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), Miss Nevada (2014), and serves on the executive board of the Asian Community Development Council. Lisa was named a 2017 Top 10 Social Entrepreneur to Watch by Inc. Magazine and 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 work in a law firm when she was invited by a friend who’s 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 and helping to guide people.

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

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Transcription

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Intro 00:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, start ups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:26

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. I had a very special guest on the show today, Lisa Song Sutton, and she is an American Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, and a Published Author. Lisa is involved in numerous ventures and numerous brands and numerous businesses, and, 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 publish later on our CEO chat podcast. But, anyways, Lisa provided a tremendous amount of content, 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 Sutton.

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Lisa Song Sutton 01:17

Hi. Yes. I am.

Gresham Harkless 01:19

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I truly appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to speak with us, tell us a little little bit about you and your your CEO story and your background. The first thing that I wanted to do was just 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?

Lisa Song Sutton 01:37

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, I guess a more traditional route of either just jumping right into business, after high school or 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, she and I 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.

Gresham Harkless 02:52

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

Lisa Song Sutton 03:06

I was really lucky to work in a great firm that did business litigation, commercial real estate, wills and trusts, and business bankruptcy. And 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 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.

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 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 one of the best things I could have done for business.

Gresham Harkless 04:09

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it's funny. I don't feel like a lot of people talk a lot about that. But even though you don't wanna say that sometimes, but a lot of times, you learn by seeing sometimes some of the mistakes that people make so you can avoid them and try to figure out exactly what got them there so you can reverse-engineer yourself so that you know I don’t want to take those exact same and I don’t want to end up at the same place. I guess could you tell us a little bit more about Sin City Cupcakes and any other ventures that you might have going on?

Lisa Song Sutton 04:40

Sure. Well, certainly. You know, 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, anything in between, we get a chance to be part of that and we just enjoy that so much.

Then after we started Sin City Cupcakes, I just 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, no corporate tax. The state statutes are really strong and protective of business owners. 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.

Gresham Harkless 05:27

Awesome. Awesome. Did you find it wasn't something where you were like, okay. I wanna start ten different companies. It was you started out when you saw one opportunity and then it just you leveraged that and then you blossomed out to other different ventures.

Lisa Song Sutton 05:40

Yes. 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, 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. So that's how that got started.

Gresham Harkless 06:07

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

Lisa Song Sutton 06:24

Yes. Exactly. And that's really key. You wanna 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.

Gresham Harkless 06:34

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

Lisa Song Sutton 06:52

Yes. We're so excited about Ship Las Vegas. It's a mailbox rental pack and ship store based here in Las Vegas. You can find us at shiplasvegas.com. We literally just soft opened that this week. So it's been a whirlwind, but it's been so much fun.

Gresham Harkless 07:06

Congratulations.

Lisa Song Sutton 07:07

Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 07:10

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

Lisa Song Sutton 07:16

I think just the fact that I said, even with Sin City Cupcakes, 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, bachelorette party, special event, wedding, 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 Derek 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. So it's just wonderful that people associate our brand with enjoying themselves and having a great time with friends and family.

Gresham Harkless 08:02

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

Lisa Song Sutton 08:14

Yes. Exactly right. Because they're already coming, right? So I always tell people too, you 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 in the middle of some Midwest town, right?

Lisa Song Sutton 08:35

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.

Gresham Harkless 08:41

Right. 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 certain tourists that come here for a very specific reason, which is usually a site see all the museums and things like that. But when you're building a business and you're building it around that aspect of exactly why in the psychology of the people that are coming to where are you going can be far as successful.

Lisa Song Sutton 09:11

Absolutely, it’s important to identify different ways that you can help share knowledge and experience that you've encountered and that you've had to help others too.

Gresham Harkless 09:19

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 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 go through that thought process?

Lisa Song Sutton 09:44

I generally, the one of the first things I look for obviously is the amount of knowledge and experience they have in whatever given industry that it is. Certainly, it 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?

Then 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 gonna 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.

Gresham Harkless 10:31

Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Especially with how stressful running a business can be. They kinda understand how that person reacts to that certain stress because some people might not be able to take or they may not take it well, where others were able to blossom and build upon that stress and thrive during the stressful situations.

Lisa Song Sutton 10:49

Yes. Exactly. It's just just taking stock of right? Like, how do they handle stress? Are they someone who freezes and then kind of like spirals down into like this like 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? Like all those things, it's all yes. But for me, I found that when I encounter a difficult situation, the first thing that my brain does is reverse engineer it. You start looking at how did this happen and what can I do to fix it?

Gresham Harkless 11:23

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

Lisa Song Sutton 11:46

Correct. Exactly, right.

Gresham Harkless 11:48

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

Lisa Song Sutton 12:10

Oh, wow. One 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 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 gonna be able to like 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 one 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.

Gresham Harkless 13:07

Yeah. I mean, I definitely would agree with that. 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, like, how other people can complement what it is that you're doing, not necessarily threaten, but build so that you guys can reach a goal.

Lisa Song Sutton 13:37

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. Most importantly, I always just hear, like, it's not the right timing. But it's never gonna be perfect timing.

Gresham Harkless 14:00

Right. And it's never, it's never a good time to really start a business. But it's funny when I looked at a lot, I was doing some research. Like, I graduated during the economic crisis, which was interesting, but I read a lot 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 during what are quote, unquote bad times. So what I wanted to ask for you very specifically, what do you think that being a CEO means to you? How would you define that?

Lisa Song Sutton 14:35

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 one woman show. I have amazing partners. I have 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. Lead by example.

Gresham Harkless 15:08

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, you know, I truly appreciate you again for taking time out of your schedule, Lisa, and then giving us so many, great words of wisdom. What I wanted to do was just 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 wanna get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Lisa Song Sutton 15:27

Absolutely. Well, first, thank you so much for having me. I very much appreciate it and I just want to encourage everyone to 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 action. Right? And you can find me on my website at lisasongsutton.com and also on all the social channels, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter at lisasongsutton.

Gresham Harkless 15:54

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

Lisa Song Sutton 16:08

Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

Outro 16:10

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue Sixteen 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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