Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Beatrice Dixon, Laura Foos, Torarie Durden, Rod Johnson & Pernell Cezar Full Interview

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Beatrice Dixon, Laura Foos, Torarie Durden, Rod Johnson & Pernell Cezar Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: With that being said, said my next guest has experienced
2:32
Speaker 1: in pharmaceuticals, retail and natural foods. She has the insight
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Speaker 1: and expertise to bring the innovative concept of plant based
2:39
Speaker 1: female care system to the marketplace. Unlike mass market and
2:43
Speaker 1: conventional female care plants, becausumers will be able to get
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Speaker 1: all their female care needs met on the one brand
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Speaker 1: known as The Honey Pot Company. Please work. From the
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Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation the co founder of and and CEO
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Speaker 1: of The Honey Pot Company, Beatrice Dixon. Hello, how are you?
3:04
Speaker 1: How you do mix? Where are you from? Um? Well,
3:07
Speaker 1: thank you? I live in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia,
3:12
Speaker 1: born and raised or you came from some place else? No,
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Speaker 1: I was. I was born in Virginia. I was raised
3:18
Speaker 1: in Phoenix. I moved to Atlanta like sixteen years ago
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Speaker 1: and now I live between Atlanta and New York. Atlanta,
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Speaker 1: New York. The honey Pot such a great now, thank you.
3:30
Speaker 1: Where where can we get these the brand? I'm sure
3:32
Speaker 1: we can get it online. Is it available in stores? Yes,
3:36
Speaker 1: you can get it on the Honeypot dot c O.
3:38
Speaker 1: You can get it on Amazon. You can buy our
3:41
Speaker 1: products and stores at Target, Whole Food, UM, Walmart, BDS,
3:47
Speaker 1: Walgreen UM. You know, with pretty much you can go
3:51
Speaker 1: to our website and putting our store locator, to go
3:54
Speaker 1: to our store locator, putting your zip code and figure
3:56
Speaker 1: out where we're sold in your area. Good. Now, So
4:00
Speaker 1: when when they ask you to start in your own commercial, now,
4:05
Speaker 1: there he just trying to be tough and to begin
4:07
Speaker 1: it's trying to give me that little shot answer the
4:10
Speaker 1: beery beginning. Well, now, I've seen you on TV walking
4:13
Speaker 1: around ARTICKI Laton, walking around products and everything. So how
4:18
Speaker 1: did that come about? You know, the start in your
4:20
Speaker 1: own to be able to sell your own brand, to
4:23
Speaker 1: be recognized as an entrepreneur or leader in the industry.
4:26
Speaker 1: Talk about that experience. Well, with what's the commercial? I
4:31
Speaker 1: believe that Target has interviewed multiple brands. UM. They were
4:35
Speaker 1: looking to do something around UM Black History Months, also
4:39
Speaker 1: looking for something that kind of rolled into Women's History Month,
4:43
Speaker 1: and so they interviewed multiple um black loons, women on brands.
4:48
Speaker 1: And you know, we were really fortunate to be the
4:51
Speaker 1: one that they chose to kind of be the you know,
4:55
Speaker 1: the lead commercial for Target between February and March. Okay,
5:00
Speaker 1: we were really fortunate for that. So what personality? What
5:04
Speaker 1: personality did you show, Miss Beatrice? What did they show
5:07
Speaker 1: when they when they talk to you when you were
5:09
Speaker 1: your energize or your formative? Was it your clothes with
5:12
Speaker 1: your your style? What made them say you're the one?
5:17
Speaker 1: I think you know, I think you know. It's hard.
5:21
Speaker 1: It's hard to say um, because you look great. By
5:24
Speaker 1: the way, you look great. Let's just go and compliment
5:26
Speaker 1: you look great. Every time that commercial comes on, it
5:29
Speaker 1: catches my eye. I love the fact that you're moving
5:32
Speaker 1: through a store is it feels like a journey and
5:35
Speaker 1: when you reach your product, I go, I'm there and
5:38
Speaker 1: I want to know, and I'm a man, I'm going
5:39
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, to get it you mhm.
5:46
Speaker 1: I think um and This is just something that I
5:49
Speaker 1: hear quite a bit. I don't necessarily take it on,
5:52
Speaker 1: but I think, um, one of the reasons that they
5:55
Speaker 1: chose us is because of the authenticity of our brand. Man. Um.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'm a pretty authentic person. I don't really,
6:03
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I always say what I want
6:05
Speaker 1: to say, and I always um relate how I feel.
6:09
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't really alter myself based on the
6:12
Speaker 1: conversations that I'm having. You know, I'm pretty consistent. You know,
6:17
Speaker 1: if I'm talking to you, if I'm talking to a
6:19
Speaker 1: Barrus target, if I'm talking to my mom, if I'm
6:21
Speaker 1: talking to anybody, I'm always going to be who I am, UM,
6:26
Speaker 1: And that kind of shines through with the brand as well. Okay, misauthentic? Yes,
6:34
Speaker 1: you know, how is this affected you are walking in
6:36
Speaker 1: you know, you're sitting in a restaurant, you know, eat
6:38
Speaker 1: your hamburg or you know, people recognizing you and doing
6:42
Speaker 1: self is with you? How is that? How has that
6:45
Speaker 1: affected your life? It has be't been you know a
6:49
Speaker 1: ton of that. You know, I've been doing a bit,
6:52
Speaker 1: you know, I do. I do a lot of speaking engagement,
6:55
Speaker 1: So it kind of happens there but you know, I'm
6:58
Speaker 1: not just sitting at a restaurant. If somebody comes up
7:01
Speaker 1: and like, hey, you know, it's not really like that.
7:04
Speaker 1: It's only started, and you you look fantastic, you know
7:07
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. You know, like I said, you know,
7:11
Speaker 1: you know I always tell a great campaign when you're
7:12
Speaker 1: not looking for it. That's a great campaign. So you know,
7:15
Speaker 1: when you know, I've done enough concerts, enough television shows,
7:19
Speaker 1: and I've bought enough commercial spots where you when you
7:21
Speaker 1: have to sit at the radio station and look at
7:23
Speaker 1: the television, they have to tell you the time's gonna run.
7:26
Speaker 1: For you to see your commercial spot, they verify that
7:28
Speaker 1: it's running and being successful, that's not a great campaign.
7:31
Speaker 1: But if I'm just sitting there and I and I
7:33
Speaker 1: and I go from channel in Atlanta, so I go
7:36
Speaker 1: from ABC, I go to the Fox, I go to
7:39
Speaker 1: Sports Center, and so I'm all over the place. And
7:42
Speaker 1: for me to sit up and say I've seen your commercial,
7:44
Speaker 1: your target commercial on a regular that I that I go, oh,
7:48
Speaker 1: I'm about to interview her, you know, that is really hot.
7:54
Speaker 1: That is really a testament that they believe in your brand,
7:57
Speaker 1: they believe in your product. Uh, being successful and that's
8:01
Speaker 1: really really great. But there's also a certain degree of
8:04
Speaker 1: responsibility that you gotta have as far as packaging, as
8:07
Speaker 1: far as having your product available if it sells off
8:10
Speaker 1: that if you know, if it moves off the shelf,
8:12
Speaker 1: our head of schedule, and things like that. Let's talk
8:15
Speaker 1: about that journey, because in your intro I talked about
8:17
Speaker 1: has experienced in pharmaceuticals, retail, and natural foods. How do
8:22
Speaker 1: you go for those three credits which I pulled for
8:25
Speaker 1: your bio to running and founding a company called the
8:28
Speaker 1: Honey Pot Company. Well, I know, take a breath, take
8:33
Speaker 1: a deep breath, because you went, well, no, no, you
8:38
Speaker 1: know this is how I thought, right, Um, you know,
8:40
Speaker 1: but but I so back in so I started my
8:43
Speaker 1: career in pharmacy literally right out of high school. Um,
8:48
Speaker 1: I you know, I got out of high school. I
8:50
Speaker 1: worked at Stigma. That was like my first, you know,
8:53
Speaker 1: real job, and I left from there and I kind
8:57
Speaker 1: of continued my journey into the pharmacy the world. So
9:01
Speaker 1: I went from working at a hospital and I went
9:02
Speaker 1: I worked in retail, I worked in hospitals, I working
9:05
Speaker 1: on pology lab. But I kind of did all kinds
9:09
Speaker 1: of things when you think about pharmacy. I thought I
9:12
Speaker 1: wanted to go to school to be a doctor, but
9:15
Speaker 1: then I realized that that really wasn't a passion of mine,
9:18
Speaker 1: and I can't. I'm not for human that can do
9:20
Speaker 1: things that I don't believe in. And so, you know,
9:24
Speaker 1: so I then decided, let you know, let me just
9:27
Speaker 1: take a break and figure out what I want to do,
9:29
Speaker 1: because I had started my premed but then I, like
9:32
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't want to do it anymore. So
9:34
Speaker 1: I left. I left from I left from from doing pharmacy.
9:40
Speaker 1: And around that same time, like two thousand eleven, two
9:44
Speaker 1: thousand twelves, is when I had the issues that I
9:47
Speaker 1: was having where I couldn't get rid of an infection
9:50
Speaker 1: that I had, And that's when I had the dream
9:52
Speaker 1: with my ancestor, and that's when I made the product
9:56
Speaker 1: that she told me to make basically, and you know,
9:59
Speaker 1: I made it a it worked for me. So around
10:02
Speaker 1: around this transition time, I was I was transitioning out
10:06
Speaker 1: of coming out of working in pharmacy to going to
10:09
Speaker 1: work at Whole Food and what would be their pharmacy
10:12
Speaker 1: and their whole body department. Right, but instead of like drugs,
10:16
Speaker 1: it's herbs and things of that nature. And so I
10:20
Speaker 1: did that for three years, but I was still doing
10:22
Speaker 1: honey Pot while I was doing that, um, you know.
10:26
Speaker 1: And then I left from there kind of made a
10:30
Speaker 1: natural chance transition and I went to be a food broker.
10:34
Speaker 1: So as a food broker, I went from you being
10:36
Speaker 1: my customer that shopped at Whole Foods to Whole food
10:39
Speaker 1: being my customer. And then from there I went to
10:43
Speaker 1: be an area sales manager jar at the Keel Chip Company.
10:46
Speaker 1: So the whole while between Whole Foods, being a broker,
10:50
Speaker 1: working out of you know, working at a startup, basically,
10:54
Speaker 1: I was doing honey Pots that whole time. So it's
10:57
Speaker 1: basically like I had two jobs, you know, um and
11:02
Speaker 1: and and at one time within that I had a
11:05
Speaker 1: cleaning business and in organizing business while I was working
11:08
Speaker 1: at Whole Foods. So things were really crazy. Yeah yeah,
11:16
Speaker 1: the honey pot, Yeah, the Whole food and you had
11:19
Speaker 1: the cleaning business. Yeah yeah, because I had, you know,
11:22
Speaker 1: honey Pot wasn't making money to be able to support me,
11:26
Speaker 1: you know, um, and I knew that we had to
11:28
Speaker 1: hire somebody because I had to work because you know,
11:32
Speaker 1: so we had hired Antlinade. You know, we had we
11:37
Speaker 1: had a couple of people that had kind of just
11:39
Speaker 1: kind of worked for us doing like our jobs and
11:41
Speaker 1: things like that, but Antlona was like our real official,
11:44
Speaker 1: um you know, full time employees. Everything was on. She
11:51
Speaker 1: was just out there just working. It was we were
11:57
Speaker 1: I mean I would make bottles on the weekend because
12:00
Speaker 1: and I was making the wash. I would make wash
12:02
Speaker 1: on the weekend and on the nights that I was home.
12:05
Speaker 1: I had when I when I went to be a
12:07
Speaker 1: broker and a sales manager, I was traveling three to
12:10
Speaker 1: four weeks out of the month, right right right, So
12:13
Speaker 1: it was crazy. So she was making bottles, packing them,
12:16
Speaker 1: shipping up bottoms. I mean, it was crazy. It was
12:20
Speaker 1: a crazy time. Well you know that. You know, I
12:22
Speaker 1: always remember, like, you know, the level of success I'm
12:27
Speaker 1: reaching now, you know, it's I can't do the things
12:29
Speaker 1: I used to do. But sometimes when you look back,
12:32
Speaker 1: you know, when I was I should just stand up
12:34
Speaker 1: comedy that was on the comedy club, used the right
12:36
Speaker 1: sitcom time. I look back at that period, it's really
12:40
Speaker 1: so much fun because because you were just doing it.
12:44
Speaker 1: You know, they're just doing it. There were no guarantees
12:48
Speaker 1: that he was just working hard and and and sometimes
12:52
Speaker 1: I wish I just would have like capture some of
12:55
Speaker 1: those more, much more, because slowed down and appreciated that
12:58
Speaker 1: I was doing something, spent show because I live the
13:01
Speaker 1: results now. You know you're living the results now. But
13:04
Speaker 1: you would just grinding. You were just grinding, and you
13:07
Speaker 1: know you wanted to go to sleep, but you couldn't
13:09
Speaker 1: go to sleep. You know, you wanted to sit down
13:11
Speaker 1: and and just rest. You wanted to stop sometimes, but
13:14
Speaker 1: something inside you told you you couldn't stop. Just keep
13:16
Speaker 1: pushing and pushing. And when people well people are having
13:20
Speaker 1: a vacation and you couldn't vacation. You know, you every dollar,
13:25
Speaker 1: you couldn't buy shoes when you wanted to buy such
13:29
Speaker 1: I'll put you you shopped on it. Really just it's
13:33
Speaker 1: a testimony to the process that you know, the results
13:37
Speaker 1: are beautiful, but the journey it's hard. Now, it's hard,
13:41
Speaker 1: but born when you look back and just laugh, you
13:43
Speaker 1: just laugh. Yeah, I mean, and and and truth be told,
13:48
Speaker 1: you know, the journey is still happening. You know, we
13:50
Speaker 1: we don't every most of the most of the money
13:54
Speaker 1: that our business makes goes right back into the business.
13:56
Speaker 1: So it's not like you know, I'm sitting here with
14:00
Speaker 1: llions of dollars in my personal bank account. You know,
14:02
Speaker 1: it's not it hasn't gotten it hasn't gotten to that
14:06
Speaker 1: place yet. You know, it's still a grind. It's still
14:09
Speaker 1: it's still a lot of hard work and high level thinking.
14:14
Speaker 1: It's just that it's not necessarily me whipping it up
14:17
Speaker 1: in the kitchen now right Like now, my grind is
14:21
Speaker 1: I have to constantly be in front of investors. I'm
14:23
Speaker 1: doing speaking engagements, you know, have to have you know,
14:26
Speaker 1: I'm constantly had a weekly meetings with my with different
14:29
Speaker 1: parts of the teams. You know, I work with our
14:32
Speaker 1: with our um our cso Kelly to go to you know,
14:37
Speaker 1: when we go to present the retailers, like you know,
14:41
Speaker 1: I'm managing you know, working with my brother as he
14:45
Speaker 1: you know, and he's my co founder, um you know,
14:48
Speaker 1: while while he's building out charts and and you know,
14:52
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's insane. So it's still it's
14:55
Speaker 1: still crazy busy. It's still it's still labor, you know,
15:00
Speaker 1: but it's it's not as um it's not it's not
15:06
Speaker 1: the grinds. It's just a different type of grind. You
15:10
Speaker 1: you don't have a whole foods or cleaning business that's
15:13
Speaker 1: part of the grind anymore. No, it's just a honey
15:16
Speaker 1: point grinde ground and quite and quite honestly. Um. You know,
15:23
Speaker 1: once you start bringing in capital and in those types
15:26
Speaker 1: of things, that's a part of your operating agreement. You know,
15:29
Speaker 1: your shareholders, the people that invest in your business. That's
15:33
Speaker 1: like it's in a contract that I can't do anything
15:36
Speaker 1: else other than honey pots. You know what I'm talking to. Um.
15:40
Speaker 1: This the co founder and CEO of the honey pot company.
15:44
Speaker 1: She started in her pharmaceuticals, retail and natural foods, and
15:48
Speaker 1: she was multi working and multitasking and she was grinding
15:51
Speaker 1: like all people started. It started grinding, and you know
15:55
Speaker 1: she knowed Rihan. Look here, there's not a million dollars
15:58
Speaker 1: in my bankt there will be. The goal is to
16:00
Speaker 1: get to a million. I'm gonna tell you something. When
16:01
Speaker 1: you get to a million, you're gonna want more millions.
16:04
Speaker 1: It's just I'm just gonna let you know, Miss Dixon.
16:07
Speaker 1: It just does not stop. That's why Amazon keeps buying things,
16:10
Speaker 1: That's why Google keeps buying things. Microsofts keeps buying things
16:14
Speaker 1: you just do not stop because you start figuring out
16:16
Speaker 1: words to diversify your brand and growing your brand. Honeypot
16:19
Speaker 1: is a plant power the feminine care company for today's
16:23
Speaker 1: savvy female consumer. When I say that, that's a line
16:26
Speaker 1: I took from your bio, What does it mean when
16:28
Speaker 1: you say savvy female consumer? My you know, in my
16:33
Speaker 1: opinion is savvy female consumer is one that really understands
16:37
Speaker 1: what she wants, She understands how she wants to switt
16:40
Speaker 1: and I don't even want to say she um because
16:44
Speaker 1: not every human that buys our product is necessarily a
16:47
Speaker 1: woman or identifies as being a woman. But the humans
16:51
Speaker 1: that buy the humans that buy our products, you know,
16:54
Speaker 1: I call them savvy because they know what they want,
16:57
Speaker 1: They're willing to invest in what they want, you know,
17:00
Speaker 1: and basically to go the extra miles to um make
17:05
Speaker 1: sure that they're taking care of themselves right And when
17:08
Speaker 1: you say taking care of themselves, So let's break down
17:10
Speaker 1: a little bit more. The Honeypot Company is a one
17:12
Speaker 1: stop shop for all things healthy and natural. When it
17:15
Speaker 1: comes to females are a person's person personal and so
17:22
Speaker 1: that includes healthy washes, natural wipes, or herb infused paths
17:28
Speaker 1: and organic uh cotton tampons with bioplastic applicators. Now, now
17:35
Speaker 1: let me just back up a little bit. I was
17:37
Speaker 1: always eating dinner with a guy a couple of days,
17:39
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and they was talking. He
17:41
Speaker 1: was talking about there was just you know, the natural
17:44
Speaker 1: uh care product that women were just really up in
17:48
Speaker 1: arms that that you know, these their chemicals that making
17:52
Speaker 1: women sick and also maybe causing women to die from that.
17:55
Speaker 1: And so that this natural wave was the way the
17:58
Speaker 1: co gold that women were just lying in up almost
18:00
Speaker 1: like protesting that. You know. It's almost that hear me
18:03
Speaker 1: roar type attitude about get it to me right, get
18:07
Speaker 1: it to me correctly, so I can wake up and
18:09
Speaker 1: feel that I'm living a healthy life. Like you was
18:11
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, the whole process of you come into
18:14
Speaker 1: this was was an affection you couldn't get rid of,
18:17
Speaker 1: correct exactly. Yeah, Now, when you when you talk about that,
18:23
Speaker 1: what what what is the other than that? The motivation
18:26
Speaker 1: of being able to sit down with your brother who's
18:28
Speaker 1: the co founder, and being able to do this part
18:31
Speaker 1: time part time? What was the breakthrough point in this
18:34
Speaker 1: whole process? You realize, you know, some we can make
18:36
Speaker 1: a commitment to this, we can win with this product.
18:40
Speaker 1: It was once we got into target, you know, it
18:44
Speaker 1: needed to be able to support. Look, I'm not the
18:47
Speaker 1: person that believes in starting a business and just cleaning
18:51
Speaker 1: your job. I don't believe in that. I believe that
18:54
Speaker 1: you keep your jobs so that you don't put yourself
18:57
Speaker 1: in a place of being desperate, and you you keep
19:01
Speaker 1: you keep your you keep your hustle going until until
19:05
Speaker 1: the business gets to a place where it can support
19:08
Speaker 1: you financially and tea you either what you're making on
19:11
Speaker 1: your job or more. And so you just jump out there,
19:16
Speaker 1: just just go out there on a leap of faith.
19:18
Speaker 1: You're not that personal. Na, No, I don't think that
19:21
Speaker 1: that's that that's an intelligent thing to do, because it's
19:26
Speaker 1: hard to make, it's hard to be It's already hard
19:29
Speaker 1: to have a startup that comes from nothing. It's double
19:32
Speaker 1: hard to have a startup that comes from nothing, and
19:35
Speaker 1: you're relying on that startup to basically take care of you,
19:39
Speaker 1: to take care of an employee and all those types
19:41
Speaker 1: of things. Um, you know, it's already so much stress.
19:45
Speaker 1: So I so I didn't take that route. Um, you know,
19:49
Speaker 1: honey pot was well well off the ground, you know,
19:53
Speaker 1: while I was doing all these other things, you know,
19:56
Speaker 1: but um, you know, but once we want, if we
20:00
Speaker 1: got into target, I got to a point where I
20:03
Speaker 1: was like living this double life. I was working like
20:05
Speaker 1: eighty to ninety hours a week. I was traveling pretty
20:10
Speaker 1: like every single week for work, and then I would
20:13
Speaker 1: have to you know, I was off. We were raising
20:15
Speaker 1: money at the time. I mean, it was it was
20:18
Speaker 1: like one of the most stressful times in my life.
20:20
Speaker 1: And so we raised, we raised, We raised three million
20:24
Speaker 1: dollars in two thousand eighteen UM with the New Voice
20:28
Speaker 1: Is Fund. That really kind of took things off the
20:32
Speaker 1: ground because I had already started full time a few
20:35
Speaker 1: months before. But that really gave us the the ability
20:40
Speaker 1: to hire others, to hire the other employees that we
20:43
Speaker 1: needed to hire, to be able to invest in marketing,
20:46
Speaker 1: to be able to invest in more inventory. You know,
20:49
Speaker 1: so many things happened once we got that investment. So,
20:53
Speaker 1: you know, it was a combination of living a double life,
20:55
Speaker 1: working ridiculous hours and not being able to execute at
20:59
Speaker 1: my best, and then the access to capital that you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: helped us to really to to to get to stand
21:07
Speaker 1: on our island two feet so that we can see
21:09
Speaker 1: things through to the next level. Let measure this. Do
21:12
Speaker 1: you can see yourself a spokesperson for for for women
21:16
Speaker 1: of when you're talking about because women, you know, fight
21:20
Speaker 1: for their rights, for this case, fighting for their heads,
21:23
Speaker 1: for fighting for their health, and because it's a business.
21:26
Speaker 1: But it's also something that affected you personally. And because
21:29
Speaker 1: of that personal challenge, you know, you went in your kitchen,
21:31
Speaker 1: you started mixing up stuff and you got it right
21:34
Speaker 1: and and and then then you was able to go
21:36
Speaker 1: out there and convince individuals, strangers who look at the
21:40
Speaker 1: look they look at opportunities. So you gotta have a
21:41
Speaker 1: business plan and that's credibility also has a three million
21:45
Speaker 1: dollars that's nothing to sneeze at. You know, you're go
21:48
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people going, okay, here's you know,
21:50
Speaker 1: we should We watched Shark Tank on TV. You know
21:52
Speaker 1: they're going there with these little presentations and they have
21:56
Speaker 1: they chop it down to maybe five minutes, and they
21:58
Speaker 1: go yes or no, we take of your company, or
22:01
Speaker 1: you give us a million dollars, or I give you
22:03
Speaker 1: two dollars, you give me your company or whatever? Is that?
22:08
Speaker 1: How I worked for you. It used to be a
22:12
Speaker 1: lot harder. You know, it's not hard for me to
22:16
Speaker 1: you know, I could look I could look you in
22:18
Speaker 1: the face and be like, hey, I need ten million dollars.
22:21
Speaker 1: You know, but at one point, honestly, so you're you're
22:26
Speaker 1: you're shocked. Now you just used to worry about asking
22:29
Speaker 1: for that kind of money. Huh. It's not that I'm
22:32
Speaker 1: gonna start. I just have experience in doing it. You know,
22:36
Speaker 1: I've been I've been doing I've been pitching invested now
22:41
Speaker 1: for almost four years, you know, with with my brother,
22:45
Speaker 1: and and it's like anything else, if you do something,
22:49
Speaker 1: you do it consistently, you get experience in it, you know,
22:52
Speaker 1: being being in the startup world start up life is
22:55
Speaker 1: like getting getting the master's degree, you know, or getting
22:58
Speaker 1: the pH d. You just doing it in real life, right,
23:01
Speaker 1: So you know, so in the beginning, absolutely it was
23:06
Speaker 1: hard because you know, you you had never you've never
23:10
Speaker 1: seen money like that before, you know what I mean? Um,
23:13
Speaker 1: you know now you know everything that we make we
23:17
Speaker 1: put into our business. You know, we actually we're not
23:20
Speaker 1: We're not We're not necessarily when you look at the books,
23:24
Speaker 1: were not necessarily making money just because everything goes back
23:28
Speaker 1: in right. But but but but we do have a
23:31
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar business, you know what I'm saying, and so um,
23:36
Speaker 1: you know, so it's so it's it requires a lot
23:40
Speaker 1: and when when you when you have fourteen people working
23:44
Speaker 1: for you, right and and your product is selling on
23:50
Speaker 1: you know, over within the next few months, it will
23:53
Speaker 1: be around ten or eleven thousand doors right now, Target,
23:57
Speaker 1: wal maud Urban outfits beyond old Foods and other th retail.
24:06
Speaker 1: I mean, the are these are top of the line,
24:08
Speaker 1: you know, just to see you you know, you know
24:11
Speaker 1: this is you know, that's my that's my point though, right,
24:14
Speaker 1: So you have to get comfortable with asking somebody for
24:17
Speaker 1: that type of money because that's what that's the type
24:20
Speaker 1: of money that it takes to run your business, you know,
24:24
Speaker 1: because you know you can't. You know, you can't run
24:25
Speaker 1: out of Target, you know, you know you can't. You
24:29
Speaker 1: can't run out of Target. You can run out of Walmart.
24:31
Speaker 1: You can't run out of money at paper, you know,
24:34
Speaker 1: for your you can't. You can't run out of You
24:37
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta have money to pay your employees. Pay
24:41
Speaker 1: Roll has to happen every two weeks. Yes, yes, marketing
24:45
Speaker 1: has to happen, you know, you know, it's really you know,
24:48
Speaker 1: it's so funny when I when out, you know, because
24:50
Speaker 1: I can tell you a straight shooter, you know, and
24:53
Speaker 1: and then you you your person that could you know,
24:55
Speaker 1: like you said, I can ask you for ten million
24:57
Speaker 1: dollars for show ease. Now that's really a gift, you know,
25:01
Speaker 1: because of the fact that you know, you have your
25:03
Speaker 1: brother who's the co founder, but you're out there doing
25:05
Speaker 1: all the talking. Of course, the female female based product,
25:08
Speaker 1: you should be doing the talking. And I have six sisters,
25:10
Speaker 1: so I'm comfortable talking in this conversation. You know, you
25:13
Speaker 1: grew up with six sisters. For them older you you've
25:15
Speaker 1: heard this conversation were over and over and over again
25:18
Speaker 1: in your lifetime. And so but I also know that
25:20
Speaker 1: it was important to them, uh and there was always
25:23
Speaker 1: a conversation that was important to them. And so I
25:25
Speaker 1: know when you talk talking about female Savvy, it's almost
25:28
Speaker 1: like it's about time. What took us so long? We've
25:32
Speaker 1: been up, You've been living a life of being just
25:34
Speaker 1: giving you walking there. Just because it on the shelf
25:36
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's good for you. That is the that
25:39
Speaker 1: is that is such a sad state of affairs that
25:42
Speaker 1: you're going there. You think this product is on the shelf,
25:45
Speaker 1: that they put it on the shelf, they're selling it
25:47
Speaker 1: to you. No, No, that doesn't mean it's good for you.
25:50
Speaker 1: And that's really the the why the Honey Poe Company
25:54
Speaker 1: was created and really is the foundation that were we
25:56
Speaker 1: care about you as a customer, but also not from
26:00
Speaker 1: the fact that you're buying our products. But you can
26:03
Speaker 1: live a much more healthier and safe life with our
26:06
Speaker 1: product exactly that. But that's the responsibility piece you were
26:11
Speaker 1: talking about, right, you know, when you I believe that
26:15
Speaker 1: anything that you do in your life, you should do
26:18
Speaker 1: it well, and you should and you should and you
26:21
Speaker 1: should hold yourself responsible for anything that your hand touches. Right,
26:25
Speaker 1: so all the way to the basic level, how you
26:29
Speaker 1: live your house should be clean, how you drive your
26:32
Speaker 1: car should be clean, right, how you think things should
26:35
Speaker 1: be organized, things should have a place. You know, when
26:39
Speaker 1: you have a business, if it's a service that you
26:42
Speaker 1: should offer the best possible service. That you absolutely can't
26:46
Speaker 1: and if you can't, if you're not a person that
26:49
Speaker 1: that that know that you execute in that way. I'm
26:56
Speaker 1: I'm of the belief that you shouldn't touch it unless
26:58
Speaker 1: you can, because you know what we make. We make
27:04
Speaker 1: anything that somebody puts on any part of their body,
27:07
Speaker 1: their arm, they lay a human with a vagina on
27:10
Speaker 1: their anything, right that's going inside your body because your
27:15
Speaker 1: your skin is an organ. So it's a huge responsibility
27:21
Speaker 1: to make clean products because you know, we make products
27:26
Speaker 1: for a vagina. So we can't. We can't if we're
27:29
Speaker 1: going to be responsible, and if we if we're gonna
27:32
Speaker 1: love our customers and adore them and appreciate them the
27:35
Speaker 1: way we do. The least we can do is make
27:38
Speaker 1: a beautiful product. We have a twenty three year old daughter.
27:40
Speaker 1: I'm excited about what you're saying. I'm comfortable about this
27:45
Speaker 1: interview because you know, she's my she's my future, she's
27:49
Speaker 1: my baby, you know. And so when I when I
27:53
Speaker 1: when I when I do an interview like this, it's
27:55
Speaker 1: it's personal reasons because I want to get your product
27:58
Speaker 1: out there and then people will be aware of this
28:00
Speaker 1: type of product that I feel is uh. You know,
28:02
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, you can get sold on
28:04
Speaker 1: the fact that they got the most money, they got
28:07
Speaker 1: the most history. It doesn't mean they care about you,
28:10
Speaker 1: and uh, and um, when this interview opportunity came up
28:13
Speaker 1: for me, it wasn't a conversation. It's it who that's
28:18
Speaker 1: the lady. Don't talking, that's the talking lady. Commercial got her.
28:22
Speaker 1: I want to see her. That's my girl right there.
28:24
Speaker 1: I want to see her because of the fact that,
28:26
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, women of color, we know
28:29
Speaker 1: there's a huge disparity when it comes out there when
28:32
Speaker 1: you talk about raising capital and you know you're walk
28:34
Speaker 1: into the room and what what why you know when
28:38
Speaker 1: you talk about raising capital, because you know, you have
28:39
Speaker 1: so many lanes. You have the you have the male identity,
28:43
Speaker 1: you have the white male identity, black male identity, then
28:45
Speaker 1: you have the the white female, then you have the
28:48
Speaker 1: black female identity. And so you know, I'm assuming that
28:51
Speaker 1: you have fallen behind your number four if I'm there saying,
28:55
Speaker 1: I know it's the white male is probably gonna be
28:56
Speaker 1: the white female, and then there's gonna be the black male,
29:00
Speaker 1: is going to be the black female. Talking about because
29:04
Speaker 1: when you look at television, look at history, you know,
29:07
Speaker 1: the black female has always been played off as the
29:10
Speaker 1: is the is the lesser role, to stay at home role,
29:13
Speaker 1: the the the childbearing role, and now you're you're sitting
29:17
Speaker 1: in front of people talking about, hey, let me let
29:19
Speaker 1: me take your millions of dollars and I turned into
29:21
Speaker 1: it into multimillions of dollars. Talk about that experience. Okay, yeah,
29:27
Speaker 1: that that has been a really great experience. You know.
29:32
Speaker 1: We we've been really fortunate. And I think one of
29:35
Speaker 1: the main reasons we've been fortunate because we have a
29:37
Speaker 1: good product and we have a good customer base that
29:41
Speaker 1: supports our products. UM, and that you know, supports us
29:45
Speaker 1: as founders and and and you know, and just as
29:48
Speaker 1: humans that are creating in the world. Um. You know. So,
29:54
Speaker 1: but it definitely has been challenging raising capital. When you
29:59
Speaker 1: think about UM, black women are starting are are like
30:03
Speaker 1: actually leading and heading up UM as far as all
30:08
Speaker 1: all founders that are starting businesses. Black women are leading
30:11
Speaker 1: the charge in that, you know. But at the same time,
30:14
Speaker 1: black women also have like access to less than point
30:18
Speaker 1: zero zero zero six percent of the venture capital that's
30:22
Speaker 1: out in the world. Like that's like that's way less
30:26
Speaker 1: that's a decimal point. Um, it's way less than one percent, right,
30:33
Speaker 1: and so it's uh, you know, it has definitely been
30:37
Speaker 1: a challenge. You know. But what those challenges have done,
30:42
Speaker 1: is they forced us to be leaved and to be
30:45
Speaker 1: scrappy in our business, to be a business. And so,
30:52
Speaker 1: you know, so while it used to really bother me,
30:57
Speaker 1: you know because when you look at when you look
30:59
Speaker 1: at my at at my at my competitors. I've got
31:04
Speaker 1: three major competitors in the market. You know, they've raised
31:08
Speaker 1: like million, a hundred million dollars between the three, right
31:12
Speaker 1: we've we've raised four and you know, and and and
31:16
Speaker 1: it's sometimes it's about who, you know. Sometimes it's about
31:19
Speaker 1: who you have access to. But I don't want to
31:21
Speaker 1: say that to make it seem like, you know, to
31:26
Speaker 1: make it seem like we're a victim of of the
31:30
Speaker 1: venture capital world. I don't want to come from that place,
31:33
Speaker 1: you know. But but but what but what I won't
31:37
Speaker 1: do is not talked to the fact that it has
31:41
Speaker 1: not been as easy for us to to get to
31:44
Speaker 1: the valuations that we should likely be at um you know,
31:49
Speaker 1: to to to raise the millions of dollars of even
31:53
Speaker 1: steed capital. We've raised millions. But you know, I think
31:59
Speaker 1: it's so substances with different Well, my friend, you know,
32:05
Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know this. First of all,
32:08
Speaker 1: you change your lives. Okay, you're saving lives. Okay, your
32:11
Speaker 1: your role model, your trail blaze you. I love your
32:16
Speaker 1: your tough personality, you know, and I love that don't change.
32:21
Speaker 1: We all grow. And I put the money making conversation
32:25
Speaker 1: to share, to share your experience. But I don't like
32:27
Speaker 1: to promote your brand. But they're sharing your journey because
32:31
Speaker 1: it's so many people who have come on this show,
32:33
Speaker 1: and I've been so blessed to just see this brand
32:36
Speaker 1: just just grow up. It's like exploded and and and
32:39
Speaker 1: just individuals now see that this is a show that
32:42
Speaker 1: you can come and tell your story, promote your product,
32:44
Speaker 1: and you have a support guy in Rashan McDonald who
32:47
Speaker 1: has an amazing brand himself. And this is all free.
32:50
Speaker 1: I don't you know, nobody's gonna pop off and no
32:52
Speaker 1: charge and listen to this interview. It doesn't work that way.
32:55
Speaker 1: This interview works the way of being able to say that,
32:58
Speaker 1: do not stop what you're doing. UM, when these campaigns started,
33:01
Speaker 1: please send me social media banners. I got over a
33:03
Speaker 1: million social media social media followers. I got a fan
33:06
Speaker 1: club with ninety seven thousand and seventy four of female
33:10
Speaker 1: and so I want to support you though change and
33:13
Speaker 1: keep winning, okay, because you are winning every time I
33:16
Speaker 1: see you on that TV commercial, you are winning, okay
33:20
Speaker 1: and looking good girl, looking good okay, and you strolling
33:24
Speaker 1: down there. That's my girl right there. And so I'm
33:27
Speaker 1: happy for the Honey Pot Company. Of talking to the
33:29
Speaker 1: co founders she co founded it with her brother and
33:31
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Honey Pot Company, Miss Beatrice Dixon,
33:35
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on my show. Thank you for
33:38
Speaker 1: having me. If you want to hear more interviews for
33:41
Speaker 1: money Making Conversations, go to money Making Conversation dot com.
33:44
Speaker 1: I'm Rashan McDonald um, your host. It's finally here, the
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Speaker 1: dot Ai. My guess is tax season, y'all? A tax season?
35:48
Speaker 1: A tax season? Yes? Yeah, I've seen commercial life there by,
35:52
Speaker 1: tax seas, all kind of people. We'll let you know.
35:54
Speaker 1: A tax season for some people's tax season year round.
35:58
Speaker 1: Like me, I'm always talking about my Texas. So it's
36:01
Speaker 1: time to talk to one of my favorite tax experts.
36:03
Speaker 1: My next guest. Tax preparation company specialized as an individual
36:07
Speaker 1: or small business tax preparations and tax filings. They pride
36:11
Speaker 1: themselves as taking time with each client to go over
36:14
Speaker 1: with them their tax situation so they can understand it
36:17
Speaker 1: as well as help them plan for upcoming years. Please
36:20
Speaker 1: welcome back back back the money making conversation. One of
36:23
Speaker 1: my favorite people in the d C area, Laura Foods,
36:27
Speaker 1: Good morning, How y'all doing pretty good? At the energy
36:31
Speaker 1: She would not stop, she would not stop. And how
36:34
Speaker 1: you're doing, Laura, I'm good I'm good, we're here. I'm
36:37
Speaker 1: excited to be with you all again. I was telling Samantha,
36:40
Speaker 1: I hadn't talked to you all in quite a while. Yeah,
36:44
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure you. I'm sure you were talking
36:46
Speaker 1: to somebody though, because you can talk, you know, I
36:50
Speaker 1: was like talking, you know, I'm always talking. It's awesome though.
36:54
Speaker 1: That's one of your gifts. And I want to ask
36:55
Speaker 1: you all the time i've talked to you, Laura, I
36:58
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever asked you it is your gift
37:00
Speaker 1: or your passion? What is your gift or your passion? Um?
37:04
Speaker 1: I think gift and passion so they probably go, um,
37:08
Speaker 1: go together. UM. I think that part of my gift is,
37:12
Speaker 1: you know, being able to especially because I deal a
37:15
Speaker 1: lot with taxes and finances and those are subjects that sometimes,
37:19
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people don't talk about it,
37:21
Speaker 1: they don't understand. So I think part of my gift
37:23
Speaker 1: is being able to break the process down so that
37:27
Speaker 1: everybody can understand it, and that I can break it
37:30
Speaker 1: down to whatever crowd that I'm speaking to and make
37:32
Speaker 1: it relatable to them. Um. And that's part of my passion,
37:36
Speaker 1: and that, you know, breaking money and finances and taxes
37:40
Speaker 1: and budgeting and savings and breaking those down so that
37:43
Speaker 1: all of us can understand it and that people are
37:45
Speaker 1: more educated, and then when we know better, we do better. Right,
37:49
Speaker 1: So I think that is part of the passion of
37:51
Speaker 1: you know, helping break the you know, financial and money
37:54
Speaker 1: things down so that people understand it better. We know.
37:58
Speaker 1: It's really I've my relationship goes all the way back
38:01
Speaker 1: to the Hoodie Awards, neighbored Awards, with your business even well,
38:12
Speaker 1: let's talk about slaw Cotur, because I'm just talking about
38:15
Speaker 1: you personally as an individual who I've seen grown and
38:18
Speaker 1: and you know, I follow your social media and I
38:21
Speaker 1: just see that you're you're more more of a social
38:24
Speaker 1: media influencer now. We're just making that shift in it.
38:26
Speaker 1: You seem like you're you're you're you're gaining energy about
38:29
Speaker 1: who you are as a brand and who you are
38:31
Speaker 1: as an individual. It's because your daughter is in college.
38:34
Speaker 1: Now You've got more time to you for yourself, not
38:36
Speaker 1: seeing the kids, not there, what's going on. I don't
38:40
Speaker 1: think I have more time now. I think it is
38:43
Speaker 1: and probably working with you and and some of my
38:46
Speaker 1: other coaches that I work with and really beginning to
38:49
Speaker 1: take this seriously that you know that I can be
38:52
Speaker 1: my own person and my own brand, because, like you said,
38:55
Speaker 1: because I do have that gift in that passion to
38:58
Speaker 1: share with people. And I think that everybody has something
39:01
Speaker 1: that they need to share, and mine, of course is
39:03
Speaker 1: and taxes and finances, um. And so I think it
39:07
Speaker 1: was just deciding to be more transparent with people, especially
39:11
Speaker 1: on social media. And I think that once you learned
39:14
Speaker 1: to be transparent with your audience and add value, like
39:18
Speaker 1: my social media is to add value to people, to
39:20
Speaker 1: share information that I've learned from being a single mother,
39:24
Speaker 1: from being married and divorced twice, from going through bankruptcy
39:28
Speaker 1: but then having several successful businesses. Um. So I think
39:31
Speaker 1: my audience appreciates the transparency and they certainly understand that
39:35
Speaker 1: they loved me for me because I probably do cuss
39:38
Speaker 1: way too much to be a cute young lady, so
39:41
Speaker 1: sometimes they might catch me cussing. I'd like to laugh,
39:43
Speaker 1: I like to have fun. Um. But I think when
39:46
Speaker 1: you are, you know, using social media to add value
39:50
Speaker 1: to people, um and be the real you and the
39:52
Speaker 1: authentic you, then I think that people appreciate that and
39:56
Speaker 1: you find your tribe and you find your you know,
39:58
Speaker 1: your crew, but more transparent. Well, no, it's really important
40:03
Speaker 1: because when I bring people on the show or you know,
40:06
Speaker 1: we're all going to talk about who you are from
40:08
Speaker 1: a business perspective, Why are you calling it on the show.
40:10
Speaker 1: But I just try to let my listeners here another
40:14
Speaker 1: layer of what is inspiring you, what is driving you?
40:17
Speaker 1: Because because of the fact that we are all tied
40:20
Speaker 1: to trying to be successful. And then and I always
40:22
Speaker 1: tell people all you're laying of success is going to
40:24
Speaker 1: be different somebody else lane, but you might drop a nugget.
40:27
Speaker 1: They go, wow, I can really relate to what she's
40:30
Speaker 1: talking about. I can really relate to understand you know who,
40:33
Speaker 1: our passion, her gifts are very similar to mine. But
40:36
Speaker 1: guess what, I'm a different person. I might be younger,
40:39
Speaker 1: I might be older, I might be married, I might
40:41
Speaker 1: be single, all these situations, but you can still be
40:43
Speaker 1: inspired by the story. And that's why I love communicating
40:47
Speaker 1: with your Lord, because you will tell me the story. Now,
40:49
Speaker 1: how is your daughter? Because you love talking about my
40:52
Speaker 1: girl to Yeah, absolutely see the kids that's college treating
40:57
Speaker 1: her and everything you know said is doing great. Thank
41:01
Speaker 1: you for always asking about her, said, the kid is
41:03
Speaker 1: in her. Well, she's coming up finishing her second year
41:06
Speaker 1: at Temple University. This year has just been an awesome
41:10
Speaker 1: year for her. I don't even see her hardly anymore.
41:12
Speaker 1: Thank god for face time that we FaceTime a hundred
41:15
Speaker 1: of times a day because she never makes it home.
41:17
Speaker 1: But she's really transitioning. Interestingly, she's um started doing an
41:22
Speaker 1: internship with their football team as she grew to love
41:25
Speaker 1: football because of her father and her uncle's and now
41:29
Speaker 1: she is really leaning towards sports management. She's one of
41:33
Speaker 1: their only paid students that works with Temple football and
41:36
Speaker 1: works with recruiting, um the athletes coming to visit the school,
41:40
Speaker 1: and she's really loving that. And so, I mean, I
41:43
Speaker 1: don't know where that came from, but you know, I'm
41:45
Speaker 1: gonna support her and whatever where we know where the
41:47
Speaker 1: talking came from. Okay, now the ability to communicate came
41:50
Speaker 1: from you. When she launches her sports management company, then yes,
41:54
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to get her own money making conversations.
41:58
Speaker 1: She's the thing about this about relationship. You going that
42:00
Speaker 1: did the tax stuff down path? You know, So when
42:03
Speaker 1: when she starts signing these athletes, they gonna bring him
42:05
Speaker 1: around the corners there is and they don't even introduce
42:08
Speaker 1: you as mom. You know this is she will hanging
42:11
Speaker 1: your taxes. You know, we don't have no problem over here.
42:13
Speaker 1: And then you're gonna just start talking. They're gonna go whoa.
42:18
Speaker 1: But that's how you you know, like my daughter, you know,
42:20
Speaker 1: she's she's in college, but she's one more year she'd
42:23
Speaker 1: be graduating in game design. And I'm watching her grow
42:26
Speaker 1: and watching her grow. And that's why I talk about
42:28
Speaker 1: the balanced life, you know, being able to we can
42:30
Speaker 1: be successful in all these different areas, but how balanced
42:33
Speaker 1: is your life? You know? And you know we always
42:35
Speaker 1: want our kids to go out there and we you know,
42:39
Speaker 1: watching the ugly things on TV that you're always afraid
42:42
Speaker 1: you need to hear from them to make sure that
42:44
Speaker 1: you could sleep at night. But you gotta let them go,
42:46
Speaker 1: and you gotta let them grow, and you gotta let
42:48
Speaker 1: them make their own decisions. So now the extension, why
42:51
Speaker 1: would somebody filing the extension? Um? Maybe sometimes you know,
42:55
Speaker 1: I have clients find for all different reasons, some just
42:58
Speaker 1: because they maybe they have had an emergency, or they've
43:02
Speaker 1: had things going on with their families, so they just
43:04
Speaker 1: couldn't get the documents together. Maybe they were waiting for
43:07
Speaker 1: a document because they lost it and had to get
43:09
Speaker 1: a replacement. UM. There's all all kinds of reasons. So
43:13
Speaker 1: you can find you would be approved to file an
43:16
Speaker 1: automatic extension UM without any penalties or fees. Especially if
43:22
Speaker 1: you are do a refund, you can do it automatically.
43:24
Speaker 1: Let's just say you didn't have time, UM, and you
43:27
Speaker 1: can file that automatically. A degree in math, I will
43:32
Speaker 1: never do my taxes. When it comes to buy taxes,
43:34
Speaker 1: I get parano I get nervous, I get afraid it
43:37
Speaker 1: really it really is like I mean, even when I
43:40
Speaker 1: wasn't making just a little simple form, the little single form,
43:44
Speaker 1: I just one job, and you know they showed you
43:46
Speaker 1: how much taxes they took out. I still wasn't feeling
43:48
Speaker 1: those forms. I was like scared to death. Why why
43:52
Speaker 1: is Richard McDonald afraid of feeling out his own taxes?
43:57
Speaker 1: Need you call me that right? Well? And I think
44:00
Speaker 1: it's just just like we were talking about in the
44:03
Speaker 1: intro of the Passion, because nobody talks about it. You know,
44:06
Speaker 1: we didn't learn about taxes in in school. A lot
44:10
Speaker 1: of times our parents just filed their taxes or I
44:13
Speaker 1: see I mean, you know, we didn't even know our
44:15
Speaker 1: parents filed taxes. I didn't even know what that was.
44:17
Speaker 1: No one discussed that. We didn't learn about it in college.
44:20
Speaker 1: And so until you started working, did you hear people say, oh,
44:23
Speaker 1: you have to file your taxes. And when you don't
44:26
Speaker 1: know something or you don't understand something, then you get
44:28
Speaker 1: a professional to do it for you. Now, hopefully you
44:31
Speaker 1: work with someone like myself that will explain it to you.
44:34
Speaker 1: But I still have a lot of clients who, probably
44:36
Speaker 1: like yourself, are like, I don't even want to know.
44:38
Speaker 1: Just what's the bottom number? You do it? You're the
44:41
Speaker 1: perfect Tell me the bottom numbers are. That's me. You know, Well,
44:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna change. I'm a good person because you know,
44:47
Speaker 1: I stee my little booklets, I have my little tabs.
44:50
Speaker 1: Everything he's typed up. I am a blessing to my
44:53
Speaker 1: text Oh my god, they love they they love me.
44:57
Speaker 1: But you know, don't come back over me. You know,
44:59
Speaker 1: just tell me what need to sign makes you. What
45:01
Speaker 1: I'm signing makes me happy. I gotta be happy. Gotta
45:06
Speaker 1: be happy. But that's part of the process, because you know,
45:09
Speaker 1: you have to go you know, I think when it
45:11
Speaker 1: when it's because it's so personable, how this whole file
45:15
Speaker 1: in taxes. And then I see these companies talking about
45:18
Speaker 1: you know, you you file taxes, we give your money.
45:20
Speaker 1: Now I'll see that. Or do you do that as
45:24
Speaker 1: well or is that just a different company that is
45:26
Speaker 1: just doing that. No, where they can get an advance
45:29
Speaker 1: in the way like they call it like an advance
45:32
Speaker 1: and what that is that is and those are certainly legal,
45:35
Speaker 1: and most tax professionals offer them like we had them
45:38
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the tax season. And what the advances,
45:41
Speaker 1: it's an advance of money of your own money. You
45:44
Speaker 1: are going to pay a feed for it. Just like
45:46
Speaker 1: I said, if you use someone's money, they're going to
45:48
Speaker 1: charge you interest to use their money. But they developed
45:51
Speaker 1: the um the advances come in handy because you know,
45:56
Speaker 1: they developed a path act just because we have seen
45:59
Speaker 1: some or now they got you know, with smart systems,
46:02
Speaker 1: they caught one that people were filing tax returns with
46:06
Speaker 1: fraudulent children, maybe children that were not their children. And
46:10
Speaker 1: now if you put children on your return where you're
46:13
Speaker 1: earning that earned income credit or additional child tax credit
46:18
Speaker 1: money where you're getting refundable money back. They were holding
46:21
Speaker 1: those tax returns until February fifteen, So even though a
46:25
Speaker 1: lot of people submitted their returns in January, they would
46:29
Speaker 1: not even begin looking at those returns until February fifteen,
46:32
Speaker 1: so that they have more time to analyze them, check
46:35
Speaker 1: the children on the returns. So that's why they do
46:38
Speaker 1: the advance, because those clients did not begin to get
46:41
Speaker 1: refunds until the end of roll Really, they just started
46:45
Speaker 1: coming out as a matter of fact, the end of February.
46:48
Speaker 1: So if I did your return in January and I
46:50
Speaker 1: know you're gonna get six thousand dollars back, I could
46:53
Speaker 1: give you an advance of that money, and then when
46:56
Speaker 1: they finally released your refund the end of February, we
46:59
Speaker 1: would get that back. But you have control of that
47:02
Speaker 1: right through the end of February. You have control of
47:05
Speaker 1: that money though, right, You have control of the chick
47:07
Speaker 1: comes to you, right. Yes, of course, so there's a
47:11
Speaker 1: few thanks that work with tax p prayer companies, So yes,
47:14
Speaker 1: they're going to make sure they get their money back first.
47:17
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna get our prep fees seconds, and then
47:20
Speaker 1: the client would get what's left. TIVI is um What
47:25
Speaker 1: are the three top reasons why you see clients and
47:29
Speaker 1: why they old taxes? What are the three top reasons
47:31
Speaker 1: that clients old taxes? Because I try to avoid that,
47:33
Speaker 1: but I still oh every year. Right, Well, I think
47:37
Speaker 1: that one of the biggest ones is because a lot
47:40
Speaker 1: of times um clients. And I understand it because a
47:43
Speaker 1: lot of my clients do it to me every year,
47:45
Speaker 1: even though I asked them not to. They think that
47:47
Speaker 1: their tax reprayer is a magician, but we are not.
47:50
Speaker 1: We are a tax preparers. So the biggest mistake that
47:53
Speaker 1: people make, and I get it, they need their money
47:56
Speaker 1: during the year on their paycheck during the year. However,
47:59
Speaker 1: then we get a tax time and they owe all
48:01
Speaker 1: of this money and then they look at me and
48:03
Speaker 1: just like you said, I want to be happy when
48:05
Speaker 1: you have me signed. But there are sometimes that if
48:08
Speaker 1: you are making you know, sixties seventy thousand dollars a
48:12
Speaker 1: year and you have five hundred dollars withheld in taxes
48:15
Speaker 1: during the year, there's nothing that I can do to
48:18
Speaker 1: help you with that unless you have all kinds of
48:23
Speaker 1: dollars a year and five dollars yes, and then they're like,
48:28
Speaker 1: I owe oh my gosh. So I do always have UM.
48:33
Speaker 1: Of course on my social media, I'm Laura Foods. There
48:35
Speaker 1: aren't links in my io with helpful links that you
48:39
Speaker 1: would use UM directly from the I r S site
48:41
Speaker 1: where they have a withholdings calculator, they tell you exactly
48:45
Speaker 1: UM what you should be withholding UM. So I encourage
48:49
Speaker 1: all of our guests, even if you haven't done it recently,
48:52
Speaker 1: to do it this year, just to make sure that
48:55
Speaker 1: with the new tax laws, with the new tax tables,
48:58
Speaker 1: that you were withholding the correct amount of money. Another
49:02
Speaker 1: reason why I think that a lot of my clients
49:05
Speaker 1: maybe end up owing is maybe they had a change
49:09
Speaker 1: in their situation and maybe their tax repair. Which is
49:12
Speaker 1: why I do pride myself on not only am I
49:15
Speaker 1: doing your taxes for this year, We're gonna also have
49:18
Speaker 1: a conversation about the current year that we're in and
49:22
Speaker 1: are you gonna be better prepared. So let's say maybe
49:25
Speaker 1: you're you've had your children and you were UM, they
49:28
Speaker 1: you were getting a two thousand dollar deduction for your children,
49:32
Speaker 1: right because under their age of sixteen and under, you
49:35
Speaker 1: get a two thousand dollar credit for them. But then
49:38
Speaker 1: once they turned sixteen, whoa now that deduction goes down
49:43
Speaker 1: to five hundred dollars, and if you were not prepared
49:46
Speaker 1: for that and your tax repayer didn't go over, hey,
49:49
Speaker 1: make sure next year you planned for this because you're
49:52
Speaker 1: gonna lose that fifteen hundred dollar deduction. Then maybe then
49:56
Speaker 1: your tax you know, your criteria changes or maybe be
50:00
Speaker 1: your child now is just like we were talking to,
50:02
Speaker 1: our children get older, Now they're working, they're um supporting themselves.
50:07
Speaker 1: I was always able to claim the head of household deduction,
50:10
Speaker 1: which is now eighteen thousand, three fifty, and now I
50:14
Speaker 1: lose my child, and now I have to file single
50:16
Speaker 1: and that deduction is only like a twelve thousand yard deduction. Um. So,
50:20
Speaker 1: unfortunately people don't consult when these life things happen. Maybe
50:24
Speaker 1: they don't consult their tax person or you know, they
50:27
Speaker 1: should certainly check their withholdings. Again, this is a lot
50:30
Speaker 1: of information, Laurel. What are you taking too fast? Because
50:34
Speaker 1: I know you all say that I talked away to
50:37
Speaker 1: getting it just overwhelmed. I can see why I have
50:42
Speaker 1: I'm afraid to do my taxes. Okay, first of all,
50:45
Speaker 1: you know you know all these do you take classes
50:47
Speaker 1: which you go like conferences in Las Vegas or something.
50:52
Speaker 1: How you stand, Well, I wish I wish I was
50:54
Speaker 1: in Vegas. I have not been back to Vegas since
50:56
Speaker 1: the Neighborhood Awards and I refused to go until the
50:59
Speaker 1: Neighborhood Awards them shacks. So no, we don't have conferences.
51:02
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I haven't attended them in Vegas. But we do
51:05
Speaker 1: have to have because we are if you are going
51:08
Speaker 1: to a prepare like I'm a license prepared. So yes,
51:12
Speaker 1: I have to have continuing education hours every year. If
51:15
Speaker 1: you look up my name on the I R S
51:17
Speaker 1: website you will see so I do use the hashtag
51:20
Speaker 1: check the credentials. So no, we don't want to be
51:23
Speaker 1: going to those tax of payers that are using turbo
51:25
Speaker 1: tax in their basement. And your return said self prepare,
51:29
Speaker 1: So okay, that is a big mistake. That's a lot
51:32
Speaker 1: of times where people end up owing. Also, you think
51:35
Speaker 1: that you're going to you know, a tax repayer because
51:38
Speaker 1: they're only charging you a hundred hours to do your taxes,
51:41
Speaker 1: but they're doing them in your basement. And then when
51:43
Speaker 1: you get that letter three or four years later from
51:46
Speaker 1: the I R S asking you to explain what all
51:48
Speaker 1: this stuff is on your tax return and you never
51:53
Speaker 1: asked the tax repairer to put it on there, then yes,
51:55
Speaker 1: you will owe kindly all of those years that they
51:58
Speaker 1: audit when you can't provide doctor immentation or verification. That's
52:02
Speaker 1: another good. So that's our third one right there. And
52:04
Speaker 1: that wasn't even on my list, but that was another
52:07
Speaker 1: good one. While people, oh we are. Remember when I
52:12
Speaker 1: first started doing my taxes, I didn't want to pay
52:14
Speaker 1: the tax person. I used to argue with, hey man,
52:17
Speaker 1: this is kind of high what are you talking about?
52:20
Speaker 1: Can you come in? You know? You know, yeah, I
52:22
Speaker 1: am there the key part of my life from accounting
52:26
Speaker 1: standpoint with the government, and I'm arguing with this person
52:30
Speaker 1: by cutting the deal on my taxes. And I think
52:34
Speaker 1: you get that. I'm pretty sure you get a lot
52:36
Speaker 1: of idiots like me to come in. Don't want to
52:38
Speaker 1: thank you. Over priced, They don't don't try to figure out,
52:42
Speaker 1: you know, all this paperwork they just throwed you to
52:44
Speaker 1: hand you a trash bag full of information. You got
52:47
Speaker 1: to put it all together. Then you put it all together.
52:50
Speaker 1: Then they come back, go this much, I gotta pay
52:53
Speaker 1: you this much? Right? Why? Why why are we idiots
52:57
Speaker 1: like that? Because I because I did it. I did
53:00
Speaker 1: Now I don't do that now. I realized that, you know,
53:02
Speaker 1: I got c p A. You know, been doing it
53:04
Speaker 1: for twenty three years. I'm talking about bout early years.
53:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure I was pretty stupid, but I had to
53:09
Speaker 1: go apologize to a good friend of mine. She's in Houston,
53:13
Speaker 1: and when used to do my taxes and when they
53:15
Speaker 1: start creeping up into the thousands, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
53:21
Speaker 1: what's going on here? We should first of all making money,
53:25
Speaker 1: making money, okay, So so and when you make money,
53:28
Speaker 1: gets what certain things you gotta have in place. You know,
53:31
Speaker 1: you got, for one case, you got all these deducches,
53:34
Speaker 1: you travel, you know, if we got to pull all
53:36
Speaker 1: this down. And also, like you said, you don't want
53:38
Speaker 1: to be if you don't get that phone call four
53:40
Speaker 1: or five years later or one year later talking about
53:43
Speaker 1: you file at the wrong time, because I've had these
53:45
Speaker 1: phone calls, okay, And you talked about the filing part
53:49
Speaker 1: is nervous. When you get that letter, you get one
53:52
Speaker 1: of those letters because like we always say that I
53:54
Speaker 1: arrest normally does not call you directly, but you will
53:57
Speaker 1: get that letter in the mail um and they will
54:00
Speaker 1: keep sending you letters until you respond or they are
54:03
Speaker 1: or they are certainly able to gardner wages. So we
54:06
Speaker 1: certainly do will not want to ig for the I
54:09
Speaker 1: R S. We don't want to play with them, communicate
54:13
Speaker 1: with them, set up payment plans with them. They will
54:16
Speaker 1: certainly work with you, but yes, do not play around
54:18
Speaker 1: with the I R S. This is like a testimonial
54:21
Speaker 1: show for me. Boy, it's the first time I publicly
54:24
Speaker 1: admitted all my ignorance about taxes. You know, but that happens.
54:28
Speaker 1: But you are not alone. You are certain I'm in
54:32
Speaker 1: the club by myself because it comes to this exact
54:34
Speaker 1: because I can't speak that for everybody else. Lord, you're
54:37
Speaker 1: an expert. You talk to a guy over here that,
54:40
Speaker 1: as matured over the years, got the right people around
54:43
Speaker 1: me to protect me sitting over there. Hey, I've had
54:47
Speaker 1: the person in the basement do my taxes. I remember
54:50
Speaker 1: my friend there was this guy he was he sold insurance,
54:54
Speaker 1: but he did taxes on the side. Oh his Rachel good,
54:57
Speaker 1: Rachel good, Yeah, I bet they were good. And I've
55:00
Speaker 1: you got a real nice, really really really good refundsition.
55:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely what you think that letter a few years later
55:08
Speaker 1: saying can you please verify send this documentation to verify
55:12
Speaker 1: this and this, and you're like, I didn't even know
55:15
Speaker 1: I put that one day. Oh my god, oh my god.
55:17
Speaker 1: This is this is like this is like this is flashbacks,
55:21
Speaker 1: flashback because you know, at one point you have to
55:23
Speaker 1: grow up and realize that. You know, That's why I
55:26
Speaker 1: do the show, because you can't be perfect when you
55:27
Speaker 1: do this show. You have to show flaws and be
55:30
Speaker 1: honest with people and also let them know that the
55:33
Speaker 1: reason I have you on the show is because of
55:35
Speaker 1: the fact that your level of expertise is needed for anybody,
55:39
Speaker 1: not just people in business, but individuals because the government,
55:43
Speaker 1: the government does not play when it comes to these taxes,
55:46
Speaker 1: and if you don't file taxes, they will put you
55:49
Speaker 1: in jail. Yes, and and I've talked a lot about
55:54
Speaker 1: this year. They were also those Tax of parents that
55:57
Speaker 1: we're doing all of that funny stuff. They will now
55:59
Speaker 1: when safe the Tax of Parents are consistently submitting fraudulent returns.
56:04
Speaker 1: They are now putting tax reparents in jail. So I
56:07
Speaker 1: I do let clients know, now wait a minute, I'm
56:09
Speaker 1: not going to jail. Orange is my favorite color, I
56:12
Speaker 1: do not. I don't think I wear it well though,
56:14
Speaker 1: So now I'm not going to jail for anyone to
56:16
Speaker 1: get a refund or them to get extra money. Though.
56:19
Speaker 1: I do make sure we walk through the process to
56:22
Speaker 1: make sure you get any deductions that you are do
56:25
Speaker 1: or that maybe you were not aware of. So let
56:27
Speaker 1: me not say that, like I will make sure that
56:30
Speaker 1: you get everything that you deserve. And and just because
56:33
Speaker 1: I'm in Maryland, you have to let your guests know.
56:35
Speaker 1: Just because I reside in Maryland, DC area. You know,
56:38
Speaker 1: most of my clients, probably percent of my clients are
56:41
Speaker 1: remote clients. I never meet them in person. We have
56:44
Speaker 1: a perfect system UM and the intake form. It's an
56:47
Speaker 1: online systems and then we communicate via you know. Now
56:51
Speaker 1: we have conference calls, we have zoom meetings. DOCU sign
56:54
Speaker 1: your documents, UM, so I can work with any of
56:57
Speaker 1: your clients across the country. You give me a social
57:01
Speaker 1: media banner this week so I can post it. Yeah.
57:04
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about your your your show, ask foods?
57:07
Speaker 1: Are you still doing that? UM? I do? UM still
57:11
Speaker 1: do ask foots, which we normally do like a tax
57:14
Speaker 1: tip Tuesday segment of course, Now, just because in the
57:17
Speaker 1: midst of tax season, it gets a little difficult for me. Um,
57:21
Speaker 1: just because most of you know I. You know, I
57:24
Speaker 1: still have the corporate career, I still have the salon,
57:26
Speaker 1: I still have send the kid, and then I'm doing taxes.
57:29
Speaker 1: So but I normally on my page and every day
57:32
Speaker 1: posting informational content. Let's put it that way, so they
57:36
Speaker 1: can always follow my page for informational content. And I
57:40
Speaker 1: am launching because I've had so many people, especially probably
57:43
Speaker 1: from being on your show, that we're asking not just
57:46
Speaker 1: about finance, you know about taxes, but when are we
57:49
Speaker 1: gonna start talking more about budgeting and saving and small
57:53
Speaker 1: businesses multiple streams of income setting up the businesses, how
57:57
Speaker 1: to set up my system correctly? So I did. Finally
58:00
Speaker 1: in the off season December and January, I created a
58:04
Speaker 1: five a five week master class programs and hopefully we
58:09
Speaker 1: will be launching that next month so that I can
58:12
Speaker 1: work you know, because my tax client, say, Lord, I
58:14
Speaker 1: hate that I only talk to you once or twice
58:16
Speaker 1: a year. You know, I need to work with you
58:19
Speaker 1: more on going and because I'm only one person, Um,
58:22
Speaker 1: that gets difficult to do. So I have created this
58:25
Speaker 1: class so that I can work with individuals over you know,
58:29
Speaker 1: a five week program which inevitably will go to you know,
58:33
Speaker 1: working with them and holding their hand, probably over a
58:35
Speaker 1: six month period. So I'm hoping that we'll be able
58:37
Speaker 1: to launch that as tax season ends. Then I'll be
58:41
Speaker 1: starting that up. So let me ask you this, lord,
58:43
Speaker 1: So is that a one off class? Are you somewhere?
58:45
Speaker 1: They come to the class, they kind of register and
58:48
Speaker 1: you create the tax relationship with them, and that's what
58:50
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Well, the class will all be an
58:53
Speaker 1: online class. So I have taken the time to create
58:57
Speaker 1: a five week master class, so there will be a
58:59
Speaker 1: master class of all budgeting, savings, UM, multiple streams of
59:04
Speaker 1: income and all of those things. So it will be
59:07
Speaker 1: an online class. And then every week I will be
59:11
Speaker 1: doing a call with you know, the clients so that
59:14
Speaker 1: we are going through this. And then as we work
59:16
Speaker 1: through that six month process out, they'll be having homework.
59:19
Speaker 1: They'll have to submit their budget, they'll have to show
59:23
Speaker 1: me how they're doing what their savings will go over
59:26
Speaker 1: their small business, you know, how they have their accounts
59:28
Speaker 1: set up and tracking their expenses. So I'm excited because
59:32
Speaker 1: now I'll really get to work with people, UM instead
59:35
Speaker 1: of just during tax season. So I'm really excited about
59:38
Speaker 1: launching the program. So I'm hoping that as soon, like
59:41
Speaker 1: I said, it's recorded and done. I just have to
59:44
Speaker 1: get through um tax season and then we'll be launching that.
59:48
Speaker 1: So it means you'll be back on the show with
59:50
Speaker 1: the second quarter. That's when you're gonna do it. Yes, well,
59:53
Speaker 1: you know, I will reach out to you all as
59:55
Speaker 1: soon as I am launching it so that you can
59:57
Speaker 1: see it. And like I said, so then i can
1:00:00
Speaker 1: work with people all year round. So I'm really excited
1:00:03
Speaker 1: about that. That's awesome. Now let's let's this is a
1:00:05
Speaker 1: simple question, but I think it's necessary. When do you
1:00:08
Speaker 1: start if you're if you're filing taxes in tax season,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: when should a person start prepping for taxes? Firstus an individual,
1:00:19
Speaker 1: then as a business, um as an individual, hopefully in
1:00:25
Speaker 1: the year so if we so I want to talk
1:00:28
Speaker 1: about we're in twenty now and will file at the
1:00:32
Speaker 1: beginning of one because in preparing for it, of course,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: individuals need to be checking their withholdings and then at
1:00:40
Speaker 1: the end of the year, so normally you will start
1:00:43
Speaker 1: getting documents with your December thirty first statements or by
1:00:47
Speaker 1: January thirty if they have to send out your W
1:00:50
Speaker 1: two's or ten nine or ten ninety eight. So individuals,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: of course you should be you know, you should have
1:00:57
Speaker 1: a folder or you know, some type of envelope where
1:01:00
Speaker 1: as all of these documents come and you are saving
1:01:02
Speaker 1: you're you're saving them, or if you make donations throughout
1:01:06
Speaker 1: the year, saving those receipts, or you can also most
1:01:09
Speaker 1: individuals now can itemize you know, their house donations and
1:01:13
Speaker 1: medical expenses. Unfortunately, for individuals that's all you know, that's
1:01:17
Speaker 1: about it that you can itemize. Now with the law changes,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: they took a lot of that away. Now, businesses, you
1:01:23
Speaker 1: have taxes, like you said, for yourself, taxes is all
1:01:26
Speaker 1: year long, so that you know, businesses don't start getting
1:01:30
Speaker 1: their stuff together. Businesses, because you want to be able
1:01:34
Speaker 1: to write off everything that is related to your business.
1:01:37
Speaker 1: So hopefully you are tracking those expenses during the year
1:01:41
Speaker 1: and keeping those receipts, which I know is an overwhelming
1:01:44
Speaker 1: task because most people in your business. You're good at
1:01:47
Speaker 1: what your businesses, and you're not necessarily good at the
1:01:51
Speaker 1: financial side of it. Um And that's why there's a
1:01:53
Speaker 1: link in my bio for the quick book app that
1:01:56
Speaker 1: I recommend and it keeps track of your in um,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: it keeps track of your expenses. It even keeps track
1:02:02
Speaker 1: of the mileage right on your phone. That's a huge
1:02:05
Speaker 1: deduction for business owners. So anything that you are doing
1:02:09
Speaker 1: to and from and meetings and classes and clients, you
1:02:13
Speaker 1: get fifty eight cents a mile. So that's a huge deduction.
1:02:16
Speaker 1: But we need to be keeping track of that, so
1:02:18
Speaker 1: business owners, small business owners, side hustle owners, um, any
1:02:23
Speaker 1: of those things. You know, this is all year long.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: You have to keep track of it to make sure
1:02:27
Speaker 1: you're getting all of those deductions. That's so important. It's awesome, Laura.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: How can we get a touch with you? The best way,
1:02:35
Speaker 1: just like you said, to find me. Everybody can find
1:02:37
Speaker 1: me or an instant Instagram is um at. I'm I
1:02:41
Speaker 1: am Laura, l A U R A foost f like
1:02:45
Speaker 1: frank oo s like sam um or my email is
1:02:49
Speaker 1: foosts at asked foods dot com. Very easy. Our friend
1:02:53
Speaker 1: as always, your wonderful and your energy wonderful in your
1:02:57
Speaker 1: approach to how you do. This is your gift, this
1:02:59
Speaker 1: is your path as they are one and the same,
1:03:01
Speaker 1: but some people try to differentiase them that's why I
1:03:04
Speaker 1: just put them both out there again. Thank you for
1:03:06
Speaker 1: coming on my show. And I also send me a
1:03:08
Speaker 1: social media banner, send me a social media manager when
1:03:11
Speaker 1: we get that posted, and get some help for some
1:03:13
Speaker 1: of these people like me. Yes, I got you, Okay,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: thank you. I'll take care. Look to your children's eyes
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1:03:30
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1:03:34
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1:03:37
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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and
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Speaker 1: the AD Council. Our next guest there on the phone,
1:04:51
Speaker 1: straight out of Gary and Dana by way of our
1:04:56
Speaker 1: They are childhood friends and enthusiastic consumers of Off n T.
1:05:01
Speaker 1: I'm my love. My wife would love y'all. She just
1:05:03
Speaker 1: loves her some team man. They are the co founders
1:05:06
Speaker 1: of Black and Goal, the first black owned, nationally distributed
1:05:09
Speaker 1: coffee brand, is challenging coffee kings like Starbucks and Pets
1:05:13
Speaker 1: with a socially conscious business model aimed at supporting at
1:05:16
Speaker 1: risk communities. They are selling coffee with the cause. Please
1:05:20
Speaker 1: welcome to money making Conversation. Co founders p J. Caesar
1:05:24
Speaker 1: and my man Rod Johnson. How you doing, Team doing world,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: because thank you for having us. You guys from Gary
1:05:30
Speaker 1: and Dana. And one of the big big celebrities out
1:05:34
Speaker 1: of Garyanna is the families, the Jackson five family and
1:05:36
Speaker 1: of course Michael Jackson. Tell us a little background of
1:05:39
Speaker 1: you guys, because you're lifelong friends and I know your
1:05:41
Speaker 1: business is based out of out of hour, but tell
1:05:44
Speaker 1: us how I started and uh at the relationship that
1:05:46
Speaker 1: you guys built to take it to our and Gary
1:05:49
Speaker 1: and Dana. Yeah. Yeah, so this was rod Um. As
1:05:53
Speaker 1: you mentioned, we born and raising Gary, Indianna. We actually
1:05:57
Speaker 1: grew up a rock throw for each other on the
1:06:01
Speaker 1: same block, graduated from high school. Um, uh right next
1:06:06
Speaker 1: alongside to each other. In part of ways UM to
1:06:08
Speaker 1: pursue our own collegiate careers, myself going down to Indiana
1:06:12
Speaker 1: University and right uh to university. Who's your throwing group? Uh?
1:06:18
Speaker 1: And per mail Uh took a different oute uh to
1:06:22
Speaker 1: University of Northern Iowa. UM and which is you know
1:06:25
Speaker 1: kind of how we made that transition to being headquartered
1:06:30
Speaker 1: and operated out of Iowa. Uh. From there pursued careers
1:06:34
Speaker 1: UM and nonprofit management as well as retail merchandizing, respectively,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: and decided we wanted to leverage those skills that we
1:06:43
Speaker 1: had garnered over the last decade or so into an
1:06:47
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial endeavor. Uh. It made sense to do something that
1:06:51
Speaker 1: we were familiar with, not necessarily from a scientific standpoint,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: but just as consumers um as you may reference to
1:06:59
Speaker 1: uh and and come there black and bol was born.
1:07:02
Speaker 1: So you know, just a real work, organic relationship that
1:07:06
Speaker 1: that turned into a business partnership. Well, the interesting thing
1:07:09
Speaker 1: about it when they when you when people tell you
1:07:12
Speaker 1: when you invest in stock in the stock market, they
1:07:14
Speaker 1: tell you to invest is something that you live like
1:07:17
Speaker 1: vest as if you you know, if you're going home
1:07:19
Speaker 1: deeper all the time, you should invest in that. If
1:07:21
Speaker 1: you're gonna consider a stock, consider Stockholme Depot, if you
1:07:24
Speaker 1: if you go to a tech shop, things like that,
1:07:26
Speaker 1: you eat that McDonald's consider McDonald's should be the stock
1:07:29
Speaker 1: that you consider as your favorite because that's what you're
1:07:32
Speaker 1: investing your time and your food in. Anyway, so that
1:07:34
Speaker 1: Cannet have stocked. So you guys are saying, hey, we're
1:07:37
Speaker 1: a big coffee drinkers, big tea drinkers. Why did that
1:07:41
Speaker 1: make that part of the business plan the business model?
1:07:43
Speaker 1: But it doesn't start as simple as that, correct correct, um, Well,
1:07:46
Speaker 1: you know, that that certainly played a major role into
1:07:49
Speaker 1: why we decided to pursue this just as consumers of
1:07:53
Speaker 1: those products, Um, we had that familiarity and given the
1:07:58
Speaker 1: mass consumption of it, there's some residents where a much
1:08:02
Speaker 1: larger audience but than than just uh in us too.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: So uh so to your point about pursuing an opportunity
1:08:10
Speaker 1: where you have some familiarity that at least planted the
1:08:13
Speaker 1: speed for us to start Black and Bold, right, you know,
1:08:16
Speaker 1: and let's start with the name. Well, how did the
1:08:18
Speaker 1: name come about? Black and Bold? Yeah? Um, you know,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: it's a it's a double entendre. Uh you know it
1:08:25
Speaker 1: on the surface, it represents the products that we offer, um,
1:08:29
Speaker 1: you know, black coffee, black feed, bold favoring um. But
1:08:33
Speaker 1: also it's a mantra, if you will, in the way
1:08:37
Speaker 1: that we govern our lives as uh, black entrepreneurs and
1:08:41
Speaker 1: and black men in society, um, taking a very assertive
1:08:46
Speaker 1: and assumptive role and in every endeavor that we barked
1:08:50
Speaker 1: on embarked upon. So um, you know, there is embedded
1:08:53
Speaker 1: in that sort of a a call to action, if
1:08:58
Speaker 1: you will, as well as a description our full of
1:09:01
Speaker 1: sort from the product. Really just because I'm not a
1:09:04
Speaker 1: coffee drinker. That's not a negative. I'm just not a confee.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: My wife is a tremendous no, thank you, thank you,
1:09:12
Speaker 1: because you know, I don't want to put anything negative
1:09:13
Speaker 1: about that. You know, my wife is a tremendous tea
1:09:16
Speaker 1: tea person. Oh my goodness. She starts to day with tea,
1:09:19
Speaker 1: She walks around with tea, she takes the tea to
1:09:21
Speaker 1: the restaurant. She is a tea drinker. Okay, And so
1:09:25
Speaker 1: so you got you gotta, you gotta. You got both
1:09:26
Speaker 1: extremes here, a non coffee drink and a super tea drinker.
1:09:30
Speaker 1: Now when I when I when I when I talk
1:09:32
Speaker 1: about coffee because I've seen stories on coffees here. You know,
1:09:36
Speaker 1: they have different coffee from different parts of the world,
1:09:38
Speaker 1: and some people have climb mountains and the South America
1:09:42
Speaker 1: to get the right type of coffee. The the texture,
1:09:45
Speaker 1: the flavor, it all makes a big difference. And how
1:09:48
Speaker 1: did you guys, you know, did you guys have a
1:09:50
Speaker 1: favorite coffe because you don't know abouty We all know
1:09:52
Speaker 1: about Starbucks and Peach and all that. Now we have
1:09:54
Speaker 1: black and bold that what were you guys drinking or
1:09:59
Speaker 1: what we got experience, your experiment with different types of brands,
1:10:03
Speaker 1: pride to launching your brand a taste. Yeah, this is
1:10:06
Speaker 1: t J. I definitely jump in on this, me being
1:10:09
Speaker 1: there um equivalent of your wife, all right when it
1:10:14
Speaker 1: comes to coffee, definitely pull ride into the coffee side
1:10:18
Speaker 1: of this venture. From a consumer first stand point. He
1:10:22
Speaker 1: hasn't really bragged about his tea enthusiasm. But okay, so
1:10:27
Speaker 1: you so you're the coffee guy, p J. You're the
1:10:29
Speaker 1: coffee guy. You're the coffee guy. Okay, Rod, you're the
1:10:32
Speaker 1: tea guy. Yes, you can put it that way. Okay,
1:10:36
Speaker 1: that's a perfect relationship because you know, you focus on
1:10:38
Speaker 1: your strength. So now p J, you're talking about the
1:10:40
Speaker 1: coffee because you know I, you know I have Fred
1:10:44
Speaker 1: I managed Steve Harveys. Steve Harvey is a coffee fanatic.
1:10:47
Speaker 1: You know. He had to get his coffee on, you know,
1:10:49
Speaker 1: and there's a lot and like I said, nothing was
1:10:50
Speaker 1: wrong with that. It was just the fact that he
1:10:52
Speaker 1: wanted his coffee and he had it having a certain
1:10:54
Speaker 1: way and he was happy once he got it in
1:10:57
Speaker 1: his hands. You know, there's a lot of famous and
1:10:59
Speaker 1: everyday people who consumed coffee the same way. How do
1:11:02
Speaker 1: you consume coffee? What drives you to have a good
1:11:05
Speaker 1: cup of coffee? Man? That has evolved so much from
1:11:09
Speaker 1: my introduction in the coffee. And so I really started
1:11:13
Speaker 1: drinking coffee when I started my professional career, and I was,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: you know this this young buck, first time career or
1:11:20
Speaker 1: you go, first generation corporate career person, and uh was
1:11:25
Speaker 1: introduced to coffee. The caffeine hit and that was just
1:11:28
Speaker 1: a matter of all right, this is now I'm gonna
1:11:30
Speaker 1: feel my own, you know, predetermined success on a day
1:11:34
Speaker 1: to day basis. And so at the time, I mean,
1:11:36
Speaker 1: it was you can hear me a sugar down, I say,
1:11:39
Speaker 1: And that was good enough as long as they have
1:11:41
Speaker 1: some caffeine in it. But alone, this journey career wise
1:11:45
Speaker 1: and the discovery of you know, what makes a good
1:11:49
Speaker 1: cup of coffee was really just the volume of coffee consumed.
1:11:53
Speaker 1: And also with the different coffee shops experienced and um,
1:11:59
Speaker 1: you know, riding not both been quite a bit of
1:12:01
Speaker 1: our time traveling within our careers and spending so much
1:12:05
Speaker 1: time and coffee shops, you learn that there's like fresh
1:12:08
Speaker 1: roasted coffee just by default tastes different. But unless you're
1:12:12
Speaker 1: going to a coffee shop that you're getting that fresh
1:12:15
Speaker 1: couple of coffee. You don't really realize that where you
1:12:18
Speaker 1: know the my grandmother drank closers every every morning. That's
1:12:22
Speaker 1: night and day. That was my dad. That was my dad.
1:12:25
Speaker 1: Always tell people at night, Yeah, yep, exactly to tell people.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: I try to correlate this to two things that people
1:12:31
Speaker 1: do consume a lot of. Right, So you think about wine, right,
1:12:35
Speaker 1: and so always tell people if you're not drinking bottom
1:12:37
Speaker 1: shelf wine, you shouldn't be drinking bottom shelf coffee because
1:12:39
Speaker 1: it's a delicacy of the product that you're drinking that
1:12:43
Speaker 1: actually has flavor within it, and the fresher it is,
1:12:46
Speaker 1: the more you taste the original flavor. It's all coffee based,
1:12:49
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, but the actual like delicacy, the
1:12:53
Speaker 1: distinctness that comes with you know, the means to the
1:12:56
Speaker 1: end real uh it definitely, there's definitely levels to it.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: And so the more we we had access to, the
1:13:03
Speaker 1: more consumed, the more we appreciate it. What good coffee
1:13:06
Speaker 1: is um and for me, it's it's a black coffee
1:13:09
Speaker 1: light meeting or dark roast, because I just appreciate fresh
1:13:12
Speaker 1: roasted black coffee. But Um, there's a whole different spectrum
1:13:17
Speaker 1: from people from thinking about coffee, just from how do
1:13:20
Speaker 1: I get my caffeine to how do I enjoy this,
1:13:23
Speaker 1: you know, kind of mature my experience in this product
1:13:26
Speaker 1: and get my caffeine at the same time. Yeah, here's
1:13:29
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about it. When you started talking, I
1:13:32
Speaker 1: could almost images came about in my in my mind
1:13:36
Speaker 1: about you know, you're you're so passionate that can I
1:13:39
Speaker 1: can almost smell the conversation that they're roma, you know,
1:13:43
Speaker 1: because that's like a good piece of steak to me.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: You know, they say you bring it. You know, you know,
1:13:48
Speaker 1: you can go to a certain quality steakholleges. They're bringing
1:13:50
Speaker 1: the meat out to you and let you see it.
1:13:52
Speaker 1: They say, which one do you want? And that's what
1:13:54
Speaker 1: you're saying here. A coffee is not all coffee is
1:13:57
Speaker 1: the same. The roma, the taste hi hi hi, comes
1:14:02
Speaker 1: up to your nose when you're about to drink it.
1:14:03
Speaker 1: All that plays into the whole process of a good
1:14:07
Speaker 1: cup of coffee. Now you're saying, when you start out,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: you just drink a lot of people just drinking coffee.
1:14:12
Speaker 1: Like I said, my dad was a folg This guy,
1:14:14
Speaker 1: you know, I could just see that coffee pot. Oh
1:14:16
Speaker 1: my mom, it was it was a time and he
1:14:18
Speaker 1: went off. He put the he put that little think
1:14:21
Speaker 1: that little it was like a little uh strainer, It
1:14:23
Speaker 1: was a little white strainer. He put the coffee bran.
1:14:26
Speaker 1: He was in there and then they pulled the water
1:14:27
Speaker 1: through and then all of a sudden that was his coffee.
1:14:30
Speaker 1: He was happy and so but today it's like a
1:14:33
Speaker 1: whole science to it. And just to hear you talk
1:14:36
Speaker 1: about that, PJ was like it was like it was
1:14:38
Speaker 1: like I'm big on desserts. It was like me eating
1:14:41
Speaker 1: a nice piece of German chocolate cake. The way you
1:14:43
Speaker 1: was talking, man, he was, he was, he was passionate
1:14:46
Speaker 1: about that cup of coffee. Man. I was like, man,
1:14:48
Speaker 1: he's serious, ain't he talking about German? That we put
1:15:00
Speaker 1: that to the top of the list right there. Well,
1:15:01
Speaker 1: you know, because you know, I think when when I
1:15:03
Speaker 1: when I when I heard your story, you know, in
1:15:05
Speaker 1: the in the whole aspect of you know, you know
1:15:08
Speaker 1: you left a full time job to do this. You know,
1:15:10
Speaker 1: you guys weren't like you know, uh, you know, not
1:15:13
Speaker 1: your novices. You know you you wanted to do it.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: You're passionate about teas and coffees just part of your lifestyle.
1:15:20
Speaker 1: But you jumped out there. Now I want to switch
1:15:22
Speaker 1: over to my tea man right now, because I heard that.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: I heard the coffee story from PJ and they're raw.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: Tell me your tea story, your t journey. Yeah, so
1:15:32
Speaker 1: very similar, uh yeah, very similar to tea. Just had
1:15:35
Speaker 1: a real appreciation for not necessarily from a productivity standpoint, um,
1:15:41
Speaker 1: but actually the exact opposite, relaxed at the end of
1:15:44
Speaker 1: the day. Um. And that was a habit that I
1:15:46
Speaker 1: picked up growing up watching my mom and my my
1:15:49
Speaker 1: grandparents drink a variety of teas for a variety of reasons.
1:15:54
Speaker 1: And I think that's why I really gravitated more so
1:15:58
Speaker 1: to tea as opposed to coffee, because of the different
1:16:01
Speaker 1: benefits like green tea has uh you know, health uh
1:16:05
Speaker 1: implicate implications, but benefits as opposed to the health benefits
1:16:10
Speaker 1: that comes with the black tea or an herbal tea.
1:16:12
Speaker 1: And so just just having a cup of tea to
1:16:15
Speaker 1: end my day after ripping and running and and and
1:16:18
Speaker 1: trying to uh you know, be successful along the way. Um,
1:16:22
Speaker 1: it just made sense to incorporate that as a part
1:16:24
Speaker 1: of my my end of the day ritual. So, um,
1:16:27
Speaker 1: you made a point earlier how complimentary our tastes are
1:16:32
Speaker 1: or preferences are. Uh, it is really makes sense for
1:16:35
Speaker 1: us to make that into a business. Absolutely, And I'm
1:16:38
Speaker 1: proud of you guys trust to your natural instincts because
1:16:42
Speaker 1: that's a plus. But you know, here's a guy. You
1:16:44
Speaker 1: know I'm from. I'm from Houston, Texas, big barbecue country. Okay,
1:16:47
Speaker 1: so you go into a barbecue jointing, you know, free tea,
1:16:52
Speaker 1: sugar and come with your Davis sweet none sweet, big
1:16:55
Speaker 1: old think as much tea as you know, big old
1:16:59
Speaker 1: jugger teachers sitting over there. What you watch, sir, Sweeten Sweeten,
1:17:03
Speaker 1: So that's my introduction to tea. Big, big holding juggle
1:17:09
Speaker 1: teachers brought to your table kind of look a little
1:17:11
Speaker 1: bit light brownish, you know what I'm saying. And they
1:17:15
Speaker 1: just somebody po limon in there and throw some sugar
1:17:18
Speaker 1: in there, and they rocking and rolling. Now, my wife
1:17:21
Speaker 1: she looked at that. She's disgusted. That's see, Rob, I'm
1:17:32
Speaker 1: pretty sure you she's just like you. What's that over there?
1:17:34
Speaker 1: I would never drink that? That's horrific. She she walks
1:17:42
Speaker 1: around I can. I can appreciate a good couple of
1:17:44
Speaker 1: sweet teeth from the South. I'm not. I don't that
1:17:47
Speaker 1: hard of a lot, and I can get it. Why
1:17:50
Speaker 1: you know why you want one of those big Oh
1:17:54
Speaker 1: my goodness, Okay, I'm enjoying myself. I got a coffee
1:17:58
Speaker 1: drinker here, and I got a tea man here. My
1:18:00
Speaker 1: wife used to tea to wake up. I tell your
1:18:02
Speaker 1: somefing it's funny when I tease her a lot about
1:18:04
Speaker 1: her tea, because you know, if she go, if she
1:18:06
Speaker 1: doesn't get the tea, she's not a nice person that day.
1:18:09
Speaker 1: She she's fussy. She's really fussy. Row she's fussy. And
1:18:14
Speaker 1: I always tell I said, look, I said, would you
1:18:16
Speaker 1: go get your tea and get out and get it.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: Just get on out of my face right now, get
1:18:20
Speaker 1: your tea so you can become normal again. Become normal again.
1:18:25
Speaker 1: You know, she's straight out of the Belice Rod. You
1:18:27
Speaker 1: know I met her. You know, I didn't know she
1:18:31
Speaker 1: was hooked on tea. I thought that was just some
1:18:36
Speaker 1: mild little drink she was drinking. Now, thirty years later,
1:18:40
Speaker 1: my wife is addicted to tea. She cannot live without it.
1:18:46
Speaker 1: And I'm happy for but I've learned that in her,
1:18:49
Speaker 1: in her and and drinking something that you enjoy, and
1:18:52
Speaker 1: that's what this is all about. And joy relaxing because
1:18:55
Speaker 1: I heard p J say that it relaxed me. It
1:18:58
Speaker 1: gave me a sense of offered. So what is the
1:19:01
Speaker 1: strong selling point of your product? Black and Bowl? Sure, um,
1:19:05
Speaker 1: you know, peace feel free free to jump in. But
1:19:08
Speaker 1: um uh, I would say from the tea standpoint, Um,
1:19:12
Speaker 1: you know, offering the the organic loose leaf t really
1:19:16
Speaker 1: does provide for a different experience as opposed to the
1:19:20
Speaker 1: prepackaged piece that say that most people are accustomed to.
1:19:25
Speaker 1: It really does lend itself to having a much more
1:19:29
Speaker 1: robust experience when you're taking that stip of TU. It's
1:19:33
Speaker 1: a much more flavorful um experience. And so being very
1:19:37
Speaker 1: intentional about having that those loose leaf options and a
1:19:41
Speaker 1: variety of assortments, uh, was very intentional. Uh. And the
1:19:45
Speaker 1: same kind of goals with coffee. It's it's a much
1:19:48
Speaker 1: more scientific aspect to it, uh, considering that a specialty coffee. Uh.
1:19:53
Speaker 1: And I'll kick it over to p to kind of
1:19:55
Speaker 1: filling the blanks on that, Yeah, because he's a different cat. Now,
1:19:58
Speaker 1: So you you're a little more. E is he going
1:20:00
Speaker 1: with the tea? I have a nice little sweet tea.
1:20:02
Speaker 1: It was while see, I didn't think t PJ wouldn't
1:20:06
Speaker 1: respond like that. He has to have his coffee in
1:20:08
Speaker 1: a certain way. You're you're a little bit more passionate
1:20:13
Speaker 1: about that, because when because when Rod said that, I
1:20:15
Speaker 1: went seeming, I gotta keep bringing up my wife because
1:20:17
Speaker 1: your tea drinker, she go to a restaurant, bring me
1:20:20
Speaker 1: a hot water, she bring her tea with her. She
1:20:22
Speaker 1: brings her tea with her. That's her, That's that's her.
1:20:27
Speaker 1: So I gotta get you guys break because I gotta.
1:20:29
Speaker 1: I gotta introduce her brand because yeah, because I love
1:20:32
Speaker 1: for her, the story making you guys rich because she
1:20:35
Speaker 1: bout tea some teeth. So so I gotta get me.
1:20:40
Speaker 1: I gotta go on, I got to, I got to.
1:20:43
Speaker 1: And so I'm just I'm gonna slide over the PJ
1:20:46
Speaker 1: the coffee, the passionate man, because his tone and conversation
1:20:50
Speaker 1: with this coffee was a little bit different than raw
1:20:52
Speaker 1: Rod was a little you know, he was much more professional.
1:20:56
Speaker 1: But the passion I mean see something by coffee drinkers anyway,
1:21:00
Speaker 1: coofy drink is a little bit crazy about their coffee.
1:21:05
Speaker 1: You know, they gotta have it. It will be offended.
1:21:09
Speaker 1: Will be offended if you put a bad cup of
1:21:11
Speaker 1: coffee in front of them and call it a good
1:21:13
Speaker 1: cup of coffee. Am I hitting you? P J am
1:21:17
Speaker 1: I hitting you right? You know what, I'm fairly lenient
1:21:22
Speaker 1: with my consumption on what I drink. I'm fairly lenient.
1:21:25
Speaker 1: Like I said, I've been across the sect room. But
1:21:27
Speaker 1: I do enjoy educating people or that there's more two
1:21:32
Speaker 1: coffee than where they know. At least they know that
1:21:35
Speaker 1: there is better out there, at least the potentially for
1:21:38
Speaker 1: better out there. So don't don't get me wrong. I
1:21:42
Speaker 1: still focus on the end to it means, which is caffeine.
1:21:45
Speaker 1: But it's definitely hit different when we roast our own
1:21:50
Speaker 1: and we can educate people on on the why of
1:21:52
Speaker 1: doing that, right, So from a from a you know,
1:21:56
Speaker 1: what makes our products different again starting form from the
1:22:00
Speaker 1: beginning is we we are a rosary. We roast unlike
1:22:06
Speaker 1: green coffee or pre roasted coffee all the way to
1:22:08
Speaker 1: a finished good. And that's where coffee is going to have.
1:22:11
Speaker 1: It's the best taste profile. So when you think about
1:22:14
Speaker 1: people correlate warm coffee to bad coffee or room timp
1:22:20
Speaker 1: called the blue grown coffee to back off because it
1:22:22
Speaker 1: tastes it tastes bitter, and that's because it's flat, stale,
1:22:27
Speaker 1: older coffee. It's not freshed. If it's fresh, you actually
1:22:31
Speaker 1: taste more of its flavored notes that come from these
1:22:34
Speaker 1: coffee beans. A lot of people also don't know that
1:22:37
Speaker 1: a coffee bean is the pit of a cherry. So
1:22:40
Speaker 1: you think about the cherries we eat, we throw those
1:22:42
Speaker 1: pits away and nobody trying to choke on a pit. Right.
1:22:44
Speaker 1: But in these coffee growing regions where you know these
1:22:50
Speaker 1: farmers are planting these plants, they are also planting other crop,
1:22:54
Speaker 1: whether it's the blackberries, weather is blueberries, so on and
1:22:59
Speaker 1: so for. And those offee beans are absorbing nose notes.
1:23:02
Speaker 1: And so when you have this cup of coffee, it's
1:23:04
Speaker 1: not a um an additive that you should be tasting
1:23:08
Speaker 1: on your black couple of coffee. It should also it
1:23:10
Speaker 1: should be these subtle notes that actually make it feel distinct.
1:23:15
Speaker 1: And so that's in a in a mainstream coffee standpoint,
1:23:18
Speaker 1: you don't really get to taste that on the everyday
1:23:20
Speaker 1: basis unless you know that that exists to have been
1:23:23
Speaker 1: expected more out of things. So um, that's one of
1:23:27
Speaker 1: the things that definitely come through with our coffee options. Again,
1:23:30
Speaker 1: we provide light roast, medium roads, and dark roads. You
1:23:33
Speaker 1: can get your fixed from the options we have. But
1:23:37
Speaker 1: given that it's fresh, you actually taste more of the
1:23:41
Speaker 1: quality within it. And that's that by default, is a
1:23:44
Speaker 1: big point of difference. Uh, for the everyday coffee customer.
1:23:48
Speaker 1: There's way more nuances that you could get into distract
1:23:52
Speaker 1: too much. No, no, no, no no, because your conversation
1:23:55
Speaker 1: way lower level. We definitely there. Your conversation way lower
1:23:59
Speaker 1: and Rob, you know you just roasted different types. You know,
1:24:02
Speaker 1: you gotta chair, you know you most people throw away
1:24:04
Speaker 1: the chair. You know, give plants other plants around here.
1:24:07
Speaker 1: You come on where you get the medium lighting? Dog
1:24:09
Speaker 1: roating to you? I just can tell. Does he get
1:24:13
Speaker 1: on your nerves talking about coffee? That's because you do
1:24:15
Speaker 1: hear that conversation over there. Man. You look, you're a
1:24:17
Speaker 1: little quick conversation. But I'm not trying to pitch you guys.
1:24:20
Speaker 1: It gets each other. But tell you something, bro, you
1:24:22
Speaker 1: gotta get you your tea conversation up. You got to
1:24:25
Speaker 1: upgrade your te conversation, brother, because you just heard PJ.
1:24:28
Speaker 1: PJ was over there, man, I was. I was talking
1:24:31
Speaker 1: to a scientist. I was talking to a scientist over there,
1:24:35
Speaker 1: a farmer. I would talk to the world traveler, this
1:24:38
Speaker 1: guy from the Morning or Gary and damn here from Brazil.
1:24:42
Speaker 1: That's why I was talking about. He's climbing the mountains,
1:24:45
Speaker 1: you know, with a backpack, you know, with some dogs
1:24:48
Speaker 1: and some mules, talking about we gotta get the finest.
1:24:52
Speaker 1: He's sticking his hand in the ground and pulling the
1:24:55
Speaker 1: seeds up. This is the salt I want my coffee
1:24:58
Speaker 1: to come from. You know what's funny about that? And
1:25:03
Speaker 1: that's how he is about everything. Right. We grew up
1:25:07
Speaker 1: together and you kind of get used to it out
1:25:09
Speaker 1: for a while twenty something years. That's that's how we
1:25:14
Speaker 1: rocked about. I love it. I love it, but you know,
1:25:16
Speaker 1: the deity of your relationship. I'm to jar myself because
1:25:19
Speaker 1: I respect you know, anybody who steps out and trust
1:25:23
Speaker 1: their instincts and have a plan, because that's what money
1:25:26
Speaker 1: making conversations about. Individuals who trust, put the right people
1:25:31
Speaker 1: around them, and then put a product out there and
1:25:34
Speaker 1: deep you people react to the product, not only when
1:25:36
Speaker 1: they react to problem. You have the product available when
1:25:39
Speaker 1: they react. Because a lot of people got stuff out there,
1:25:41
Speaker 1: they put it out there, cleared off the shelves. Okay
1:25:44
Speaker 1: with it with the second, third, fourth round. Oh, we
1:25:48
Speaker 1: gotta got to raise some more money. We gotta. We
1:25:50
Speaker 1: didn't know we're gonna sell that fast. So when I
1:25:52
Speaker 1: think about what you guys are doing, I commend Black
1:25:55
Speaker 1: and Bold. Now, how do we get your product here?
1:25:58
Speaker 1: It's in Target, right, it's in what stores is available
1:26:01
Speaker 1: and so we can start talking about that. Yeah, So,
1:26:04
Speaker 1: as you opened the show with, we are nationally accessible
1:26:08
Speaker 1: via our retail partnership with Target. Uh, and it's available
1:26:12
Speaker 1: in select stores. Um. You can check either Target dot
1:26:15
Speaker 1: com or our website to see if there's one UH
1:26:18
Speaker 1: specific to you. UH, and if not, it's available online
1:26:21
Speaker 1: in a couple of places. Again those to those two websites,
1:26:24
Speaker 1: as well as Amazon dot Com as well. Now one
1:26:27
Speaker 1: of these there's always an angle. And I said something
1:26:29
Speaker 1: in my intro Coffee with a Cause. Why is the
1:26:33
Speaker 1: whole social impact? Because you can just go out there
1:26:35
Speaker 1: and make some money and just and go and sleep
1:26:38
Speaker 1: well at night, and what you're making a five percent Oh, Yeah,
1:26:42
Speaker 1: bro Go revenue goes to the causes. Why is that
1:26:46
Speaker 1: important to the Black and Bold brand or to you
1:26:50
Speaker 1: Rod or to you p J. Sure so, yeah, popit.
1:26:53
Speaker 1: Center of our profits are contributed to initiatives and nonprofits
1:26:57
Speaker 1: that support at risk youth UM. And we were very
1:27:01
Speaker 1: deliberate and selecting that demographic because it's a vulnerable community. UM.
1:27:06
Speaker 1: Growing up in Gary, Indiana, we may have been considered
1:27:10
Speaker 1: UM at risk you and so we ultimately identify with
1:27:14
Speaker 1: UM those who are in need of resources to ultimately
1:27:18
Speaker 1: live their best lives. And what better way to do
1:27:21
Speaker 1: that than to incorporate it and into our business model
1:27:24
Speaker 1: UM so that it gives the everyday consumer the the
1:27:27
Speaker 1: opportunity to participate in that process as well. UM. You know,
1:27:32
Speaker 1: many companies have social impact as a part of what
1:27:37
Speaker 1: they do, you know, prioritizing purpose and profit. But it's
1:27:40
Speaker 1: not particular to those communities that, like I said, we
1:27:45
Speaker 1: most closely identify with. So we were deciding what does
1:27:49
Speaker 1: this entrepreneur what this entrepreneurship look like for us? We
1:27:53
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that we brought them along for
1:27:56
Speaker 1: the journey as well. Yeah, I mean I had a
1:28:00
Speaker 1: little bit on ad a little bit onto that rock
1:28:03
Speaker 1: kind of nailed that one, hit that one out the park.
1:28:05
Speaker 1: But the being heavy coffee, being heavy tea consumers. As
1:28:10
Speaker 1: we talked about entrepreneurship and you know what a success
1:28:12
Speaker 1: look like and who do we give back to and
1:28:15
Speaker 1: when do we give back? Going down our corporate career labs,
1:28:18
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, well we'll be able to you know,
1:28:21
Speaker 1: close to retirement and X y Z money then we
1:28:24
Speaker 1: can start making an impact. And it's like, okay, that's
1:28:26
Speaker 1: that's that's not the case. We we can actually focus
1:28:30
Speaker 1: on how do we make this impact sooner, especially to
1:28:33
Speaker 1: the communities that we relate to, especially in industry that
1:28:37
Speaker 1: we're spending all this money in. And it came back
1:28:40
Speaker 1: to rod T consumption. In my coffee consumption. We would
1:28:44
Speaker 1: have these conversations over a cup of coffee and tea
1:28:47
Speaker 1: in different coffee shops and it's like, yo, what as
1:28:50
Speaker 1: much money as we put into this, where's the representation,
1:28:54
Speaker 1: where's the engagement, where's the impact? And we didn't see it,
1:28:58
Speaker 1: And so it really just manifested itself in the coffee
1:29:01
Speaker 1: and tea one from our consumerism, but to just the
1:29:05
Speaker 1: lack of the impact is largest I mean, coffee is
1:29:09
Speaker 1: the second highest consumer consumed beverage in America behind water,
1:29:13
Speaker 1: and where the domestic impact for people in our community.
1:29:18
Speaker 1: And so just by the fault of that, it naturally
1:29:21
Speaker 1: aligned to us as entrepreneurs, which helps fuel our energy,
1:29:24
Speaker 1: help to our passion to continue down this journey and
1:29:28
Speaker 1: and and to try to slay these dig dragons. Well
1:29:31
Speaker 1: they're big, and but because you care, and that's what
1:29:33
Speaker 1: h You know, I look at my life and and
1:29:36
Speaker 1: the journey, and it is a continual journey, and it's
1:29:40
Speaker 1: about who who do I help? You know, because I
1:29:44
Speaker 1: didn't get here by myself, and you know, you two
1:29:46
Speaker 1: guys didn't get out of Gary and the Ant by yourselves.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: It was a people who saw and pushed you and
1:29:51
Speaker 1: and saw bigger values and opportunities for you. And you
1:29:54
Speaker 1: had a unique talent that they saw and they it
1:29:57
Speaker 1: may have been just one teacher, might have been just
1:29:59
Speaker 1: one friend, might have even men sister, maybeen, somebody in
1:30:01
Speaker 1: the neighborhood that went, you're you're better, You're bigger. Don't settle,
1:30:05
Speaker 1: and you guys don't settle. And that's why throughout my
1:30:08
Speaker 1: my interview with you, guys, I tease you and we're
1:30:11
Speaker 1: joking around, but there's one respect here because you're not settlers.
1:30:15
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, you still remember, you know,
1:30:19
Speaker 1: like you're using an example. People might have thought that
1:30:21
Speaker 1: we were down trodden, that we were uh out of Gary,
1:30:26
Speaker 1: out of the community where you know, values for success
1:30:29
Speaker 1: are limited and people are only gonna settle because they
1:30:32
Speaker 1: want to be on section eight. Because everybody describes the
1:30:35
Speaker 1: community that they don't live in based on what they
1:30:37
Speaker 1: hear or what they see on CNN or what they
1:30:39
Speaker 1: see on Fox, or what they reading or one article,
1:30:43
Speaker 1: you know, like everybody in Flint, Michigan is drinking bad water,
1:30:47
Speaker 1: you know, because that's what they read, that's what they think.
1:30:50
Speaker 1: But the thing that I'm just trying to tell you,
1:30:52
Speaker 1: two guys, is that I brought you on my show
1:30:54
Speaker 1: was to say thank you, and uh, black and bold
1:30:58
Speaker 1: is just an avenue for change. Yes, you are doing
1:31:01
Speaker 1: the coffee thing, p J. Yes you're doing the t thing, Rock,
1:31:07
Speaker 1: but you're doing a bigger thing. You're changing lives and
1:31:09
Speaker 1: you're moving forward, and you're aggressively trying to tell people
1:31:12
Speaker 1: that they can be, that they are special, despite their differences,
1:31:16
Speaker 1: despite their color, despite the naysayers despite people telling them
1:31:19
Speaker 1: they can't. They can't make it because the environment that
1:31:22
Speaker 1: they're growing up in or they're living in is that
1:31:25
Speaker 1: is that the is that the ultimate goal? I know
1:31:29
Speaker 1: coffee and tea is the business, But you guys can
1:31:32
Speaker 1: answer separately, rock what is the ultimate goal? When I
1:31:35
Speaker 1: make a statement like that to the both of you,
1:31:39
Speaker 1: I mean you you hit the mile on the head.
1:31:42
Speaker 1: I mean that that's exactly our reason for being that.
1:31:45
Speaker 1: That's the ethos of what we do is to resource
1:31:48
Speaker 1: communities that are talented but may not have visibility to
1:31:54
Speaker 1: passways UH to success UM until again, like like I said,
1:31:58
Speaker 1: bringing them alone for the journey is something that's intentional
1:32:02
Speaker 1: because we we resonate with them, we see them, We
1:32:05
Speaker 1: want them to know that that they're heard because we
1:32:08
Speaker 1: were once in that position. So just just reaching back,
1:32:11
Speaker 1: UM and not forgetting about where you come from, about
1:32:14
Speaker 1: those people who UM have similar journeys and similar struggles
1:32:19
Speaker 1: and overcoming obstacles as you UM is something that regardless
1:32:24
Speaker 1: of the endeavor, I think we I speak for us both,
1:32:27
Speaker 1: It's going to be a part of what we do.
1:32:29
Speaker 1: It's impossible to for not to Yeah, I'm I'm I'm
1:32:33
Speaker 1: gonna take it over to p J. The talker. You know,
1:32:35
Speaker 1: he's gonna he's gonna go a little deeper. He might
1:32:37
Speaker 1: even open up the Bible on this one, you know,
1:32:38
Speaker 1: because he hear what I shouldn't. I shouldn't Next time
1:32:43
Speaker 1: we interview, I would let you go, lad, because you know,
1:32:45
Speaker 1: it gives him time to think. He gets to he
1:32:48
Speaker 1: gets to hear what you left out, you know, and
1:32:51
Speaker 1: expound those of stuff. He gets to piggyback on your
1:32:54
Speaker 1: thought and make it his thought and all that stuff.
1:32:57
Speaker 1: So we're gonna let PJ the straight out of the
1:33:01
Speaker 1: Moor Hour, you know, by way of Gary, and then
1:33:04
Speaker 1: I would call him the headliner for this show, headliner
1:33:07
Speaker 1: PJ H Black and Bot to talk that so you know, yeah,
1:33:16
Speaker 1: it's it's it's this one is this one is? That's
1:33:20
Speaker 1: why I said, you hit the nail on the head.
1:33:22
Speaker 1: Rod did as well. Me when I talked to youth,
1:33:27
Speaker 1: I uh always tell them. I didn't realize how low
1:33:30
Speaker 1: expectations I had of myself until I realized how low
1:33:34
Speaker 1: expectation society had for me. And once I realized that,
1:33:39
Speaker 1: you know, the doors wide open on continuing to discover
1:33:44
Speaker 1: in order to decide, you know, what to do with
1:33:46
Speaker 1: that new discovery and can you be successful? Did that
1:33:49
Speaker 1: put you on the path to impact more people? And
1:33:52
Speaker 1: representation for me has been huge in seeing other people
1:33:56
Speaker 1: that I can relate to other black people in particular
1:33:59
Speaker 1: black men in particular. It um in path or success
1:34:02
Speaker 1: for me to study and learn from them as well.
1:34:05
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be direct connection, but just
1:34:07
Speaker 1: to be to be a sponge on that. And so uh,
1:34:11
Speaker 1: we have two purposes for us to continue to discover
1:34:14
Speaker 1: what success means for us in order to win on
1:34:16
Speaker 1: the path and the path continue to become wider for
1:34:20
Speaker 1: what we're what we're venturing down, but also for true
1:34:23
Speaker 1: representation for our youth, for our fellow black entrepreneur appears um,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: for black people in coffee, for uh, the whole gab
1:34:34
Speaker 1: it just in the sense of what representation, especially new
1:34:36
Speaker 1: representation in spaces we don't really occupy often can really
1:34:41
Speaker 1: mean to our culture, to our commerce, uh, our youth,
1:34:47
Speaker 1: all of the above and so UM, you know, we
1:34:49
Speaker 1: have a huge responsibility UM that we're fortunately passionate about
1:34:54
Speaker 1: but very very confident that we can continue to force
1:34:57
Speaker 1: his path to to help enlighten more of our people
1:35:00
Speaker 1: on on pursuing things that they are naturally curious and
1:35:05
Speaker 1: even though they may not see you know that the
1:35:09
Speaker 1: doors already wide open, they can be those people to
1:35:12
Speaker 1: open that door. That's my man, p J. Rod, the
1:35:15
Speaker 1: co founders of Black and Bowl. You can find a
1:35:19
Speaker 1: product online that's black. BLK and Bold is in three
1:35:22
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty or more Target stores as well as
1:35:25
Speaker 1: online at Target stores. If you want to hear more
1:35:27
Speaker 1: money Making Conversation interviews, go to Money Making Conversation dot com.
1:35:31
Speaker 1: I'm Rashaan McDonald. I'm your host, and we're live here
1:35:35
Speaker 1: outside the Perez family home, just waiting for the and
1:35:39
Speaker 1: there they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom is
1:35:42
Speaker 1: coming out the front door strong with a double arm
1:35:44
Speaker 1: kid carry. Looks like dad has the bags. Daughter is
1:35:47
Speaker 1: bringing up the rear. Oh but the diaper bag wasn't closed.
1:35:51
Speaker 1: Diapers and toys are everywhere. Oh but mom has just
1:35:56
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1:36:00
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1:36:02
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1:36:05
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1:36:09
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1:36:11
Speaker 1: the roof of the car, and there it goes. Oh,
1:36:16
Speaker 1: that's a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't
1:36:19
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1:36:21
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Speaker 1: Us Kids, brought to you by the U. S. Department
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Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families,
1:37:33
Speaker 1: and the ad Council. I guess he's in studio, which
1:37:36
Speaker 1: is exciting because this young man been part of my
1:37:39
Speaker 1: life twenty years. Um My next guest developed his marketing
1:37:44
Speaker 1: passion at the Coca Cola company Procta and gamble several
1:37:49
Speaker 1: stints at NASA. He earned a BA in physics from
1:37:52
Speaker 1: Morehalls College HPCU, a BS and MS an electrical engineer
1:37:56
Speaker 1: from Georgia Tech, and an NBA from Harvard Business School
1:38:00
Speaker 1: in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now he is the chief marketing officer
1:38:04
Speaker 1: of the most widely distributed c B D cream in
1:38:07
Speaker 1: the market, Maya Durham CBD Cream. Please welcome to Money
1:38:11
Speaker 1: Making Conversation, Tory Durtan. Thank you for having me, so
1:38:17
Speaker 1: good to see you man. Appreciate a little bre from
1:38:19
Speaker 1: from South Georgia. Huh I grew up. I grew up
1:38:24
Speaker 1: in the town of about eight thousand people, so I
1:38:27
Speaker 1: basically have as many people in my hometown that can
1:38:30
Speaker 1: fit into a basketball game on the Saturday right at
1:38:33
Speaker 1: So it's good to see you. I'm so happy for
1:38:35
Speaker 1: your success. Thank you, thank you, and I appreciate you
1:38:38
Speaker 1: having me on absolutely Well, that's what this show is
1:38:39
Speaker 1: all about. I was like to ask my guests, Uh,
1:38:42
Speaker 1: what is what is your passion or your gift? That's
1:38:45
Speaker 1: a great question. It's and sometimes hard to answer, um
1:38:48
Speaker 1: because you hope that you have a lot of gifts.
1:38:50
Speaker 1: But for me, I love brands. I love helping consumers
1:38:55
Speaker 1: make great choices for products for things they care about.
1:38:59
Speaker 1: And so the idea of building a brand is super
1:39:02
Speaker 1: exciting to me and I get excited when I get
1:39:04
Speaker 1: to talk about it. And with that brand building, that
1:39:07
Speaker 1: means an individual or company has to put a trust
1:39:10
Speaker 1: trust to you. Yes, how does this start? Does that
1:39:12
Speaker 1: process start? You know, because you've done a lot of it.
1:39:15
Speaker 1: Just get a little more background about you. Yeah. So
1:39:17
Speaker 1: I grew up in a town called eight l Georgia.
1:39:19
Speaker 1: I like the reference that because sometimes people think I'm
1:39:21
Speaker 1: from Atlanta and I'm not. It's about three hours south
1:39:24
Speaker 1: of Atlanta. Eight thousand people exit thirty nine on right
1:39:28
Speaker 1: below the gnats and when you get to a lot
1:39:30
Speaker 1: of mosquitoes. Had a great privilege of meeting a gentleman
1:39:35
Speaker 1: when I was about fifteen sixteen years old who helped
1:39:37
Speaker 1: me understand that my identity as a six ft two
1:39:40
Speaker 1: inch black mail wasn't defined solely by where I was from.
1:39:44
Speaker 1: So I had the great joy of going to more
1:39:46
Speaker 1: House College. I love every second of every moment of
1:39:48
Speaker 1: every time I get to speak about more House. UM.
1:39:50
Speaker 1: But I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to
1:39:52
Speaker 1: be Dwyane Wayne from a different world, um. And so
1:39:57
Speaker 1: I went to NASA, UH learned a lot about science
1:40:00
Speaker 1: and technology and how we actually apply it. Had the
1:40:03
Speaker 1: great privilege of working for Coke directly out of college,
1:40:06
Speaker 1: went back to graduate school, and then I joined a
1:40:08
Speaker 1: consulting company called Mackenzie and Company. And this was very highbrow,
1:40:13
Speaker 1: very c suite level consulting, and they would let me
1:40:15
Speaker 1: go in and consult with cmos and CEOs about their
1:40:18
Speaker 1: big issues. Right. And I didn't even know what it
1:40:22
Speaker 1: meant to be a consultant until I got there. But
1:40:24
Speaker 1: one of the things I did learn from each of
1:40:26
Speaker 1: the senior executives was you had to own your brand.
1:40:28
Speaker 1: You had to own your story. That every company I
1:40:31
Speaker 1: was involved in when we were consulting with them and growing,
1:40:33
Speaker 1: they were laser focused on what their brand meant to
1:40:36
Speaker 1: the marketplace, to the employees, and to consumers. And so
1:40:41
Speaker 1: I went back to business school. Uh, I would like
1:40:45
Speaker 1: to say, I get this through out of both sides
1:40:46
Speaker 1: of the line right well, Because when you go to
1:40:49
Speaker 1: a highbrow business school like Harvard, when there are literally
1:40:53
Speaker 1: less than thirty five hundred African Americans around the Harvard
1:40:57
Speaker 1: Business School network, it's an amazingly small numb It's kind
1:41:00
Speaker 1: of rare fied air. But I'm a country boy, so
1:41:03
Speaker 1: I was kind of just happy to be there. But
1:41:05
Speaker 1: then they gave me a chance to be there, and
1:41:06
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna trying to knock this out
1:41:07
Speaker 1: the part right And I had a great experience, But
1:41:10
Speaker 1: it was two sides of the coin. It was people
1:41:11
Speaker 1: who always aspired to be there and really wanted the
1:41:14
Speaker 1: brand recognition of being a Harvard person, and a person
1:41:17
Speaker 1: like me who took I thought it was a logical
1:41:20
Speaker 1: next step in my career. So I went to Burnhouse
1:41:23
Speaker 1: when the Georgia Tech and the ex strategy consultant. Going
1:41:26
Speaker 1: to Harvard was a logical next step. For other people,
1:41:28
Speaker 1: it was the holy grail, and I had to learn
1:41:30
Speaker 1: how to balance both of those because Shan. The hard
1:41:33
Speaker 1: part was it became a part of my brand, whether
1:41:35
Speaker 1: now I knew it or not. And I left people
1:41:38
Speaker 1: people would describe me as that Harvard guy. People describe
1:41:42
Speaker 1: me as this guy, and I was like, whoa, who
1:41:43
Speaker 1: are you talking about? I was looking over my shoulder
1:41:45
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who they were talking about. It
1:41:46
Speaker 1: pops or your resonation. There were Harvard just Pops, and
1:41:49
Speaker 1: they just because you as an African American, that's that's
1:41:52
Speaker 1: rare fied air right there, you know, because of the
1:41:54
Speaker 1: fact that we know that's how highbrow education, you know.
1:41:58
Speaker 1: And I was, so, it's just almost eleak education based
1:42:01
Speaker 1: on the amount of income that these types of colleges costs,
1:42:04
Speaker 1: and it almost you know, it's almost like hollow ground
1:42:07
Speaker 1: of education. And you put it on your resume and
1:42:09
Speaker 1: then you have Georgia Tech on your resume. Then you
1:42:12
Speaker 1: have more house. You know you have, but I started
1:42:13
Speaker 1: with more house to try to tell every what I started,
1:42:16
Speaker 1: I'm going down to HBCU with the importance of HBU
1:42:18
Speaker 1: HBCUs because I've gotten involved with I come from I
1:42:21
Speaker 1: graduate from University of Houston, right down the street from Texas,
1:42:24
Speaker 1: right down street from PRIVW and M and I. And
1:42:27
Speaker 1: when I look at the value of HBCU schools now
1:42:32
Speaker 1: of being recognized from being a graduate of HBCU, why
1:42:36
Speaker 1: was it significant? You mentioned it earlier, but let's go
1:42:39
Speaker 1: on detail that journey of HBCU. Well, it was about acceptance,
1:42:42
Speaker 1: acceptance of who I am, what I look like, what
1:42:44
Speaker 1: I could be. And you know, I had the privilege
1:42:47
Speaker 1: of growing up even though it was a small town
1:42:49
Speaker 1: with great role models around me. But I got to
1:42:51
Speaker 1: more House, they actually not only told me to be good,
1:42:54
Speaker 1: but they wanted me to be exceptional, and they pushed
1:42:56
Speaker 1: me for that, and they encouraged me to do things
1:42:59
Speaker 1: and try things. They all so told me to go
1:43:01
Speaker 1: to the highest level right each time. So when I
1:43:04
Speaker 1: arrived at Harvard Business School, I didn't feel like I
1:43:06
Speaker 1: didn't belong there, Or when I was in graduate school
1:43:09
Speaker 1: a Georgia Tech, I didn't feel like I didn't belong
1:43:11
Speaker 1: there because Morehouse had instilled in me so much empowerment,
1:43:15
Speaker 1: so much strength, so much sense of self uh. And
1:43:18
Speaker 1: it also let me know that I didn't have to
1:43:20
Speaker 1: be an expert to go down the path of being great,
1:43:23
Speaker 1: but I had to keep on the path. And that's
1:43:25
Speaker 1: why I just kept taking logical steps forward. Whether it
1:43:27
Speaker 1: was Mackenzie, whether it was Harvard Business School, where there's
1:43:30
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech, where it was Coke, I kept feeling like
1:43:33
Speaker 1: I kept feeling like I had the right to be there.
1:43:36
Speaker 1: And that's an empowering thing for a young man or
1:43:39
Speaker 1: a young person. So any person who's ever looking for
1:43:42
Speaker 1: not just a great education, right in the academic sense,
1:43:45
Speaker 1: but a sense of self, a sense of empowerment, in
1:43:49
Speaker 1: a sense of fun. So I would tell you this
1:43:51
Speaker 1: funny story about business school, like at a certain point
1:43:53
Speaker 1: I had to remind of people were still in school.
1:43:54
Speaker 1: Let's have a good time at this, okay, right, So
1:43:57
Speaker 1: we were doing great work and we had great careers
1:43:59
Speaker 1: in front of us, but there was just a socializing
1:44:01
Speaker 1: a fact that more house and being an h B.
1:44:04
Speaker 1: So you helped me when I was in the frigid
1:44:07
Speaker 1: cold of Boston and making friends and things like that
1:44:10
Speaker 1: and feeling like, hey, let's let's go to the cocktail party.
1:44:15
Speaker 1: It was all those things about humanists right, And I
1:44:17
Speaker 1: know in your career you you value relationships. I tell
1:44:21
Speaker 1: people this, you know. The other day, I was talking
1:44:23
Speaker 1: to my roommate from college, my roommate from More House,
1:44:26
Speaker 1: my freshman year roommate, about his son going to college
1:44:28
Speaker 1: and what I had to do to help his son
1:44:30
Speaker 1: make decision to go to More House. Then I talked
1:44:32
Speaker 1: to my other roommate I had two roommates uh for
1:44:36
Speaker 1: my freshman year, about his niece coming to school in
1:44:39
Speaker 1: Atlanta and what I had to do to be of
1:44:40
Speaker 1: help to her. That that was years ago we met.
1:44:46
Speaker 1: We're still in each other's lives and that makes a difference.
1:44:49
Speaker 1: Last point I make to this is I go on
1:44:50
Speaker 1: my new journey about being an entrepreneur, I've had to
1:44:53
Speaker 1: pull on those relationships. I've had to call on friendships.
1:44:55
Speaker 1: I've had to call on people I've known I had
1:44:57
Speaker 1: as my as my dean and more has told me
1:45:00
Speaker 1: I had a funny spelling of my name and a
1:45:02
Speaker 1: unique profile, so I better. I better make sure that
1:45:04
Speaker 1: the impressions people having me are solid and real and
1:45:07
Speaker 1: that I can call on them later on. And I've
1:45:09
Speaker 1: had to do that as an entrepreneur now, okay, because
1:45:11
Speaker 1: spell your name, because yes, will you say your name?
1:45:14
Speaker 1: And when you spell the name is different. It sounds
1:45:17
Speaker 1: like t r y. Yes, it's pronounced as if it
1:45:19
Speaker 1: was t r y or t r I. But my
1:45:22
Speaker 1: name is spelled t O r A r I E.
1:45:25
Speaker 1: Can I tell you a story about it? Though? Okay,
1:45:27
Speaker 1: so uh dirt dirty. But I had the great privilege
1:45:32
Speaker 1: of being named by my great great grandmother and my
1:45:36
Speaker 1: great aunt, and they were alive to see me walk
1:45:40
Speaker 1: across the stage. They weren't there at Morehouse when I graduated,
1:45:43
Speaker 1: but they were home. They saw me the week after
1:45:45
Speaker 1: I graduated, and that is how they decided to spell
1:45:48
Speaker 1: my name. And nobody in our family would question them.
1:45:51
Speaker 1: Nobody asked them was that correct? Through my life, I
1:45:54
Speaker 1: said are you are you sure it's to it? And
1:45:56
Speaker 1: said that's the name, you better stick to it. And
1:45:59
Speaker 1: so I've had heard that with me, but very few
1:46:01
Speaker 1: people get to say they were named by the great
1:46:03
Speaker 1: great grandmother. There were a lot of extra letters in there, man,
1:46:05
Speaker 1: there's a lot of extra letters in there. You know.
1:46:07
Speaker 1: The beauty of our relationship because we met when I
1:46:10
Speaker 1: was still managing Steve Hawks. That's how we met and
1:46:12
Speaker 1: uh in your journey and uh we met that though
1:46:15
Speaker 1: I think we did to see how double A and
1:46:17
Speaker 1: he was. He was branding an event there. The live
1:46:20
Speaker 1: broadcasts was the biggest basketball African American basketball turners in
1:46:23
Speaker 1: the country. That's in Charlotte just about a week ago. Man, people,
1:46:26
Speaker 1: people didn't know that a couple of hundred thousand people
1:46:29
Speaker 1: would show up in Charlotte for that tournament. Amazing, it's
1:46:32
Speaker 1: been going on for years. You know, we talked about
1:46:34
Speaker 1: much madness, but it's pretty mad then that we see
1:46:38
Speaker 1: how double A tournament and it's really great. And so
1:46:40
Speaker 1: now let's let's fast forward to you now. And we've
1:46:44
Speaker 1: been going back and forth watching you developed this brand
1:46:47
Speaker 1: Maya Derham. You know, I met the owner we had
1:46:49
Speaker 1: at a restaurant. We sat down, we talked and just
1:46:52
Speaker 1: hearing him talk and what what drives you in this
1:46:56
Speaker 1: relationship because I'm seeing the package the packaging evolved so
1:47:00
Speaker 1: important about your relationship with these companies. Side has been
1:47:02
Speaker 1: the chief marketing officers. Sure, So I've been the chief
1:47:05
Speaker 1: marketing officer of Maya DRM about six months and that
1:47:08
Speaker 1: and I took that role originally was starting out as well.
1:47:11
Speaker 1: I was I was one advisors consultant and I had
1:47:14
Speaker 1: known Eric Smart, the CEO, for about ten years, not
1:47:17
Speaker 1: as long as I've known you. But we we didn't
1:47:20
Speaker 1: work on anything. We just stayed in contact value relationships. Right.
1:47:24
Speaker 1: I was working a C suite job at a big company,
1:47:27
Speaker 1: two billion dollar revenue company. I was an s VP,
1:47:31
Speaker 1: and Eric reached out to me and said, listen, this
1:47:33
Speaker 1: brand is about to evolve, this space is about the involved,
1:47:37
Speaker 1: this industry is about to involve, and I need people
1:47:40
Speaker 1: who have real marketing chops to help me figure out
1:47:43
Speaker 1: what our story is. UM. So that was exciting to me.
1:47:46
Speaker 1: The second thing was exciting to me is I took
1:47:48
Speaker 1: the product around the people I knew and trust and
1:47:50
Speaker 1: they blew it up. They were looking at me and like,
1:47:53
Speaker 1: this doesn't look right. I don't know about this. I'm
1:47:57
Speaker 1: not messing with this. Right my wife, your wife was
1:47:59
Speaker 1: one of them, UM, And I appreciated that because he
1:48:02
Speaker 1: gave me real insights. So what problems we had to solve? Right?
1:48:06
Speaker 1: And we had to know you were out there real
1:48:08
Speaker 1: early two years ago, real early. And uh, and that
1:48:12
Speaker 1: just show you how fast it's calm, because now you
1:48:14
Speaker 1: know people are you go to the mod right you
1:48:16
Speaker 1: see the stores or Anthony Derail was on my show
1:48:19
Speaker 1: The Boxer who on Detroit talking about opening the store
1:48:23
Speaker 1: and things like that. So it's like even in Houston,
1:48:25
Speaker 1: it's a store has opened right next to my cleaners.
1:48:30
Speaker 1: That was one of the challenges that we face. We
1:48:32
Speaker 1: are a topical creed. Okay, you apply if you're in
1:48:36
Speaker 1: pain or hurting directly. That is different than many of
1:48:40
Speaker 1: the other CBD brands that are in the marketplace. We
1:48:43
Speaker 1: also only sell to national retailers and talking about being
1:48:46
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur and a small business owner and you're saying
1:48:48
Speaker 1: you're only going to talk to the big boys. It's tough,
1:48:51
Speaker 1: but it's an intentional decision because we wanted to build
1:48:54
Speaker 1: trust and validity in the marketplace. The third thing is
1:48:58
Speaker 1: our product does not have any t exc Let me
1:49:00
Speaker 1: repeat that, it cannot. It will not get you, which
1:49:05
Speaker 1: was my wife's fear, my wife. I was my wife's fear.
1:49:08
Speaker 1: They will not You can you can bathe in this,
1:49:10
Speaker 1: You could, you could drink. You don't drink it, don't
1:49:12
Speaker 1: eat it. You can put on ten gallons of it.
1:49:14
Speaker 1: It will not fell a drug test. The product will
1:49:16
Speaker 1: not fell a drug. But that is important because my
1:49:19
Speaker 1: mom wanted to try to product. Right my grandmother you
1:49:23
Speaker 1: heard me mentioned my great grandmother. She's not alive, but
1:49:25
Speaker 1: my grandmother want to try to product. Uh. Why do
1:49:28
Speaker 1: they want to try the product? Well, because they worked
1:49:30
Speaker 1: hard in their life and at the end of the
1:49:32
Speaker 1: day they have egches and pains. Now, my friends who
1:49:36
Speaker 1: are training for marathons us a product because they want
1:49:38
Speaker 1: to get back to the gym fast. Uh. Some of
1:49:41
Speaker 1: my I met a nice woman who was a video
1:49:44
Speaker 1: model and she was in her heels all the time.
1:49:46
Speaker 1: She wears a product because she wears five inch heels
1:49:48
Speaker 1: and her feet hurt, so she applies the cream directly
1:49:51
Speaker 1: to her feet at the end of the day. Gives
1:49:52
Speaker 1: her relief. My mother uses the product when she has
1:49:58
Speaker 1: has she has long days. She's using her repetitive US.
1:50:02
Speaker 1: You're starting to capture some writer, but that's your customers
1:50:04
Speaker 1: that these statements about healing and all. Yeah, the whole
1:50:08
Speaker 1: premise of this product is fast acting relief. Okay, you
1:50:12
Speaker 1: two pumps, put in your hand, rub it where you needed,
1:50:16
Speaker 1: applies in seconds, works in minutes, last four hours. We
1:50:19
Speaker 1: want people to feel better. Oh you'r CMO for show
1:50:22
Speaker 1: that right there for if that wasn't a commercial, We're
1:50:24
Speaker 1: gonna be right back with more money Make Conversations with
1:50:26
Speaker 1: my man, Tory Durton. He is the CMO with Chief
1:50:29
Speaker 1: Marketing Officer Maya drha oh Man. I'm so proud of you, brother,
1:50:33
Speaker 1: but this is just the start start the journey. Six
1:50:36
Speaker 1: months you've been in the gig. Hey when I hey,
1:50:38
Speaker 1: come on, we'll be backing away to talk to him
1:50:41
Speaker 1: and we're talking. We're gonna talk some more on their
1:50:43
Speaker 1: money Making Conversations just for Sean McDonald. You're listening to
1:50:46
Speaker 1: money Making Conversation to show about the show for you.
1:50:49
Speaker 1: Shure about allowing you to hear information that will be
1:50:52
Speaker 1: helpful in your growth as a individual. If you're working
1:50:55
Speaker 1: for that all week job as a small business owner
1:50:58
Speaker 1: or an entrepreneur. There's a difference. Um on the show
1:51:01
Speaker 1: today is my mandatory. Durton, small town in George, three
1:51:05
Speaker 1: hour drive seventy five south. Went from more House, Georgia,
1:51:10
Speaker 1: Tech Harvard along the way, your resume grew. Academically you
1:51:15
Speaker 1: are an expert. Academically, you have to prove yourself in
1:51:19
Speaker 1: the corporate space and then you grow out of that.
1:51:22
Speaker 1: Now you're a leader in the one of the fastest
1:51:25
Speaker 1: growing industry, but you were the industry leader. How did
1:51:28
Speaker 1: you become an industry leader? That's a great point as
1:51:32
Speaker 1: and this is a lesson for any entrepreneurs small business owner, right.
1:51:36
Speaker 1: I hear you say, you know not to focus on
1:51:38
Speaker 1: your gifts. Well, my background was in consumer retail. I
1:51:42
Speaker 1: worked for brands that were sold in big national retailers.
1:51:45
Speaker 1: So when the CEO of my DRM and I connected
1:51:47
Speaker 1: on this, he's we made a very intentional choice. We
1:51:50
Speaker 1: want to be a brand that is chosen by national
1:51:53
Speaker 1: retailers and what that men is. We didn't want to
1:51:56
Speaker 1: make health claims, we didn't want to have th C.
1:51:58
Speaker 1: We wanted to very system packaging, and we would go
1:52:02
Speaker 1: with price points that allow people to look like it
1:52:04
Speaker 1: should be in a grocery store or in a big store.
1:52:07
Speaker 1: So last year, at this time, Rashaan, we were in
1:52:09
Speaker 1: five hundred retail doors in the country. At the end
1:52:14
Speaker 1: of last month we went eighty six hundred. So we
1:52:17
Speaker 1: went five hundred retail stores this time last year. Now
1:52:20
Speaker 1: we're in eight si Looking at the other side of
1:52:22
Speaker 1: my eye, yeah, And that was around around making some
1:52:26
Speaker 1: choices to go to large national retailers, you know, making
1:52:31
Speaker 1: our business skills some of the some of the retailers.
1:52:34
Speaker 1: So we're available in many and Dick Sporting Goods yesterday,
1:52:38
Speaker 1: Golf Galaxy. Uh, it's part of the avid golfers in
1:52:42
Speaker 1: the world. Seven eleven carries our advanced therapy cream went
1:52:46
Speaker 1: in your hand right now. Loves travel stops. If you've
1:52:49
Speaker 1: never been in a Loves travel stop, it's not a
1:52:50
Speaker 1: truck stop, it's a travel stop and you can go
1:52:52
Speaker 1: in there. People are there for hours, relaxed, they eat
1:52:57
Speaker 1: things like that. Right with the Medicine shop. And we're
1:53:00
Speaker 1: g n C. So we were one of the first
1:53:03
Speaker 1: brands in g n C Mall Base and many other franchises.
1:53:07
Speaker 1: There were three brands they took in. At the end
1:53:10
Speaker 1: of the first year, we were seventy of their selves
1:53:13
Speaker 1: and are adding other brands now because we've proven that
1:53:15
Speaker 1: the market does have a desire for these types of products.
1:53:19
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, like to be a national partner,
1:53:23
Speaker 1: we had to make some choices that weren't really fun
1:53:26
Speaker 1: and weren't like other people, like we don't have our
1:53:27
Speaker 1: own stores and we don't sell in all chaos. We
1:53:30
Speaker 1: put our packaging, we put our ingredients on the back
1:53:34
Speaker 1: of our packaging. There's a QR code on our package.
1:53:38
Speaker 1: There's a QR code on each of our packages to
1:53:40
Speaker 1: tell you about our third party lab testing. We put
1:53:42
Speaker 1: our address on the backup products. And Shawn, one of
1:53:44
Speaker 1: the things we did when we looked at research with
1:53:46
Speaker 1: other brands, we come out to be between thirty and
1:53:50
Speaker 1: fifty times more concentrated with our CBD that we put
1:53:54
Speaker 1: in a product, So people are actually buying a CBD
1:53:56
Speaker 1: product versus really expensive actually hot. Yes, and I don't
1:54:00
Speaker 1: knock Icy Hot or any brand, but I'm just saying
1:54:03
Speaker 1: it's just a difference when you're buying a mentor based
1:54:05
Speaker 1: product that's gonna smell and numb you versus something that's
1:54:08
Speaker 1: gonna help you with We know. The thing about it
1:54:10
Speaker 1: is that just watching this journey with you and there's
1:54:14
Speaker 1: such an authority and you're so confident in your tone
1:54:16
Speaker 1: because successes starting, you're seeing it happen. You know, we
1:54:20
Speaker 1: got to just pitching. You're kind of pitching and hoping.
1:54:23
Speaker 1: You know, I see a person now who's still hoping,
1:54:26
Speaker 1: We're hoping with confidence and has a track record these
1:54:28
Speaker 1: doors are opening. And guess what went from five hundreds
1:54:31
Speaker 1: to this? So because you know a year ago we
1:54:34
Speaker 1: talked on the phone. You said, ra Sean, I'm looking
1:54:36
Speaker 1: for athletes or former athletes and a high profile. Are
1:54:38
Speaker 1: you still doing that because they can tell they can
1:54:40
Speaker 1: talk about how they can become like a spokesperson or
1:54:43
Speaker 1: brand ambassador. You're still doing that? Well, I am, but
1:54:45
Speaker 1: I'm also doing it a little bit differently. And yeah,
1:54:47
Speaker 1: and I will give you credit for this one of
1:54:49
Speaker 1: those conversations. And if you ever get the chance to
1:54:51
Speaker 1: have a conversation with Sean, you know, just get your
1:54:54
Speaker 1: mind right and get ready. Okay, because he talked to
1:54:57
Speaker 1: me about platforms, right, he was like listening, like some
1:54:59
Speaker 1: of the athletes individually may have ups and downs, but
1:55:02
Speaker 1: you want things to have scale. So as a national brand,
1:55:05
Speaker 1: we now get the opportunity to do things like radio
1:55:09
Speaker 1: and big platforms where other brands may not because they
1:55:12
Speaker 1: have T T N. You wonder if it's available in
1:55:15
Speaker 1: your state. Our our product is developing all fifthy U
1:55:17
Speaker 1: S states and national retailers you know and trust that
1:55:20
Speaker 1: makes a difference. The second thing is a little bit
1:55:23
Speaker 1: of success does breed confidence so I'm looking at programs
1:55:27
Speaker 1: with I'm working to be one of the first partners
1:55:30
Speaker 1: with a professional sports organization, knock on Wood, hopefully because
1:55:35
Speaker 1: they have scale. But at the same time, Sean, you're
1:55:37
Speaker 1: exactly right, I am looking for people who want to
1:55:40
Speaker 1: help me build a brand. Absolutely there was a celebrities.
1:55:43
Speaker 1: Those are trainers. Those are people who have a clear
1:55:46
Speaker 1: identification of their brand and their voice, right, athletes, things
1:55:50
Speaker 1: of that sort, because they're actually in pain. Yes, you know,
1:55:54
Speaker 1: they're actually in discomfort. They actually have dynamics. I do
1:55:57
Speaker 1: have to make this point. We make our products to
1:56:00
Speaker 1: help people know be better, feel better, and look better,
1:56:05
Speaker 1: but we also do it for our four legged friends. Also,
1:56:08
Speaker 1: so little dog costs me so much money. Now, what
1:56:13
Speaker 1: what can you do with this pet cream? C B D.
1:56:18
Speaker 1: It's a topical cream. You apply it directly to areas
1:56:23
Speaker 1: where your four legged friends are having issues things issues. Okay,
1:56:28
Speaker 1: that that got that over there. I'm gonna pull that
1:56:30
Speaker 1: over to the right because you know, I can care
1:56:32
Speaker 1: less about that dog. I'm just tell you that dog
1:56:34
Speaker 1: jumps on my lap. I just look at him. You
1:56:36
Speaker 1: know what, People who care about their health care about
1:56:39
Speaker 1: their families, just like you know about me and this
1:56:41
Speaker 1: dog and this dog. My goal is to make life
1:56:45
Speaker 1: good for you, right and if it helps your your
1:56:47
Speaker 1: four legged friends as well. But our focus is on
1:56:50
Speaker 1: is on relief. We know what what excites me when
1:56:52
Speaker 1: I hear you talk is that this packaging is outstanding.
1:56:56
Speaker 1: This is I'm telling you. I'm holding this and it
1:56:58
Speaker 1: reminds me of five our interinew So so research I
1:57:02
Speaker 1: I expect to go into a public so I expect
1:57:06
Speaker 1: to go into a Croakers and right there I see
1:57:08
Speaker 1: this package and I feel it's supposed to It's supposed
1:57:11
Speaker 1: to be there. So that's an intentional choice as well.
1:57:14
Speaker 1: Like as a branding person and a marketing person, we said,
1:57:16
Speaker 1: who's done well in the marketplace already? Who can we
1:57:20
Speaker 1: borrow from? Um? I want to say still, but who
1:57:23
Speaker 1: can we replicate? I worked at Property and Gammer for
1:57:25
Speaker 1: a while. You know the whole idea was, you know,
1:57:28
Speaker 1: finding replicate, find something that works unreplicated. So we made
1:57:31
Speaker 1: intentional choices about our packaging to make you feel like
1:57:34
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be in the store. We've actually made
1:57:36
Speaker 1: some intentional choices to make sure it it's into your
1:57:39
Speaker 1: hand so you can carry it and put it in
1:57:40
Speaker 1: your pocket. Are all of our products have a pump
1:57:44
Speaker 1: and so if it's twist the top off, it's a
1:57:46
Speaker 1: pump action. So you can take the top off, take
1:57:49
Speaker 1: two pumps, putting your hand, rubbing on, put the top
1:57:51
Speaker 1: back on, put in your pocket, and not be concerned
1:57:53
Speaker 1: about waste and things falling apart. So it's a lot
1:57:56
Speaker 1: of those things you said that that that I did
1:57:59
Speaker 1: hear you. You told me, like, make a brand that
1:58:01
Speaker 1: can scale. Those are the elements of the brand that
1:58:03
Speaker 1: we've tried there to implement. You know, very consumer focus,
1:58:06
Speaker 1: very easy to use, very easy to carry, and it
1:58:09
Speaker 1: looks like it belongs in the store. This is this
1:58:11
Speaker 1: is awesome. You know the thing I love everybody. First
1:58:13
Speaker 1: of you have this a sports cream, okay cool. Then
1:58:16
Speaker 1: you have this I'm assuming it doesn't say sports or
1:58:19
Speaker 1: this flight from your whole body for your whole body.
1:58:21
Speaker 1: And then you have the little packs, you have the pomps. Okay,
1:58:25
Speaker 1: so you have all these options. Why, well, that's a
1:58:28
Speaker 1: great point. People have different amounts of money in their pocket.
1:58:32
Speaker 1: All people want relief, right, So we're one of the
1:58:34
Speaker 1: few brands that have made a choice to be available
1:58:37
Speaker 1: at a packaging option at up to our best selling product,
1:58:41
Speaker 1: which is seventy nine nine nine. So let me be clear,
1:58:44
Speaker 1: our best selling product is our seventy double strength CBD products.
1:58:50
Speaker 1: But we created these two packs and put them together.
1:58:54
Speaker 1: That's right there, that's a vailable retail someone between three
1:58:57
Speaker 1: nine nine. You know why because the person who was
1:59:00
Speaker 1: tired at the end of the day needs relief right then,
1:59:02
Speaker 1: and they may only have a certain amount of money
1:59:04
Speaker 1: in their pocket. They also may want to try it out.
1:59:07
Speaker 1: And this goes back to my experience. Like you said,
1:59:08
Speaker 1: I grew up in a small town in Georgia. Right,
1:59:10
Speaker 1: I'm gonna last people I hope you ever will meet
1:59:12
Speaker 1: who can say they working NSA and crop tobacco. And
1:59:17
Speaker 1: when I crop tobacco and picked a little cotton and
1:59:19
Speaker 1: some watermelons. That's why today I still don't eat watermelon.
1:59:21
Speaker 1: My family gets mad at me. I want you watermelon,
1:59:24
Speaker 1: but I never that's right. But at the end of
1:59:26
Speaker 1: the day, you're tired and I only had so much,
1:59:28
Speaker 1: so much money, you go into the store. We would
1:59:29
Speaker 1: buy those the BC powders, those of the two packs.
1:59:33
Speaker 1: So that's why we created two pack options because we
1:59:35
Speaker 1: know that individuals need relief immediately. They may have a
1:59:39
Speaker 1: set amount of money and they want to be You
1:59:41
Speaker 1: can carry this in your bag when you travel bag
1:59:43
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So that's that's why I love
1:59:45
Speaker 1: this because I do that a lot. I traveled, quill,
1:59:48
Speaker 1: I have a little day quill. I gotta have something
1:59:50
Speaker 1: for my eyes, a little survisors, just droplets and stuff
1:59:54
Speaker 1: like that. Now I got a tupac put in their boom.
1:59:57
Speaker 1: So if because I travel a lot, you know that.
1:59:59
Speaker 1: It's so if my feet are kind of like feeling sore,
2:00:03
Speaker 1: you know, like another I'm talking about you know, damnage
2:00:06
Speaker 1: e sore. But just need but on your feet all day? Yes, yes, yeah,
2:00:09
Speaker 1: you you're you're walking you Uh, I'm not a small
2:00:13
Speaker 1: person me and the airport airplane seat, I don't fit well.
2:00:18
Speaker 1: I have the kind of bend and contort so you
2:00:20
Speaker 1: start feeling pains. Yes, yes, check out, opening up, putting
2:00:25
Speaker 1: your hand, rub it on directly. That's it. And we
2:00:28
Speaker 1: made it that simple because many CBD products, Uh, there's
2:00:32
Speaker 1: a little bit there's a stigma associated with CBD. Absolutely,
2:00:35
Speaker 1: you know weed, you know, it's like a drug and
2:00:38
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be high when I take it. These are
2:00:40
Speaker 1: the things that ran through these a question of my
2:00:42
Speaker 1: wife through at me. I'm going in that boat. It's
2:00:44
Speaker 1: my ball. He got this, I mean, and I can't
2:00:47
Speaker 1: respond to any of these things. But I can't respond
2:00:49
Speaker 1: when you tell me your g NC stores, those those
2:00:52
Speaker 1: are important names that you can throw back at them,
2:00:55
Speaker 1: going oh oh, the fact that you have the immediately
2:00:59
Speaker 1: asked me about the gredients back then, I couldn't answer that,
2:01:02
Speaker 1: you know. And then the location right here, the address
2:01:05
Speaker 1: of the company, I couldn't answer that. So you're answering
2:01:08
Speaker 1: questions to the skeptics because of the fact that I'm
2:01:12
Speaker 1: a bend gay guy. I'm a you know, icy hot guy.
2:01:16
Speaker 1: I'm a traditional especially being gay. You're going on old
2:01:19
Speaker 1: school still and buying being gay. Put a hot tile
2:01:21
Speaker 1: on it, be screaming when you get too hot. That's me.
2:01:25
Speaker 1: And so with your brand, you're telling me you're bringing
2:01:27
Speaker 1: everybody to the modern age. This is the way to
2:01:31
Speaker 1: take care of that process. Break tradition, try something new.
2:01:35
Speaker 1: We'll open We'll let you know exactly what our brand is.
2:01:38
Speaker 1: Deal with it. Try it. So what we had, what
2:01:41
Speaker 1: we found is this, you have put no hot tile
2:01:43
Speaker 1: on it. So again, I played college, So pain really
2:01:47
Speaker 1: for torture, right, you know, put you put your foot
2:01:50
Speaker 1: in a bucket of ice. You don't have this guy
2:01:53
Speaker 1: rub you down and something. I'm like, Man, I mean
2:01:55
Speaker 1: I felt worse after. So what we're saying is this
2:01:58
Speaker 1: is a simple application. But I'll tell you there's lots
2:02:01
Speaker 1: of people who struggle with discomfort every day. If you
2:02:05
Speaker 1: take a notice of people walking around like they just
2:02:08
Speaker 1: kind of walk funny, have limbs. Yeah. Pain. Now, when
2:02:11
Speaker 1: I say are you in pain, most people say no
2:02:13
Speaker 1: because they think of a broken bone or something that
2:02:15
Speaker 1: I'm talking about everyday. Relief. That's what we focus on
2:02:18
Speaker 1: UM and it's been great because they've been able to
2:02:20
Speaker 1: give this product to people who I know in pain,
2:02:22
Speaker 1: who I know don't want to have an opioid, who
2:02:25
Speaker 1: I know don't want bad reactions. You ever watching one
2:02:29
Speaker 1: of those TV commercials and medication. We're not a medication,
2:02:33
Speaker 1: but you hear them talk about all the side effects.
2:02:36
Speaker 1: We wanted something that will allow people to feel comfortable
2:02:39
Speaker 1: using the product, would have a stigma. Uh is a great, great,
2:02:43
Speaker 1: great product, Like people feel relief if you take that
2:02:47
Speaker 1: double stream sport product, take two pumps and rub it
2:02:49
Speaker 1: onto some part of your body that's discomfort and you
2:02:53
Speaker 1: you feel better in a few minutes. So the stories
2:02:56
Speaker 1: we can find your product. So currently we're available online.
2:03:00
Speaker 1: We're available at Maya Derm dot com. Um. We we
2:03:03
Speaker 1: launching our website to be even more consumer focus and
2:03:06
Speaker 1: give offers and subscription programs for people who want to
2:03:09
Speaker 1: say about our mayam dot com website and social media.
2:03:12
Speaker 1: We're available in national retailers that people know and trust,
2:03:16
Speaker 1: like g n c UH. Dick Sporting Goods has been
2:03:18
Speaker 1: a great partner for us since Black Friday we moved.
2:03:21
Speaker 1: We went in to Dick Sporting Goods on Black Friday, right,
2:03:24
Speaker 1: you know this past year. That's a great feat. It's tough. Um,
2:03:28
Speaker 1: we're at Golf Galaxy, I think seven eleven. I love
2:03:31
Speaker 1: travel stops, medicine, medicine shop uh. And we're also expanding,
2:03:36
Speaker 1: so in the next quarters you will start seeing us
2:03:38
Speaker 1: in UH knocko Wood hopefully some national pharmacy change as
2:03:42
Speaker 1: well as some national grocery changes, because we want people
2:03:45
Speaker 1: to walk into their store and see our product and
2:03:48
Speaker 1: feel comfortable and safe and buder a retailers they already
2:03:52
Speaker 1: were in right and that matters a lot to well
2:03:54
Speaker 1: I did. I want to congratulate you, and you know,
2:03:56
Speaker 1: I know this is just part of the massive opportunity.
2:04:00
Speaker 1: You know, I'm always recommending people. I think I got
2:04:02
Speaker 1: a superstar. I'm gonna recommend you. I'm gonna sit down.
2:04:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call you this afternoon because now seeing your packaging,
2:04:09
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna call him this afternoon about
2:04:11
Speaker 1: this because and I want to know. I want you
2:04:13
Speaker 1: to know that the feedback you gave and other people
2:04:16
Speaker 1: gave did matter. So sometimes when people start brands, they
2:04:19
Speaker 1: come in with confidence, My stuff is right already right,
2:04:23
Speaker 1: I'm already good. You like me or not. What I
2:04:26
Speaker 1: took the stance was it was real, it was really good.
2:04:28
Speaker 1: How are we gonna make it better? And by listening
2:04:30
Speaker 1: to people, we started making the product better. And when
2:04:33
Speaker 1: you see some of the things we're gonna do in
2:04:34
Speaker 1: Q three and Q four, like, I want you and
2:04:36
Speaker 1: your your your network to feel comfortable being involved with
2:04:39
Speaker 1: because it's going to be oh no, this is our standard,
2:04:42
Speaker 1: this is our standing. Want thank you for coming to
2:04:43
Speaker 1: my show, Money Making Conversation. I'm here with your chief
2:04:45
Speaker 1: marking the officer Maya Derham based in the Colorado. My
2:04:49
Speaker 1: favorite state, um CPD top topical cream that you know
2:04:55
Speaker 1: theirpy Crean fans, thirdy get you already, get your life right,
2:04:57
Speaker 1: hit with all that other stuff I had th Gate
2:05:01
Speaker 1: you cant them? I darn where you know you now?
2:05:03
Speaker 1: Old school, New school or Sean McDonald. I'm your host.
2:05:08
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