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Nashville Fit Magazine Podcast

Ground Up Podcast - Tiny Irwin

Duration:
1h 14m
Broadcast on:
03 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Join us on the latest episode of the Ground Up podcast, where hosts Roy Mangrum and Terry Barga sit down with Tiny Irwin, the mastermind behind the prestigious Southern Whiskey Society. In this episode, Tiny Irwin shares his incredible journey from the corporate beer industry to becoming a high-level business coach, and eventually owning one of the South's most renowned whiskey societies.

Discover how Tiny's years in the corporate beer world shaped his approach to business, leadership, and coaching. Whether you're a whiskey enthusiast or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is packed with valuable insights on navigating the business landscape with the precision and passion that Tiny brings to everything he does.

Tune in to hear stories from inside the corporate beer industry, learn about the founding of the Southern Whiskey Society, and gain actionable advice from a seasoned business coach who knows what it takes to build something extraordinary from the ground up.

Don’t miss out—subscribe to the Ground Up podcast today and elevate your business game with insights from industry leaders like Tiny Irwin.

 

 
Welcome to Ground Up with Roy Manger and Terry Margie. The podcast we're all about getting down and dirty into the nitty gritty with real stories of building businesses shaping kick-ass cultures and becoming the kind of leader people want to follow. We're to sprinkle in some laughs lessons and maybe a few awkward moments. So whether you're the CEO the intern, the mail room or the top floor if you got big dreams get ready to roll up your sleeves and join two guys who aren't afraid to navigate the messy in one episode at a time. This is Ground Up. Welcome to the world of optimized hydration where science meets performance. Introducing Defiance Fueled Structured Water, the game changer in hydration technology. Defiance fuels patented process create structured water enhancing its natural properties for better absorption and hydration at the cellular level. It's more than water it's hydration engineered for peak performance. Whether you're happily pushing boundaries or someone seeking optimal wellness, Defiance Fuel is your ultimate hydration partner. Say goodbye to conventional water and experience the difference with Defiance Fuel Structured Water. Visit Defiancefuel.com to learn more and start hydrating at a higher level. Defy the ordinary with Defiance Fuel Structured Water. Defiance Fueled Hydration Elevated, the official hydration partner of Nashville Fit Magazine. What's up everybody Trent Denson here from Spread the Positive STP Productions and the Spread the Positive Podcast Network proud supporters and proud producers of all things Nashville Fit Magazine and the Ground Up Podcast. Huge shout out to Terry Roy and the whole team over at Nashville Fit Magazine. It's an honor to call you friends and an honor to be working with y'all and it's a great representation of the mission here at Spread the Positive. That mission is to bring light to what's going right. Stuff that's actually working. Stuff that is making a positive impact in our local communities and beyond. Do you need help with any aspect of podcasting, getting your message out telling your story or connecting with people that are about the same things? Please tap in. Check us out at Spreadthepositive.net. Reach out to us on any of our social media assets @spreadthepositive or you can reach me directly @trentdenson on Instagram or Trent @spreadthepositive.net. Look forward to connecting with y'all. Looking forward to telling great stories. Looking forward to being part of the mission of what's going right. Be part of it y'all. Tap in. We'll talk soon. Well welcome back to the Ground Up Podcast episode Roy what number? 37 and a quarter to our tens of tens of listeners. Welcome back. We're excited to have you. I am Terry. I am one of your hosts. What number is this for you? And this is Roy Mangrum. Roy. And this is our first time on camera. So we're going to be super awkward. But we were on camera last time. No we weren't. And I think this is episode five. Five. Could be wrong. That was my second guess. Probably four. That one the one at the Expo really messes me. That's true. So we're sitting here with our mutual friend. Tiny. Hello fellow. Tiny Erwin from the Southern Whiskey Society. And a whole bunch of other things. Yeah. But we came on today. We're excited to have you here. We didn't know you were going to bring bourbon. But since it's here. You act surprised. Can we maybe start pouring that? What did you bring? What did you tell us? You brought? Oh man. So this is a wilderness trail rye. And I've turned into a rye guy over the last couple of years. That's what we call maturity. Yes. I know. Right. I'll grow it up. One of these days you'll like rye Terry. Oh I love some rye. And so. Put that material. No you don't. This is actually a pick before I purchased the Southern Whiskey Society from 2020. It's a four year rye. Single barrel rye from wilderness trail. And the thing I like about this thing so much is that the name of this is called lemon ice box pie. Okay. And I had never and still have never had another rye that tastes like lemon. The citrus notes in it usually get spices. Sure. You know baking a baking spice or whatever. But never never. Any sort of citrus. All right. And so this was given to me as a gift this weekend by a good friend Will Brock. It looks half empty already. It is. Okay. He started on his way here. No judgment. Not at all. Gotta have your breakfast bourbon. I'm a little strong. And it is fantastic. I'm dying of anticipation over here. We don't normally get to drink on there. Well not well they wouldn't know because that's true. I guess it will. Or so you say. Yeah. Yeah. Smells different. Right. It's just. Yeah. Does it knows like a spicy rye? No. No. But cheers. Cheers to you being here. I can't reach you. So air cheers. I don't want to mess up the microphone. Let's get a little subset. Try having me guys. Ooh. Ooh that is interesting. Comes in smooth and a little bit sweet. Wow. That's so weird. It really is. And I hate rise. You'll never have another rye like this. Ever. It's crazy that you say that you don't like rise because that COVID. That Jack Daniel single barrel select which is a tongue twister. Mm-hmm is. It's money. You need to crack that open. Yeah. This is. Yeah. And there's just. This is right along with that one for me. There's just not many of these left. This was a single barrel that was picked. So what made it what makes it taste so different? It's done. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Wouldn't. So my buddy Will and I were talking about this and this is his favorite bottle too. He's a big whiskey guy and he went up to wilderness trail and was talking to the master distiller and was telling him about this bottle that he had from a single barrel pick that tasted like like you know citrus and lemon and he said he knew exactly what barrel was. He's like oh yeah it was barrel number blah blah blah and he said we've never had one that tasted like that. Have the china virus in it. Must be. Is it too soon? No. No it's not too soon. It tastes so totally different. Yeah I know. It is not your typical rye. No. No and this is there's not many people I would share this with. Oh wow. There you go on microphone. Well you know. Thank you thank you. We'll clip that. We're going to send it to all your friends. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. Royce here. That way Terry gets on. Well I can see where I fell quickly. No. No. No. No thanks for sharing this with me. Yeah I appreciate you bringing it. There's so much to talk about and to take apart. One of the things Roy and I love to do is to get into the entrepreneurial story in a way that is different than what is out there. There's a lot of fluff. There's a lot of hype. There's a lot of trash when it comes to entrepreneur. The entrepreneurial journey. And we just we want to go here like real. We want to be as real as people as we can. We'll talk about the actual the actual work. The bloods wet and tears. So that's what we want to that's kind of what we want to crack open here. Yeah. And I don't know your full story. Oh boy. Yeah so take us back because you're not from Nashville. No. Of course if you're listening to this outside of Nashville we appreciate you listening. But so you're not from here but you came here and you came here from Pacific North East West West. Yes. West. Tell us give us a little evolution. So we moved here August of 20. And it was right in the middle of COVID. And we were we just we were in Portland Oregon before this. And we were we were in a spot where we had our two boys were eight and eleven. And we had bought our dream home. We were living in an area with seven acres. I couldn't see my neighbor through a rifle scope. Awesome. It's fantastic. But when COVID hit and then that that isolation became real. The you know this city started paddle locking and putting fences up around parks and school ground playgrounds. And there was no no place for anybody to gather. The governor had put an edict out there that if you see people gathering called police it was just it was out of control. And so we took we left fast. So we got here in August of 20. And yeah I was you know my last real job I was the president and chief operating officer of a 75 million third generation beer wholesaler in Portland. It was kind of a it was the the the crescendo of my career in the beer industry. I'd spent almost 20 years in the beer industry. I'd started working you know on-premise in San Diego in early 2000 selling to bars and restaurants and had worked my way up to Miller through Miller Cores. Then I went to rogue Ales and Spirits in Oregon who wears the VP of sales. And then I went over and became the president and chief operating officer for a beer wholesaler. And so it was a great career. I loved it. But by the time in 2018 when I sold the business for the family I ran it for we I felt like I was just done in the industry. And I had I'd really thrown myself into like understanding business. I finished my MBA in 2007. And when I took over the beer wholesaler the family that I that I ran it for they all they said was fix it. I love those yeah in that detailed deep descriptions of the problem. My and my question was well what is what is fixing it mean to you. And I said we just want to make money. And so as I dug into it they had the same leadership in place for 25 years. I was the first person in leadership that the company had ever brought in from outside in 85 years. Yeah it was 85 years at that point 87 years in existence. And so everybody's nervous. They thought I was came I was brought in they brought me in as a lower level leader but everybody knew something was going on. And when I officially took over the you know they just fixed it. And so I didn't know what to do. I you know I'd never ran a company the size before. At that point it was about 55 million in revenue and we had 115 employees. How many direct reports did you have. At that point I had five and I either fired or encouraged to retire all of them. Oh so you got down to zero. Got down to zero. And then rebuilt that to back up to five. And so that was that was that in itself was a process. Sure right. So you had you had the institutional knowledge that was there. These guys that had been there for 25 35 years that knew where the bodies were buried. That knew all the things. But it wouldn't take long until I just said we're not dealing with this. And so Cleaned House brought in new people. And I just remember I remember in 2013 when I was just taking on the official role. And I just googled business leadership. And Dave Ramsey's name popped up. And I remember thinking to myself like out loud what's the credit card guy know about business. And right. And sure. But they had just launched. So they just announced their first on-trade leadership live event in San Diego. And it was going to be in 2014. And it was all of the thought leaders that I had studied when I was doing my MBA. There's Jim Collins, Lencioni. So all of these thought leaders were going to be speaking at this event. And I looked at this and I signed up immediately. And I went and I said this is the path. This is this is what I need to know. And it was literally nothing from my grad school program. It was all of this how to build a culture how to cast division how to create a structure how to get how to how to create what good looks like and create communication. So I just dove into that. I dove into learning through the from those thought leaders for years. Restructured company turned the organization around. We went from about 54 million in revenue 115 employees when I started in 2013 to when I sold it in 2018 we were doing 75 million in revenue. We were making millions every year and we had 175 employees. And so and that's when you know sold it for the family because they they were out of state. They weren't involved in the business. I had to pay them to come to quarterly the quarterly board meetings. And they would just check out. Was it their goal when they brought you in to sell it? No, it wasn't. It wasn't. They were happy receiving quarterly dividend checks living like they were millionaires even though they weren't. And what we discovered is like you know going through every department and this is something a lesson a valuable lesson that I learned is that you know my my default safety of safe areas is sales. I've been in sales for my entire life. So I went into sales. I restructured sales. I brought it to sales leader and then I left. I went into operations. I'm very logistically minded. So I went through operations. Then the VP of operations he left from the pressure brought new operations leader in. And then I started going into finance and administration. That hindsight that should have been the first thing I did. Sure. And as soon as I went into started looking into finance and administration. So I see the CFO quit. And he did interesting. Like V-Day. And I hadn't even made it to declaration that I was digging into finance. The CFO was traveling. It was on a Thursday and we did we did accounts payable every Thursday. And our our our our our controller comes into my office and said hey the CFO is out today. There's only two other people that can sign checks you and the owner and he's out you know should we should I wait till next week. And I said no. As a matter of fact I said bring him in. I'll sign the checks. As a matter of fact I'm going to start signing checks every week. And so the next morning when Don the CFO called in just a check in with a controller. They were getting ready to hang up and and and she said to him oh hey by the way Tiny did AP checks yesterday and he told me that he's going to start doing AP checks every Friday. By Sunday I had received a call from the patriarch of the family that ran this the 84 year old man saying that the CFO had called every one of the family members and demanded the report directly to the board and not me. Weird. Otherwise he was going to quit. And what should we do? And I just said thank him for his years served. Get it in writing. And I'll see you Monday. Or did tell him that I don't be on Monday. And so when I went into the office on Monday morning at 7 a.m. his entire office was cleared out. Wow. The only thing that I'm dying to know what he's hiding. The only thing that was left he had put in the middle of his office were all of the books that he had been given his gifts from entree leadership because I took him to the event with me. They were piled up in the middle. And he left. Interesting. Yeah. And so I'm the first one in the office. I'm like okay. This has got real real fast. The controller comes in at 8 o'clock and she looks in his office and he comes running into my office which is next door. And she looks at me and she's got tears in her eyes and says tell me that you know about the palette situation. And I said I do not know about the palette situation. But please tell me. And she said she was relatively new. She'd been there for a year and a half. She said I noticed a discrepancy in the books about a year ago where on paper on our financials deep in our financials we had been collecting physical palettes on paper. Right. So in theory we had 120,000 wooden palettes somewhere in on our property. Because that's what it said on our balance sheet. Interesting. And what it happened was is that the family had completely checked out of the business they were out of state. The previous general manager was 72 years old. So he was just he was running out his runway. And the CFO was responsible for the financial health of the business. He was also responsible for the banking relationships. And what the what the rhythm was is that he they both learned the GM and the CFO had learned that if the family came to the board meeting and he showed up and I saw this they would sit down and they would go to the very back page of the financials and to see where the dividend checks were. And then they would just check out for the rest of the meeting. So what he was doing was he was cooking the books to make the company look more profitable than it was. And to make sure that the company was in compliance with our loan regulations. And so he kept going to the bank for more loans because we were losing money. Dang. And as soon as I started signing AP checks he knew I was going to start looking into the books. That's why I jet it. And so I asked the question when was the last time we did a forensic audit and the answer was never. And I said when was the last time we did an official audit and they said never. Interesting. Yeah. And it was it was okay. And it got really really real. And and I and I looked at the owners and I said this is this is your fault. This is a culture that you've created by doing what you do and expecting what you expect and being disengaged the rest of the time. So I said I can fix this because at that point we had just we had just broken the Teamsters Union from the company. Teamsters had a stranglehold over the financials for a year 85 years just in the sanity. And so we had broken the Teamsters Union about a year before. And from that change we were able to add a million dollars to the bottom line just by healthcare options and 401k versus pension. We were still and we were still paying our people more. So we were we had a plan to financial solvency. It was gonna it was a long-term plan. But also at the same time we were growing so fast. Like we were the craft beer distributor darlings of the Portland market. Now Portland Oregon is the mecca of craft beer. At least it was back in the you know in the 2010-2020 area era. And so we were getting all of the new craft breweries. Like I brought founders into the Pacific Northwest modern times. These great national brewers and the big distributors weren't getting them. So we were growing so fast and we had a base of course light in Corona which were on fire. And so we were busting at the seams. So the family had owned 25 acres and we were gonna build a new warehouse. And so I designed a new warehouse. I was working with developers and it got to the point where all of this just really blew up. MSC if it was out. But I laid down the plan to you know to really dig ourselves out. But I also at the same time asked for a 10-year commitment from the family. If we're going to build this new warehouse we need I need to see I need to know. I need to know that you're in this for long haul. Not just you know to flip it and sell it. Because that had never been on on the agenda at all. They've never been on the discussion. And they wouldn't commit. And I got to the point I'm like give me two years. Just give me two years and I'll show you what we're going to do. And they wouldn't do that. And I said yeah. The family hated each other. There was a dad who was a second generation. He was 84 years old. He's literally a nuclear engineer from Hanford Nuclear Facility in Central Washington. He inherited the business when he was 55 from his dad who started it. In 1930 something. 20 something. So he had no interest in the business. And then he had four kids that were between 50 and 60 who all lived out of state. And we're not involved in the business at all. They just wanted to receive it. So they didn't have a dedication to the business. They didn't have a real tiny tie to the business. And so when I told them there was a plan and they weren't going to get their dividend checks. And if they wanted to get paid they had actually had to take a job in the company and not just get checked. They didn't get in. But it was one of those hard cold realities. And those are some really difficult conversations. And they came back and said I knew that I knew it was a gamble. And they came back and said no we're out. And we strategically our geography was set right smack dab in the middle of another distributor that had all of the rest of the Miller Corps area for Washington, Oregon. And we were one of the only non who's called their Columbia Distributing. They wanted our territory so bad. And so it once they told me that they were out I was able to negotiate a premium which was about 5 times higher than they would have got originally. And yeah, I told it. Interesting. Yeah, I have so many questions. Well, when you start talking about family businesses. Yeah, right. And you start getting into that third generation, fourth generation where 85% of businesses fail in that third generation. Well, okay. So keeping in mind that folks listening to this are entrepreneurs so much like yourself. Not a lot of them have that crossover experience, right, where you're coming from what looks like corporate America. When you're going into these individual departments at this job and you're looking for like you're getting forensic, right? You're getting detailed. Yeah. One, what are you looking for? Two, what is the overarching fix? I'm asking this in general terms because I know this is a deep, this is a rabbit trail. So if you can help them understand this so that they can self audit, what would that look like? So case in point, so I go into operations and I started at the very, very bottom. So like when you look at a beer wholesaler, their lowest position outside of the four walls is called a merchandising position. They're the people that actually have the, they touch the package of beer for the last ones that touch it before consumer buys it. So they technically, they have a very important job. They're the ones that are putting the beer on the shelves or building displays, making sure that it's available through the store to buy. I started working with them and spending time with them and would ask them the questions. What are we doing that other companies aren't? What are other companies doing that we should be doing to make your job easier, to make it more efficient, to make sure that we keep you around, right? Because you know, when you get into that spot where you just do the same things that you've always done because that's the way it's always been done, that will kill you. Yeah, absolutely. It's a death of innovation. 100%. And that was, it got to be the running joke with my assistant because my assistant would sit next to me at all of our executive meetings every week. And if I would, I would, I would, I'd ask a question. And when I ask a question, if anybody said, when I'd say, well, why do we do it that way? We've always done that one. And we got the, when anybody would say that, Ali would just look at them and be like, oh, you shouldn't have said that. Because that was, that was an invitation to change it. Yeah. Unless they could show me that this was the best way to do it. And they looked at other ways, then guaranteed that that was going to go into the into the crosshairs. And we were going to fix that. So just having that, like, as you grow, staying in touch with the actual business, the actual industry that you're in, because it's really easy that if you make widgets that people love, and that as you grow and you get builder and you have to get bigger, and then you have to hire more people to make those widgets, then you have to hire managers to manage those people that are making the widgets. Then you have to hire a sales team to sell the widgets that you're making in an operations team. Well, all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're in your 14 layers removed from the actual person picking up the widget on the shelf. Sure. And that's one of the things that I work with, my day job as a business leadership coach, is I work with clients and say, you have to be on that floor. You have to be sitting at that table. You have to be touching the product, engaging with the customer. So you know what's important, because the widget that you made that was so successful when you were the one putting it on the shelf or selling it to the customer, that was two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, and the widget industry has changed. So how do you stay and how do you know that what you're doing is right? No, that's a great question. So let me ask you this in reflection of that, because that needs, I think the overarching message you're asking or you're promoting here is that you can work yourself too far removed through growth, right? So we zoom back before we get to there, before we get to that growth, what part, maybe it's 80, 20, 60, 40, whatever, what element of your job as a leader is more people based over systems based, or is that a thing? Well, when you are growing your business, it really has to be both, right? But in those beginning stages, you're doing everything. And so as you grow, you have to have the right systems in place before you put the right people in place. Because if you start hiring people, but they don't know what the systems are, what good looks like, or what your expectations are, or what winning is, then how do you know the type of person to put in that role, the skill set, the hard skills, the soft skills, it's going to change everything. It makes a lot of sense. And so what I do is I go in and I work with clients and like, if you're doing this right now and your job and your vision is to not be in that role, then how do you do what you do? How do you gauge success? And then now, where is that stored? So when you hire somebody, you can look at say, this is what these are all of those components of this position. Same thing with core values. If you don't know what your core values are, how can you hire somebody to fiddle? Yeah. Yeah. And you're surprised. Man, I just can't make a good hire. You have no guidelines. Yeah, you got like, well, it's exactly. Yeah. I've got more questions. I have more answers or questions. Well, you got more bourbon. That's the bigger thing. There we go. Let's take a quick break for our sponsors and we'll come right back. Hey there, waxing enthusiasts. Are you ready to experience the ultimate and smooth skin and pampering? Get ready to say goodbye to those pesky hairs with wax in the city Brentwood, your new go to for all things waxing and beyond. My name is Greg and my wife and I recently opened our studio doors right here in Brentwood, Tennessee. And we can't wait to welcome you. Unlike those speedy wax joints, we take our time treating you like family every step of the way. Our premier club orange membership is the key to unlocking a world of smoothness. Enjoy 50% off your first visit, a $25 gift card, and 20% off your monthly service of choice. But hurry, we started with 50 memberships and only 15 or left. Ready to join the club? Book now and experience the wax in the city difference. Follow us on Instagram at waxing the city Brentwood for all the latest updates and exclusive offers. Once again, that's waxing the city Brentwood or smooth skin and pampering away. All right. So I will start off with the next question. Go for it. When you dive into the finance, you obviously find out this is not a great situation. You said you put together a plan that says, here's where we're at. Here's where we're going. How do we get here? Give me the cliff notes of how you put that together. It's not as simple, right? It's people going, I love when I talk to my accountant. He's like, oh, you just need to make an extra $50,000 a month. I'm like, yeah, if I could do it, I would get right on that. Yeah. Is the amway still a thing? It was so we were in a unique situation where I mentioned earlier that we broke the union, make eight to 10 months before that. That was a big, big part of why we were almost financially insolvent. We were bound by the previous administration before I got there, had agreed to all of these crazy stipulations with the union where everybody in the organization had to be covered by the union. Health care, it was just, it bled us dry. By breaking the union and being able to get out of the union, we had more financial flexibility. We already had, in the flux of cash that we were seeing, which they'd never seen before. We'd already built the income to come in. We didn't have to go find more, but we did. We looked at this and said, okay, how do we make up a difference? We started doing a deep dive into our costs. That was a big thing because the philosophy was that we were the smaller beer wholesaler in the Portland market. We were going to beat everybody on service. When I started looking into that, what does that mean? It means that we would send a 45-foot semi-truck four hours one way to drop off five cases of Arizona ISD. The salesperson would look at this and say, well, my job is to sell. If I'm not selling, then I'm not doing my job. This is best for the company. Everybody was in these siloed positions where, if you asked anybody in operations, well, we're a delivery company, we're a sales company, we're a finance company. We did as we broke down those walls and we started giving everybody line of sites of financials at different levels. What we did is we allowed people to see the impact of their decisions on their overall financial health of their department and that had never been done before. It's scary when you start giving line of sites of some financials to a merchandiser or a warehouse worker. Do they care? Do they not care? What do they do with this? What we did is we made it so they could see and understand so they could make better decisions. We did the math. There was a lot of smart people that figured this out. How much did it cost us to stop a truck? If you own a liquor store, Roy, and you own a grocery store, Terry, how much does it cost us as distributed to stop our truck and to deliver product to you? Well, there's a lot of variables in there, but we figured out that it was $280 to stop a truck with manpower, all the things. So then we started looking and said, okay, on average of all of our customers, like every customer on average, what did they spend with us per year per stop? And we looked at this and we then we drew them into this. We looked at this and we created a spreadsheet and color coded it and said, okay, if we delivered 2,000 customers, a thousand customers, easy use. How many of those do you think we actually made money on? In the old way of doing things, it was about 6%. What? I'm doing that same exercise. That's why I wanted to know. We're doing it with events. We've always done events. And when we were small, and it was me and me and my business partner. Not this business partner, the other business partner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeremy. I mean, we would just rock and roll and go to this event. And if we didn't, you know, there was years we didn't put anything in our pocket. But hey, we did events. Yeah, we were doing events. We're out and about. Yep. We'll get it now and go, okay, well, you made X, but what did you spend to make it? Right. Well, if you're only making a couple of bucks, is the juice worth the squeeze? Yeah, what's cost per acquisition? Exactly. Hey, you're 100% right. But when we brought this information to the sales team, they were flabbergasted. I bet they wear it to you. And I mean, it was. And so what we did is we created a tiered system. And there was a bottom tier, a tier one, and these people, these accounts were never going to be able to spend enough money with us to justify. And so we made the decision to say, thank you for your business, but we will no longer be servicing you. And when you tell that to a salesperson, they freak out. Yeah. Like, what do you mean? I'm just I'm selling what it does. It makes sense. Right. And so then we went into tears and said, okay, the next year, we're listening to you on average, you spent X with us. And so we'll we'll we'll we'll deliver to you once a month. And then it was every other week. And then it was once a week. And then it was like the big grocery stores, we'll deliver to you two or three times a week. But it was all based on it was all math, right? Numbers don't lie. And so and there was there was some there was some artwork in there with some of these accounts that said we feel like we can we can bring them up to the next year. But it was really it was like we had to control our costs. And we had we we as a company had to change our mind shift from individual departments doing individual things to now I'm going to make a decision and I'm going to see how it impacts the overall financial health of what we do. And it's going to help us make better decisions. And there were some people that now keep in mind, this is a, you know, 90 plus year old company. There were generational employees there. There were people that worked there because their parents worked there. Right. Sure. That had never worked anywhere else in their lives. And so you change this philosophy and people don't understand it. They don't get it. And there were a number of people that just didn't have the capacity to really wrap their brains around. There's like, oh, you're taking money off the table. Yeah. But it's not it's not the case. Yeah. And so, you know, when we we changed this, there was a number of people that either left or had to be told that they weren't a good fit anymore, because they just couldn't understand it. So then we had to bring in new people that said, okay, that had that more of a global mindset of like this, if I do X, it impacts us here. Sure. So we did. And we started bringing in the people from outside the industry, some people that really just kind of got that. And and we just like what we did was we blew up the whole model of like how you structure a sales team and what that looks like and how you compensate them. And who's doing what? So it was really interesting. And we were able to do that. But the family didn't want to. They looked at the immediate payout versus the long term. Sure. Yeah. And they're just like, and I don't blame them. Listen, if you if all you want, if you're in business, they were third generation and they had a fourth generation that was coming up, if you don't really care about this and your fourth generation doesn't care even less than they care less than you do, then you have to ask yourself, why are you in this? Right. So and I don't I'm not mad at them for doing it. You know, and it was interesting because I was to blame for it that they were completely out of the picture. The family was out of state. So they the employees looked at me and said, this is your doing. They brought you in to sell the company and quite the opposite. Like it was never on the table. Right. So that's crazy. Like as like, as an entrepreneur, I'm sure Roy will echo this, the goal is to get there. And the fact that it's there and you're improving it, like you're, that's when it's pre primed, the work's done. And you're ready for full on scalability. But yeah, you went out, you went out. It is tough though, like, and even even though, you know, with my company, you know, I've been there since the beginning, of course. So I'm 11 years in, and it's hard for me to see those things where, or I don't want to see them where I'm like, yeah, but we made 10 grand this weekend. But what did it cost? And it's hard to go. Yeah, but it's a thousand dollars profit. Well, a thousand dollars profit. Is it worth, you know, you're paying somebody for the full year to do these things? Is it worth that, that trouble? And when you have a fresh set of eyes coming in, they don't have those preconceived notions of this, right? It's, hey, let's find a better way. Right. Let's, let's fast forward a little bit. I want to fast forward that we're going to backtrack. So, bear with me. Because I know your day to day is different than, than Southern whiskey society, but I want to get to Southern whiskey society. So as someone who spent that amount of time in to recap, you were in the beer industry, you helped reshape the way this business was was running. And then you ultimately helped them sell it. You springboarded out of that, ended up at Dave Ramsey. Yep. Ultimately left there to launch your own coaching business. Yep. And then from that coaching business, you dove into, you saw an opportunity and jumped on it. Yeah. Which I, I joke about this all the time in my life. I was like, success means, what success means to me is the ability to see a deal and jump on it. Yep. And when I say that, I'm specifically speaking to business. So let's go there for a second and then we'll get backtrack to coaching. Sounds good. So what inspired you to go, how did you go from beer to bourbon, first of all, and then how from bourbon, did you go, I don't know what I want to, I want to own this event. Yeah, it's interesting because when I was in Oregon, California, west coast, my exposure to whiskey was Jack. Gentlemen, Jack. Sure. Right. And that's, and that's what I did. That's what I drank. Don't hate. Don't hate. Don't hate. Don't hate. Don't, Jack. But then coming out here and working at Ramsey for like two cups of coffee, culture was whiskey and cigars. Sure. And then, you know, I became, I was introduced to, you know, the bourbon club that we're a part of. And then I just really got into it. I really started to appreciate that all that goes into whiskey. Yeah. The history, the stories, the fact that that you can sit down with a glass of whiskey and have these great conversations. And for me, it's so much different than beer. Yeah. Beer is something that you do while you're mowing a lawn. That's what I was going to say. You're smoking a cigarette, right? Yeah. Watching a football game. Yeah. And I've just never, I've never smoked a cigarette in my entire life. I stopped drinking beer when I got out in 2018, not that I'm opposed to it. It was just, when you do for, when you do for work with everybody, that's for fun, it's not fun anymore. Yeah, sure. So it's got out. But then being introduced to whiskey and all that goes with it. And the conversations I had with like you and Jerry, you know, flipping and all these guys over about a bottle about where it came from in the history and all the things I was just being fascinated with it. And it was January of last year of 2024, where Leah was really encouraging me to start my own whiskey group in Williamson County. It was, you know, we grew up in the Nashville. You live in Nashville. I'm in Williamson County. It was just a drive. Yeah. And and Leah's, my wife was just encouraging me to start my own. And then a friend of ours showed me the text or the, the Instagram post from the Southern Whiskey Society that says we're looking for someone to take over the organization. And I didn't know much about it. I knew that it was a one day event. I knew that the year before I was going to go, but I didn't. Other than that, I didn't know much about it. And so I started looking into it and asking around. And I asked my buddy Joe Levitt from Ramsey, who is like the one of the top guys there for live events. I texted him and said, what do you know about the Southern Whiskey Society? And he said, everything I'm best friends with Chris Thomas. Oh, perfect. And he said, why do you ask? And I said, I'm considering buying it. And he immediately called me and said, you need to buy it because you would take this thing to the next level. And so we started having this great conversation. And then I showed it to Leah and her immediate response was, why wouldn't you? Like one of our core values as a family is that we create community wherever we go. We've had this track record. We've been in Williamson County for no one's over four years. It's longer than I've ever lived in any home since I was 17 years old. So we moved around a lot every couple of years. But we have this track record of you look at our history that there are groups of people that didn't know each other before we moved into an area. And once we've left, there's still life on friends. So we create community wherever we go. And she said immediately, now you just have a bigger platform. You have a bigger microphone. And so she's like, do it. And so we did. And it just made sense. And my wife would encourage me to spend money. Well, there's a bath component to this too. You alluded to, I've learned over the years that I am really good. I have this. I'm not a startup guy. Yeah, right. I don't do, I don't work with startups in my coaching business. I've learned the name for this skill set. It's discernment. I can learn, I can, no, it's, it's, it's, Lencioni does the working genius. And that's my top working genius by far is discernment. Sure. Because I can look at something that's already existing and say, if we tore it apart and built it up different, it would do this. And I've always done that in every role that I've had in my entire life. And then taking the company and doing that with a beer distributor. And then I looked at this opportunity with the Whiskey Society and I was like, oh yeah. And this, we could, we could do this on a heartbeat. And that was a question. So, you know, Terry, you're on my board. And one of the questions that another guy, my friend Michael asked, he said, why, why wouldn't you just do something on your own? Instead of paying the money to buy this, just started on your own. Yeah. And for me, it was an easy, it was an easy answer. Because I, it's already, it's already here. I can fix this. Yeah. I can change this. Basically, what I'm buying is I'm buying a contact list for the Steelers. I'm buying a brand that some, that some people know. And that I can easily do a transfer of trust was with. Yep. Instead of having to start. And that whole idea said, yes, let's just buy it. And so we paid, you know, two and a half X for it. And we paid it off before we even sold out the event last year. So, well, yeah, there's, there's that you sold out the event. Yeah. And I think it's worth it. It's worth backing up a little bit. So, I'm on Chinese board, but Chinese also on our board of advisors with Roy and I for both the, we do lean on you for the Expo and for the National Fit Magazine. So, we appreciate you for that. But we've, you and I have gone, you, Roy and I, for that first event, we all put our brains together to figure out what that was going to look like. Yeah. And so, let's talk about that. So, then we're going to go, then I'm going to go back to the coaching. So, year one, which I think, when I reflect on this, you bought it and you were like, yeah, you know, we got four months. Yeah. We got, we can do this. That was like four months. Roy and I spent a year and a half trying to play. And I've never in my entire life done a live event ever. So, I sit down with Roy and Terry. I'm like, so, like, you got three and a half months. What are you going to do? And he hadn't even signed, he hadn't signed a rental agreement because he wasn't going to do the event last year. I mean, there was, there was nothing. It's a miracle that it got done. It's an absolute miracle. And I just remember sitting down with YouTube multiple times going, so what do I do here? This is interesting. Yeah. But you killed it. But we did. No, we, we did. We killed it. And it was great. And it was outward facing the feedback was, man, this was fantastic. We, you know, we had multiple board meetings and the philosophy was surprising the light. What can we do? What are the little things, the big things that we can do to surprise and delight people? And that's where, like, we all went into this. Right. And so, everybody felt like they had the authority and autonomy to do things that allowed, that created that surprise in the light. And for that, it was, it was a huge success. Yeah. I love the whole back end. Like, it's, it's basically the same thing. I tell my stuff now. It's under promise over deliver. Surprise and delight. It's a very similar thing. It's much more positive. I love that. Go into it just a little bit. So help people understand some of the things that you did for surprise and delight. Okay. Because they're not super complicated. No, it wasn't. The first thing I did is I had to understand what some of the issues were. Right. What people were frustrated with that had been before that didn't know that, you know, that weren't, that didn't come back. Yeah. And one of the biggest pieces of feedback I heard was the check in process. Like, you know, we charge more for VIP tickets because the key driver for that is we get an hour early. Yeah. So you get those VIP pours before everybody else gets there. Well, then I started hearing that, like, listen, we would get there at five, four, 45, we wouldn't get into five 30. And so there's a lot of frustration around them. So we set around the table and so, okay, the, the thing that we are going to do this year become hell or high water is doors open at four 45. Yep. We're not telling people. But we're going to tell people to show up a little early and we're going to get them checked in and they'll, and they'll be in by five. And so people started queuing up at four 30. And along with that, we had a welcome cocktail. So people started to show up in line. We had a welcome cocktail for them. So they, they stand in line, they get a welcome cocktail. They're being checked in and in 15 minutes before doors open, they're in. Right. And so when, and I just remember standing there, watching people walk in, just happy. And there's nothing that makes me happier than to see you walk in the door going, I'm happy. Right. Because on the flip side of that, Terry and I went to another big national whiskey event, right, a couple of months afterwards. And we were about, we bought, we had VIP tickets and we were standing there. And at the time, the doors were supposed to open. They weren't open. Correct. And we looked at each other and said, not open two minutes later, not open four minutes later, they opened. And, and you looked at me and said, Terry looked at me and said, if we had done nothing else right this year, we brought the VIP experience back. Right. And that was it. That was, that was because those, those are the people that pay high dollar. Yeah. Those are the people that will, will either tell their friends to go or not go. Well, they're, they're emotionally invested. Yep. They're passionate about your event. Why would you not reward them? They're the quickest to buy the next ticket. Right. They're always there for you. And that, that is something that gets to make, make VIP VIP again. Yeah. Exactly. Like, what does it look like to actually treat, treat that, that passionate customer with, you know, love and respect. Yeah. Rewards, that excitement. So yeah, that's, that's huge. And it's not that difficult. It's not hard. Yeah. It's not hard. It's, it's clear communication. Right. It's a clear vision. We sat around that table, the, the board table. And I said, the vision for this event is that, that doors open at 445. Right. That when people walk in those doors, they are happy. Yeah. What makes them happy? Getting in on time or early, getting a, having a drink in their hand and just ready to go. Yep. Right. So that was a vision. And we all rallied around that and it happened regardless of what else half made it or may not have happened that night. That initial contact was an absolute success. Yeah. I would agree with that. Would be a miss if we didn't go into the nitty gritty. So all of this seems seamless and there's positive, build on positive, build on positive. There are a lot of things about this process, even on the beer industry, so the whiskey society and even in coaching. So let's go into coaching a little bit. When you're talking to the desperate business owner who is in, who is obviously in need, maybe they're at their wit's end and they're coming to you, what is the overarching pain point that you're, that you're dealing with on a regular basis? It's usually over being overwhelmed. Yeah. They are at a point where they can't do it all themselves, but they feel like they can't afford to pay someone to help them. They are doing everything. They are lonely. They're isolated because they're working 20 hours a day. They're frustrated because things aren't working the way they want them to work and they just are absolutely at wit's end. Okay. Well, let's dissect that. You it. So Roy and I, I'm pointing at Roy. The cameras aren't working, obviously. So if you're listening to this and you thought you were going to watch it, just know that that may be next time. So Roy and I have what we call mental health check ins. So that is very much true. The loneliness is probably the biggest thing. Being a leader, whether you're a C level executive, right? And that C suite or you're an entrepreneur, you're in that one to five or even the five to 10 year. It is the most lonely journey out there. Yeah. So as you're pointing to me, I'm a bourbon. How do you navigate that? And Roy, I don't want to, I don't want to hijack this conversation. Oh, but he's going to you. Oh, right. Why not? When in Vegas? I mean, to say Vegas, I'm in Nashville. No, it is. I mean, it's, it, it truly is. And most people, unfortunately, don't get a coach until later. Like once it's like going, you know what, I should buy a fire extinguisher because my house is on fire. Yeah, that's exactly right. Instead of going, I bought a house, let me buy a fire extinguisher. They do it backwards. Nobody thinks of prevention. No, yeah, it's, you know, you know, I have stomach cancer. Let me go get insurance. No, you should have insurance already. Right. It feels to people like it's a luxury. Right. Once I get to this point in my career, I'm going to get a coach and, and then it'll be good. That's a mindset problem. A hundred percent is. And I remember when I first got, when I got my first business coach, and I just like, man, I've got someone that I can talk to. Take that. That's the biggest part. He gets. Yeah, it's true. Someone that for me, and this is what I am for my people, is that space, a dedicated space where they're taking the time and they're, they're getting out of the business. And we're, they're getting on, they're working on the business. And even if it's just to talk and say something that's on their heart or their mind, that they can't tell other people. Right. Because, you know, you know, Leah, Leah, Leah's my wife, we joke around, she keeps telling me that I need to go back and get my counseling degree. Because, I mean, it's what you're doing. I am counseling already. Yeah, I'm working with clients. I've worked most of my, all of my clients I've worked with for like three years now, that I'm so involved with not only their business, but their personal lives, their family lives, and their social lives. And it's just, I know more about my clients than most people do. And because they look at this as a safe space, they look at me as a someone they can talk to. And most people don't have that. And so it's, when I look at people say it's not a luxury, it's a necessity. What happens if you don't? What happens if you don't have someone you talk to? What happens if you don't have a tight knit community? I feel like the oldest, yeah, I feel like the oldest cliche, and it's so true. So I'm going to keep bringing the bell. You want to go far, you go with somebody, you want to go fast, you go by yourself. I didn't say it. I don't know who said it at this point. I'm so far removed. But there's the reason that my heat-seeking missile when I got the Expo was like a straight to Roy. I don't want to do it. You don't want to do it alone. Because it's already lonely. Well, and I look at this too from an athletics position. You look at Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods has multiple coaches, and he always has. He always will. If you look at LeBron, LeBron's had the same strength and conditioning coach for 20-some years. And you would look at him and say, "Why does he need somebody?" But you always need that person that has the outside perspective. That one takes the time to research and develop like, "Hey, listen, you're doing this. Let's work on this." I'm going to bring you a new theory, a new philosophy, because as a performer, you don't have time for that. But if you make the time for a coach, that's one of the roles I play with my clients, is I read so many books. There's so many podcasts, and I'll bring different theories and philosophies and ideas that have changed people's lives that have said, "Listen, I have changed the trajectory of their career and their business," because they didn't have the time to do this. So by working with, I have a handful of clients I work with, I take the time to physically dig deep into how can I make their lives better? I have to. I'm going to divert to Roy on this, because you literally just did this to me, and I'll put you on the spot. It's going back to what you said as a coach. One of the key things that you said there was that I can't afford to hire help in that person stays in that habitual 20-hour workweek. We all can sit here and we can agree that our wives at minimal, our wives deserve better than our leftovers. If that's the case, and we love our family, we love our wives, what does it look like to hire somebody? Roy just did this to me not too long ago. It's a hard thing to do, but you won't regret it once it's done. As a matter of fact, you'll likely make more money. So let's talk about hiring help. That's what would you like to know about hiring help because that's thought. How does this work? When you take it, one, how many of your clients actually take this advice, and two, what is the immediate thing that they see? Yeah. So before you answer, what's the first pushback? Oh, that's a great question. That they throw at you. Can I afford it? I hate that. That is so true that they say that. I'll tell you what I do, and then I want you to chime in because I love your opinion on how I've always looked at it. I look at it two ways. What am I the time that I'm doing for this task? What is my time worth? What could I do with that time if I had it back? Two, usually you're able to utilize that person because your time is already spread with other things. How can they create more revenue? Because I always look at, hey, if I hire somebody, they have to pay for themselves or more. How do you, what's your thoughts? So what I do is I have a client go in and I have them list all of the things they spend their time doing, a time audit. How do you spend your day, your weeks, your months? How do you spend it? What are the 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 things that you do? Now, when you look at that and say, if you could only do 20% of those things, what are they? What are the things that you're absolutely amazing at? And so then they go through and they literally have to, if there's 100 things, it's 20, if there's 50, it's 10, no more. And then once they do that, all right, the exercise, now, who's going to do those other, if it's 50 tasks and they've identified 10, okay, now who's doing the other 40? Because if you imagine what could happen if you spent all of your time, 100% of your time doing those 10%. So the things that you're great at, you love to do or the only you can do. It's a game changer. It's a game changer. It is. Because, you know, it's that whole, that's where your revenue is coming from. And so imagine if you owned the company and you spent all of your time doing those things that only you could do. And now you hire someone to do the other thing. And that's always the first, always 100% time. The first position is an assistant. To do those things that are on your plate, the tasks that you spend your time doing. And then as now, that person takes over those roles, that those responsibilities, and then they become really good at those, all right. And so there's this whole process that I've been really diving deep into through the book 10X is easier than 2X. And I just, it's those exercises. Nobody does that. I have to do anything. Really, you have to book your own travel. You have to update a website. You have. Imagine this. You have to respond to your emails. I'm laughing at this because these are the questions. These are the conversations we're going to have on a weekly. It's an offer. And when I look at an owner and say, really, you have to respond to all your emails. Really? Why is that email coming to you in the first place? Exactly. And now, imagine if it didn't. Imagine if you had someone that was in that spot to filter your emails that could only give you the emails only you needed to see. Right. Not only that, Tony, but the anxiety when you open the email box, and instead of 120, it says 4. Yeah. I mean, just that's like a hate email with a passion. Right. And I'll be honest. Oh, I know. I know. Yeah. That's why I just don't answer it. Yeah. Well, you know, this ties in with the whiskey side. Like I, because it's such a small organization, and we're relatively new, I'm doing all of the things. Sure. The bane of my existence is tasks. Yeah. I hate tasks. I hate them. I'm a visionary. I'm a big picture thinker. And today I woke up and I looked and I said, I have no tasks at all on my to-do list. I get to do the things that I want to do. I get to spend time thinking. I can sit in my chair and think about the vision and the direction of where we're going. I can research. I can do the things I want to do. And there's so much joy in that. In the last few weeks, last couple of months, I've just felt so drained because of all the tasks. And part of this is I'm building out the system processes so I can give to somebody. Yeah. Right. And say, you do these next year, because this is how it's done now. And this is how I want them to be done. And it's going to be a game changer. Yeah. 100%. But I'll tell you, the last four months have been hell because I had to do those things because I had to figure out how they needed to be done. And now they're figured out, and I can hire somebody to do the things next year. Yeah. And when your time is monopolized like that, it like you can't dream. No. No. No. At all. No. Like you can't. What would you do different? I don't know. I don't have time to think about it. Yeah. That's the big. So that's just a big thing. I think we all can sit here. And I think each one of us are both in that all three of us are in that visionary mindset. Now we've adapted over over time. And we've gotten really good at performing the tasks. Yep. Out of necessity. And if you're listening to this, and that's you, and you're that vision, that vision, that forward thinker, know that you have to integrate, you've got to figure out the tasks part of it, right? You get to figure out the administrative part of it. If you want to be, if you want to be a well-rounded entrepreneur, and you want to make it past that five year mark. But that's so like what you said, Roy, is so pivotal. Like when you're working 20 hours a week, and you're dependent on yourself for all of the things where you're going to hit a wall. And that wall comes so freaking fast. Yeah. It's 18 months saying it's 25 months. It just shows up, and there's nothing you can do about it. Right. Yeah. It's there. Right. Now you got to beat your head against the wall, or do you want to, or do you really want to, you want to elevate this thing? I think that's, I mean, that's, that's the big, that's the big question, right? Yeah. And that's, it's really, like, I've given, I love the whiskey sign. I love it so much. I love being back in the industry and the relationships. I've actually, I haven't even said it out loud, but my wife sees the look of my face, and she'll look at me and say, it's a, you can't stop coaching. Right. You can't. Well, it's given you life. Well, and she said, and the difference is made in my, in my client's lives. Yeah. Two. And she's like, I know you love this, but you have to keep doing this. Because one, you're good at it too, the life of it. Because otherwise it's, you know, goes through my very core being of why I do what I do is to battle the epidemic of loneliness. Right. Because people are lonely. Business owners, business owners are lonely. So the long ways thing you can do? Yeah. And people don't, they don't know that. They look at you and they're like, oh, you could do, you don't have a phosphory you could, you could start drinking vermin at two in the afternoon if you want to. It's because they're watching Instagram. Well, I watch it. Oh, don't get me started on the Instagram. So those guys, those guys, those, we talked to the business owners. Exactly. And the mom's basement. And on the last episode with Greg Younger for waxing the city. And that was, that was his reflection. And he's absolutely right. Like all the ones, the Instagram influencers that you see, that's not real life. No, that's not grassroots. That's not hands dirty. That's not sleepless nights. You know, burning the candle at both ends. 20 hour days. Yeah, it's 100% not that. No, that is, and that's the life that we've all subscribed to. Yeah. And sure there, I'm sure there is the, you know, Tai Lopez is out there of the world that, you know, do have the six Lamborghinis in a garage with a waffle books and, you know, sell their online classes. But out of the numbers and scores of entrepreneurs out there, it's not what it is. No, it's not what it is. Now there is, there's a huge freedom trade off. That's true. Yeah. So like, you know, I'm only, you know, just over a year out of the corporate world full time. So there's a huge freedom trade off. Yeah. But it ain't easy. I mean, this is probably been the most stressful year of my life. And you think about it's different, right? I was having this conversation with my wife because she wants to go and do her own thing. And she wants to be a nutrition coach. And she works for a hospital right now. And she told me yesterday, I asked her, I said, how do you like wearing scrubs to work? And she said, I liked them for the first month. And now every time I put them on, it's a soul sucking activity. It's a reminder. Yeah. That. And, and I said, and she's like, I want the freedom to do what I want when I want. And I said, but also, yes, and know that when I'm up at two AM, because I have these things going through my brain that I can't get out that need to be done, I started two AM. And that's not necessarily what you want. No, at all. You want to be sleeping. Exactly. But as you're starting a business, as you're starting something, it just takes that time to do it. So there's a trade off, right? To where it, but it's so satisfying to know that when you're, when I'm up at two AM doing those things that are on my mind, thinking, no one's done this before. So I have to put this in place so I can hand this off to somebody else. And every time I create a process, you know, I look at my wife and said, well, that's something I won't have to do again. Yeah, that's cool. And it feels good, right? They'll create that clarity. And it's about clarity. No, you're 100% right. It sounds to me like we need to create something for entrepreneurs to escape to, to build community, right? To feel empowered. And if there was some people that could do that, maybe. So tiny, for a hot second, let people know, like all three of us do business coaching. And it's powerful. And it's, it's as much life giving to us as it is to the people we're talking to. Go ahead. I want you to plug every service that you have. So there's someone listening to this that needs, that needs to tie in and they need to get a coach. Yeah, not your chance. If so I love to work with people that have established businesses, yeah, that not start-ups, because I just I don't have that mindset. But when you get to that point where you need to grow past you, and you need to build your team and do things differently, or you're transitioning, right? You want to transition out. That's why I work with. So I would love to work with those clients. So those are, you know, my sweet spots about five to 75 million revenue. Just being honest, because the small ones are like, I just don't, I don't get the fundraising, I don't get all the stuff. So that that's what I love to do. So yeah, I've got a website, tinyyearowind.com, IRWIN. There's some really fun things that I'm starting to do with the convergence of the whiskey society and coaching. It's, that's a lot of fun. If you're interested in that, you can actually reach out to me personally, because it's not something that will ever be public, or really, you'll, it's kind of you got to know to know. Yeah. That is really, really fun. A little private. A little private. A little invite-only. It's an invite-only, but it's really, really special. I know this because I've helped you on a few things. Yeah, Terry's been a part of this. But yeah, you can go to southernwhiskysociety.com and shoot me a note or tinyyearowind.com. That's my email. Well, I, I don't want to speak for Roy here and you can hop in when you want it. But this has been amazing. Thank you. Just getting, getting your thoughts basically on audio and your, your expertise on audio. I think it's really helped, it's going to help a lot of people. So I appreciate you stopping by. Yeah, I love it. And bringing bourbon. We're going to have whiskey by the, it's not bourbon. Oh snap. It's rye whiskey. I have two complaints. Go ahead. One, we're limited on time. Always. Because there's a lot more we can dig into. Two, your air conditioner sucks to that. Wait, does he have an air conditioner? I don't think he has air. I thought we were seeing it. There's a heater right there. I thought we were sitting in a sauna. Yeah. Is there a cold plunge out back we can jump into. Yeah, it's kind of green though. Oh, not picky. Not picky. We'll just have to have more whiskey. But no, this, this could go on for many hours. So what do you think? We got to bring them back. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. For sure. It's really, it's fun. Leah, Leah hears these stories and she hears snippets of them all through. And she's like, you really need to write a book. And I'm like, nobody wants to read what I, what I have to say. And I honestly, that's the voices in my head. Yeah, we all have those voices, right? And I've actually gone past that and said, people do want to hear what I have to say. Because I, I've done some unbelievable things. I've been blessed to lead some really cool organization to do some great things. So yeah, I love to share with the stories. Well, we look forward to having you back. Thank you. You actually obligated per your contract when you signed up to be on on board of directors. I didn't read the fine print. So you're screwed on the back page. Yeah. I do not doubt that 100. Yeah, that's how we roll. Yeah. Well, guys, we appreciate you listening to this to the ground up podcast. Always, please like and subscribe and share this with your friends. We're, Roy and I gonna be busy with tiny off air drinking the rest of this bourbon. So we've about killed it. Whiskey. And we're going to kill this whiskey. And what is it again? This is a wilderness trail rye. Okay, so there you have it. If you want to know where excellence comes from, there it is. There it is. We appreciate you all listening. Share it with your friends. And we'll catch you on the next one. We want to thank you for tuning into ground up. We'll be back next week with more insights, interviews and inspiration to help you build your business. If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe and leave us a review. Until then, stay strong leaders and keep hustling. [Music]