BRX Stories – Creating Serendipity
Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, you’ve observed and I have seen it time and time again in the studio these serendipitous moments. Speak to that a little bit.
Lee Kantor: Part of our methodology, and especially pre-pandemic, this was really the only way we did business, was in a studio, we would invite two or three people to come on a show. Each person would have their own segment, and they would kind of tell the story. We would interview them and we would get them to just talk about their backstory, how they got into what they’re doing, what makes them special and unique, how do they serve people, all that good stuff. So, we were doing that in every episode we did, for every show we did over and over again.
Lee Kantor: And one of my favorite stories about serendipity, what we would find by doing this activity is you would find that, “Oh, this person used to work for this company,” and you’re like, “Oh, my wife used to work for that company. Do you know this person?” And then, you would have those kind of moments would happen more frequently than maybe a lay person or person in the industry would think. But kind of the world is small and these kind of weird connections would happen regularly.
Lee Kantor: But my favorite weird connection that happened involved two college mascots. We were doing the Atlanta Business Radio Show, and one of the guests was the inventor of this kind of party bus called the Fur Bus. And he comes on, he’s talking about the Fur Bus, and he’s like, it’s covered in fur and it’s a party bus you rent for proms and weddings, and things like bachelor parties, bachelorette parties.
Lee Kantor: And he was telling his backstory is that he was a zoology major at Auburn University and he was the Auburn Tiger mascot. And we’re like, “Oh, that’s hilarious. Wow. I’ve never met a college mascot.” So, we’re going around the room and he tells us that and we’re like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” So, the next person comes, they do their interview.
Lee Kantor: And then, finally, the final person comes, and this guy is a guy that’s an older guy and is probably at the time in his 60s. And he used to sell insurance, but now he is kind of a net-weaving guy. That’s his background. He does this program called Net-Weaving, which is all about networking and things like that and how to do it right and elegantly.
Lee Kantor: And I never knew this about him. I’ve known him for many years. And he goes, “You’re never going to believe this, but I went to University of Colorado and our mascot is the Colorado Buffalo, and I was the Colorado Buffalo.” So, there we have it in this one episode with three guests, two of them were college mascots.
Lee Kantor: Now, what are the odds? I mean, I had never met a mascot ever. And here, I was meeting two of them at the same time.
Lee Kantor: Now, I just talked to this guy a few weeks ago. He came on another show and he brought up, he was like, “Remember when I was on and the other college mascot was on?” Like, this is a memory for him that’s still around ten years later, and I’m sure it is for the Fur Bus guy, where two college mascots, they weren’t coming on as college mascots, they were coming on for some other reason, but they were both college mascots on the same episode at the same time.
Lee Kantor: That, to me, is just serendipitous. And this happens on a regular basis. These moments of serendipity happen when you bring a group of people together and ask them questions about themselves in a relaxed, safe environment where they can kind of let their hair down and talk about what’s important to them. You’re going to uncover kind of weird threads and connections amongst your guests in ways that you couldn’t imagine or script in a million years. And that is one of my favorite parts about doing the work that we do, and I think it’s one of the most valuable things we bring to the table when we’re helping our clients serve the people that are most important to them.
