Spotlight – Jeffrey Sass

You're listening to the GeekCast Radio Network,

a podcast. You're tuned in to Steve Megatron

on Altered Geek. Hello, Steve Megatron here,

and I'd like to first off sound off on this episode

saying that I apologize for the audio quality,

but unfortunately... There were some complications

with Windows 10. I didn't realize that my audio

recording was pulling through my webcam, which

is odd, instead of my standalone USB microphone

on my desk. So yeah, that's why I sound not as

good as our guest. But I guess the guest is the

important part. So yeah, so I just wanted to

sound off on that. So enjoy the episode. Hello,

and welcome to Altered Geek. I'm your host, Steve

Megatron Phillips. Today, I'd like to welcome

to the program Jeffrey Sass, author of Everything

I Knew About Business and Marketing I Learned

from the Toxic Avenger. And he's also worked

in the world of computer games, produced for

both film and television, and an entrepreneur.

Welcome, Jeffrey. Thank you, Steve. Or should

I say Megatron? Oh, yes. Yeah. It's a pleasure

to be here. Thanks. Thanks for joining me. So

could you tell the listeners a little bit about

yourself? I know I gave like a brief overview

there, but it'd come better from the man himself.

Sure. So, you know, I started my career in New

York in film and television some time ago, about

30 years, 30 some odd years ago, actually almost

40. You know, I started out working in film and

television initially for a small independent

distributor called Satori Entertainment. And

we were kind of famous in the early 80s for introducing

a lot of films from Australia and New Zealand

to the United States. But from there, I went

to work for a company called Troma for about

seven and a half years. And, you know, Troma

is probably best known for the Toxic Avenger,

which actually this week is celebrating its 35th

anniversary. And I spent seven and a half years

working for Troma. Left Troma in 1994 to move

down to Florida to work in the video and computer

game industry. After being introduced to that

world when we were doing licensing and merchandising

for... The Toxic Crusaders, which was the cartoon

spinoff of The Toxic Avenger, which is an interesting

story in and of itself. And since then, I've

worked in a number of industries. As you mentioned,

I worked in the computer game industry for a

while and became an entrepreneur and started

a couple of companies here in the mobile. in

the mobile space mobile content and mobile commerce

and currently i'm the cmo for dot club domains

dot club is one of the new top level domain extensions

so instead of dot com or dot biz or dot org you

can get a domain name that ends in dot club club

so i've had a long and winding road of a career

which is another way of saying i'm old so i've

been around the block a few times But it's been

a lot of fun. You know, I've touched on many

different industries, but always managed to stay

on the creative and interesting side of things.

And a lot of the lessons I learned making these

crazy movies of trauma I've carried forward,

you know, throughout every job I've had in every

industry I've been in. So it's been an interesting

ride. So what was it like working in the B -movie

universe, working with trauma? Being in this

combined universe, when I was reading the book,

I enjoyed the part of how there was this unified

branding between all films and between the welcome

to trauma on everything, literally, to feel more

inclusive of the team. Yeah, well, working for

Troma was absolute hell in the early days. In

the first couple of years, it was insane. It

was crazy. You have to be careful what you wish

for. When I went to work for Lloyd & Michael,

I had wanted to get into filmmaking. I wanted

to be on the creative side of things, and that's

really what attracted me to going over there.

But when I was hired, they were not in production,

and I wanted a real job. because I had a kid

at the time already. And to get a real job, I

had to do something other than make the movies,

because when they're making movies, they don't

really pay anyone anything. So I ended up signing

on to head up sales and video sales, which was

the early day of home video, figuring that sooner

or later they'd go into production and I'd weasel

my way into the production. which I did. The

first production I worked on was Troma's War.

And, you know, that saying war is hell. It was

it was insane. It was crazy. You know, and it

was the first first feature film I had worked

on. And it was just insane. Lloyd and Michael

were terrible screamers back then. There's a

chapter about that in the book. They mellowed.

Years later, but back then they were constantly

screaming and yelling and at first I took it

personally until I realized This is just the

way they were and it had nothing to do with me

But at one point I actually quit and then they

begged me to come back and I came back and we

finished the movie So it was insane. It was crazy,

but it was an amazing An amazingly great experience

and and as you mentioned Steve, you know the

branding of trauma To this day is amazing because

back then, you know, people don't typically go

to see a movie because of the studio it's from,

you know, the one exception. has always been

Disney in the early days because of their family

fair. So if you took your kids to a Disney movie,

you knew it was safe. And more recently with

their Marvel and superhero films and the brands

that they've acquired. But back then, no one

went to see a movie because it was from 20th

Century Fox or Paramount Pictures. They went

to see a movie because it was based on a book

they liked or it featured actors they liked or

a director they'd heard of, except for Troma,

Troma and Disney. Put those in the same sentence

because Troma built this brand where people would

go see a movie because it was a Troma movie.

They didn't care what movie it was because most

of the time they never heard of the movie anyway.

But they knew that if it was coming from Troma,

it was going to deliver a certain type of branded

entertainment that they wanted. And and that's

what became really fun about making these movies,

because we knew we were making them for these

very loyal, very rabid. Not to be confused with

Rabbit Grannies. That's another trauma film.

But, you know, we were making these wild and

crazy films and the fans loved them. And no matter

how stupid they were or no matter how gory they

were, they had these this underlying humor that

people really enjoyed. And there was kind of

a truth and sensibility to them, no matter how

bizarre they might have been on the surface.

And that built the brand that's lasted now for

44 years. So they must be doing something right.

Yeah, what's funny is some of our friends on

another podcast actually based out of Canada

covered and actually used to have like a brief

stint of trauma -based podcasts. And it actually

interviewed Lloyd Kaufman and some people from

trauma because they had one of their guys working

there at one point, which was kind of interesting.

Yeah, and a lot of... Talented people have passed

through, you know, the doors of Tromaville on

their way to a much bigger and brighter career.

When I left, I left in 1994 to work in the video

game industry and moved down to Florida. They

hired a kid to replace me who was named James

Gunn. And of course, that's the same James Gunn

that's going on to do Guardians of the Galaxy

and lots of other great things. You know, if

you like Guardians of the Galaxy, in some respects,

one could say you owe it to me. Right. If I hadn't

quit, who knows what would have happened? Of

course, that's not true. James Gunn is quite

talented and would have done quite well whether

I had been a trauma or not. That'd be true. But

so so tell me a little bit about the book. I've

been having fun reading through it. And what

prompted the. the decision to write this book?

Yeah, it's a great question, Steve. So the book

itself is called, as you mentioned, it's got

a short title, Everything I Know About Business

and Marketing I Learned from the Toxic Avenger,

subtitle, One Man's Journey to Hell's Kitchen

and Back, because Troma was based in Hell's Kitchen

in Manhattan. The book itself is a lot of behind

the scenes stories, a lot of anecdotes about

trauma and making these films, as you saw. But

actually, what what it really is, is it's a fun

business and marketing book, because what I try

to do is extract. Real business and marketing

lessons that you can apply to any industry based

on my experiences making these crazy films And

there are a lot of really strong lessons. I learned

that I've carried through, you know Here I am,

you know 20 some odd years later since I left

Roma and I'm still talking about it And I'm still

applying the lessons I learned to my business

today. So so the goal is for it to actually be

great for the trauma fan because you go behind

the scenes, but also a lot of people who never

heard of trauma have gotten a lot out of the

book because it's fun and funny. It's not your

typical business and marketing book. And to answer

your question about, you know, why I ended up

writing it, especially after all these years.

About five or six years ago, I was a pretty active

dad blogger and went to a lot of events, you

know, influencer events, etc. And I was at an

event for Ford out in Michigan, and they had

one night, something called an Ignite presentation

night. And an Ignite presentation is a very strict

format. You basically get five minutes and 20

slides, and every 15 seconds, the slides change

on their own. So you're not in control. the slides

when you're giving your presentation so you really

have to think it out and time it and it's supposed

to be something that in five minutes will ignite

some thinking and inspiration so I was trying

to come up with what I could talk about in my

ignite speech and somehow I got this idea that

I would talk about my days of trauma because

it was visual I could you know put together some

pretty interesting slides and it was kind of

a funny thing about talk about marketing lessons

I learned from the toxic Avenger so I did that

five minute Ignite presentation and it's on YouTube

and it went over very well and people really

liked it. And I had a lot of fun doing it. At

the end of it, I sort of said, you know, I only

got five minutes, but I could talk about this

for much longer. I could probably write a book

about it and maybe one day I will. So I said

that off the cuff and then it kind of stuck with

me and it mulled around in my head. And literally

five years later, I said, you know, that presentation,

that really should be a book. And I just started

to write it. That's awesome. What I love about

this, too, is that not only are there anecdotes

and applications of how this came out, but they're

nice and short and digestible, unlike your typical

marketing book. Yes, exactly. And that was intentional.

The chapters are very short. Some chapters are

only a page. Maybe the longest chapter is five

or six pages. And that was intentional. I read

a book by Steven Pressfield called Nobody Wants

to Read Your Shit. Um, and it was just as, yeah,

and it was, it was great. And it was a great

book. It was also like mine, short and sweet

to the point had really short chapters, but each

chapter really, really hit the message home.

And it was a lot of fun. And I read that book

and it was really inspired to, to write in that

same style, meaning, you know, short chapters,

entertaining, but still, you know, pithy with

some sort of lesson you can take away with you.

So you mentioned kind of being the CMO of the

.club domains. How did you get involved with

that? Yeah, that was really interesting, this

whole notion that you have all these new top

-level domain extensions available. I was introduced

to Colin Campbell, who's a serial entrepreneur,

just after he had applied for the rights to .club.

So back in 2011, I can which is the organization

that manages the domain name space Opened up

the opportunity where anyone could have applied

for any word as a top -level domain You just

had to pay an application fee of 185 thousand

dollars So you could have applied for dot Steve

if you wanted or even dot Megatron, although

that might be tricky because it's a brand but

You could apply for anything. And Colin had applied

for dot club. That was the only name he had applied

for. And I met him just after the application

period closed. You had to have your applications

in by January of 2012. And we hit it off and

he needed some help with marketing. And so I

joined him first, you know, as a consultant,

just kind of helping because we didn't even know

if we'd get the rights to the name. And it took

about two years and an investment of several

million dollars to get the rights. to the name

and then finally in june of 2013 we ended up

winning the rights in an auction because several

other companies had also applied for dot club

and um once we got the rights you know it became

a big job and i came on as the cmo the chief

marketing officer and you know i've been riding

that wave ever since and today we have one and

a half million registrations worldwide DotClub's

the most used new domain extension and we're

having a lot of fun with it and seeing a lot

of great businesses and individuals use a DotClub

domain. So it's been an interesting business

that I knew nothing about beforehand, but I've

been able to apply my Troma training to this

world too. That's interesting because I had no

idea how that even came out, like how the process

of even getting a new domain extension even worked

up until... um you answering that because i just

never even thought about it didn't even know

when they came out with the new ones um and i've

tried out some of those at one point in the past

i just uh yeah it's just interesting how that

that whole process works Yeah, it's interesting.

And a lot of people don't realize that domain

extensions are owned by companies like Verisign

is a publicly traded company that owns dot com

or they operate dot com in the same way that

we operate dot club. And what's interesting is

a lot of the new extensions have meaning and

you can create a domain name that that will perform

very well in organic search because it's relevant

and meaningful. So, you know, dot club is both

generic, but it means things in a lot of verticals.

For my book, I used a shortcut. You know, the

book has a long title, as you heard. So as the

author, I want people to go to Amazon .com and

buy my book. But if you go and search for the

book by my name or the book's title, you know,

you might or might not remember it or find it.

Or you also are going to see a lot of other search

results and you might get distracted by something

else. So I registered the name Toxic Avenger

dot marketing, which is kind of a shortcut. short

version of the title. And that domain name points

directly to the book's page on Amazon. So if

you go to www .toxicavenger .marketing, you're

literally one click away from buying the book.

So you can use relevant domains with meaningful

extensions as great shortcuts too. It doesn't

always have to be pointing to a website. That's

really cool how that works nowadays, instead

of having just a generic .com, .net, .org, being

able to do that. I've been in the market for

looking for new domains, too. So it's kind of

interesting figuring out how to end it a little

bit differently, but still use some of the words

that may be taken by typical dot com. Yeah, a

lot a lot of podcasts are using. I've seen a

lot using a dot show, for example. So you could

be altered geek dot show could point to your

podcast, things like that. So there's a lot of

opportunities out there if you're creative. Very

much so. So what are some key points of things

that you'd like for people to take away if they're

starting on their own businesses between the

book and between just what you've learned getting

into the domain business and just having your

hand in a variety of businesses at this point?

Yeah, I think that one of the things that people

don't realize is, people you know you're you're

dealing with staff whether it's a staff of two

or two hundred or two thousand it doesn't matter

as soon as you have more people than you yourself

um hr human resources dealing with personnel

is really important there's kind of a fun chapter

in the book That's called everything. Everyone

is expendable, especially if you wear a mask.

We talk about how how the actor playing the toxic

Avenger in part two and three, you know, eventually

kind of forgot the fact that he was wearing a

mask and no one could see his real face. And

so he could be easily replaced if he didn't behave

well. So, you know, dealing with personnel issues

is something that that's really important to

think about in every business. You know, that

was, you know, one good lesson. You know, some

of the more universal lessons really have to

do with branding, especially today being authentic.

One of the reasons why I think Troma is so well

received in the industry and by the media is,

you know, while we took the business of making

movies seriously, we never took ourselves too

seriously. You know, Lloyd and Michael were always

very self -aware about what they were doing and

the kinds of movies they were making. And so.

Being authentic like that is respected and by

fans and by the media and by the industry. So

everything we did was all about the Troma team,

as you mentioned earlier in our conversation.

The logo at the beginning of every movie says

a Troma team release. We were we were required

to start all of our letters and correspondence

and emails with, you know, greetings from Tromaville.

And you were not allowed to use I. There's no

I in Tromaville. Technically, there's the letter

I in the word Tromaville. But when you are corresponding

with someone, you always have to say we. It didn't

matter if you were writing to one person about

meeting them for lunch. It's we look forward

to meeting you for lunch. We look forward to

seeing your movie. We look forward to talking

about this further. We, we, we. was really good

because it instills in you a sense of teamwork

and camaraderie when you start doing it. And

everyone did it, from Lloyd down to unpaid interns.

Everyone was always, we, we, we. And every letter

went out, greetings from Tromaville, we, we,

we. And that changed the way people looked at

us. It changed the way reviewers thought about

Tromaville. Who is this crazy little studio in

New York? You know, says greetings from Tromaville.

What's Tromaville? And it just made us stood

out. And that kind of sense of of of being a

part of something that's bigger than yourself

is really important in building a corporate culture.

Right. And culture is something that, you know,

Troma did very well. You have to have a purpose

when you're building your company's culture and

again It doesn't matter if it's a company of

two or three people or two or three thousand

people Everyone has to be on the same page and

the best way to get everyone in the same page

is to have a purpose right? Culture is not about

beer and pizza on Friday afternoons. It's about

everyone in the company no matter what the role

is understanding that they're part of something

bigger than themselves and they're contributing

to to a purpose now making a movie it's pretty

easy to know what your purpose is your purpose

is is to make the film is to get through the

through the shooting schedule and make the best

film you can sometimes with businesses it's a

little bit more difficult to define your purpose

and your purpose is is you know not just to make

money that's not that's not your purpose it's

got to be something you know that everyone can

get behind and feel good about and keep everyone

on the same page so those are really good lessons

i learned from trauma that that i've applied

to every business i've started or worked for

that's awesome and there that's such a great

point too the just having everybody on the same

page and on the same team instead of uh people

playing different parts and trying to make themselves

stand out is more important than other people

when everybody's on the same playing field that

just it makes everybody feel more equally inclined

to get the job done absolutely and along those

lines you know another great lesson i learned

is it's important to give credit where credit

is due you know and in the case of of making

a movie it was very easy to literally give credits

to everyone and and you know Being a low budget

studio, the good news is to add names to the

end credits at the end of a film literally costs

nothing. Right. So we can give credits to anyone.

So literally anyone who touched our film when

we were making it got their name in the credits.

You know, if you were. Delivering pizza to this

one day you'd be in the end credits, you know

pizza delivery by so -and -so And the end credits

of trauma movies are pretty funny You should

watch them carefully, but that idea of just giving

everyone credit is really important And if you're

a manager, you know if you have people who report

to you You know, your job is to make them succeed.

Your job is to help them and to guide them. And

one of the best ways you can do that is to acknowledge

them. You know, there have been many studies

that have shown that employees are more motivated

by recognition than by getting a raise in many

instances. You know, they want to be recognized

for their contribution. So it's important to

give people credit and shine a light on them

and not just shine a light on you. And that goes

back to the I and the we thing, you know. Very

few things in business are done by one person

unless you truly are a sole proprietor. Otherwise,

you have help. There's other people in the company.

There's other people on your team who are contributing.

And when someone goes into a conference room

or a meeting and stands up and says, well, I

did this and I did that and I accomplished this,

everyone is rolling their eyes at that person

saying, hey, what about me? We helped you with

that project. We did this together. I was a part

of that. So the good managers will go in there

and not talk. about what they did but talk about

what their team accomplished and give people

contributed credit and that that's really important

in any business and I think that was a lesson

that was hammered home through Troma that's great

so what are some other projects that you have

coming up Well, actually, with the club, so it's

interesting. Everything goes full circle. So,

you know, I started out in the entertainment

industry and weaved my way through these different

industries to the domain name industry. Yet now

we're making a documentary series with that club.

So, you know, I talked about purpose. Right.

When you think about our purpose. So when I think

about that club and our business of selling domain

names, you know, selling domain names by themselves,

it's not that interesting. Right. So our purpose

is not to sell domain names. Our purpose is to

help businesses and individuals. Right. Because

what what do you do when you have an idea for

business? The first thing you do is come up with

a name. And then as soon as you come up with

a name, the second thing you do is go try to

get a domain name for your name. So what we get

excited about is not selling our domains. It's

what people do with them. We get excited when

we see startups and entrepreneurs build a business

on a dot club name. So with that in mind, you

know, our purpose is to really help. entrepreneurs

and startups grow their business. So we started

a little incubator here in Fort Lauderdale called

startups .club. So we wanted to have a fun place

to work. And so instead of just having our offices

for ourselves, we're a team of about 10 people,

we got bigger space, and we invited other startups

to come in and join us. So we have about six

startups working out of our office now. So it's

kind of like a co working space. And it's a little

bit of an incubator. So we are mentoring and

helping these companies. And we decided to Filmed

the whole thing on video. So it's not film. I'm

still old school. So I refer to it as filming.

But we decided to partner with a local production

company and film the journey of these startups

as they learn and grow. And some will succeed

and some will fail. And we're going to capture

it all as a documentary series. So I've come

full circle and I'm now producing a show once

again, even though I'm in the domain name business.

So kind of funny how things come around. Yeah.

Yeah, that's definitely awesome. It is kind of

funny how things come full circle. Yeah. And

even, you know, other examples in the domain

industry, how I use my background from Troma

in the entertainment industry, when we launched

DotClub back in 2014, we wanted to do something.

Interesting and big and different to get attention

something that had never been done in the domain

in the domain name industry So, you know thinking

back to my entertainment roots, you know, I thought

of you know What celebrity could we get to to

work with dot club and when you think of the

word club? You know, I thought of 50 cent because

of the song in the club, right? So we actually

did a partnership with 50 He lets me call him

that. Or Mr. Cent. We did a deal with Mr. Cent.

And when we launched our club, we did a big promotion

with 50 Cent. He launched a website, 50 in the

dot club. We had a big event in New York City

where we invited all the people from the industry,

from GoDaddy and the registrars to come and the

media and the press. And 50 Cent was there. And

we just did a whole big Hollywood style. launch

of a domain name, which probably I never would

have considered doing if I hadn't had the background,

you know, with trauma and in the entertainment

industry. That is a rather unique way to promote

a domain for sure. Yeah, and it was fun. We made

sure that we had the right to use, you know,

50s likeness in a promotion that the registrars

could use. So all of a sudden, you know, GoDaddy

and other registrars could use 50 Cent with a

picture of him saying, you know, 50 is in the

club, you can be in too, that kind of thing.

So it's kind of fun, different, very different

for our industry. That's awesome. So how can

the listeners get a hold of you and find out

more about you online as well as purchase this

book? I know you've mentioned once how to purchase

this book, but for any that may have missed that.

Yeah, so absolutely. So I'm pretty easy to find

online on Twitter. I'm at SAS, S -A -S -S. All

that says like Sam. The book has a website, which

is everything I know about dot marketing is the

book's website. I mentioned that you can get

directly to the book on Amazon by going to toxic

Avenger dot marketing. The book also has a Facebook

page on Facebook. You can look for SAS marketing

book and that'll take you to the Facebook page.

So it's pretty easy to find me online. And if

you're interested in domain names or want to

know more about .club, you can go to www .get

.club. And it won't be hard to find me in any

of those places. Awesome, awesome. Well, I'd

like to thank you for taking the time out of

your busy schedule to hang out with us here on

Altered Geek. Thank you, Steve. I appreciate

it. If you're interested in giving away a couple

of copies of the book to some of your listeners,

when the show comes out, when you post the show,

anyone who reposts it and reshares it on Facebook

or Twitter and then tags me, I'll put all of

those names into a proverbial hat and pick three

people to get a free copy of the book. Awesome.

Yeah, definitely do that, people. Very good book

to read. So I would definitely say this is something

that people should have. So again, thank you.

And until next time, get all through Geeky with

the Altered Geeks.