"Grit! No matter what, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how bleak, you just have to put your head down and continue"
Since the age of ten, when he walked into a magic shop, Edwin Rojas has made entertainment his career. A graduate from Florida International University in Business/Marketing, and a South Florida native, Edwin started working “at sea” during college as a guest entertainer for Norwegian Cruise Line. In the ’90s, he was a Cruise Director for Holland America Line culminating with the 1998 World Cruise on the new flagship, m.s. Rotterdam.
In 2001, he joined Celebrity Cruises as Cruise Director and ended up in the corporate office managing the fleet’s Cruise Directors, and finally booking the talent. His Marketing Degree was finally put to good use in the corporate environment. Edwin’s creativity has helped numerous clients with projects, names for products, and the general understanding of the cruise industry. Rojas Talent Group and Edwin have produced shows for numerous casinos, theatres, hotels and resorts, cruise lines, and many top corporations. Besides producing shows, he also manages several entertainers and consults with major entertainment projects and venues.
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Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Edwin Rojas: I was a shy kid growing up in Miami. My mom bought me some magic tricks at a local magic shop, and the rest, as they say, is history. Performing the tricks for friends and family and neighborhood kids, I realized I had the talent to make people happy, and I loved it. Also, it broke me out of being shy, which was the ultimate goal my mother had. It led me to this career of putting smiles on people’s faces and making the world just a bit happier. At first, I was a comedy magician — a performer.
Then I was a presenter of shows as a cruise director for several major cruise lines for 20+ years. Then I was a buyer of shows as entertainment manager for Celebrity Cruises, and now I am a seller of shows as an agent/producer. Those are four chairs of the entertainment industry: performer, presenter, buyer, and seller.
Was there somebody in your life that inspired you to take that specific journey with your business?
Edwin Rojas: I wouldn’t say it was a particular person, but I have always loved business since I was a child. I have read BusinessWeek religiously since I was in middle school. As I became a performer — a comedy magician — I really liked getting the booking (the business side) almost more than the performance of the show. It is the business of the show. As I got older, there were many people I looked up to and read about, e.g., Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, etc.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons you learned from that?
Edwin Rojas: Oh, it’s funny now but a bit stressful when it happened. As stated, I have been in the cruise line entertainment industry for decades, and in fact, I was a cruise director for 20+ years and ended my career in the corporate office booking all the entertainers for nine ships: nine theatres. Anyway, for Rojas Talent Group half of our revenue is supplying comedians and tribute bands to the cruise industry. For one certain cruise line, the agent (me) has to physically request the air arrangements for the entertainer to get to the ship, and to go home. I had an entertainer who was supposed to join the ship in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. In my haste and my big mistake, I made the air arrangements for Punta Arenas, Chile.
The ship was scrambling to find him, and he was 4,400 miles away. He eventually — two days later — made the vessel and we had a laugh, but it came at a monetary cost and time, and he only did one show as opposed to two. The lesson: Details make perfection, as Leonardo Da Vinci said. Second guess yourself all the time and double check. I guess it’s like a carpenter, measure twice and cut once.
Resilience is critical in critical times like the ones we are going through now. How would you define resilience?
Edwin Rojas: Grit! No matter what, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how bleak, you just have to put your head down and continue. Most business leaders have people depending on you, whether it is your family, your employees, your stake/equity holders, whoever it is — they depend on you. If you are a leader and entrepreneur, you don’t take this lightly. During this pandemic, we have all pivoted. We are still pivoting and trying to figure out the new landscape in order to succeed and continue on our paths.
What is most important to your organization—mission, vision, or values?
Edwin Rojas: I would say it is both “mission” and “values.” Our mission is to bring smiles to people’s faces. We do that by entertaining them, and we help in booking terrific celebrities and entertainers who bring a bit of joy to their audiences’ faces. Then values are very important to us — actually immensely important. We are totally transparent to both our clients and to the talent we represent. We respect the people we deal with on a daily basis, and we want to continue to work with them for the next five to ten years. We don’t just want one deal and done.
We want to nurture and continue the business relationship, and you can only do that when you respect the party on the opposite side of the table. We firmly believe that everyone sitting at the table has to win. I do not believe in ‘winner takes all’, which is such an industrial age concept. Everyone has to win, and that can easily be done. Again, the goal is to continue working with everyone for decades.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
Edwin Rojas: Honesty, hard work, and empathy.
I am honest to a fault. Some people love me for it, some don’t, but that is OK. I may sugarcoat the truth to not get someone’s feelings hurt, but I tell the truth. My maternal side were all Quakers from Cuba, and that is just instilled in me. Yeah, Cuban Quakers…you can thank missionaries after the Spanish American War.
Being first generation born in the United States to Cuban parents, it is normal to work hard, as you have to break out from the pack, you have to live up to your family’s goals for you — for your education and career. We were always taught to do everything we wanted to do with the right mindset; to do it to the best of our ability, or not do it at all. Half-assed was not tolerated in our family — we went for it 100%. I think in the arts, especially, it is all about empathy.
If you are an author or a film director, you have to get your story across, and the only way to do that is to put yourself in another person’s shoes — your audience’s shoes. It’s all empathy. When you entertain people, you have to be your audience. Same thing, you have to be empathetic. The more you travel, and I’ve been to over 100 countries in the world, you realize we are all the same — we want to work hard and support our family. It doesn’t matter who you pray to or your living circumstances; we are all the same.
What have you learned about personal branding that you wish you had known earlier in your career?
Edwin Rojas: I am by nature not braggadocious. Maybe it was my upbringing, and maybe it is just in my DNA, but you have to “toot your own horn” to cut through the clutter and the competition. I thought, when I started, I could be a very hard worker, do a great job at a fair and decent price, and people would knock down my door. Well, it really doesn’t work that way. You have to put it out there, and you have to show the world what you’re doing on a constant basis. Whether it is social media, blast emails, constant telephone calls and texts, whatever it takes, but you have to stay relevant in people’s minds.
How would you define “leadership”?
Edwin Rojas: To be an example for your employees, business associates, and clients. You must lead by example. You must make the tough decisions but for the common good of your people and for the welfare of the business. A very good piece of advice I received a long time ago was, “If everyone loves you, you are doing something wrong.” Again, it goes back to making tough decisions. When I moved to Las Vegas in 2014, I was in a hotel ballroom at an event, and one of the sound guys came up to me and said, “Edwin, hi. You don’t remember me, but I used to work for you on Holland America Line. I just want you to know that we all really liked working for you. You were tough, but man, you were fair.” You can’t beat that.
Do you think entrepreneurship is something that you’re born with or something that you can learn along the way?
Edwin Rojas: I think it is in the DNA of an entrepreneur to be a “risk-taker.” Actually, risk is in the definition of entrepreneur. That is a trait you are either born with or don’t have. You can’t make someone a risk-taker who inherently is not. Along the way, you can learn to be a better business person, but these people work for large corporations or entrepreneurs. They cannot handle risk nor want it. A perfect case in point is my sister. My dad was an entrepreneur, I have the gene, but my sister is not a risk-taker.
What’s your favorite “life lesson” quote and how has it affected your life?
Edwin Rojas: “Do what you do best and farm out the rest.” Do the best you can do at everything you do. If you don’t like doing it or are not good at doing it, hire someone who has passion and is the best at that certain thing.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Edwin Rojas for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Edwin Rojas or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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