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How I Built My Small Business
John Kilcullen - The Rise of FOR DUMMIES and The Future of Publishing – Insights from the Creator of an Iconic Brand
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John Kilcullen
Foreign.
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Ann McGinty
Welcome to How I Built My Small business. I'm Ann McGinty, your host and today I have John Kilcullen in the studio sharing his insights on building an iconic brand along with his thoughts on the future of publishing. John is the former Chairman and CEO of IDG Books, where he became known as the creator of the For Dummies brand. Along with other popular book series including Frommer's Travel and Cliff's Notes. John has also served as president and publisher of Billboard Magazine and the Hollywood Reporter. John's expertise has made him a sought after guest lecturer on entrepreneurship and innovation at institutions that including Babson, Fordham, Duke, the Naval Postgraduate School, NYU and Stanford. He has been profiled in Forbes, People, the New York Times, and USA Today. I thought about splitting this episode into two, but instead of doing that, I'll just let you know that the first part is more on John's origin story, the rise of For Dummies and building an iconic brand. And if you're listening in for John's insights on the future of Publishing, that starts around 43 minutes and we finish up the episode with John's insights for aspiring entrepreneurs. Life wisdom for anyone and the key takeaways are in the last few minutes. For more about John and his ventures, check out the links in this episode's description. If you enjoyed today's interview, please please hit the follow button on your favorite streaming platform and share it with a friend. Let's get started.
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Unknown
Thank you to our listeners for being with us today.
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Ann McGinty
John, thanks so much for coming on the show.
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John Kilcullen
My pleasure.
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Unknown
So I'd love to know a little bit more about your background.
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Ann McGinty
Can you tell us a little bit.
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Unknown
About your childhood and your upbringing?
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John Kilcullen
Sure. I'm proud to say that I was born, raised and educated in the Bronx at a time when it was truly neighborhood friends, family, everyone looked out for one another. Irish immigrant son, third youngest of eight, six sisters and an Irish mom. I could see your facial expression. Yes, 10 of us in a three bedroom apartment, one toilet, one faucet, one bathtub. Truly a tiny spot. Five sisters in one room, a oldest on the couch, my brother and I in a bunk beds and my parents. So you learn very quickly how to deal with getting to dinner on time. Otherwise you don't eat much and as the youngest son doing all the chores. But it was a time when Italian immigrant, Irish immigrant, Jewish immigrant, a very melting pot of neighborhoods where we to this day I'm still friends with my grammar school neighborhood high school buds. We get together, we have reunions, a Special bond. And growing up with an Irish mom who greeted you with hello, love, you know, as her normal greeting of anyone, family or friends, and hard working dad, truck driver. And you learn work ethic, you learn the values of sharing your life and small space together. Growing up in that whole Catholic tradition and Jesuit tradition of service and compassion and mercy and understanding that there is a common good and there's other people besides you. So a, a lot of great lessons instilled early on. My siblings are my really good friends. We just came back from a reunion in Ireland to see my 95 year old aunts and my cousins. And I grew up several summers working the land. So as a vineyard owner now in California, Green Valley, Russian River. But growing up where my mom would say, okay, you, you and you get on a planet jfk and you're going to stay with my brother, my two brothers and their families for like three months. And that was no parents, just you're gone. And so working the bog and cocking hay and mating bulls and herding sheep and cows and shearing sheep and just participating and observing and being part of my mother's brother's lifestyle. To go back now and to see the field and the barns and we chase the sheep again and to relive those moments. A special upbringing with special family orientation, with a lot of values around others, you know, your siblings and your elders and your friends and family and neighborhood folks. So it was a very interesting time.
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Unknown
It sounds like it. And having 10 of you in a three bedroom apartment, I mean, did you guys get along all the time?
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John Kilcullen
We did. And a lot of laughter in an Irish household. Saturday and Sunday were what's called a sing song night. So I played the button accordion. My sister Peggy would sing, she played the piano. My other sister Julie and Eileen, they played the accordion. And we would just have that fun family. My aunt and uncle would come over and join us. We all grew up under the value of family and family is everything and togetherness and sharing meals and we were best buds going out. As we got older, we would go out to the beach and the bars and a lot of really good energy, a lot of good laughter, a lot of shared memories of just those times with immigrant parents, seeing how hard they worked to make a better life for ourselves and how we all got along throughout that journey together.
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Unknown
There's really something about the immigrant story. I mean, that hard work ethic and you kind of don't really have another choice. You really have to work hard.
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John Kilcullen
Yeah, I mean my dad would say, don't forget the signs, Irish need not apply, which you know, he was confronted with. And you know, he was a truck driver. So he worked really hard, got up at 5:30 in the morning and got home at 7:30 at night and did that for 33 years. And then he got colon cancer and two years later he was dead. So, like, you realize, wow, you work all your life. And my mom would say, I just want my kids to have a better life than I had.
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Unknown
That's exactly what my dad said.
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John Kilcullen
You know, that shared immigrant story. Growing up with little. But we had everything. Right. That's kind of the duality. Like we grew up with not a lot, but we had everything. We had love and neighborhood and friends and family. And, you know, the Irish food was always aplenty. So it was always an interesting time to know when your parents were working so hard. Like, I put myself through college because I had to. I worked nine to five as a day camp counselor with five to seven year old boys. And then I would take the train to Manhattan. I was a doorman, elevator operator from midnight to 8 and I get back on the train and repeat the cycle. So that's kind of. My parents did it. That's what we knew. Work hard.
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Unknown
Yeah. So what got you interested in entering the publishing industry? It doesn't sound like either of your parents were in this space.
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John Kilcullen
Not at all. But, you know, my dad was a big reader and he would always say, you know, Johnny, solve the Irish problem and write to your congressman. And he would read the Western People and the Irish Echo and was always interested in what was happening back in the old country, as he would call it. I actually remember distinctly watching an ad. It was a jiffy ad and it was a boy, not unlike myself on the top of a bunk bed. My brother and I did have bunk beds for a period of time. And he was reading a book, had glasses on. And then his mom came in with a little snack, a PB&J snack. And it was the jiffy, like, that kid has got glasses. He looks erudite and cool and smart and he's reading a book. I literally went out, I started to sign up for the book club and got all the Tom Sawyer and all the classics of the moment and day and went to school for communications. And I did a year on Madison Avenue as a media buyer intern. And I was offered a job for a whopping $11,000. And I did have another Fordham grad who was in a search firm and he said, well, we have this publishing sales traveler and publishing A scout job. So it was either Madison Avenue at $11,000 or a company car and $14,000 to leave the Bronx. Cause I didn't live on campus because I couldn't afford to. So left home July 23rd in 1981 and went to New England, which was my territory, to sell textbooks to professors that were smarter than me, knew more than me, and often didn't want a book because they already had their notes and they were entrenched in their actual curriculum. And then to scout for authors so that my journey with publishing started.
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Unknown
So what did you learn from that selling journey?
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Ann McGinty
Because sales, I think, is something that.
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Unknown
Nearly every entrepreneur needs to figure out at some point.
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John Kilcullen
It's interesting. I agree with you. The sales journey to do cold calling, literally in snow in Vermont and New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Rhode island, my four state territory, literally in figurative cold calls. And I figured out some things. How do I get a professor to pay attention to me? He didn't want to see me. And when I was presenting books for sampling for them to evaluate our textbook, the McGraw Hill salesman behind me, I was at Prentice hall, would have the used book card and we'd be buying the books that I was leaving off and sampling. Really crazy dynamic. So I found out when they got paid. And I went to Dunkin Donuts and I stapled my business card and I went into the teacher's lounge and I only knew they got paid, so better mood. And I all knew they'd want to donate at some point with their coffee. And that's how I stood there and introduced myself and made some conversation which ultimately led to a permission to. To have potentially a presentation. The other issue was I couldn't get any sales in Vermont. And I read the whole John Malloy book, How to Dress for Success. I had my gray pinstripe suit, my white shirt, my red tie, my black wing tips. And I was probably fine in Boston, but in Vermont, no sales. So I did sign an author, Paul Kolcher, to write Technical Mathematics. And I said, paul, can you help me out? I'm right out of college, I'm 22 years of age. I'm getting no traction here in Vermont. And he said, john, it's easy when we see you come and we run away. You're dressed like someone from the city who we have no empathy or interest in engaging with. Literally. I got it. I went out, I got the Cloud Kickers, I got the corduroy pants. I got the jacket with the elbow patches. I had the plaid shirt. I flipped it right away. Sales went up and I learned a lot about contextual selling and understanding your audience and literally the cold calling and how you have to accept rejection and what do you do to prepare and really think about all of the nuances of sales. And yes, I would advocate understanding the belly to belly selling relationship, understanding how to have open ended questions, how to prospect for information, how to determine need, then present product in that sequence, don't reverse it, present product and have no need and no assertion of budget or interest. So those are some of the life skills that came out of my first job.
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Unknown
And after that first job, you had to take several major steps, I assume between that point and eventually creating the For Dummies series, what key steps stand out in your memory as really important parts?
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John Kilcullen
Interesting you say that because it's vivid in my memory, which is I didn't like the sales job of four states away from my family and friends, on my own, a small little basement apartment in a home in Malden, Massachusetts. So I told the head of marketing, I said, listen, I've been doing this now for about a year. This is in like October. I'm out of here in February. I just can't continue to be a seller in New England and not really digging this experience. He said, whoa, whoa. He goes, wait a second. You know, you seem to be, you know, a good fit and working hard and we like the reports you're signing, authors. I said, no, no, I am leaving this job in February and kismet, vision, whatever you want to call it. I got an offer from the home office to run technology and software sales and marketing. And literally I was back in New Jers Englewood Cliffs in February. So sometimes these little moments of your vision and your inner fire in your belly is like, listen, this is not for me. So I got promoted. That was a stepping stone into learning about marketing and launching computer software and the early age of technical books. And so that became a strength of mine was the technology, software and book part of the process. And then I had a colleague who moved to Indiana and I worked for technology publisher in Indiana. And then I came back to New York to work for what is now Random House. And I was managing the largest customers came on at the time B. Dalton and Walmart. And I did the largest promotion in the history of Bantam at that for Louis L'Amour. And it was 675,000 books for one customer, for one Father's Day promotion. And we had 68% sell through. He passed away during the weekend of the promotion and everything was a Collector's item. So just crazy stories about timing and seasonality and just making your own fortune and luck and having a vision to execute. So all by way of saying, at this large company, I, always coming back from my immigrant son roots, would be sitting around the first Tuesday and Wednesday of each month who couldn't travel, and they were going to present 90 new books. And it's in this very large conference room and there might have been 30 plus people in the room. And what I always witnessed was the editor and publisher claimed all the vision and prescience and smarts when the book worked. And when the book didn't work, they blamed the salespeople. And I'm sitting there saying, what's wrong with this equation? The corner office, elitism, afiq snobbery, they know better. So I said, I'm going to start my own company. And I had that fire in their belly to say, hey, I really understand technology and technology information. So I went to what was then Random House and I learned later that it said, like, John would always be a number two guy, but never a number one. So that stuck with me and I ended up moving to Silicon Valley in Northern California and worked for Technology Research Media magazine training company. And I remember the person who hired me, he said, listen, why don't you start your company in our nickel? So it was smart money. They had infrastructure, they had research, they had vc, they had magazines and media and training. Just a kind of an interesting, accidental, you know, entrepreneurial path to starting up the company.
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Unknown
It's amazing. And I know you mentioned a couple of times luck.
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Ann McGinty
So do you believe in luck?
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John Kilcullen
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
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Unknown
That's what I always say.
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John Kilcullen
And I'm Irish, so we do have the gift of gab and we have a little bit of the Irish leprechaun charm. So I believe that there's a little bit of everything and making your own luck and listening carefully with an open mind and an open heart. I was leaving the Bronx to Silicon Valley and that's a leap. And again, doing so with not a big infrastructure of family and friends and support networks. You have to have confidence and you have to have this fire in the belly. Because I thought there was a better way to create a culture of innovation in the publishing world, which was long lead time. Still to this day, there wasn't a good sensibility that these computer books were like Manhattan phone books. They were like, people would buy by the pound, we used to say. And I thought there was a better way. And when I went out, actually I wasn't the CEO. I was VP of sales and marketing. Three weeks later, the CEO went back to the magazine division. And then he and the founder said, okay, you're the general manager and publisher. You're the only guy here that's actually been in the book industry. Go figure it out. And I sat there and I could tell you, I remember, like, I've never published a book. I've never run a P and L. Are they crazy? And there were five of us, and all of a sudden, there were, like, two of us. So it was a very scary moment. It was one that was like three weeks into my relocation to Northern California, and I'm like, oh, my God, like, what are we doing here? Why are they doing this? So with that Darwinian survival, Bronx medal, whatever you want to describe it, it was like, I was not going to go back to the Bronx with my head between my tail and say, I failed. So I was going to take every opportunity and then make the best of it.
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Unknown
Yeah, you were given an opportunity. You're going to do your best and run with it. That's amazing. So you're at this new publishing house. They've promoted you. How did the idea for the For Dummies series really percolate? Like, where did that idea, the branding and the concept come from? You said you noticed that there was a need for it, but you must acknowledge that For Dummies is, like, a pretty big play.
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John Kilcullen
Well, as an overview, everyone claims the agent, the author, the editor in chief, his uncle, the competitors all claim that they had the idea. Right? And that's fine. But I was the only person that was there from the beginning through 11 and a half years to make it work. And ultimately, I remember having dinner with publishing friends and a conversation was related to me about a customer. It's like, hey, I just got this Ms. DOS thing, and I've got to learn it. Can you give me a book for me, you know, basic, like, dos, dos for dummies. Well, that was in 87. Launched the company in 90, March of 90. Launched the book having $1.5 million, and did a great job of, like, investing that down to 300,000. And so this was a book born of desperation, of carpe diem. That was the dynamic of, I can't lose this precious capital that I've been given as a gm. And I had been to a conference, and I remember hearing Dan Kucan speak. So, oh, he's got humor. He's got an interesting way of explaining things. And at the time, that was a Situation where we were late to market to us. The new version had already been out. So we had a 10 corporate values at IDG. And one of them is have a let's try it attitude. Sign them up. The author and editor did a really good job that really had a great chemistry and all hats off to them. But the COVID was going to be white and a cartoon. And I read an article in Forbes magazine about how car manufacturers use color to engage and influence prospects. So red is indeed a very seductive attention getting color in terms of ticketed cars on highway. At the time, my Apple Macintosh and Apple books were all in muddy brown. Well, brown induces rejection. So I scrapped my whole packaging of the Apple computer book line went to a clean white sales rose and then yellow. So scrap the white cover with the cartoon yellow cover. Tension getting color. The protest sign was kind of. I ripped off Apple a reference for the rest of us instead of a computer for the rest of tilted the protest sign. And because my educational background had a blackboard and chalk like lettering and it was DOS for dummy as a reference for the rest of us. And that decision to scrap the COVID and work with a new designer who did a fantastic job build what became the point product and then the brand, the identity was attention getting. You couldn't miss it. And dummies became a term of endearment. You're smart, but you're being made to feel dumb with the techno babble. And then when we went into other categories, financial babble, et cetera. And because I'd always been in the trenches selling, you want to make sure you're presenting. So I took a cover to the largest bookstore in America, Walden Books at the time. And I went to get the big order and I got two orders. Get out and stay out to your point. Right. You're going to insult my customers. They're going to bring it all back. It'll be returned. It's not going to be a nightmare I want to deal with. So get out and stay out. So went door to door. I remember Crown picked it up. B. Dalton picked it up. And I just saw that they were responding to this offbeat, left of center, unconventional, contrarian approach to this title. And I didn't have a lot of confidence in terms of it being a massive seller. I printed 7,500 copies for a global print run. That's okay. It's not a healthy number that you have, you know, supreme confidence. So I didn't see what everyone later saw when they read the books and enjoyed the books and got the humor, but even little things like I love David letterman the top 10. So I put the top 10 in there. So that was something where memorable, right? My educational textbook publishing days. Marginal notes of the icons, the little bomb and the bullseye and the tips and the tricks. So there's a lot of interesting moments. And it was a great collaborative experience again. Authors, editors, great salespeople. We really had that little publisher who could.
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Unknown
And what was the moment when you realized that this was going to be more than just a little publisher who put out a book that could.
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John Kilcullen
It sold out its first print. It was now November and it's Christmas time, and it wasn't even Black Friday, but it was really heating up in terms of foot traffic. It blew out how to get printers rolling. It blew out again. And I got the sense, okay, I'm down to my last 300,000 from a 1.5 startup capital. And so what I knew was when the demand from customers really said, you've got something here. And the reorders came in and then we expanded distribution and there was a real buzz that there was something really interesting, it went to the top of the published weekly bestseller list. It got a lot of attention. So I'm like, okay, what's next? Okay, PCs got it. That's natural. Windows, big market. I'm like, okay, the Apple world, right? Well, my employees at the time were like, no, no, no, John, you don't get it. The value in this series of books is that it's alliteration. So if you're going to do Max, it should be Max for meatheads and Max for morons. And I'm like, no, no, no, it's about the Dummies brand. Because I had been on Madison Avenue because I had studied branding and advertising and how to induce people to buy and what are the cues and the signals? I'm like, you know, my gut tells me. And what I know to be the case about branding is you're smart being made to feel dumb for dummy scales. So finding people that could explain and had a sense of humor. And then in 1994, I violated the parent company's corporate values and I went into business because we're supposed to be a company dedicated to our mission of pursuing information services on technology. So now I'm doing personal finance, but I had employees and actors go to outside Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue, the large post office there with dummies figures and yellow high top Converse, and got on TV at CNBC and it took off from there. And so interesting enough the cfo. And for anybody who's looking at, you know, ideas and business, you have to have a good financial partner. And at the time, the CFO was totally against books. Doesn't carry advertising. There's no subscription. It has full return privileges. So if it doesn't work, it comes right back. So you have contra revenue. And a guy named Bill Murphy, we heard at a board meeting said, like, I'm going to starve this for capital, and I'm going to try to shut it down as quickly as possible because it's going to dilute our esop. The founder of the book company, and I was one of four people as a founding member, he had a great line. He goes, guess what? We're going to put in every book. First page. The publisher would like to thank Bill Murphy for without whom this book would not be possible. True story. So maybe a year later, I finally get a call from Bill Murphy. Never met him. And he goes, bill Murphy? I said, hey, Bill. Yeah, I know you. Have we ever met? No, no, we've not. I've not been back to Boston. I'm out here in California. Well, you got to take my name out of the book. I'm like, no. Why? We heard that you didn't believe in the company. We heard that you wanted to underfund it. So we're going to keep it in there. And then as soon as we turn a penny of profit, we're going to keep the line in, take out your name CFO and put in the uber founder of Pat McGovern. And that's what we did. 17 when we turn a penny profit. But I bring it up when we broke into business because then all of a sudden, I'm getting memos, good news memos from Bill. You should do mutual funds for dummies and taxes for Dummies, and you should do financial planning for dummies. So you have to get that financial partner to really, in our case, being a respectful rebel with a sense of humor and a prove it to you attitude. I was like, yeah, we're going to prove it to you, Bill, and we'll take your name out once we start turning profit.
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Unknown
At this point, how many different versions of For Dummies do you have as of today? Yeah.
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John Kilcullen
Well, I took the company public, sold it. John Wiley is the publisher of record, and there's over 3,000 titles and over a quarter million sold and 2 billion in retail sales. And going abroad, we're able to do local like Aussie rules or rugby. But a couple of thoughts as it started to scale. I kept asking customers, which I was off to do. What's next? When do you see a market? Where is there a hidden need? And they're like, God, you're doing so much. I don't know. But for God's sakes, you're not going to do sex. I'm like, good one. I like that. Smart. So our publisher in Chicago, Kathy Welting, reached out to the agent of Dr. Ruth. We needed someone who's credible, had a sensibility of explaining things in a very commonplace way. So she calls my office, and I always had a habit of trying to anticipate who was calling. And I was, John. Like, oh, Dr. Ruth. Sean, how did you know I was calling? I said, I'd just like to know who's calling. And I don't do it, John. Why not? Dr. Ruth, you're the perfect person. You understand the audience. You've got a great domain expertise. You make sex and sexual literacy really easy to understand. I don't do it. I don't write for dummies. I write for smart people. But I just want to let you know, I think about it, but I don't do it. Hang up the phone. Two weeks later, get a phone call, okay? And I can't do a great impersonation. But she just passed away, and we have remained good friends. I emceed her 80th birthday. She's such a great, great heart. She said, john, I do it. I said, Dr. Ruth, what happened? She goes, now here's Dr. Ruth, who lives in a Dominican neighborhood in Washington Heights. So she passed, did. And this diminutive figure is saying she was Orthodox Jewish. She was born in Israel. She lost her family during World War II in Germany. And she says, I do it. I studied the Talmud. And John, a lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained. And I do it. And I'm like, boom. We signed it up. Could not get that book in various markets for whatever reason. So she spoke fluent French. So we sent her to Paris. Even though we're going to the land of love, they're like, we don't need that. Like, we don't need sex for dummies. And our publishing partner put a condom in the inside back cover with an arrow this way up. So there's a whole funny approach. Sales took off. She was a great spokesperson. What a wonderful personality. And she had a great way of explaining whether it was financial literacy or technical literacy or sexual literacy. That was the essence of the brand. And I knew that from my Madison Avenue days. And Said, okay, we can scale this. And we had great margins. We had a great team. We were able to find, for instance, Gary McQuart. He was fired from CBS as the Masters analyst, golf analyst, because he said, and I quote, the greens are as slick as wax bikinis. And like, ah, that's my guy. So Gary McCord says, oh, I know why I need to do this book. Because I'm the technical golf advisor on Tin cup and Don Johnson and Kevin Costner don't know how to hold a club. The etiquette. And so he did it. Great guy. Had a lot of fun with him. And he got Kevin Costner to write the forward to the book. We allowed each publisher to kind of translate this. So when France, it was Pour les Null, which is loosely, an old TV show for zeros. And then in China was Ding and Dong Learn. So, you know, we tried our best to keep the sense of humor, keep the fidelity of the brand. The packaging licensing was a big part of it. So that helped with the classical music. Dum, dum, dum, dum. You know, we did a lot of interesting things. Yeah.
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Unknown
And over that time, I mean, 3,000 titles, you may not have had a touch on every single one, but of the ones that you did, which experts to you just were standouts. Like, what interactions did you have with some of these co authors, I guess.
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Ann McGinty
Is that what they were?
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John Kilcullen
Well, no. So they were all authors. Right. So the publisher is providing the advance, the royalties, the infrastructure. We would obviously keep the packaging. So since it was our idea, we would control the look and feel in the packaging, the words. The manuscript would be a collaboration between the authority and sometimes a co author, but the author and our editor. So we had the editorial guidelines, we had the brand guidelines, we built the brand packaging and was like, this is our brand. This is our series we'd like you to contribute to. And of course, a lot of people raise their hands, go like, wow, I can make money here. This is great. All we'd always say is, an idea is not a manuscript. A manuscript is not a book. A book is not a series, and a series is not a brand. So I have to explain to people like, this is what we do. This is what we're really good at. And so I would say playing basketball on California street with Eric Tyson and then signing him up to do Personal Fans for Dummies and having him bring Charles Schwab. That was incredible. Hearing Dan Gooken speak, having him sign up for Dots for Dummies and having a great sensibility, but the Related DOS for Dummies story is we in our parent company had these technology conferences and I was with Bill Gates at an afterglow event. It's 9:00. The whole program for the day was over. And I said, bill, what do you think of Dots for Dummies? And only Bill Gates with those glasses and squinty eyes, he goes, I think it's an exercise in self flagellation. So I'm like, did he say caning or farting? But I know whatever he said, it was not a good thing. So it was a memorable moment to be saying. And here's the interesting take on that. A year later, Microsoft called me to do the manual for the latest version of dos, which we turned into a great profitable business. And they always said, john, like, we're really good at the tip of the pyramid. Early adopters, CIOs, CTOs, gearheads, geeks. You're really good at the base of the pyramid. The user, the mass market, the people who are smart but being made to feel dumb.
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Unknown
And that's who you were writing for.
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John Kilcullen
Yeah. So Those are memorable. Dr. Ruth, I mentioned was memorable. Gary McCor was memorable. I remember Stephanie Seymour, who the Beauty Secrets for Dummies. And she said, john, you can't tilt my photo. Like, that's my smile, that's my brand. You can't like tilt that. I said, but that's our brand. That's what we do. And I had dinner with her in Chicago. So that was memorable. There was both pushback. There was a culture of collaboration, a culture of invention, and really working together so that it was the right expression for that particular topic. The essence is let's keep it really to a reference, which means you don't have to read a cover to cover. You have a problem, you need a solution. You can go to the table of contents or the index. You can zero in exactly on what you lead. And that's how we compartmentalize the whole journey was you don't have to read a cover to cover.
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Unknown
It's like user interface just made it simple to apply.
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John Kilcullen
Yeah.
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Ann McGinty
So where in your journey did the.
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Unknown
Hollywood Reporter and Billboard come into play?
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Ann McGinty
Was this pre Dummies or Post?
- [30:44]
John Kilcullen
So post. We took the company public in July 98. We sold it Journeyline 11, which was no easy feat and took about a year off, and then was introduced by a friend of mine from the Bronx who actually was at Esquire magazine and said, you should talk to the folks that are looking for a champion to run the music radio and Literary group. So I became a publisher, Billboard and ran the bookseller in London and Kirkus Free Reviews and got into the magazine business. Subscriptions and advertising. But it was still about brand. It was 113-year-old brand at the time. So we launched Billboard Live in Japan. So it wasn't about the expression of a magazine printed or about a website. It was a mobile application and it was a supper club we launched with Steely Dan. And that was one way to think about branding. Right. You've got this platform called a magazine. But is that really the brand? No, the brand is you. Chart success. The Billboard charts to this day are the milestones for achievement. So charting success. It's like Nike, right? Competitive spirit. Apple, think different. Disney, Wholesome entertainment. Billboard, charting success. I'd done the startup with the four Dummies, IDG Books Worldwide. And now this was a turnaround. Peer to peer file sharing or peer to peer stealing that was totally taking the music industry apart. So I had to figure out how to do a turnaround. And then I joined the global executive committee at Nielsen and I said, okay, you've got to take on Hollywood Reporter. I said, well, I've turned around the music and literary group. I don't want to leave it. It's really a point of pride. They said, okay, you can keep it, but you have to take on the Hollywood porter, which means you have to live in Los Angeles. Said, okay, but I'm here in New York. Life to kids and like when do you need to be there? Like tomorrow. That was a Thursday. I was there on a Saturday. And so you did it. Did it. And that was a whole different world of meeting some interesting personalities and the challenge. So Harvey Weinstein, my story with him personal was my wife and I were at the Cannes Film Festival. We were staying at the Same Carlton Hotel. 2:00 in the morning, he's opening up a door. This interesting, statuesque, probably model comes out. He's in boxes and a T shirt. Can't forget that. But I only bring this up because he didn't know who I was. I get a phone call in Paris at the airport. I'm heading my way back to New York, jfk and he's f bombing me because we had just reported on a deal and the terms of the deal, which at the Confin Festival, that's a lot of wheeling and dealing and who's buying rights and who sees a vision behind this property or not. And I just said, this is what we do. We report on what we believe to be the truth. And he goes, no, you can't do that. F bombing me in Paris, literally in the security line. I got into jfk. F bombing me again. So it was an interesting experience where journalistically you had to opine and comment and analyze and review on the industry. The people, the moves, the success of a TV show or a movie, you're going to take a lot of heat. And so that was a whole different challenge than what I had heretofore learned about. But a lot of great people I met along the way. I remember meeting John Travolta, Jordi Foster, really nice people. I spent three hours with Helen Mirren at one of the Oscar parties. I remember John Travolta and George Clooney said they never met each other. So before video was a thing or a podcasting, put them in a conference room and interviewed them and had them meet each other. So just interesting little moments like that. But it was an interesting time because you had to follow your journalistic instincts about what should be written about and what should be covered. And like the music industry was peer to peer file sharing. And then all of a sudden BitTorrent came along and it was stealing the movies and having those available. In fact, we covered one story where the FedEx operator who was taking the dailies, they were actually replicating it in the FedEx truck. So it was out even before it hit LA. So there's a lot of interesting stories around the crazy world of Hollywood.
- [34:38]
Unknown
Shifting into working around the Hollywood scene and LA and entertainment. Did you like that?
- [34:45]
John Kilcullen
It was always about putting the suit on or actually the tuxedo and going to all of these award shows. And as much as I learned from cold calling and my first job in New England, you have to introduce yourself to people. But I always found that it was friend or foe. People wanted to be close to the journalistic side, but they also knew there was two sides to the objective reporting. And then of course, on the commercial side with my commercial hat on, advertising and subscription. So they always want to hold you hostage to saying, we're going to threaten pull ads. Well, you got to pull ads because the journey of a 70 plus year old brand or 113 plus year old brand is we're going to be here no matter what. If you want to put me in the velvet box because you don't like stories that are being written or you didn't get the top spot in the charts. It is what it is. Our readers will appreciate the objectivity. And so there was certain moments it was fun, like meeting Eddie Vedder, super nice guy. The movie into the Wild, the true story about the student who left Georgia, burned his money. I ran the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard film, TV and music conference with my team, and he was wonderful. He was so happy that we packaged the CD on the front cover of the magazine. But Sean Penn, who lived right in Mill Valley, not a nice guy, completely dismissive. And Eddie Ved was super cool. And they both took their ashtrays and their cigarettes and went in the Beverly Hilton Hotel to do the interview, smoking, which was not allowed. And I asked them how they met, and Eddie said, we met at the bottom of a dungeon bar and just smoked all night and talked about what the musical experience would be like for this particular journey. And so that was kind of cool and memorable. A lot of different people that you meet, like Gloria Estefan, now, that was more on the music side. But after our Billboard Latin Music TV award show on Telemundo, went to her club for the afterparty, and she had a very VIP upper level. So my wife and I hung out with Gloria and Emilio, and she said, I love standing up here looking down at everyone, dancing. You know, my major was in psychology. And we all know the story showing what broke her back and the bus turned over. And she's like, I just want to see how people react with one another, how they dance, how they groove, you know, are they married? Are they, you know, flirting and having a shot of 151rum and talking to Gloria and feeling the humanity of her as a normal person. The paparazzi are always after me, and now I get the chance to look at the folks and see what they're all about. Anonymous as they may be dancing on the dance floor. That was super cool.
- [37:11]
Unknown
I've always really wondered about what that must be like for someone like, say, Taylor Swift or Elvis, the Beatles, you know, just to have everybody put you on a pedestal like that. Like, how do you not have ego?
- [37:25]
John Kilcullen
Yeah, it's interesting. They all came through the halls of Billboard. Taylor was this young, gangly artist moving from Pennsylvania down to Nashville, and they had a dream, they had a vision. But to your question, can't be easy. You could see the look of strain on people's faces, you know, when the stories are being written fairly or unfairly, true or not true, about how that deals with their personal life. It's a very, very difficult ecosystem, unless music or entertainment. You have to have a strong will, a strong support structure. You have to keep looking forward. You can't look in the rearview mirror. You have to have strong self confidence that you're pursuing the right path independent of what the naysayers. And this was before TMZ and Social heavy and all the craziness that goes on nowadays.
- [38:12]
Unknown
So for you with the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard and for Dummies and everything you did to get up to that point, what were the hardest parts? Like what parts made you just want to rip your hair out?
- [38:24]
John Kilcullen
In the startup, one of the toughest situations was we had launched our company with commission rec groups in the United States and I threw a party and all the reps and the heads of these regional commission groups, these sales teams drank the champagne, were ready to come to the sales conference the next day. And I got a phone call at 6:00am in the morning after I just left them at 11:00 at night. They're like one by one by one. We've talked about the fact that Igg is launching this book company that you run, but Simon Schuster and McMillan, we represent them as commission reps and they gave us a call and said, we can't handle you. So I lost my entire national sales force that morning at 6am after sharing toast of future success the night before. That was a low point because now I have no salesforce and I'm launching a product line and I have a team that looks up to me and I have a parent company that's wanting to know what's going on. So what I told them at the time, as desperately horrible as that felt, I said, you're going to regret this decision. I'm telling you, that's a big company, I'm a small company, they're established. I'm not. They're going to cut ties with you at some point. They're going to take it in house. But you watch us, we're going to be a rocket ship. And then 17, 18, 19 months later, they did the same thing. They took all of those sales reps jobs in house and they cut out all those commission reps. And I got all this hope to come back and I'm like, no, we're on. So that was tough, losing your national sales force at a launch party, thinking that there was genuine kindred spirits and commitment. And then hours later, they bow to the big, fearful, large publisher who worries about our entrance. So that was tough. I would also say what's always tough is when you have anybody who doesn't see their potential, want to realize their potential and doesn't really want to do the work and doesn't believe they need to do the Work to motivate and to manage, either up or out. Never easy. If you have a heart, it's hard to do a reduction in force. If you have a heart, it's hard to let people go. It's always tough.
- [40:27]
Unknown
And when these things happened that you'd never encountered before and maybe they really set you back, was there anybody that you turned to at those times to just seek some guidance? Did you have any mentors in this journey?
- [40:38]
John Kilcullen
Great. That's a wonderful question. And there were certain people, like, I remember Pat McGovern, who was the founder of International Data Group, who had the vision that their books would be a key part of the commercial process of learning about technology. And I would ask him a question, and I would say, I want to build a warehouse. We need to improve our margins and we can build a warehouse. And I was like, pat, I'm just looking for your opinion. He goes, john, you asked me, you're the product champion, you're the domain expert. You're in the market, you know the answer, you make the decision. So even though he didn't give me an answer, he gave me an answer. Follow your gut. Stay close to the trends in the marketplace. Know that you've done your homework. I trust in you. So Pat McGovern, I say, was quite the visionary leader of this what became a billion dollar company. So he was always someone that I would turn to and then there'd be just, you know, our family, you know, talking to people in my family who run businesses or sports coaches in college and just like, what's it like with managing people and how do you deal with, you know, these dynamics in the marketplace? IDG was a special ecosystem because CE colleagues or parent company executives or founders, there was always this collegial respect, like, I'm going to ask a question because I've never done this before, and I'm going to respect that you've done parallel things before. Not in my space. And to this day, I'm still friends with those folks.
- [42:03]
Unknown
Oh, man. It's a beautiful thing that really is. If you were to, let's say For Dummies wasn't out and it's 2024 and you were to do this all over again, would you change anything about your approach, given the digital landscape and how publishing has changed in the recent years?
- [42:22]
John Kilcullen
Indeed, I've been executive chairman of Fast Pencil. I have counseled authors, and I'll say today, the only thing that's certain is that there's a producer and a consumer and everything else. Retail, wholesale, publisher, printer, is all part of the kind of middle. And I would go direct to the customer, I would get their email name, I would get their mobile number, I would build a relationship directly. If you look at the wine industry through Covid, if you had a direct to consumer D2C business, you were able to be insulated from all of the wholesale retail closures. So whether it's that industry or publishing, I would say builds your expertise directly with your readers and your customers. Use all the available platforms, whether it's KDP at Amazon, they'll create the A page or you'll create the A page. You can do some AMS ads, they'll print it for you, they'll ship it for you, they'll build it for you. You don't need a small, medium or large size publisher. There's a point of pride and there's some infrastructure turnkey nature to that, but to control margins and control quality control time to market, to manage customers directly, to learn they want next to listen to them, to ask them questions and to have that maybe that the book is just a point product for a class or a workshop or a speaking engagement or a PDF download or a lesson plan, all of which you can do directly by managing the customer directly. If you go to a publisher, then they have the relationship with the customer and the resellers, so you're cut out from that direct link.
- [44:03]
Unknown
So I want to make sure that I understand clearly, though it sounds like you're suggesting that traditional publishing is not necessarily the go to.
- [44:13]
John Kilcullen
If you're an established author, you'll have typically a literary agent. They'll have a relationship with the editor, the acquiring editor, and that's a formula that works. You typically get an advance. You may never see a royalty, but you have the prestige of a Knopf or name Scholastic in the juvenile space. You'll get the right fit. So there's a great feeling there. Most, most authors, aspiring authors don't get an agent because the agent doesn't see that they're going to bring a big paycheck or the agent doesn't believe in their story or the agent doesn't like their platform. And that could be said for the commissioning or acquiring editor. They're going to ask you a few questions. What's your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn audience? How sticky and how often are you posting? What is that engagement? What are the numbers? So that'll be the first question. If you don't have that, you may be passionate, differentiated story. That's not really a good Opener. The next thing is going to be is maybe you as author have to do all the work. You may need to have to pay them. You may have to take no advance, you may have to take little royalties, you may just get turned down so the author doesn't have the leverage. And I'm talking about not big time authors or previously published authors. I'm talking about anyone who's an entrepreneur, a C level executive. There are more publishers who will say, pay me and we'll do the book for you. So that's a whole new model that's been in place for actually over 10 years.
- [45:41]
Unknown
But that's like ghostwriting.
- [45:42]
John Kilcullen
You pay for a ghostwriter, you have interviews, you have it put together, you hope it weaves together your story and it's written by a third party writer and then it's packaged by a designer and then you're in market with a book. But that's an expensive process. And then you still have to market and promote and build all the social media platforms and do all it yourself. But I would still argue it's a better prescription moving forward, given we're in an industry of consolidation. Amazon is the lion's share of the business. Local bookstores are very hard to get to and you can get to them as a local author. But then what about Tanner Cover in Denver and what about Shakespeare in New York? How do you get to market there? So I would say build your audience, build your story. Understand how to use a platform like a self publishing platform like KDP or even the large publishers have self publishing platforms and grassroots. Build it yourself, Own the customer, own your ip, own the copyright.
- [46:43]
Unknown
This is like kind of mind blowing to me just because historically I feel like traditional publishing was kind of like the gold star. But if all it's doing is giving you the credit and you're doing all.
- [46:54]
John Kilcullen
The work anyway, why not keep the lion's share? I mean, you'll keep 70% at KDP. Amazon, they'll keep 30. You're lucky to get 10 to 15% royalties on a traditional author publisher deal. And what I always said to my authors, I would say author share equals royalties times copies sold. What I could influence is author share. What I can't influence is a word that's not in this equation, which is advanced. I'm not going to write a big advance. That's really against future royalties earned. So I can influence units sold. That's why you want to sign with me. You should be worried about author share. So today's world, author share would be, If I get 70% versus 10 or 15. And I control the customer and I control the cash and I control the quality. And I can revise the book on the fly and I can do that book right away. And I don't have to wait for 18 months to get in the traditional publishing cycle. I think there's a lot of benefits, not right for everybody, but then a lot of benefits for going direct to the customer or reader. But do the book for you, tell your story for you, your kids, your family, your audience, your customers. That journey, that passion, is something that is personal. And so it's not about the commercial economic gains is what I would argue. It's about the fulfillment of that dream.
- [48:05]
Unknown
It's like what we were talking about before we went live on this, just being a bit more heart centered with the approach.
- [48:11]
John Kilcullen
Exactly.
- [48:11]
Unknown
So I just have a couple more questions, one of which is, what advice would you give to anyone that is an aspiring entrepreneur?
- [48:21]
John Kilcullen
Jack Welch would always say, the only prescription for success is your livelihood is controlled by customers. And I learned from being a salesman. For most of my career, whether I'm selling ideas or going public and selling to investors is get in the marketplace, stay in the marketplace. The answers are in the marketplace. Don't surround yourself with yes people and an entourage. Know your competitor, know your customer, understand your cost structure, the three Cs. But ultimately it's going to be about, do you have an instinct and a fire in the belly that you want to listen to that inner beat of that inner drum to say, I believe there's a gap. I believe I can tell a better story. I believe this story will find its audience. I believe personally in doing this, it's a labor of love, but the answers are in the market. Stay close to the market. That's super important. Then build a virtual team. And that virtual team may be outsourcing creative or whatever business that you're in that you can have fractional workers. I remember Mick Jagger always saying, like, this is the only business where we can create 375 million and we all get together for 12 to 18 months, then we all disband, Right? So surround yourself with positive people. Surround yourself with people who really are going to encourage and listen. Judgmental, critical snipers are really going to tear at your soul. So make sure whether it's on the golf course or local pta, friends, communities. I remember the editor in chief of PC World, Richard Landry, who said, you don't want to do a Dos for dummies. It's really going to hurt the image of idg, it's going to be something that's really, really not a good look. And I'm like, when someone tells me no, I'm like, yeah, no, I got something here. But they'll be naysayers, they'll be the corporate saboteurs, they'll be the folks that don't have the guts to do what you're doing and they'll always have a reason to say, here's the downside risk and there's always downside risk. But follow your gut. Surround yourself with positive people. Stay in the market, try to be the lowest cost provider at whatever you do. Make sure everything's negotiable and there's an opportunity for you to build something virtually and directly with customers. And just to make sure you do, you know, self care is healthcare. Like do the work. And the work may be self worth and self praise and self confidence. It may be working out. And who do you surround yourself with? Where's your fitness? Where's your mind, body, spirit, alignment? And a book, Confessions of an Ad Man, David Ogilvy. I always remember higher to your weakness. You don't know it all and you don't know what you don't know, right? And there's a great book called the Hard Thing about the hard things. Really understand it's hard, it's tough work. My niece has a hemp based talent company called Enact. You know, it's an act of kindness, Enact. And she's doing really well, hustling, bustling, getting angels, getting investors. She worked at Under Armour, she worked at Prana, she's been in the global sustainability sourcing. She goes, I have a better way. I believe that the sustainable, organic, hemp based composition of this town is really going to work. And she's doing it, she's making it work. And here's an interesting thing. A friend from the Bronx who's an inventor is invested in the company. And so the Bronx roots are strong and vibrant and there's so much love and support growing up in a community wherever you are. In our case it was immigrant sons and daughters really coming together to really they support and help each other.
- [51:40]
Unknown
What you're saying about surrounding yourself with positive people is a really big part, I know of my own journey too. It makes such a difference. If you've got someone who says no, you can do it, just believe it, you can do it versus someone else. Just like, why would you do that? You're going to compete against all the big guys. You're never going to be able to do anything.
- [51:58]
John Kilcullen
Right.
- [51:59]
Unknown
So it's just that energy.
- [52:00]
John Kilcullen
That's right. What was it about your podcasting road Less Travel that you followed to say, I want to do this. I want to establish my voice and my audience my way.
- [52:10]
Unknown
So you know that eventually I will write a book. Right, okay. That's been sort of put on the back burner because once I realized I can start sharing some knowledge with people immediately by doing this podcast, like, let's go with that. But the real spark was honestly wanting to show my kids that you should find something that challenges you, where you're constantly learning, connecting with people, like really dropping down into your heart and just enjoying the process and not being necessarily so goal oriented and focused all the time. I get it in certain circumstances, but for this one, I just needed them.
- [52:47]
Ann McGinty
To see that the process is so.
- [52:49]
Unknown
Enjoyable and that I can do hard things.
- [52:52]
John Kilcullen
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing and what a great role model. And they're listening and they're watching and they're observing and they'll embrace that into their own DNA. I believe it. I see my four young men. But what I say to everybody, to your earlier question is dare to be different. Take the road less traveled. Understand that failure precedes success like that. Das for Dummies was the third book that really, really resonated. And if you think about Led Zeppelin and Bruce, their albums were the third albums before they really kicked it into high gear. And understand that you don't have all the answers, you don't know what you don't know. And be open minded to listening and learning and carpe diem, you know, had that sense of urgency.
- [53:30]
Unknown
So this, it feels like innate optimism.
- [53:32]
Ann McGinty
Is this something that you've always had?
- [53:35]
John Kilcullen
I've been called toxically positive. I've been called Captain Optimistic. I've been always high energy, high motor, probably rose colored glasses, maybe. My upbringing, like we came from humble beginnings and to see the good in people and to see that there is a possibility to do fun, good things. I've always had that hyper energy of making people laugh and wanting to do things that would uplift versus tear down. And so I think that's just part of how I grew up. You build people up, you don't tear them down.
- [54:07]
Unknown
So my final question, this is one that I ask everybody, is if you could just go back and have, say, dinner with yourself, your younger self, and share some stories from your journey to prepare yourself for what is about to come or to share some life wisdom that you've gained what would you tell yourself?
- [54:25]
John Kilcullen
Great question. I would think about this is heavy because maybe it's the California side of my journey. Is this whole notion of mind, body, spirit, important to get that alignment right. Important to understand that you have to in a very positive way and not an egotistical or narcissistic way. It's like have that self praise and self worth and self talk that's positive and upbeat and really restorative and supportive. Right. So you got to get that mind and that body. When I was having a tough time in publishing, getting stressed out, what do you do in your fitness? Like self care is healthcare. Right. And spirit, what's your spirit? What's your faith? Entrepreneurs, by definition have faith. They may be agnostic, they may be atheists, but you have faith. You believe you can build and create something that's sustainable, that you're going to fight the good fight to do that. So that mind, body, spirit, conversation, I think is important. Also make sure you're filling your mind and your head and your body with all that positivity. Like some of the very early books I read, like the Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill, Confessions of an Adam and David Ogilvie. Just books that were inspiring and fill you up with really great insights and knowledge. And remember, build a culture of togetherness and inclusiveness. That was growing up in the Bronx like, you know, 10 people at a table. You got to get along. It's okay to fail. What do you learn? Fail forward, fail fast. Really, what do you learn? What's the learning experience and the failure? Take risks, take calculated risks. So those would be some of the lessons I would share.
- [55:59]
Unknown
Those are incredible lessons.
- [56:01]
Ann McGinty
John, thank you so much for coming.
- [56:03]
Unknown
In the studio today.
- [56:03]
John Kilcullen
So much fun. So glad this venture is doing. So you see you beaming right now.
- [56:08]
Ann McGinty
Well, I think I just love hearing.
- [56:10]
Unknown
How people have learned and I love the stories and the history and the vulnerability and, and it's fun to me. So I appreciate though, all of my.
- [56:19]
Ann McGinty
Guests, because my guests are the ones.
- [56:21]
Unknown
Who listeners are really coming for. So thank you.
- [56:25]
John Kilcullen
Well, thank you. And I'm glad you mentioned this word vulnerability. And you know, my wife Jessica, she says it a lot is be vulnerable, show weakness. It's okay to not just always have this veneer that everything's great. Be honest, be open.
- [56:41]
Unknown
Thank you so much.
- [56:42]
John Kilcullen
Be well. Thank you.
- [56:47]
Ann McGinty
Today's key takeaways. Every entrepreneur should experience sales firsthand to learn resilience, adaptability, and the ability to engage authentically to master sales Practice contextual selling and tailor your approach to your audience. Learn to handle rejection and keep going. Understand belly to belly sales and what it means to build real relationships. Ask open ended questions, get to know your client, identify their needs and present your product or service accordingly. Ask yourself, why would my customer want to engage with me? There's a famous expression that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. So be ready, be open and listen with both your heart and mind. Carpe diem. Make the most out of every chance you get on branding. Make sure your brand is impossible to miss. Be bold. Grab attention. Can you tell a better story than your competitors? If you're going into business, you need a strong financial understanding. If you don't have that, partner with someone who does. Ask your customers for insights. What do they want to say? What is missing for them? They may hold the key to future innovation for you and your business. Stay close to market trends and trust your instincts, especially when you know you've done your homework. Listen to your instinct and notice gaps in the market. The landscape of publishing is rapidly changing. Today's authors should consider going direct to consumer. Collect emails, build relationships and explore self publishing to control margins, quality and time to market. Build your own audience, focus on telling your story and engage directly with readers. The answers are in the market. Don't isolate yourself with yes people. Know your competitors, customers and costs and be in the marketplace. Build a circle of positive, encouraging people who support you. Avoid the critical judgmental voices that try to tear you down. Self care is health care, so prioritize your well being to sustain your business and personal growth. Hire for your weaknesses and build a team that complements your strengths and addresses your blind spots. And lastly, success comes when your mind, body and spirit are aligned and working together. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.