- Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTWU, the Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.

And go -Topeka.

Today on Working Capital, we're gonna learn how, if you're a lifelong creative, you may be able to turn a profit at home.

We're gonna check in with an old friend of the station, someone who you all have seen.

Stick around.

You're gonna love this episode.

You're watching Working Capital Today.

We're lucky to have Phil Grecian here with us, someone who started his career in advertising.

He's worked in business, but I'd have to say his passion and, and Lifelong Love is probably has more to do with the theater and writing and, and being a creative.

So, Phil, thank you for being on Working Capital.

- My pleasure, Jay.

- So I've known you for quite a few years now.

- Oh yeah.

I remember you were just a baby.

- Just a baby.

Yeah, I, yeah, yeah.

I did some cuckoo sounds for one - Radio play.

That's about it.

- Did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is a business show.

So first off, - Yes.

- Let's talk about how you got to becoming a playwright, and that's kind of what you do full time now, but you've done it your whole life.

- Yeah.

- But, but let's talk how you were in advertising.

You've been around business a little bit.

So tell me a little about how you started off in the Topeka Creative Advertising scene.

- Oh, my, in, in the advertising.

Well, I, I had been in theater for years from the time I was about four.

And we, at a given point, after I'd opened a couple of theaters, I thought, okay, now what am I going to do to support the family?

So, so I wrote a letter to, to Merl Blair, who was the general manager at K-T-O-P V 100 at the time.

And I said, Hey Merl, I'm looking for work.

And you always say, ask Phil what's going on, and he'll do an hour.

So, hey, you got anything?

And at that very moment, the guy who was the production continuity director had quit with three days notice.

Oh, wow.

And Merl said to the music director, he said, well, and I can do a Merl imitation.

Okay, here we go.

He said, well, you know, Phil Grecian one of the few voices I do.

He said, he writes plays so he could write commercials.

So they hired me, and I knew nothing at that point about writing commercials, but I taught myself as we went and we won a bunch of awards for them.

And then from radio, I went to, to advertising.

'cause the advertising agencies saw what I was doing and thought we want some of that.

So, and, and so I, I went into several advertising agencies.

One Emerson Nichols Bailey hired me, and then I hopped, skipped around ad agencies for a while.

And the great thing about ad agencies is you got a lot of toys to play with.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And you can do television and you can, you can play with film and video and, and audio and print and all sorts of things.

I, I was having fun and I finally wound up the, the artistic director for Harry Turner and Associates.

We had a studio, we were doing film and video and, and then Harry went outta business.

And through that whole process, I was writing plays because I'd start, I think the first play I ever wrote that was performed for an audience in 1964, a comedy called Strictly Out to Lunch.

It was just dreadful.

But we did it at the Jayhawk Theater.

And then at a given point, I started publishing them.

And so then finally that was how I was making a living, is my plays would be done in the English speaking world, all over the globe.

And then I'd get a check every six months from the publisher.

So that was pretty good, because then you can do whatever you want to, and you're still gonna have a check coming every six months.

- And that's kind of where you're at now.

- Yeah.

- Before we jump into that part with the advertising, with the marketing - Sure.

- For today's people who are starting out, they have a lot of tools with their hands now.

- Oh, it's wonderful.

- So everything's on their cell phone.

But what are some key things to think about?

Say you're first starting a business.

What do you wanna think about brand-wise that you saw?

How, how, how do you want to, how would you suggested them to, to get a product out there?

Is there still something in there with, with jingles?

You know, is there something that's, because what's timeless that still works in advertising - To work today?

Jingles still work.

Jingles still work.

And of course, advertising has gotten much wider over the years.

You know, the internet when it came along, now you're advertising on the internet.

And one thing you want to try to do is sometimes, and I've also had my own advertising agency for a while as well, but sometimes advertising begins to look like advertising.

And that is a killer.

I mean, - It's cut and paste.

- It's cut and paste, and it looks like everybody else's.

And you know, you have to admire some, some people, every once in a while you'll see an ad these days that makes you look sometimes they're bad.

Yeah.

But it - Makes you look and you're talking about - Them.

Yes.

And you - Are about them.

Sometimes the bad is on purpose.

- That's right.

There used to be a guy in Kansas City, captain Billy, I think he made the worst advertisements on television that there, they were so bad they would get national awards for bad, but people watched them and they'd still - Go in - And, and they would go in because they were paying attention.

- It's like, I, I forget it might have been, there was the mattress place in Lawrence, I forget its name.

And so I'm not going to, I don't think they're around anymore, but he did crazy commercials.

Yeah.

So all the college, you just knew 'em and like, well, I need to get a bed.

You'd go down there.

So there's something to - That.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because there, you have to do something that cuts through all of the other stuff so that people remember, you know, there's, there's a slogan or something that you keep doing, or, you know, even if the commercial is bad, people remember.

And, and that's part of the trick now.

When I was writing television and radio and even when I had my own little company, I, I, I, I would like to think they were all really good.

But the whole point is always try not to make it look like advertising.

Try and, and teach an audience something that they can say, you know what?

I just found out, I used to do a lot of those where I, you know, there'd be some something in it.

That was an interesting thought.

- Yeah.

Something you could share at the water cooler - Share at the water cooler, even if there was no water cooler.

- You, you talked about radio.

Yeah.

But you worked some in print and Yeah.

Mass mailings, which, yeah, there's still some now.

Yep.

But what are some of the more memorable campaigns from, from your mass mailing days, which I think the mass mailing style kind of fits in with today's mass marketing on the internet.

So to me, it's the same.

It's the same thing now.

It just may be vertical on your screen as opposed to a flat postcard coming out.

So, - But there has to be something that people, I mean, I get my mail in the morning and I look through and I throw it out and I look through and there has to be something that you, you, oh, wait a minute, let me look at this.

I know we sent one out that was in 3D and, and it came with glasses.

Oh, wow.

So you put these glasses on and then you could see these three people, not only did they not throw them out, they kept them for years.

I had one when I was running one of the theaters here in town, we did a show outside.

So I printed the programs on fans with wooden handles.

- Yeah.

- And I would go into people's houses and they'd go buy me over for dinner or something like that.

And fan would be sitting on their coffee table.

- Those fan, I, I don't see those much anymore.

I think they're just as good today.

And they should be.

That's something people go back to.

So if you're, if you're watching right now, this may be a good thing to get your business passed around.

'cause growing up I grew up in mortuary as I think Yeah.

Perhaps my viewers have heard Fans were huge.

- Yeah.

- And people would always ask like, oh, can I get a couple, couple more fans?

Yeah.

My fans, my fans wore out, you know, unfortunately it was from the last time they were the funeral home.

But people used them and they pick them up all the time.

And you see, they advertise 'em on the back.

So whether it's, I mean, perfect for an ice cream shop, a restaurant, you're sitting there getting, oh, I'm gonna go get, go cooler.

I may a nice cool beverage - Whelan'slumber yard used to give you yardstick.

- Yes.

Oh yeah.

I, I still might have one of those, but I may keep too much stuff.

But it, it's still kind of a, a great way for local, for small businesses to get around.

Still is is still some of those, those kind of chach keys.

But I think we've gone away from that.

'cause everything is so, gotta be on the internet for sure.

Which you have to be there.

- Oh, you - Do.

You have to have that presence now.

- That's right.

- You know, we're, we're even a little behind the, the curve here.

But, you know, even playing catch up 'cause it changes so much and so quickly.

So, - And with Harry Turner, there were huge machines downstairs that if, if you were trying to target one legged Lithuanian acrobats, the machines could tell you, give you a list of all the one legged Lithuanian acrobats.

So, so it's also important to know, you know, who you need, who you want, who your target is, and then what you can do to hit that target.

- And I'd say today, now it's even easier to get that information.

Yeah.

So the analytics, the the exact niche you wanna be a part of.

That's right.

You can find that and then you can find someone to do that mass emailing or, you know, the lists are out there for good or bad, unfortunately at this point.

Yeah.

So there, there is ways to, to kind of hit your, your market that - Way.

Absolutely.

Abso but just doing something that looks like advertising is never going to be good for you.

- Yeah.

- It has to be something that people will stop and look at and pay attention to.

If it's radio something they'll listen to.

If it's television, something they'll see.

And of course, you know, television people, as you well know, it's all about what you see.

- Yeah.

- It's like the radio shows we do on television, you know, it, people watching it like to see the people doing the sound effects, because that's the real show.

Yeah.

People standing at microphones doing voices, that's fine.

But somebody making a sound that surprises you out of something else.

I I know we, when we've done horse drawn carriages, one of the sounds we use is an old wooden ice cream freezer.

- Yeah.

- You, and it sounds like the rattling of the carriage as it's so, so yeah.

It, you have to remember what your, your medium is and, and work on that television things.

You see radio things, you hear print, you know, something that will stop you so that you see it and then you want to look at it.

If it's a picture and, and then maybe you wanna read it and maybe you want to keep it, whether it's a, a fan that's on your coffee table or a yardstick or whatever.

You can't just say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna write this.

And it's gonna be advertising because you've thrown your money away.

- Yeah.

When I was working in advertising, we had people come in and the term viral had just taken off for a few years and they always came in.

Of course, they want to ask for, well we need a viral video, we can't get you a viral video.

We can make you a great video with hopes that it will go that direction.

Yeah.

But you know, that's like on their checklist, like, well, everyone said we need a viral video.

We have to have one of these, that 7 million people need to see it by the end of next month.

You also have, or something good.

- You also have clients that would say, we want something that's word of mouth.

Well, you can do the best you can, but you can't sit down and say, okay, here's some, this'll cost you so much.

It'll be word of mouth.

Word of mouth depends upon the people seeing it and - The information given the site gag anything.

There's gonna be something that sticks and, and sticks out.

It's like growing up, one of my favorite things Yeah.

That I, that I used to read advertising wise.

And I don't know why I had this, my Burma Shave sign book.

- Oh yeah.

- I had sign books, so a little before my time, actually, a little before your time.

But it was, it was great.

It was great mass marketing because, you know, it was the signs along the road every what, 3, 5, 10 miles - Pins.

Yeah.

Some.

- But they space 'em out.

So you're always looking for the next Burma Shave sign to get the next little bit of the, the Limerick story.

- And they would rhyme and there would be a payoff and then another logo for whatever the Bruma shave Whelan's again used to do the same thing with the signs.

And even for years afterward.

That's the thing about a lot of those signs for years afterward when the campaign was over, the signs were still there.

- Yeah.

- And you'd be on a trip, you'd be, oh, there's one.

So let's see where the rest of them are.

- Yeah.

There was a little brand equity left after even after that they would've shut their doors.

Yeah.

You know, because it's, it's the nostalgia still there.

So it's, as we see even today, a lot of these old brands, they're just, their intellectual properties are getting sold.

So someone's just buying the brand, the wags, the name.

I mean, even Indian Motorcycles - Now.

Yeah.

- Wasn't, it's not the old Indian motorcycles.

They bought all the logos - And stuff, but they got the logo and the name.

So - Yeah.

But it works.

Yeah.

It, it, it works for what they're doing.

So how did you get out of advertising?

What, what was, what was the next step to where you're kind of a, you know, getting towards these self-sufficient - Creative Yeah, because I was always writing plays.

- Yeah.

And that's part of your blood from when you were little Yeah.

You, you were writing in grade - School.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

- I mean, you, You just a profic prolific writer.

And I will say if you guys watched a few seasons ago, we did have Phil's son on Alex.

So I will say, you know, apples don't fall far from the tree.

He is a great novelist also.

So was it kind of the same thing?

I mean, seriously, you were just always writing stories?

Yeah.

Coming with character voices, you know, part of my initial growing up, some of my first memories were PBS here and, you know, learning on Sesame Street and it was such a, you know, the television for good or bad was a, a major influence on me.

Oh, absolutely.

And it luckily, that was great programming.

- Yeah.

- So Sesame Street was not there when you were, when you were a a little kid?

- No, our our, our sets were made of stone.

- They were made, yeah, yeah.

Of Chisolm.

Yes.

And, and they send in little cards.

You have to just watch one and they'd send in - Next.

You had to hire a guy to put the pictures in.

Yeah.

- As you can tell, he's quite a character.

- So, - But on that note, what programming, what media influenced you to where you wanted to then start writing your own stuff or creating these voices?

Was it something that sparked that or was it - Parents or, it was a little bit of, you know, radio drama was still around when I was a kid.

And I would listen to Big John and Sparky and the Lone Ranger.

Oh, lone Ranger was very big and, and things like that.

And I, it, it became very clear early on that they weren't just making these things up.

Somebody was writing them.

So then I started writing.

I, I remember when I was about five or six, I had a comic strip I did that I would pass around through the neighborhood called Dilly Pickle Pocker.

And it was about this bird.

I don't know where I got the name when I was that young.

But so, so I learned early on that somebody was writing this stuff.

And so then I was, you know, they didn't, they didn't have roles for four year olds in, in plays.

So I became, at the age of four, I was a ventriloquist and magician.

And I would hire out the parties.

Had a dummy and I could do magic.

And I did that for years.

Even when I was married and had kids, that's where we'd get the Christmas money from.

So, you know, I'd do Christmas parties.

Dale Easton had an agency at the time, and he'd find me work and I'd go out and do my thing and get my check.

And so, so it, it kind of went that way.

Now, at a given point, I had several plays published and the big thing for me was Christmas story.

The, the, the, you know, kid with the BB gun.

I had been reading those stories to my children as bedtime stories.

And those stories were originally in Playboy magazine.

And so we knew all about those stories.

And one weekend my wife and I were trying to take the kids to see a movie and we said, you know what, what can we take 'em to?

And there was something called Christmas Story you could Take a family to, and we said, well, let's go see that, whatever it is.

And we're sitting there and suddenly the thing come up, you know, and we hear all the characters' names and the name of the guy who created 'em.

And my daughter, Roxanne leaned forward and said, are these our stories?

And they were so, they weren't yet a big deal.

But my publisher got the rights to have a play written based on that movie.

And my editor called me and said, have you ever heard of a movie called a Christmas story?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Would you consider writing a stage version?

Yeah, I would.

So I did, I sat down with Shep Gene Shepherd was the, the, the author, excuse me, I sat down with, with Shep's books and with the screenplay and wrote a stage version of that.

And it, therefore it was getting about a hundred productions a year.

And I asked my editor just a few years ago, I said, what made you think, because I had three or four things published there, but what made you think I could write this one?

And she, I said, was it because of the other plays?

And she said, no, it was because of your emails.

I could hear your voice in your emails.

You wrote dialogue in your emails.

And, and we were having a conversation.

And that's why - That's fantastic.

- So eventually when Harry Turner went outta business, and it wasn't Harry's fault, the, the the, the company had been around for 60 years.

There was a client who suddenly left at the last minute that we'd had for 35 years.

And, and the ad agencies were fewer and fewer and fewer.

And that's when I started, you know, my own little company.

And then by that time, the plays were really paying off nicely.

So I just kept doing that.

I'd never stopped doing that.

And now there's one, I wrote an adaptation of The Great Gatsby that my publisher and some other people want to take to Broadway, which would be nice.

- Yeah, it would.

- But I told them, I said, I wish you'd done this 20 years earlier.

- Yeah.

- You know, I, it would've been nice.

And besides that, I said, you know, I'm gonna be around maybe another 20 years.

I would've liked to have started a little bit earlier on this process, but we'll see what happens.

It's pretty good play.

Really.

- That's, I can't wait to see, I can't wait to see what happens with that.

- Me too.

- We got about three, five minutes left.

Three to five minutes left.

What, what kind of advice would you have for creatives now out there?

'cause I'm guessing you've probably dealt with a little bit of an imposter syndrome.

- Oh, sure.

Don't you?

- We all do.

I mean, yeah.

So, - And one of the reasons is, and I've told people this before, I've said, you know, don't be all full of yourself for your talent because you were born with that.

You didn't do anything for that.

You can be full of yourself a little bit for your training if you want, but your talent you're born with and because you're born with it, you think, you know, this oughta be harder.

- Yeah.

- Maybe I'm not really good at this.

Maybe I'm people.

So, you're right.

Imposter syndrome, I think with a lot of creatives is a big deal.

- So besides dealing with that, what, what else would you give to, to new people to, to help them push through some of that fog of, you know, because it is a different landscape.

- Oh, it is.

- Compared to regular business.

And and that's why a lot of creatives start with other jobs and stuff too.

Yeah.

And luckily they stick, they end up back where they love stuff.

But what kind of advice do you have there?

Like, - Take every possible opportunity, particularly when you're starting out, if somebody says, well, there's not much money in this, but we'd like you to write this thing, or we would like you to design this set, or we would like you to do this painting or whatever.

You're not a lot of money.

The fact of the matter is, it's out there, you've done the thing.

And that's something else on your resume.

And that's goes back to something we're talking about on advertising.

It's, it's - For good or bad.

It's, it's stepping stones, - It's a stepping stone.

- Some jobs may turn not, not turn out as good - Yeah.

- As you had hoped, or maybe even the client had hoped.

And you probably learn a lot from that also in these creative fields.

I know I have.

- Yeah.

- On certain things.

So it's, it's, you learn from both sides of it.

So, you know, if you've had, if you've, if you've shown your cartoon stripped to three people - Yeah.

- And they all poo poo it, that's not necessarily saying it's a bad thing.

The right people haven't seen it.

- That's right.

- I look at the investor, Warren Buffett.

Yeah.

He made his, he made his fortune because he invested and believed in things that he liked - Yep.

- That he used.

So, you know, if you believe in yourself and it's something you enjoy, you know, I love this kind of painting or this kind of mixed media or these little short stories I write.

You know, they just, they bring me inspiration.

They need to stick with it.

- Yeah.

- They just put your product out there, the people who need to see it, haven't seen it yet.

That's all.

That's - Right.

Put your product out there and just keep putting it out there.

Just keep putting it out there.

And eventually somebody notices.

- And speaking of noticing, we're almost, we're almost out of time now.

Okay.

But I wanna let people know, theater of the Mind, it's been going, I think right now, if you go to our passports, our online streaming, I think 15 of the 16 shows are up.

The first show that you guys did that I was not a part of, I think may not be up there because it's not hd.

But anyways, you can view that online and see some of this great throwback cultural media.

But the cool thing is too, one an Emmy with this.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, kind of as we close, I wanna say thank you, Phil, but we're gonna show just a little bit of towards the end of Dracula, which was the Emmy winning production.

But they've all been fantastic.

So the characters, the voices, the kind of cool thing with, with your, I'll call an entrepreneurial spirit is you give people creative spaces to have an outlet and some people to find themselves.

And the thing is, when they all love it, you, you can see it on this screen here, even with radio play, where it's just people standing at mics, but they're giving the wrong, you can see the characters in their faces.

- Yeah.

- But then seeing the sound effects getting made.

Yeah.

You know, it's just, you're bringing a lot of artists together.

And without spirits like you to foster this, it wouldn't be there.

So, you know, and, and the art scene in any city helps businesses.

- Yep.

- Because you can't keep good employees and good businesses going without the recreation and the outlets and that kind of cultural and learning exchange.

So I, I don't think they're going anywhere no matter what people try.

But, you know, so I think it's a, it's a great thing for cities to look at and, you know, if you have that spirit, that creative spirit, whether it's more entrepreneurial, whether you wanna sell art or make art, make sure you, you keep chasing that dream.

- Right.

- There's gonna be ups and downs.

- Yep.

- But just keep at it.

- And some of them I go ahead and publish and other theater groups do them on stage as well.

- Yeah.

I, I mean, yeah, everything, you're right.

It's, it's, it's like multi branching now.

Yeah.

So it's just, it's, it's amazing when, you know, creators can find their outlet.

I'll say finally.

But you've had so many outlets over the years.

I mean, creed repertoire theater in Colorado.

Yeah.

To all over You were a theater critic.

I mean, it's, it's, it's this, this Topeka scene and it's, it's, we've benefited from you not moving away.

So, - Wow.

- You know, lots of times, you know, it used to be a lot of the, the great minds and great thinkers in Topeka would leave.

So it's good when we've seen some that have stayed - Here.

Like Stephen Lee Cox night, I jumped on my horse and galloped off in all directions.

- So it's been a pleasure.

So - For me, as - For talking a little business, thanks for talking the creative side.

And once again, take a look at a little bit of Dracula.

I know you're gonna like it.

So there'll be a QR code on the screen.

You can scan that with your phone.

It'll take you to show you the rest of the shows.

But enjoy a little bit of this.

And we thank you for watching Working Capital.

We'll see you next time.

- Let's break down the door.

Come to me.

Oh, there is no escape count.

John, quickly throw your lamp into his coffin.

No, the coffin is on fire.

Jack, Theo, take the dust, the sun rises.

Throw that through the glass.

This is for Lucy Diamond.

Monster die the sun.

Nothing left of him, but dust.

Yes.

Now even he has peace.

Oh, John, friend John, the marks of the beast.

Behold Nina, the paint marks the burn.

They're gone at last.

Dracula is truly dead, and Madam Meina is purified.

And so there is our story.

And as we watched Carfax fall to the flames, we realized that oh, none would believe, even now you do not believe.

But do you not still avoid the breaking of mis?

Do you not sit late at night?

Obey from the windows listening to oh T Ting in the night?

Would you spend the night alone in a graveyard, but frightens you most being alone in the darkness or fearing that you are not alone?

Be there tonight, my friend.

The shadows hide many things.

Lock.

Build your doors.

Be watchful even as you lie in the darkness of your bed tonight.

And listen in the shadow just beyond possibility, hiding, botching, lurks the vampire.

Ha ha ha.

- You have been listening to Dracula, presented by the award-Winning Arts Incorporated and broadcast live from the KTWU studios.

- Funding for Working Capital is provided by the friends of KTWU, the Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.

And Go Topeka.