In March of 2009, as I walked into the largest industry trade show for Halloween attractions, I didn’t know a single person except for a farmer from Pennsylvania who was teaching me the intricacies of building a haunted hayride. And I loved him and still do.
One of the first things I did when I decided I was going to build a haunted hayride was to research the others that existed around the country. There were none in California, so I studied hayrides in upstate New York, Connecticut, Oregon, Maine, and Pennsylvania. The one that overwhelmingly seemed to get most of the accolades was called “Bates Motel and Haunted Hayride.” I happened to catch it on a Travel Channel special and was very impressed by the owner of the attraction. He had a glow and warmth about him but also seemed like a businessman, as well as a farmer. He appeared to have the whole package. I tracked him down that day and left him a message.
He called me back less than an hour later. Clearly, he was an activator too. I was elated to hear on the other end of the phone: “Hi, Melissa. This is Randy from Bates returning your call.”
I think we spoke for a good hour that day. I asked him some very proprietary questions, and he never hesitated to give me the info. I asked him how many people he hosted in a season, average ticket prices, ride length, hay wagon dimensions, who he used for vendors. He gave me all the details. He even invited me to come to Pennsylvania to get an inside look at his goliath attraction. I couldn’t believe how amazing he was. And needless to say, after that phone call, I was off to the races.
He told me about an industry trade show where he’d be speaking that year and asked me to attend. I was ecstatic to find there was a place I could go to learn everything I needed to know about my new industry. It was the Disneyland of Halloween. I had visions of revolutionary meetings with the brains behind the best that Halloween had to offer. I’d strike deals with inventors of scare technology who would be only too thrilled to work with me on my brilliant new Los Angeles attraction. Vendors would be waiting in line to schmooze me all weekend long in the hopes of garnering my business to add to their portfolio. After all, I was building a brand-new, world-class Halloween attraction in the sexiest city in America. I could see the red carpet being rolled out as my plane landed in St. Louis.
But to my surprise, the trumpets quickly turned to sounds of deflation and blooper bells. After arriving at my hotel, I walked through the lobby to check in to my room. There were what felt like hundreds of people littering the lobby of this three-star (at best) hotel. The chatter and sound of voices was loud, and the bar was buzzing. I remember seeing a lot of black T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets with logos. As I looked closer, I noticed the logos featured names of haunted attractions.
Holy Moly! There were hundreds of different Halloween attractions being represented in one room in March. Halloween in March sounded great to me.
Once my overwhelming excitement stabilized, I also started to notice that the vast majority of this crowd was male. Actually, it was all male. That night I didn’t see one other woman adding to the buzz of that hotel lobby.
I thought it was odd but wasn’t uncomfortable about it at all. I was sure there would be more female-owned attractions represented on the show floor in the morning.
I bounded out of bed and my hotel room the next morning ready for the start of my empire.
As I walked into the giant, sprawling expo hall for the first time, it was like arriving in Oz. Fog billowed out of the doors; before the entryway was even in sight, the latest and greatest in creatures and characters were slinking their way into my personal space. Sound effects and strobe lighting were bleeding out of the hall. This was just incredible.
As I finally made it inside the hall, I saw Randy from Bates, who had now become a mentor of sorts. He started introducing me to his friends and colleagues. Some were vendors, some were attraction owners . . . all were men. That first year, I met only one other female attraction owner. Only one. I would like to add that her attraction was probably one of the best in the country . . . but still, only one. I was flabbergasted. She had a giant attraction in the Midwest that I had heard was incredible. And instantly, I could tell she didn’t like me. Her demeanor struck me as cold, which puzzled me since I thought she’d be elated to see another woman in her space. Looking back now, I’ve deduced that this population of independent haunt owners was just incredibly competitive. That must have been what I sensed that day.
As I started moving deeper into the hall, I began to notice that I was pretty interesting to the people in that room. My male counterparts seemed to be addressing me with what felt like a bit of a condescending, “What are you trying to build, little girl?” As I was explaining my vision, I felt dismissed. Los Angeles was like a different planet, and my audacity to be a little girl in a big man’s world seemed to offend them or somehow demean the industry that they felt was all theirs. I understand that I am overgeneralizing here, but that was how I was feeling. I met several very nice and helpful individuals, but the vast majority of what I was encountering felt very intimidating.
My mentor, Randy, is like the Halloween attraction OG, so luckily I was rolling with the best and able to get a giant education in a short weekend from all the introductions he was making for me.
That weekend I decided I would produce the most professional and publicly visible attraction in the country, if not the world. I’d come back the following year and mean something different in that space. I had no problem proving myself, and that is exactly what I was going to do. Not just to these dudes in a room, but to myself. I’d never walk into this convention feeling intimidated again. That was my promise to myself.
I have a ton of respect for the owners who have run a successful attraction for ten or twenty years or more. It’s hard to keep any business successful for that amount of time. But I was interested in making this a living, breathing, evolving company that always had something new on the horizon. I didn’t want to wear a black T-shirt with a haunted hayride logo on it for the next twenty years at the trade show. I wanted my logo, symbol, and name to be a ticker symbol on Wall Street. I wanted to see my company logo in every major city in America and beyond. I saw a huge opportunity in this industry. It seemed to be a giant industry of thousands of independent owner-operators. And these days, that’s become rarer in any viable industry. I felt like this space was mine for the taking.
“Let’s start small.”
Those words make me feel ill. I would rather gut myself with a fork then ever hear those words in business again.
For starters, we should put the word “small” in context. I’m not here to suggest that you shouldn’t jump or activate on something if you can’t bust out of the gates as a billion-dollar funded venture. But I am here to suggest that you have to throw every goddamn thing you have in your veins at it. It should never feel like you’re starting small. If you’re putting every bit of your sweat equity, hustling, and spending your own resources to make an idea live and breathe, I promise you, you’ll never describe it as small.
“Starting small” feels like the plight of the reasonable. Do you think being reasonable is going to get you into the 0.1 percent? I’ll tell you that the answer is a certain no.
We live in a world where there is a place for “small,” medium, large, extra large, just like there is a place for poor, wealthy, obscenely wealthy, happy, depressed, Ivy League, uneducated, lawmakers, criminals . . . you get the picture. Where will you place yourself? If you want to be small or mediocre at best, then start small. I’m not your girl, and chances are I’m just going to piss you off if I haven’t already. But it’s easier for me to watch a movie like Martyrs or The Green Inferno—where people are being dismembered and eyeballs are being squished between teeth like maraschino cherries—than it is to watch a person with the guts to take a shot, and the tenacity to activate, “start small” and not leave every part of their constitution on the field.
It is very important that you do not mistake what I am saying, as my message is first and foremost to activate. For crying out loud, let’s become a nation of activators. However, this is now about giving you the best shot for enormous success once you do activate.
If you want to open a local wine bar that super serves a five-mile radius, with an intimate and moody setting and a capacity of forty people, that’s fantastic. I’m not telling you that it should be ten times the size, franchised into two hundred cities, and traded on Wall Street. I’m saying to put everything you have into making that wine bar special, and owning your space in the marketplace. Be the best and only wine bar anyone will think of when on your side of town. You certainly wouldn’t want to open your doors to the public with less than a perfectly polished aesthetic or without introducing yourself with your brightest impression. What if I said: start small, don’t waste money on marketing, or don’t paint the outside as long as the inside is painted. Let’s keep the staffing light, let people find street parking, and we can get new furniture and start featuring better wines once the money starts rolling in.
Now, on the other hand, imagine instead that opening day is approaching and your wine bar has been teased in all the food-beverage social media and local blog sites; a local radio host has chatted about it during his morning show; the morning news is broadcasting live on opening day; you’ve even put your new, sexy logo on a few choice billboards in your target area. Menus are freshly printed; the bar décor is sleek, clean, and new; only the best wines will ever be seen in your bar; and your wine bar sign busts out loud and prominent onto the street for all who pass by to see. While inside, there is a full and well-trained staff dressed nicely, and a buzz has already started because a week earlier you did an exclusive sneak peak for tastemakers, media, and influencers. A friendly valet service waits at your curb to take the cars of your customers to make their experience as easy and inviting as possible.
This is the same business, but one started small.
Present yourself like you’re Disney, right from the start . . . and the world will believe you. Present yourself like you are from Podunksville, and they’ll believe you too. It is your theater of the mind, your image, your positioning to create. Don’t mess it up before your customers even get to your door.
Coming from a marketing and advertising background, I knew this was where we could win or lose. I also knew how expensive it was to place marketing campaigns in Los Angeles.
Alyson and I had a small savings account, but nothing that could fund the creation of a major attraction with major marketing behind it. Regardless, we knew we would drain it to build this company, though it wasn’t nearly enough.
The day after Halloween in 2008, I started my research and began looking for potential sites to host a haunted hayride. It was very difficult to find woods in Los Angeles, so our options were a bit limited. Candidly, those controlling the few options also knew we were limited and they could basically have their way with us. Making matters worse, I was wearing my passion and excitement for my new haunted hayride on my sleeve, so I was a neon sign that said: “Gouge me for every dollar I have.” And boy, did they ever. While we found our dream location (at the time) very quickly, we had to negotiate with the mountain conservancy in charge of the land for almost six months, just to be told that there was a whole other permit process we needed to satisfy. And then we were late since that process can often take six to nine months. The woman in charge of granting the permit was almost finding entertainment or joy in holding the power to squash our dreams. I had to step aside from the conversations at some point to let Alyson take the wheel because I was literally going to slip a Mickey in this woman’s environment-killing plastic water bottle, watch the drugs take effect, and then release the video online of her swinging from the chandeliers of a skanky motel . . . if skanky motels even have chandeliers. But in my visions of revenge, they did. The plastic bottle is important because this woman worked for an environmental conservation group and always had a plastic bottle in her hand. My blood was boiling.
As we got later into the year, they had more and more control because it was now virtually impossible for us to open the attraction anywhere else. And at this time, we were unknown. The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride was just a weird-sounding farming ritual. We had very little influence. This is when I realized I needed a powerful lawyer who could bulldog his or her way into land-usage negotiations. But this was going to be expensive. We had already heard that just the location permit was going to wipe out our entire savings account, so we needed to really get focused on raising the money to make this dream real. After we paid for the permit, we didn’t have any money to build anything on the location.
Alyson and I had good reputations among our peers, and I think it’s safe to say many people around us felt like we weren’t going to let ourselves lose. That’s the first piece for me. I was living my life in a way that made people believe in my work ethic and tenacity . . . not just when I needed something, but long before I needed something. This is why I assert so often throughout this book that the desire to get on your bold and best path isn’t something you can compartmentalize, it’s something that has to be a commitment to every corner of life at all times. You have to grow it, want it, and commit to it.
Alyson and I created a very visually stunning presentation using video from the Randy Bates hayride and a ton of research that showed how incredibly viable and untapped the Halloween attraction market was in Los Angeles and nationally. We wanted to raise an additional $350,000, so our next step was approaching potential investors. And they weren’t the typical investors that you might think we’d approach. We hit up our best friends and their parents first. These aren’t “trust-fund baby” friends. These are friends who probably had less than we had. They didn’t have an extra $25,000 lying around to buy 1 percent of a start-up that was all about Halloween and haunted hayrides. But to my utter disbelief, my best friend, Alyson’s best friend, a mutual friend with whom we worked, and a client were the first four to jump on board. A couple of them had to get money from their parents, but they were so confident in us, and wanted to ride whatever wave we were riding, that they somehow did it. And percent by percent, we started getting back into the positives. We were still far from our goal, but we also decided we’d bring our presentation to some potential sponsors to see if we could make up the difference.
We created a list of things we could give a sponsor that included event real estate, inclusion in media, special discounts and incentives, and much more. And we both agreed it had to be a sexy sponsor. No Podunk Mama’s Pizza from down the street . . . no way. We wanted something like BMW, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Best Buy. We knew with a sponsor like that, we’d have some instant street cred. Getting major brands like those when we had no track record and were a complete unknown would be a miracle . . . or take a lot of pounding the pavement. And that—pounding the pavement—I could do. Everyone can do that. I can’t control miracles but I can control the hustle. In year one, I remember it taking somewhere to the tune of over a hundred phone calls to even get someone to meet with me. I was exhausted and so was Alyson. But now, it wasn’t just our money on the roulette table, it was the money of our best friends and people who said: “We believe in you.” That was even more important than our own money. There was no way I was going to fail the people who believed in us. And that kept pushing us forward.
The positive piece that came out of all the meetings, phone calls, and networking through our jobs was that we kept getting connected to other people so our network was growing quickly. And a client of ours connected us to a regional person with MINI Cooper and gave us an incredible testimonial, and guess what? You know it. MINI became our first-ever Los Angeles Haunted Hayride sponsor, and what a perfect sponsor they were. Alyson and I were elated. To this day, it still shocks me, and I still get choked up because I can’t believe we pulled that off.
The program was incredible. MINI would offer tickets to the Hayride when potential customers test-drove a MINI, and on one coordinated event, MINI would rally a huge group of MINIs to the Hayride where we’d host them for a VIP experience. The sight of a hundred MINIs pulling into our parking lot that night was gorgeous. As corny as it sounds, I thought to myself, “If you build it, they will come,” as I saw the line of cars waiting to get into the lot.
I started to tear up. I just couldn’t believe we had done it.
Even with the MINI sponsorship, we didn’t make it to our goal of $350,000, but we made it to $225,000, and with my and Alyson’s contribution of our savings account, we decided we’d make it happen and figure out a way to creatively get whatever we needed but didn’t have enough money to buy. I knew we would not sacrifice quality or our positioning in the marketplace. We’d figure it out.
We were going to burst onto the scene like we were Disney right from the start, and that was not negotiable. And our new, prestigious sponsor was the first step. We decided to use that money to place giant billboards all over Los Angeles. Talk about looking like you came to win. We hand selected every single billboard we wanted in LA so that every location was prime. We could only afford a small amount so they had to be beyond incredible. Location was the first consideration, and the artwork was the second. The art was captivating, enormously haunting, and colored like nothing else on the streets, which pulled people’s attention to the boards right away. Within just a couple of days, we started getting flooded with emails and calls to our hotline with interest. We knew the boards were working.
The feedback coming from all our friends, our sponsor, and the general public on our hotlines was that our billboards were everywhere. If you lived in Los Angeles, you could not escape the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride.
Then, our radio advertising went live. And yes, I worked for Clear Channel but I still had to pay for the campaign. I got a discount for ten years of service to the company, but it was still a chunk that was hard to swallow. Every dollar that we were spending on advertising had to come from the set construction or staffing or casting. But I was determined to figure it out.
We did the same thing with our radio campaign as we had with our billboards. We cherry-picked the best times of the day, best stations, and best content with which to align our campaign, and again, the buzz was loud as hell. I heard every single day, over and over, that the LA Haunted Hayride was everywhere. People would tell us that it must be nice to have endless buckets of money to build a new business, and probe us to find out how much money it took to launch the haunted hayride. Little did they know how creative we were getting behind the scenes.
While the marketing and advertising campaign was set in place early so we could focus on operational activity, as October got closer, we hit a pretty giant snag. The production partner who had come on board to build the sets, produce all the sound, lighting, and special effects decided a month before we were to take possession of the location that unless I paid him $100,000 up front, he couldn’t do the job.
My head exploded. We didn’t have the cash to pay him. The deal was that we’d pay him upon completion of the event with our ticket revenue. And the fact that he waited that long to tell me that one very important bit of information brought me to a conclusion that he was probably not the best fit; he would not be a partner I could have faith and confidence in for many years to come. I called his bluff and told him that I was terribly sorry, but that just wasn’t going to happen, and we would be there to pick up our equipment and end the partnership immediately. I wasn’t that polite about it. This was long before I learned the very fine art of powerful communication in the interest of not igniting a world war. Even though sometimes in business going to war is warranted.
Alyson and I were at it again, hustling our asses off to find a solution. Our best friend knew of a guy who was a creative, brilliant mind. While his business acumen left a bit to be desired, he made up for it with his inventive visions. And candidly, I didn’t need a business partner at this point; I needed someone who could build a beautiful Halloween world that Alyson and I had created earlier that year. I needed someone who could pick up the ball, see the vision quickly, and execute it. But again, I needed to get imaginative because I didn’t want to wind up in the same position with our new production partner, so I offered a percentage of our ticket proceeds for that year in exchange for his services. It appeared our passion and belief in the project was infectious, and he agreed. We were back in action with less than a month until our install was to begin. And with our new production partner agreeing to a revenue-share deal, I could keep our cast and staffing at the ideal levels. No quality compromise or reduced performance would occur in any department.
Marketing and advertising were firing on all cylinders. The town was buzzing. Influencers and high-profile personalities started coming out almost every night; our new production partner was even better than the last; the cast, wardrobe, special effects were gorgeous; and cars were lined up to get in. Year one, and this town thinks they’re at Disneyland.
I couldn’t ever start small. Excitement for “what could be” was too high, and the fun I was having as I learned about this new industry, which I was loving more every day, was growing rapidly. With that kind of emotional investment, the anguish and anxiety are overwhelming. I can’t tell you how many times I called my mother, hysterical, telling her I wanted to pull the plug, and that this level of stress just wasn’t worth the health issues and disease I was sure it would bring me later in life. But you are somehow able to get through those low moments when your belief in what you are doing is so strong. And though we are leaps and bounds bigger now than we were that first year, we were huge that first year. It’s still my favorite year and the one of which I am proudest.
I often say that bringing the LA Haunted Hayride to fruition that year was a miracle, and doing it on our own terms, calling the shots like we were Jay Z and Beyoncé, was divine intervention. That divine intervention is called faith . . . in your own ability to move mountains, faith that you have every tool you need to get anywhere you want to go. Yes, you can even build Disney. And I did and do believe that every day. I don’t think there is anything I can’t do, and that is a gift and a confidence that came with taking enough shots to know that I can get there eventually.
The next important piece is to deliver your positioning. Present yourself like you’re Disney and that will get them to your door, but once they are there, you must make sure they have an experience that matches. You need them to come back in order to create a sustainable and growing brand. The way you introduce yourself to the world should be the beautifully polished red skin of the most perfect apple on the tree. That will get your audience to reach up and pick you, but what will they taste when they bite into that gorgeous apple? Will they spit out that first bite or take another and then another?
You must deliver an experience that aligns with the image you create. You introduce yourself like Disney, you provide a larger-than-life experience in every way, and the world belongs to you.
The best way to be consistently extraordinary in your offering is to stay very involved in your creations. Even when you are successful and growing rapidly, find the path that keeps you involved. Often that is finding incredible talents walking the world that share your vision, passion, or have the eagerness to learn it all. Create more leaders who can help you divide and conquer, and still stay involved in all of it. You can grow slowly. Grow at a pace that is conducive to birthing only extraordinary content. When you learn that the world is connecting to what you have, opportunity starts to roll, and to roll quickly. It’s hard to turn down opportunities because it can feel like you’re turning down growth or money or prestige. But taking an opportunity that isn’t right can cost you the time and power that would have been better spent pursuing opportunities that are exponential to your growth, and it can also cost you quality of your already-existing assets. The balance of opportunity and growth is strategic. The first priority must be to never compromise the user experience and quality of your offering. If by taking on an opportunity, you become unable to keep your business, brand, and experience looking, feeling, and tasting as epic as it was when it was your only focus, then pass on the opportunity. The time will come for the growth to happen as long as you stay great.
Starting great and staying great is oversimplifying a bit, but I think an easy cerebral putt. Starting your own empire with the polish of the royal family, the attention to detail of a Michelin restaurant, a user experience as easy as a warm knife going through butter, a marketing voice as loud as a Midwestern thunderstorm, and a leader as hands-on as Justin Timberlake during a wardrobe malfunction is going to show the world you mean business. And every bit of what it takes to do that is within your capabilities, and well within your reach. You have everything you need to do it. Get creative, get strategic, and, most importantly, get moving. Every move will provide a piece of information to push you to the next move.