Recently, I took my son to see “This Is It”, the film compilation of rehearsal, behind-the-scenes footage for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” concert series that was to be held for 100 shows in London. We got our tickets, popcorn, and soda, and expected to see an entertaining film about Michael Jackson, complete with the timeless moonwalk, a “scha-mon” here and there, and endless soundbites of “he-he”. Instead I learned a lot more.
Michael Jackson was a hustler. And a damn good one too.
He had you all fooled into thinking he was all about zipper pants, glittery gloves and wearing white socks with everything. People talk about MJ because of child molestation accusations, Bubbles, carrying around a grown man like a 3-year-old (what ever happened to Emanuel Lewis?), or his battles with Vitiligo (hey, give him a break). But Michael Jackson was about his business; his business just happened to be music. In watching the film, I learned that Michael Jackson knew what a lot of us so-called business types still have failed to learn:
Love over Money
Through out the film, Michael kept talking about the love of what he was doing and the passion that follows it. That’s key, and a lot of us miss it. We’re so quick chasing a dollar that when we get it, it’s hard to hold onto because of how we got there. Listen to most successful people. Not your “guys” like Floyd Mayweather and those Cash Money Morons who throw money in the air every chance they get. Not guys that will probably be broke in 10 years. I’m talking about your Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Russell Simmonds. They rarely talk about money first. It’s almost as if the money is a product of something when you love what you do. More attention is on staying true to the craft and what you do.
Focus on Service/Quality Of The Product
It’s been said there are three components of business: Price, Product, and Service/Quality. If you have to focus on of them, I’d focus on Service/Quality. It’s the only aspect of any business that is unique to the provider and can’t really be duplicated.
Too often, we focus on the Price and the Product itself; that’ really a mistake. Focusing on price will cause you to lose business as soon as your competitor’s price is lower than yours. Walmart has been doing that for decades.
Products become outdated, so focusing on the product itself is also a losing proposition. I’m guessing that you haven’t used your VCR in years, and you might not even know what an eight-track player is. Someone will always come around and build a better “mouse trap.”
Michael Jackson focused on the quality of his music. There is a lot of music today that sounds better because of sound engineers, digital recording, and the autotune, but is the quality there? Will it be around 20 years from now? The hooks today are better, but I can almost guarantee you Chris Brown and Lil’ Wayne will be forgotten about in 20 years. Michael’s music has lasted generations, from the Jackson 5 to his last album “Invincible”, and was indelible to everyone that heard it. People say that his
last album flopped; yeah, it flopped to about 13 million sales worldwide. Most artists would dream to “flop” an album like that. His best-selling album was Thriller, which did well over 100 million in sales world-wide.
But the biggest reason I know Michael Jackson put out a quality product was because of my son. My son was singing along with a lot of his songs word for word. It wasn’t just my kid, either. There were dozens of parents in there with children from about age 5 up that were singing along. You don’t last that long in any game unless you pour quality into your product.
Attention To Detail
One particular scene I remember was when Michael and his producer were going over the music for “The Way You Make Me Feel.” They were going over the intro and Michael kept harping on how he needed to make the intro “simmer” before going into the main part of the song. The sticking point was one note. ONE note. One. Not a whole bar, just one note that was dropping too early. They must have gone over that 5 – 6 times before it got Michael’s approval, and he wasn’t moving off of what he wanted.
If Michael didn’t hear or see what he wanted, he stopped rehearsal and they did it again until they got it right. Everything else seemed to flow, but if there was one aspect that didn’t quite work, the whole piece didn’t work.
Michael Jackson knew that people will demand success and remember your failures. If you’re going to do something, do it right until it’s where you want it to be.
Be Hands On
Every great hustler/entrepreneur makes sure they are a part of the process in each aspect. I remember years ago when Toni Braxton was on Oprah and she was saying how it was hard to manage millions of dollars so she had accountants and managers handling most of the money. Oprah quickly pointed out that she still signed every check for Harpo Productions to makes sure she knew where the money was going.
I believe Oprah is currently sitting on about $1.5 billion right now. Toni Braxton…not so much.
This doesn’t mean be micro-managing. Hire the right people and trust them to make good decision, but only a fool would leave their entire operation in someone else’s hands. You need to know what’s going on. Michael Jackson was hands on, even on what seemed to be menial tasks. He was even present at the dancer auditions, pointing out flaws and picking out the ones he wanted. This could have been left to the dance choreographers, but if the dancers were going to be an “extension of Michael” as it was put, he wanted to make sure he was a part of the process.
“This Is It” taught me a lot about Michael Jackson’s drive to be successful, but it also gave me tools I could take away and apply in my own life and push to be successful.
It almost made me want to give him a pass for wearing skinny jeans and those damn Captain Crunch looking jackets throughout the entire film.
…almost.
Rest in Peace, MJ.
now, it’s getting another 24. It’s been brutal with blankets of white coming with cold, harsh winds.
