Adventures in Candyland

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Stephanie Stucky tells Jay gos and Dana White about moving closer to the Candy Factory she recently bought to get a better feel for the people the operation and the challenges right now those challenges include recruiting enough employees absorbing increased supplier prices and figuring out how much she should raise her own prices we can only give up so much of our margin right she tells us to which Jay resp responds why give up any plus we talk about competing for labor with Amazon whether to require employees to get vaccinated how to manage legal fees and whether Dana's feelings of fud have eased even in Good Times owning running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners and which you can subscribe subcribe to at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes and lots of other articles and interviews joining me this week are regulars Jay gz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home Stephanie Stucky who is CEO of Stuy the snack and Road stop business best known for its PK and log roles and Dana White who is CEO of paral Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit the episode is titled adventures in Candyland welcome Jay Stephanie and Dana great to have you here Stephanie let's start with you the last time we talked to you I think you said you were going to pick up and move to Ren Georgia where your factory is did you do that I didn't move full time but I am here for several weeks and it's been quite the eye opener there a difference in managing a company from your desk and actually being boots on the ground in the factory seeing how things operate so yes I'm semi-permanently here or at least for three weeks this is nearing the end of week two are you living in the factory or uh I I've rented an Airbnb it's lovely and uh give us a a quick overview are you happy with what you're learning or concerned what where's your head at a bit of everything I think we are experiencing a duckies the same thing that you see throughout the manufacturing sector and and through and throughout industry and business in general we're struggling with employees and making sure that we're fully staffed we're having supply chain issues and we're having issues with pricing we are trying to figure out if we need to raise our prices because all down the supply chain we're having increases and so we're we're we're getting to the point where if we we're we're going to start paying people more plus we are having to pay more for our product at some point we're gonna we we can only give up so much of our margin right so that's what we're grappling with but but the the labor issue in particular has it's been so important to actually watch on the factory flooor see the different lines and understand the different job skills and making sure we have put in place a structure not only for entrylevel positions but where people can feel like this is a place that they can stay where do you stand right now in terms of Labor do you have enough people we don't so we've got a plan we have put together a compensation structure and we want to shore up the existing staff before we move into offering an entry level position where the pay is higher because we can't offer entry level people more than people who've already been here working the lines for a year or two so not only are we putting in place a a pay proposal where we're going to give increases for the existing team but we're also going to put in training we're going to put in specific skill sets and metrics that you have to hit and if you do that then you can advance up and earn more pay so we're we're making sure we've got a tiered strategy and we want to make sure we train people so that they can work on different lines right now you tend to work in the pean line or you work on the chocolate line you work in the packaging room but there's very little crossover from one line to the other in the factory so we really want to be able to cross Trin and that actually happened yesterday we needed to get more pralines and we we had to pull people from other lines to come in and help us make the pcam pralines this is a pecan praline so we're covering our peans in a praline flavor and so we had to train them up before we could even start with the production and that delayed everything and we didn't meet our quota and so we're going to have to work on Saturday so that's just the reality of not having a strong structure in place which which we're doing we're addressing it how many openings are you trying to right now good question I think immediate openings and we're talking entry level working in the in the factory at 10 but we're going to be scaling up very quickly because pecan season starts in August so it's really important that we try to get this structure in place as soon as possible and prototype it with a candy plant which has a much smaller staff fully stock staffed will probably be about 35 on the candy line but the pcan lines triple that and the other thing we're working on is a incentive program and I know a lot of companies do this but totally makes sense if you bring a friend to come work with us you'll get an automatic bonus a hiring bonus for bringing your friend on and if the friend hits a six-month Mark staying with us then that we'll add another bonus so we're trying to put incentives in place to refer a friend and help our employees I think they can be some of the best ambassadors for working here help them feel like they're part of making sure we're fully staffed and fully operational on a previous episode Stephanie you mentioned some concern that Amazon would be opening up uh a distribution center not far from you uh in the not too distant future uh and paying people upwards of $15 an hour um have you figured out how much you're going to have to raise that entry level wage ideally yeah you meet what Amazon's paying but we can't not right now so our solution to that is our entry level's going to be lower but we have a program in place where you can rapidly start hitting these metrics and increasing your pay so that's been our workaround as people build up their skill set we we're going to have a pathway where they will very soon be making higher level wages that would be competitive and the other advantage and I've just been talking to the workers I understand what their job duties are and I'm I'm talking to them in the break room and asking like where are you from how far is your commute most of them live here in Ren Georgia and they like the fact that they live right here they don't have to get in their car and and transportation's an issue with some of these minimum wage workers or entry level workers so to be able to work literally right where you live and be able to walk to work or bike to work or easily carpool that makes a difference and they'd have a 40-minute commute to work for Amazon so we're trying as much as possible to see if we can just recruit here in Ren Georgia can I just throw in that Amazon is not going to hire every employee on earth right that everyone asks to oh Amazon's paying that we have to really is Amazon gonna hire 40 million people I mean it's a little yeah right you also said something in the beginning I just want to playback for you said you can only absorb so much loss of margin that's right okay I would ask you the question why are you absorbing as soon as I said that I was thinking Jay's going to say don't absorb any margin but did you see how self-control I have I waited a couple minutes before no but think about it Home Depot was paying a dollar for for 2x4s now they're paying four do you think they do you think they reduce their margins no they're making a lot of money charging more for the you know the same markup so I saw a guy on CNN a restaurant owner being interviewed he's having a hard time finding people and he says he he doesn't want want to raise prices because the customers would have to pay it and so so what are the other options give really bad service or go out of business those are better options I mean it's it's an entrepreneur problem of of being the fear of oh my God if I raise prices it makes me a bad business person no it makes you a responsible business person yeah I mean it's marketing it's how you communicate the quality and I mean the driving force behind me wanting to buy a candy plant and get into manufacturing is that we can control the quality oh by the way we just got sqf certified this week which was a 2-year effort tell us what exactly that means so we pre that predated our acquisition of the company but that was a big selling point was that we were going to get that certification sqf certification is a a a food quality program and it's very intensive you if you are a A in the food business and and manufacturing business there are certain standards that you have to adhere to in order to get this certification and it it deals with cleanliness it it deals with procedures and process that you put into place it deals with workplace safety it's it's very intense and once you get it it makes you much more marketable your product so there's a lot of big box retailers like Costco and Cracker Barrel and Walmart and the list goes on and on they either insist that you have sqf certification or it's a plus Factor when they're putting out a RFP for new product they look at that and it it definitely helps you be more competitive but it also just shows that you have good quality so we have sqf certification and then our product is real chocolate real vanilla it's not fake vanilla it's unrefined sugar no high fru toast corn syrup so we're putting in the very best ingredients and that's going to cost more but you're going to be able to taste the difference and paying people to do quality work by hand also affects the quality of your product so yeah a lot of this is going to be marketing we just have to put out there we may be raising our prices but you're going to get what you pay for it's going to be an absolutely delicious product I have a question about the um hiring Stephanie for the referral program is there a cap on how many people an employee can refer we haven't implemented it yet so we have not that's a great question that was not part of the proposal that was put together we we have an outside HR consultant who came in and he works in a lot of food manufacturing facilities so he's he knows our space and he put the suggestion together there was not a cap in The Proposal he put together I mean what what do you think why would you put a cap I would because you know I I have a friend of mine who's in the manufacturing space who had people working for them on a referral basis um and unless your culture is stronger than their relationship when you'll have a ripple effect when there's problems so you'll have one person who's working and then they'll have an attitude and then all a sudden you start noticing that this group of people have this problem they become a group think it's just that these people Liv together work together their families were intertwined and the leader The Matriarch left and five people left behind her and she brought all those five people with her so be mindful that when you hire that the referral program um is a great idea um but just make sure that they're so not too tied to this person well that's a terrific point and Lauren you know if there are any listeners who have that experience I'd welcome in the comments when this airs for listeners to share any advice or experience they have I'd love to hear that too I you know it's funny with all the things I've been reading about the labor shortage and how desperate people are getting to hire I I kind of wonder if that might be a a luxury to worry about at this point it seems like so many people just need to hire people they're you know they're relaxing standards they doing all kinds of things that that I never would have expected them to do I'm in that boat and so and I still hold it because I've learned when we've never hired like four or five people as a group but we've hired sisters mother daughters um and we've learned that if one isn't performing and we hold them accountable then both are affected and it's only a matter of time before both quit certainly that's a problem I would argue it's not about limiting how many referrals perhaps you shouldn't be hiring Mothers Daughters you know immediate family members maybe that's a smarter strategy you can send in as many as you want but we're not but don't send in your your child it's not just that it's it's their relationship so it's not just family we've had people who were neighbors but they've been neighbors for 10 years but I would also say it's important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture on this because you can form clicks and divisions within a company whether you refer a friend or those just form post employment the I think the bigger picture is are you cultivating a culture where people feel like they belong to to the company you know that they they work for that they're working for something that really is Meaningful to them no that's all good but the but I I have an answer to that the answer is yes when you've got the right people that's all true we're talking about bringing strangers in and you don't know who you're hiring and that's where the issue is this isn't this isn't clicks of people that have worked you for five or 10 three years Jay I want to go back to what you said about Amazon obviously no one thinks that Amazon is going to hide everybody but you know especially in in a a rural or semi- rural rural area if Amazon comes in and opens a distribution center or one of their huge warehouses that that's got to have an impact on other people pay in the area so so so what are you saying no here's what I'm saying people act as though all of a sudden because Amazon's there it changes everything but they're they're hiring a lot of people they are and certainly in some situations I'm sure it's devastating but generally speaking it's a gigantic pool of people what percentage of employees is an Amazon hiring like in Chicago it can't be a tenth of a percent now maybe in a small town it's 80% but it has Ripple effects I think it you know we've covered this in the morning report a little bit I've seen people make the argument that to some extent Amazon is setting a de facto minimum wage because you have other companies that you know restaurants uh chains pootle that uh that have raised their uh minimum wage in reaction to Amazon um except that's a stew there's so many other things going on in the world right now between people staying at home taking care of their kids people that are still getting unemployment checks PE there's so many other factors involved you can't just go oh it's Amazon and I think some people are thinking oh it's a no it's not just Amazon there's there's six different things that are affecting this quote unquote labor shortage cuz one should take a pause and go and why do we have a labor shortage it is a little curious wait wait that's a different issue well no but it's gotten in people's heads and they think that it's all about Amazon and uh you know it to call it a de facto minimum wage is pushing it a little bit it certainly has an effect on the market but it's not like oh you must pay in Chicago it mooded simply because the minimum wage in two weeks is going to be $15 an hour so for me it doesn't matter it's 15 bucks either way but if you're out in a another place where there's no Amazon around and it's like I said it it's not like they're hiring uh 50% of the employees out there I mean it's I think it's been overplayed a little bit it certainly has an effect I agree with you I think it's overplayed you have to look at the Myriad of factors and you have to focus on what's your differentiator how I'm not going to be able to stues can't compete with Amazon but we can stress what makes us a great place to work and a lot of that is going to be culture treating people right being a HomeTown local business so cultivating employees who live and work right here in Ren Georgia getting to know the community being a part of the community so we're we're just trying to figure out and and of course certainly being more competitive I there is an impact if Amazon's paying 15 an hour we're going to raise we're going to absolutely have to increase our wages somewhat to be at least in shooting range of being competitive no for sure we absolutely have dramatically increased our starting wages partially because we're forced to with the minimum wage but I guess there's kind of my black and white argument yes I have to for sure because the Chicago minimum wage is $15 that's not the same as oh I've got an Amazon 10 miles to me I got to raise them I mean that's it's it's it's it's a little there's some trueth to it but it's it's certainly not like having a minimum wage Stephie tell us more about your factory any other uh surprises Pleasant or otherwise you know just little things that you notice if you're actually on site for example because of covid the break room has largely been shut down and it is starting to open up but the break room's pretty dismal so I and the refrigerator only half works the freezer part isn't working and it's really grungy and so I I was just thinking we need to brighten up the break room we need to get some vending machines in here people don't have anywhere to sit outside so they're taking their lunch breaks in their cars ouch and so that's not really building a community if we if we had some nice benches with some awning people could sit outside and get to know one another and have a nice break so just being on site and actually observing and and I make a point several times a day it's great to get away from your desk anyway I put on my lovely hairnet and I walk walk the factory floor and I understand what are you making how do you make it what's the process how many units do we you know how many pounds do what's our production goal for the day for the week what orders are we filling where are they shipping to and just there's no substitute for just really being on the ground and understanding how things work I've been running a factory for 30 years and I can tell you some significant things I did that cost very little first of all I've got let's say 40 production workers if you walked into my break room you'd notice I've got like six microwaves like why should someone have to wait in line to to microwave if they microwaves are so inexpensive they're like under aund it's unbelievable they're under $100 so why not right why not have a whole line of them so nobody has to wait number two I got like three refrigerators like refrigerators are cheap why and then here's the third one that's very tricky that I can't emphasize enough I found this one out years ago everybody's got a locker I think it is yeah good because I think that is critical critical it just makes a difference and like it it and my break room's nice and they and they appreciate the fact you've only got a limited amount of time why would you want to have to wait 2 minutes for someone to get their food out of the thing you clock in clock out so absolutely actually the only expense you're going to have I'm warning you is you probably have to put another electrical thing in because if you put six micro light waves on one line it's too much so you might have to pay a little electrical to get some more another line put in there but it was well worth it it's cost next enough amortizer things like an appealing break room and they make a big difference Jay anything going on in your shop in terms of uh coming out of the pandemic are are you anything happening with masks or vaccinations I just spent an entire hour on a zoom call with all my managers discussing the mask thing because I've got everything from a factory with with people working fairly close to each other to a framing showroom where customers are coming in to an outdoor Garden where we sell my home store Jason home sells plants I've got a you know 6,000 ft space out there with plants that are outside two in the store and we're trying to figure out masks no mask is it voluntary and it took us an hour to flush this out or flesh this out because it's not simple so a we decided for right or wrong this is what we decided we're going to ask if they've been vaccinated we're not going to ask them why they haven't number three if they want to wear a mask they certainly can wear a mask number four for there are certain areas where everyone needs to see still wear a mask because 50% of my production people have not gotten the vaccination and we cannot you've already asked them you you know that already yeah we've asked them and 50% of them haven't had it and in Chicago I looked the other day it's down to about 5% to what it was at the peak 5% of people are getting affected compared to the peak of it like when it gets down to three maybe that's going to be a game changer changer then the question becomes do you ask for documentation that they've had the the the the vaccinations and and I said I think that's insulting to someone that's worked for a long time but then the guy in the factory says I am concerned about some PE some people are concerned about other people not telling the truth so then the question is do you leave it up to the managers and after an hour I agreed okay tell everybody please bring in the that document I'm not thrilled about it but you know if I had to choose between you know uh leading it up each manager or not so we're asking for your your documentation explaining we're asking everybody and and we're also going to look at this every single week because things are changing quickly there are no ramifications for someone who isn't vaccinated other than they have to wear a mask right I just I do not feel comfortable mandating that you've got to go get a shot I everybody's got their own personal thing I I'm not thrilled they don't have the shot but I am not about to start telling people go get a shot or your fire so we're going to make him wear masks and and then it gets to the issue of it's getting hot out and you know it's it's it's a little more uncomfortable but this could be very different in three or four weeks from now but right now the customers aren't hassling us yet um they're coming in they're putting their mask on but it's it's changing quickly and I would just say my I've had Cup tickets for years they just just activated my season's tickets I will tell you I'm having a hard time selling Friday's game which is St Louis which is a hot game I still think there's a lot of people that aren't ready to go to Wrigley Field and I can kind of tell by how quick this the tickets are selling so I I don't think everybody's throwing off their mask and going wooo we're back to normal I still think there's plenty of the population that's proceeding carefully what's it like uh for you Stephanie at the factory well we require face mask when you're on the food production line so whether they've been vaccinated or not we have the face Mas mask required so we really have not asked people if they was that required before the pandemic yes that's my understanding so that's just a a long-standing rule everyone in the food production area has a face mask and a hairnet and gloves they're making food I would hope so well that helps that makes it easier even in the office area we don't have a ton of office staff but the office staff that are there are pretty far apart based so it really has not been an issue and and our warehouse same thing uh people are pretty far apart we just have two offices in the warehouse so we we really haven't had to deal with it there is no perfect solution to any of this there is no one size fits all everyone's going to be happy somebody can argue wait a second I had my vaccination why do I have to wear a mask and other people could say why I mean there's no matter what you choose it's possible someone's going to be unhappy with your choice what's it like for for you Dana any issues in your shop no my staff is 100% vaccinated we're going to ask them to bring in their card um we're not requiring it but you know we they all are all both shots um we're not we still have on mask in Our Salon because the guests that come in don't necessarily tell the truth and my priority is taking care of my staff even though they're vaccinated I still don't want them to get sick even though the vaccine will help them get through it it won't be as harsh on them it's still I don't want them to get it at all and so until the numbers in Michigan go down like way down even though the governor where are they now they're significantly less I don't know exactly as of today but they're significantly less but they're still they're you know with the holiday you know Memorial Day they're still waiting on what that's going to bring and so again I I said wear in mask until it's way down a lot of them said they've gotten used to it um without ection and we're still taking temperatures at the door I just can't risk it again you know like I said this was disproportionally affected the African-American community and and I will not put my staff at risk and they understand they come first period Jay I want to ask you about something I know you've had an interesting experience lately uh hiring a a lawyer for a a trademark issue can you tell us uh about that situation I work very uh intensely with with autism workforce.com um we help people hire people on the autism spectrum and Dave who runs it trademark the phrase you've talked about this before in fact you uh you talked about connecting Dave with Stephanie and I believe' Hada he trademarked a phrase and somebody else was using it and he contacted them and it didn't stop so he says we should really call a lawyer so I called a lawyer I've known for years explained Dave's on a tight budget and um he said don't worry about it famous last words don't worry about it so he starts calling the other councel and the next thing you know I got a $5,000 bill $6,000 bill so I go whoa this is really getting don't worry about it um I'll make an adjustment at the end so now it's up to $9,000 and he gives me $1,000 credit and um extremely frustrating did the lawyer do a good job not particularly well one mistake was he wasn't a cop he wasn't a trademark lawyer that wasn't his specialty I believe a trademark lawyer would have figured out that they've got five years to challenge a trademark and we were about two weeks away from that five years expiring I believe a trademark lawyer would have said don't do anything because wait till their 5year period is up how did you find that out that it was expiring I had to go play lawyer myself I went I thought it was odd that the opposing Council said um you've got till Friday to tell us whether you're going to settle this with us and I thought why is there all of a sudden a date so all I did is Google and there it all came up you've got five years to challenge a trademark meaning they could say oh we were using it first it's not really a legitimate trademark so then you can go right online in about 60 seconds go to the United States patent trademark office and you can actually see what the date was that it was registered and I realized wow Monday is the 5year mark so I'm not so sure this thing should have gone on because we would if we would have known that we would have done nothing basically so the end of the story is I got a big legal bill from someone that I've known for 30 years and it's extremely disappointing and the only place in my entire career that I haven't been taken advantage of was from legal bills because my brother-in-law used to be my lawyer and this guy used to work for my brother-in-law and my brother-in-law is now retired and um it's just it's just unfortunate that he should have told me this is starting to get expensive and he knew he was on a tight nowhere during this process did he say listen I just want you to know this is getting expensive and he was charging 470 an hour and it's just it's disappointing so if you had it to do over you would go to a trademark attorney and and how would you handle the fee is there a way to protect yourself I would have asked them what range how much do you think this is going to cost and I would have char I would have found out what the hourly is and then I could have made a decision as to whether to proceed um a I believe if I did that they would have explained to me that about how long they have to challenge it and I I would hope that they would have told me right off the bat don't do anything just wait until the five years is up and I might not because at that point they can't really do anything so that would be number one number two is I guess I'm warning everyone when somebody and I don't want to pick on lawyers there's lots of lovely honest hardworking lawyers out there let me stop you there we have one on this call yes oh I know I don't want to pick on lawyers I don't want to pick on lawyers but when when a lawyer says don't worry about it um when anybody says don't worry about it I certainly didn't expect it to be free I feared I don't know 2,000 bucks 3,000 bucks and I didn't have any expectations set up front and when he said he would discount ability and frankly I would have thought he would have taken more than $11,000 off a $9,000 Bill all right Stephanie do you have any advice as a lawyer for deal for entrepreneurs dealing with lawyers absolutely so of course I'm I'm an attorney I do some things inhouse for us basic contracts but I'm not a a franchise attorney and I'm not a trademark lawyer so we do have an outside firm that manages that for us and I'll typically ask them for a budget they know we're a scrappy comeback brand and I'll I'll ask can we keep the trademark work to X budget or X number of hours and can you notify me when you've reached this number of hours and obviously most lawyer law most law firms are going to give you a monthly statement but I I ask on top of that have a trigger if you've reached this amount to give me a heads up that I'm two hours away from reaching the 20 hours that I've budgeted and and they'll work with you uh especially depending on the firm and okay I'm not going to bash Atlanta firms too much but the rates are higher if you're in a big City and I have found really competent Council in mon Georgia in Augusta Georgia so Savannah Georgia so you don't necessarily have to be in a big city to find really confident counsel I mean the problem is as you say which is all good advice but when you say they give you a monthly bill you could rack up quite a bill in one month that's the problem that's that's the problem or they can alert you that you've run through your budget but you there's still work that obviously has to be done what do you what do you do then he thought nothing of sending these bills out after he said don't worry about it I mean it's just stunning and I've known this guy for 30 years and I just it's to say it's disappointing is a mild understatement I try to do as much as possible for the attorney to make it easier for them and even if you don't have a law degree there're certainly you can organize the paperwork you can make sure everything is given to them in a really structured fashion and be very clear about what you want Dave did all of that and the part that's particularly frustrating is Dave is helping autistic kids get jobs for God's sakes he's working like a dog it's it's making a difference and this is who this is who it's not like it's for my company well I'm sorry to hear that if I can just slightly switch the topic to the the hiring people with Autism I want to thank you Jay for making those connections that's something we're still exploring and we do have a a employee now with autism who is is doing really well and I think the key is making sure that it's very structured and that it's a safe environment but a lot of factory or line worker task which are repetitive and somewhat monotonous are well suited well they're they thrive in that environment the key which which we have universities following us now the key is you've got to train the company like here's the environment here every single person that is exposure needs to understand it our success rate is unbelievable whereas some of these agencies you know put Square pegs and round holes and their their failure ratees 80% we're like shooting it's not going to continue but so far we're like at 100% every every person we place is working out well and it's working and uh it's all about training both the employee and the companies and bringing those two things together and I will tell you we got one short email from somebody that was just he said Dear Dave thank thank you for hiring my brother Gary he just needed someone to believe in him right Stephanie is the person you're referring to is that somebody who was brought on recently yes and I don't want to say too much I want to protect people's privacies but yes and we we we have a team process you work on lines and you're a team on a line so people on the media team are aware and you have to interact with uh persons with aspirers and autism in a certain way so making sure they're aware of that is really important Jay's right it's not just training the individuals who are the workers but it's training their team members anyone in contact with them to make sure they understand they might not like to be touched they might need to have a very structured way of uh managing their task and their workload so just just knowing that here's the issue if you don't get it 100% right it's going to fail if 90% won't do which means for instance you do everything right except you keep changing their schedule it's going to throw the whole thing off um if anyone's interested autism workforce.com we've got a lot of info on there we've got some a vice president of the company talking about how well it's working he said one thing I laughed out loud he says and there you know you can't take things personally I say good morning and they usually ignore me which yeah I mean that goes with I mean it's it's it's it's it's fine and he got it but they they're thrilled at how well everything's working so if you do it right it's great if you do it wrong you're going to end up with a devastating failure for the for the employee and their families and it's it's it's you really need to pay attention to it but there's tremendous payoffs this isn't just a social good thing this is good for business because once you get un locked in they'll be one of your best employees we're running short on time but uh I want to make sure we go back to Dana White and talk to you about our conversation from last week Dana uh you told us last week that you were experiencing uh what you called fud fear uncertainty and doubt about going into franchising um you said it was primarily related to some customer service issues uh that had come up but throughout the course of the conversation conversation you seem to be uh feeling a little bit better I think Paul and Jay uh I think you referred to them as having taken uh a little bit of an a magic eraser to your fud um I'm wondering if that uh if that lasted h h h how are you feeling now yeah it lasted and it grew um and and Not only was did it grow because of further conversations with Jay um but it were it was conversations with the franchise consultant team um I literally had a onh hour conversation yesterday and and their concern was that they didn't know and they really are committed to supporting me you know there's things that you just shouldn't be dealing with and definitely shouldn't be dealing with without us and this is one of them but I didn't feel that this was something that they could that they could help me with and they said oh outside of the fact that you know we should be there to be able to listen to you and we want you to know that you could have brought those feelings to us that's why they coined the phrase you know the fud the other part is the listeners of this podcast I was so surprised to get the messages um you know one lady emailed me and said you know understand that Jay and Paul were trying to help you but I think there were things lost because they're not women and I think they didn't quite understand how bad it is for you and which is funny is that when I read it I laughed because it was in a subsequent conversation with Jay that he said listen I hands up but you know I can't even imagine but the listeners um emailing me through Linkedin have been you know keep going put it in perspective one person said which I you know just has resonated with me and I've kept it with me is understanding that when it's nasty and hurtful it's coming from a nasty and hurtful place and so you can't really take it and figure out how you can how it can benefit your company and how you can improve and that's coming from a jealousy place so I I'm not quick to say oh it's jealousy no I really try to dissect it and I think I've gone too far with that and they said you know when it's nasty you're too capital capable you're too smart to not understand you know to not get it quickly where it's coming from so you know spend a little less time on the nastiness and understand okay if it's nasty it's not coming from a good place but the listeners of this podcast have been amazing and they just wanted to lend support I didn't want to sound like I was whining nobody said that but I was afraid I might Sil that way when I you know we hit end I was like oh my gosh did I just have a tantrum no I I think I made a call for help um and and the listeners and the people at the if franchise group responded and the if franchise group is still responding it's been great and I did say on there I've never had anyone attack me like that and it must be horrible I fully acknowledged that you did y he did I'm a little surprised that the if franchise group said that they could help with this um I'm just curious do do you have do you know what they have in mind again their their thing was it's not getting in and coming there and helping you customer service it's more we want you to feel comfortable coming and talking to us and I think after speaking with my strategy person her name is Chris she's amazing um it's making sure I keep focused I think Lauren you put your finger on it so aptly when you said a lot of this is heightened because of you going through this process and so the if franchise group I believe wants to be there for me when I want to talk about these issues and help me Focus say look we've been doing this this since the 90s and this is what we see of pely boy and this is how we think you're doing and this is what we know reminding me of where I am as a business owner and and what this process can do for me understanding that you've got private Equity people already talking to you and you're not even through your process yet we've done your pro forma this is what your numbers look like this is how successful this franchise is going to be because out of our 30 years of experience this is where you fit in the spect of things and so that's what they mean by help but just giving me a perspective to help say no don't focus on that look at this one last thing before we go Jay last week before we signed off uh you bet Paul $10 that you would have a bank loan Sign Sealed and Delivered this week I didn't say Sign Sealed and Delivered I can only tell you that my credit um I have one of those credit monitoring they got dinged yesterday from the bank they checked my credit and I have every expectation that you said you would have a bank loan next week no I didn't say it was going to be done by Thursday I it's it's they're checking your credit you don't have a bank loan I do is today Friday no today's Thursday okay they're checking my it's today's Thursday probably by tomorrow I'll have a bank loan I'll be I I'll stick my neck out and tell you I'll be very surprised if this doesn't go through all right my thanks to Jay gold Stephanie Stucky and Dana White as always guys thanks so much for sharing wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at Lauren 21h hats.com that's L ren21 hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think you can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]