(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone. My name is Ashley, our post-time back, and I am thrilled to announce my new podcast on the Hope Cast Network, Locks of Locks, where I will be chatting with comedians, restaurateurs, and everyone in the entertainment industry about comedy, duh, pop culture, and of course, a little bit of food. You can follow lots of laughs on Instagram, @locksoflapspodcast, and lots of laughs will be available on Spotify, iTunes, anywhere you listen to podcasts. So like, follow, subscribe, and I cannot wait to know-ish with you. (upbeat music) This is the Hope Cast Network. Stories and shows you actually want to listen to. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of You Don't Know, which you don't know with. Kamal Grant, as I'm here trying to learn more things and know more things, and talk to business leaders in the CPG space. So I got somebody that I would consider, 'cause a lot of times in your journey out here, and you're doing things on your own, you don't have a lot of mentors, so I would consider this person my mentor, and people ask me, "Do you have a mentor?" I say, Bill Skeen, so I'm glad that he chose to do this and talk about his journey and share some of the conversations and insights we're having here, so thank you for joining me here today, Bill. - Yeah, happy to do it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a little bit about, Bill, and I mean, you can obviously tell about yourself, you know, fascinating. I know, are you originally from Illinois? - Yeah, I grew up in Chicago on the south side in a neighborhood called Hyde Park. - Hyde Park? Okay, and then you went to Eastern Illinois? - I did, yep. - Okay, what would you major in out there? - I was a marketing major. - Marketing major, is that what, 'cause I think part of your history is that you started a small business while you were there selling like candies and popcorn and stuff like that? Did you bring that? - I started a company out of my dorm room when I was in college, and what happened is that the desk, the front desk where I was staying at the dorm, the dorm director, he was always looking to get some extra money so that we would have program money for the dorm to do whatever, intervals or whatever. And, you know, he was very successful at it, but the other dorms around campus asked him, "You know, what are you doing? What are you doing?" And he didn't really wanna be in business. He wanted to be a dorm director. So I was one of his RAs or resident assistants at the time and he goes, and I would always help him out and he'd go, "Bill, can you take care of these people?" I was like, "Yeah, I can take care of them." So what I used to do is sell peanuts, popcorn, and taffy apples to the other dorms and fraternities while I was in school. And they used to have movies in the quad and I'd set up a concession out there and hawk stuff. And so I had all the keys to all the storage rooms. So I had no problem in storage space. And really, I turned it over every week. I used to have, in the fall, I used to have, I used to order 50 cases of affy taffy apples, which were the taffy apples of the time. And I used to already having pre-sold in the dorm director, which find me in the lunchroom, and say, "Skins, come get those damn taffy apples off." Well, doc, you know, I used to buy 50 pound bags of peanuts. And you know, kids love, at that point, the drinking age in Illinois was 18. It feels like a five-year-old. Oh, that's fascinating. There was about a five-year period where it was 18 and it happened to be the time I was in college. Oh, that's amazing. So anyway, so I said, "What do kids like with beer?" And I said, "They love, they love something salty." So I used to have a freshman kid in one of these rooms I had access to, bagging up bags of peanuts. And I'd sell them to the other dorms at fraternities. And then I had the dorm secretary who was an accounting major and tried to get her a accounting degree. I had her do the billing. So I would just take the orders and, you know, I delivered in my car to the different dorms and then she did the billing. So, but it really helped me put my way through school and was a valuable lesson. And also one of those, when I got my job in the CPG, they were fascinated by the fact that I had started a business out of my dorm room. So that is fascinating. So it was making a good enough money where you made a healthy profit. So it was a good business. - Yeah, I never had a problem with change or money because I did the thing as interesting as this was in, I'm gonna date myself now, but this was in the heart of the disco area, Europe. And we used to have dorm parties in the basement which you could have and you could serve drinks. And they didn't want college kids driving all over, you know, to the different. And so we would rent this room out to the different floors in the dorm. And so what ended up happening is, is that I was also the beer distributor. So they had to have to buy the beer for me. - Oh, wow. - And I knew we were successful when the, at that time it was Paps Blue Ribbon. - It's still Paps Blue Ribbon, by the way, okay? - Yeah, exactly. But that guy said to me, he said, can we put one of those neon signs out front of the dorm? I said, he said, you're selling more Paps Blue Ribbon than the bars are. I said, I don't think you've written so for that. But we built a disco in the basement of the dorm and complete with a mirrored ball and everything like that. It was quite the party room. - No, that's fascinating because I mean, you hear a lot of people with entrepreneurs how they got into it. And sometimes it's like, it's, you just want to scratch. Or sometimes, you know, you hear a story like yours which you just naturally went into entrepreneurship. Like you were just living light and saw a need. It was like, I can just give y'all beer. I can sell y'all this. And then it just became a full-fledged business. - Well, and it's the, it's the same story. You got to find a need that people have. And you know, you know, they needed peanuts. They needed tap apples. They needed beer and I was there to serve them. - Yes, you are. So I guess, yeah. So that was your first foray into, I guess, the sales and marketing. So right after, and when you graduated college, you got a job with Sarah Lee right away? Or when did you go to Sarah Lee? - Yeah, right out of college, I went to work for Sarah Lee. And they had a sales position open in Peoria, Illinois, which is the most exciting place, but it was the first stop. And they, you know, I was very successful there and actually got promoted about 10 years, 10 months later. And up to Chicago and then I was off and running. And so I worked there for about 16 years in various different sales and marketing positions and ended up being their director of sales. So it was a, it was a good stint, but you know, it was corporate life. And I got hired a corporate life 'cause it was more difficult for me to sell Sarah Lee and an idea that it was the customer. And so I said, you know what, I can do this myself. And so I always had a desire to start my own business even though I worked in a corporate environment, but the corporate environment can be very constricting sometimes because, you know, they want you to do the things they want you to do. And I wanted you to do things to sell the customers. You know, I said, you know, so anyway, I decided to leave at that 16 years after I started the company. Okay, yeah, I guess that's us. We kind of did bury the lead 'cause that is the big, well, the thing you did when you left the company, you started Prairie City, Prairie City Baking and it, a big humongous company, but how, so it was really the emphasis that you wanted to do your own thing because you felt like they were kind of restricting. You reached kind of the plateau of Sarah Lee and you was like, I feel like I could do a better job. So how did that, how did that start the journey? How did you start the journey? Then how did you, I guess, continue on to build upon that and build the business out during the early days? - So, you know, I was 37 years old. I had two kids. One was four, one was seven. And I did not want to be the age I'm at today and say I would have could have should have. I did not want, I always knew I wanted to start a business and it's never convenient to, there's never a convenient time to do it. And if you wait till you have all the answers, you're never going to do it. And so I actually looked to buy a small cookie dough manufacturer that was in Indianapolis, which is a couple hundred miles from Chicago. And the guy was just tired. He was about my age now and he was just tired. And so I went in there and I didn't know anything about financing a business or really anything about it, but I had saved some money through, you know, my savings and some stock I had with Cerulee. And so I was going to buy his business, but what ended up happening is I was giving him different ideas about what I would do because it was going to be owner finance. I was going to buy it out over a period of time. And I wanted him to make sure that he knew that I wasn't going to run off with his company or whatever. Well, about the 11th hour, I called him up and, you know, I mean, my wife and I had gone down to look for houses. And I mean, we were pretty far down the process. Oh, really? He said, "Are you still working for Cerulee at the time?" Yeah, I was still working for Cerulee. Okay. And so he said, I could tell his voice had changed. And I said, "Is there something wrong?" And he said, "Yeah, there is." And he goes, "I don't know how to tell you this, but I've decided to take the company off the market." And I said, "Oh, really?" I said, "You know, I thought we were pretty far down the process. Can you tell me what happened?" And he says to me, he said, "Well," he said, "You gave me so many great ideas." He said, "You've reenergized me." He said, "I'm going to try those ideas and, you know, take the product market." And I said, "Well, that's kind of crappy." I said, "I did not see that." I'm not coming down there. Wow. So anyway, so I said to him, you know, I said, "First of all, it's your company. You hadn't sold it to me. You can do whatever you want." But I said, you know, I said, "I just don't think that that's ethically right to take me down the road and then turn around to do this." Ironically, five years later, the guy was literally bankrupt. And I said to him at the time, I said, "Listen, the ideas I gave you were the ideas I gave you so that you would have confidence that I wouldn't run away with your money." And he tried to implement the ideas? He did try to implement it. But I said the reality is the value that I would have added to the company is the things that I would have done to, you know, to deal with whatever the problems that are coming up. So anyway, so the guy that was doing the due diligence for me was a friend of mine who I had also worked at Cerulee and he was in finance. And he said to me, the deal fell through. He had run the numbers and everything was looking good until the guy pulled it off the market and sold. So he said to me, he said to me, "Bill, let me ask you a question." And I said, "Yeah, what?" He goes, "Why do you want to own a manufacturing facility?" I said, "Well, because I said I got to have something to sell." And I said, "I got to have..." He said, "That's not your core competency." He said, "Your core competency is sales and marketing and understanding what the customer wants and getting those products to market." He said, "If you would have bought that company," he said, "You would have had flour on your face six days a week, learning the manufacturing side and the operation side of the business." He said, "And then you would have gone out there and tried to sell on the seventh day or whatever it was." And he said, "I've been looking to leave Cerulee as well." He said, "Why don't we go into business together as partners?" He goes, "I'll do finance and operations. You do sales and marketing." And it was a good fit. And one of the things that I'm most proud of is, we're still great friends today, my original partner. Well, that's beautiful. So we had a business plan and it was more complicated than that. But if you look at the roles, I had my assignment, which was sales and marketing. He had his finance and operations. We both actually started the business. This is kind of funny. We started with a Best Buy credit card. Best Buy was new at that point. And they had a promotion that if you signed up for a Best Buy credit card, you could get a computer, a fax, and a printer. And you wouldn't have to pay it off for nine months. And we were like, "Hey, this is great. We'll sign up. We won't have to, you know, whatever, you know, in nine months, we'll have to pay it off." And then we, you know, that wasn't the only thing. We both put in $25,000. And that was sort of the foundation of the money. Now, we were also fairly naive, as far as what it takes to launch a product because we were very underfunded. And, you know, we blew through a lot of money early. And actually, one of the things that happened is that we both left January 1st of 1994 as was the first day we left. And basically started Prairie City Bakery, and we didn't have any sales. And we knew it was like, "You got to get into it, and you got to make this going." So our first product was a product called Muffin Tops, which is just the type of the muffin. And we had this idea that it was a perfect kind of go, you know, on-the-go type of snack. Genius idea, genius product to start with. For people that, I mean, don't remember this. I mean, and I don't know if y'all were the first people, but like Seinfeld did a great skit where they only liked the muffin tops and the whole thing, where Kramer was trying to get rid of the muffin bottoms and all this thing. So, was how, I mean, I guess, when did that episode drop? And when did y'all decide that y'all were going to stick with muffin tops or were the other people doing muffin tops at that time? So the muffin tops, we were the first company to take that idea national. There were some small little local bakeries that were doing muffin tops. And I was like, I said, "Oh, this is a brilliant idea because it's the best part of the muffin. It's the only part people like to eat." You know, it's great to sort of on-the-go type of food, you know, more people were eating in their car and on-the-go type of thing. But we started the company in January of '94, and the Seinfeld episode came on in, I believe it was '97. So it was like three or four years after we had started. Oh, really? And so, one of the things that was fun was they, on their shop that they had that was a muffin top shop, the name of the shop was top of the muffin to you. And that was the slogan on our box. So somebody from Seinfeld must have seen the box. And, you know, and they made fun of top of the muffin to you or top of the, you know, it was kind of funny. And so I started getting, the Seinfeld episode came on, and I would sometimes watch Seinfeld, but I wasn't watching it that night because the bulls were in the championship, and I was watching the bulls game. And so the, I started getting calls from around the country, "Are you watching Seinfeld? They're doing a muffin." And it was now halfway through the episode. So I, you know, this was the days of, you know, Betamax and VHS. I called my sister on the West Coast. I said, "Seinfeld is gonna come on where you're at in about an hour. Can you record the episode and send me the VHS tape or whatever?" I just told you what you did. And so, I mean, the thing is, is that people would call me up and they'd go, "Don't you wanna sue Seinfeld? They just stole your idea." It's still, I wanna hug 'em. I said, "You know, they just educated the marketplace as far as what a muffin top was." I said, "I've been spending the last five years trying to do it, and they did it overnight. I never had to explain what a muffin top was, and I look like a genius because we came out with that." - Oh, that's great. - Yeah, so anyway, it was kind of a fun thing. The other funny thing about muffin tops, and this was a good lesson to, in business, is that only 50% of the guys got it. And what they, guys mentality was, "Hey, where's the rest of the muffin? You're cheating me by not giving me the rest of the muffin." - Really? - Women's attitude was, "Hey, that's the best part of the muffin, that's the only part I eat, that's where all the good stuff goes, that's where the crunchy stuff, they got it." And so like 80% of the women got it right away. 50% of the guys thought we were ripping them up. - And it was interesting to me from, that wasn't any market research we did, but when people said that, it made sense because people believe what they believe about a product, not what you believe about a product. So it's too important to identify your marketplace, and so anyway-- - It's fascinating that people think that, if you say muffin, it needs to be the whole thing, it's just some cake batter on a pan, like it can be in a pan in a cup, so-- - Right, exactly. - They're upset that, no, where's my muffin bottom? I'm getting cheated at that, that's kind of crazy to me, I guess, 'cause I grew up in an era where muffin tops have existed my whole life, so I'm just like, it's a thing, I understand what it means, but I guess having to educate people is fascinating to me, so-- - Yeah, that's interesting. - But I don't wanna give the impression that it was all, you know, it was all happy days from the day I started the company, it was a struggle, we were very underfunded, we put in, as I said, 25,000, he put in 25,000, and then we ran out of money, and one of the things that happened is, I had been working, I was a little bit older, and it worked a little bit longer than my partner, and so I said, we're gonna have to put more money in, so I said, I'll put in another 25, and he's kinda like, I don't have a lot more 25s, I was thinking this was gonna already pay off, so he did put in another 25, and then we had to do it again, and then we had to do it again, but the problem is, is that he didn't have any more 25s, and so I said, well, okay, I'll put in your 25 and my 25, and that worked except for the fact that we were 50/50 partners, and if the deal went down, if the company went down, it was gonna be both of our passions, but it was gonna be more my money, and so I had to have the uncomfortable conversation with him that said, you know, if this deal goes south, I know you're committed to it, but at the same time, it's gonna be my money, so he goes, so we came up with a solution of first, we were 60/40 partners, and then we were 70/30, and then he said, I gotta go get a job, because neither one of us were pulling any money out of the company, it was all being reinvested back in, and so one of the things, my partner left, and he went and got a job. - How long after y'all opened after the January 1st, '94? - How long? - He left about a year, about a year and three months later, so it was there a fairly good amount of time, but the problem is when he left, he said to me, you know, I understand you don't have any money that you can give me for the stock. He said, I also understand it, and this is one of the most courageous things anybody's ever done to me, he said, I also understand you need to own the stock so that you can, if this has any chance of succeeding, you need to own the stock so that you have that stock to raise money or do whatever you need to do, and so he sold me his stock for a promissory note that if the company was ever worth over a million dollars, I would pay him $50,000, which is what he put in, and he was fine with it because he was like, you know what, if I have any chance to get that $50,000 back, I need to do whatever I need to do to support you to make this thing happen. So now the issue was, I'm a year and a half, a year and a quarter into it, and I did sales and marketing, he did finance and operations, we had everything, we had everything divided that way. The problem is I didn't have finance and operations experience, I didn't have knowledge of that, so what I had to do is I had to make sure I got that, and that was one of the early lessons I learned, which is everybody has talent, but nobody can be good at everything, and so you better find what you're not good at and get somebody that is better than that, better than you at that, so I had to find somebody that had, and somebody said, well, did you go out and hire the best, whatever? And I said, I had to have somebody that had, was kind of a giver, they could do finance, but they also could do operations. And so I did hire somebody, and then eventually grew from there, I started adding additional products, and what's unique about what we did is, I was plowing money back into the business, and one of the interesting things that happened is, about the fourth year, I went to pick up my taxes from my CPA, and I go with pick up the taxes, and say hello to 'em and everything like that, and I'm about ready to walk out the door, and the guy, my CPA says to me, hey, Bill, I said, yeah, what's up? And he goes, he goes, when are you gonna grow up? And I said, what do you mean? He goes, when are you gonna grow up? I said, I don't know what you mean, I'm not following you, what do you mean? He goes, when are you gonna start making money? He said, being in business is not about plowing money back into the business and not making money, it's about, it's good to make money, it's good to have to pay taxes, because if you're paying taxes, you're actually making money. And he said, you can't keep reinvesting in things and growing it without making money. And he said, you're not paying yourself anything, you're not making any money, what are you doing? And that was one of the good, long looks in the mirror, and I said, you know what, this guy's absolutely right. And so, from that day forward, I never had a year where I didn't make money, because I spent things on things that were important that were gonna drive value versus spending money just because you think that you need that. You have to, what people, when they start a business that they don't realize is they got a great idea, but if you don't customer and somebody willing to pay you, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. And I didn't want a hobby. And so, I was like, I have to go sell something that has value that somebody other than my friends will buy, and that others will actually pay me for it. And so, that day forward, whenever I wanted to spend money, I looked in my mirror and I looked in the mirror and I said, is this gonna make me money? Is this gonna put, you know, dollars on the table? And so, one of the things that, again, I left a very good job, you know, I was just, and I don't wanna, I'm not bragging, but it was a six-figure job at Cerulee, and I went cold turkey and didn't take any money off the table for three and a half years. I didn't get, I was the third employee paid by Prairie City Bakery. - Really? - And so, one of the things that, you know, people say, well, how did you do it? And I said, well, first of all, you need to support a partner or a spouse, because if you don't, I said, you know, and my wife was like, she was when I met her in college, she had 20 bucks in the beginning of the week, she had 20 bucks at the end of the week. I was like, is that the same $20? And she said, yeah. And so, she was all in with me. And she was like, hey, we'll just, you know, I have two young kids, he goes, we won't eat out. We'll just, I'll just take them to the park. We'll just, you know, so it was just a more of a, you know, humbling lesson from that standpoint. One of the funny things about the story, though, is in about year 20 or whatever, 20 years into it, I had to hire a new CFO, our CFO, a fun, unfortunately, great friend of mine passed away, and I had to hire a new CFO. He came in for the interview, and he used to be with Sarah Lee. I didn't really know him, I knew people that knew him, but I didn't really know him. But he said to me, he knew my ex-partner. He said, I don't know if you know this or not. He said, there was an over and under pool at Sarah Lee on whether you and Bob were gonna make it. You know, it was a business. He said, 'cause people thought you were crazy to just leave a corporate job and go out and start a new year old. - I mean, it is, it is. I mean, that is a tough thing. I mean, it's, you don't hear a lot of people that break the golden handcuffs like that, to do something like that. Like, you were locked in with Sarah Lee, and to do that is commendable. - Well, in my boss, the president of the vision at one point said to me, he goes, he said, what a waste of talent. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, oh, you know, you just, you could have been whatever he thought I could be. He goes, you know, you're just, and I use that to be honest with you. I use that as a motivational tool. I'm like, you know, so I said to this guy that, but they told me about the over and underplay. I said, I hope you took the over. He said, no, actually I took the under. I said, how ironic for you being here, looking for a job 20 years later, he took the under. Yeah, now that is fascinating. I mean, when I started the donut shop, I definitely someone close to me. I was having some problems, you know, obviously, you know, first year of business is always tough. And I was having some problems, and I went to someone that was close to me and spoke, I was like, yeah, I don't know. And they were like, hi, I knew it. I was saying, I was going to say two months before, and I was like, hold on, what? Just to see the person, like, they were proud to be like, I knew that you were going to fail, but ended up being like, all right, I fixed those problems and I ended up succeeding past that. So always remember that it was like, you know, you bet it on me to fail. You told me that like my first six months in business. So it, you know, a lot of people can't really see the vision that you can see. That's what I found out. You know, obviously, when I started the donut shop, you know, gourmet donuts weren't a thing. So just even telling people about it, you know, having to educate people on gourmet donuts, which now it's, it's blaise, kind of same thing you're talking about with the muffin tops. It's a thing now, people understand it, but people just really didn't get paying $3 or even $2 for a donut. They're like, what are you crazy? Like donuts are 25 cents. Like, why would I pay that much? You choose it now. I donuts. Yeah, so, you know, having to break that down and you know, you seeing the vision and obviously you knew your skill sets. So you knew that you could sell. So when your boss was like, you want to maximize your talents. Actually, you are maximizing your talents because you're in control of all your talents and able to build your own business and, you know, build it to how big as you can see fit. So, and I think you kind of, you... Yeah, I think the other thing though is, and people have to realize that when they start a business, there's so many different things that you got to do. And there's so many things that come at you as far as what happened. And, you know, if you're only fond or you're only, you only want to do things that you like to do, it's not going to work. And you have to get outside your comfort zone. And now, you know, the CPA that I had working for us, he really educated me on the finances of business. And again, I wasn't a financial wizard. I mean, I can read a statement now and I know what to look for now and that type of thing. But it was one of the things that I didn't know. And I think one of the things that was important to me is you might be good at some things, but nobody can be good at everything. And so what I... I hate to interrupt what you're doing now, but something very important I need to let you know about. When you purchase serious coffee beans, we want you to try to enjoy each brew for two reasons. Number one, because you're a part of something bigger, making a positive impact around the world. And number two, 'cause we did not compromise on the quality of coffee, you're drinking some of the best coffee in the world. 100% of profits are donated to non-profits that are fighting injustice facing humans around the world, Wallace, that's powerful. Generous is best known for especially coffee, but the heartbeat of generous is their hope to use for profit business for good. And 2024, generous is hoping to provide coffee to churches around the US to spread a message within congregations that churches care about people even down to the coffee they are serving and the people they enjoy. I apologize for that extremely long run-on sentence. If you have interest in hearing more about generous coffee, please reach out to their founder, Ben Higgins, at binhiggins@generancemovement.com. Thank you and back to our scheduled podcast. (gentle music) Okay, I know I just interrupted a great conversation, but my name is Brad and you may be listening to me or any of the other talent we have on this network at HopeCast. We wanna thank you for listening, but also, we want you to like and subscribe to the show you're listening to. So when you're done listening, go on the iTunes for the Spotify and leave a great review if you like it and follow the show on Instagram and any other platforms that it's on. I think we're on TikTok. So follow us on TikTok. But make sure you leave us a review. We love good reviews here at the HopeCast Network. Now, I guess I'll let you get back to your show. What I did was we had a motto and that was forced on me because the fact that, you know, I didn't have the talent and the motto was do what you do best and I'll source the rest. And I was looking to, for a small business, you wanna throw people at it. You wanna hire somebody if you're here, hire somebody for that. The reality is you may not need a 40-hour marketing person or a 40-hour whatever. And so what I looked at is always looking to hire people or hire people in roles for the amount of time that I knew them. So most of the time that meant they weren't on my payroll. I was paying them for 10 hours a week, not 40 hours a week. And so what I would do is I was always looking to, in the beginning, I did everything. In the end, I didn't do anything 'cause I was always looking to find somebody that could do it better than me. Even on the sales side, which I consider myself pretty good at in marketing, I hired people to do it. And then I had to hold them accountable because the issue is is that a lot of people, when they hire people, they just assume they know what to do. Well, you gotta sit there and identify what success looks like in the position that you're going to put them in. And then you gotta hold them accountable. Even if you don't know everything about what the job they're doing, you gotta identify what success looks like. And then you have to hold them accountable. And that's really a key once you start hiring people. - That's true. - Okay, so about the success of the early days. So what was after you started, 'cause I mean, obviously you struggled with the, you said you didn't pay yourself for the first three years, but you were building a business. So y'all had some sales where was like your first big sale or a major sale that made you say, okay, this is worth to keep going on. And I see a path to obviously future success and growth and paying myself. - Yeah. - What was one of the first big things? - So one of the, I mean, I had lots of early successes and it wasn't just muffin tops. By the time I introduced other products, we had cookies, we had muffins, we ended up with about 125 different SKUs. And so we had a full scale of product, both packaged and individually wrapped, and also in both. And so we had a lot of different products to actually sell. But we had some great early success stories with some chains. And one of the things that I realized is there's only one of me. And if I go out there and sell one, I mean, we were really business to business, not business to consumer. We sold a consumer product, but I did not want to open up a retail shop because I have to be the person selling it across the table. Now I could do that. You know, if you're at a farmer's market or you're at a food show and somebody's, I can convince you that a muffin top is really good and you should buy it. But there's only one of me and I was looking to multiply what our efforts were that were out there. So you had, I had to sell and people said, well, why don't you go up the street to XYZ store? And I was like, okay, that's fine to get a success story and leverage into something bigger. But I can't, I can't deliver to one store here and then one store 50 miles away and another stuff. So I had to have the distribution network set up. But the only way to do that is to, we practice what we call push-pull marketing, which we tried to go out there and sell the large chains on our product to then pull the product through the distributors that were out there. And then once we got in there, you know, we would sell other customers. One of our earlier successes was we did business with Walgreens and how we got that business is I would see the Walgreens buyer at shows, right? Sometimes go and see them, whatever. And so I had gone to the distributor first and tried to sell them. Now I knew the distributor 'cause I had been in the food business with Sarah Lee. So I knew this, I was familiar with them. And the guy said to me, it's gonna be, you have five items at that time we had five items and he goes, he goes, it'll be $2,000 per item. It'll be $10,000. And I said to him, listen, I said, I'm just a small company. I said, I'm not Sarah Lee. I said, $10,000. I said, you know, I can't afford to pay you $10,000. When I don't even have sale one with you, I can't do it. Well, if you wanna do business here, I said, you don't have like a friends and family program or something, he said, that's what it is. So ironically, I went to Walgreens. I had an appointment with Walgreens about three weeks later and I went in there and I saw the buyer and the buyer said, yeah, I really like these items. He said, I'm gonna put him in my 300 stores in the Chicago area. He said, have you talked to my distributor? And then I was like, oh, yeah, I've had some coverage. He goes, let me get him on the phone. So he picks up the phone, he calls the buyer and he goes, hey, he said, you ever hear a Prairie City bakery? And the guy said, yeah, that guy Bill Scames was in here a couple of weeks ago. He said, well, I'm gonna put him in my 300 stores. I want you to set the new items up with him. I'm gonna have Bill call you and whatever, put him in there. And I'm like, okay. So I get, the guy buyer gets off the phone and he turns to me, he goes, okay, call the buyer, get it set up, let's put it in our 300 stores and we'll go. I was like, okay, so I get out to the parking lot. And I was like, I got, I'm gonna call this buyer. He's gonna, what are you trying to name this in on me type of thing? So I called the guy up and the guy said, hey, Bill. He said, hey, congratulations on getting into Walgreens. I'm gonna send you all the new item forms. And we're gonna get you set up in the system and the guy never mentioned a slotting fee, never mentioned it because I had his 300 pound gorilla that was, that he had to satisfy. And so now by the end of the call, I'm feeling cocky. I said, hey, you know, by the way, he said, don't you sell a bunch of other, yeah, we have 50 other accounts that are 50 units and above. I said, send me the list. I'll go sell them too. He said, well, you're in here anyway, go ahead and sell them. The guy never mentioned a slotting fee. And so it was a, you know, to me, you gotta figure out who their main customer is, go sell them. And then once you establish the distribution, you pull the other business through there. Mm, that does make sense. Yeah, no, that's a great story here. 'Cause I mean, obviously he felt that he was taking all the risk when you first talked to the distributor, but then after you got the big Walgreens account with the 300 stories, he was like, oh, well, there's no risk here. So let's, that's exactly right. When they, when they're going to take a risk, they want to pay much, they want you to pay them money. Yeah. And I tried to avoid paying money at all. 'Cause I was like, I'm just a humble pie salesman out there. Humble pie salesman. That's tough. How, when did y'all really start ramping up? You said you had about 125 skews. When did y'all start ramping up to that? Where did y'all get to that level? And how were y'all able to manage that? Okay. So this is an interesting thing that is unique about our business. And it's unique, it was unique then. It was not, it's not as unique now. But, so you remember what I said earlier where I said, do what you do best and outsource the rest. So I was not a, I'm not a baker by trade. I know what I wanted. I knew the product profile. I knew what I wanted to look like. I knew what I wanted to be packaged. And I knew that type of thing. But I'm not a baker by trade. And so, one of the things that's unique about us is we did everything a typical manufacturer did. And we looked at ourselves as the manufacturer. But we did everything a typical manufacturer did from product development to get it to market. Except we were 100% outsourced. So we had 11 different co-packers manufacturing these 125 different items. And, and, and what people, what people, or what I tell people is the only oven I owned was a microwave to heat my coffee in the morning. (laughing) You know, people couldn't fathom that I owned this company that was selling, we were in 30,000 locations. Well, I'm like, you must be, you know, you must have a huge plant. And I said, I got a microwave, that's all I got. (laughing) Wow. So, you know, what, what it is is, you know, and, and you've read some of those books, you know, about utilizing or leveraging other people's money. I was really leveraging other people's overhead and leveraging other people's capabilities to do what I needed to do. And I know one of the things that was a interesting lesson for me is the first product we came out with, which was muffin tops, I went to a industrial baker R&D guy that developed these formulas for us. And I probably spent five grand, maybe more than that, five grand, eight grand, something like that, to have these formulas developed. And I remember going to a co-packer and asking them, you know, we signed a little non-compete, which, you know, I don't think they're worth the paper they're written on, but, you know, we signed one, whatever. So I gave them it and I said, you know, can you make this product? And the guy looked at it for like three seconds. He goes, yeah, we can make that. And I said, no, no, no, look a little bit more. I just want to make it, he looked at it a little bit more. He said, yeah, we can make that. And the guy was absolutely right. He could make it. And I was like, did I just waste $8,000 or not $5,000, whatever it is, make it, make it need for them? And the reality is, from that day forward, I never paid for a recipe. Because each of these guys that I went to approach, if I could describe exactly what I was looking for, they could make it, there was no doubt about it. And I had to taste it and it had to be packaged right, and it was, but from that day forward, I never paid for a recipe. - P.O. - So. - No, no, that makes sense. Yeah, a lot of these co-packers and manufacturers, they have a system. If you can just tell them, hey, here's the, there's the perimeter that I want mine in. And they'd be like, yeah, we can fit that into our system. So, yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, it was an interesting journey. - That is fascinating. So, so you said, do what you do best and outsource the rest. And you only had a microwave oven in y'alls, I guess headquarters. So how many, I guess about how many people work did you at your height of Prairie City? How many people did you have employed there? - And that was, that was the most unbelievable thing is we only had 13 people working for us. - Best, yeah. - And so we had, again, I didn't own trucks. I didn't own warehousing. I didn't own obviously any ovens, anything like that. I pushed that off on other people that could do it better than me anyway. So if I went out and built a warehouse, there's warehouse space. You can rent warehouse space. You know, I didn't need trucks. There's trucks that get the product to market. I didn't need to own trucks. But people think they got to be in control of everything. And the reality is there's people that are professionals that do that stuff all the time and could do it better than me. So that was, that reinforced my mantra, which is do what you do best and outsource the rest. So my expertise was getting product to market. My expertise was sales, marketing, doing that. So you know, most of the 13 sales people, most of the 13 people were sales people. - Oh really? - Six of the 13 were sales people. - Oh wow. - You know, we had a VP of sales and then we had National Council and then we had whatever some other people do and some other things. And so I had a finance guy or a CPA, a VP of marketing, a VP of sales, these five or six sales people, one or two customer service people. And that was it, we were lead. - Yeah. Well, then that goes to my next question because when you're running a company, so you say you're 125 SKUs, 30,000 stores you're in and you got 13 people. So you're very lean and now you're going to the shows. So all the other big brands see you. When was there a lot of interest in people always coming? You'd be like, I want to buy your company. Hey, would you like to be acquired by us? And how did that work out? Because I mean, obviously your store eventually think you did end up selling it. So how did that work out and how did it go before? Like when did people start getting interested in having conversations or nudging? You'd be like, this is a really nice company you're running, Bill. Would you mind coming over here and talking to us? And how many conversations did you have? Well, so it's interesting the, you know, and that's why when you look at what people value, I would, it's all about the sales. If you've got the sales, the rest of it doesn't matter. I'm not saying, you know, you got to have interest or you got to have people. But it's about the sales. It's 100% about the sales it is. Right, right. And so what would happen is, is that, you know, I would get inquiries, people would call me up, people would come by at a show, people would refer other people to me. And, and so what happened is, is that probably five years, five years before I sold the company, I knew that at some point I was going to sell the company. It was not going to be a legacy business. One of the things that I told my kids, and some people can't believe this, but I told my kids, it's not an option for you to come to work here. Oh, no, why? Well, because here's the deal is, I said, I started the company with the intention of someday adding value and adding enough value that a large company will come and pay for the value that's filled. And I said, the other thing is, is that I don't think it's fair to our existing employees to have somebody come on, just because they have the same bloodline as me to work, because it makes sense. Whatever, so, and I, and I've also seen, I was in a business group with second and third generation companies where the second and third generation didn't have the same path. I said, this is my passion. I'll support you, my kids, in whatever it is that they'll do, but it's not going to be here. They accepted that, they were fine with that. And, and so when I, when I knew I was going to sell it, what I did was, I would get calls from investment bankers, from PE firms, from venture capitalists, from some strategic. A lot of people, business people don't take those calls. I mean, those people must call 20 people before they get one conversation. I would take calls. I'd meet with them, I'd take the calls and I'd sit down, because what I wanted to, what I wanted to figure out is, what do you value about the business? Why are you interested in this business? Where do you see the value that we have? And I quickly learned and it was reinforced, it's all about the sales. You know, they don't, you know, they, they want to make sure you have the infrastructure that you have to run the business, but at the same time, it's all about the sales. And so what happened is, when I was really interested in selling it, I reached in my top drawer, I had kept all these business cards separate from these people that I'd met. And I had 72 business cards. And I looked at these and I, it was like baseball cards, I was certain in a row, this is an investment banker, this is a PE guy, this is a venture capital, this is what. And so what ended up happening is, is that I started the process of doing it and interviewed investment bankers, who took us and narrowed it down from six to four to two to one. And we eventually, and investment bankers take you to market. They're like a, you know, they're like a real estate broker or whatever. They take you to market. And they put us, they put us, they put a book together of what it is. They send it out to a hundred different companies. They put out a particular sheet first, doesn't say your name or who you are. They just do an overview. So they do that first. 35 companies signed up for a, to get the big book to really find out more information. They had to sign a non-compete, they had a non-disclosure. And 16 companies put bids on the business. And we narrowed it down to the final six. We had meetings with them. And one of the interesting things in that meeting is every single one, I had myself, I had our VP of finance, VP of marketing, VP of sales. So that was my management team. What happened is, is that everybody got that, they interviewed us, whatever. And then they had the question and answer time. Do you have any questions? They all had about 20 questions. And it was all the same questions from every one of them. It was like, who does this? And I was like, oh, that's Anna Grazer, VP of sales. Who does it? Oh, that's our VP of marketing. Who does, who calls on the coke? Oh, that's our, you know, it went through this whole thing. Finally, at the end of, at the end of the 20 questions, they looked at me and they said, well, what do you do? And I was like, oh, I'm just the eye candy around here. But the point was, I wasn't, I wasn't selling myself. I was selling a bit of built an organization that could run on its own. And probably a year and a half to two years before, I kept trying to push stuff away. Now what a lot of business owners make the mistake of is, they think that they're what people are buying. I didn't want them to buy me. Yeah, I wanted, because I wanted to, you know, if I believe that if you, if you pay me the money, here's the keys, you get to drive. Yeah. And so if I had competent people in place, then I didn't have to worry about that. So I got another question. So since obviously you're going through this process and when you only have 13 employees, I assume you are extremely tight knit. So, you know, all these people, how did they feel that you were selling it? Were they okay with it? Were they, were they thinking, they're going to stick around with the new company that bought it and how much say so did they have or were they like, no, or were they quitting when the company got sold or how was that conversation they have with the employees? One of the interesting things is, you know, I had a key management team first, those really three people and myself. And so I brought them in the process relatively early and told them that I was going to be selling the company. You know, they had to keep it confidential from all the other employees. And I had also set up a program, like a stock program for them, that if we sold the company, they were also going to get, you know, some cash out of the deal. And so the two things happened. One is the management, the company that bought us wanted to make sure that the management team stayed. So one of the crucial things was they had these three key employees sign a two-year management contract that they had to stay for two years. And they all did, they all agreed to stay. Unbelievably, it's been five years since May that I sold the company. It was just last month of June, I guess it was. All three of them were still there. So, and most of the people at the company were still there five years later. Which to me, did they get folded in or do they just run in like an independent business? They're running it as an independent company as an independent brand. And so all of those people, one guy was promoted to the president and so the other two, you know, worked for them and then they hired somebody who replaced the guy that was the VP of marketing, which he was now the president of the company. And so what ended up happening is that, you know, and the reason why the guy left is he retired. So it wasn't like anybody got fired or whatever. And most all of the people were still there. And, you know, the one thing that happens is when you build a business over 25 years, I didn't have a lot of turnover. These people are like family to you, so, you know, to me. And so, you know, I wanted to make sure these people were all taken care of. And so every employee with the sale of the company, based on how long they had been there, like somebody had been there 10 or 11 years, got paid more than on a bonus, more than the person that had been there for a year. But, you know, everybody was rewarded. And I think because of the way that I had handled it, everybody was fine and they were very happy for me. And they're very, you know, and so to me, you know, if you look at, go back on the look, look back on it. If the company that bought you is happy and you're happy, it probably was a good deal. - No, it seems like the best deal. - It seems really good. Like, I mean, obviously, if the employees stuck around, it was a good deal because they got a large sample money, so they could have probably done something else. But the company that you sold it to, so you picked the right company, didn't put all this extra pressure on them. We're like, as soon as it's two years over, I'm out of here because I can't work for this person. They're not bill, it's different, everything's changed. It seems like it was still running the same and you sold to a good company that was able to keep it going. - And is the company still healthy? Is it still going and thriving and growing? - Yeah, it is still good. - The pressure is still good. I mean, but how do you feel like Eric City? - Yeah, they're still doing. And I mean, yeah, I mean, they're doing a fine job and you know, they've made some changes and you know, that's the right to make. I'm talking about the existing management, we made some changes. And that's, that they're right. But I mean, I think that at the same time, you know, they've done a fine job. They've made money every year over the last five years and they're returning a nice back to the company that bought us. And so I know it's all good. - Well, that's good. Well, I definitely appreciate this story. And this is what I tell people, like this bill, this is my mentor. This is what I want to do. This is the company I want to build. That's it. That's the dream. This is exactly the type of business I'm trying to build. So I really appreciate you having me. So I gave you a little homework, okay? - Yeah. - So I gave you homework. I like this final question. It's an interesting children's book by Cheryl Silverstein called The Giving Tree. And talking about it with people, I realized everybody read it and had a different take on it. And it was unique. So there were no wrong takes. So I was like, I want to ask people, what do they think the giving tree's about or how they feel about it? So you read The Giving Tree and what's your opinion on The Giving Tree? - Well, first of all, this was a book that I used to read to my kids. It was in the regular rotation. But he heard it now. So, and, you know, it was funny. - Then I got a further question before you start, who, so you said you read it to your kids and now that you reread it, are you looking at it differently now? Or are you still looking at it the same from when you read it, you know, I don't know, 20 years ago or so? - Yeah, I'd say I probably am reading it slightly different. You know, from that standpoint. And so, rest of the other interesting thing is I said, I know we have that book in our house. And so I went up to my kids' room and I found two books, one for each of them. And so, so anyway, so I found the copy of the book. And first of all, it's a great book. And, you know, to me, there are many lessons in this book. It's not just, you know, you read it and you, you know, I reread it a couple times from that standpoint. But the one, as a father, the one thing that I always tried to convey to my kids is, you know, I'm gonna support you no matter what. I'm gonna support you. And to me, when I read it, what came out to me is, it's really a story to me about unconditional love that the tree has for the young boy. Now, whether the boy deserves it or not is another question. But, you know, one of the things that I used to say to my kids and I still still say them today is that say I'm proud of them type of thing. But I said, the most important thing is not that I'm proud of you is that you're proud of yourself. Because I'm not always gonna be there to be proud of you. You have to, you know, you have to do that. So, I mean, I think to me, the tree is an example of, you know, unconditional love that you convey to your kids. And so that's there. Now, the second is, to me, the second story is the boy. And is the boy really deserving of all this different love? Because the boy takes and takes and takes. And so to me, the boy is always looking for happiness. Yet when he's most happy is when, is early years, when he's with his friend, the tree, you know, when he was happy with the tree. But he was always looking for something else physically. A house, a boat, you know, whatever that was gonna take him to wherever is happy. And to me, it's a little bit like the Wizard of Oz. You know, it's, there's no place like home. You gotta, you know, you gotta be there. So, I mean, I think that, you know, you can think about the tree being unconditional and the boy being, you know, sort of naive in the way that he sort of took advantage of the tree. And, but the tree was still willing to give and give and give until, you know, I'll give you a place to sit. But anyway, I'd say, you know, it's a love, it's a love close to home that's the most important. And so. - Well, that's beautiful. And now that's a great take. That is a very good, beautiful take and I agree. So yeah, I like it. So definitely thank you for having me on here. Well, thank you, thank you for being on here. I'm used to being on by again. Thank you for being on my podcast. And, no, this isn't being great. Anybody else is out here in the baking industry and wants someone to give them the deep knowledge of baking in this CPG world in space. Mr. Bill Skeen, William Skeen is the guy. He knows all the information. And he's very, he likes to talk to people and help out young entrepreneurs succeed. So I really appreciate it all the time. He's always given me any time I hit him up and ask him a question. He, he lets me know about things. So I really appreciate that. So thank you. I'm a little bit like the giving tree in that I just want to give people, you know, I've had my success. I just want to, if I can help them avoid some of the mistakes that I made, you know, it's going to save them a lot of time. I have money if we have. And so I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. I love talking to you and, you know, I'm happy to help anybody that's interested in help. Yeah, that is what it's about. Giving back, helping people. So I really appreciate it. So hopefully a lot of people have taken from this podcast and they learned a lot of things. And we're going to keep trying to find out new stuff. So now I know some stuff. I didn't know some stuff at the beginning. I know more things now. So I'm going to go back out there and sell some more cookies. So I appreciate you having me on. All right, good folks. Bye. All right, do nice. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
