Bruce La Fetra is a consultant at Eastwood Strategy Advisors, where he focuses his efforts on guiding...
Jared D. Correia, Esq. is the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, which offers subscription-based law...
Published: | April 13, 2023 |
Podcast: | Legal Toolkit |
Category: | Legal Entertainment , Practice Management |
How do you get your best clients to hire you? Jared welcomes Bruce La Fetra, a real, live client whisperer, to chat about how to flip your usual script and market to the clients you actually want.
Later, the guys play “Technical ‘Knox’ Out,” a trivia round highlighting Knoxville, TN, facts—past and present.
And, who knew? Apparently, Jared’s devotion to flip phones rivals that of the Laguna Beach teen scene in 2004. But, Jared’s relationship with his beloved, flippy phones has been riddled with angst as of late. Tune in for the drama.
Bruce La Fetra is a consultant at Eastwood Strategy Advisors.
We talked about Knoxville – which is in Tennessee; so, here are some Nashville (also in Tennessee) artists!
Our opening track is Two Cigarettes by Major Label Interest.
Our closing track is This is Love by Alsever Lake.
Special thanks to our sponsors CosmoLex, TimeSolv, iManage, and Clio.
[Music]
Intro: It’s Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia. With guest Bruce La Fetra. We play a round of Technical Knox’ Out, and then Jared makes us all question his taste in television and film by revealing some very unusual favorites. But first, your host, Jared Correia.
Jared Correia: That bang hound you hear in the background can only mean one thing, it’s time for the Legal Toolkit podcast. And yes, it’s still called the Legal Toolkit podcast even though my random orbital sander truly invites chaos. I’m your host, Jared Correia. You’re stuck with me because David Letterman was unavailable. He was annoying Kevin Durant. But let’s be honest, everyone annoys Kevin Durant. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and bar associations. Find us online at redcavelegal.com. I’m the COO of Gideon Software. We build chatbots so law firms can convert more leads and conversational document, assembly tools so law firms can build documents faster and more accurately. You can find out more about Gideon at gideonlegal.com.
Now, before we get to our interview today with Bruce La Fetra, the Client Whisperer, I have a tragic tale to tell which I’ve titled, “A Flipping Disaster.” As I mentioned just before this, I have horrible news. I have a smartphone. Now, apart from having a BlackBerry for a hot minute in like 2009, I’ve never owned a smartphone. I’ve always used flip phones, mostly without Internet access, though the new ones do have Internet access that is hell a slow if you are interested, and that’s the way I like it. It’s glorious. I’m never distracted since I don’t have notifications pinging all the time, and I can straight up disappear.
A few months back, my daughter and I got dinner from the Whole Foods Hot Bar. I didn’t bring my phone, and so I was like, “Let’s just eat in the car and then we’ll go home.” And then a second later, she looked up at me in horror and said, “But you don’t have a phone. What if something happens?” So I said, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” You clearly didn’t grow up in the 80s. I rode in the back of the station wagon without a seatbelt. I fucking love my smartphone free existence more than almost anything else.
So I kept a stockpile of flip phones for a while in the closet in case I needed a new one, but my stockpile ran down and I was down to my last flip phone last week when it broke. No problem, right? I just roll into my local T-Mobile and grab another one, but they don’t have one in stock. Uh oh, this has never happened before. So they call over to the other T-Mobile store and ask if they have any flip phones in stock and the lady at the other store says, “A what?” Uh oh, the other store is also fresh out of flippies. But I’m chill. I’m a problem solver after all. So I say, “No problem man, I’ll just go home and buy one from the online store.” The people running my T-Mobile store in Beverly, Massachusett is phenomenal, shouts to you guys.
But when I get home, I try to log on to the T-Mobile web store and it asked me to confirm my account by sending a Pin to my phone number. Uh oh, my flip phone is broken and it’s the only phone I have. I can’t get that Pin. So I’m looking for an alternate verification method. It used to be that I could verify via email, but I can’t find that selection on the website. Uh oh, this has never been a problem before. So I decide to engage T-Mobile web support chat and they’re telling me I can only use the phone Pin verification to log into the website. So I say I can’t because my phone’s broken. They tell me I’m shit out of luck in not so many words. And so I’m like, “Surely, surely the phone support can assist me” and I call the customer service number. I say my phone’s broken so I can’t access the Pin. They say there’s no other way to verify. Of course, I respond that’s really fucking dumb because I literally cannot verify any other way. No one cares. So I tell them, wait a second, wait a second. I have a good idea. I’ve got a family plan. I have literally three other humans who could receive a Pin on my behalf and allow me to log into the website. I’m told it has to be my device, but my device is broken. Doesn’t matter. So then I say, “Wait a second, wait a second, I can make one of the other people the account holder, one of the primary decision makers so I can give my wife that title and that solves the login problem, right?” Nope, because I’m told I can’t do it that way either.
Now, like five supervisors and roughly four hours into this conversation, somebody says to me, “Okay, let’s try to log into the website again. Can you key in your password and tell me what happens?” So I say, “What’s going to happen is that it’s going to ask me to enter a Pin that I can’t receive on my broken phone and then what do we do?”
(00:05:05)
And my guy says, “I don’t know.” So I say, “I think we’re done here.” Now, I don’t know if this has something to do with the data breach that T-Mobile suffered a little while ago, but the fact that whether I’m a solo phone owner or if I have a family plan, I literally cannot access my account or do anything with it without a Pin number being sent to a non-functioning phone is crazy town. The only reason I’m not switching to Verizon or some shit is because my wife phone let me. So fuck you, T-Mobile.
This is my white guy’s version of 2pac Hit Em Up, and in this iteration, T-Mobile is biggie and is posse. But I’m in the soup now, right? Because I have to leave for a conference In Knoxville the next day, and I need a phone. So I trudge into the T-Mobile store, and I ask for the cheapest phone they have, and they show me a Samsung Galaxy smartphone for $220. Super expensive, but I buy it anyway and predictably, I fucking hate it. First of all, it’s really goddamn big. I don’t know where to put it. I don’t know what to do with my hands. It’s too large for my pocket, and so I have it in the front pocket of my sweatshirt. But what happens if I’m not wearing a sweatshirt? What am I supposed to do? Wear it around my neck like flavor flav or some shit? So I add some apps. Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive, OneDrive, Google Voice, Uber, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Grubhub. See, I’m not told idiot I know how to order food online, but I turn off all my notifications, and I also turn off location tracking. That’s right, eat my ass the FBI and I keep this thing turned off most of the time. But I guess the best news is that I can now access the T-Mobile website and buy lots of flip phones. Of course, I’m too cheap to stop using this smartphone, and so I’m just going to have to wait until it dies before I activate my next flip phone. Hopefully with Verizon, if my wife lets me, and she won’t.
Okay, we’ll get to our conversation with Bruce La Fetra, the Client Whisperer, in a second but let’s let our sponsors do some whispering in your ear right now.
[Music]
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Jared Correia: Okay, let’s get to the meat in the middle of this legal podcast sandwich. Today’s meat is burnt ends, which doesn’t sound like a meat, but which actually is. It’s the best barbecue food. Anyway Autobots, let’s roll out it’s time to interview our guests. Today we have for you making his first ever appearance on the legal toolkit podcast is Bruce La Fetra, the Client Whisperer of Eastwood Strategy Advisors. Bruce, welcome to the show.
Bruce La Fetra: Hey, thanks for having me Jared and I can’t wait for the rump roast.
Jared Correia: Oh, it’s going to be great. It’s great every time, but this maybe the greatest rump roast ever. So we’ve talked a little bit over the last week or so. I actually was hanging out with you in Tennessee, and Steve Seckler, who’s a law firm consultant and recruiter introduced us and when Steve introduced us, I was like, “I know this guy, why do I know this guy?” And it’s because of the Client Whisperer nickname you have. I think it’s super memorable. So the obvious question for me and for everybody in the audience is like, how did you come up with that, and what does it mean?
Bruce La Fetra: So I didn’t come up with it. Actually, a client came up with that, and he actually badgered me for a long time, and I thought it sounded kind of cheesy, and eventually he beat me down and people say, “That’s great. That describes what you do.” Because really my thing is all about how do you think, like, your best clients? And if you can see your firm the way your best clients see it through their eyes, the world looks really different, and it’s less complicated.
Jared Correia: Yeah, that’s really cool. How long did it take for him to finally get you to change the name or adopt the name? A year, two years, three years?
(00:10:00)
Bruce La Fetra: Two years.
Jared Correia: Two years, wow. You’re holding out for a long time there. Yeah. So I want to talk to you a little bit about your process, because this sort of different than almost anything I’ve ever heard, and I guess I’d start with one of the things you’re telling me when we were sitting down together was you kind of flipped the script on marketing conversations that you have with business owners. So what does that mean? How does that work for you?
Bruce La Fetra: So there’s two things that have been described. One is flipping the script, and the other is kind of doing marketing upside down. Flipping the script is about focusing on results, not about what the situation is in the background, in you, it’s what were the results and then how did you get there. And usually that conversation is a lot shorter, it’s a lot clearer and it has a lot more relevance to the other person. The other thing that’s kind of related is I’ve been told I do marketing upside down, and what that means is that instead of talking about your ideal client, always talk about who are you the ideal provider for.
Jared Correia: Oh, yeah, that’s interesting.
Bruce La Fetra: Instead of talking about you and why you’re so great, talk about the client and how you improve their business. Instead of adding a bunch of skills, you have to do all these new things. It’s changed your perspective, so you see it from their perspective, then you know what to do. And the result of that is, instead of it being more complex, it gets a lot simpler.
Jared Correia: Yes. Funny, this guy named Sam Hinkie. Do you follow basketball at all? I don’t know if we talked about this like NBA.
Bruce La Fetra: Not really. I’m a baseball fan.
Jared Correia: Okay. All right. So Sam Hinkie used to be the General Manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, and apparently he had only one set of clothes that he would wear. He had 30 of the same shirt, 30 of the same pairs of pants and his whole thing was like, “I don’t want to make decisions” or want to make as few decisions as possible. So I just get up every morning and I put the same clothes on. Which some people would say, that’s a little bit weird, but it’s kind of the thesis that you’re talking about which is like fewer decision points, less stress, et cetera.
Bruce La Fetra: Yeah, I mean, I knew a guy who when he retired, he did that although he didn’t have 30, he had 5 shirts because he did laundry every week.
Jared Correia: That’s still pretty good.
Bruce La Fetra: But the thing is, think about process thinking. If you can make some key foundational decisions, then the other decisions that you have to make, the tactical decisions flow smoothly from that, you’re not constantly, “Do I do this, do A, do I do B?” Because you’ve made the flow, and you know where it goes from there and that’s why it’s simple.
Jared Correia: Yeah, it’s a great way to look at it. The other thing you said that I thought was really interesting, and I see this with law firms all the time, as I know you do, is you read any law firm website, it’s all about the lawyers. Like, I went to this school, I did these things, and clients could not care less about that what I’ve seen and it sounds like that’s your thesis as well. So is it tough to convince lawyers of that, or once you say it, do they kind of get it?
Bruce La Fetra: Well, it depends. And I kind of divide lawyers into two buckets. There’s a big bucket, and then there’s a smaller bucket. And the big bucket is the typical lawyer who’s told how great they are, the classic, the ego, many of them are nice people, but they’re experts in what they do and their business is about selling their time. They do legal work they get paid for it. The flip side of that is the business person whose business is legal services, and they’re focused on how do they scale this business, how profitable am I, can I figure ways to earn more without working harder. That’s a very different mindset.
Jared Correia: And lawyers in my experience, some of them want to do that right from the start, but a lot of them it’s a really hard transition for them to make. So it sounds like you walk people through a little bit. So some of what you do is talking to people about a different mindset they can have as well.
Bruce La Fetra: Yeah. Well, I really looking… the world’s a big place, and I could try to change everyone in the world, which would exhaust me or I can find the people that have that mindset and help them really excel. I’ve opted for the second course where people that have that mindset but haven’t figured out how to fully take advantage of it and I work with them. And so I’m not trying to change people’s minds, I’m trying to accelerate their progress and their results.
Jared Correia: That seems like the smarter course of action.
Bruce La Fetra: I think so.
Jared Correia: Now, the other thing you told me is that you start at kind of step zero with attorneys as far as like building out marketing strategy. I think you have all these really interesting concepts that I don’t hear other people talking about. So when you say you’re starting at step zero, what does that mean? Like, where do you begin? What is step zero versus step one?
Bruce La Fetra: Sure. And once again, that came from a client who said, “Bruce, you start at step zero. Everyone starts at step one.” And step zero is really thinking back to two kind of key questions. One is how do you improve the client’s business?
(00:15:00)
And if you do that now, you start to be able to look at their business through your own… look, see with your eyes their business through their eyes. And the world looks a lot less complicated if you’re not trying to guess about, “Well, what do they care about?” And then the second piece is to really focus on why do your best clients? And your best clients are the ones that you would clone if you could, if you had the power. And so now you’re not thinking about all these clients with all this variety what do they care about. Your best clients choose you for a reason. You may not be really aware of what that reason is. That’s that first question, but it’s a much smaller set and they’re more homogeneous in terms of why they want to work with you. So that becomes a really powerful question, and it’s about how do you improve their business? That’s what they care about. They don’t care about your CV. They care about, are you going to improve their business? You do that, and that’s an alignment of goals.
So if your goals are aligned with their goals, that’s the basis of trust and when you have trust, things happen a lot faster. Now they’re asking you, have you done this before? You sound great, Jared, have you ever done this? Yeah, I’ve done this hundreds of times. Oh, boom, I’m ready to move. As opposed to, Jared, make the case for why I should work with you, which is a much harder case. And so that really becomes this foundation of step zero. When you do that, now all of a sudden everything you’re doing in terms of whether it’s business development or marketing is both simpler, there’s clarity and you know what you need to do. You’re not guessing.
Jared Correia: You truly are the Client Whisperer. Not only are you helping lawyers with their clients, but you’re listening to your own clients which is great. So I would guess that that whole concept of like how do you improve a client’s business, super simple. I get it. And when you say it, it makes a lot of sense.
Bruce La Fetra: Hard to get at, but super simple concept.
Jared Correia: That’s exactly what I was going to ask you. Okay, so the concept is simple, but how do you get to it? What steps do you take to figure that out? Because it’s slightly different for every client how you specifically improve their business?
Bruce La Fetra: I will say for each, I’ll take a group of your best clients or things that you do that maybe look a little bit different, but there are things that you actually do. So it’s not different for every client, but for types of clients and for firms.
Jared Correia: Yeah, groups of clients. Yeah. Go ahead.
Bruce La Fetra: So the trick to get to understand that is one to focus on what’s the impact? Ask that question, how do you improve their business? But in a lot of cases, you can do that superficially. What I do is I have in depth interview that I do with my clients, best clients. So this is the CEO or the CFO or the EVP of the client. I’m spending 45 minutes for an hour with them. This is not the 10 minutes why did you choose Jared kind of question. The other part about it is that it’s really focused around the client. So instead of, if you were my client, I’m working with your clients, it’s not how do you fit into Jared’s business? It’s all about, well, how does Jared, how does he improve your business, your life, your business. And first off, it’s a question nobody’s ever asked them, so it’s intriguing. Secondly, it gets them talking about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. Even the CEO has no time, loves to talk about himself and that allows the onion to get peeled. And when you peel the onion back, it takes a couple of forms, but it’s basically, “Oh, man, there’s this thing I never really thought about”, but if Jared did it stop doing that, it would be a totally different relationship. That’s your secret sauce. We’ve now defined your secret sauce. If we define it, we can bottle it and if we can bottle it, we can scale it to other people in your firm, because it’s not the magic mojo, rainmaker intuition. It’s something you actually do, and if your firm has a culture or ways of doing things, it’s something that can be spread to other people.
Jared Correia: That’s great. And so I would guess that when you’re sitting down with these law firm clients, which a law firm is probably never going to do on its own, it’s a really valuable experience for both sides because you’ve done it before, you’re good at it and lawyers just would never take the time to do that probably ever.
Bruce La Fetra: That’s true, and then the other part that makes it more palatable or whatever you want to say is because I’m focused on their best clients only. It’s all good news. It’s things that you do that you don’t realize are having an impact, that have an impact as opposed to coming to tell you all the things you do wrong. I mean, this is the big contrast with the all client survey that so many firms do, is think about that. Who’s going to be most vocal on the survey? The clients that you have the worst fit with. So you end up spending all this resource to make your firm more attractive to the clients you don’t actually want while taking for granted the ones that generate the profit and don’t generate headaches.
(00:20:08)
Jared Correia: Yeah, haters going to hate. What are you going to do? I think it’s a really interesting model that you develop. And then there was another concept I wanted to address before we’re done here, which is you have this thing called a killer question. I had not heard of that before. So can you explain that and how you use that and how you advise people to use it?
Bruce La Fetra: Sure, and the killer question does not come from me.
Jared Correia: We can give appropriate credit here. That’s fine. You can source it if you want.
Bruce La Fetra: Yeah. It comes out of a networking, professional networking group by part of professors and some people there. But the killer question is because you can’t remember, I mean, let’s face it, if I want to refer business to you Jared, I’m not going to learn all about your firm and everyone that I know in my network and become a salesman for you. I don’t want to do that. But if I can remember one question that I can ask people that will be a filter, and then if they say yes, it’s usually a yes or no question, then I say, “I don’t really understand all the legal support and technology that you can do, but I know a guy who can answer those questions.” And so the question for me I always ask people task on my behalf is simply, if you could clone your best, would you like to clone your best clients the ones that create profit but not headaches.
Jared Correia: I like it. Well done, well done.
Bruce La Fetra: And surprisingly, that question does not produce a yes for everyone which is great.
Jared Correia: Yeah. You’re filtering people at the same time.
Bruce La Fetra: I’m filtering people.
Jared Correia: This has been fun. I only have one more question for you. That was a fast 15 minutes. One thing you’re telling me is you’re sort of a solopreneur in your business. A lot of people out there are looking to grow the biggest business possible in terms of the most people, but managing people can be a pain in the ass. So why do you choose to stay solo?
Bruce La Fetra: So it’s actually a pretty easy question. No, the part of the job that I… well, I also spent years in California, and I know a lot of employment lawyers, and so there’s like, why would I ever want employees? That’s the snarky question.
Jared Correia: Especially in California, the laws. Yeah.
Bruce La Fetra: The real answer is that the part of what I do the most that I love the most is being able to take those interviews and be able to find the insights, because let’s face it, everyone doesn’t say it the same way. It’s something you do, and so there’s a little bit of spider sense or whatever to be able to draw what the common threads are and then be able to communicate that back to my clients, people that weren’t thinking this way and let’s face it, there’s multiple partners often. And so be able to communicate. That’s the part that gets me excited and gets me out of bed in the morning, and if I was just managing other people that did that, my life wouldn’t be as rich.
Jared Correia: Very fair.
Bruce La Fetra: I have done that. So I won’t be a multibillion dollar business ever, but I’ll die happy.
Jared Correia: This has been really fun. You’re going to stick aroundfor the last segment, right?
Bruce La Fetra: Absolutely.
Jared Correia: All right.
Bruce La Fetra: You’re going to humiliate me on the rump roast.
Jared Correia: It won’t be too humiliating. We’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear more about what our sponsors can do for your law practice. Then stay tuned as we mentioned, for the rump roast, it’s even more supple than the roast beast.
[Music]
Dave Scriven Young: You like legal podcasts because you’re curious and want to be the best attorney you can be. I’m Dave Scriven Young, Host of Litigation Radio produced by ABA’s Litigation Section with Legal Talk Network. Search in your favorite podcast player for Litigation Radio to join me and my guests as we examine hot topics in litigation and topics that will help you to develop your litigation skills and build your practice. I hope you’ll check out Litigation Radio and join the ABA Litigation Section for access to all of the resources, relationships and referrals you need to thrive as a litigator.
Jared Correia: Welcome, everybody. That’s right. We’re here at the rear end of the legal Toolkit. It’s called the rump roast, and it’s a grab-bag of short form topics all of my choosing. Why do I get to pick? Because I’m the host. So Bruce, thanks for coming back. You and I just spent some time hanging out in Knoxville, Tennessee your adopted home. I had never been to Knoxville before, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was pretty cool. Do you want to say anything about Knoxville before we get started?
Bruce La Fetra: Well, it’s my adopted home, and people say, “Where are you from?” And I now say, “I’m from Knoxville.” I just lived someplace else previously. It’s a university town, so it’s not in the sticks. But it’s also got that southern charm where people are just nice to if you. If you disagree with people, you can still be nice to them and that’s a really nice thing to have.
(00:25:01)
Jared Correia: I had a fun time down there. So I wanted to take a moment to quiz you on Knoxville’s present and past in a segment I’m calling, wait for this Technical Knox’ Out. That’s right, we’re doing it. As a new resident, I feel like you’re going to crush this, so let’s start out with some softballs. Question number one, what’s the name for the group of individuals who park their boats in the Tennessee River for the University of Tennessee Football games?
Bruce La Fetra: The Vol Navy.
Jared Correia: Yes. Is park the right term by the way.
Bruce La Fetra: I don’t know whether park…
Jared Correia: I’m not sure what you should do to stop a boat.
Bruce La Fetra: Well, there’s a dock, but there’s far more boats than there’s dock space, so people more against the other boats.
Jared Correia: So people are just hanging out on the river. Yeah, it sounds amazing. Like, I’m kind of jealous. I want to do it.
Bruce La Fetra: Well, the stadium only seats 105,000 people, so where do the other people going to go?
Jared Correia: Right, onto the water. All right, so you’re one for one. I told you this isn’t going to be that bad. All right, next question. The Tennessee supreme court is in Knoxville, not Nashville, the capitol. True or false?
Bruce La Fetra: It used to be. There’s a supreme court building. I do not believe it actually sits in Knoxville.
Jared Correia: So it’s a little bit true and a little bit false. All right, you’re two for two. You’re two for two. I did walk by the supreme court building in Knoxville. I got one more for you. One more easy one, then we’re going to take it up a notch. What popular music festival just took place in Knoxville last week?
Bruce La Fetra: Oh, you are my friend, Big Ears.
Jared Correia: So can you talk about that a little bit? Have you done that before or no? Because I saw a lot of people milling around town going to concerts.
Bruce La Fetra: Last year was Big Ears, had gotten waylaid by COVID, like so many other things. But Tennessee is a music capital of the country, and you hear about Nashville, Knoxville has a rich, rich music history. Can tend to be a little bit more bluegrass, roots kinds of things.
Jared Correia: Which I love.
Bruce La Fetra: Fabulous music, fabulous scene, and you can hear just about anything here. There’s music constantly. So it’s a great place for music lovers. Go to Nashville, and you’re assaulted by things. Knoxville, it’s a little friendlier.
Jared Correia: A little easier, right? All right. Now, I know you’re probably feeling like the unofficial tour guide of Knoxville right now, so let’s up the difficulty level a little bit. You’re three for three. I’ve only had like two people go 100% here, so I’m going to do four more questions a little bit harder. Let’s see how you do. Who was the founder of Knoxville? Now we’re entering into the historical…
Bruce La Fetra: Well, Mr. Knox, he actually signed the declaration of independence, so it goes way back.
Jared Correia: So I have the founder of Knoxville being James White, who established his home there in 1786 as a fort and a cluster of cabins.
Bruce La Fetra: Maybe founder but naming credit gets all the credit. That was going to be my next question.
Jared Correia: Knoxville, named after…
Bruce La Fetra: So we’ve named the parkway after James White.
Jared Correia: Yes. Okay. I did not know that. See, you have even more information than I got.
Bruce La Fetra: Knox gets the city, White gets a freeway.
Jared Correia: And Knox was Henry Knox, right? You said signer of the declaration of independence, right? And also Washington’s war secretary. President Washington’s war secretary.
Bruce La Fetra: Yes.
Jared Correia: Great. All right. Three more. Three more or two more. Two more, two more. And guess what, I’m even going to give you multiple choice on these because I’m a nice guy. Actually, two with multiple choice one without. What is Knoxville’s historic nickname? I learned this recently. I didn’t know. The nickname of the City of Knoxville.
Bruce La Fetra: Well, it’s not really historic because it only goes back to 1982. It’s a scruffy city, and the story behind that is when the world’s fair in 1982, a wall street journal reporter said, “Oh, they can’t pull it off this scruffy little city” and Knoxville’s taking it on as its own. We even have the scruffy city hall, which is a nice bar in market square.
Jared Correia: I’m super impressed. All right, I got only two more questions. Oh, I should say, world’s fair in Knoxville was in 1982, right? And they still have the little orb in town, which I know.
Bruce La Fetra: Yeah, the Sunsphere.
Jared Correia: Sunsphere, yes. Right outside my hotel. All right, you’re killing it right now. Two more questions. This one’s a little bit tougher, I think, although maybe not. What popular soft drink was created Knoxville. I’m going to give you multiple choice.
Bruce La Fetra: Mountain dew.
Jared Correia: You don’t even need it. Okay. You want to tell the Mountain Dew story?
Bruce La Fetra: I don’t know the Mountain Dew story, but if you think about Moonshine and Mountain Dew and corn, takes up a lot of space to store. If you distill it down, it doesn’t take so much space.
Jared Correia: Right. So yeah, Mountain Dew created in Knoxville by Hartman beverages in the late 1940. That’s very impressive. Like I had the multiple choice ready to go. You didn’t even need it.
(00:30:00)
All right, one more. We’ll do a fun one. In 1974, what did Walter Cronkite call Knoxville? I got multiple choice if you want it, just say the word.
Bruce La Fetra: Okay. Yeah, let’s go multiple choice on this one.
Jared Correia: The home of America’s greatest world’s fair, the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains or the streaking capital of the world.
Bruce La Fetra: The streaking capital of the world?
Jared Correia: Yeah. How could it not be, right? Did you know about this, 1974? Apparently, they had…
Bruce La Fetra: I know about the streaking, I didn’t know about Walter Cronkite make…
Jared Correia: Did you?
Bruce La Fetra: Yeah, of course. It’s local lore.
Jared Correia: Yeah, I didn’t know about this. Apparently, there were 5000 people streaking down the main drag in Knoxville. Is this true?
Bruce La Fetra: It’s true. Well, you’ll know about whether the number was I can’t confirm.
Jared Correia: I have the number as 5000, but it might be the whole thing where there are actually 2000 people there, but 5000 people claim to be there. I don’t know. Bruce, that was impressive. You knocked it out of the park. One of the best rump roast performances of all time. I’m legitimately impressed. Thank you, sir.
Bruce La Fetra: Rump Roast Hall of Fame.
Jared Correia: Rump Roast Hall, we got to establish that. All right, I’ll work on that. Bruce, thanks for coming. We’ll have to have you back sometime.
Bruce La Fetra: This has been way fun.
Jared Correia: Okay, good, good. Thank you. We’ll talk soon.
Bruce La Fetra: Okay.
Jared Correia: If you want to find out more about Bruce La Fetra, the Client Whisperer in Eastwood Strategy Advisors, visit eastwoodsa.com. Eastwoodsa.com like Clint Eastwood. Now, for those of you listening intently in Flippin, Tennessee, let me tell you, I wish I was. I’ve got a great playlist for you. It only includes songs that represent the Nashville sound of long loved country music. But it seems like I’ve been spending a lot of time in Tennessee lately. Sadly, I’ve run out of time today to talk about the ending of lost and how I’m the one dude who liked it. But join us next time when I tell you why I think Star Wars sucks even though I liked the last Jedi. This is Jared Correia reminding you that Greenland sharks can live up to 500 years. Why? Because they’re cold as ice, just like Foreigner.
[Music]
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