Celleen Michele Jones | Biz Journals
Gene Simmons— the Kiss rock star of makeup, tongue-flashing and platform boot fame – is also a shrewd businessman. A self-made entrepreneur. And a complete marketing genius.
Just ask him.
In his recently published book “Me, Inc: Build an Army of One, Unleash Your Inner Rock God, Win in Life and Business,” Israeli-born Simmons, recounts in his uniquely matter-of-fact, say-it-like-it-is manner, how he emigrated to America with his Holocaust-survivor single mother determined to make it big.
Simmons, now 65, has built a merchandising and branding empire around Kiss, the band he co-founded more than 40 years ago and which regularly sells out concert arenas and even Kiss Kruises.
Sharing business advice from a guy known as the Demon isn’t the type of fare often produced by the Jacksonville Business Journal – but having a bonafide member of the Kiss Army on our reporting staff meant we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what Simmons has to say.
Simmons almost single-handedly manages the business of Kiss — including more than 3,000 licensed merchandise items, as well as other ventures such as a reality show, a professional sports team, a restaurant chain and a record company. He’s the kind of guy who will buy out the rights for hundreds of trademarked phrases, such as O.J. (for orange juice), just because he can.
Here are some of his top lessons — and here reporter Colleen Michele Jones seeing these lessons put into action.
- “If a vacuum cleaner salesman rings your front door, he will be selling HIMSELF first. The vacuum cleaner is secondary.”
- “Pick up The Wall Street Journal every day and read it. Read about the lives and careers of people such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffet to see what you can learn.”
- “It’s better to be an octopus than a fish. If an octopus loses a tentacle to a predator, the octopus will survive with seven tentacles left for itself.”
- “Self confidence is your greatest business partner. The prime building block for popularity can be boiled down to one trait: Self-confidence. … Let me repeat that: An enormous, almost delusional sense of self-confidence.”
- “You and I and everyone else have the attention span of gnats. And that means that saying of doing anything once simply doesn’t work.”
- “Speak English. … My mother couldn’t speak English and didn’t have an education, so she wound up working in a sweat shop. Six days a week.”
- “If you’re a man in your 20s or 30s and have yet to make your fortune, I would urge you not to get married.”
- “If you choose to be a smoker, you’re an idiot and you may lack the discipline and intelligence to be a successful entrepreneur.”
- “Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell. Wealth that includes making other people’s lives better will reward you even more than the beautiful mansion you live in.”
- “Know when to pull the plug. … If you’re alive, you’re in the game. Every time you fail you learn something, and next time you won’t make that mistake again.”