Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Fiore.
Hi Michael, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up with a passion for the arts. It was always creative for me. Starting with music—I spent the better part of my life being a musician, playing lots of instruments. I’ve been the lead singer, bassist, drummer, etc… I was in a rock band in the late 80’s called Asylum Suite that was oh-so-close to making it . We had Hollywood down and were very close to moving on when grunge music took over. Asylum Suite was connected to Van Halen because our guitarist’s brother was Michael Anthony, the famous Van Halen Bassist. We were always surrounded by famous rock stars and like I said, very close to becoming a hit, until grunge music took over.
I continued to play music and landed a bass gig with a National Touring act, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, who had major hits in the 60’s. I toured all over the world with bands like Tina Turner, Three Dog Night, The Turtles, The Mamas and The Papas, to name a few. I did that for ten years. It was in the third year that the drummer and I started our own business. We recognized that many of the acts we toured with did not make their own merchandise, so we started a small company called Juslor Records, (named after our sons Justin and Taylor) and my introduction into entrepreneurship began.
I loved it. I became extremely passionate about owning a business. I knew I would always be a musician, I still am actually, as is most of my family. My wife @everythingshayna has two records, my oldest son, @whostaylor, has many records, and even my 10 year old son has the music bug. It will always be like riding a bike, but I also knew creating advertising, marketing, and directing videos/films/commercials was going to be my career path.
So in the late 90’s I stopped touring and started my first agency where I met my current business partner Stephen Chavez. We created four agencies together and Anyone™ Collective is the one we have now—we live and breathe this place. Our other agencies had many partners, different configurations. One day Stephen said to me, “We forgot… We forgot why we got into this business and that was to create things that turn people on.” So, in 2010 Anyone™ Collective was born.
We started our business at a dinner table where we created three rules, our mantra that we live by today. Rule #1: Do What you love. Rule #2: Work with great people. Rule #3: Follow the creative and do not chase the money. The money will become a byproduct of the work you do. So with our rules laid out, we stopped chasing money and started focusing on great work and a world of opportunity opened for us. We now have a thriving agency.
In the last couple of years, we have managed to survive a global pandemic without letting people go, we worked hard to acclimate to a new way of doing business while this pandemic took the world by storm. We managed to win a slew of awards, including an Emmy in 2020 for a documentary we released called Breathe, Nolan, Breathe . It’s about Nolan Burch, who died from being hazed at West Virginia University. We backed up the documentary with an entire campaign to help put a stop to hazing.
From 2019-2020, we also won many other awards for the documentary, the campaign, and our other major projects: we got the Emmy Award, AVA Awards, Telly Awards, Webby Awards, DOTCOMM Awards, ACI awards. At this point, we were beyond grateful for what we had accomplished. Not only did we sustain our business, we did great work, passionate work, and the things we always dreamed of.
Anyone™ Collective is everything to us and we truly love what we do. We love our team and the work we produce. You can check our work out at www.weareanyone.com. Beyond work, I have a beautiful wife who is a mommy and a musician, (www.
So it’s about passion, family, loving what we do, and being good people.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The Pandemic was absolutely a challenge, but we made it through by following guidelines and being good, caring people. Partnerships were hard until Stephen and I came together to build this business. We are now focusing on creating new partnerships with brands. So rather than just being an agency for clients, we are focused on creating partnerships. I am very happy to say we have our first real partnership with Fender.
We created a company with a Fender Licensee and started a side company called Riff Sound Works. This has made us equity partners in the launching of Fender Audio products for the next eight years, at least. We are looking to build more relationships like that. We are a full-service agency, and that at times is a challenge. But we manage and we do not take on work we can’t handle. I handle most of the directing—commercials, music videos, docs, etc… And Stephen is, in my opinion, the world’s best designer and an amazing strategist. We are surrounded by an incredible team and that is our foundation we are beyond grateful for.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Our agency is focused on partnerships, mostly in the consumer brand and travel space. We set ourselves apart because we look at every opportunity. We don’t focus on money first. We choose brands that turn us on; that we would be proud to use ourselves and we go full force. We LOVE what we do and follow our rules.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
There’ve been many over the years but a few that stand out are Olgilvy on Advertising, A film called ART & COPY, and Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk about “The WHY,” to name a few.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.weareanyone.com
- Instagram: @weareanyone
- Facebook: Anyone Collective LLC
- Twitter: @weareanyone
- Youtube: @weareanyone
Image Credits:
All images created by Anyone™ Collective LLC Anyone Collective LLC Anyone Collective LLC Anyone Collective LLC Anyone Collective LLC
