Episode Notes
In this second part of Nicky Mondellini’s interview with media veteran Sam Malone, delve deeper into the world of media management, memorable experiences, and the evolution from radio personality to media mogul.
In This Episode:
- Mic Management Tales: Strategies for handling dominant guests during interviews.
- Presidential Inaugurations: Sam shares firsthand experiences from attending George W. Bush’s inaugurations.
- Sammy’s Singles: The backstory of Sam’s successful singles event series that led to numerous marriages.
- From Radio to Media Empire: How Sam transitioned to owning a successful creative media company.
- Navigating Business Crises During COVID: How Sam’s firm adapted strategies to support clients during the pandemic.
Key Moments:
- 00:00 – Recap of Part 1 and introduction to Part 2
- 02:15 – Discussing challenges with overbearing interviewees
- 07:00 – Anecdotes from attending presidential inaugurations
- 12:50 – Success and impact of Sammy’s Singles events
- 17:30 – Evolution from radio personality to media mogul
- 24:45 – Crisis management during the COVID pandemic
- 29:30 – Sam’s future aspirations and dream interviews
- 34:00 – Closing thoughts and where to find Sam online
Resources Mentioned:
- Sam’s Company: 512 New Media
- Personal Website: sammalone.com
Connect with Sam Malone:
- Website: sammalone.com
- Business: 512 New Media
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Nicky Mondellini is an internationally known artist with more than thirty years of artistic career. Her voice is heard in commercials on television, radio and digital platforms worldwide. She has been the host and producer of La Pizarra since 2020.
Her work as an actress includes more than a dozen telenovelas, and drama shows, classical and contemporary Spanish plays, shorts and feature films, and the hosting of morning shows in Mexico and the United States, as well as on camera commercials, and promotional and corporate videos.
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Transcript
Sam Malone: We got 400 people at that Sammy’s Singles. We realized we were on to something, so every two or three times a year, we’d have a Sammy’s Singles event. The largest was 5,000 people showed up at Greenspoint Mall.
Nicky Mondellini: Wow.
Sam: Guns Point. We have 28 marriages and 27 children born as a result of Sammy’s Singles. Two of the kids are named after me.
Nicky: [laughs]
[music]
Announcer: La Pizarra (The Slate), exploring creative minds in the entertainment industry. Here’s your host, Nicky Mondellini.
Nicky: Welcome to La Pizarra. My name is Nicky Mondellini, and I’m very happy that you’re joining us today. This is part two of last week’s episode. Enjoy.
I think there’s also a flip side of that that has happened to me on occasion. I won’t say names. Once, I interviewed this woman, and she just practically took over. Wouldn’t even let me ask anything else. It’s as though I was standing in front of her, grabbed the microphone from me, just went off on her own. I’m like, I have this list of 10 questions that I’m probably not going to be able to– If I ask three of them, I feel fortunate. It was really hard because I also wanted to get certain things like the juicy bits of information that I wanted to share with my audience that she had to give, but it’s hard to steer them in that way. Have you had any situation like that before?
Sam: Oh, yes. That’s a given. You’re going to have mic grabbers. If you remember talk shows, I don’t watch talk shows anymore, but Phil Donahue or Oprah would come down to talk to a person and the person would grab the mic, and then Oprah would have to pull the mic back or they would turn it off. There’s nothing you can do and just say, hold on, hold on, we have more people to get to. Hopefully, they’ll get it, but you’re right, mic grabbers happen. There’s nothing you can do about that.
Nicky: Yes. Exactly. All you can do is try to cut in there. I think I heard this interview with Terry Gross from NPR and she mentioned something like that. She’s like, “Well, I’ve had people that don’t let me talk. I just have to be persistent and then just– Sometimes I don’t have to be so nice, just interrupt them so I can get the important question in there.” It’s not easy, but it does happen. Anyway.
I know that you attended both of the inaugurations of George W. Bush. How was that, just to be there and be close to all those people? Did you ever think you’d ever be in those situations?
Sam: No. I don’t think there’s many kids thrown out of public schools for fighting who were there. That was really cool because we were like, “Oh my gosh, George W. Bush.” My wife had said, we were at dinner, the elections had already passed and somebody is talking about the inauguration, my wife Denise goes, “Get tickets for the inauguration.” I’m like, “Okay. How do you do that?” She’s like, “You figure it out.” I’m like, “I don’t know. How do you get tickets to an inauguration? I don’t know that.” It’s a mission. It’s asking questions.
There was actually a Democrat congressman who I was friends with, I’m Republican and he’s Democrat. I called him. He goes, “Funny, you should call.” He says, “I can’t give these tickets away to my constituents.” [laughter] He says, “Nobody I know wants them. I was thinking of you and you called me,” so he gave me the two tickets.
Nicky: Wow. Perfect.
Sam: I went to– There’s a big party called Black Tie and Boots in Washington, in which the Texans have their own party, regardless. Now, it happened to be a Texan became the president in George W. Bush. It was awesome. Those are crazy parties. We got to go, I’m very blessed to have seen it and gotten close. My wife and I had time for some other missions and adventures.
I had asked some people that I want to meet President Bush one-on-one with Laura. They said we’ll let you know. We got the call. “We’ll give you five minutes with the president.” Denise and I– He came to fly into town for an event here, but they had a private little room set up just so that we could go talk to him. The great thing about media is if you just are respectful and nice, you can go a lot of places.
Nicky: Yes. Oh, for sure.
Sam: If you’re just respectful and nice.
Nicky: Yes. Exactly. I think that’s the key. You have to be respectful, for sure. I think you’re also responsible for helping a lot of people meet their spouses, right? Because you had this events thing that you were hosting. Tell us a little bit about that.
Sam: Oh my God. It was called Sammy’s Singles. This goes back. On the radio, it’s a whole nother story, but I was always told on the radio, here at KRBE in fact, don’t talk about being married. Don’t talk about being happily married. Don’t talk about your wife is hot. All this garbage. I was like, “Yes, you know what? You can stick that you know where.” I pushed the other way. I would tell people, “I hope and pray that y’all meet the man or woman in your life who will make your life better. You can start a family, bring God into your relationship. You create children, so forth, and so on.”
How are you going to do it? People are like, “How do you do it? I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” I had said on the radio that I used to go food shopping around noon or 1:00, because the show was over. I’d go to the supermarket and I said, boy, you can sure tell a lot about people by what they shop, by what’s in their cart, right? You got a mom and she’s got 10 pounds of ground meat and 20 pounds of this and 10 gallons of milk. She’s got a big family. You would see women with one or two things of yogurt, one or two things out of ramen noodles. I said, well, she must live alone. I told this to her on the radio.
We got Randall’s on Voss near San Felipe to let us have a singles event in the supermarket at seven o’clock on a Wednesday night. The deal was, if you were single and you knew why you were there, you would look at people’s carts and start talking. If somebody busted you, you’d go, I didn’t know there was a singles event here. I’m just shopping. We got 400 people at that Sammy’s Singles. We realized we were on to something. Every two or three times a year, we’d have a Sammy’s Singles event. The largest was 5,000 people showed up at Greenspoint Mall.
Nicky: Wow.
Sam: Guns Point. We have 28 marriages and 27 children born as a result of Sammy’s Singles. Two of the kids are named after me.
Nicky: [laughs]
Sam: Yesterday, I got an email from one of the children born, and they wanted to know if we had a copy of the broadcast. I said, “No. We don’t keep it, but great hearing from you.” 28 marriages and 28 kids, from a morning radio show? That’s nuts. That’s crazy.
Nicky: That is pretty special, Sam. Definitely. It’s gorgeous. Are you planning on doing something similar or no?
Sam: You’ve been up at the headquarters. We’re busier than ever. If we can ever do it again, maybe, but there’s just no time. Nick, there’s 24 hours in a day. Until there’s 25 or 26, I can’t.
Nicky: You can do it. Yes, I know. Now that you’re talking about new media, about your company, which is amazing. Your studios are state-of-the-art. I was just geeking over your beautiful screen, so large, and all the things you’re able to do there. How is it that right now you’re in that, as well as radio? How do you find time? Like you say, there’s not more time in the day. I know you have a good team with you, but how is it that you have been evolving from being a radio personality to being a creative and just producing videos and commercials and everything nationwide?
Sam: That’s a good question. Natural progression. Being on the radio and having clients in the studio, they were always asking for help, like I’d said. You realize there’s a niche in the market. There’s some opening that people aren’t aware of. Clients who are buying radio and TV need or needed more marketing help. They had more questions, and their questions were not being answered, and their needs were not being met by the current landscape of marketing, media, radio, and television.
I opened up this company 10 years ago– this is not an overnight success story– knowing that clients that I knew needed more help. They needed a trustworthy source. I’ve got, obviously, the radio and TV experience, so I’m the only one who brings a very unique perspective. I’m not a salesperson. I’m not a marketing person. I’m a creative on-air person. I know what works. I’ve listened to hundreds of thousands of commercials in my 37 years of radio. I know what people want to hear. I know how they want to hear it, how to reach people and the verbiage, and what goes along with it, video, social media, digital, whatever.
That’s how the company grew. It grew because clients who were on the radio, on television, buying billboards, buying print ads were not happy. They were not fulfilled in their quest to make their businesses the best possible. I’m thinking, “Hey, there could be–” I give credit to my wife. She was like, “Honey, people are coming to you because there’s a hunk of real estate that no one’s dealing with. Take care of that hunk of real estate.”
10 years ago, opened the company with one employee. He had a ponytail. We were in a little tight space and through God’s blessing and a lot of prayer and a lot of hard work, it’s not easy-
Nicky: For sure.
Sam: -you’ve been up, now we’ve grown and now we have a wonderful huge staff and we in-house build your website. We handle the creative, which is what I love to do, creative. We shoot the commercials. Obviously, your social media videos. We run the social media accounts. We handle crisis, which is interesting because I’m the only media guy who’s doing crisis. A lot of people have a communications degree, but I’ve been there on the front line. I can tell you how we can put out the fire.
It was one of those things. It was, keep your eyes open. In your own businesses, whether you’re selling shoes, or building swimming pools, you’re going to find, if you just keep your eyes open and pray a lot, an area that no one else is standing in. If you can, move your talent or company in that direction. That’s what we’ve done. It’s called 512 New Media. That’s what we’ve been doing. Like I said, it ain’t easy.
Nicky: It ain’t easy. Talking about crisis, I’m sure, something that really put a wrench into everybody’s work was, of course, COVID. I’m sure you had a lot of crisis calls from clients, “Ah, what do we do?” I saw a lot of people just solve it with animation, right? That they had probably wanted to shoot this whole commercial. They have this whole thing planned and their storyboard and everything, all of a sudden they have to transfer everything to an animated video or something like that. What are some of the things that you help clients with during that time?
Sam: Real quick on COVID, I’m one of the few businesses that refused to shut down and I refused to stay away from work. You cannot tell me I can not run my business. I don’t care.
Nicky: Sure.
Sam: You better have one hell of a street-fighting crew you want to pick that fight because I have a crew, employees. They got to eat. We got clients who are, “Help, help. What do we do?” We came in to work. I think the first seven or eight days, they really wouldn’t let me in the building. Then after that, I’m like, “Look, sue me. Come after me. I’ll sue you. One or the other. I don’t really care. We’re going to work.”
We came in, we were the only company working, and we took all the precautions. We all drank vodka and gargled and spit out the vodka, but we created businesses, B2B and B2C, business to business and business to consumers. What can you expect from our company now that the China flu is here? What can you do? Will you get your product? Will you not get your product? Will there be delays? What about payment? What about coming into our stores when we reopen? How should employees prep?
We were cranking out so many videos to save businesses because you are not going to shut me down, I don’t care who you are, and we’re not going to let you get shut down and get hosed. A lot of people lost businesses, lost a crap load of money. We prayed every day about it. We came in, other than those seven or eight days when they were real, “You’re not coming in.” I’m like, “Call my lawyers.” I’m calling everybody. We came in every day. I was here every single day of– I did not miss a day of 2020.
Nicky: Wow. I think that’s part of your success, how people know that you are there for them and you help them through those difficult times. You’re the guy to call whenever there’s a crisis and then they need to see make it happen.
Sam: You know what, Nick? A lot of these customers, I would say clients become our friends. If you ever see me out, we usually go out a lot, it’s because we’re out with our clients who are friends. I can’t let my friend’s business falter, stumble, die, close. I can’t do it. Those men and women have been there for me, either 10 years of my company or the 30 years I’ve been on the radio. We still have some of the same clients from ’93.
Nicky: Wow. [crosstallk]
Sam: Hell or high water. If you were in trouble, you’re a client of mine, you’re a friend, and you call like, “Sam, I need help. I don’t know what to do,” I would say, “Don’t come in if you don’t feel like it, but let’s talk. Let me bring my marketing expertise. Let’s help you. If you need–” Obviously, we can update the websites to, “Hey, we’re closed or we’re going to reopen or you can order online.” We can put the items up there. We can put videos for when you come into the store, keep six feet apart, wash your hands [unintelligible 00:14:40]
You’ve got to understand, I was never an owner until I was 50. I was an employee. Some people open up stores and businesses early on. I watched and helped people get wealthy through advertising, and I saw people really lose a lot, okay? When you get 50, you’re like, I don’t know, you get softer or something. I’m like, “We are going to help every single person, whether they can pay or not,” that was the other thing. There are people like, “I don’t have–” Whenever you ask for a dollar, I only have 20 cents, I say, “All right, we’ll take 20 cents. Just get back in business and let’s talk when you’re open again.”
Nicky: That’s amazing. That’s how you grow your loyal clients, for sure.
Sam: Likewise.
Nicky: Before I let you go, because I know you have pressing things to do right after, is there anyone that you still would like to interview that you haven’t had a chance to do?
Sam: These are tough questions. Is there anybody? Okay. There’s probably– I can think of maybe two. Living, right? Living?
Nicky: Yes. Well, you could choose a hypothetical, like if you could go back in time and– [laughs]
Sam: I hate that game. If I go back in time, I would have loved to have interviewed Ronald Reagan because he made such a 180-degree career change.
Nicky: Oof, talk about it. Yes.
Sam: Right from Hollywood and the head of that union, whatever that was, and the movies, to getting the world to chill out and oversee a great economy and all that. If we take living people, it would have to be two women who I used to talk about on the radio all the time, Martha Stewart and Jennifer Aniston.
Nicky: Wow. Great ladies, both of them.
Sam: Martha built up this incredible empire, screwed up, and built up the empire again-
Nicky: Yes, she did.
Sam: -by changing direction. Jennifer Aniston has been able to keep her brand pretty solid for her entire career, right?
Nicky: Yes.
Sam: When she was Rachel on Friends to today. She does some independents and some water commercials, whatever they are. As a marketing guy, this is what I do full-time, Martha Stewart was, seriously, the queen of all the home items from the cooking and the furniture and the desserts and the canapés, but she rebuilt herself, which is really cool. Jennifer, her brand hasn’t really changed in 30, 40 years, however old she is. As a marketing guy, I’d like to talk to those two. If you know them, here’s your way of repaying me for coming on your podcast.
Nicky: I wish I knew them, Sam, and I would get the interview for you right away. I’ll start to get onto their agents or something. We’ll make it happen somehow. I don’t know. Let’s manifest it.
Sam: Somehow I don’t think we’re going to have them, but it’s okay.
Nicky: You never know. We’ll put it out there. Sam, thank you so much. I really do appreciate you coming on the podcast. You do have your own podcast that you’re starting now as well, aren’t you?
Sam: We are launching. Yes. We were in talks today with syndicators, literally today.
Nicky: Oh.
Sam: I’ll get to it when it’s all squared away. Like I said, there are so many things going on at the company. You have to really compartmentalize your projects so you don’t get burned out. We talked with syndicators today. We have another call coming. It was a Zoom. We’re going to launch from here in our TV studios a really, really, really wonderful podcast for all, as we say, all 50 states.
Nicky: Oh, wonderful. Do keep me in the loop because I’d like to update what new things my guests have been doing so we can put it out there as well. We will definitely do that.
Sam: Oh, yes.
Nicky: Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thanks again, Sam. Just best of success with everything, podcast, and all of your endeavors.
Sam: Thank you. I’m going to be famous after this. I was just floating along, and then I come on this podcast, I know my career is finally going to take off.
Nicky: [laughs] On that note, where can people find you, find your website and everything? I’m going to put links to everything in the show notes.
Sam: The company is 512 New Media. 5-1-2, 512 New Media. As always, we keep our content at sammalone.com. Sammalone.com. It’s pretty simple, so check it out.
Nicky: Perfect. Okay. Definitely. All right, Sam. I’ll let you go now. Thank you so much for everything.
Sam: Thanks, Nick, and see ya.
Nicky: [laughs] I love that one.
[music]
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