Destiny's Child commercial with McDonald's, it was the first time we convinced them to come out with salads. Interesting. Yeah.
Mathew Knowles:A healthy eating and lifestyle. And you see that first commercial, delivery guy is the ladies are in the studio, he's delivering salads to because we didn't want the brand associated with hamburgers and french fries. Again, brand identity, knowing if you're going to build these relationships, has to be an identity and a connection that makes sense. Why are you doing this with McDonald's? It wasn't even a salad.
Mathew Knowles:It was the McDonald's houses that they had across the world where these kids were showing a philanthropic side of Destiny's Child. You'll be surprised had carefully thought out this all was. The artist gets the success. We know that in the music industry. But trust me, there's a reason why we call it music business.
Mathew Knowles:Sure. Yeah. The business outweighs the creativity. There's artists that were marginal creatives but had extremely exceptional business. And there's artists that were exceptionally creative but had poor business and did poorly.
Mathew Knowles:And when you're fortunate to put them both together, then you have the results.
Dave Charest:I was gonna say that's the magic potion at that point, right, when you can get both of those working and firing at the same time. When you look at look back at your journey so far coming from what with Gadsden, Alabama, right, to the a global stage, what are you most proud of?
Mathew Knowles:Well, a number of things. And I I always think when he was talking about that, I remember the first time I I, had my first book, The DNA of Achievers, and I thought about the first book fair, and I thought, I'm gonna sell hundreds of books. And so I had boxes and I pulled to the hotel and the bellman takes me to my room and I say, young man, when are we going to get to my room? It's a long hallway. And he looked at me and he says, Doctor.
Mathew Knowles:Knowles, it's not the destination, it's the journey. It's not the destination, it's the journey. And so when I look at my journey, I'm very, very proud of Beyonce and Solange. Not just what they've achieved and accomplished, but that they're good people. That they say hello to the janitor no different than they would say hello to the president.
Mathew Knowles:Well, I'll leave it at that. But, you know, I'm very proud of that, that they are good people. I'm proud that I've been given again, I look at sometimes mistakes and failures and opportunity. Me being diagnosed with male breast cancer and being able, what is the chances that I would sell mammography equipment in 1980 to 1988, the chances I would be the number one sales rep in the world, and then one day save my own life. That day I had discharge and understanding that this probably, that one day of training that was optional, that I went to for male breast cancer saved my life.
Mathew Knowles:Like, those are the things that I look back and this kid that grew up on a dirt road with an outhouse, being able to share my life stories. Know, I've been to you know, I was just again, me and my wife have fun every night. And I was just telling her last night, and I was just I'm getting this award from the National Speakers Association, and we had talked about that. And I said, I think what makes me a good speaker is that I have had so many life experiences. I've experienced some of the wildest, craziest things as a kid, being the first to integrate.
Mathew Knowles:George Wallace was governor and being spit on in Electric Pride and all the way up to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. I had never gone to a black school, and I'm 73 years old. Experiences in my corporate career and having the opportunity to really understand diagnostic imaging. I was talking about breast cancer in the 80s. One in eight men, I want to take this opportunity to say it, one in eight men in their lifetime will get prostate cancer.
Mathew Knowles:One in eight women in their lifetime will get breast cancer. So being able to share that information into saying a life is much different than selling a record or selling a piece of apparel. The gratitude I had that I could possibly save a life today, that's an amazing thing to have that opportunity. I'm grateful, grateful, very grateful for it.
Dave Charest:Well, I'm grateful that you do that that work you do to make sure that people are aware of that. So thank you for that. I have one final question for you, if if you wouldn't mind. But what's something that you hope the next generation of business owners and or creators understands better than than maybe we do now?
Mathew Knowles:The who, the what, the why, the where.
Dave Charest:It always comes back to the fundamentals. This is what I'm saying. It really does, doesn't it?
Mathew Knowles:I'll tell you that people get all fancy with it, but it goes back you know, I teach a class called the music industry in a digital age. But it goes back to, if you don't understand the fundamentals, you don't know how to apply to digital. So you have to go back to these fundamental things of being an entrepreneur. You've got to understand finance. You've got to understand P and Ls, you've got to understand marketing, you've got to understand cash flow analysis and how to build your client base.
Mathew Knowles:You've got to understand this stuff and how to sell, and selling yourself and your product and people, it goes back to the fundamentals because if you don't have that, it's gonna fail. And if you don't have an open mind about being an entrepreneur, that is extreme hard work, especially in the beginning, and there's a knowledge curve that you're going to have, and bring in on that team that we talked about. And work ethics, we hadn't talked about passion and work ethics. Is this really for you? Is this really for you to be an entrepreneur?
Mathew Knowles:Do you have what it takes to do that? And there's a certain DNA for that, and a lot of people don't have that passion. And understanding that what coexists with passion are work ethics. I always like to end it with Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant did this thing called six sixty six.
Mathew Knowles:Six months out of a year is the basketball season. If you go to the playoffs, after the basketball season, most players, you know, they enjoy themselves. They relax. They take time off. Six months after the season, Kobe would practice six days a week, six hours a day, because he wanted to be great at it.
Mathew Knowles:So the question I have to every entrepreneur, do you want to be good at it or great at it? Because there's a difference in that. And it's going to require personal sacrifices when you're an entrepreneur. Are you willing to really put in the time and effort to build one of the best at what you do? And most people would say, No, I really don't want to put that much time, especially the younger generation.
Mathew Knowles:And that's the challenge that I have for the younger generation. You're trying to do too much too soon. You can't be an artist and own a merchandise company and own a record label all at the same time. You first build that core base of customers. And as any entrepreneur, we build a core base of customers, then we can sell them a whole bunch of stuff.
Mathew Knowles:But you got to build that core base and knowing how to build that core base and doing that research, this is work. When I say those words, market research, target audiences, branding, advertising, that's a lot of work for one person. And let's face it, a lot of entrepreneurs are really solopreneurs, I call them. One person, they gave themselves a CEO title. That means nothing.
Mathew Knowles:To this day, I've never referred to myself as a CEO or president. I don't care about those titles because I'm grinding every day. And I know as an entrepreneur, there's a certain mental headspace that I have to know how to build relationships because relationships matter. People can help you if they want to, if they feel they have this relationship. But do you know how to build a relationship, Peter?
Mathew Knowles:You can't be shy if you're gonna be entrepreneur. Shy people finish last. You've got to be assertive. You have to have confidence. But you only gain that confidence through failure.
Mathew Knowles:I'll tell you, failure is a wonderful thing. Dave, every time I get on that stage, and I'll end with you, I was I think it was 02/2023, Destiny's Child was peaking. Was really big name, big name, still is. But I was at LAX Airport and I was going on an escalator, there was a nun from Mexico with a jar that says please give to the missionary, and I gave and she gave me a card. I didn't read the card because back then when you walked through the airport, believe it or not, there was no TEA security.
Mathew Knowles:You could go straight to the gate so people would be waiting for celebrities and major names so that they could give a CD or a business card. So I collect all these business cards. And so what was on the back of it at a car wash in Houston months later, and I, from pocket to pocket, had stacks of business cards, and it said, cause it came from the nun, Pray not for a life free from trouble, pray for triumph over trouble, but what you and I call adversity. This is the key part. Allah, God, whatever name you use, calls opportunity.
Mathew Knowles:But what you and I call adversity, so as an entrepreneur, what we call adversity really is an opportunity for us to grow the business, learn from that. That's what I like to leave people with.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, know your who, what, why, and where. Mister Knowles to emphasize that you can't market anything if you don't know who your customer is, what you're selling, why they should care, and where they can get it. That applies whether you're selling records, running a salon, or launching an email campaign. Number two, don't try to do too much too soon.
Dave Charest:Mister Knowles openly shared how growing too fast led to burnout, overhead bloat, and missed opportunities. His lesson, focus, pace yourself, and don't confuse size with success. Build a business that you can sustain and scale on your terms. Number three, practice failure before it happens. Whether managing live performances or speaking on stage, mister Knowles prepares for what could go wrong.
Dave Charest:That mindset applies to any business. Don't just plan for your best day. Train for your worst one so you're ready when things go sideways. So here's your action item for today. Use Constant Contact's email content generator so you can quickly test different messages with your audience.
Dave Charest:Think like Mr. Knowles. Do your research, then use the tool to create variations. Test, learn, improve. Whether it's a welcome series, a promo email, or a newsletter, practicing and refining your message is how you grow. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's ratethispodcast.com/bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.