[Top Agency Series] Creating Unforgettable Events and Relationships With Jeff Krauss

Jeff Krauss is Co-founder of FanRoom Live and the President of IE Group. Leveraging his start as a local promoter, he scaled his company to serve an impressive client list, including Saturday Night Live and the LA Dodgers. Through his genuine approach, Jeff emphasizes the importance of relationships in business success. He co-created the innovative FanRoom Live platform with Cedric the Entertainer, bringing fans and A-listers together in the digital space. Jeff is committed to weaving charitable initiatives into his work, ensuring every event also benefits worthwhile causes.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [0:15] How Jeff Krauss turned his passion into powerful event experiences
• [3:27] How Jeff landed Saturday Night Live as a premier client
• [11:23] The secrets to throwing unforgettable parties with celebrities
• [16:29] How Jeff initially connected with the LA Dodgers
• [18:49] The story behind FanRoom Live
• [31:16] Jeff’s advice on building high-profile relationships and avoiding mistakes
• [33:36] The story of Jeff’s first event and his perseverance
• [43:34] The importance of relationships in Jeff’s business philosophy

In this episode…

Imagine having the ability to orchestrate unforgettable experiences for A-list celebrities and prestigious brands. What does it take to make it big in the event production industry, working with names like Saturday Night Live and the LA Dodgers?

Jeff secured Saturday Night Live as a client through an introduction from Chris Rock’s personal assistant. This initial opportunity allowed Jeff to prove his event-planning expertise, eventually winning over SNL, even with their tendency for last-minute arrangements. Likewise, Jeff has worked with the LA Dodgers on charity events featuring celebrities like George Lopez and Brett Young. These events not only provided entertainment, but also raised substantial funds for children’s hospitals, showcasing Jeff’s talent for merging philanthropy with high-profile events.

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Jeff Krauss, Co-founder of FanRoom Live and the President of IE Group. Jeff delves into the meticulous planning required behind the scenes, from securing desirable venues to coordinating with celebrities and their agents. He also shares heartwarming stories from FanRoom Live, a digital platform that allows fans to interact with celebrities while supporting charitable causes.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Jeff Krauss on LinkedIn
• FanRoom Live
• IE Group
• Cedric the Entertainer on X
• We Win Foundation

Special Mention(s):

• LA Dodgers
• Saturday Night Live
• Paul “The Big Show” White
• George Lopez
• Brett Young
• Chris Taylor
• Alexander Ludwig on X

Related episode(s):

• “Building a Great Team and More Helpful Insights with Jason Swenk Host of The Smart Agency Master Class Podcast” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “The Pixar Story: The Letter of a lifetime That Started Everything With Alvy Ray Smith, Co-Founder of Pixar” on Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “If you want to work with SNL, this is how they operate. They like to do things this way.”
• “You have to have obviously great drinks. You have to have great music. DJ selection is very, very important.”
• “It takes a lot of grit, follow-up, and connections to make that happen.”
• “I don’t have time for that kind of stuff. I just look forward. I keep moving forward.”
• “Be kind, have great communication, try to work things out civilly. Work hard and things will happen.”

Action Steps:

1. Get familiar with your clientele’s preferences: It addresses the specific challenge of creating a memorable event and enhances the guest experience.
2. Leverage personal relationships: This utilizes existing networks to create new opportunities and collaborative ventures.
3. Remain adaptable and ready to act on short notice for last-minute coordination: Quick adaptability allows effective management of challenges that arise in fast-paced environments.
4. Integrate charitable elements into events: Philanthropic endeavors add value, create a broader impact, and foster goodwill.
5. Cultivate patience, resilience, and a non-personal approach to business interactions: Developing these attributes helps maintain focus on long-term goals despite short-term setbacks or slights.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:14

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz..

Jeremy Weisz 0:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here Founder ofInspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I have Jeff Krauss. He is the founder of IEGNY.com and FanRoomLive.com. And Jeff, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast, people should check out. Since this is part of the Top Agency Series, I’ve Jason Swenk on. Jason Swenk built an agency to eight figures and sold it, and then he started acquiring agencies. And he actually started an agency group, Agency 360 — that was a really good episode. Talks about kind of the business space, valuation space. Another really good one was Todd Taskey. Todd Taskey pairs private equity with agencies. He’s helped sell agencies. He’s got the Second Bite Podcast. So he says, Jeff, some of the agencies he sells, you know, they sell the private equity. Private Equity sells again. So sometimes they make more on the second bite than they do on the first bite, which is again, talking about the valuation space. Another one of my personal favorites was the Co-founder of Pixar, and he had some really good George Lucas stories, some really good Steve Jobs stories. So check out the one with Alvy Ray Smith and many more on InspiredInsider.com. This episode is brought to you by Rise25, at Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the accountability, the strategy and the full execution. So Jeff would kind of call ourselves a magic run in the background and make it look easy for the host so they can create amazing content, you know, create amazing relationships and run their business. You know, for me, I’m much like you Jeff, for my research, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I have found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to Rise25.com or email us at [email protected] I’m excited to introduce Jeff Krauss. He’s the Founder of IE Group. You can check them out at IEGNY.com. They’re a top tier event production company known for crafting unforgettable experiences. If you look at their page and there’s a photo gallery page, you’ll see what I mean experiences for A-list celebrities and prestigious brands, beginning as a promoter from Long Island, Jeff grew his company into a powerhouse serving clients like Saturday Night Live, the LA Dodgers, the Jackson family and many, many more. He also co-created FanRoom Live, and he Co-founded with Cedric the Entertainer. FanRoom Live is a digital platform that brings celebrities and fans together through one of a kind, interactive virtual events. You can check that out at FanRoomLive.com, and Jeff. Thanks for joining me.

Jeff Krauss 3:26

Thank you for having me.

Jeremy Weisz 3:27

Let’s start off and so people can understand a little bit more about what you do, but talk about how you got Saturday Live as a client.

Jeff Krauss 3:40

Oh, that’s an uh, that’s a very, very interesting story. So years ago, I became, well, I still am friends with Chris Rock’s personal assistant. He actually introduced me to the head of talent relations at Saturday Night Live. Came down to the lounge that I was working with. We had a couple drinks, spoke about doing some, potentially some events together. Yeah, they actually ended up doing a party for the writers team and everybody that has to do with the writing department at Saturday Night Live at the door that I was working with, or lounge, I should say. So I said to them, after the party, hey, by the way, can you introduce me? Or who handles the after parties? And the after after parties? So they said, well, the after party, which is a den, which is more of dinner, that’s one thing. The after. After it is handled by some other people, internally, we can introduce you. Great. So they introduced me. I had a great conversation with the guy. Say to me, look, we’ll do a couple parties with you. If everything goes great, then, you know, we kind of want to take a little bit of a backseat, so we’ll basically, you know, give you, give you the reins, so to speak. So we did a couple of parties. Everything went great. I got them some great venues. Music was great. Everything went well. So I did not know how SNL works, and I kept reaching out, even on the weeks I didn’t realize that they planned these parties so last minute. So I kept reaching out, reaching out about the next parties. So then I get a text back basically says, Don’t call us. We’ll call you in a nicer, nicer language. By the way, I’m giving you the short. 

Jeremy Weisz 5:55

And the New York language you know seems pretty nice.

Jeff Krauss 5:58

Yeah, that’s basically the Hollywood New York way of saying, you know, we’ll call you when, when we have something. Okay, no problem. I was a little bummed. You know, whatever it is, what it is six months go by, a friend of mine that used to work for the New York Mets, who now works for NBC, calls me up, and he says, Hey, Jeff, by chance, would you want to work with SNL? I said, Yeah, of course. But, and I told him the story, I said, so I don’t, I don’t know what’s going to change with you, with you calling me about it. He says, no, no, listen, meet. I want you. I want you to meet my friends, work there, or work with them and have a conversation. Because I think that there’s multiple people that play at these parties. I said, Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, I’ll meet them, but I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how much they’re going to be able to do because whatever. So I ended up having drinks with the other guys, and it turned out that the guy that I dealt with was only one of several people that pick and choose what happens and where with these parties. So my new point of contact said to me, same thing, give you a couple couple parties. If everything, if everything goes well, and you got us some great spots, and everything the party goes well. You can have my end of the parties. So that means essentially 1/3 or whatever that he plans. So everything went well. And he said, Jeff, you have, you have my third of the parties. So I would, I still didn’t know how they operate at such a last minute thing. So I would reach out. 

Jeremy Weisz 8:13

It’s a lot to coordinate.

Jeff Krauss 8:15

It’s not that you have to understand something. The after party is the least of their worries. Throughout a week, they got so much other stuff going on, the party itself is the last thing to deal with. So I would reach out at the beginning of every week, and I said to him, is there any way that we could change this? Because you guys called me on Friday, Friday night at eight o’clock, and I got to get a venue, and they got a staff. He said, Jeff, if you want to work with SNL, and if you don’t, I understand, but if you want to work with them, this is how they operate. I’ve tried to change it. It’s not going to change. They just like to do things this way. So I said, Okay, no problem. So what I did was I would call a couple different venues the beginning of each week, and I would say, Look, I have Friday night, at eight o’clock, we’re going to make a decision on where we’re going staff up, and when I call you, that means that we’re 100% on so this way, I don’t have to worry about whether they’re staffed or not. I just can’t confirm with them until the end of the week. So I reverse engineered the whole thing. So it turns out, the guy that I originally, originally dealt with, moved out of town, so by default, they now come to me, and have been for the last number of years, with Most of the after, after parties, who knew by default this well,

Jeremy Weisz 10:07

it comes with, you know, hard work, follow up, you know, making the connections and everything behind the scenes. And you say, you know, just goes well, right? Talk a little bit about what it takes, because there are a lot of moving pieces. Um, what stuff do you typically have to arrange? And how is it? How does it work? 

Jeff Krauss 10:25

Well, by the way, I just want to say one thing. When I say by default, I mean it in the sense that there’s nobody else that is dealing with it. On their side, they only have one person, really, that wants to deal with it, and that is my point of contact, that’s what I meant by default. There were multiple people that were choosing the space each week, each week, and then it’d be a different story. But they designate one person at least most of the time, and that person relies on me to handle it. That’s what I meant. 

Jeremy Weisz 11:08

Yeah, totally. What goes into throwing a great party, right? You’ve, you’ve thrown many, many different venues. Celebrities talk about what goes in to throw a great party?

Jeff Krauss 11:23

Well, number one, you have to have, obviously, great drinks. You have to have great music. DJ selection is very, very important, because that can make or break the party. You have to have your staff on all lines, as far as who’s going, where, making sure that the doors open on time, just little, little things that you wouldn’t think of, and, yeah, just making sure the client is happy and the food is good. I mean, there’s a lot of different things that go into planning a good party entertainment? Is there going to be a live band or a performance, maybe a magician? I don’t know everything. It really depends on the client, but those are the fundamentals of having a great party. The clientele coming in have a feeling like they got a great experience coming to this event.

Jeremy Weisz 12:28

You also did. You’ve done a lot of work for the LA Dodgers. Talk about one of the events there and how it worked.

Jeff Krauss 12:40

Well, one event that we did with the LA Dodgers last year, we did it at Top Golf, and George Lopez hosted, as you know, he’s a he loves golf so and he loves the Dodgers. So that was a great fit. Brett Young performed, and it was great. Everybody had such a great time. Lots of celebrities came through. A lot of the Dodgers came through, and they raised a lot of money for the children’s hospitals. In fact, George Lopez, during the auction, actually bought a lot of stuff himself, just so that he can give back to give back to the charities.

Jeremy Weisz 13:33

Talk about, how do you decide on, you know, post people performing, and also, you know, partnering, which charities to partner with?

Jeff Krauss 13:47

Well, the charity end of it, that depends on the Dodgers, specifically Chris Taylor, as far as the events I do with the Dodgers, he’s always the one that heads that up? And it’s always children’s charities, Children’s Hospital, anything to do with Sick Kids is, is there? Is there anything else? So with George Lopez, he loves the Dodgers. He loves to help sick children, and he loves, you know, to host golf events. So it just made sense and he was available. Brett Young, he same, same situation, Loves to help charities. Loves to help sick kids. He’s a very, very giving and very charitable guy, and he was available to perform. It’s as simple as that. It’s not simple, but it’s as simple as it hits those categories.

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