So You Bet the House?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Stephanie Stucky tells Paul DS and Jay gz both of whom have manufacturing operations about her decision to buy a manufacturing plant and bring production of Stucky snacks inhouse we talk about her conflicted concerns about the looming minimum wage hike what it takes to build a strong culture and a repetitive task environment why she paid more than Book value for the business she bought and how she managed to finance the purchase of a business that is four times the size of stues she's very happy with the SBA loan she got but it was not an easy process I had to take out an additional life insurance policy and list the bank she tells us I was just waiting for them to call me and tell me my firstborn son has to be collateral as well even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will if nothing else let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which cols the most important news of the day for business owners in one place and which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes this week's lineup features Paul DS who is founder and CEO of Paul DS cabinet makers which is based outside of Philadelphia and makes custom conference tables Jay goz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason Hol and Stephanie Stucky who is CEO of Stucky the snack in in roadstop business famous for its pcan log rolles the episode is titled so you bet the house before we get started one of the recurring themes of this podcast is that marketing is hard for smaller businesses one reason it's hard is that we are all besieged by self-appointed digital marketing gurus who overwhelm us with outlandish promises on the other hand there's Steve craw co-founder of be found online a loyal listener to the 21 hats podcast Steve understands the business owners who listen to this podcast because he is one he knows his stuff but he's also a real person who you can have a real conversation with and if you tell them I sent you you can get a free consultation with Steve himself just shoot him an email at Steve bound online.com to schedule your talk that's Steve at bound online.com now on to the show Welcome Paul Jay and and Stephanie uh we're going to talk manufacturing today and I'd like to start with you Stephanie a little more than a year ago you bought back the Stuy roadstop business that your grandfather founded uh and you recently decided to buy a manufacturing facility uh so that you can start making Stucky pean snacks let me make sure I got that right pecan snacks in house uh tell us about that why did you decide to do that well first of all let me say I pronounce it however the buyer pronounces it so if whoever I'm selling to says pean I'm going to say pean but I naturally say pan because I'm from Middle Georgia all right let's talk manufacturing on to manufacturing so what we purchased what stues bought two weeks ago was actually two manufacturing facilities one is a shelling plant so it takes the pecans in Shell cleans them shells them sorts them processes them and then as part of that shelling process there are a lot of pieces and what most people want to buy if you go for you if you want a snack pecan it's a half so there's a lot of pieces produced in that process is a byproduct and so the company that we just purchased in Ren Georgia started making those pieces into candy as a way to become more profitable because the secondary market for the pieces was not very strong and so it's a perfect fit for Stucky we sell raw pecans we sell pecan snacks and we sell candies which feature the pecan and the the facility also does a full line of snack products and healthy snack so everything from just simply salted roasted and salted to habanero chili lime pepper all the flavors and that's the trend in snacks these days is that you have a few Fusion of flavors and then you also have a lot of international so Teriyaki mix or Mexican mix so we're working on all that and we're being diet friendly keto friendly and we have the decadent sweet stuff as well we got everything covered what have you been doing all along H how have you been making Stucky snacks to this point Outsourcing them and a lot of retailers do that they have their product made for them even products that are branded you can have the product made to your specification it's called private labeling or white labeling depending on the process but you have it the product outsourced stues was founded by my grandfather in 1937 but he sold the company in 1964 and along with it he sold the Stucky original candy plant so we have been out of the candy making business since 1964 since before I was born reason we wanted to make this move the main reason is it allows us to be vertically integrated and we can drive down the cost if we manufacture in-house and we already have a distribution center and we distri distribute in-house to the retail operations that we don't own but we franchise then our business model is a lot more vertically integrated and we can drive down cost and it also gives us the capacity now we can can private label for other companies so if we want to sell Stucky pecan snacks to Whole Foods for example and they want to have a earth 360 product for pecans we can make that for them and we can private label it for Whole Foods now we could not do that before because we didn't make our own product can you just give us some perspective of what a machine cost to do that I don't know whether these are half a million dollar machines $40,000 machines like what does a factory look like that does this are these machines a zillion dollars no but I do not know the full cost I know the range is usually we're looking at five figures for C but this is candy the candy end of it I'm more familiar with the pean shelling equipment I wouldn't even begin to know honestly the reason I'm also hesitant is this facility we purchased has was founded in 1935 so actually two years before stues my grandfather did business with Atwell pan company so there's a long history there they have equipment that's pretty old but it's been maintained and they keep adding new parts so I don't know what the cost would be to buy a new one at this point I also know we buy a lot of used equipment and then just repair it and have people who repair on site so we have a we have I wouldn't say a machine shop per se but we do have a workshop there on site and and repair a lot of our own machinery and what happened to that factory you bought I mean did it just did it shrink over the years because of import I mean give us a flavor of why did this company that's been around for 90 years all of a sudden just sell did it this is not uncommon with family companies right you get down to the third generation and there's not a successor who wants to run the company and that's what happened so it wasn't the market it wasn't the it was not the market at all no and and I'm learning this business but it's fascinating to me the world of mergers and Acquisitions I definitely took a crash course in it this past year and I read the Harvard Business reviews book on mergers and Acquisitions and would literally underline parts and reread them before I went into the negotiation so I would try to know what I was doing uh but it it was it was a lot it was a process but we were not like a lot of the mergers and Acquisitions where companies for sale are publicized this was a very specific product that uniquely is aligned with stues that we have a long-standing history with and it's a family business just like we're family business and it was it was very personal that was the interesting part to me with family business sales and mergers there's this whole component that gets emotional and it came down at the very end where we were we really had negotiated to the point where we just weren't going to negotiate any further and we we we said that's it and I realized it wasn't the terms at that point it was letting go of a business that had been in a family for a very long time and it was not publicly broadcast we knew because our families had done business together for a long time my grandfather's old candy plant I wish I could revive that there's a lot of reasons why we can't the main reason being it's in terrible condition but it also happens to be on a railroad rideway in the railroads Northfolk Southern and I am not going to get into legal battles with norfol Southern about our old factory being on there right away so we had to walk away from that but the facility still has a lot of the old Stucky candy equipment in there so I was there two days ago looking at the equipment and we're going to try to bring some of that original equipment to our facility in Rens Georgia and repurpose it so the cool thing is a lot of this equipment is the same equipment that was used in the 1950s Stephanie I want to make sure I'm clear on exactly what you've purchased here you you you're talking about the original plant that your grandfather used I assume you bought that when you bought the company and no no no I didn't no you you just bought that now I didn't buy it I bought a completely different plant I I brought I bought a facility in Rens Georgia so the one you were referring to that's in the railroad right away that's our original Stucky candy plant that is in is shuttered and do you own it no my grandfather sold it in 1964 but you're going to go in and take equipment out of it the guy who bought it is wanting to get rid of the equipment I see yeah sorry for the confusion there's there's a couple of yeah there's a lot of moving Parts here so we have not made our own candy or our own snacks since 1964 and the candy plant and that facility in Eastman Georgia that was built by my grandfather has been out of family hands ever since then hey I have some questions uh first of all are there a lot of these kind of pecan processing facilities all over is this just something there's zillions of them and this happened to be one that was on the market or is it very unique there are a lot of pean shelling facilities I don't know how many have the pean shelling plus the candy making component as well I don't know the exact number my business partner would know that he's a Pam farmer I think that is less common that that you do both the reason I'm asking is I have recently been involved in the acquisition of a furniture making business not as any of the principles but just sort of watching this happen and uh there's lots of furniture making compan companies and the way this particular deal went down is that the the the person who wanted to buy had been doing business with the person who wanted to sell yes and the business itself had basically no value because it had not been profitable but there ended up being money changing hands because a business whether it's profitable or not at least it was running it had employees it had customers it had uh it had a culture it was something that you could take over and you didn't just start with an empty room and a bunch of dead machines because I think that one of the things that doesn't show up on Book value in companies is just the value of having employees who have some idea of what they they know what they're doing potential you're buying potential yeah know you're buying potential buy capabilities even if the current business model isn't working there's still the opportunity to shift it so I guess the second question would be did you have the business appraised how did you do it and did you end up paying the book value yes we had the business appraised but it's hard like you said you're buying a lot of things that don't necessarily appear on the books and my business partner and I looked at the option of what if we just built a new not necessarily taking over that Eastman candy plant that had originally been my grandfather's because it's it's in such bad shape but what if we just bought built a wareh a big Warehouse somewhere and filled it with candy equipment and made our own candy plant but it was exactly the issue that you raised it's also a culture it's employees it's people with the knowledge and experience we also purchase their client base so they have some 800 customers that we're transitioning and taking over all of that so we did an asset purchase where we're physically buying the equipment and we met with all of the highlevel management team to make sure that they would stay on board and we would have that transition so the appraisal was largely the value of the real estate the value of the buildings the Machinery we did as best we could it is hard to get a good valuation sometimes of this candy equipment it's a it's a niche market but there are people who do just candy equipment we were fortunate that some of the equipment especially in the candy facility was brand new just been purchased so we think we we got a good we got a good deal did we get book value we paid we paid above because we looked at the brand value the customer base a lot a lot of the what is very important to us that you don't necessarily see on the books and I will say because I know Lauren's probably going to ask me how much I paid for it and I'm willing to disclose that but the seller didn't wanted us to keep that confidential and I have to respect that can you talk about a a ratio of the sale price to the annual revenues oh my gosh I would have to I don't know it off the top of my head and I'm not good without a calculator I will say we purchased a profitable company and their gross is in the 8 million range and Stucky grossed a little over 2 million last year so our hope is that we're going to hit 10 million this year I I hope I haven't disclose something I'm not supposed to disclose the one other thing I think is so critical here to stress that is something not on the books is how uniquely well aligned this business was with what stues does and it filled a gap in our business model if we wanted this company to grow more we have to improve our margins and frankly improve our product and I'm going to have a moment of vulnerability here but we are known in large part not just for road trips and being this roadside Oasis but stues is also known for pecan log rolls and our pecans and the quality has gone down over the years and here this is our trademark iconic product and I'm very particular because it's my family name up there but our core product the pan log roll has suffered in quality and I just think we had to get the basics right if your company doesn't have your core product be something that is absolutely the best and especially now with changing consumer taste where people are being more healthc conscious in their food choices when they do decide to be indulgent and have a sugary sweet treat it has to be absolutely delicious and so I just felt so strongly we had to get that piece right and when I went to the candy plant in Ren Georgia and I had a sample of their product and I tasted their pecan log roll I said we gota we got to do this so you can't put the taste of a pan log roll on a balance sheet but that was critical for me so would is the major issue about quality being more selective with the the peans that you're picking and discarding the ones that aren't up to I mean how much I'm just trying to understand so it's stive with peans that go there in part it also is critical in my opinion that the pean processing facility is right on site so you can't get pecans any fresher than that it's like catching a fish and Grilling it right there on the dock and eating it fresh the peans are the absolute best quality we are processing them shelling them and then they're liter literally going to the next Warehouse the two warehouses are separate but they're right next to one another it's going right next door to the candy plant and here's the other thing and I know it sounds hokey but I promise it's true you can taste the difference if candy is made by hand and in this facility there are workers on the production line that are hand rolling the pean log rolls and the turtles they are squeezing that chocolate out and they're pressing those peans in and it tastes amazing so Stephanie they they've been making a competitive product right yes right so are you going to rebranded as stues or are you going to continue to make a uh the competitor we're going to brand at stues and here's the the positive is we're not buying a brand that has household name recognition The Orchards group is the the candy side of it Orchards Gourmet sorry The Orchards Gourmet even I got the name wrong and Atwell pean processing is the pecan side to it and there's actually a third business that we bought all under the same umbrella which is called Tims like the river Tims I don't know what the origins of that are but it's a fundraising business and so we have bought all of these existing accounts that buy wholesale bulk pecans for fundraising such as Lions Clubs Shriners Boy Scouts Girl Scouts churches schools and a lot of these clients have been clients of Atwell for decades so this is just a really good customer base none of them are there there are a handful actually that are are large accounts but the vast number of them are smaller accounts which I like because we're Diversified it's not as if one of these customers might for whatever reason quit buying from us and then suddenly we're in desperation mode because we've lost a huge client we don't have a client like that it's it's a good balanced mix of customers it's been a well-run run business that's a stable part of that community so I I just think it was a win-win for us I'm going to guess what is there 50 60 employees actually a hundred wow during peak pean season and that it's we talked about culture I do think that there are some culture issues that we need to address to the extent that manufacturing still has labor intensive Workforce with you need human hands to make the factory run you have to deal with the culture issue and I'd be fascinated with some feedback from the others on how do you create a good culture in a work environment that is repetitive you're working in a factory you're looking at a conveyor belt for eight hour shifts of pecans and picking shells out by hand all day long I've got this picture of Lucy on the right candy line that is to I swear to God if you walk through the factory there is actually a conveyor belt where the pralin come along and where the fudge comes along and you have to make sure you're putting the little pean half in the top of the Divinity button and abs absolutely there could totally be a Lucy and Ethel moment I have to tell you in my other life I spent a lot of time working with a guy who is pioneering getting jobs for people on the autism spectrum and we started something called autism Workforce and I'm telling you this sounds like a perfect application wow a lot of these kids they love repetitive work yes they thrive in that environment and he has successfully placed people in the job we started with heart sha and marks Chicago every kid stayed there zero turnover now that's going to change eventually but no one else and and and he's got researchers from universities looking at it we figured out how to align the company with the with the with the worker and adjust the work environment just adjust it not completely overhaul it just makes some some simple adjustments and it works and these kids get jobs and they're loyal and they're hardworking and the you talk about corporate culture the feeling that he had a lady retired from heart after Mark to sent him a handwritten note telling him how lifechanging it was for her to be able to work with these kids and how she felt great coming to work every day it would make you cry if you read it that that just to be able to do something that's both socially good and good for business at the same time so I I will be happy to hook you up with him because I think there's I know for a fact 80 some per of kids on the Spectrum or or adults aren't working and they're they're ready willing and able that's terrific the challenge also for stues and I think other manufacturers face this because of the high price of real estate and urban centers many of these facilities are Lo located in rural communities so getting a strong Workforce and some of these small towns that may have a population of 2,000 is also a challenge Paul did you have any thoughts on Stephanie's question I have many let's start with the numbers you said 8 million you got 100 employees is that 100 full-time equivalents or at Peak during some point of the year you have 100 120 Peak period and then the core base is actually a 20 like management level that you know supervisor level and then Peak pecan season which is August through it's wrapping up right now so maybe end of February is going to be 120 and then in the year round in the facility year round total we're we're right around uh 80ish okay so and if my business partner on the phone he may be correcting me he is the one day-to-day running the plant he has moved to right outside of Rens he's moved to Augusta okay and he's running the facility in any case let's say it's 80 you've got $100,000 in production per employee and that's low and so it kind of implies that the the wage rate is also relatively low what is the hourly wage for a line employe the one who's doing Lucy's job let's say it varies because they give they have a pay increase scale I know I I'm G to get this wrong I want to say it is $8 to 12 but it could be as low as 725 okay so I presume you're horrified at all this $15 minimum wage talk I'm conflicted because I'm I don't want to get political but I'm a former state representative and I was elected as a Democrat I remain a Democrat so I tend to support Democratic policies I certainly want to have people earning a living wage but the challenge is for a midsize business like Stucky when you raise the minimum wage and we're operating on tight budgets then something has to give and so it's do we lay off employees do we switch to more um integrated processes become more efficient maybe get some technology in place that can replace some Workforce or do we raise our prices do we do a mix of all that I mean I'm following that minimum wage debate as best I can while trying to work 12h hour days what I'm hearing is it's a 4year phase in so hopefully this isn't going to happen to us overnight but we're going to have to think through it and it will affect our our cost of doing business and it will likely affect our price structure and so I hope that people who support the minimum wage increase also support paying more for product because we will likely see increase in product costs I have to stop one second to just say let me just I'm one here that's very important that I hear all the time you've conflated the word living wage and minimum wage and they are two different things just two different things so let's just with minimum I'm sorry about that you and everyone all it happens all the time and you know that $15 an hour isn't going to support a family of six so it's yeah but that's all next question what's the average age in on the production line I don't know I can only say from looking at the employees that I would guess late 20s through the 30s and but we have we have all age gosh you know I wish I knew better answers and I'm sorry if I sound ignorant but my partner is largely running the company daytoday I don't know the turnover he has told me that turnover is a problem especially with the newer employees but there are employees who have been there for many years and there is a pay there's a reward structure you do get paid more over time yeah the reason I'm asking these questions because all this stuff is in my mind the the foundation of a company culture I don't think it's actually possible to make every every kind of business meaningful but you can make the reason people work meaningful in other words remove some of the negatives and and just identify okay you get to support your family you get to live in this place you get to go fishing on Saturday like that's what happens when we have a successful business this Stephanie I want to go back you you've mentioned a partner a couple of times and I think it's something that we should probably know more about but correct me if I'm wrong on this it sounds like in this transaction stues is clearly the Big Brand but you bought a much bigger company I think maybe four times the size by by Revenue uh if I heard you right um and I'm wondering if that was difficult to finance and I'm wondering if that's where the partner comes in the partner came in to help me run the plant and he's got the business ACC and most importantly the pcan background so my partner is RG Lamar and he is well known in the Georgia pcan Community he's served on the Georgia pecan commission he's done trade missions with the Georgia Department of a to Taiwan several times to promote export of our product we just sold actually several container loads of pecans to the Taiwanese we're hopefully going to be selling some to the Chinese let's hope some tariff relief is on the horizon so he has expertise in the pcam business and Manufacturing he had a lot of relationships that helped broker this deal now with regard to the financing what I can say is yes they on the books the company that we bought is more profitable but stues has the brand recognition and we're we're a name so we're going to be we're the parent company so that that's what's not on the books is that we have a brand that has some very real value that we think now that we've got the capacity to produce inhouse we can really start turning things around it's going to make a big difference for us you know you set a bunch of things that together might give you some relief on this minimum wage in that you you're vertically integrated You' got a strong brand name you're not selling to Walmart where your margins are just going to be razor thin because of is so competitive the fact of the matter is when you look at what you you're paying for labor as a percentage of the retail price which in some cases you're going to be selling a retail you should be able to absorb some of that increase because there's a big difference between where it's being made and where it's you know the mul so you should be able to make up some here make up some there maybe you'll lose a couple of contract customers that are totally about price but at the end of the day you know give that you do have this strong brand name that means margins and you should be able to navigate this I think I hope so and I think another important point with the minimum wage increase if it does go into effect is that we're all going to be impacted so it's across the board everyone's going to have to be managing how they deal with their pricing as a result of this so it's hopefully somewhat of an equalizer and this is an unknown for me and I turn to others on the panel for their feedback but how does that impact employee morale and their ability to perform if they're making more are they going to perform better is there going to be a correlation with productivity if you pay workers more I think the bigger issue is you're going to have a better selection of employees to hire that's what what's going to change that there's going to be people that are going to take a job working for you who wouldn't have taken a job at seven and a quarter you'll have a better selection of candidates I think that's the biggest imp here's the concern I have now I'm getting very personal but I have a 18-year-old son I would love for him to get a summer job is it going to be harder for kids like my son or young men like my son to get employment absolutely yeah that's where it's coming from why hire a kid who's going to need more Direction when you can hire an adult for the same money I think that's absolutely going to be one of the unfortunate you know it's going to come from somewhere I'm still curious about the partner and and Paul I I'd like to throw this at you you've had an experience with a partner that was certainly mixed uh I'm wondering if you have any questions for uh Stephanie about this relationship it sounds like he's a better partner than than my partner would be in terms of knowing the industry I mean the story of my partnership is really long but let's just say the person who made an offer to me didn't know anything about furniture manufacturing and I didn't know anything about furniture manufacturing and that's not a recipe for success and uh we didn't have the brand we didn't have the community connections we didn't have we have any of the pieces that that Stephanie described so I think a partnership can be really really strong if each partner brings a different thing to the table and they don't kill each other how's that going so far Stephanie it's going great we have compatible skill sets I am doing the marketing The Branding and sales and RG is maning the man managing the man manufacturing the integration he's supervising our budget because we have to do a whole new budget now that we've merged with three companies and he's doing the export business as well he also has experience with grocery channels and what we call alternate channels and is helping me navigate some of those Waters as I'm pitching sales to larger retail but we are not pitching to Walmart for the very reasons that you articulated is he first generation no he's second generation pecan farmer and he and his father managed the Stucky pecan Orchard for decades so that's another thing that we have family connections oh so you've known him for a while our families have known each other for a long time here's another thing he's I don't know the exact age I think it's 15 years younger than me so that's a bit of my succession planning I still want to see if I can get someone on the Stucky side of the equation to step up to the plate at some point and be the successor to the Stucky side but he's younger than me and I think that's a really healthy Dynamic so we're not both dealing with retirement issues at the same time hey getting back to your son um I would think that this issue of of is a minimum wage going to price out uh the young it what it'll do is it'll price out anybody who presents a problem and I don't think that that smart employers are going to look at it as young vers old they're going to look at whether someone checks the basic boxes of being a good employee isn't that true already no it depends on the on the on the unemployment rate honestly that the um employers will make more or less of an investment depending on what alternatives they have and if they absolutely need a warm body they need a warm body the other interesting factor to me is throughout stues we have employees with criminal records and I think it's a great opportunity I used to be a criminal defense attorney so I'm big I'm a big believer in giving people a second chance but I'm interested in how this minimum wage increase might impact that population I I have not read the details of the bill but it would be nice if I know that there are some government incentives at the state and level if you hire people who have a criminal record I hope that there might be some thought to increasing those benefits because I would hate to see those individuals at population having a harder time getting a job U actually some of the best workers we've had have criminal records I think there is a credit included in the legislation that passed in December that does give you a credit for hiring people from various populations and and the one you describe is among them I know of several woodworking businesses that one in particular that hires exclusively ex offenders and I've talked to the owner of that one about the issue about uh establishing a cult company culture and one sort of interesting fact popped up in that conversation which is that even though you would think that that's a very motivated population he still has about a 35% failure rate on highers that uh a pretty high proportion wash out very quickly the second thing on the autism uh I'm going to preface this by saying I have an autistic son who struggles to work and so I'm extremely sympathetic to uh Jay's idea just that there may not be a concentration of autistic people anywhere near what you need to staff a factory so it's a nice plan and I hope you do it no but even if it's just five great that's five more that's all I think it's I think it's terrific and we're the facility we bought is right outside of Augusta Georgia so that's a pretty good population center it's like a 20 minute drive so there might be an opportunity to tap into that Community there good then great Stephanie I want to take a step back and and take the the larger view of this for a second you took a big leap when you bought the company in 2009 19 uh this seems like an an an even bigger leap you're uh you're even further invested um taking bigger risk absolutely what are you most worried about what what what concerns you the most you know there's one thing I meant to mention earlier when you were talking about you know the the risk from the initial purchase of Stu this is a multiple of that amount of money to purchase this Manufacturing facility and I did mean to bring up how we financed it and it was through a SBA loan and we we did a 7A loan and I think it is important so many people with the cares act talk about the PPP which of course is a benefit that is has been a huge boost to businesses but these loans for acquisition of facilities are also benefiting from the cares act two round two and the first six months of our payments the the SBA is going to pay up to $9,000 of our mortgage payments so that's a boost that's not always mentioned in the news nice what keeps me up uh or what worries me about this I guess obviously it's a it's a financial investment in the SBA loan and it's a great thing if you can get it that's a whole other episode trying to get financing on a big acquisition for a small business because it typically requires you having good credit which my business partner I are fortunate to have but you also have to have collateral and the SBA Loans do require you to put up personal collateral so so you bet the house my house is collateral now yep welcome to entrepreneurship I'm glad there's some honesty out there because that's the way it works because I got to tell you especially now with the banks it's about collateral collateral and collateral it's incredible not only did I have to put my house up as collateral but then I had to make sure that the home insurance policy listed the bank I had to take out an additional life insurance policy oh yeah and list the bank I was just waiting for them to call me and tell them my firstborn son has to be collateral as well it was just phenomenal of course everything gets reduced in value even though my home might be worth a million dollars they're going to appraise it much lower for purposes of the collateral the fact pulled it off more power to you good for you it took six months of doing nothing but filling out paperwork and almost daily conversations with our bank and then the dirty secret of these SBA Loans and they are good if you can get them but you have to have a loan processor who gets a percentage right and so you have to not only get all the documentation together yourself and have daily conversations I had my banker I had the bank vice president on speed dial I had his personal sale he was home with covid and I was calling him to get and let me ask you this did you have experiences with Bankers where you went through this for a month two months three months and finally they said no I did have a mini experience like that but it was only for a couple of weeks but it is fascinating how conservative they are and what loans they will give out because to your point I had one bank I was trying to get money from early in taking on stues and it was just to get some working capital basically and they backed out because they said well you own and operate locations that sell gas we don't we don't work with because the the the oil prices are way too volatile and we won't do business with duckies and I said we don't own any of our stores we franchise them all all and we don't even actually we've switched now to a licensing situation I said we're actually licensing we don't even operate them the lenses operate them we do not own we do not operate gas stations and they said we're still not gonna we're still not gonna do it understand Stephanie how many banks did you have to talk to for the SBA loan just one now that I will give a shout out to small Banks local banks because we went through Planners Bank in Hawkinsville Georgia and my business partner had a longstanding relationship with them Stephanie I hate to do this this was a great conversation I appreciate your openness and uh all that you've shared uh but I'm going to have to uh to close the conversation had all kinds of other stuff that I was hoping to get to we're just going to have to save it for another episode my thanks to Paul DS Jay goz and Stephany Stucky thanks for sharing everybody 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 21 hats.com this episode was produced by Jess Theron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]