Highlight: The Fire In The Booth That Would Have Destroyed My Brand: Charlie Sloth

In this episode, you'll learn how Charlie Sloth, renowned DJ and music entrepreneur, stays true to his values whilst building and scaling a global brand. Featuring tough decisions, lessons on authenticity, and the role of integrity in creating a successful brand. Head to https://www.linkedin.com/doac24 to claim your credit. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link//TIVYc9ZjNu Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link//eF0IPuWwsPb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

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• 0:46Steven Bartlett?

  Go to linkedin.com/DOAC24. Terms and conditions apply. Here's Charlie. When it comes to building a brand that has integrity, what matters? You know, this is a brand.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:57Steven Bartlett?

  And I think in a lot of-

• 0:58Speaker 01

  It has integrity. But I think because you have integrity. I think because you have integrity, you install your morals into the brand. And this brand is a reflection of you. I think like pretty much everything you do speaks about you as a person. Because I feel like I'm the same. I feel like if it challenged my morals, I wouldn't want to do it. Because I'd be like, well, that's not a real reflection of me. Why am I going to invest my time or my money, my energy into something that doesn't represent me? And I feel like my team, you know, I have an amazing team. Do an incredible job of managing the expectations of all of the brands that I'm involved with. And I don't even have to say it no more.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  If I feel like something's wrong, or it's not going to work, it doesn't look right for the brand, they know before it's even come to me. Because they know what my morals are. They know what I stand for, what I don't stand for, what I feel is right. So it's got to the point where I don't even have to have those conversations because I have such a great team who have those conversations for me. And they protect the brand. I feel like if something goes wrong with one of the brands, it's a reflection on me. And something that I've always believed is one of my biggest assets is my reputation.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  I feel like you may not like me, you may hate me, you might find me annoying. But one thing you can't challenge is my reputation. I've never done anyone dirty, ever. I've never backstabbed anyone. I've never said I'm gonna do something and not done it. And my brands have to hold up that same ethos.

• 2:39Steven Bartlett?

  In order for your team to know what decisions you'd make before, you know, it even comes to you as it relates to the branding, the positioning of it and all those things. That must first start with you being really, really clear. And what I've got from all of that is because you're so clear in your head and non-negotiable about what this brand is. You've been able to kind of like install that in all of the people around you. So now they are like disciples of the values.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  For sure. Well, we actually have a bible.

• 3:01Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  We actually have a Fire in the Booth bible, a handbook to do's and don'ts. And especially now, because, you know, the vision of Fire in the Booth has gone from being a feature on a radio show to being a global brand, you know, obviously now we're with Apple, you know, one of the biggest companies in the world who I believe share the same ethos as we do in terms of vision, in terms of content consumption. And I feel like now the brand really is going global.

• 3:37Steven Bartlett?

  Everyone wants to know what's in that bible.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 3:39Steven Bartlett?

  What kind of things are in there?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, you know, it goes from camera setup.

• 3:44Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  To edits, colours to use, um, right through to, um, how artists are treated once they're, once they arrive, communication with teams, um.

• 3:58Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things I found really interesting is I read that you deleted potentially hundreds of episodes of Fire in the Booth that just didn't cut it.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:05Steven Bartlett?

  Which, which I think a lot of people would be surprised by because, you know, a rapper, an artist comes down, they perform, they might think it's gone off, they might think that, you know, they killed it. And then you're sat there thinking, this doesn't meet the standard.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like, you know, I feel there's times when I've not been to Fire in the Booth and an artist later on has gone on to thank me. Because, you know. It's a big moment in an artist's career. And I feel like if it doesn't do you justice, it's not about me. It's not about, I think this is gonna do well for the finer booth brand. Like, anytime I have a conversation with an artist and they say to me, do you think it's good? I can't sit there and lie to the artist's face and say, yes, it's okay. I'm gonna be like, you could do better. If you wanna come back and go again, we can. If not, let's just park it off for now and come back to it at a later date. And there's been so many that have not gone out.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  But that's because I felt it's not a good reflection on them, not on the brand. Because no one's gonna, you know, attack the brand as much as they would the artist. There's one of the biggest artists in the world right now, Stephen. One of the biggest globally, right? Who come in to do a finer booth. And I can't tell you how excited I was for this moment, even though it was a few years ago. They were still a big artist then, but they weren't as big as they are now. And they came in and done their finer booth. And, you know, everyone was excited and we were prepared for it. And they came in and it was possibly one of the worst finer booths I've ever recorded.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  And I could see that the artist was quite excited by their performance. And, you know, there was like, oh, when, when, when we're gonna release it? And in my mind, I'm thinking, is this just me? Is it because I expected here and they delivered here that I'm judging this? And they're talking to me and their mouth's just moving. And I'm processing all this information in my head because I'm like, I don't wanna lie to the artist. I don't wanna be disrespectful to the artist. All this information is swirling in my head and I was like, I'm gonna go back and listen to the finer booth. Uh, give me 10 minutes. So I went back into the studio, replayed it. Ah, this is garbage. This is garbage.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  So I chatted to the producer at the time and I was like, how, how's best to handle this situation? I don't wanna go out and say that this is not gonna go out. But at the same time, I wanna give them the opportunity to redo it while they're here, while they're in the country. And regretfully, I didn't do that. I didn't go out and give the artist the opportunity to do it again. I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna say that it's not going out. And for me, that was a bad decision. I look back at that now and it's a bad decision. Um, but it just weren't good enough. It weren't good enough. And there's so many artists that have come through and not performed. But again, like I said, some that have called me later down and said, you know what?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  I appreciate you not putting that fire in the booth out. Let's go again. Why do you regret that decision? Because in hindsight, I could have given them the opportunity to record it again there and then. But because I had no faith in the situation, I was like, I'm not gonna waste their time. And I'm not gonna waste my team's time. I just think it's best that we kind of keep it moving.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  But now, on reflection, I should have given them the opportunity to do it again. You know, and there's comments all the time.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  I've spoke about this before where people are like, release it. Release the fire in the booth. This person is huge right now. We've got a sign off on it, we can release it. But I just wouldn't. You know, I'm, I don't, I don't do things for that reason. I'm not gonna shit on the artist now. We put something out that I thought was shit back then. Yeah. And put it out now for views. It's, it's counterproductive, it goes against everything that I say and stand for. So it will never come out.