There is a very important lesson to be learned from Van Halen; one of the most well-known rock bands in the last 50 years. Despite their fame, there is something about their shows that is less well known and the source of the lesson. One of the requirements to have them perform at a venue was that, along with their other requests, there needed to be a bowl of M&Ms backstage for them but there couldn’t be any brown ones. Their contracts were decently long so this one line could be easy to miss. The problem with the venue’s show coordinators missing this line? Van Halen would refuse to perform if they showed up and found brown M&Ms in that bowl. A hefty price to pay over something so trivial. Or is it a more important issue than it seems?
Most who heard about the infamous brown M&M rule attributed it to the ego of the band, assuming they had developed a self-important attitude that caused them to overreact to minor slights. The real cause was divulged later by David Lee Roth, the bands lead singer. It turns out, the brown M&M clause was a test to ensure that the event coordinators had a high level of attention to detail.
At the time, the band traveled with 9 semi-trucks full of gear and stage equipment. The weight of the equipment combined with the precision required to ensure it was all staged correctly was unfamiliar territory for many venues. Van Halen was also one of the only bands traveling with such an extensive setup. The band needed to know that the people leading the engineering of the stage had the attention to detail to do it correctly with zero mistakes. If they showed up and they saw brown M&Ms in the bowl it was clear that those in charge had not thoroughly read the band’s requirements and thus were likely to have serious issues with the setup of the equipment. For them, it could have been a matter of life and death. If any of the heavy equipment wasn’t secured properly, all or part of it could come crashing down during the show resulting in potential injury or death to the band, crew or audience. If the coordinators couldn’t get something as simple as not having brown M&Ms in the bowl, how could they have had the attention to detail necessary to set the stage correctly. There was no way of knowing, so instead of taking the risk the band would cancel gigs at the last minute.
The lesson here is that details, big or small, always matter. Those who pay attention and get them right all the time have an immediate advantage over those around them because so few people will do the same. Here at The Factory, we harp on the details A LOT. We care about getting them right A LOT. If we pay to have something printed and later find a typo, no matter how small or unnoticeable, we will immediately throw them away and order new ones. * We want it to be a part of who we are. It is so important that it is even one of our 10 Factory Directives for every person who works here. Never let yourself miss small details and think it doesn’t matter. It will come back to hurt you over the long run. Start being more present. Start being more observant. Start setting your own standards so high that you won’t allow yourself to settle for less than excellence. It will change your life. It will give you the best chance of becoming legendary, just like Van Halen.
*When we started the Factory Library, we ordered bookmarks to be used with the books. They were awesome. They looked slick and we paid good money to make sure they made an impact whenever anyone used them. We pulled the trigger on ordering them after multiple proofs with multiple people. It wasn’t until we received them that we noticed it… a typo. So small that at least 5 people had read them multiple times without noticing it. It didn’t matter that most people would never notice, it was there, and we couldn’t unsee it. They never went into circulation, and we paid to have new ones made with the typo fixed. We ended up keeping them as a keepsake instead of throwing them away. Now they are just a reminder of how much we care about the details.
