Sip Happens: Rich's Journey from Manufacturing to Winery Success
Rich from Hickory Vines Winery and Venue joins us to spill the beans on how he’s been crushing it in the business world, especially with the help of TMS+. Right off the bat, he shares how marketing has been a game changer for his winery, helping him connect with the community and book events like nobody’s business. We dive into the nitty-gritty of his journey, from being a blue-collar guy to running a thriving venue where people can relax and celebrate life’s big moments. Rich’s perspective on providing value over profit is refreshing, as he emphasizes the importance of creating memorable experiences for his guests, rather than just focusing on the bottom line. With tales of expansion, community engagement, and a sprinkle of humor, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration for anyone looking to make their mark in the world of hospitality and beyond.
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Transcript
Right where you are.
Speaker B:You're sitting in an electrical matrix of.
Speaker A:Energy beyond belief or most human conception.
Speaker A:You'll be surprised to know how much knowledge and communication can be carried on its way.
Speaker B:All right, here we are, ready to do a next episode.
Speaker B:I'm not allowed to say the number because we don't know what order to do these in.
Speaker B:And Reagan, what's this thing called again?
Speaker B:Making sense of something.
Speaker B:Navigating digital and print.
Speaker B:Print market.
Speaker B:There we go.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:See, can you remember all that?
Speaker A:That is high speed Navigating print in digital marketing.
Speaker B:Digital and print.
Speaker B:Digital, that's almost as long as Hickory Vines Winery and venue.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker A:That's a big name.
Speaker B:So Hickory Vines Winery, that's what we got rich here from Hickory Vines Winery.
Speaker B:An awesome new.
Speaker B:How long you been open now?
Speaker A:We've been open 10 months now.
Speaker A:10 months?
Speaker B:That's crazy.
Speaker B:It seems like you've been open two years or something.
Speaker A:It does.
Speaker A:We've, we've been very, very fortunate with the outpour from the community.
Speaker A:This year has flown by.
Speaker A:We've gotten so much done, but it feels like so much longer as well because of so much that has happened there.
Speaker B:Yeah, and aren't you guys, like, booked out till, like, you do rental stuff, right, that's booked in next year or something?
Speaker A:Yeah, we've already, we've already been taking bookings into next year, both for the winery and the new venue that we're.
Speaker A:We're building.
Speaker A:That's something that we're grateful for is I get a chance to talk to a lot of people that come in.
Speaker A:And this year, especially this month in October, we finalized a lot of the weddings, you know, over the past two to three months where people had basically signed up before they actually seen everything that was going to be in place a year prior.
Speaker A:So fast forward to where we're at today.
Speaker A:We have people that are coming in and I'm standing them in the middle of a concrete slab, you know, that's almost 10,000 square feet.
Speaker A:And explaining what's going to be happening in November and December with this new building that's being installed, et cetera.
Speaker A:And people are like, sign me up, I'll go ahead.
Speaker A:So they're already, they're already renting it with the down payments and all that kind of stuff like that, to be able to get in for 20, 25 because the pricing is super cheap.
Speaker A:I mean, compared to, you know, competitors and stuff like that, it's super cheap.
Speaker A:They're getting a big bang for the buck.
Speaker A:I mean, it's funny because most recently, I read a book called Go Giver, then Go Getter.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And part of it, it talked about the value you create and give.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Don't worry about what you get in return.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Because it will.
Speaker A:It will come back to you tenfold.
Speaker A:And then somebody else had asked a question, you know, why don't you pay more?
Speaker A:And I do have a firm belief that I'd rather be busy every single weekend of the season with people renting it out and experience it enjoying the huge property.
Speaker A:Now, that's over 30 acres.
Speaker A:We started originally with just.
Speaker A:Just about 10.
Speaker A:Now with the new property we bought this year, it's over 30.
Speaker A:I'd rather be busy and make a smaller amount, then basically work one weekend out of each month, have some massive event, you know, massive revenue come in, and then just sit around and look at it the other three weeks.
Speaker A:I want people to enjoy it.
Speaker A:I want to be their place to be.
Speaker A:And people get that sense when they come there.
Speaker A:They see that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That is their place.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:It's funny because it's.
Speaker A:It's your place when it's a very small, singular type of entity, but as it starts to grow, as much as you're responsible for it, you no longer own it.
Speaker A:Everybody else around you, that.
Speaker B:With their ideas, their memories, all these stakeholders.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:I mean, especially, you know, our.
Speaker A:The people that live around us are neighbors and.
Speaker B:Well, I was gonna.
Speaker B:It's funny you said that I was gonna bring this up, because, by the way, this is our second podcast shoot, so.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:But Reagan screwed up the first one so bad, we've got to do another one now.
Speaker B:That's why he's hiding behind the curtain.
Speaker B:Oh, Tommy's fault.
Speaker B:Yeah, Tommy's fault.
Speaker A:It's never.
Speaker B:Never my fault.
Speaker B:Or riches, of course.
Speaker B:But didn't you say that.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:Yeah, the neighbors.
Speaker B:Partly how you picked up this additional 20 acres was they started to believe in what you.
Speaker B:They were seeing, what you were doing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And then kind of.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Tell us a little bit about.
Speaker B:Because that was cool.
Speaker A:That's a great story.
Speaker A:The Beer family is an amazing family.
Speaker A:I mean, they had been there forever, the Darlin family.
Speaker A:I mean, just some amazing families and people when you get a chance to meet them.
Speaker A:But we were very fortunate that the property behind us that was actually touching, our original property was owned by one of the beers, and Mr.
Speaker A:Beer, you know, basically was selling it.
Speaker A:I heard from some local individuals.
Speaker A:Hey, would you be interested.
Speaker A:You know, how come you didn't.
Speaker A:You Know, like, whoa, what are you talking about?
Speaker A:I had no idea.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And within a very short period of time, within like a week or two weeks, was able to work with Mr.
Speaker A:Beer, and, you know, we worked something out which was great, and be able.
Speaker A:I was able to acquire that property.
Speaker A:The boys continued to farm and do some stuff until about July.
Speaker A:And then from July up till now, you know, we've done a lot of stuff.
Speaker A:We've put in campsites and orchard.
Speaker A:We've got a second vineyard trellis in there.
Speaker A:We've got the new pad for the building.
Speaker A:We've got the, you know, the gravel road that goes all the way to the back of the property now.
Speaker A:So, yeah, we've been very lucky that it's expanded a vision that was always, always seen, but not really known how to get there.
Speaker A:And I'm a real big person on, you know, manifestations and all that other stuff like that, that if you see it, you can achieve it and all those kind of things.
Speaker A:And, you know, I had this vision that I wanted something to be very great and at the same time, very approachable for the community.
Speaker A:I've been the wineries my whole life.
Speaker A:I remember, God, when I was in my 20s, going out to Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley.
Speaker A:Not by choice.
Speaker A:It was for work.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then people that I was with wanted to go to those things.
Speaker A:And, you know, I'm a New Yorker.
Speaker A:You know, I'm a kid that grew up in the projects in New York.
Speaker A:Never had a lot of land or anything like that.
Speaker A:And to be able to see it kind of manifest today, as I went through all those wineries from the young age, and then as I grew up and got older, I didn't feel like I belonged.
Speaker A:And I'm like, wait a second here.
Speaker A:You know, you work hard every day.
Speaker A:You know, you're a blue collar guy.
Speaker A:I've been in, you know, manufacturing my whole life, 27 years, other than the Marine Corps.
Speaker A:So I feel like I've been a roughneck my whole life, so to speak, through the rough things of the projects in New York.
Speaker B:You could tell by your arms.
Speaker B:Your arms look rough.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:The Marine Corps.
Speaker A:And then, you know, you go into manufacturing that.
Speaker A:It was just fitting that this be a blue collar type of place, you know, and it doesn't mean that that white collar is not there either, because really, white collar is blue collar, too.
Speaker A:Everybody's working so hard at everything they do.
Speaker A:There's very few of us that can sit back and just put our feet up.
Speaker A:So I wanted to be that place where people came in, they could relax.
Speaker A:They didn't have to worry about drama.
Speaker A:They didn't have to worry about anything other than having a good time and getting that service that you're looking for.
Speaker A:One of the things that I thought was interesting, we went to Columbus to.
Speaker A:It was our first year last year, going to the Ohio, you know, wine, you know, conference thing.
Speaker A:And we're still new to that.
Speaker A:We're still learning a lot.
Speaker A:Learning a lot.
Speaker A:There was one lady that had.
Speaker B:There's some snooty other viner, vine, repeat, or what do they call them?
Speaker B:Wineries.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:To be honest with you, they're amazing people.
Speaker B:Really.
Speaker A:Oh, my God, Forget about it.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker B:So the person.
Speaker B:Because you would.
Speaker A:I would.
Speaker B:You'd have some snooty wine tape.
Speaker B:You take picture of the person, you know, tasting wine, and that's what I think.
Speaker B:So Cool, right?
Speaker B:Because I would.
Speaker B:I wouldn't know the different.
Speaker B:You know, I see those things on TV where the people are sipping it and they're telling.
Speaker B:I'm like, I.
Speaker B:I would feel out of place.
Speaker B:But here you're saying, no, they're cool.
Speaker B:They're late.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:They're.
Speaker A:They're.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's funny because, you know, unless you experience it, you know, and you're on the outside, the community, the winery community, and we're very, very new.
Speaker A:I call Everybody else the OGs of the wineries, the OGs of the vineyards, because they know so much, and they haven't held anything back from Sonia and myself.
Speaker A:My wife does an awful lot there as well, making the wines and things.
Speaker A:So we go to this conference, and I'm listening to these people on day one for all these new, you know, the newbies, if you want.
Speaker B:That's us.
Speaker A:And they mentioned the things that you had to be concerned with.
Speaker A:But there was one girl in particular that said something because it wasn't related to manufacturing and production and financials and stuff, and all those things that I've pretty much mastered.
Speaker A:I still work on my people skills, you know, and some people tell you, if they know me, know me, there's one side, and if they know me in a different environment, that's.
Speaker A:There's a whole nother side of me, so I'm still learning about people.
Speaker A:And she said this.
Speaker A:She goes, you.
Speaker A:Hi.
Speaker A:When you come across somebody that, you know works for you, as you expand and you want to get bigger so more people can be involved, you have a.
Speaker A:Like, it's a 10, 80, 10 rule.
Speaker A:And there's 10% of the people you immediately bring in with you.
Speaker A:You see them, they got the great heart, everything.
Speaker A:They're just perfect at it.
Speaker A:You bring them in, don't ask any question.
Speaker A:Then there's 10% you don't even touch, you don't even bring in.
Speaker A:Everybody knows that.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And then there's 80%.
Speaker A:And they say, well, when you begin to expand, you have to use a lot of that 80%, because those top 10, very, very difficult to come by.
Speaker A:So what you do is you train or you bring in for nice, you hire for nice, and you train everything else.
Speaker A:And that's an expertise of mine.
Speaker A:Training people, organizing systems.
Speaker A:That's my expertise.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the girls that we have there now today are amazing.
Speaker A:Now, a lot of them we know, we've known for, for some time, you know, as family members, and even some of the people that come and sing there as entertainment, we know them in their families as well.
Speaker A:So it's very nice that we've had a Do.
Speaker B:A.
Speaker B:Do you ever have somebody that, like, they came and they didn't sing sound that good, that you were his family and you had to be like, oh.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no.
Speaker A:I'm telling you, we have been very, very lucky.
Speaker A:And I'm not just saying that.
Speaker A:That's not that false, because, I mean, I could tell you a whole bunch of bad stories about other stuff, too, though.
Speaker B:Okay, we got to get some of those in.
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll get some of those.
Speaker A:No, but we.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:We've been very, very lucky, even from a guest standpoint.
Speaker A:You know, we've had, like, one or two situations in the year, and even then, they weren't that bad.
Speaker A:It's just something that when you're seeing all of this overwhelming, you know, goodness, and, you know, things are kind of working out here and there.
Speaker A:It's not to say we didn't have problem.
Speaker A:It's problems.
Speaker A:It's not to say that we don't have things that we've got to work through.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:It's not that big of a deal when there's so many good people around you.
Speaker B:I can't help but think, too.
Speaker B:I've just noticed that I always like to say, you know, you get what you give, you know, and you seem so passionate about what you're doing.
Speaker B:You seem so.
Speaker B:You're talking about your people skills.
Speaker B:But the little bit I've been around you so into people, so excited about meeting new people.
Speaker B:Really what I love is how excited you are to give People, this great experience, you know, that's what I like.
Speaker B:Even I know I've had talks with people privately about money sometimes.
Speaker B:And I go, to me, money's experience.
Speaker B:That's all it is.
Speaker B:I just.
Speaker B:I'd rather have a really cool experience and worry how much you know.
Speaker B:Now, obviously, you need to have some to do that kind of stuff, but.
Speaker B:And I cannot.
Speaker B:I wonder sometimes.
Speaker B:You ever think that part of what you're seeing is because of how you're seeing it versus, you know.
Speaker B:You know, someone could look at 100.
Speaker A:Okay, you hit it dead on.
Speaker A:And what people don't believe is what you see is what you get.
Speaker A:What you see and believe is what you manifest.
Speaker A:Because your eyes are doing nothing but taking in light in your mind is what's translating it.
Speaker A:Your mind is what's decrypting it.
Speaker B:Did you tell the story last time where the guy on the bridge and the.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I'll tell again because that's a good one.
Speaker A:That's a good one.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it got messed up last time.
Speaker B:You got to tell it again.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:So when you take a look at anything.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So you've got.
Speaker A:It's an old kind of proverb where there's this older gentleman, he's sitting on a bridge, and this young individual comes up and says, hey, old man, what kind of people live in there?
Speaker A:And he goes, depends.
Speaker A:What do you mean, it depends?
Speaker A:Why can't you answer the damn question?
Speaker A:Look, where did you come from?
Speaker A:Where you came from?
Speaker A:The people, the things like that.
Speaker A:What are they like?
Speaker A:And he goes, oh, they're awful.
Speaker A:He goes, there ain't.
Speaker A:There ain't a good one out of the lot of them, and da, da, da, da.
Speaker A:And the guy's going on and just ripping his old guy.
Speaker A:The guy's just sitting there relaxing on a bridge, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's almost like.
Speaker A:Like the Otis Redding song, Sitting on the dock of the bay.
Speaker A:The guy's just, you know, watching his time, and this.
Speaker A:This dude's just, like, ripping him.
Speaker A:And so he goes, ah, you don't want to go in there.
Speaker A:He goes, there are a lot of those same people in there.
Speaker A:And so now the kid's all pissed off because he's halfway between here and nowhere.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And he doesn't know he's going to do.
Speaker A:So next thing you know, this other kid pops up and says, hey, old man, how you doing?
Speaker A:I'm doing good.
Speaker A:And he gives that other kid a look like, oh, you know, and he goes, hey, I got a question for you.
Speaker A:What kind of people live in that town?
Speaker A:I'm, you know, experiencing new things.
Speaker A:I'm looking for cool thing experiences, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:And he goes, well, it depends.
Speaker A:And he goes up here.
Speaker A:He goes, he's going to tell you exactly what he told me.
Speaker A:So this other guy's like, yelling at him.
Speaker A:He was like, what the hell?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And he goes, what kind of people came with your company?
Speaker A:Goes, man, they're the greatest people in the world.
Speaker A:He goes, I've been so lucky.
Speaker A:He goes, as a result of the people that I know, I've been able to go on this journey and travel to different towns, and I'm ditted.
Speaker A:And he goes, you ain't gonna believe this.
Speaker A:There are the same people like that.
Speaker A:The other kid gets so messed up, Adam starts yelling at the old man.
Speaker A:I thought you said.
Speaker A:And the whole moral of the story is, is that you are going to find and see what you're looking for.
Speaker A:No matter where you go, if you see problems, you're going to.
Speaker A:You're going to multiply them.
Speaker A:If you see opportunity.
Speaker A:I love the thing when I say to, you know, my family members or anybody I talk to, there's two mentalities.
Speaker A:There's scarcity and abundance.
Speaker A:What kind of mentality do you have?
Speaker A:There's fight or flight syndromes, you know, and I typically think that there's massive opportunities, and I typically believe you should fight first.
Speaker A:You know, sometimes that's gotten me in trouble over the years is being aggressive and things of that nature, because you can consider me like an A type personality or a red person versus somebody who's passive and maybe like a green.
Speaker A:There's different colors that we talk about all the time in my other life.
Speaker A:So it's just.
Speaker A:It's one of those things where we have been very fortunate.
Speaker A:But if you see it, and I wanted to see a place where people actually felt at home.
Speaker A:And literally, it is our home.
Speaker A:It's on our property.
Speaker A:House is there, our barn is there, our garage is there, everything.
Speaker A:I mean, we have Pasifino and Tennessee Walker horses in this area where this vineyard is now, and everything in the pond.
Speaker A:And so it's been a great thing where people have come in, and because so many people are seeing it, it's making that that vision that what you're seeing more of a reality.
Speaker A:And I think people know that if you're going to.
Speaker A:If the type of person walks into that environment, it's not going to the energy is not going to fit well with them.
Speaker A:It's like if you walk into maybe some of these retail stores at 2am, the energy is just not good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you make a conscious decision.
Speaker A:I will not shop there or go there at 2am because I just don't like the energy no matter how bad.
Speaker A:I need Kit Kat or something.
Speaker B:So is your.
Speaker B:Need a what?
Speaker A:A Kit Kat or something?
Speaker A:You know, you never know, you know.
Speaker B:If anyone's at Walmart.
Speaker A:2:00Am, I need a Kit Kat.
Speaker B:So, you know, cool story.
Speaker B:Tommy was at a gas station 2, 3 in the morning down here, and they got to hang out with Jelly Roll.
Speaker B:He'll have to tell you that story.
Speaker B:And he said Jelly Roll was totally cool.
Speaker B:This was like years ago.
Speaker B:I guess something happened with his plane or bus or something.
Speaker B:And they were driving and stopped us.
Speaker B:One down here.
Speaker B:97.71Y, the gas station.
Speaker B:I guess there's a little area you can sit and have.
Speaker B:And they sat.
Speaker B:They sat with them, hung out and half.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker B:Getting off track.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:So do you think too, I wonder.
Speaker B:So you.
Speaker B:You said your other life, is that kind of.
Speaker B:Meaning the manufacturing.
Speaker A:Manufacturing side.
Speaker B:And you're in management there, right?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I'm a director of US Central Operations.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:So I can't see your VP for a while.
Speaker A:For several years.
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We need like four podcasts.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I can't help but think, I mean, some.
Speaker B:So some of the skill sets and experiences you're bringing here.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I'm assuming it's whether you're at the WIN or you're at Walmart or you're at the manufacturing.
Speaker B:It's that same.
Speaker B:It's the same things going on with people.
Speaker A:Everything.
Speaker A:It really all comes down to when you take a look at the whole thing.
Speaker A:This is my lens that I look through.
Speaker A:You've got to have a vision.
Speaker A:After you have a vision, you have to have a strategy.
Speaker A:After you have a strategy, you have to have a structure.
Speaker A:And once you have a structure, you have to have staffing.
Speaker A:And once you have your staffing, you have your systems.
Speaker A:And once you have your systems, you have your execution.
Speaker A:Those are the six things that you.
Speaker B:Okay, Reagan, That's a real.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, that's definitely.
Speaker A:That's definitely a real.
Speaker A:You know, so.
Speaker A:So when you sit back and if somebody were to say, hey, Rich, you know, what's.
Speaker A:If you were to go into a situation, what are the things that.
Speaker A:Blah, blah, blah, you know, you get all this question, like, look, you Got to stop right there.
Speaker A:Because it's not a specific answer.
Speaker A:You cannot give a specific answer to somebody about a specific thing until you understand the entire overview of your vision, your strategy, your structure, your staff and your systems and your execution.
Speaker A:Yeah, because once you frame up what's happening or the questioning or what you're looking at, you can then begin to formulate, hey, wait a second.
Speaker A:Our vision is not clearly communicated enough.
Speaker A:So people don't understand the end in mind.
Speaker A:That's part of the problem, you know?
Speaker A:And so as a result of that, we haven't structured ourselves properly.
Speaker A:And with the right structure, have we all the right people in the right places to do that?
Speaker A:Now that they're all in the place, do they understand the plays that they're supposed to run, which is your systems and things that.
Speaker A:And able to follow it.
Speaker A:And then the execution piece of it is you just, you know, your systems and, you know, your execution pieces, you come back and you keep this on, like an active feedback loop, just to make sure.
Speaker A:I mean, one of the examples is at the winery.
Speaker A:I thought was pretty funny.
Speaker A:My wife loved making all these drinks, specialty drinks, people love them.
Speaker A:She does a great job at it.
Speaker A:That's not necessarily my forte.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:A whole bunch of other things.
Speaker A:Lifting heavy objects, paying the bills.
Speaker A:So she writes out there.
Speaker A:Becomes so many different varieties.
Speaker A:She writes them down on the side of the fridge.
Speaker A:Not a problem.
Speaker A:I mean, she got it up there.
Speaker A:Hey, this is what.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:This.
Speaker A:But it's in handwriting.
Speaker A:You know, I'm having a hard time reading it.
Speaker A:The girl having a hard time reading it, but people are loving it.
Speaker A:So my wife, poor wife, she's the one having to make all these special looking hair, saying, hey, you want to make one of these?
Speaker A:Hey, you want to make one of these?
Speaker A:Hey, come on over here and make one of the.
Speaker A:You know, it's like.
Speaker A:I mean, some of it's so easy, too.
Speaker A:When you really make it two or three times, you're like, damn, I could have done that a long time ago.
Speaker A:But you get a little confused.
Speaker A:So what we did is we created a standard work drink card.
Speaker A:And on that standard work card, it basically says, this is what the drink is.
Speaker A:This is what step one is.
Speaker A:The glass it goes into.
Speaker A:This is step two, three, four, and five.
Speaker A:And this is what you do when you get it to the customer.
Speaker B:That sounds a lot like, you know, if you're at Marco's Pizza or something.
Speaker B:You'll see, yeah, you can see from the counter, they'll have exactly pepperonis 100%.
Speaker A:And you need to know that, and everybody does.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter if you're just a mom and pop operation.
Speaker A:Doesn't matter if you're a big corporation, because it does.
Speaker A:This very thing is it helps the individuals that are trying to do it.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And so many people are like, well, you know, you need to have this and gotta standardize and da, da, da.
Speaker A:But they're forgetting the people aspect of it.
Speaker A:If I.
Speaker A:I felt confident that, like, that entire one of the entire nights after I made the card I put up there, I was so proud.
Speaker A:It was all pretty.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was laminated.
Speaker A:I showed every girl that came through.
Speaker A:Hey, check it out.
Speaker A:Look, we got this.
Speaker A:They're like, oh, my God, that's so much better.
Speaker A:I understand it.
Speaker A:I don't think my wife one time that night made a specialty drink because we didn't have to ask her, but she was 100% making it.
Speaker A:When it was everything she wrote for us and what we needed to do, it just.
Speaker A:We couldn't digest it enough.
Speaker A:Now that's where my expertise always comes in.
Speaker A:And on the other side, all the way in, the other one is our cleaning routines.
Speaker B:By now, she bummed out.
Speaker B:She wasn't making them.
Speaker A:Oh, no, not at all.
Speaker A:Oh, no.
Speaker A:She was happy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:She double win.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:She done told us 50 times how to make this stuff and showed us 50 times.
Speaker A:And we're like, yeah, we don't know how to make it.
Speaker A:So when you do things like that for the team members on that structure that I was talking about, how you look at goes a long way in making it easy for the people to make it easy for individuals come in and have a great experience.
Speaker A:Because that energy, people feel that if you're rushed behind the counter or if you're frustrated.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:If you're having a problem and it has nothing like.
Speaker A:I mean, I've been in restaurants and, you know, the empathy starts kicking in now versus what it was before.
Speaker A:It's like, man, you know, I'm hungry and it's taken forever.
Speaker A:First thing I think of now is like, wait a second, does this poor girl have way too many tables?
Speaker A:And she's supposed to have because people called off, is she brand new?
Speaker A:And I'll say, hey, how are you doing?
Speaker A:You're doing a great job.
Speaker A:You know?
Speaker A:How long you been here?
Speaker A:I've been here for two days.
Speaker A:Are you.
Speaker A:Are you kidding me?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You've been here two days.
Speaker A:You're crushing it, you know?
Speaker A:And then all of a Sudden you see their spirits are.
Speaker A:And it's not.
Speaker A:You're not trying to manipulate them.
Speaker A:It's just a human being is struggling.
Speaker A:And that's what I was hoping and wanting for our place is that it was a place that you could come in and not struggle.
Speaker A:I want the girls to have a good time who are working.
Speaker A:I want the guests to come in and have a good time because it's their place to be.
Speaker A:And in turn I have a good time because I sit back and I watch people's non verbals and I watch interactions going, this is their place.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker B:You know, you're making me think a couple things.
Speaker B:One is, and you're more well read than I am so I'm gonna.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:One of the things I thought I learned is consistency.
Speaker B:You know, the consumer is constantly seeking consistency and I won't go through the whole thing.
Speaker B:Now there's this little thing about a guy getting his hair cut and they give him wine and beer and they change all the stuff up and eventually doesn't cut.
Speaker B:They do a great job cutting his hair every time but he doesn't come back because he's.
Speaker B:They said like why do people like McDonald's?
Speaker B:They like that consistent as soon as they pull off the highway, even though it might be crap, it tastes exactly the same crap every time.
Speaker B:And so there's something comforting or grounding about that.
Speaker B:So I can't but think as you were saying that it seems like it's really addressing two things.
Speaker B:One, you're getting that consistency of those drinks.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:So whoever's coming back now it's the same.
Speaker B:You know, I remember the pizza shop.
Speaker B:There's one around here one time involved and she's like, oh, I'm going to try this thing.
Speaker B:And this.
Speaker B:I'm like oh my gosh, pick one.
Speaker A:Like you can't keep changing it.
Speaker B:It just messes us up.
Speaker B:And then I.
Speaker B:To your other point, I wonder if this relates was.
Speaker B:So when we do sales training I have like this and everyone gets all wigged out about memorizing a presentation.
Speaker B:I'm always like, you know, it's not about memorizing the presentation.
Speaker B:If you have this knowledge down and I seen it over and over, like to your point, they walk in the people that.
Speaker B:That would memorize it because once you memorize it you're not.
Speaker B:It's not like you're saying it like a rote script.
Speaker B:You're saying it more natural because it becomes natural.
Speaker B:But more importantly, you're paying attention to the customer.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Because the ones that didn't, you could see them, like you said, getting flustered or they're thinking.
Speaker B:They're like, do I say timing, market?
Speaker B:You know, you're like, oh, man, dude, you're this.
Speaker B:They want.
Speaker B:They want your attention.
Speaker B:They don't want you sit here while you're trying to remember what to say.
Speaker B:So I can't.
Speaker A:I think people want authenticity.
Speaker A:They want to know, you know, they want to know that the person they're talking to.
Speaker A:Like, I always love this thing called the trust equation.
Speaker A:It's massive for me, okay?
Speaker A:Only because I hope people understand my motive.
Speaker A:People that are close to me know my motive.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So when you look at the trust equation, it's reliability, intimacy, and credibility over motive.
Speaker A:Which means, doesn't matter how reliable I am.
Speaker A:Doesn't matter how intimate we are with one another.
Speaker A:Doesn't matter.
Speaker A:Meaning we know each other.
Speaker A:Doesn't matter how credible I am if my motives are uncure and selfish and I have a small M or no M at all.
Speaker A:The equation zero.
Speaker A:There's zero trust.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You're just trying to get what you can as an individual out of the top three things, you know, Well, I know this person.
Speaker A:They're reliable.
Speaker A:So if I can get them to do this, there's some credibility in there, but it becomes transactional.
Speaker A:But if you flip that equation around and you look at it and say, you know, I understand that person's motives, I understand what they're trying to do, I believe in what they're trying to do, and.
Speaker A:Or I believe in them, etc.
Speaker A:And they're somewhat.
Speaker A:They're reliable.
Speaker A:I mean, again, when you.
Speaker A:When you're that high in the trust question, you still have to have the person's reliable.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Person's.
Speaker A:There's an interaction, intimacy with the individual, and they're credible, you know, with what they say is what they do, etcetera, That's a.
Speaker A:That's a big T at the end of that equation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So you got some opportunity there where your reliability may be 85%.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You may not know the person as well, but you know, everybody around you who knows this person and says, look, this is who that person is, okay?
Speaker A:That's their motive.
Speaker A:I can ride with their, you know, with their motive.
Speaker A:I mean, one of the things you guys asked me coming in here is, you know, that I enjoy this kind of stuff.
Speaker A:I enjoy connecting with people.
Speaker A:I enjoy the energy it brings.
Speaker A:Just because there's somebody out there that it will resonate with and does that help them or does that guide them in a certain way.
Speaker A:So if I get a chance to speak with somebody, that's massive.
Speaker A:One, somebody's listening, so that's good.
Speaker A:Two is they're giving up one of the most precious things that we have that we cannot get back.
Speaker A:And that's time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So when somebody's willing to listen to you and somebody's willing to speak, those are some of the most important things, you know in there.
Speaker A:Because it's a non.
Speaker A:What, not what's in it for me, it's that Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's the self actualization that, you know, I'm at a point right now in my life that I'm trying to give so much back when I'm communicating, talking to people.
Speaker A:I said this to a gentleman who just had his daughter's wedding at our venue this past weekend.
Speaker A:And I was grateful to him.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Oh, no.
Speaker A:I mean, we went back and forth with the compliments and I happen to know the guy.
Speaker A:And I said, you don't understand something.
Speaker A:I said, I have been able to see so many people's most important day this year.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:When you.
Speaker A:Somebody has their wedding, it is their most.
Speaker A:I won't be there for a divorce.
Speaker A:I won't be there for a sickness.
Speaker A:I won't, you know, so.
Speaker A:Because that's not that.
Speaker B:And what a joyful, memorable.
Speaker A:Oh my God, yes.
Speaker B:I mean, amazing, joyful day.
Speaker A:Yeah, amazing day.
Speaker A:I mean, it was great.
Speaker A:The family members, you see people come in and want to rent a place and they're extremely nervous and how's this going to work out?
Speaker A:And there's so many questions they have of themselves, let alone anything else.
Speaker A:And then the day comes and then there's the nervousness and stuff starts to form and then all of a sudden there's the ceremony and stuff is like, oh my God, this has come together so great.
Speaker A:And all that, you know, frustration and burden kind of gets off their chest.
Speaker A:They just.
Speaker A:So I get a chance.
Speaker A:I've been able to see that.
Speaker A:That journey every single time somebody comes in a little bit different, but almost all of them.
Speaker B:Well, and you, I'm guessing you've.
Speaker B:But ahead of time, you're seeing a lot of the tension, right?
Speaker B:Like 100% worried about the detail.
Speaker B:Hey, how much?
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Just like the movies and, and the real life, it is real.
Speaker A:It's real.
Speaker A:So much tension and so stuff.
Speaker A:And everybody has a right to.
Speaker B:Why are those flowers purple?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Or hey, what's going on?
Speaker A:With this.
Speaker A:Where does that table go?
Speaker A:How come this isn't up there?
Speaker A:And you know, people want their perfect day to be perfect and they should.
Speaker A:And so I was telling him, I said, you know, this is incredible because every event we have is a special one example painting.
Speaker A:So somebody's going out there for a unique painting event, which is amazing.
Speaker A:They're up there and they, we've got these people that come in and they've, they're amazing artists and they've got a great.
Speaker B:So this is one of the things you do and people learn how to paint or they just hang out while someone's painting.
Speaker A:No, no, no, they paint themselves.
Speaker A:They, they got the, the, the paintbrushes and the canvas.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:You know, there's like 20, 30 in there at a time doing it.
Speaker B:They're all painting.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're drinking their wine, they're painting.
Speaker A:There's an instructor up there telling them what to do, help them.
Speaker A:We've got people that do macrame, we got people that come in and do yoga.
Speaker B:I mean crazy.
Speaker B:Anything really, really different.
Speaker B:You're like, I didn't know people did that as a hobby.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, it's, it's, no, it's, it's just like something to do.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's a, it's a couple's thing.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's just an all girls thing.
Speaker A:Which is, you know, amazing when you see friends come in.
Speaker A:And so here I am sitting and somebody is having a special night out and there's multiples of them.
Speaker A:There's 30 or 40 people in there.
Speaker A:Somebody's coming in to relax and stretch out and do something physically and mentally with their bodies and they're coming to our place to do that.
Speaker A:So when I stand back and I was telling them, I said, you know, this has been a crazy year because people are coming here and associating this place with an activity that is going to be something that is very personal and important to them.
Speaker A:And one of their best them days.
Speaker A:One of their best days.
Speaker A:And I'm getting the chance to.
Speaker A:And my wife is.
Speaker A:And our team members are getting a chance every day to see that where you know, some of us may have had more than one wedding.
Speaker A:Not saying who me.
Speaker A:And you know, you go through those days and you know, obviously the last one was, you know, many, many years ago with my wife Sonia.
Speaker A:And it was an amazing day.
Speaker A:You know, there was friends, there was family and you know, all those things.
Speaker A:It was amazing day.
Speaker A:You know, birthdays, we've had 90 year old birthday parties in There.
Speaker A:We've had children birthday parties.
Speaker A:We've had baby showers.
Speaker A:So think about that.
Speaker A:You've got weddings, 90 year old birthday parties, baby showers.
Speaker A:So baby's not even born, not even there yet.
Speaker A:And you got a 90th birthday party on the same weekend on the same day.
Speaker B:Oh, very cool.
Speaker A:We had a baby shower in the morning and we had a 90th year birthday party in the afternoon.
Speaker A:And I sat back and I'm like, you cannot make this up.
Speaker A:This is incredible.
Speaker A:And I think, well, just to see.
Speaker B:How excited you get about that.
Speaker B:Yeah, that and it's.
Speaker B:I mean, people gotta pick that up in a few seconds.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:All right, I gotta interrupt you.
Speaker A:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker B:I mean, you got such great reviews, so it's perfect timing as you're saying this.
Speaker B:I wanted to.
Speaker B:Let's just.
Speaker B:Let me just read one of the reviews offline.
Speaker B:So this is a review.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:Well, they meant to say what.
Speaker B:What a gem of a find.
Speaker B:Everything about this place is welcoming and enjoyable.
Speaker B:You can tell this venue is a labor of love.
Speaker B:The owners, Sonia and Rich, are very personable and welcoming to all of their guests.
Speaker B:They seem to be constantly investing in the property and amenities so that their guests can enjoy it as much as they do.
Speaker B:I love all the scattered places around each part of the property where you'll find picnic tables or Adirondack chairs.
Speaker B:Did I say that right?
Speaker B:Yeah, chairs.
Speaker B:So that each group of guests can find their own cozy little space to hang.
Speaker B:I go on.
Speaker B:And it goes a lot.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You got.
Speaker B:I mean, there's review after review.
Speaker B:I forget how many you got.
Speaker B:4.9.
Speaker B:Like, great.
Speaker B:So I mean, obviously it's manifesting itself too in terms of.
Speaker B:And I can't but think earlier I was gonna.
Speaker B:Because I almost forgot about Fits here is, you know, like.
Speaker B:And I'd like to believe too, at Tom Money Saver.
Speaker B:Like one of the things we talk.
Speaker B:Like when you think about it, and I'm sure you have this.
Speaker B:Like, where do you find the right price?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They're caught.
Speaker B:Like where you're charging the customer.
Speaker B:Like you said, I'd rather be busy all the time.
Speaker B:And I think so many things.
Speaker B:I find this sort of.
Speaker B:I don't know if I'm using the right word dichotomy where I want to do it from more of a spiritual place, an altruistic place.
Speaker B:And yet I find the same principles that might be there can easily be considered greed, meaning not greed in the greed in the sense we use it.
Speaker B:But it ends up with the same End game.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:In other words, when you pour your heart into it like you are, and you price it in a way, you're pricing it.
Speaker B:It's long term profits, it's residual income, it's all the business things that we talk about.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's such a, it's just a such more peaceful way to attain it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Than to sit here and be focused on the end.
Speaker B:It's more about the means than the end.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The end takes care of itself.
Speaker A:Well, I think, I think an important piece of that is, is this motivation over margin.
Speaker A:And, and so, and again, you know, people come up with all these sayings and they got all these little, you know, fancy things and colloquialism, you know, and, and some of them are true.
Speaker A:That's what you got to be careful with, right.
Speaker A:Is that I think there are these courses and these books and all these videos and everything you can read.
Speaker A:And people are looking for that.
Speaker A:The catchphrase.
Speaker A:You know, people are looking for the way you should hold your hand when you're talking to people.
Speaker A:Not directly pointing, not holding a fist.
Speaker A:So you use the thumb.
Speaker A:And we, we all went through that was the thumb back in some presidential days, you know, regardless of your constituency, you know, everybody has the right to vote.
Speaker A:And I love that you know that.
Speaker A:So who cares who you want?
Speaker B:Oh, we can say whatever we want in this podcast.
Speaker A:Oh, no, it's good.
Speaker B:No, I'm kidding.
Speaker B:So Reagan's already edited me a couple times.
Speaker A:So when you, when you look at that, it's.
Speaker A:There are certain things that inspire or do certain things, but I really believe that, you know, my motivation is, and we've talked about that already, the value of that and that's.
Speaker A:I appreciate the kind of turning me on to that book because, I mean, I read books like that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I'm probably reading easily 50 books a year.
Speaker A:It's ridiculous.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's something.
Speaker B:We could talk.
Speaker A:But it's a process, though.
Speaker A:Remember I said process?
Speaker A:So, yeah, if you read 10 pages a day.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Every day.
Speaker A:You know, you get through a lot of books a year, but it's consistency, as you mentioned, consistency every day, those 10 pages.
Speaker A:Well, I've got like five or six.
Speaker B:Books on my Serious discipline.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's, it's closer to 50, 60 pages a day.
Speaker A:That's not a lot.
Speaker A:That's really, when you think about it, it's not a lot, but feels like.
Speaker B:A lot to me.
Speaker A:Every day is a lot.
Speaker B:I'm trying to watch Three episodes a.
Speaker A:Night on Netflix and struggling.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Although I watch and I got to make popcorn in between.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:I watched Tulsa King.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I binge watched that.
Speaker A:That was pretty good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So watching Old man right now, it's pretty cool.
Speaker B:Go ahead.
Speaker A:Oh, I gotta check that out.
Speaker B:Oh, it's bad.
Speaker B:It's Jeff Bridges.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, I gotta check that out.
Speaker A:Yeah, he's pretty good.
Speaker B:I can't.
Speaker B:I better.
Speaker B:Let's stand.
Speaker A:So when you look at motivation, you know, like versus margin and what that means is, you know, you have to turn a profit or that place won't be there that long.
Speaker A:Obviously.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But the amount of margin and I was talking to several people about pricing and other people coming because they're smart people that come in that.
Speaker A:You know, there's a lot of blue collar people come in there.
Speaker A:A lot of white collar people come in there.
Speaker A:You know, a lot of hard working people come in.
Speaker A:They know different background and we know.
Speaker B:There'S smart blue collar and dumb white collar.
Speaker A:Yes, pretty much.
Speaker A:And smart white collar.
Speaker B:There's a little bit everything.
Speaker A:A little bit of everything.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So, you know, there's amazing people and we've got so many teachers that come in there and law enforcement just.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But then we've got individuals that come here that understand the industry, which has been amazing.
Speaker A:I will take advice from everybody.
Speaker A:I will take it doesn't mean I have to use it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Some people don't even want to hear the advice.
Speaker A:I think that's a bad.
Speaker B:Drives me.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Steal everything from anybody who's willing to give it to you, you know, and so I had a gentleman just recently come in and I think he came in for one of the weddings actually a couple, couple of weeks ago, different wedding.
Speaker A:And he was talking about the pricing of our bourbons and stuff.
Speaker A:Hey, that's a little.
Speaker A:That's a little.
Speaker A:Little known.
Speaker A:You know, he could be doing this.
Speaker A:This is what your rule is.
Speaker A:And we weren't far off, but we were on the lower side.
Speaker A:And I know that.
Speaker A:I mean, I've got an mba.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm not stupid when it comes to math.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And what you should be doing.
Speaker A:But I want to make sure.
Speaker A:And you know, we got a Whole Freedom Rentals USA business, you know, 20 homes in Mansfield and stuff.
Speaker A:So I always make sure that my rates are lower than the market average.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And somebody said, well, why would you do that?
Speaker A:You're leaving money on the table.
Speaker A:Yes, but I'm not losing tenants, I'm not losing customers.
Speaker A:At the winery, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
Speaker A:Because if you have to generate new customers, new tenants, when you're training in the manufacturing world, I have to generate new employees.
Speaker B:Oh my God.
Speaker A:You know, you're killing yourself in an area that you can't even see.
Speaker A:So if I have to sacrifice a little bit or X amount on the front end to make long term consistency in that, everybody wins, you know, and that goes back to the point.
Speaker B:Let me ask you this.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And I'm putting myself out there a little and also my unreadness.
Speaker B:No, I'm kidding.
Speaker B:But I always go for the Sam's Club model is what I, I call it just as my own kind of goof.
Speaker B:And where I say the we're value, the intersection of price and quality, you know, at least in our business, right.
Speaker B:Marketing.
Speaker B:Well in a lot of businesses, right.
Speaker B:If someone can always be lower.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Walmart came and proved that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But it sounds like you're saying that you're saying lower but you're not the lowest.
Speaker B:You're just trying to be pretty close.
Speaker B:Oh, you are.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So that's why I want, I know.
Speaker A:In the rental part we are for sure.
Speaker A:Okay, for sure we are.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So if you look at it, it's, it's like a three legged stool, right?
Speaker A:It's quality, it's cost and it's time.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:So when you kind of look at that and you've got to be careful because if you want something high quality, it's going to cost you and it's going to take some time.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You can only literally have for the most part like one leg of the stool depending on how you do it and you try to massage it.
Speaker A:But like if I want something fast.
Speaker A:Well, if you want something fast, it's going to cost you money and it's not, probably not going to be the greatest quality you want.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And so if you're like, I want something cheap, quality is going to be bad and you might be able to get it, you know, fast at that point.
Speaker A:But right.
Speaker A:There's, there's just, you know, different, you know, things that.
Speaker A:Or no, I'm sorry, if you want it at a cheap cost, it's not going to be that great a quality.
Speaker A:It's going to take you some time to get it because there are other paying customers that are giving higher dollar value, etc.
Speaker A:So of that three legged stool, it's like how do you, how do you balance all that?
Speaker A:So it stands on its own, very firm and when you're talking to people or you're pricing stuff.
Speaker A:Do you.
Speaker B:Well, do you even really like, what's your.
Speaker B:It's got to be weird.
Speaker B:Your competition's probably not.
Speaker B:I mean, do you even really have like a direct.
Speaker B:I mean, are people calling around?
Speaker B:I mean, sometimes it just probably need an event that's.
Speaker B:Or a place that's open.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Well, that's the interesting thing is because play in nice, clean places with an amazing atmosphere, an amazing environment around it are difficult.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, it's not something you can just erect somewhere.
Speaker A:You know, there's only so many places that.
Speaker A:That are doing that.
Speaker A:So we're very fortunate that, you know, the.
Speaker A:The market is hot when it comes to that.
Speaker A:People are looking.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the fact that our rates are, you know, relatively lower and, you know, we provide a lot of value.
Speaker A:There's not an event.
Speaker A:There is not an event where Sonia myself aren't on.
Speaker A:On the premises with them, the customers making sure stuff's going right.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:So, you know, I mean, when you've got a problem, last thing you want to do is talk to a person.
Speaker A:Who needs to talk to a person.
Speaker A:Talk to the person.
Speaker A:It's usually, hey, Rich.
Speaker A:Hey, Sonia.
Speaker A:Hey, Rich.
Speaker B:Because you have children, right?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:How old?
Speaker A:So I'm 51.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:But I've got a son that's 37.
Speaker B:Oh, what?
Speaker B:Oh, I thought you had, like, look, because didn't you practice?
Speaker B:Oh, 14.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I've.
Speaker A:I've practiced my whole life.
Speaker A:So I've got a 36, 37 year old.
Speaker A:I got to double check on that.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:He's in the Air Force.
Speaker A:He just got done with his tour at the White House.
Speaker A:He was there for really seven years.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Wow, that's cool.
Speaker A:He's a stud.
Speaker A:And then I've got my next son.
Speaker A:He's 28 years old.
Speaker A:He is a pipe fitter out of Indiana, but works in Chicago and all them places and stuff like that, you know, love him to death.
Speaker A:I mean, he reminds me a lot of myself because he's.
Speaker A:He's a roughneck.
Speaker A:He works in the mills.
Speaker A:I mean, I started in the mills out of the military and stuff, stuff like that.
Speaker A:I've got a daughter.
Speaker A:She works like the electrical.
Speaker A:She's 24, 25 years old.
Speaker A:She works the electrical stuff in Indiana, like the power lines and things like that.
Speaker B:Yeah, you got all these rough.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're all rough necks to some extent.
Speaker A:You know, military.
Speaker A:And then I've got my 14 year old.
Speaker A:He plays football for Madison.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:He's going, no, next year will be his third year.
Speaker A:They just finished her.
Speaker A:He just finished his second season.
Speaker A:Stuff like that plays in the back.
Speaker B:So he's the only one that's around.
Speaker A:He's the only one that's around.
Speaker B:Because I was wondering, like, with it being your house.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that.
Speaker B:How's he.
Speaker A:I fired him twice.
Speaker A:I fired him.
Speaker A:I fired him twice.
Speaker A:So that, that's the other side.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No, I mean, I think, I think what it is, he doesn't understand.
Speaker A:Like, I grew up, you know, poor, very poor actually.
Speaker A:And my kids didn't want for anything or need anything.
Speaker A:But it was, it didn't come easy.
Speaker A:It came with a lot of work.
Speaker A:Hey, dad's always working, Dad's always going to school, you know, but there was kind of standard work time where we always did stuff on the weekends.
Speaker A:You know, we did martial arts together and you know, as an instructor for many.
Speaker A:So I had my kids kind of go through that with me and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So they saw something different than what I think that my 14 year old sees.
Speaker A:He sees a life of abundance everywhere and doesn't understand the scarcity you go through to get to that, so to speak.
Speaker A:And so my, my second oldest son will visit often and he talks to the youngest son almost as if he's like the parent, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And he kind of gets on him a little bit and you know, 14 is like, I hear you.
Speaker A:You know, look at him, the old man talking to his older brother, you know, so there's so much age difference.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So that would be interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I was wondering how that would work out.
Speaker B:And I know we're probably going all off course.
Speaker B:Who cares what I was.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So what?
Speaker B:Because you've mentioned a couple of times now you're up.
Speaker B:So what clicked, I mean, where so you came from?
Speaker B:This sounds like a pretty rough childhood maybe.
Speaker B:Or at least very poor.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But yet here you are with, with the school and you also, by the way, you, I want to point out, were you the one that told me you're in the Marines?
Speaker B:And the Army.
Speaker A:And the army, yeah.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Because these guys I in the army and my buddies, Marine buddies always make fun of me.
Speaker B:I'm like, well, there's a guy that was in Marines and.
Speaker A:Yeah, so I went to the army second.
Speaker A:So they'll understand.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So I was.
Speaker A:So I joined the marine Corps at 17, you know, did my six years in that, you know, basically.
Speaker B:Thank you very much.
Speaker A:Appreciate that.
Speaker A:Thank you for yours.
Speaker B:Well, it was national Guard.
Speaker B:I had to shovel snow one time.
Speaker A:It's all good.
Speaker A:And then so after that, went into the army as an engineer because I didn't have enough money for college.
Speaker A:That's what, What.
Speaker B:What you say.
Speaker B:Because that's.
Speaker B:I did combat engineer to pay for college.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Same thing.
Speaker A:Same thing.
Speaker A:So I.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was very grateful for the military.
Speaker A:I was very young.
Speaker A:It wasn't necessarily by choice that I had to go into the military.
Speaker B:Oh, this is a story you want to hear?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:What did you do?
Speaker B:Know them?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I had a.
Speaker A:I was.
Speaker A:I was given a choice, which I'm grateful I was given a choice at such a young age.
Speaker A:I was 16 years old, and I did some very bad things, and I was able to be given a choice.
Speaker A:It was very fortunate how all that worked out.
Speaker B:I'll be honest with you.
Speaker B:I think every male in the United States, 100%.
Speaker B:I remember going to bed and again, I was National Guard.
Speaker B:I was the softest thing at predicate.
Speaker B:And within a few weeks of being there, you are so humbled.
Speaker B:You were like, what?
Speaker B:And then when I got out, I could have done three or four jobs.
Speaker B:I remember, you know, when you're a kid, you take a nap, you're the center of the universe, all this stuff going.
Speaker B:You come out of the military, I'm like, all right, I'll do two jobs, I'll go to college, I'll get up at four and run.
Speaker B:And I was.
Speaker B:It was amazing.
Speaker A:The change for me, it changed my life.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:But one of them is, is just, you know, having a foundation of something that's meaning something.
Speaker A:It's funny because Gene Hackman, the actor, love him.
Speaker A:And he too, is a Marine.
Speaker A:There's no was.
Speaker A:He too is a Marine.
Speaker B:And I forgot about this Marine.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Badass.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you're the real men of the Navy.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:We appreciate all the rides.
Speaker A:So the, like uber, uber of the water.
Speaker A:But anyway, so I love the Navy because my daughter's in the Navy, so.
Speaker A:Like that, so.
Speaker A:Or wasn't it?
Speaker A:So if you look at it, Gene Hackman said as part of.
Speaker A:It's a great movie, the Replacements.
Speaker A:It is Keanu Reeves.
Speaker B:It's great.
Speaker A:And at the end of the movie, he says something, right?
Speaker A:And he says, greatness, no matter how brief a moment in a man's life, stays with him forever.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:And so when you think.
Speaker A:See things like, you know, sports, you see things like military service, you see things like when you put yourself in those situations where there's a greater goal than self, and it's more of a team thing.
Speaker A:It's more of a unit thing.
Speaker A:It's more that you start under your.
Speaker A:Your mind starts expanding more outside of seeing than just what's important to you, like a young child, et cetera.
Speaker A:So I went in, you know, like I said, At 16, you know, got in trouble, had a choice, went on delayed entry program.
Speaker A:Because I was so young, I graduated high school early.
Speaker A:Going to the Marine Corps was like the youngest Marine two years in a row.
Speaker A:They have these birthday.
Speaker A:They have these parties, and the youngest Marine, oldest Marine have to get together, cut the cake, all that two years in a row.
Speaker A:I had that because I was so young going in.
Speaker A:So I was very fortunate, but there were men around me for.
Speaker A:For many years, and, you know, so.
Speaker B:You had to man up quick.
Speaker A:At a man up quick.
Speaker A:Yeah, I got my rudder tapped many, many times when I was younger, and I'm grateful for that because these individuals didn't hold back any punches.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:Tapped.
Speaker B:I don't know if I'm.
Speaker B:Rudder, Rudder.
Speaker A:Like on a ship, you got to tap a little rudder to change the ship.
Speaker A:Oh, so it's the saying that I have.
Speaker A:So, okay, I got my rudder.
Speaker B:Thanks for explaining it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I got my rudder tap to where I'm going in one direction.
Speaker A:They're like, no, you're not.
Speaker A:You're going in the other.
Speaker A:So turn my rudder the other direction even when I didn't want to turn it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so that really helped me understand I was having, you know, obviously children at a young age.
Speaker A:And so I think what clicked for me is, is as I continue to kind of fight through this, it's funny, there's a saying that you will keep repeating the lessons of your life until you learn from them and then move on to the next stage of that.
Speaker A:And over the past decade, I've been grateful both with my, you know, my relationship with my wife.
Speaker A:You know, she puts up with me, I still put up with her, but I think she gets the raw deal most of the time.
Speaker B:Okay, good thing you said that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:No, no, Come on.
Speaker A:I'm a trained professional in case you sees this.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:No, but there's.
Speaker A:There's a lot of truth.
Speaker B:Well, let me.
Speaker B:Okay, so.
Speaker B:So you're saying.
Speaker B:So what got you from that place to.
Speaker B:To really.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker B:You know, the pivot point.
Speaker B:In other words, where you are now.
Speaker B:It was kind of forced on you.
Speaker B:Is that really what happened?
Speaker B:In other words, you were going in this Bad direction.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And someone said, all right, you got this choice.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:Thank God you chose.
Speaker A:Thank God I chose military.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And because of that, you.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You started to see yourself differently, I'm assuming.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I think that's one of the biggest.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:Like, I know I was out of college, and a guy said something to me that I'm like, no one's ever said that, you know, and basically what it was was how I saw myself.
Speaker B:I was like, oh, I think I can achieve this.
Speaker B:He's like, no, you can achieve this.
Speaker B:Yes, I remember, like, what?
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:And it was so stupid.
Speaker B:I sat back and, yeah, why not?
Speaker B:Like, what do you mean, why?
Speaker B:Why was I holding myself?
Speaker B:And I swear, it seems like more and more, especially my kids are, you know, in high school and college.
Speaker B:And the thing that I feel the most passionate with young or the high school, college age is like.
Speaker B:Like the lack of belief in themselves sometimes, you know, and, like, they just need a little push or a little something.
Speaker B:I don't know what.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker A:It's interesting you say that because.
Speaker A:So when you look at the first.
Speaker A:We'll call it the first decade of my adulthood was all military.
Speaker A:So I get out, and then I join manufacturing.
Speaker A:That's all I know.
Speaker A:The military and manufacturing.
Speaker A:And manufacturing steel, rubber, and glass, specifically.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So I get into the steel industry.
Speaker A:But that's.
Speaker A:Now, this is the next 30 years, if you will, almost 30 years of my life after the military.
Speaker B:Now, is there college in between there?
Speaker A:Well, that's what I was going to get.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:So I get out of the military.
Speaker A:I need to go to school.
Speaker A:I need to do this.
Speaker A:And it wasn't really a priority for me.
Speaker A:It wasn't even on my radar because I hadn't had that upbringing.
Speaker A:It hadn't been.
Speaker A:I was the first person, you know, in my, you know, family to get, you know, that college education.
Speaker B:Me, too.
Speaker A:And then to get advanced.
Speaker A:Advanced degree.
Speaker B:So I never did that.
Speaker A:So I wound up getting in this, you know, going into the steel industry, working on the floor, shoveling things like manganese and furnaces.
Speaker A:You ever watch Rudy, where they got those guys in the steel mill and the silvers?
Speaker A:And that was me.
Speaker A:That was me for years.
Speaker A:For years.
Speaker A:I was doing that as an hourly guy, you know.
Speaker A:Hell, I was a union official for a while there as a treasurer.
Speaker A:This whole longshoreman thing.
Speaker A:I was a longshoreman there for.
Speaker A:For many years, working those guys that.
Speaker B:Were trying to strike the port.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Well, they have other buddies.
Speaker A:They don't Just have that.
Speaker A:They've got steel industry stuff and.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:So I.
Speaker A:I'd worked in because it was one right off the port.
Speaker A:And so I'm working there, coming up through the ranks and stuff.
Speaker A:And then, you know, I get my opportunity to become like an hourly supervisor.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I knew I wanted more, and I had leadership skills and, you know, I had drive and stuff like that.
Speaker A:And the guys there saw that.
Speaker A:Saw that in me.
Speaker A:So I would say from that time up until I'd say 10 to 15 years after that, and when I kind of moved in the Goodyear and did some stuff, I was very fortunate to run into four or five key leaders, key people that helped transform me even when myself, I didn't know what I was capable.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:One of them is Peter Zasowski.
Speaker A:Unfortunately passed a cancer.
Speaker A:I really missed that guy.
Speaker A:I mean, even right now, I'll get emotional over it because he was kind of like a surrogate father to me.
Speaker A:Polish guy.
Speaker A:He had a doctorate in metallurgy.
Speaker A:He was born and raised in South Africa.
Speaker A:This guy, he could drink you under the table and he could out math you.
Speaker A:He could outwork you.
Speaker A:His wife was a professor in physics.
Speaker A:His son graduated Northwestern at like 16, 17.
Speaker A:Wound up working over in Europe for BMW as a main.
Speaker A:Like a head engineer.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Brilliant family.
Speaker B:Super cool.
Speaker A:And this guy always took time.
Speaker A:And they always say if you talk about people, even if they're past, they're never really gone.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so this.
Speaker A:This individual, and there's many others.
Speaker A:I mean, there's Sam Cooper, there's, you know, Spencer Hill.
Speaker A:There's Jim Rosofsky.
Speaker A:There's, you know, Peter Zasowski.
Speaker A:There's Roger Renforce.
Speaker A:And I'm saying all their names because they're so important.
Speaker A:Some of them aren't here with me today.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, obviously, because, I mean, we're that much older.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And these guys always took the time to help me.
Speaker A:I mean, James Overby was one of them.
Speaker A:You know, he's the guy that helped me kind of through good years.
Speaker A:You know, stuff always stuck with me because they saw my motive.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Even if I wasn't as reliable.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Even if I wasn't credible at all the time, and even if they didn't want to be near me, the intimacy part.
Speaker A:They saw my motive, and they continued to put me in positions that made me grow rather than just giving up on me.
Speaker A:And that's where I think I struggle the most, is because I don't want to give up on anybody.
Speaker A:And sometimes it Puts me in a position where I become very aggressive towards the individual.
Speaker A:Like, look, come on, you know, you got this.
Speaker A:And then sometimes people just don't have it in them.
Speaker A:But when you find that one person that does or those couple people that do, you give them everything you possibly can.
Speaker B: So I was, what's your: Speaker B:A little bit.
Speaker A:So during that time there, Peter was very adamant about me going to school.
Speaker A:And now during the military, I was going for like, you know, law enforcement.
Speaker A:I was getting every course you could that had nothing to do with business.
Speaker A:Had nothing was going to be transferable.
Speaker A:I was going to go kick down doors.
Speaker A:I wanted to work SWAT teams and stuff like that, Marine Corps.
Speaker A:And that never came to fruition.
Speaker A:But I started going to school, you know, for basically a bstm, which is in technical management, like math and science and project management, stuff like that, and then wound up getting my mba.
Speaker A:But he was, he was always one to tell me.
Speaker A:He goes, you need to understand, you got to ask the right questions to get the answers.
Speaker A:Don't come up.
Speaker A:Don't always have an answer, but always have a question.
Speaker A:And I didn't understand.
Speaker A:I thought, as when you're in charge, you had to answer for everything.
Speaker A:No, no, no, you better be able to have the right questions, understand what is it you're trying to do.
Speaker A:Make sure you're engaged with individuals and the answers will come.
Speaker A:Yeah, don't be just trying to give answers, to give answers.
Speaker A:And he was always teaching.
Speaker A:He was always teaching and coaching.
Speaker A:I'm like, man, this is like a guy I'd want to be.
Speaker A:He's very knowledgeable.
Speaker A:He can drink anybody under the table.
Speaker A:He's strong as an ox.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:He don't take crap from anybody, tells them exactly where they're going.
Speaker A:Like, he was like one of the man's men, you know, And I really kind of aspired to see that, you know, and then I've had many other individuals that, when I had those skills, but they were raw.
Speaker A:This threw me in, you know, when I was in my Goodyear days down down south and Tennessee, gentleman by the name of James Overby.
Speaker A:And I actually wound up connecting with him up here.
Speaker A:And, you know, we.
Speaker A:We've split paths back and forth and he would always throw me out there.
Speaker A:I was always all upset with him.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you talk about Covey stuff.
Speaker A:I love Cubby.
Speaker A:I talk about Covey all day.
Speaker A:So Stephen Covey, you know, when you talk about the emotional bank account.
Speaker A:And at first, you know, I saw it as a Withdrawal and didn't realize it was an investment in the emotional bank account, which is like, hey, we got this guy coming through.
Speaker A:He wants to walk through the division.
Speaker A:He wants to see this, he wants to see that.
Speaker A:Go take care of it.
Speaker A:That's your damn job.
Speaker A:Name, mine?
Speaker A:What the hell?
Speaker A:I'm going to tell this guy.
Speaker A:Yeah, you'll be all right.
Speaker A:Go ahead and tell him.
Speaker A:What do you want me to tell him?
Speaker A:Tell him what you're going to tell him.
Speaker A:That's what he would say.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Because what he was trying to do was teach me.
Speaker A:Don't be so over anxious for stuff.
Speaker A:Don't be so overthinking yourself.
Speaker A:You have a mission.
Speaker A:You know what you're doing.
Speaker A:You're out here every day.
Speaker A:Don't be all hemmed up on things.
Speaker A:Go tell what you're going to tell them.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But what if you ask me a question?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Tell him you don't know.
Speaker A:Don't lie to the man.
Speaker A:So it was.
Speaker A:I mean, here I am, I'm like in my late 20s, you know, my early 30s, and I'm having these, these kind of conversations with individuals because you don't know.
Speaker A:But I was learning very, very quickly to the point where you began mastering all these skills that people are putting in position.
Speaker A:So when I'm working with people today, you know, it wasn't the edge.
Speaker A:You got to get the education because there's some foundational stuff.
Speaker A:It helps you think abstractly sometimes, but you got to get those checks in the boxes.
Speaker A:It teaches you, really.
Speaker A:You know, a degree is nothing more than that.
Speaker A:Shows somebody other than some specialty thing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Really show somebody.
Speaker A:And then I love it because I think it was on Tulsa King that it said it, you know, he said it is it shows somebody that you can show up consistently for four years, do some assignments relatively the way that, you know they're supposed to be done.
Speaker A:And you know, that not really mess anything up.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So that's what prospective employers are doing.
Speaker A:Can you show up?
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:You prove that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Can you follow direction?
Speaker A:Okay, you do that.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I'm going to make a bet that you're not going to screw anything up in my thing, and I'll try to teach you what I need you to know.
Speaker A:That's really kind of what the degrees aren't.
Speaker A:Lister, specialty stuff.
Speaker B:My problem used to always say it shows you can start and finish something.
Speaker A:Pretty much.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:You know.
Speaker A:You know, and so.
Speaker A:And it's funny, I've that Consistency thing is a key.
Speaker A:I used to use the word discipline a lot, but it has a negative connotation if somebody isn't receiving it in the word that I.
Speaker A:What you're trying to mean.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, hey, you gotta have discipline.
Speaker A:Oh, great.
Speaker A:I gotta get up at 5 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no.
Speaker A: or: Speaker A:Just be consistent at what you're doing and all of it, all of it will come.
Speaker A:So I've changed my verbiage from being disciplined to consistency, you know, so I was consistent in the military for, you know, a total of like 10, 10 years there.
Speaker A:I was consistent manufacturing over to 30.
Speaker A:I was consistent with my education and got those.
Speaker A:I was consistent and, you know, my martial arts and getting, you know, my black belts and stuff like that, consistent in my businesses to where, you know, we've got three.
Speaker B:Something.
Speaker B:Sorry, did something happen?
Speaker B:Because I'm just processing as you're saying.
Speaker B:You know, we've really got digging into your personal life more about.
Speaker B:Because it's pretty interesting how at some point you had to start believing in yourself.
Speaker B:I mean, you obviously didn't when you were 16, right?
Speaker B:Because you're running around doing whatever.
Speaker B:And so I'm assuming it happened in that military phase where maybe you saw like, I can do something here and all of a sudden that can start to explode, right?
Speaker B:Like in a positive, like, you start to realize, boy, what else can I do?
Speaker B:I can do.
Speaker B:Was there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like, was there any sick.
Speaker B:Was there like a.
Speaker B:Did it just sort of happen solely over time?
Speaker B:Or when, when did you almost become self aware?
Speaker B:Like, like, wow, I can do.
Speaker B:I can, I can maybe because a big part of everything you've said to me since I've met you is your vision.
Speaker B:You know, like you're always talking vision and seeing this picture out there so clearly.
Speaker B:At some point, I'm guessing when you were, maybe when you were 16, you didn't have a vision, but by the time you were, whatever, 21 or 25.
Speaker A:I don't think it was until my 40s.
Speaker B:Oh, really?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, there's, there's no, there's no starting late.
Speaker A:Just start.
Speaker A:Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's late.
Speaker A:I mean, I love the Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Story.
Speaker A:I love that one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I won't go into the whole morbid beginning of the story.
Speaker B:Oh, I don't know about them.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, it was.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, to my understanding of the whole story, and I'll paraphrase it, so.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But you got me interested.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The song, the Colonel Sanders.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The story goes, is that he attempted to kill himself.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:And failed.
Speaker A:And failed at that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So here this poor guy is thinking, I can't do anything right.
Speaker A:You know, I've got this family that's gone now.
Speaker A:I've lost my jobs.
Speaker A:I can't do this right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I'm done.
Speaker A:And can't even do that right.
Speaker A:You know, this is how.
Speaker A:Kind of like the story.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's how the story goes, because you can laugh because it came out to be a very great story in the end.
Speaker A:So the one thing the guy could do is he could make chicken.
Speaker A:And so he's making chicken.
Speaker A:I think his neighbor knocked on the door and smelled it.
Speaker A:You know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:And I know I'm paraphrasing this a lot, really big overview, but the whole intent is, is this guy does do something extremely well, but he didn't feel like he did.
Speaker A:And it wasn't until he realized something that everybody else knew at that point that was close to him, that small circle.
Speaker A:And when more and more people saw it, the greater his value of himself became.
Speaker A:And the next thing you know, here it is at 60.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:He's starting Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I can't remember.
Speaker A:I think it was like.
Speaker A:I think he lived to, like, 80 something or whatever.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So he had two decades over two decades of building this empire of Kentucky.
Speaker B:Isn't it funny?
Speaker B:It's almost, as you're saying, it's almost like someone else has to believe in you first.
Speaker B:Like, that's.
Speaker A:There's, there's.
Speaker A:And it's funny you said that, because I can't remember if it was some Covey training I went through a long time ago or something I read.
Speaker A:I think it was Covey.
Speaker A:It was one of the Covey videos or something.
Speaker A:I saw.
Speaker A:It's many, many years ago.
Speaker A:There was this person dancing in this festival.
Speaker A:You're the only person dancing.
Speaker A:I don't even know if music was playing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:This person's just going at it, and everybody's looking at them like they're a fool.
Speaker A:The most important person in anything is the second person, because the second person is what creates momentum.
Speaker A:The second person got up and started dancing with this Person.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Several minutes later, everybody's up dancing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It took the courage of that second person.
Speaker A:So who's your second?
Speaker A:Oh, you know, Sonya happens to be my second.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Who's there with you?
Speaker B:Another bonus point.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, hell yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then there's truth in that, too, which is good because she's always that.
Speaker B:Guy, the guy that would drink you under the table.
Speaker A:Oh, Peter Zasowski.
Speaker B:Peter.
Speaker B:Yeah, Peter.
Speaker B:He.
Speaker B:He gives you some tips on the marriage, you know.
Speaker A:Oh, no, but he was a crap.
Speaker B:How long was he married?
Speaker B:Was he married?
Speaker A:Oh, my God, forever.
Speaker A:I mean, because he was significantly older than me at the time.
Speaker A:I wouldn't be surprised if I've got to remember.
Speaker A:I mean, he was older than me now.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:I mean, so he was considerably older gentleman.
Speaker A:And yeah, he was still with his wife.
Speaker A:I mean, really good, hard working, family man type.
Speaker A:But yeah.
Speaker A:So when you think about it, it's like, who's your second?
Speaker A:Who's your second now?
Speaker A:For Sonya, I'm her second.
Speaker A:There's no first.
Speaker A:You've got to be first.
Speaker B:Right, Right.
Speaker A:So, you know, they talk about ride or die and all this other stuff like that, and you learn to start staying in your lanes and you start building together as that second.
Speaker A:Then there's a third.
Speaker A:Who's the third?
Speaker A:Well, I mean, there's a handful of the girls that help us today that are helping with bottling and helping with, you know, what we're doing.
Speaker A:And I mean, it's just incredible how many more people are involved.
Speaker A:And it's getting to the point of as we get bigger, you know, it's not even a concern of who's going to be involved, because so many of them are there ready to go saying, hey, what's going to happen with this?
Speaker A:Hey, what's going to happen with that?
Speaker A:And it's not always roses, you know, sometimes there are rough nights.
Speaker A:You know, when I say rough nights is everybody had to work themselves, then they come there to work.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it becomes a long, long day for everybody and you kind of feel it.
Speaker A:But we all are appreciative of one another, so it's one of those things where it just continues to expand.
Speaker A:So who's your third, fourth, or fifth when that momentum kicks in?
Speaker B:I'm not even listening to anymore.
Speaker B:I'm just kidding.
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker A:Distracted.
Speaker A:Is Regan giving you text messages telling you to wrap it up?
Speaker B:Yeah, I remember last time I forgot to.
Speaker B:There's a.
Speaker B:Because when you said that, I thought, oh, my gosh, there's that Show.
Speaker B:Remember I told you there's a series on Netflix or something.
Speaker B:I gotta find this thing.
Speaker B:It's gonna drive me nuts now.
Speaker B:It's so cool.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:Sometimes you've said stuff and it's.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker B:Because it's.
Speaker B:They go to Spain.
Speaker B:It's this woman trying to remember.
Speaker B:We watched My wife's really into it.
Speaker B:It got a little weird to me.
Speaker B:It got a little woke, to be honest with you.
Speaker B:I know we can say some.
Speaker A:There were feelings.
Speaker A:There were some feelings.
Speaker B:Yeah, there was some feelings.
Speaker A:Feelings.
Speaker B:There were feelings.
Speaker B:Like about.
Speaker B:Check me out.
Speaker A:Feelings.
Speaker B:They got a little weird.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But it was cool.
Speaker B:I mean, it was cool.
Speaker B:And she.
Speaker B:My wife watched it with her mom and everything, but I somehow her husband and her crime thing happens or he's get some.
Speaker B:With the wrong people and she goes back to, like Spain, I think it is.
Speaker B:And they.
Speaker B:Their old.
Speaker B:Their family or her grandma or.
Speaker B:No, her mom grew up on this winery, you know, and this had this vineyard.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:And so all these women now are doing this.
Speaker B:That's what the whole thing is around this.
Speaker B:You would love it because the whole thing.
Speaker B:And it's so many cool.
Speaker A:And I'd like it for different reasons.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I want to look at what trellis system they're using.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:What grapes are they growing.
Speaker B:Don't worry about the relationship.
Speaker B:It's all about you just hear, like the material things.
Speaker A:What was it the.
Speaker A:Oh, what the heck is it Charlie Brown?
Speaker A:You know, you're.
Speaker A:You're looking at the pictures, but you're hearing.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Hey, what do you think I will find?
Speaker B:I'm not good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I'll define whatever the thing is.
Speaker B:All right, well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:Because probably we should.
Speaker B:I don't know how long.
Speaker B:How long we've been going.
Speaker B:Reagan, we haven't even heard from you.
Speaker B:I mean, you can take a look at your.
Speaker A:I'm gonna take a look at my.
Speaker B:Your clock.
Speaker A:There's a clock.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Rich is giving us.
Speaker B:And we know how valuable your time, everything you're doing.
Speaker B:So I'll tell you what, though.
Speaker B:Let's talk just if we could, a little bit about marketing.
Speaker B:That's what this.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So here you've.
Speaker B:You're well read.
Speaker B:You've done all the.
Speaker B:I mean, obviously, like a study and people and motivation and everything you've said.
Speaker B:How did you approach the market?
Speaker B:Like, so this is.
Speaker B:This was your first.
Speaker B:This is the first time you're involved with marketing for your business.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Or was there other things you were involved in marketing?
Speaker A: d we've been doing that since: Speaker A:Two things that happen when you have an interaction with somebody, it's an opportunity to teach and learn.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So that interaction, but it's also an opportunity to buy or sell.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And that's, you know, people kind of forget that, is that anytime you're communicating, depending on what capacity that you're in.
Speaker A:So if I'm in there in front of a customer, there's a teach to learn moment going both ways, back and forth on a specific product.
Speaker A:But then also there's a selling point that you're making because you're providing them a service and a value, you know, in a product.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So how you handle that individual and their needs that they're looking for, understanding their point of view, all those things come in handy when you're even working through a problem which, you know, never let a crisis go to waste, so to speak, you've got a problem, fix the problem very quickly, you know, highlight the things that are going to be done going forward and the ease of mind that they will have because you've resolved it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:But then also they see the character that you're demonstrating during that.
Speaker A:And so people are like, I'm not no longer buying that product, I'm buying that person right there, my interactions with, with them.
Speaker A:So I know when the worst of war starts to happen, this is what I can get from them.
Speaker A:I know what I'm going to get in return.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I would say I've been in for a lot longer but never classically trained or schooled.
Speaker A:And I've read some books and stuff like that, but never classically trained or schooled.
Speaker B:So when you started the vineyard, that's the first time you could say you had to buy ever?
Speaker B:Essentially, Yes.
Speaker B:I mean, like ever.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So what?
Speaker B:Yeah what?
Speaker B:So from a small business, brand new business perspective, what were some of the things and, and I think, and I know, I mean we've obviously done your website, so that's been one part.
Speaker B:But I know there's billboards, I think I've seen, you know, social.
Speaker B:You've talked about social media market.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, so what were some of the decision making in there, do you think, in terms of how you looked at this landscape of all these options and you know, did you have any formula that you were going through trying to.
Speaker A:That's a great question.
Speaker A:So what I had was, I took a look at.
Speaker A:I do everything with.
Speaker A:With mind maps.
Speaker A:I love mind maps.
Speaker A:They're like, I don't have any on me right here because I didn't bring my notebook in.
Speaker B:It's like a thing.
Speaker B:Like, it's.
Speaker A:It's a thing.
Speaker A:And at least for me, it is amazing because it turns into just.
Speaker A:It almost looks kind of like a brain when you get done with it to some extent, or some type of massive wheel of things.
Speaker A:So in the center, you could do things like you put.
Speaker B:So this.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:That's it right there.
Speaker A:So in the center, you can start with hickory vines.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So when you start on the wheel, you do things like, okay, you've got advertising, you've got production, you've got legality, you've got, you know, you know, the property.
Speaker A:There's whatever.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker A:So in this case, just use advertising.
Speaker A:Because that's a bubble over here, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's a bubble of concern.
Speaker A:So then I put that bubble there, a bubble of focus.
Speaker A:So I put that bubble there and say, okay, what are the different avenues?
Speaker A:I have personally made and printed off my own print media.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:And I've used different things and stuff.
Speaker A:And even some of the stuff we've gotten from you guys, which is great.
Speaker A:The little.
Speaker A:The pamphlet.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And have specifically gone on Better Business Bureau sites of all the hard work.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's the.
Speaker A:That's, I would say, the newest version of walking door to door.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You're still not knocking door to door.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But when you put stuff in an envelope addressed to a business, a school, a church, etc.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:You're almost going door to door.
Speaker A:It's as close as you're going to get.
Speaker A:So when you're sending that with a letter specifically saying, hey, here's who we are, this is what we're doing, that it did local.
Speaker A:And then you're giving them some type of print media with that and you're putting stuff out the door.
Speaker A:That's this big.
Speaker A:There's my mailing campaign.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:That's my documented mailing campaign.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:The next one is.
Speaker A:Is what is my social media campaign?
Speaker A:There's a piece that my wife will take care of.
Speaker B:So you.
Speaker B:What I would call a targeted solo mail start another targeted.
Speaker B:Meaning you was going to business or think I hit everybody but you.
Speaker A:Oh, I hit everybody.
Speaker B:What the heck?
Speaker B:We could have done that for you.
Speaker B:I mean, saturation.
Speaker A:Like, I sent it to Hospitals.
Speaker A:I sent it to retirement homes.
Speaker B:Okay, well, that's not.
Speaker B:I mean, everybody would be Every address, in other words.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In our industry, that would be a targeted list.
Speaker B:You were going to specific business.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:When you say everybody, all the business.
Speaker B:Okay, that's what I mean.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So that was.
Speaker B:That was a targeted list.
Speaker A:Pretty much, we would call it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I did omit some things out of there for sure.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker A:So when you won't talk about that.
Speaker A:No, when you look at some of the other ones, the next thing would be social media.
Speaker A:So my wife.
Speaker A:For us, what we do is, you know, the Facebook, the Instagram and stuff like that.
Speaker A:Then there were some other individuals we were able to connect with that took a piece of that social media to help us through some of those same platforms and stuff.
Speaker A:Then there was the website and everything through TMS that, you know, that's been great.
Speaker A:I mean, you guys are amazing.
Speaker A:I'm not just saying that.
Speaker A:You're amazing when it comes to the updates, the visuals of that.
Speaker A:In fact, MK LAN Solutions is who turned me on.
Speaker B:Oh, that's right.
Speaker A:To TMS plus.
Speaker A:And I've.
Speaker A:I've got nothing but great things to say about the team.
Speaker A:Between Tommy and Regan and Alyssa in the group.
Speaker A:I mean, you know, I'm missing probably one.
Speaker A:Tom.
Speaker B:Yeah, Tom and Tommy.
Speaker A:Tom's great, you know, and Tom's done a lot of different things on there and it's evolved.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Over time.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So then that.
Speaker A:There's our web page, you know, so people can interact with that then.
Speaker B:I gotta say, Tommy was one of the stories.
Speaker B:We use this a lot, that he was excited if you're going to come to the summit and stuff.
Speaker B:But, and, and for him, he's new in doing this and stuff.
Speaker B:And if you recall this.
Speaker B:But early on he.
Speaker B:He came home super excited because he came over there.
Speaker B:I forget, maybe he was dropping off the little printed pieces and I don't know if you guys were open yet or something.
Speaker B:Or maybe the site was just coming out and your wife was like booking all these book.
Speaker B:It was all these bookings.
Speaker B:And he goes, dad, I got to physically see it, like in front, in front of me.
Speaker B:Like, she was like, oh, my gosh, this thing's.
Speaker B:Or something.
Speaker B:He was so turned on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it was so, so I thought it was testimony of both.
Speaker B:I mean, your people were already moving and then the site was doing, you know, was working or whatever.
Speaker B:People were contacting you.
Speaker B:So that was so cool.
Speaker B:It was such a tangible moment to see it because we're so set.
Speaker B:You know, in the digital especially, you're just.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:So removed from it.
Speaker B:Unless someone tells you, you know, someplace sees it.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So there was that piece, and then obviously got into the billboards.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And stuff like that.
Speaker A:So our billboard was flying around.
Speaker B:So how did you like even that, though?
Speaker B:How'd you make a choice?
Speaker B:Was there something, somebody that's just kind of like, hey, I'm just gonna try some stuff, or did you really have.
Speaker A:I'm like, when it comes to anything and anybody that knows me, that really knows me, and I've got a couple of good friends I know I swing like a blind kid on a pinata.
Speaker A:I don't care.
Speaker A:And then whatever doesn't work, I just don't do it anymore.
Speaker A:But I don't.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:It's a calculated risk.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You know, you need to advertise.
Speaker A:Advertise, right.
Speaker A:And you read and hear a lot of things about advertising.
Speaker A:So I don't want to say now here, let me ignore it, but get.
Speaker B:A little Town Money Saver in here.
Speaker B:And it relates digital, like, for instance, I mean, that's all I do mostly is train, especially print.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Well, we have all these formulas.
Speaker B:We got, like, timing market, offer.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You got it.
Speaker B:Like, I've seen ads go out that'll do a hundred times difference from the offer.
Speaker B:And so I advertise for franchisees.
Speaker B:And I remember talking to like Entrepreneur magazine.
Speaker B:I put ads in there, for instance, during certain key ones, like franchise stuff.
Speaker B:And I'm like, hey, teach me what works in this.
Speaker B:In this format.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, so in other words, I mean, here's Tom Money Saver, a little plug for Tony Saver.
Speaker B:And, you know, so these ads, we kind of know what works in these ads.
Speaker B:We know the audience it's going to, and we're gonna feature it in a way to get the optimum response.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Doofus.
Speaker B:He's like, well, I don't know.
Speaker B:Just do.
Speaker B:You know, they don't even.
Speaker B:I mean, so the 10 grand on an ad, and they don't even know.
Speaker B:So here's my point, why I'm saying all this.
Speaker B:I find it one of the most challenging things, and I'm in it, and I find it difficult.
Speaker B:Like, for instance, you could try that.
Speaker B:But like, for instance, the billboard.
Speaker B:Is there a form?
Speaker B:There must be.
Speaker B:Maybe there's some kind of formula that works at something.
Speaker B:You know, might be the photo, it might be the headline, it might be.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:It's interesting you said that because I'm not as keen on that.
Speaker A:And some people have different preferences and the things that I learn.
Speaker A:And that's the other thing is learning in your financial models that you have on what you're spending money on and stuff like that, right?
Speaker A:Because there has to be.
Speaker A:There's a business.
Speaker A:It has to have a return to.
Speaker A:Can't just do everything and get nothing out of it.
Speaker A:I mean, there's certain things that are better than others depending on what the situation is.
Speaker A:So one of the things that I've realized about things like billboards and big print media stuff is it's brand recognition and brand reminder, right?
Speaker A:So it's like, oh, yeah, that's still out there.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:It's not something that specifically is going to drive us, hey, I open up something and then there's a coupon for it, right?
Speaker A:And then, so there's a certain generated value.
Speaker A:Somebody comes in, you see it and you're able to do that.
Speaker A:So I would ask questions, hey, how'd you hear from us Is your first time here?
Speaker A:You know, you get all that and you hear the different avenues of what people have to offer.
Speaker B:So do you ever.
Speaker B:So, okay, speak to that for a moment.
Speaker B:This is kind of good conversation because I agree there's a value.
Speaker B:I also am concerned that it can sometimes be an excuse, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Because I've competed against stuff like that and I'm like, well, how do I compete with something that someone just says?
Speaker B:Oh, it's like, for instance, newspaper, when it was around someone.
Speaker B:Like, we get obsessed about return on investment formulas, counting, you know, everything very tangible.
Speaker B:Which in digital, there's a lot of that too.
Speaker B:And yet, you know, I'd have someone do it and then they say, I didn't really do.
Speaker B:I'm a stick with the newspaper.
Speaker B:And I'm like, well, what is that doing for you?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I just know it works.
Speaker B:You're like, well, what do you mean?
Speaker B:You know, it works.
Speaker B:Yeah, so.
Speaker B:And, yeah, I do.
Speaker B:There, there's.
Speaker B:I mean, we see in digital especially, I mean, we're seeing more of that.
Speaker B:We're obviously, like you just said, there, there is an institutional side, there's a branding side, there's a, you know, it puts it in people's mind and whatever way you want to describe it, but man, that can become really tough to try to understand.
Speaker A:Which one's which.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, here's how you do that though.
Speaker A:Then you're 100% right.
Speaker A:You're 100% right.
Speaker A:Because.
Speaker A:Because in the beginning, I knew I was going to swing like a kid on a pinata, right?
Speaker A:I was just going to whack away and whatever candy fell out, that's what I was going to scoop up.
Speaker A:The rest of it done.
Speaker A:I don't need the whole pinata.
Speaker A:I just need a little bit of candy.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:But I wanted to make sure that for every swing I took after that, it was, now that I know where it is, I'm going to keep impacting it.
Speaker A:So one of the things that we would do is as soon as we seen coming in, it was a little bit easier in the beginning because now there's so many new people and so many people had men coming in.
Speaker A:You've got your regulars, you pretty much know who's kind of new or maybe it's their second time.
Speaker A:Hey, how did you hear about us?
Speaker A:Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:And I do things like, even at work, I do what they're called, you know, walking utilizations.
Speaker A:And a walking utilization is if I walk into a square room and there are 10 people in there and five of them working, that's a 50% utilization.
Speaker A:I go back into that room three weeks later and I see there's 10 people in there and seven people are working.
Speaker A:That's a 70% utilization.
Speaker A:I go on a third time and I see six people.
Speaker A:That's a 60% utilization.
Speaker A:I don't need three people because my walking ultimization says every time I've gone in there, I've only seen this activity from X amount of people.
Speaker A:There may be a period where all 10 are working, but it's not at such an increased time that I can't find a way to work around that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:With that, I took that same manufacturing application and I applied it to advertising.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker A:So when people came in and I had a little notebook there and little stuff like that, and it doesn't take a lot, but you have to be consistent.
Speaker A:Yeah, you have to be consistent at it.
Speaker A:Where it's like, hey, how'd you hear from us?
Speaker A:Hey, I heard from so and so that came here for a wedding.
Speaker A:It was an event.
Speaker A:So and so came here for the yoga.
Speaker A:That's an event.
Speaker A:So and so came here for shop and sip.
Speaker A:That's an event.
Speaker A:So word of mouth.
Speaker A:That's all word of mouth, right?
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, it's interesting as a result of that.
Speaker A:So this.
Speaker A:So the next thing was when I heard people say, oh, I was looking for a place, I googled it, I typed in Google and it showed Me that and I saw your website because it was connected to that.
Speaker A:Okay, digital.
Speaker A:Yeah, you know, digital.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of those.
Speaker A:There's a lot of.
Speaker A:Okay, digital.
Speaker A:There's individuals.
Speaker A:Hey.
Speaker A:We were looking for a place between Cleveland and Columbus, and so I went on Google Digital.
Speaker A:You know, there was a different reason why, but it was all the same approach.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So I started asking a specific question.
Speaker A:You see my billboard?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Damn.
Speaker A:See my billboard?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Damn.
Speaker B:It's funny.
Speaker B:Tommy saw it.
Speaker B:I've never saw it.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I saw it once.
Speaker B:So I'm 30.
Speaker A:It's somewhere around there.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It moves.
Speaker A:It moves every two months, which is awesome.
Speaker A:I love that it moves.
Speaker A:But it was a very low percentage.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:You know, now for brand recognition, If I've got 50 of out there, that's a different story.
Speaker A:But that's also a different cost, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I've got one floating around out there.
Speaker A:And after a while, people that had already been coming there for different reasons said, hey, guess what I finally saw.
Speaker A:Well, we've already got them coming in.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, they're already there.
Speaker A:There are some people that would come in and it would say, hey, I was driving the other day and I noticed that said, hey, Hickory vines.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, damn.
Speaker A:Mansfield way.
Speaker A:So then I looked you up and I saw that.
Speaker A:So that generated.
Speaker B:Okay, here's something.
Speaker B:Well, and I can't help but think too, since we're on this topic and just this more for fun, it makes me wonder because in a way, I think you are seeing two different things with Word of Mountain event.
Speaker B:But let me ask you, are some of these events, like, are you hosting them and then people are signing up?
Speaker A:Yeah, we host them and we sign up.
Speaker B:So in a way that is like.
Speaker A:That'S what social media.
Speaker A:And then the person that's putting it on, that is actually using our location will advertise their own way.
Speaker A:But what's key is, is that somebody came to that event.
Speaker A:But then somebody came in and said, my sister came in or did a paint event, and she told me about the place.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that's the word of mouth.
Speaker B:But what I really like about that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because I mean, event marketing is a big deal.
Speaker B:I mean, we've seen a lot of studies and you're really setting a nice place to.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, you could.
Speaker B:I mean, you could do a show, right?
Speaker B:You could have band.
Speaker A:Oh, we got.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:November 15th, we got a comedy night.
Speaker A:We have two comics coming in, and it's our weekly.
Speaker A:It's our anniversary that you're sitting golden for.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You do something like that.
Speaker B:You have people come that didn't want even.
Speaker B:Maybe didn't even know the winery right there for the comedian.
Speaker B:Next thing you know, they're like, exactly.
Speaker A:Hey, what's going on with this?
Speaker A:There's a venue, there's massive pavilions, there's camping.
Speaker A:Especially, like the camping.
Speaker A:We've got people that actually have gone through digital through a site because it's.
Speaker A:I call it like the, The Airbnb of camping.
Speaker A:It's called Hip Camp.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:And I've had more Hip Camp customers come in and rent the campsites.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Than actually people that come out to the winery.
Speaker A:Although we've had some.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It was just very.
Speaker A:It was odd to me.
Speaker A:I figured, you know, the customers that come there all the time, all our locals, like, oh, yeah, we're going to go out there, we're going to do the camping.
Speaker A:And we've had that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But we've actually had more, slightly more on the hip camp side.
Speaker A:And I'm like, that's.
Speaker A:That's incredible.
Speaker A:Some of these people are too.
Speaker B:Can you do more with the hip.
Speaker B:Can you actually go on Hip Camp and buy ads or do more with it?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:I mean, because to me, that's everything, Right.
Speaker B:Wherever you're getting it from, I want to get more.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I always tell people I can't create what's not there.
Speaker B:I can only take what's there and make it better.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker A:I'm sure, I'm sure if you're looking for 10 cents in a certain area, you could do something that gets your, your, your thing up at the top of the list.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, we could.
Speaker B:I mean, we could even help with that here.
Speaker B:But I just wonder, okay.
Speaker B:Like, for instance, if I understand.
Speaker B:I think Doordash.
Speaker B:Can't you Reg.
Speaker B:Well, Reagan's a guy here.
Speaker B:Reagan, why don't you speak up?
Speaker B:Doordash, can't you, like, do something to move yourself up or buy ads or something on Doordash somewhat.
Speaker B:I mean, I do think there are some sponsored positions and they kind of work like local service ads.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I guess my point would be this hip.
Speaker B:Whatever, what you call it, Hip tent or something.
Speaker A:Hip camp.
Speaker B:Hip Camp.
Speaker B:You just wonder.
Speaker B:I bet you I'd just be curious, like, maybe you.
Speaker B:I mean, if you're getting people from there now, why not boost it even more?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I Mean, it's like something that's working.
Speaker A:Maybe I need to see what.
Speaker B:Look it up, Reagan.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What options it has.
Speaker A:That would be.
Speaker A:That would be great.
Speaker A:The season's almost over.
Speaker A:It's getting colder out.
Speaker A:But I was really pleased with how many people came through that.
Speaker A:I mean, every weekend for the past four weekends, we've had people out there camping.
Speaker B:That's crazy.
Speaker B:That's so cool.
Speaker B:All right, so what's.
Speaker B:And I guess.
Speaker B:Well, I know.
Speaker B:I mean, we use a lot of your time.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:Just for fun.
Speaker B:What's in the future here?
Speaker B:I know you got your visions.
Speaker B:Can you.
Speaker B:Just for fun, we'll wrap up with you talking a little bit about what you see.
Speaker B:The new things coming for Hickory Vines.
Speaker A:Well, I think the new.
Speaker A:The new things, obviously, are the building that's going up in November.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:We're very excited about that.
Speaker A:We want to actually host our New Year's Eve party there.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker B:That's going to be fast.
Speaker B:You're just building in November and you want to host a New Year's Eve party?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:We don't mess around.
Speaker A:It's like that blanket I talk about.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So you keep swinging away and doing your thing.
Speaker A:So, yeah.
Speaker A:So the building is a big thing.
Speaker A:Then next year, in the spring, there's a lot of planting going on.
Speaker A:There's a second vineyard that's being built.
Speaker A:There's another hundred trees being put into the orchard.
Speaker A:You know, those kind of things.
Speaker A:A lot of the property is going to be upgraded in regards to the aesthetics now.
Speaker A:So it's been, you know, it's been a functional property.
Speaker A:It's been things that we've been adding, patios, you know, stuff inside the building.
Speaker A:The furnitures, the, you know, the pavilions have been, you know, like, upgraded.
Speaker A:You're upgrading your vineyard.
Speaker A:So now what it is is the things like the landscaping and all the other stuff, so it's more picturesque.
Speaker A:And there was a, you know, discussion.
Speaker A:Somebody, one of the little girls that comes through here with her family.
Speaker A:We love them.
Speaker A:They come every week.
Speaker A:They haven't missed a week.
Speaker A:I think one week they did.
Speaker A:They still came and bought bottles.
Speaker A:Love this family.
Speaker A:Won't say their name.
Speaker A:Great family.
Speaker A:Their daughter had asked me, and they go, hey, how.
Speaker A:How much in debt are you?
Speaker A:And it was a brilliant question because she understood.
Speaker A:She understood that there's a financial implication of all.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:That you're taking on something to get this.
Speaker A:But so then I actually had a conversation with her for about 20 minutes.
Speaker A:Oh, God.
Speaker A:She had to be like, maybe 13, 14 years old.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:And it might be one of those 10 percenters.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:She's definitely a smart girl.
Speaker A:And we had a conversation about good debt and bad debt.
Speaker A:There's, you know, you can have good debt, you know, depending on what it's bringing back to you.
Speaker A:I said.
Speaker A:But the other thing we all.
Speaker A:We obviously do, too, is.
Speaker A:And you've seen the way that I dress.
Speaker A:We put everything back into that place.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Everything goes into it.
Speaker A:Into the point where I spend money, lots of money, out of my own paychecks.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:On those things, you know, we don't.
Speaker A:We don't have new cars.
Speaker A:All the equipment's paid for, you know, with cash.
Speaker A:I mean, we.
Speaker A:We put everything we have.
Speaker A:And I think people see that every week they come out.
Speaker A:Every month they come out, there's something new and bigger happening to the property that they can then enjoy.
Speaker A:And I think people gravitate to that.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:It's not like a corporate machine that is just pulling revenue in, Pulling revenue and pulling revenue in.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's the same model.
Speaker A:The same model.
Speaker A:Don't get wrong.
Speaker A:I understand it.
Speaker A:With my degrees, I understand how that works and value generation.
Speaker A:But, you know, I'm not only just the stakeholder, I own it.
Speaker A:This is my property.
Speaker A:This is important to me.
Speaker A:It's important to people around us, I think.
Speaker B:You can't get any more authentic, too, right, Liver?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, it's like, so cool.
Speaker B:Is that shirt from Goodwill or something then?
Speaker A:No, no, no, this is my work shirt.
Speaker B:Well, you said.
Speaker B:You see how you dress?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And my pants are from Amazon, so, you know, it's just.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:Yeah, mine's all from Sam's.
Speaker A:This is me dressing up, by the way.
Speaker B:I put a polo on.
Speaker A:Usually wear a T shirt or I'm out on with my ball cap and in the tractor.
Speaker A:So it's one of those things that, you know, I'm just very excited about because everything we get, we put back into there and of ourselves, and people see that.
Speaker A:You can feel that.
Speaker A:That energy when you walk in.
Speaker A:You feel that.
Speaker A:Hey, look.
Speaker A:You know, I kind of equate it to the Trojans and then in the Greeks.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It just.
Speaker A:We burned our ships.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Our ships are burnt.
Speaker A:There is no going back.
Speaker A:This is where we live.
Speaker A:This is what we're doing.
Speaker A:This is how we have.
Speaker B:I mean, do you ever get away?
Speaker A:No, no, no.
Speaker A:Okay, we got something.
Speaker B:Don't get burned out.
Speaker A:Yeah, we got something coming up.
Speaker A:Here pretty soon that my wife and I are gonna be able to get away.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We did something for our anniversary and stuff.
Speaker A:But I'm very.
Speaker B:Are you able to close it off?
Speaker B:I've never, you know, I've physically seen the gate, but, I mean, is there like a gate?
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker B:So people could just drive in there.
Speaker A:While people pull up.
Speaker A:We're, like doing production stuff and the winery's closed.
Speaker A:People come up.
Speaker A:We're like, hey, come on in.
Speaker A:Well, you know, we'll talk to you.
Speaker A:We'll do some things.
Speaker A:We'll buy bottles, we give them the stories.
Speaker A:We take them out on the trip or whatever in the back and show them stuff because it's important.
Speaker A:And people made a trip out there and they might have been 45 minutes drive.
Speaker A:We can't say, hey, sorry, we're closed.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's so rude.
Speaker A:You know, these people drove out.
Speaker A:They spent their time coming to see the place.
Speaker A:The least we could do.
Speaker A:The stuff we were doing can wait.
Speaker A:They are the most important.
Speaker A:People feel that I was gonna say, well, yeah.
Speaker B:How do you not feel that or sense that?
Speaker A:The whole.
Speaker B:The whole package we've talked about.
Speaker B:So exciting to see how this is gonna play out.
Speaker B:And, you know, and I'm sure anybody, at least local, if they're watching this.
Speaker B:I mean, I've heard it from people in the street.
Speaker B:So besides this, the reviews, I'm sure there's so many more of these out there.
Speaker B:So I can't wait to see how this thing goes, man.
Speaker B:And we're lucky.
Speaker B:Watch the journey as you go.
Speaker B:And do you ever see yourself, like, full time in it?
Speaker B:Do you see yourself?
Speaker A:I do.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I see myself full time when I retire from manufacturing.
Speaker A:So I would say I'd like to.
Speaker A:It's funny, it's twofold.
Speaker A:I see myself probably within the next five years.
Speaker A:I'd like to be doing this full time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But at the same time, you know, you got other things to worry about in life, like medical and other stuff like that too.
Speaker A:I mean, that's an arm and a leg and things.
Speaker A:I love manufacturing.
Speaker A:I love what I do.
Speaker A:I've got a ton of energy.
Speaker A:You know, I'm extremely fit and, you know, everything.
Speaker A:So I'm going to do that as long.
Speaker A:Everything, as long as I can.
Speaker A:But I actually thought of, in five years or so, going into politics, to be honest with you.
Speaker A:Politics.
Speaker A:I did.
Speaker B:Very cool.
Speaker A:I want to be that person that can be counted on to help make a difference in the right direction.
Speaker A:You're not going to Solve all the problems.
Speaker A:I think when people go out and start making promises and these, you know, grand gestures and these delusions of grandeur, everything takes work, everything takes a vision.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Strategy, structure, staffing, systems and execution.
Speaker A:So when you walk into an office.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you're in charge of making decisions now for a, for a group of people that had said, hey look, we need, we want you to do this.
Speaker A:That's why you're being voted on.
Speaker A:You have an obligation.
Speaker A:It's no longer to yourself.
Speaker A:You're not self serving.
Speaker A:They talk about servant leadership which we could talk about forever.
Speaker A:And that kind of stuff is that when you get voted into office.
Speaker A:I love the concept of citizen politicians where you go in for a short time, you do what you're supposed to.
Speaker A:Almost like you go in, you do your thing and you get out and you hand the baton off to somebody better than the baton got handed to you.
Speaker A:And it keeps going up and you are building on the shoulders of those before you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I don't think we look at it like that.
Speaker A:At least that's my personal preference.
Speaker A:I don't think we look at it like that.
Speaker A:At least it's a.
Speaker B:Guys in there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I mean there's career people.
Speaker A:That's the thing.
Speaker A:I just want to go in because I want to experience it, I want to learn from it.
Speaker A:I want to interact with people.
Speaker A:I want to see something that could be sustained and last longer than myself as an individual and for my kids and those that I know and care around me.
Speaker A:And for somebody to say 20, 30 years down the road on some super duper whatever, you know, it winds up being whatever media is 30 years from now on something like this going.
Speaker A:Yeah, I remember this guy, Rich Perrone.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And he did it.
Speaker A:And he's not, he's not gone as long as I mentioned his name.
Speaker A:He's still here.
Speaker A:That's a big deal.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's very cool.
Speaker B:Well, and I can't help but think you've already achieved.
Speaker B:I guarantee there's has to be your employees or whether it's at the manufacturing or your winery that you've priority had an impact.
Speaker B:Like was it Steve?
Speaker B:Is that he said the other guy's name was the guy that impacted you.
Speaker A:Oh, Peter.
Speaker A:Peter.
Speaker A:Yeah, Peter.
Speaker A:Horrible.
Speaker B:That's like I can't read.
Speaker B:Read books.
Speaker B:I can't remember anything.
Speaker B:That's why I tell.
Speaker B:Sometimes they're like what, what do you do at times?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Show up and talk, man.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:But you have a way of pulling stuff out of people, though.
Speaker A:See, you've got that vibe, that energy.
Speaker A:You're able to, like, you know, draw things out.
Speaker A:I mean, you should be an interrogator.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You'd be like the good cop, though.
Speaker A:You'd have to be the good cop.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:You'd have to come in and, you know.
Speaker B:Well, I do believe, you know, I had to do a commencement thing one time, and I think we touched on this last time that.
Speaker B:And I and Jared brought up.
Speaker B:We did one here.
Speaker B:I love, you know, because I don't know about you, but a lot of times I've tried to do things I couldn't really do well, you know, like accounting.
Speaker B:I can't do accounting.
Speaker B:And I can't, obviously, can't remember stuff.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:But you find.
Speaker B:You find your gift, right?
Speaker B:You find some.
Speaker B:Something happens and you're like, wait, this is easy.
Speaker B:Like, and you like it.
Speaker B:Yeah, you like it.
Speaker B:You're easy.
Speaker B:You're good at it, and you think everybody does it.
Speaker B:You didn't realize people like vision.
Speaker B:No, a lot of people don't have vision stuff, right?
Speaker A:That is true.
Speaker B:So you have it and then.
Speaker B:And you're like, wait a minute, this is awesome.
Speaker B:I mean, it's easy for me.
Speaker B:I'm good at it.
Speaker B:And yeah, this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Instead of fighting that, like, we normal, I think, you know, you spend time, like, I want to be this person over here.
Speaker B:I gotta.
Speaker B:So that was even my.
Speaker B:My message.
Speaker B:You're like, find your gift and share your gift, and that's your joy, you know, that's the rest of your life.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So anyway, what you're saying.
Speaker B:Drawn out.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:If I had something that.
Speaker B:That's what I get to enjoy when I meet new franchises, people, you know, And I think that, like, in Peter to you was, you know, what he saw in you when you could see it in somebody.
Speaker B:Bring it out, man.
Speaker B:There's nothing.
Speaker B:There's a high from that, you know, when you can say, hey, you are more than what you see yourself as and.
Speaker B:And you see that grow.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I think that's awesome.
Speaker B:Anyway.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, I mean, our.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We go out to the Storyside Church and, you know, my wife is extremely, you know, religious and focuses on that and believes.
Speaker A:So do I.
Speaker A:I mean, I am, you know, I.
Speaker A:I divert my attention at times and functionality things and stuff, but that she's devout and God bless her because, you know, everybody should have a praying wife, as they say.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, Mine too.
Speaker A:And our pastor out there, Pastor Mike, an amazing human being, by the way.
Speaker B:Yeah, a lot of good things I've seen come out of there.
Speaker A:Amazing human being, by the way.
Speaker A:Him and his wife, angel, and then.
Speaker A:And this entire staff are amazing.
Speaker A:And he says things, though.
Speaker A:He says things that will stick with you, like your time, your talent, and your treasure.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, these are things that you have to offer.
Speaker A:And you sit back and you think, you know, things that I heard, I was like, you can't have vision without provision.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, there's.
Speaker A:And these aren't gimmicky things that he's saying either, because you can see that he's applying them, he's living them, and he's another individual that I would put on that list of people.
Speaker A:And although we have contact, you know, not direct contact like I've had with some of those other leaders right.
Speaker A:In my life, but he is still, you know, here is a, you know, local, you know, church leader, if you will, and.
Speaker A:And somebody that takes that role very seriously.
Speaker A:And you feel the motivation, the motive, you feel the awesome authenticity, you feel the intimacy, the reliability, the credibility, you know, all that individuals.
Speaker A:But when he says things like that is.
Speaker A:What are you offering people?
Speaker A:You know, you offer people your time.
Speaker A:What are you offering people?
Speaker A:I'm offering you my talent.
Speaker A:What are you offering?
Speaker A:You know, I'm offering you my treasure.
Speaker A:In art, in regards to, like, hickory vine is the caught.
Speaker A:The value cost of what you're spending is less than you would be somewhere else.
Speaker A:So that's.
Speaker A:That's treasure.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So if you're walking in and you're getting all three of those, man, this is great.
Speaker A:You don't want to walk in and spend a lot of money, really not getting any time from anybody.
Speaker A:And from the talent and interaction standpoint, you're like, well, I mean, I could have done a little bit better myself, you know, I mean, you have.
Speaker A:You have to.
Speaker A:You have to give of yourself.
Speaker B:Well, so much of what you've been saying since you brought it up with the church reminds me of, really, a Christian kind of journey.
Speaker B:It reminds me of the stuff that, you know, we, you know, the virtues, let's say, of Christianity in terms of almost like evangelization, you know, in a way where, you know, to me, you open your heart to Christ, you fall in love with Christ, and you're overwhelmed and want to share it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You just, hey, I want to go out and share.
Speaker B:This is like a great meal or great.
Speaker B:And here, that's what you're so passionate about.
Speaker B:And just that you're passionate about your winery.
Speaker B:I would love to spend my money with someone.
Speaker B:That's how.
Speaker B:How often do you go somewhere and people are passionate about.
Speaker A:About what they do and, and the.
Speaker B:Individual never like 10% of the time.
Speaker A:When you know, people's name coming through the door, you know, what their drinks are, you know, all that other stuff you get that very minimal.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Nowadays that, I mean, that's worth, you know, just, you know, we'll do a little business here on the.
Speaker B:On the outro or whatever.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:You know, and unfortunately, we have to raise prices over time and you're wanting to be low and.
Speaker B:But I know like I.
Speaker A:Inflation kicks in, insurance kicks in.
Speaker B:I had, you know, we've been around 30 some years, so in permits, taxes, so you got it at some point.
Speaker B:And I've had franchise, which I love.
Speaker B:Their passion, you know, passion was.
Speaker B:I don't want to.
Speaker B:I don't want to raise the price.
Speaker B:I love my customers.
Speaker B:And finally, you know, the one guy I said, look at, man.
Speaker B:I go, I don't want to do it either.
Speaker B:I mean, I'm forced because I'm going, I said, don't you have somebody you really love doing business with?
Speaker B:Don't you have someone that, you know, I don't know, maybe you've bought a few cars from them or you go to a restaurant you love.
Speaker B:Don't you imagine them not being there?
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Don't you want to give them.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:I mean, your customers want to give you a little.
Speaker B:Now, of course, that sounds really nice until the.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker B:Goddamn raising your head.
Speaker B:10 bucks.
Speaker B:Get out of here.
Speaker B:But most of them, and, and obviously, like someone like you, the way you're describing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, I would in a heartbeat if you came.
Speaker B:The way you.
Speaker B:It sounds like your customers interact with you, I'm sure they'd be like, well, you let them know another buck for this.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's the other thing.
Speaker A:We're just.
Speaker A:We were talking about, like, you know, our pastor, Pastor Micah and, you know, other individuals.
Speaker A:That business and stuff, the.
Speaker A:Being transparent is huge.
Speaker A:Everybody, you know, we let people know when we talk to them, hey, look, you know, here's what's happening.
Speaker A:Every.
Speaker A:At the end of the year, we have to renew everything for the new year.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:That is your.
Speaker A:That, you know, you've got your insurance that comes in, you got your permits that come in.
Speaker A:You've got the increase into the new year, the product increases.
Speaker A:It's not, hey, this is great.
Speaker A:You Know, like if you looked at the price of what they had at Cheers, if Cheers bar was still open and on television, their costs would be what today?
Speaker B:Right, exactly.
Speaker A:The beer you paid back then versus now.
Speaker A:Now that's where we have to be responsible and understanding of what can we do with our cost of goods sold.
Speaker A:You know, what can we do with things like buying bulk and my wife talk about that.
Speaker A:We talk about it along all the time.
Speaker A:You know, bigger building and stuff.
Speaker A:Hey, can we do something with our bottles that we get in?
Speaker A: ittle cases, now we're buying: Speaker A: Can we buy: Speaker A:That will cover us for the first six months of the year.
Speaker A:But I can get a unit cost that's lower.
Speaker A:We can do unit cost, it's lower.
Speaker A:We don't need to raise the price going into 25.
Speaker A:And we still maintain our, our margin and our ability to do what we're doing.
Speaker A:That's what you want to do.
Speaker A:Some places what they'll do is say, oh great, you know, you have the margin.
Speaker A:Put it in my pocket.
Speaker A:That's not you people will see that very quickly.
Speaker A:So what happens is the margin or the price gap starts to.
Speaker A:All of yours is going up.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:The gap of years going up versus others.
Speaker A:It's, you've got this, yes.
Speaker A:This steady incline, but you don't have this steady taking advantage income.
Speaker A:How do you charge something?
Speaker A:27 more markup.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:From the prior 12 month period.
Speaker B:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:You know, it's out there, but.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean it's out there.
Speaker A:You see that on a lot of different things and even in our business because we do a lot in the manufacturing.
Speaker A:I mean thousands of skus of stuff that we buy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you're looking at stuff that makes sense.
Speaker A:That makes sense.
Speaker A:What the hell is going on with this one?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:How do you get into double digit increases and what's going, you know, so then you question it and you look at it and there's sometimes there's disingenuous stuff.
Speaker A:Sometimes like, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Go to a different country.
Speaker B:Well, and I know your passion is to keep it down in there, but I, I, I can't help but think that that exact, you know, that's sort of that paradox.
Speaker B:That same passion to keep it down is probably the passion that also would allow it to rise without losing customers 100.
Speaker A:And you just let them know because somebody will say, hey, what's going on?
Speaker A: Are going to be coming out in: Speaker A:Every year we said, hey, look, every year we'll put out a new menu.
Speaker A:That new menu has to be commensurate with the pricing, which means there were.
Speaker A:There are increases during the summertime that happen that we didn't increase on.
Speaker A:Yeah, because it's the normal draw.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Everybody's doing everything.
Speaker A:Everybody wants everything for the parties and the.
Speaker A:So that's an opportunity for distributors and everybody else to say, hey, I can get a markup here because I've got less.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:You got less of something.
Speaker A:It goes up in price.
Speaker A:We keep it straight, keep it flat.
Speaker A:So then what we'll do is obviously, we'll do our increases in 25, and then we wait all the way until 26.
Speaker A:Even if you take some hits in between there, somewhere in march or April, somebody decided to roll out theirs.
Speaker A:Then.
Speaker A:Yeah, you know, I'm not going to, hey, we up this a dollar and a half.
Speaker A:Well, look, I'm not going to nickel and dime the guy and increase that 25 cents a third of the way through the year.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You know, and it's like, okay, well, I was able.
Speaker A:No, your margin got eaten into.
Speaker A:You know, you don't pass it on the customer right away.
Speaker A:But when the new year rolls around, you know, what always gets me is things like taxes and insurance and.
Speaker A:Because these are big numbers.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm on the Lucas community center board and just this morning, and the insurance is ridiculous.
Speaker B:Like, that's our biggest single expense.
Speaker A:And I just realized.
Speaker A:I just realized this this week that I'm used to insurance being a certain value on homes and all this other stuff, you know, did not understand insurance relative to sales.
Speaker A:So as our sales are going to go up next year, you know, like a pro forma, you're kind of projecting what's going on with percentage are.
Speaker A:So does your insurance when you have things like alcohol and hay rides and campsites and there's exposure and stuff.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So they're like, oh, well, because you're doing that much more than what you thought you were going to be doing.
Speaker A:This is what it's going to be based off of what you did this year.
Speaker A:And you're like, my mouth is open.
Speaker A:I'm like, well, if I'm doing just the raw math myself, I'm like, there's no way I'm going to pay that much that it's going to go up that high because of this and the fact we didn't have any claims, any problems.
Speaker B:I never Thought of that.
Speaker B:So you're.
Speaker A:Because it's based on activity.
Speaker B:We hosted this thing called a white lightning run.
Speaker B:Did I share that with you at our place?
Speaker B:I still have to show you the stage and.
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:But I remember calling this motorsports insurance company and I'm talking to a lady and I said, well, we're going to have hot rods running around, simulated moonshine run.
Speaker B:It was very safe because you couldn't go too fast.
Speaker B:It was through a cornfield in the woods and we're going to have live bands.
Speaker B:And I thought we'll have camping to make it safer.
Speaker B:People can drink the driver way.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:She goes, we won't touch that with a thousand foot pole.
Speaker B:And I'm like, really?
Speaker B:Shows you're gonna have live bands, drinking and camping.
Speaker B:She goes, that is the.
Speaker B:And what she said is the most dangerous thing is the camping.
Speaker B:That what happens is because people stay if they know they're camping, they just keep drinking.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then someone drives over somebody.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now, I didn't want to scary.
Speaker B:But I thought you guys might have a great place we could resurrect a lightning run.
Speaker B:Dude, we made like tons of.
Speaker B:You can make tons of money on that thing.
Speaker B:I have to hook you up after this show for sure.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But yeah, you just said it is like whatever your exposure is based on your.
Speaker A:Your sales.
Speaker A:And so I've learned a lot within a week of that, you know, so it's like the better you do and the more people are involved because there's exposure.
Speaker A:And I get it.
Speaker A:But then somebody's got their hand out.
Speaker A:And if you've got a place that you're managing correctly and you're doing it right and you have the right clientele, meaning you're not allowing bad elements and other stuff to get in there, the exposure is much less.
Speaker A:And so they're using their, you know, their models and all their stuff that they.
Speaker A:They do.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:To say, well, collectively, this is the exposure, this is what you have to pay.
Speaker A:Even if you're on the low end of that and would never have that happen, you still have to pay this rate.
Speaker A:That's frustrating because that's a big piece of the margin and you always wind up if you're doing it the right way.
Speaker A:I always said that.
Speaker A:I said this to my wife.
Speaker A:I said, when we do this and we're going to keep doing this the right way, we're always going to eat some of it, if not the majority of it.
Speaker A:And I said, I'm okay with that.
Speaker A:Provided this Thing is the vision that it's turning into.
Speaker A:But it is a tough sell because it's a little, it is a little demotivating when you make such a big stride in doing something and somebody else not involved with, you know, our customers and the people that come there.
Speaker A:Not involved with the community that you're in.
Speaker A:Not involved with the efforts that you're putting in.
Speaker A:Get such a massive.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, and aren't even say that about taxes and capital gains.
Speaker B:One day you go to sell.
Speaker A:Don't even, don't even get me started on what potentially could happen with capital gains.
Speaker A:Are you kidding me?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You spend all your life doing something and then you have it to the.
Speaker A:And then all of a sudden now you're in your 50s, 60s, whatever, you've got a home, everything's paid for and it happens to go up in value because of inflation and it will because, yeah, you know, it's an appreciating asset.
Speaker A:And oh, by the way, you owe us taxes.
Speaker A:I didn't make any money this year.
Speaker A:Yeah, but your house jumped up 50,000.
Speaker A:So you owe us, you know, 18% on 50,000.
Speaker B:Oh yeah.
Speaker A:So what happens is people have no other recourse but then to sell hard assets and next thing you know you own nothing.
Speaker A:And you're happy about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, not on my watch.
Speaker A:And that's exactly why I want to go into politics is I think you have to take care of those that need to be.
Speaker A:That's why I joined the Marine Corps too.
Speaker A:Other than had a choice, if I was going to do something, I was going to go into where you had to help other people.
Speaker A:Like, you know, I don't, I don't like bullies.
Speaker A:I don't like stuff like that.
Speaker A:So I want to protect those who need protecting and I want to work with those who are shoulder to shoulder with you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And people do need help.
Speaker A:People do know at times a help up, not a handout type of thing.
Speaker A:You know, I like that and I think we miss that on the political front of things.
Speaker A:But we can talk about that next time.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:To wrap up.
Speaker B:No, that was good.
Speaker B:How about you?
Speaker B:Want to tell us about your tattoos?
Speaker B:I always think those are cool.
Speaker B:Like a little story there or anything.
Speaker B:Are you just drunk one night?
Speaker A:No, no, no, no.
Speaker A:I mean my mom, my mom's an old Armenian woman, came over from Armenia.
Speaker A:Family and stuff like that.
Speaker A:And so my tattoos, I've got them all over.
Speaker A:I've actually got armor up on this side.
Speaker A:But a lot of it is you Know, I've got a yin and yang from when I got my first black belt.
Speaker A:I've got steel on my chest.
Speaker A:And I got that one when I was over in Japan.
Speaker A:I went to Japan many, many times in the steel industry for work.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was very grateful for that.
Speaker A:Very fortunate about that.
Speaker A:And we had a joint venture with Nippon Steel, so I got steel.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:That's cool.
Speaker A:But then when you see this.
Speaker A:This is kanji for never give up.
Speaker A:So I have all this arm because.
Speaker B:My mom said I was part of.
Speaker B:I just gave a talk, and it was part of my talk.
Speaker B:And actually it was based on an late 18th century saint who got addicted to opium.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker B:And he could not give it up.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker B:And he prayed for martyrdom, and he was martyred in the Boxer Rebellion and became a saint.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:But anyway, sorry.
Speaker B:Yeah, but that was cool.
Speaker A:So my mom.
Speaker B:What's that?
Speaker B:Is that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
Speaker A:No, no, it's.
Speaker A:It's a Nordic.
Speaker A:It's a gauntlet.
Speaker B:I was kidding about.
Speaker A:So my.
Speaker A:My mom said you always wear your heart on your sleeve, and you need to protect yourself from that.
Speaker A:And over the years, I've just added many, many stuff.
Speaker A:Oh, that's just more.
Speaker A:More tribal armor.
Speaker A:This is the gauntlet over the shoulder.
Speaker A:I got a chest plate over here.
Speaker B:Are you kind of scared with your shirt off?
Speaker A:In my favorite team.
Speaker A:Oh, there.
Speaker B:Notre Dame.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:We went to the Mendoza School of Business.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker A:Many, many months on an executive MBA program there.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Well, anyway, we.
Speaker B:We don't bear.
Speaker B:We could.
Speaker B:We could spend days here.
Speaker A:Forget about it.
Speaker B:Super appreciate you.
Speaker B:I mean, I.
Speaker B:Whatever you're doing, for you to take the time to come here, man, I Super appreciate it.
Speaker B:Thanks so much.
Speaker A:Appreciate it.
Speaker B:Love you Being on Making Sense.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:If you haven't been there, get out to Hickory Vines and Winery and buy some steel from Vitro or something.
Speaker B:Is that what it is?
Speaker A:Glass.
Speaker B:Glass.
Speaker A:Buy some cars.
Speaker A:Buy some cars out there.
Speaker B:We need it.
Speaker A:A lot of cars.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Over now.
Speaker B:See you.
