We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gordon Lawson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Gordon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?
Cool story: I was working the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, gathering social content for the sponsor, Acura, and I came across Josh Vietti Hip Hop Violinist. He was amazing, blending violin with throwback rap hits. I was amazed by his performance, then randomly ran into him again in our hotel lobby while I was searching for snacks.
I decided to bring him to Houston for an Acura commercial shoot featuring his music. During the shoot, I heard there was a huge freestyle rap competition being held by the local radio station, in which the winner of the competition would be featured on a song with Houston’s most popular rappers.
I encouraged Josh to enter. Josh not only won the competition, but his entry video went viral. Josh began to get calls from the radio station, Fox News and numerous club owners asking him for interviews and performances. Josh told everyone he was only in Houston because of me. One thing led to another, and here we are, he became my first artist, and I started a management company. So grateful for the day that my snack cravings led me to him!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I was a theater phenom in high-school and college, winning several UIL competitions and state wide solo acting awards. I was given a full ride scholarship to a popular theatre school in Gainesville Georgia. Those years taught me so much about working with a production team, and what it takes to connect with talented individuals.
I ultimately decided to go into marketing as a producer. My theater background was so helpful in my marketing career. I was able to cast myself an actor in many of the commercials I produced. Now as a business owner and talent manager, I’m able engage with top tier talent, manage events, produce content for globally known brands and A&R entire music projects.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I’ve built up an extensive list of great relationships in the corporate events market, by being aggressive in following up on every lead, responding to emails quickly and efficiently and most importantly, being easy to work with. I’ve learned the difference between being a pushover and being kind. Being a pushover is bad, but being kind will get you repeat business.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The biggest pivot I had to make was while me and my artist was on tour with 50 Cent. We were scheduled to tour with 50 for a week, but they asked us to stay on for another week. Amazing opportunity, but in order to make it work, i had to completely rearrange another gig that my artists was contracted to.
This gave me only 24 hrs, to find a replacement artist, and get him everything he needed to perform, while also prepping my artist for the extended tour schedule. And I’m doing all of this on the road in Switzerland.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.twoflightsent.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glaw13?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordon-lawson-59ab00a7?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Image Credits
Josh Vietti, and DJ Kiotti