IAM1319 – Real Estate Investor and Serial Entrepreneur Juggles Multiple Interests & Ventures

Lisa Song Sutton, J.D., is a real estate investor and entrepreneur, holding ownership interests in several companies in the real estate, tech, retail, and food & beverage industries, including Las Vegas' #1 alcohol-infused cupcake company: Sin City Cupcakes.

Lisa currently writes about entrepreneurship and business. Her work has been seen in Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, and other business publications. She is the youngest Asian-American affiliate owner of a Christie's International Real Estate brokerage. Lisa also sits on the executive boards for several companies including Gleaux Inc., formally BioGlow Tech, which has created the world’s first light-emitting plant, and Youngry, an entrepreneurship media company.

In addition to her professional career, Lisa is actively involved in her community as a former Miss Las Vegas (2013), and Miss Nevada (2014), and serves on the executive board of the Asian Community Development Council. Lisa was named one of the 2017 Top 10 Social Entrepreneurs to Watch by Inc. Magazine and was selected as a Las Vegas hub Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum.

This is an excerpt from a full CEO Chat episode.

• CEO Story: After college, Lisa worked in a law firm when she was invited by a friend who was making alcoholic cupcakes. And boom! They opened in 2012 and both have tremendous success with Sin City Cupcakes.
• Business Service: Supplying special occasions and events – parties, weddings, etc.
• Secret Sauce: Have a partner with enough knowledge and expertise in their industry and credibility.
• CEO Hack: Know your location and leverage relationships.
• CEO Nugget: Sense of confidence, there's never a good time.
• CEO Defined: A leader who helps to guide people.

Website: www.lisasongsutton.com
Facebook: LisaSongSutton
Twitter: lisasongsutton
Instagram: lisasongsutton
LinkedIn: lisasongsutton

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Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share precisely the information you're searching for. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:28 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I had a very special guest on the show today at Lisa Song Setting she is an American entrepreneur philanthropist and a published author Lisa is involved in numerous ventures and numerous brands and numerous businesses Specifically, she's known for Sin City Cupcakes. She's also involved in Ship Las Vegas. And finally, she was Miss Nevada 2014.

So this is gonna be a little bit of a different type of podcast because this is gonna be an excerpt from a longer interview that's going to be published later on our CEO Chat podcast. But anyway, Lisa provided a tremendous amount of content, a tremendous amount of information. So enjoy this excerpt from our CEO Chat podcast. And now it's going live on our I Am CEO podcast with Lisa Song-Setting. Are you ready?

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01:18 – Lisa Song Sutton

Hi, yes.

01:19 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I truly appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to kind of speak with us. Tell us a little bit about you and your CEO story and your background. The first thing that I wanted to do was just kind of ask you, could you introduce yourself to us? Tell us a little bit about you, your background, and what led you to start all the different ventures that you have.

01:36 – Lisa Song Sutton

Absolutely. So I have a bit of an unconventional background. I started out in the legal world and I pursued degrees in political science and in law. And so I didn't go, you know, I guess a more traditional route of either just jumping right into business after high school or, you know, studying entrepreneurship and business and marketing and all that stuff. I got a chance to really learn on the job. I modeled all during college and grad school. And so that was really the best hands-on way for me to learn about marketing and how to build a brand and represent a brand. And then fast forward, I moved to Las Vegas after graduation. I started working in a law firm and really enjoyed my job. I worked with really great, fantastic, smart people.

And on a whim,  one of my girlfriends and I, Danielle, who's my co-founder with Sin City Cupcakes, were chatting on the phone end of 2011, hey, what have you been up to? And she told me she'd been making these alcohol cupcakes. And I was like, that is such a good idea. If I can find a way to bake roll this, would you be willing to move from Florida to Las Vegas? And she was like, I don't know. And then she moved and she took a leap of faith and moved and we started the company in 2012 and it's just been a blessing ever since.

02:52 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. You can't see me, but I'm licking my chops right now thinking about the alcohol and cheese cupcakes. But that sounds amazing. So did you find that it was easy or difficult to kind of transition from being an attorney to, you know, having and starting these ventures?

03:06 – Lisa Song Sutton

I was really lucky to work in a great firm that did business litigation, commercial real estate, wills and trusts, and business bankruptcy. During that time here in Nevada from 2010 through 2013, which is when I was with the firm, that was a time that those industries, those areas of law were booming, specifically business litigation and business bankruptcy because it was ending up the recession, it was the back end of the recession. So it was a great place for me to basically build a do-not-do list, right? Because you had so many really smart clients walking through the door. And you know, when do you go to a law firm? It's because something's wrong, right?

There's an issue that has to be fixed or addressed. And I discovered we had these really smart, capable people walking through the door. And I was just like, how did they get here? And that's also when I realized business bankruptcy is a tool. It's a business tactic that's utilized as well. Just going through that experience, being kind of on the other side of the table of learning from them was 1 of the best things I could have done for business.

04:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And you know, it's funny, I don't feel like a lot of people talk a lot about that, but even though, you know, you don't want to say that sometimes, but a lot of times you learn by seeing sometimes some of the mistakes that people make so you can kind of avoid them and try to figure out exactly you know what got them there so you can kind of reverse engineer yourself so that you know I don't want to take those exact same steps so I don't end up in the same place.

04:31 – Lisa Song Sutton

Exactly right.

04:33 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I guess could you tell us a little bit more about Sin City Cupcakes and any other ventures that you might have going on?

04:40 – Lisa Song Sutton

Sure, well certainly with the cupcakes, like I said, we started in 2012 and it's just been such a blessing to see it grow and have people enjoy our product. We get a chance to be part of people's special occasions and events, so whether it's birthday parties, bachelorette parties, special events, weddings, or anything in between, we get a chance and we just enjoy that after we start Sin City kind of got bit by the bug and realized there's just so much business opportunity here in Nevada, here in Las Vegas. This is such a great place for business.

We have no state income tax and no corporate tax. The state statutes are really strong and protective of business owners. And so it was just a no-brainer for me to go ahead and realize that I could partner up with other strong individuals and strong operational partners and start more companies.

05:27 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. And did you find, so it wasn't something where you were like, okay, I wanna start 10 different companies? It was, you started out when you saw 1 opportunity and then it just kind of, you leveraged that and then you blossomed out to other different ventures.

05:40 – Lisa Song Sutton

Yes. You know, so with the real estate, even for example, that was just simply realizing that we would have some law clients that would have real estate needs. And we were just referring that business out. And then I realized, you know, why do I have to refer it out? Maybe there's a way that I could take this on myself, but also partner up with people who are full-time realtors, full-time in the industry, and then we could build a business from there. And so that's how that got started.

06:07 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. You seem like you've done a really great job at being able to identify partnerships or people that you can both kind of have like a win-win situation and you could both win and kind of build upon each other's probably strengths and weaknesses so that you guys can both reach success.

06:24 – Lisa Song Sutton

Yes, exactly. And that's really key. You want to surround yourself with people who have more experience in whatever respective business that you're going into and also just have more knowledge than you.

06:34 – Gresham Harkless

Right. Right. That makes perfect sense. So I know you have, you know, different things that you work on, but could you, I guess, kind of maybe take us through, like, I guess an average way that you kind of help out your clients from maybe beginning to end. And it could be, you know, the Sin City cupcakes or it might be the ship Las Vegas that I know you're just launching as well.

06:51 – Lisa Song Sutton

Yes, I was so excited about ship Las Vegas. It's a mailbox rental package ship store based here in Las Vegas. You can find this at shiplasvegas.com. And yeah, we literally just softened that this week. So it's just, it's been a whirlwind, but it's been so much.

07:06 – Gresham Harkless

fun. Congratulations.

07:07 – Lisa Song Sutton

Thank you.

07:10 -Gresham Harkless

So I guess what would have been some of the years, your biggest successes, and some of your big wins as well too that you're most proud of?

07:16 – Lisa Song Sutton

I think just the fact that you know, like I said, even with Sun City Cupcakes, you know, luckily the feedback that we hear is that we've become a little bit of a household name and people associate us with their good time that they have in Vegas. So when they're traveling to Vegas, they're coming for some sort of occasion, right? It's someone's birthday party, bachelor party, special event, wedding, or even a spur-of-the-moment trip. That's a reason that people are coming to Vegas. And we're just so lucky that we get to be part of their special occasion.

So for example, even this week, we're catering for the Derrick Jeter Golf Tournament up at Shadow Creek, which is Steve Wynn's private golf course. They've been a client of ours for years. And prior to that, when it was Michael Jordan's tournament, that's how we got started with them. And so it's just wonderful that people associate our brand with enjoying themselves and having a great time with friends and family.

08:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, And then it seems like the perfect state in place to kind of do that too, to kind of launch something like that where a lot of people go there, like you mentioned, you know, where they're celebrating something or they're going there to kind of have a good time and you're just kind of building upon that.

08:14 – Lisa Song Sutton

Yes, Exactly right. Because they're already coming, right? So I always tell people too, you know, if you're thinking about any sort of product or service that caters to tourists in any way, think about launching it in Las Vegas, because this is your perfect test market, right? People are already coming here. It's not like we started Sin City Cupcakes, you know, in the middle of some Midwest town, right? We don't have to convince you to come to Vegas because you're already coming. All we have to do is get our product in front of you. Right. And it's funny, a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners don't think about things like that, But I'm on the other side.

I'm in the Washington, DC area. But it's funny because you get a lot of tourists that come here for a very specific reason, which is usually sightseeing, seeing all the museums and things like that. But when you're building a business and you build it in and around that aspect you know exactly why in the psychology of the people that are coming to where you're going. It can, you know, be.

09:06 – Gresham Harkless

A leg up as far as being successful.

09:08 – Lisa Song Sutton

Absolutely. And I think it's important to really identify different ways that you can help share knowledge and experience that you've encountered and that you've had to help others too.

09:19 – Gresham Harkless

That makes perfect sense. That makes perfect sense. Now, I know you mentioned, obviously, you've been very big on being able to identify people that have been, really great partners and people that you wanna collaborate with. What have been, and who are some of the good partners that you're looking for, and what have been kind of some of the maybe characteristics or things that you look for to say, hey, that person would be a good partner? How do you got to go through that, that thought process?

09:44 – Lisa Song Sutton

Generally, 1 of the first things I look for obviously is the amount of knowledge and experience they have in whatever given industry that it is. It certainly has to be more than me. And then I also look at industry and kind of city reputation as well. Is this someone who's respected within the community? Is this someone who is highly sought after to work together and collaborate within the community? And then, you know, certainly the most important thing, of course, is whether this is someone that you personally want to work with, right?

Is this someone who you deem subjectively, obviously, as a good person, someone who puts family first and is going to be a hard worker and is willing to bring that work ethic to the table and will be able to handle the types of stress that come in with owning and running a business because anything can happen?

10:31 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, especially without stressful, you know, running a business can be to kind of understand, you know, how that person reacts to that certain stress. Some people might not be able to take it or they may not take it well whereas others were able to kind of blossom and kind of, you know, build upon that stress and thrive in the stressful situations.

10:48 – Lisa Song Sutton

Yes, exactly. It's just taking stock of, right, how do they handle stress? Are they someone who freezes and then spirals down into this negative energy, like, oh, everything's going wrong and then there's no action plan to fix it? For me, when I encounter difficult situations, of course, like does it make me nervous? Does it give me anxiety? Of course, like all those things, you know, it's all yes. But for me, I found that when I encounter a difficult situation, the first thing that my brain does is kind of reverse engineer it, right? And you start looking at, OK, like, how did this happen and what can I do to fix it?

11:23 – Gresham Harkless

Right. And that makes sense. And do you find like I find like that's definitely 1 of those, I guess, CEO or entrepreneurial type of traits where I guess generally speaking, you know, most CEOs and entrepreneurs, because you deal with maybe so much stress that you're able to kind of say that, OK, well, I don't have time to really wallow in self-pity or cry over spilled milk, so to speak. I have to figure out how to solve this problem.

11:46 – Lisa Song Sutton

Correct. Exactly

11:47 – Gresham Harkless

Right. Now, another thing that we kind of asked is kind of like a CEO kind of golden nugget, so to speak. And I know that you've, anybody who might be following you on social media might see that you're always providing kind of tips and information on how to be a better entrepreneur and business owner. So I guess could you give us maybe, you know, 3 or 4 maybe things that you have seen that you feel are your kind of keys to be successful?

12:11 -Lisa Song Sutton

Oh, wow. 1 of the main things that I see among other successful entrepreneurs is that they have this really wonderful, innate sense of confidence and they wholeheartedly 100% believe in whatever it is that they're working on. It's, it's wonderful to see because through that, like self-love and self-exploration comes self-growth. And really that's the only way that we're going to be able to grow in our businesses too, is by advancing and growing ourselves as individuals.

So having that sense of self-confidence and just really believing that you have the capabilities to not only get the job done, but you also have the capabilities to seek out the information that you're gonna need, right? Like not all of us know 100% of everything, and you don't know what you don't know, right? So we all possess the ability to seek out information and learn about what it is that we don't know. And so I think having that confidence and knowing that about yourself is the most important thing you can have.

13:07 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I mean, I definitely would agree with that. You know, it makes sense, especially because if you're kind of like a voracious, curious person, so to speak, a voracious reader and a curious person, you're always gonna be looking for more and more information, but in order to have the confidence in that, you too also know what lane that you stay in, what your strengths are, and maybe how to, like you've mentioned, and you've been able to do very, very well is understand how other people can kinda compliment what it is that you're doing, not necessarily threaten but build so that you guys can reach a goal.

13:36 – Lisa Song Sutton

Exactly right. I mean, and without that, I think it's really hard because that's part of why people don't take on this new venture or start a business or whatever it is because there's always an excuse, right? There's always, it's not enough, it's not a good time. I don't have enough money. I don't have the right people. You know, most importantly, I always just hear like, it's not the right timing. It's not the right timing, but it's never going to be perfect timing.

14:00 – Gresham Harkless

Right. And it's never, yeah, it's never a good time to really start a business. But it's funny when I looked at a lot of them, I was doing some research as I graduated during the economic crisis, which was interesting, but I read a lot, you know, financially and I saw that it was funny enough, a lot of the most successful Fortune 500 companies were actually started during an economic crisis. So it's funny that a lot of people say it's not the right time, but often some of the most successful businesses or people actually started what are quote-unquote bad times. So what I wanted to ask for you very specifically is, what do you think being a CEO means to you? How would you define that?

14:35 – Lisa Song Sutton

For me, being a CEO means that you're a leader and that you are helping lead and guide a team of people because it can't be done with just me. I'm definitely not a 1 woman show. I have amazing partners. I have an amazing operational staff that works hand in hand with me. And I absolutely would not be where I am today without all those other individuals. Collectively, we make a team. So if someone has a role that includes cleaning up, you have to be willing to do that if it's necessary and just lead by example.

15:08 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I truly appreciate you again for taking time out of your schedule, Lisa, and giving us so many great words of wisdom. What I wanted to do was just kind of ask you if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then on the second part is if people want to get a hold of you what's the best way for them to do that?

15:27 – Lisa Song Sutton

Absolutely. Well first thank you so much for having me. I very much appreciate it and yeah I just want to encourage everyone to, you know, just give it a try. Just do it and you'll be shocked at the outcome because that's the very, very first step in anything is, is action, right? You can find me on my website at lisasongsenton.com and also on all the social channels, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, at lisasongsutton.

15:54 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you again, Lisa. And we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes just in case anybody wants to click through and follow you or see all the great things that you're doing. But again, you know, appreciate you. Appreciate all the great things you're doing.

16:08 – Lisa Song Sutton

Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

16:10 – Intro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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