Synopses & Reviews
"Suppose I came to you when you were an aspiring singer trying to make ends meet and I told you that I was willing to invest $3 million to help make you a star? How would you feel if I offered you this deal: If it all works out, you'll make $10-$20 million and I'll make $20-$50 million. Does that sound like a good deal to you?"Lou Pearlman in
Bands, Brands, and Billions
Lou Pearlman just might be the most misunderstood entrepreneur in the world. To the people who know him best, he is a genial, generous, and gregarious business genius whose primary fault is that "he's too nice." This unpretentious son of a Flushing, N.Y., dry cleaning man is also one of the great bootstrap success stories in American business history. Yet, that is not always the public's perception, in part because Pearlman has played the role of a hard-nosed entertainment mogul to add drama to his widely acclaimed network television series Making the Band, and in part because of lawsuits that have unfairly portrayed him as "the Svengali" of the hugely successful pop groups Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.
Though he grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, Lou Pearlman became an aviation millionaire in his twenties after building Trans Continental Airlines and its fleet of helicopters, planes, jets, and blimps. He then turned to his other lovepop musicand single-handedly revived the dormant teen music scene by bankrolling the early careers of the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, LFO, O-Town, and, most recently, Natural. Today, his Trans Continental Companies encompasses a multimillion dollar, global empire.
In Bands, Brands, and Billions, this marketing mastermind shares the secrets, techniques, and strategies that have made him revered for his golden touch. More than an engrossing biography, this how-to book for aspiring billionaires features invaluable lessons in entrepreneurship, recipes for risk taking, and practical advice on solving business problems with ingenuity, creativity, and hustle.
You'll discover how he turned a college term paper into a half-billion-dollar industry, how he used mink coats to save a flagging charter airline, and how he won his first airship advertising contract by deploying a blimp on the desk of a McDonald's executive.
Pearlman explains both the inspiration and the calculation behind his transition from blimps to boy bands. He leads you step-by-step through his processes for generating a new business idea, identifying target markets, researching and understanding the competition, and minimizing risk. And, he provides seven practical business principles that will ensure success for entrepreneurs and business leaders in any industry.
Dream it and do it . . . Dig for the dollars . . . Dare to think big . . . Bands, Brands, and Billions provides guidance and encouragement for anyone who dreams of creating and building a successful business career. It's your one-stop resource for entertaining reading; a behind-the-scenes look at some of today's biggest pop idols; and expert advice on overcoming the many challenges faced by every entrepreneur.
Lessons in success from the ultimate entrepreneur
Lou Pearlman hasn't created one successful businesshe's created dozens! The marketing genius behind The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC heads a multibillion-dollar aviation and entertainment empire. Now he helps you make your own entrepreneurial dreams come true.
As Pearlman tells the fascinating story of his rise from "prop-wash gopher" for the Goodyear blimp to the music-marketing mogul who guided the early careers of the wildly popular boy bands Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, he reveals the principles and methods that have made him hugely successful. He also explains how these simple but powerful lessons hold the keys to your success as an entrepreneur in any industry. He shows you how to:
- Tune into opportunity
- Make it fly with creativity
- Train a trusty team
- Manage risk
- Create a pop brand
- Make everybody a winner
Packed with revealing behind-the-scenes stories about the creation of the most successful boy bands in the world, Bands, Brands, and Billions is must reading for ambitious entrepreneurs and pop fans alikeand a whole lot of fun too!
Synopsis
A Marketing Guru Rewrites the Rules for Achieving Fame and Fortune
A dynamic business biography packed with great stories and practical lessons from one of the most successful figures in the entertainment industry today
How does a working-class kid from Queens, New York, transform a lifelong fascination with the Goodyear blimp into an aviation empire by the time he's 21? How does that young aviation entrepreneur then quickly become one of the most powerful forces in the entertainment industrya modern-day Louis B. Mayer, as the press has dubbed him? Find out in Bands, Brands, and Billions.
Now, for the first time, in Bands, Brands, and Billions, Lou Pearlman reveals the secrets behind his uncanny success. Writing in an engaging and dynamic style, he describes his "10 Practical Principles" for business and entrepreneurial success and offers prescriptions for everything from team building to risk taking, and from savvy marketing to raising capital and financing new ventures. While his lessons are both instructive and inspirational, his anecdotes are classic object lessons in thinking out of the box. Among other things, he shares how he:
- Turned a college business class project into a halfbillion-dollar industry
- Used mink coats to rescue a failing charter service that flew between New York and Las Vegas
- Deployed a blimp on the desk of a McDonald's executive to win a major contract
- Made more than a half-billion dollars with a baffling business about-face from blimps to boy bands, even though his closest friends thought he'd lost his mind