Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lionel Lodge. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lionel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
SyncLodge was an idea that came to me in autumn 2017 after witnessing the struggles and frictions in the music sync licensing sector of the entertainment industry. I searched for partners, found who I think are the best at what they do and registered SyncLodge as a corporation in January 2019.
The road that brought me to the inspiration was: In the mid-2000s, I was living off my music, enjoying my life and the world I lived in, but CD sales were dying, so I needed to find a new revenue stream to replace or at least supplement the decline in my income. Someone suggested sync licensing my music for TV shows and films (the legal usage of music in visual productions for which a license is paid). I checked into it, attended many industry conferences, networked, and started licensing my recordings. Some independent artists and a couple of small record labels asked if I would represent them for sync placements. The next thing I knew, I had a sync licensing agency. Through building the agency, meeting and talking at length with many industry professionals, I saw an obvious need for a digital transformation. Many were drowning in paperwork, email ping-pongs, and phone calls and needed “digital salvation”. I could see so many points in the work processes that would benefit from innovative technology. At first, I looked for a system, a set of tools that would solve the problems I saw. I didn’t find one that answered the full set of workflow needs. So, together with my co-founders, we set out to build it. Now SyncLodge is empowering creatives, winning innovation awards, and growing into a globally recognized service for the industry.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have worked in and been involved with the entertainment industry all my life. My father was a fairly big name in the UK in the 60’s and so I grew up in that world. Not by design but by circumstance I have had a diverse and very interesting career in the entertainment industry, in music and business management. From a young age, I developed a passion for both creativity and entrepreneurial pursuits. It started with a passion for music, and playing instruments such as the piano, saxophone, and guitar. But, I also had a passion for business management and exploring what some saw as boring, math and bookkeeping.
On the creative side, I have performed thousands of shows in many countries, written hundreds of songs, and cowritten many more. I have released 12 albums under my name and contributed to many others. I have worked as a studio and live sound engineer, mastering engineer, arranger, and producer.
I started my entrepreneurial journey early, starting my first business at the age of 10. In the decades that followed I have founded and managed several industry-centric companies, some successful companies, and some were great learning experiences. These experiences have given me the gift of clarity on the mechanics of the industry and an understanding of the needs and challenges within.
I am now the CEO of SyncLodge, which is a highly innovative tech company focused on empowering creatives in the music and visual production industries. The award-winning SyncLodge is the first and only, all-in-one project management platform designed to centralize all the unique needs of music synchronization licensing operations. Synchronization licensing, or sync licensing, is the legal usage of music in visual productions i.e.: TV, film, video games, and advertising. We help music supervisors (the professionals who source the music and negotiate the licenses for music usage) complete more projects and transform the operational role of music supervision from frustrating manual inputs to a supervisor-centric process focused on the music. Our mission is to bring forth a level playing field for artists, a better workday for music supervisors, and to help save millions in wasted labor costs that burden the visual production industry.
SyncLodge was an idea that came to me in the autumn of 2017 after witnessing the struggles and frictions in the music sync licensing sector of the entertainment industry. I searched for partners, found who I think are the best at what they do, and registered SyncLodge as a corporation in January 2019.
The road that brought me to the inspiration was: In the mid-2000s, I was living off my music, enjoying my life and the world I lived in, but CD sales were dying, so I needed to find a new revenue stream to replace or at least supplement the decline in my income. A friend of my father’s suggested sync licensing my music for TV shows and films. I checked into it, attended many industry conferences, networked, and started licensing my recordings. Some independent artists and a couple of small record labels asked if I would represent them for sync placements. The next thing I knew, I had a sync licensing agency. Through building the agency, meeting and talking at length with many industry professionals, I saw an obvious need for a digital transformation. Many were drowning in paperwork, email ping-pongs, and phone calls and needed “digital salvation”. I could see so many points in the work processes that would benefit from innovative technology. At first, I looked for a system, a set of tools that would solve the problems I saw. I didn’t find one that answered the full set of workflow needs. So, together with my co-founders, we set out to build it. Now SyncLodge is empowering creatives, winning innovation awards, and growing into a globally recognized service for the industry.
You could say that I am the captain of the ship but the team at SyncLodge all work closely together, collaborating, discussing growth issues, and bouncing ideas off each other. I am one of the team, though I do shoulder most of the responsibility for the company’s long-term success.
I believe in the importance of open communication, transparency, and collaboration. I believe that every team member’s opinion is valuable and that by working together, we can create a profound impact on the global creative industry.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I have built solid relationships with people inside and outside of the entertainment industry over decades by always being straight up with my opinions, thoughts, and reactions. Seeing people as humans, with all our faults and fragilities, with all our misguided ambitions and somewhat skewed logic. I believe in being honest. Not telling people what I think they want to hear but telling them what I really think. Sometimes there is a need to soften the narrative somewhat but the message is always straight from my opinion.
The second point is, I never consider myself the smartest person in the room. I listen closely to what is being said and if I don’t understand an aspect, I ask questions until I do understand. This way I learn from others and then acknowledge the origin of that lesson when I put it into practice. When asked, I can speak at length, but I can also listen at length.
The third point is, I do what I say I am going to do. And, if my projections turn out not to be obtainable on time, I report this right away, as soon as I know. I keep people in the loop without fear of how it might reflect on me personally. If I make a mistake, I own it.
One thing my father taught me many years ago is, if something messes up, if a project takes a noise dive, if a team is not productive enough, don’t blame the people, blame the system the are working under. Look at the system and change it to better support the people and the project’s preferred outcome.
Now, saying all this, I am sure there are people who worked with me 30 or 40 years ago who would say that is not the person I was then. But I did always forgive others for their shortcomings and hope that they forgive me for mine.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
We are a team. Every member, regardless of their position in the team, is just as important as any other member of the team. We share what is going on, we discuss and look for the outside perspective. It is never about the ego, whose idea it was. It is about serving our sector of the industry as best we can, collectively. Humans used to think the world was flat (some still do but that is another discussion). When we collectively accepted that the world was round it made navigation and exploration a lot more efficient. At first, the view that the world was round was an outside perspective not held by the status quo. The status quo on that point, we see now, was really quite unaware of reality. It is reality that we want to have on the table regardless of who on the team puts it there. With this we keep all the members of the team involved, inspired, and feeling valued.
When considering a new team member we do not consider anything but their ability, attitude, and willingness to work together. If any member of the team has a problem with something, we, I, want to know about it and find a way to resolve the problem. Small cracks can have the tendency to grow and make for large divides. When we work as a team that cares about each other on a human level, cracks become beneficial tools for moving forward.
When a company has clarity on its objectives, vision, large decisions are easy. We are going towards that goal so we make this decision. It is the many small decisions along the way that can be the difficult ones. That is why we have a diverse team and a very large group of international advisors. We all believe in the importance of reaching our main goal. So, we discuss, we throw it out there, people chime in, discuss, disagree, and we come to a conclusion on what makes the most sense, collectively.
Fostering a culture of continuous learning and development is vital for the growth and success of both employees and the organization. By fostering a culture where learning is valued, encouraged, and supported, we create an environment where employees feel empowered to enhance their skills, embrace new challenges, and contribute to their fullest potential.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.synclodge.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lionellodge/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lionel-lodge-a8300216/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lionellodge
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@synclodge7519/videos
Image Credits
All credits are in photo file names. Here is a google drive folder with images and company logos that you can use as your designers see fit. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K9BwsbYhFHQ6uy5TydK7jBlPU6_AhSUJ?usp=drive_link