The Vision Of It All: An Interview with Sam Clark, CEO of Broadway Crew

CEO Samuel Clark lensed by Tiffany McCullough

Interview conducted by Colette March

Basically, at the beginning of this year, you’re the CEO of a company that’s still in its first five years. How do you set game plans year to year? Thinking ahead, especially in the familial way you run your business, what is your vision for 2023?

So, my whole motto - how I try to hire, how I try to coach people - is to always be doubling down and investing back in the business as much as I possibly can. At the end of every year, I sit down with everyone who works for me full-time, or in the office. As many of the Crew members as I can. We talk about where there were successes, where there were challenges, you know? What could we do better? What did we do amazingly? I also have another motto! One of failing forward. We’re not curing cancer here, let’s not get too emotional and in our heads about things. Let’s acknowledge we made a mistake and pull it up so we can really work out a strategy for doing better next time. Radical honesty, with each other and ourselves. I want us to keep pushing the envelope of what is possible, in our industry and in our line of work particularly.

We’ve done a really good job building up our business with Broadway. We started out just flyering for smaller, Off-Broadway productions at TKTS. We got some Broadway shows, then we thought - how do we make this TKTS program more sophisticated? Really utilize that space to continue to push what’s possible. 

Layering in demographics, okay what else can we get from those audience interactions? How much they wanna spend, where they’re from, how often they come to TKTS, etc. How do we structure the team in a way that is malleable enough that we can make changes in the moment? But also how can we stay rigid enough so that we can teach, repeat, and pass on to the following generations of our Crew?

So you’ve got a model for all of this.

This is the way I see it. If you think of a business as a tree, the trunk of our tree is my experience working in the predominantly Broadway space. The basis of that is, I think there’s a good business just working at TKTS. Then we look at the branches of that and see where else we can go. Hotel concierge! Okay! That is a product that we have tested, that has a good business plan behind it, we have very talented people, the clients love it and the feedback is good. The other branch…going around doing flyer drops. We used to riff on that until we got feedback that someone wanted a list of where we’ve been and we were like…of course! Then we keep those lists, it becomes repeatable, and we build connections with those places. Event staffing, specialty events, and thinking about how we can go further into the experiential side.

In looking at how much we’ve grown this past year, what are some new approaches you’re considering? 5 years down the line, 10 years down the line, how to you adjust to that exponential growth?

One of the things I think I’m good at is investing in people. So, I want to be able to invest enough in those who work for me, since they have a deeper connection to the products we sell than even I do. Cause I remember when I was just in my bedroom, thinking about these ideas. These guys have much more lived experience with it, so I really invest in my leadership staff. Whatever I can teach them this year, next year. Taking them on this trip, with this person. Doubling down on all of that to keep them engaged and excited. Part of that is, we go to conferences now. We’re going overseas in March. Big part of that is making connections in a different industry, but also exposing my leadership staff to the wider scope of things and finding what that sparks in their brains. Get everyone to think as big as possible! Even if it seems crazy, there’s never a bad idea.

How do you go about keeping the balance with all of that? Business needs versus Crew needs.

It’s the same, I think! I don’t think there’s that much of a differentiation between the needs of the staff and the business. One can’t exist without the other. If you try to keep them in silos, you’ll fail. Keeping my staff happy and warm and safe in the field, investing in whatever that might be. None of that is counter to running a business. Vice versa, me charging more or expecting more from an activation is not antithetical to how the Crew may feel.

Totally. Are there any challenges that come up with that regardless?

It’s not easy, I have many stressors. I have a therapist that helps, it really helps. When you’re in a position like mine, it can be very lonely. You spend 80% of your time thinking or talking about the business. Lots of pressures, but it also comes with lots of benefits as well. I genuinely enjoy people. And I genuinely love what we do. I also love the business of being in business. I like meeting potential clients and partners, talking about what’s possible.

The analogies!

*Laughs* yeah! And as we get more maturity in the business, it’s helping me divest as much as I can to give more ownership to people working in leadership. So I can work on the business, not in the business. And it doesn’t deprive them of the joy of being able to do things on their own. Every year, it’s a bet on everyone around me when it used to just be a bet on me. Sometimes that’s a difficult place to be. 

Absolutely. To close things up, I want to ask what your dream goal is for the next couple of years while Broadway Crew expands?

For the longest time, my goal was to live to see the next day or week. There were some hairy moments, particularly early on. But as we get more mature, more market penetration. A bit more key partners, long-lasting stronger relationships with clients, your timelines shift. Last year, I was thinking on a quarterly basis. Now, this year, I’m thinking six months at a time.

I think with our theater division. I have Tiffany and Justin in key positions, both doing really great work. I can let them thrive and run that side of the business. Now I can move over to my work with Lucy and keep expanding our national outreach. With brands and theater! Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, that was always the plan. It’s a clear spinoff, but a different skill set with different people. 

I’m really confident that this year is going to be a banner year for us. I want to see how far our branches can go! And then who knows?