May 20, 2026 • 46 mins
What happens when a worship leader with no business background decides to challenge an entire industry?
In this episode of CEOs You Should Know Dallas, iHeartMedia Dallas Market President Chris Long sits down with Ben Spell, Founder and CEO of Good Ranchers, to explore his unlikely journey from church music ministry to building one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer meat companies in the country.
Ben shares how a moment in a church parking lot sparked a deeper calling to create something meaningful, leading him to launch a business with no formal plan, no industry experience, and a strong commitment to integrity. What began as a side hustle selling meat out of a truck quickly evolved into a mission-driven company focused on transparency, American-sourced products, and customer trust.
The conversation dives into the realities of entrepreneurship, including navigating rapid growth, embracing imperfection, and building a company culture rooted in purpose. Ben also reflects on the challenges of scaling during COVID-19, transitioning to e-commerce, and leading a team while growing a young family alongside the business.
Along the way, he shares insights on hiring for heart over resume, recognizing opportunity in uncertainty, and why giving back remains central to the company’s mission.
Guest: Ben Spell, Founder and CEO, Good Ranchers
Website: www.GoodRanchers.com
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
In this episode of CEOs You Should Know Dallas, iHeartMedia Dallas Market President Chris Long sits down with Ben Spell, Founder and CEO of Good Ranchers, to explore his unlikely journey from church music ministry to building one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer meat companies in the country.
Ben shares how a moment in a church parking lot sparked a deeper calling to create something meaningful, leading him to launch a business with no formal plan, no industry experience, and a strong commitment to integrity. What began as a side hustle selling meat out of a truck quickly evolved into a mission-driven company focused on transparency, American-sourced products, and customer trust.
The conversation dives into the realities of entrepreneurship, including navigating rapid growth, embracing imperfection, and building a company culture rooted in purpose. Ben also reflects on the challenges of scaling during COVID-19, transitioning to e-commerce, and leading a team while growing a young family alongside the business.
Along the way, he shares insights on hiring for heart over resume, recognizing opportunity in uncertainty, and why giving back remains central to the company’s mission.
Guest: Ben Spell, Founder and CEO, Good Ranchers
Website: www.GoodRanchers.com
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is CEOs You Should Know with the Dallas market
president of iHeartMedia, Chris Long. Hi, everybody, I want to
welcome you to another episode of CEOs you Should Know
Dallas and I'm Chris Long, your host, Dallas market president
for iHeartMedia, and I'm excited to introduce my new friend,
Ben Spell, founder and CEO of Good Ranchers. Ben. Welcome, Hey,
(00:24):
thanks for having me, glad to be here. Awesome. So
I have given Ben a little bit of warning Amanda,
and I know he's thinking about what's coming his way,
so he's got about ten more seconds. But Ben, as
we talked about iHeartMedia being the audio entertainment company that
we are, with eight hundred and sixty radio stations across
(00:45):
one hundred and sixty markets, podcasting and streaming of every
genre and concerts, anything audio we have it, I think
it's important to know a little bit about your you know,
the soundtrack of your growing up, just so we know
you a little bit better. So I'm gonna do a
little bit of rapid fire on a few questions here. Okay,
I hope you're ready. Yeah, let's go. First thing that
(01:07):
comes to mind, and I'll share mine, just to be
fair teenage music crush O Shania Twain, Olivia Newton John
Shania Twain I met in the lobby of a country
music station I worked at when she was getting into
the business, and I remember we all came back from
launch and we're like, whoa is she interview him for
a job And they're like, yeah, no, she's gonna be big.
She was, Okay, you win that one favorite band T shirt?
(01:31):
Oh gosh, I've never had a band T shirt. Really. No, Okay,
we're gonna take care of that this year. That's on
my list of to do's Amanda last concert.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
This is gonna be hilarious. It was actually Shania Twain
like two years ago when she came to the Woodlands
in Texas.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, so I'm sensing it ironic.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, but it was my wife's idea to go by
the way.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So I'm gonna ask one more just because I'm curious.
Your walk up song if you were playing at Globe
Life Park would not be shown ay A Twain with it. No,
it's cool if it is.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
No, this is going to be left field. It would
probably be be It would probably be Lose yourself by eminem.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
That's a good one. That's a strong one.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So yeah, I think that's my pump up music for working.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Out anything, eminem or just that song, not just that song. Okay,
I think that's a good one. All right, I'll put
that I we side note. We get our guests here,
we do a little research and find out what they
like as a special treat. And unfortunately or fortunately, depending
on how you look at it, Ben is a Crispy
(02:38):
cream guy. So we have a box of Krispy Kreme
sitting here, and.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I'm from Baton Ridge. I'm from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So yeah, but now I'm gonna be the gym for
three hours to night, working off the three donuts I've
eaten while we were talking. But anyway, I digress. So
I'm really excited because you know, as we talked before,
you know, we've had founders and we have CEO had
CEOs on and the founder conversations is so fascinating. All
(03:04):
conversations are, but the founder's ones are very fascinating for
how you came to say, Hey, I'm gonna start my
own company, because it takes a ton of courage to
do that. So tell us a little bit about your
background and and and let's start with once you get there,
tell us about the aha moment.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah. So, the the truth is, I I actually never
wanted to be an entrepreneur. Wasn't something that or a
business owner, I should say, never a thing.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It wasn't. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Well, I I saw a couple of people in my
family that started their own businesses and just never really
you know, it was just one thing to the next
and never really sure. You know, it was very inconsistent
and and and I kind of thought at a young age, man,
I don't want I don't want that, like you know.
(03:54):
And so but then I was also, uh, I ironically
that we're in iHeart. I was very gifted with music.
I started playing piano when I was like thirteen, and
and then guitar and you know, pretty much anything with strings.
And so it's funny I say this all the time.
(04:17):
I really didn't plan to. I didn't really have much
of a plan. But I was really gifted with music.
And I was very involved in the church that I
went to growing up, and so I started you know,
playing playing in church and then started playing four churches
and and then when I moved to Houston when I
(04:38):
was eighteen, got involved in the local church there, and
I was working, I was going to school, and I
was just working, I guess a bank teller, and they
they hired me to come on staff to to to
you know, to lead all the music for the church.
And I was like, okay, sure, I wasn't really planning
to do that. But what I went to college for
(05:01):
was audio engineering, okay, because I really like, I like,
like music production.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Should a man to be worried that you're going to
come over and take over the board.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
No, No, no, not at all. But uh so, so
I started, like you know, today you can, technology has
just advanced so much, but we're talking about twenty five
years ago, sure, you know. And uh so I got
really good at like making tracks and making like stems
and backing tracks and stuff and and and at that time,
(05:31):
like today you can go online and like just download
any of the stems and pay for them and you know,
for like every song that exists, but back then that didn't.
So I started doing that in one of the largest
churches in Houston started contracting me to make stems and
tracks for like their Christmas productions, their Easter productions, and then,
(05:52):
uh then they hired me to run the studio. Then
then I became the band director, and then and then
eventually it was over all of the all of the music,
all of the worship, all of the you know, I
seem to write and absolutely loved it and did that.
So from nineteen to early thirties I was full time
(06:16):
at a church, you know, and the last one I
was at, and like I said, was a megachurch. Everything's
bigger in Texas. So I absolutely loved it. But in
around twenty twelve, I had an interaction with the man
in a parking lot after a service and he said,
he said, to me, great great worship today, Pastor. I
(06:36):
really appreciate what you do. I said, thanks, And I
was getting in my car and he was getting in his.
He was parked right next to me, and he was
just in an absolute beater of a car and I
had a newer, nicer car, much nicer than his, and
something inside of me just I didn't like that interaction.
I didn't like that I could afford to have nicer
things than the people who were technically paying my salary.
(07:00):
And not that it's wrong, no.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But but that takes a lot to see that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, but I also think that it was I think
that it was God preparing me for what he had
for me, which I, you know, had no idea.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Everything you've said nothing screams good ranchers, rochers.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yet it's not at all. Yeah, And because people always say, well,
because I mean, I had no industry background and meat.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Did you grow Did you grow up on a ranch
or farm or I grew up.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
In the country, that's for sure, And we had horses
and cows. My grandfather actually did race raised cattle. He
had a cow calf operation, but it was on the side.
And so I kind of grew up like I said,
I grew up in the country, you know. And but
but but nothing about the actual process of of actually
(07:53):
raising animals, butchering I wasn't. I wasn't a big foodie
that a lot of people think, well, maybe were you
really into really were you really into cooking? I'd never
cooked a steak in my life, and so so I
had that interaction in the parking lot and I started
just and that kind of started me on this journey
of you know, what else could I do? And I
had this idea of could I find something to do
(08:16):
on the side. I didn't think that I would quit
working for the church. But I thought, could I find
something that could supplement my income or could I get
to the place where I don't have to take it
in a salary from the church.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I don't know, but Ben could be the originator of
the side hustle and no one knew it. Yeah, it
wasn't a word back then. Yeah, it wasn't a word
back then. You know when you sit there and say, hey,
you know music, minister rancher. Yeah, not really the combo
you typically think.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, So any kind of side hustle, right, And so
fast forward a little bit. My wife and I around
twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen watching a lot of Shark Tank
and which is you know, great to inspire entrepreneurs, and
I started having this idea of a meat company, nothing
(09:11):
even close to what Good Ranchers is today, but I
just had this. I remember saying to my wife, you know, somebody,
somebody should do this, this and this, because because honestly,
my thought was and again this is twenty fifteen, ten
years ago. Omaha Steaks had been around for one hundred
(09:32):
years and they pretty much kind of the founder of
the yeah, the category, right, yeah, and really had no
competition at the time, like if you if you're going
to order meat like they were really the.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
They were it. They were it well and then you
know because remember in the nineties they partnered with rush
Limbaugh correct and he helped build that too, like they
were synonymous.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Correct. So I started thinking, man, like I feel like
that's a wide open market. Somebody should somebody shud challenge
that somebody should should do it. And I didn't think
that somebody would be us, And so then I started
like kind of look like I found myself looking into
meat and you know.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Studying you watched Shark Tank. Yeah, so you could have
like zeroed in on you know, shirts, golf clubs, whatever
hats Right, what do you remember what it was about meat?
Especially because you didn't grow up in that world, Like
if you had grown up on a ranch, and though
you did, you were familiar, but it wasn't your world.
Yeah what was the thing? Yeah? Well, okay, so I
(10:33):
left one part out.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
In the beginning of twenty fifteen, I took a took
a sabbatical from the church that I worked at because,
like I said, I was on this what what else
can I do?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
And I worked for a meat company doing outside sales.
I didn't know anything about meat, but but I was
good at talking to people and at restaurants, and yeah,
it was it was. It was. It was more like
direct to to people at like at like fairs and stuff.
(11:09):
And but in that little bit of time I did
it for about three months, I was really good at it.
Absolutely hated it. I mean there was nothing about it
I liked. And I was like, you know, yeah, I'm
going back to I'm going back to music leading worship.
I don't want to do this, and uh, but in
that time I did it long enough to realize and
(11:32):
this is actually why I quit. It was very unethical,
like their sales tactics, the things that they were saying,
and you know, I'm a very inquisitive person, and so
I asked a lot of questions and and I quickly
realized what they were saying about the quality of the
meat and where it's from was just absolutely absolutely a lie.
(11:55):
And so for moral obligation, even though the money was
actually really good, but morally, I just couldn't sit there
and lie to people and tell them, you know, one thing,
knowing that it's another. And so so coming off of that,
I'm back working at the church, watching Shark Tank and
and so I start having those conversations with my wife, like,
(12:17):
man if I think there's an opportunity because because of
what I learned is there's no country of origin labeling
law for beef or for pork in the US. So
you can literally say, oh, it's all coming from farms
in the Midwest, no one can call you on and
no one can call you on it. And it's actually
coming from feed lots of Mexico.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Why is that like.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Money?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
So okay, Chris, but no. So this is interesting though.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So like if my shirt shoes whatever, it says me
in America and other the plate you eat.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
On has to say where it comes from, but the
food that you put on it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Oh wow, it's it's But.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's not that way with vegetables. It's not way with produce,
and but beef and pork there's at that time, there
was no country of original labeling law. They just changed
the law this year in January, and we've been very
active in trying to get it's called the Cool Law,
(13:20):
trying to get it back implement it because prior to
twenty fifteen, we had one in the US and and
it just silently went away in twenty fifteen. Interesting and
that opened up the floodgates for imported meat coming into
the grocery store being sold online. And so that was
the That was the thing that I that I knew
and that I saw, and that I was like, man,
(13:42):
we could like we should, we should fix that. And
and so let me rephrase, I did not say we
should fix that. I said someone should. That's what I
told my wife the first time. And then every few
months I'd find myself talking about it again. And after
about a year of just every few months talking about
(14:03):
it to my wife, one morning I was getting ready
for the church that had worked at. It was a
Sunday morning. I was in the bathroom and I started
having the thoughts again. And I'm not one of those
people that God talks to me all the time, but
I heard, I heard in my spirits so loudly, you
do it, and it shook me. So I came out.
(14:26):
By this time, this was twenty seventeen at the time,
and we just had our first baby boy, who was
about six weeks old. And what I expected my wife
to say was because I came out and I said,
I think God just told me to start a meet company.
And what I expected her to say was, we just
had a baby, we don't have any money, we don't
know anything about it, you know, and asked me a
(14:46):
bunch of questions. But what she actually said was if
you heard God, then I trust you. And that was oh.
And so a few months later, fast forward.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
To I'm scared and I didn't even live it, and
I'm just hearing this. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, So a few months later, started selling meat out
of the back of a truck in a parking lot
in Waco, Texas. Scraped up some money to you know,
buy a truckload and did we did our own like
pop up shop there at the Richland Mall in Waco, Texas.
Never forget it out from Waco.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
And immediately saw really really good success. A lot of
people come in a lot of you know, Okay, can
I stop you real quick? Sure?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Okay, So you had the moment in the parking lot
that kind of stirred you a little bit in the car.
When was that twenty twelve?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You said, I was about twenty twelve. Yeah, okay, so
it was about.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Five years five years of shark tank, Yeah, and a
little bit of work in the space, yep, not finding
it super ethical and overall didn't really care for it,
right other than the money was okay.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Last forward five years yep, you hear have a calling,
which is amazing. Baby, no real idea what you're.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Doing, none, no, and you know, no business experience, no
business experience. And I just thought, if we could buy
it for this much, if we could sell this much,
if we can, you know, we'll advertise this way and
we'll you know. And and what I thought, honestly, I
thought what I was going to do was those pop
up shop style didn't plan to like disrupt the industry
(16:32):
and you know, become a thing and become a thing. Honestly,
I thought, because like the way we were doing those
type of sales, it was much more like running a
fireworks stand through the summer. You know, you get you
get Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, fourth of July,
all within a six week period, you know. And so
(16:55):
uh yeah, what I thought was I could do this
for a few years, makes it put some money seasons though,
and then we would do something and then we would
do something else. Yeah, that's what That's what I that's
what I kind of went into it. But as we
as we started we we we quickly started realizing, wow,
(17:19):
there's more to this as it started growing in because
originally we were buying from broker. We just had to
buy from you know, from a broker because because that's
all we could do. But as we started finding success
and getting more buying power, we started being able to
go straight to you know, manufacturers, and that's when I
(17:42):
really started learning even and even more how corrupt the
industry is. And and because even at that time, with
the like even working directly with that particular manufacturer, there
was still no way to know where the meat was
(18:04):
actually coming. So they can just yeah, like you absolutely,
and they do it all the time. They do it
all the time. It's a that's like it's it's kind
of a running joke in the meat world of just
how corrupt and how shady a lot of these guys are.
And again it's because there's loopholes and the laws that
(18:24):
they can get away with it, and you know, and
why not.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So it's so it's fascinating because a couple of our
past guests, a man, I'm thinking about doctor Harrison from
Mint Dentistry and Shannon McClendon from Farmhouse Fresh. They had
moments similar in different different ways, you know. Shannon said
she she sent a bottle of her product a footloation
(18:48):
to Oprah and Oprah was like, oh my gosh, this
is amazing nice. And then doctor Harrison was on a
mission trip and the dentist was doing work on some
of the teeth. He's like, hey, do you want to
pull this tooth? And he said after that, I was hooked,
and he was like a senior in high school. Wow.
But like, those moments happen and like do you draw?
(19:08):
And I feel like they do, but I'm gonna ask
you do you draw on those moments? And that push
you forward? Because I hear you talking about how important
it is to you American sourced meat. It's very clear
that that. I mean, obviously it's the ethos of your company,
but like it, it seems like that was just a
common driver of doing it ethically.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
So yeah, so, I mean it was it really So
it started as how can I provide from a family
of course, yeah, and then it and then it and
then it quickly pivoted to how can we provide better
meat that we can trust for our family because we're
(19:52):
very health consciousness as a family. And like I said,
we had just had our first baby and we have
four four now yeah side note, we started we had
our first baby in twenty seventeen, started the business at
the end of twenty seventeen, started the business at the
beginning of twenty eighteen, had our second baby boy, in
twenty nineteen, had our third, which is a baby girl,
(20:14):
in twenty twenty, then had our fourth and twenty twenty two.
So as we're building a business, we're also growing a family.
Really I don't recommend, but but it's been a it's
been a blast in a wild ride.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Do you have four k So you have I'm going
to say you have five? Five under ten? Yeah, exactly,
good ranchers being the other child in all of this. Yeah,
that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And so like I said, we once we you know that,
Like I said, that first first year wasn't really thinking
that we were going to actually build a real quote
unquote business. Sure, but then we went into twenty nineteen,
we saw really great success. And even in the first
year twenty eighteen was the first year twenty yeah, ok,
(21:02):
and then and then the same in twenty nineteen and
I remember talking to my wife and she was like, Okay, like, well,
what are we going to do next? Because this was
supposed to be like a temporary thing. And I said,
you know, I think this is what we're supposed to
do and UH, and went into twenty twenty with not
knowing COVID was coming, but went into twenty twenty with UH,
(21:27):
with the grand idea to because at the time we
weren't online, and we said, well, if we're going to
we're going to grow this, we're going to scale it.
We need more trucks. So we were in twenty eighteen
to twenty nineteen we would do like five or six
trucks at a time. And I'm gonna say trucks, I
mean like twenty six foot box trucks. You know, could
fit quite a quite a haul of meat on those.
(21:47):
And so went into twenty twenty with the idea to
have twenty trucks at a time and.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Were d you own these trucks or are you leasing
at least?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, least them and UH, which you know, we had
to have people to work them, and but really worked
kind of the off season in twenty nineteen going to
twenty twenty with this this grand idea of twenty trucks
at a time. And it was the best thing that
happened for us because when COVID, when COVID hit, and
(22:17):
we were, you know, the whole flare of emotions of
what's going to happen, right, none of us knew. But
for us it was actually very people. It was very good. Yeah,
it was very good for us because I don't know
if you remember this, but the grocery stores that ran
out of meat and restaurants are shut down, and so
(22:40):
we found ourselves having meat and having a good supply
of meat through that time. And I mean, we just
couldn't keep enough on the trucks. And I know COVID
affected a lot of businesses in negative ways. And so
I don't say that I don't relish at at all.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
But it's just such a it's such an interesting dichotomy,
right like where I'm sure there's a little bit of
you guilt's not the right word, but feeling like, oh wow,
my company's blowing up during this period, and like you said,
others are not, you know, And I'm not making light
in the least, but I had a mentor of mine
(23:21):
tell me one time. Within chaos, there's opportunity, yep. And
you know, sometimes you just have to be able to
see where the opportunity is. And I don't know that
you saw that immediately or did you like, oh wait, restaurants,
no restaurants plus no meat in grocery stores meets good
for good ranchers. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Where where I come from, we say, we say it
the same thing, but we say make hey, whant the
sun is shining absolutely and and that's you know, so
we saw that, and then we that's when we were
we had been talking already about and working to get online,
but then when covid happened, we were like that really
kind of as fast forward to e commerce for everybody.
(24:02):
But of course so we we we we quickly started
pivoting and trying to figure out how can we how
can we sell online? How can we you know, how
can we ship? Which if I would have known how
hard it is to ship perishool items, uh uh yeah,
I probably would have never done it.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Honestly, times, Oh yeah it is.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And you know, one one of your questions is like,
you know, what would you tell people who are thinking
about starting a business. And I tell people this all
the time, Like it's different for everybody. But we would
have never if if if I would have had like
n b as around me in the beginning, I don't
(24:40):
think we would have ever. Yes, yeah, and there was,
there was. There are several things that we just did
without counting the cost or weighing the if it doesn't work,
(25:01):
you know, because honestly, ignorance is bliss, and we're just like,
well this should work.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And sounds good. Thankfully it did.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Thankfully it did, and and and and looking back, like
like I said, like you know, it was. It was.
If we would have had people around us at the
time saying, well you got to put a business plan
and you know, you got to do this, and you
got to like this, like we had missed, we'd have
missed the we had missed the opportunity because we'd never.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Got there out of curiosity. You know. I have some
notes here. It talks about being on the ink five
thousand lists multiple years in a round all that has
anybody from a business school, anyone come to try and
do a case study on what you've done?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yes, yeah, actually e y they did did last Yeah
I did last year. And everyone that we talked to
they they kind of walk away with the same thing.
This makes no sense. This makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, and fact, and I just I got invited to
speak at Stanford Entrepreneurial Summit to tell our story as well.
And yeah, it's but again, it really doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So that's the blessing.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So yeah, So if you're out there and you're you're
thinking about starting a business, you're never going to get
it all perfect. You're you're never going to get it
all perfect. And you're not gonna I mean, I'm not
saying don't plan, and I'm not saying don't I'm not
saying because we didn't, you know, we're not winging it.
But it's never gonna all make sense. And even how
(26:39):
we start it to who we are today is very different.
But you know, you take that step, take that first step,
and and and that leads you to something. And I'm
a firm believer of of of when you commit your
heart to the Lord, when you commit your work to
the Lord, that the right doors will open and the
(27:01):
wrong doors will close and you don't have to think
too much about it. And and honestly, along the way,
everything that seemed like every because we definitely had some
closed doors, and every time a door would close, something
better would would would come up because of it, you know,
(27:21):
we would find something much better on the on the
other side of those closed doors.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Right, Yeah, if we just keep our eyes and our
hearts open. Yeah, yea.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And I think it's and I think it's a testament
of perseverance as well. Oh of course grit Yeah, word,
I love so okay, I do love grits.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Huh. I've achieved some pretty good recipes. Is there a
good Rnswers cookbook?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Not?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
No, we do have. We do we have.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
We have recipes, We have recipes online, and it is
something that we've been you know. We we find ourselves
all the time of there's so many things we can do,
you know, but you know, what should we do?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
And it's funny, I I you know, some people I
used to work with in the digital space, we would
talk just sometimes just because you can't do something doesn't
mean you should do it exactly, you know. And and
in business all the time, because you can go down
a road you're like, oh, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah? I like to think about Raisin Kanes, which shout
out to Baton Rouge because that's where they started.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Okay, Wall, they got to stop. Are you an LSU fan?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I mean I grew up in Baton Rouge, you know,
so I can't shout at Eddie Martini, my boss, big
Tiger fans sitting here with me. Yeah, I'm born and
raised Beton Rouge, So Tigers. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Hey,
Death Valley on a Saturday night, there's there's not a
better experience.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Hey, if you want to be on the LSU podcast,
we'll send you down the hall and you can talk
to them.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, let's go. But what I was going to say
is that if you look at Raisin Kanes, they sell
like three things and do it and they haven't deviated
from that. And they don't sell any desserts, no cookies,
no shakes, you know, and they could yeah, but you know,
they don't make a chicken sandwich. They don't like they
(29:11):
just they sell these three things and they're really good
at it and that and that's what they do. So
I think sometimes you can over overextend yourself, you know,
well for sure, And.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
There's also simplicity and you know, you talk about and
I've heard this before about the perfection thing like you know,
perfection doesn't really exist, No, but if you do, if
you talk about like the Canes model, you can be
really tarn good at three things and own those three
things and have a lot of success with that.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. What it's saying perfection is an enemy
of good?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Is that the sink? I don't know, but I like
it sounds good to me. All right, so we're look
it up. We're in agreement here, okay. So oh it's
pretty heavy stuff. So I like how you've dropped in you.
I did a case study on us. I'm speaking, It's
Stanford and you say it so well. I'd be big
time in people over something like that. So Ben, I
(30:12):
appreciate that. This is great. So fast forward today twenty
twenty six. Talk to me about how many people are
good ranchers? Where's the focus today? And then I do
want to get into some of the works you guys
do as a part of your success, which I think
is awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah absolutely yeah. So, like I said, we I'm going
to just finish the story. Quickly started selling the trucks.
COVID happened, we knew we wanted to get online. Went
into twenty twenty one with our toe in the water,
kind of trying to figure out how to ship meet.
Like I said, it's really hard to ship perish withal items,
(30:49):
at least to ship them. Well, so we still had
the trucks, and the trucks were making money, and online
was just losing money. I mean we were losing every
box we sold. We were losing money because it really yeah,
we only had one one warehouse to ship out of
at the time, and.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Oh and yeah it doesn't work, Yeah it does.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
It does not work. And so where was the warehouse
Saint Louis, Missouri, which so we thought right, you know,
we thought like right in the middle, but we were
quickly wrong. And because we had a ton of customers
in California and so so we a by the middle
of the year twenty twenty one, we opened up another
fulfillment center in California. So then we had the two
(31:31):
that made it a little bit better. And then we
made the decision to uh, I forget which old story
it is where they burned the boats. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Oh, yeah, that's that's a navy story.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, we made the decision to burn the boats, which
for us was shut down. The trucks go in go
on online, and again the trucks were making money online
was just losing money.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
But we.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
At this point, I guess we were four years into
good ranchers because yeah, twenty yeah, three and a half
years in, so I had learned a little bit more.
You know, I knew nothing about business going in, but figured,
if we can you know, if we can get to
this many customers online, sure you know, we'll be able
to make it. Because we I mean again were We've
(32:24):
been bootstrapped since the beginning. You know, we have to
kill what we eat, eat what we kill. We don't
we never took any money. We've never raised any money
like you know, so if we're not, if we're if
you know, we can't afford to miss, We can't afford
to lose. And so but made the decision shut down
the trucks go fully online in twenty twenty two. And
(32:46):
so we we started selling off, you know, all the
assets of the trucks, closing all that down towards the
end of twenty twenty one, with the with the ambition
to be fully online going into twenty twenty two, which
we did, and then I mean we we ten next
our growth in twenty twenty two, of course you did. Yeah,
(33:07):
and then we grew two hundred percent over twenty two
in twenty three, and then we grew fifty percent and
then to last year, which was like forty four percent.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
What are you doing? What do you here wasting time?
You're down to forty four percent growth?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I know, I know, I know. And like we we've
I kicked off the year with our with this year, yeah,
with our team, and because we actually had a saying
that we've said the last few years of we're building
the plane as we're flying it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And but again I've never done this before, so it's
all we know, you know, I think it's I don't know,
if you know. Adam and Danielle Busby, the they had
a TV show on TLC called Out Daartered. They had
quintuplet girls like five at one time.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
They're good friends of ours and they, uh, but when
you don't know any when you just have five at
one time and you don't know any.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
As a father of twins, yeah, there you go. My
wife and I like, yeah, you just kind of wonder
that you're looking at You just.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Got to figure it out, okay, Yeah, yeah, you just
got to you just got to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
For a few years. Are a black hole in my memory.
But you know, I mean, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
But that's kind of the thing. We didn't have any
other business experience to base it on. So, like I said,
when we talk to people now, they go, oh my gosh,
that kind of growth like it could it can? You know,
can it could actually kill a lot of companies. And
and but we've we didn't, you know, we just had
to figure it out along the way. And and and
(34:39):
thankfully I have to say this, like I've got a
lot of people that are much smarter than me around me,
And uh, what's smart enough to know? Like I know
what I know, but I don't know what I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, I think, But that's I believe. And I love
hearing you say that. I believe smart leaders reckon organize that.
You know, because if you're the one with all the knowledge,
then okay, then what do you need everybody else for?
But if you find good people and not that that
doesn't need to be shepherd and pointed in the right direction.
Sometimes you know, you're the keeper of the vision. I mean,
(35:15):
you're it was it was your concept from the beginning. Yeah,
but you bring in good people and I would imagine Okay,
so how how how how big are you know, how
many employees.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
At our at our home office in Friends would which
is where we run the business out of. We have
sixty five employees, okay, but we have five fulfillment centers
across the US, and we have and we work work
with uh maybe five or six different manufacturers partners, yeah okay,
(35:46):
and stuff. So we've we've intentionally tried to you know,
be asset light. That makes me sound smarter than I am.
We didn't have the money.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You are going to let a few of those things.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, well, I'm just and like we you know, but
the reality is we didn't have the money to you know,
like which was also a blessing in disguise because you know,
it allows us to focus on the things that we're
good at and course and outsource the rest. So but
sixty five w two employees that that we run the business,
(36:22):
but five fulfillment centers and between manufacturers because at at
like at each of our fulfillment centers and we have
dedicated lines full time that only ship for good ranchers
and the same thing at each of our at our
uh where we cut butcher like we have dedicated lines.
(36:43):
That's all they do is cut meat for good ranchers.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
So there's hundreds of jobs create it, but I'm only
responsible for I'm only technically responsible for sixty five of them.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
At this point, I have a couple of questions here
because I I love your story and congratulations. This is
amazing with the kind of culture you've built. Like you said,
like you're problem not running out and maybe you are.
And I don't know this, but you're probably not running
out hire an MBAs someone, doesn't you know? You probably
(37:17):
have a certain person that you look for that's going
to fit your culture. Yep, because you have a unique
culture that's driven a great deal of success. And I know,
I'm just sitting here with you. Don't take that for granted.
You can lightly say these percentages and we can kind
of chuckle about it, but like I know, you don't
take it for granted. No, not at all, And so
like talk to me about the culture, Like what do
(37:37):
you think about like inviting someone into a company a
of your it's only what ten years old? Eight? Yeah, okay,
eight years old? Sixty five, sixty two employees good size number,
but not massive, Like you have to really think about
culture when you bring someone in. Yeah, how do you
guys think about that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
So I think it was zig Ziglar. So you don't
build a business, you build people, and the people build
the business. And yeah, he was a he was a
brilliant man.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, he's he was known to be fairly intelligent and
smart about things.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Brilliant man. And and then one other I always get
his name wrong, but the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad,
doesn't matter, But I read that book one of uh
actually before starting Good Ranchers, And and one of the
things he said in there was most people think they're
starting a business, but all they do is create a
(38:28):
job for themselves. So if if you're going to truly
start a business, you have to get it to a
place where it can run without you. And to do
that you have to have good people, and you have
you know the right people around you.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
And so.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I'm I'm a firm believer in hiring for culture. I
think everybody says this.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah they say it, but do they mean it?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
And because you can you can train talent, but you
can't train the heart. That is what it is. And
in getting the right people, and especially today, I don't
want to be that guy that talks about AI, but
I mean there's so many you almost don't have to
really know anything anymore because.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
AI is just like, you know, a master, a master
of all.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
So yeah, we found that find people who are hungry,
find people who want to work, find people who are
passionate about about what about, you know, what they want
to do in life, and train them. And because I mean,
like I said, we have a lot of now we've
(39:35):
we have hired some industry experts around us at some point.
But in the beginning, I mean we were all figuring
it out. But we had a really great team of
guys around us and girls that just loved what they
loved the love, love the company, loved the mission, loved
what we did. And and you know, and it's as
(39:55):
scary as you know those big growth numbers that I
said are, it's also fun. You know, creates a lot
of Oh, of course, it's a lot of buzz.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Last time I checked it, winning is fun, right, Well,
it's it's interesting. You know, I think about hiring and
you said something I think about a lot is you know,
can't coach heart can't coach work, ethic and desire, you
can't fix stupid, yeah, and yet you cannot crazy crazy.
So so those are some things that live by there. Yeah.
(40:25):
So as the leader of a fast growing company that
I'm sure you got to have days when you get
calls from and I'm not making light of it. I
think it's massively impressive. And I love the story because
as a Midwesterner, the thought of a of a guy
deciding one day I'm going to build this company and
then Stanford calls and wants you to come talk to
(40:45):
them about how to get it done. I mean that's
like ad you know, win for the good guys Like
I love that story, thinking about what you've built, you know,
and I I talk a lot to our team here
about you know, getting to a number, you know, exceeding expectations,
all of those things. So often you want the big
(41:06):
moment to happen, and sometimes it does happen, the big
win or the big sale or whatever, but so much
of winning. And as we're talking, and I'm going to
guess you believe this, I believe is one in the
cracks in the gray spaces.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Absolutely, I kept thinking we were going to have this
big breakthrough. Yeah, and it's it's yet to Yeah, it's
yet to come. It's but it's it's all those it's
just it's just the the little things that just keep compiling,
and you just keep doing the right thing and you
keep I wish it was as easy to like just
(41:43):
do one thing and it just you know, explode your business.
But and you know, and some things are better than others.
Like I think it was in twenty two, Yeah, twenty
twenty two, Joe Rogan just randomly shared one of our
Instagram posts, you know, and and that just like exploded
(42:03):
for us.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Joe Rogan call out. We had an Oprah call out.
Maybe you and ever did something wrong. Well why don't
we have any We're gonna do the Good Rancher's cookbook
and bring it to uh Ben here will be like
shout out Ben.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah. Yeah, So I mean, so you have some some
little wins, I said, I mean that was a big win.
But of course, but even you know, but even things
like that, you know, it's still kind of a flash
in the pan and then you're back to reality and
it's like, you know, it's but it's just it is
much more of a compounding absolutely thing of perseverance than
(42:39):
any writ one thing that just changes everything.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Well, you said, I don't even know if you realize
you said it in the beginning when you said just
taking that next step forward, and you know, it's such
a great reminder of like, you know, we all want
the moment. It's kind of like it's why people buy
lottery tickets, right, Yeah, you want that one moment where
someone gives you five hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, win if you don't play.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
But you're right, absolutely, I want to touch on something
before we wrap up here. Every every box of good answers,
you donate ten meals.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yes, so we were we were doing we were doing
that in the early days. We still we still very
much donate meals. But it's not we were because when
we were doing the trucks, sure, I was actually I
was actually praying one morning before we'd ever sold anything,
and I was like, God, what am I doing? How
(43:34):
am I going to do this? And and you just
put on my heart to give, and and I was like, okay,
what does that mean? I thought, Okay, Well, if we're
going to go into these cities and and make a profit,
how can we give back to those locals.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Goes back to when I saw this, It goes back
to your moment in the parking lot.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah, And so we made a decision to whatever city
like Waco was the first one. So we partnered with
the food bank there.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
And so we made every site a chop off site.
People and we would advertise on the radio and come
by meat, but also bring non parish well bring down
parishbal items and will donate them and then we would
give and then we would give a percentage of our
sales back to that local community. And so we did
that the whole time we had the trucks. But then
(44:20):
once we were online, it got a little bit harder,
you know, because we weren't in those same communities. And
so so we switched star We switched our efforts to
supporting to supporting veteran groups. So we've partnered with Paralyzed
Veterans of America Help Helping a Hero who builds homes
for for veterans. Were this year. We're partnered with the USO.
(44:42):
We just fed. We just did a big cook cookout
two weeks ago at Dacon Park. Wasn't in it made
where the Astros play for about two thousand soldiers that
were being deployed to Iraq.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
So just so you know, as a father of a marine,
mean you need to know how important those things are. Yeah,
their lives are a challenge outside of all of the
military commitment. It's just their lives are inconvenient, sure, and
those moments mean a ton. So thank you for doing that.
I think that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Yeah. Yeah, again, you know we are a for profit business,
but course, but I think you know that too much
is given much as required.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
And life's way too short to just try to see
how much money we can make If we're not helping you, yeah,
you can't. If you're not helping others along the way,
then we really missed it.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Absolutely, Ben, This has been a lot of fun, an
amazing story. I feel like we probably could go another hour,
but Amanda does want to go home. She's been here
all morning. So sorry, Amanda, We're gonna sit and probably
talk for a little bit over another Krispy Kreme donut.
But I want to thank you for joining us. Ben's
(46:01):
Bell Good Ranchers. You're doing great work, awesome product. Thanks
for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for
having me
This is CEOs You Should Know with the Dallas market
president of iHeartMedia, Chris Long. Hi, everybody, I want to
welcome you to another episode of CEOs you Should Know
Dallas and I'm Chris Long, your host, Dallas market president
for iHeartMedia, and I'm excited to introduce my new friend,
Ben Spell, founder and CEO of Good Ranchers. Ben. Welcome, Hey,
(00:24):
thanks for having me, glad to be here. Awesome. So
I have given Ben a little bit of warning Amanda,
and I know he's thinking about what's coming his way,
so he's got about ten more seconds. But Ben, as
we talked about iHeartMedia being the audio entertainment company that
we are, with eight hundred and sixty radio stations across
(00:45):
one hundred and sixty markets, podcasting and streaming of every
genre and concerts, anything audio we have it, I think
it's important to know a little bit about your you know,
the soundtrack of your growing up, just so we know
you a little bit better. So I'm gonna do a
little bit of rapid fire on a few questions here. Okay,
I hope you're ready. Yeah, let's go. First thing that
(01:07):
comes to mind, and I'll share mine, just to be
fair teenage music crush O Shania Twain, Olivia Newton John
Shania Twain I met in the lobby of a country
music station I worked at when she was getting into
the business, and I remember we all came back from
launch and we're like, whoa is she interview him for
a job And they're like, yeah, no, she's gonna be big.
She was, Okay, you win that one favorite band T shirt?
(01:31):
Oh gosh, I've never had a band T shirt. Really. No, Okay,
we're gonna take care of that this year. That's on
my list of to do's Amanda last concert.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
This is gonna be hilarious. It was actually Shania Twain
like two years ago when she came to the Woodlands
in Texas.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, so I'm sensing it ironic.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, but it was my wife's idea to go by
the way.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So I'm gonna ask one more just because I'm curious.
Your walk up song if you were playing at Globe
Life Park would not be shown ay A Twain with it. No,
it's cool if it is.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
No, this is going to be left field. It would
probably be be It would probably be Lose yourself by eminem.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
That's a good one. That's a strong one.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So yeah, I think that's my pump up music for working.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Out anything, eminem or just that song, not just that song. Okay,
I think that's a good one. All right, I'll put
that I we side note. We get our guests here,
we do a little research and find out what they
like as a special treat. And unfortunately or fortunately, depending
on how you look at it, Ben is a Crispy
(02:38):
cream guy. So we have a box of Krispy Kreme
sitting here, and.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I'm from Baton Ridge. I'm from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So yeah, but now I'm gonna be the gym for
three hours to night, working off the three donuts I've
eaten while we were talking. But anyway, I digress. So
I'm really excited because you know, as we talked before,
you know, we've had founders and we have CEO had
CEOs on and the founder conversations is so fascinating. All
(03:04):
conversations are, but the founder's ones are very fascinating for
how you came to say, Hey, I'm gonna start my
own company, because it takes a ton of courage to
do that. So tell us a little bit about your
background and and and let's start with once you get there,
tell us about the aha moment.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah. So, the the truth is, I I actually never
wanted to be an entrepreneur. Wasn't something that or a
business owner, I should say, never a thing.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It wasn't. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Well, I I saw a couple of people in my
family that started their own businesses and just never really
you know, it was just one thing to the next
and never really sure. You know, it was very inconsistent
and and and I kind of thought at a young age, man,
I don't want I don't want that, like you know.
(03:54):
And so but then I was also, uh, I ironically
that we're in iHeart. I was very gifted with music.
I started playing piano when I was like thirteen, and
and then guitar and you know, pretty much anything with strings.
And so it's funny I say this all the time.
(04:17):
I really didn't plan to. I didn't really have much
of a plan. But I was really gifted with music.
And I was very involved in the church that I
went to growing up, and so I started you know,
playing playing in church and then started playing four churches
and and then when I moved to Houston when I
(04:38):
was eighteen, got involved in the local church there, and
I was working, I was going to school, and I
was just working, I guess a bank teller, and they
they hired me to come on staff to to to
you know, to lead all the music for the church.
And I was like, okay, sure, I wasn't really planning
to do that. But what I went to college for
(05:01):
was audio engineering, okay, because I really like, I like,
like music production.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Should a man to be worried that you're going to
come over and take over the board.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
No, No, no, not at all. But uh so, so
I started, like you know, today you can, technology has
just advanced so much, but we're talking about twenty five
years ago, sure, you know. And uh so I got
really good at like making tracks and making like stems
and backing tracks and stuff and and and at that time,
(05:31):
like today you can go online and like just download
any of the stems and pay for them and you know,
for like every song that exists, but back then that didn't.
So I started doing that in one of the largest
churches in Houston started contracting me to make stems and
tracks for like their Christmas productions, their Easter productions, and then,
(05:52):
uh then they hired me to run the studio. Then
then I became the band director, and then and then
eventually it was over all of the all of the music,
all of the worship, all of the you know, I
seem to write and absolutely loved it and did that.
So from nineteen to early thirties I was full time
(06:16):
at a church, you know, and the last one I
was at, and like I said, was a megachurch. Everything's
bigger in Texas. So I absolutely loved it. But in
around twenty twelve, I had an interaction with the man
in a parking lot after a service and he said,
he said, to me, great great worship today, Pastor. I
(06:36):
really appreciate what you do. I said, thanks, And I
was getting in my car and he was getting in his.
He was parked right next to me, and he was
just in an absolute beater of a car and I
had a newer, nicer car, much nicer than his, and
something inside of me just I didn't like that interaction.
I didn't like that I could afford to have nicer
things than the people who were technically paying my salary.
(07:00):
And not that it's wrong, no.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But but that takes a lot to see that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, but I also think that it was I think
that it was God preparing me for what he had
for me, which I, you know, had no idea.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Everything you've said nothing screams good ranchers, rochers.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yet it's not at all. Yeah, And because people always say, well,
because I mean, I had no industry background and meat.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Did you grow Did you grow up on a ranch
or farm or I grew up.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
In the country, that's for sure, And we had horses
and cows. My grandfather actually did race raised cattle. He
had a cow calf operation, but it was on the side.
And so I kind of grew up like I said,
I grew up in the country, you know. And but
but but nothing about the actual process of of actually
(07:53):
raising animals, butchering I wasn't. I wasn't a big foodie
that a lot of people think, well, maybe were you
really into really were you really into cooking? I'd never
cooked a steak in my life, and so so I
had that interaction in the parking lot and I started
just and that kind of started me on this journey
of you know, what else could I do? And I
had this idea of could I find something to do
(08:16):
on the side. I didn't think that I would quit
working for the church. But I thought, could I find
something that could supplement my income or could I get
to the place where I don't have to take it
in a salary from the church.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I don't know, but Ben could be the originator of
the side hustle and no one knew it. Yeah, it
wasn't a word back then. Yeah, it wasn't a word
back then. You know when you sit there and say, hey,
you know music, minister rancher. Yeah, not really the combo
you typically think.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, So any kind of side hustle, right, And so
fast forward a little bit. My wife and I around
twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen watching a lot of Shark Tank
and which is you know, great to inspire entrepreneurs, and
I started having this idea of a meat company, nothing
(09:11):
even close to what Good Ranchers is today, but I
just had this. I remember saying to my wife, you know, somebody,
somebody should do this, this and this, because because honestly,
my thought was and again this is twenty fifteen, ten
years ago. Omaha Steaks had been around for one hundred
(09:32):
years and they pretty much kind of the founder of
the yeah, the category, right, yeah, and really had no
competition at the time, like if you if you're going
to order meat like they were really the.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
They were it. They were it well and then you
know because remember in the nineties they partnered with rush
Limbaugh correct and he helped build that too, like they
were synonymous.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Correct. So I started thinking, man, like I feel like
that's a wide open market. Somebody should somebody shud challenge
that somebody should should do it. And I didn't think
that somebody would be us, And so then I started
like kind of look like I found myself looking into
meat and you know.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Studying you watched Shark Tank. Yeah, so you could have
like zeroed in on you know, shirts, golf clubs, whatever
hats Right, what do you remember what it was about meat?
Especially because you didn't grow up in that world, Like
if you had grown up on a ranch, and though
you did, you were familiar, but it wasn't your world.
Yeah what was the thing? Yeah? Well, okay, so I
(10:33):
left one part out.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
In the beginning of twenty fifteen, I took a took
a sabbatical from the church that I worked at because,
like I said, I was on this what what else
can I do?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
And I worked for a meat company doing outside sales.
I didn't know anything about meat, but but I was
good at talking to people and at restaurants, and yeah,
it was it was. It was. It was more like
direct to to people at like at like fairs and stuff.
(11:09):
And but in that little bit of time I did
it for about three months, I was really good at it.
Absolutely hated it. I mean there was nothing about it
I liked. And I was like, you know, yeah, I'm
going back to I'm going back to music leading worship.
I don't want to do this, and uh, but in
that time I did it long enough to realize and
(11:32):
this is actually why I quit. It was very unethical,
like their sales tactics, the things that they were saying,
and you know, I'm a very inquisitive person, and so
I asked a lot of questions and and I quickly
realized what they were saying about the quality of the
meat and where it's from was just absolutely absolutely a lie.
(11:55):
And so for moral obligation, even though the money was
actually really good, but morally, I just couldn't sit there
and lie to people and tell them, you know, one thing,
knowing that it's another. And so so coming off of that,
I'm back working at the church, watching Shark Tank and
and so I start having those conversations with my wife, like,
(12:17):
man if I think there's an opportunity because because of
what I learned is there's no country of origin labeling
law for beef or for pork in the US. So
you can literally say, oh, it's all coming from farms
in the Midwest, no one can call you on and
no one can call you on it. And it's actually
coming from feed lots of Mexico.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Why is that like.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Money?
Speaker 3 (12:41):
So okay, Chris, but no. So this is interesting though.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So like if my shirt shoes whatever, it says me
in America and other the plate you eat.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
On has to say where it comes from, but the
food that you put on it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Oh wow, it's it's But.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It's not that way with vegetables. It's not way with produce,
and but beef and pork there's at that time, there
was no country of original labeling law. They just changed
the law this year in January, and we've been very
active in trying to get it's called the Cool Law,
(13:20):
trying to get it back implement it because prior to
twenty fifteen, we had one in the US and and
it just silently went away in twenty fifteen. Interesting and
that opened up the floodgates for imported meat coming into
the grocery store being sold online. And so that was
the That was the thing that I that I knew
and that I saw, and that I was like, man,
(13:42):
we could like we should, we should fix that. And
and so let me rephrase, I did not say we
should fix that. I said someone should. That's what I
told my wife the first time. And then every few
months I'd find myself talking about it again. And after
about a year of just every few months talking about
(14:03):
it to my wife, one morning I was getting ready
for the church that had worked at. It was a
Sunday morning. I was in the bathroom and I started
having the thoughts again. And I'm not one of those
people that God talks to me all the time, but
I heard, I heard in my spirits so loudly, you
do it, and it shook me. So I came out.
(14:26):
By this time, this was twenty seventeen at the time,
and we just had our first baby boy, who was
about six weeks old. And what I expected my wife
to say was because I came out and I said,
I think God just told me to start a meet company.
And what I expected her to say was, we just
had a baby, we don't have any money, we don't
know anything about it, you know, and asked me a
(14:46):
bunch of questions. But what she actually said was if
you heard God, then I trust you. And that was oh.
And so a few months later, fast forward.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
To I'm scared and I didn't even live it, and
I'm just hearing this. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, So a few months later, started selling meat out
of the back of a truck in a parking lot
in Waco, Texas. Scraped up some money to you know,
buy a truckload and did we did our own like
pop up shop there at the Richland Mall in Waco, Texas.
Never forget it out from Waco.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
And immediately saw really really good success. A lot of
people come in a lot of you know, Okay, can
I stop you real quick? Sure?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Okay, So you had the moment in the parking lot
that kind of stirred you a little bit in the car.
When was that twenty twelve?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You said, I was about twenty twelve. Yeah, okay, so
it was about.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Five years five years of shark tank, Yeah, and a
little bit of work in the space, yep, not finding
it super ethical and overall didn't really care for it,
right other than the money was okay.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Last forward five years yep, you hear have a calling,
which is amazing. Baby, no real idea what you're.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Doing, none, no, and you know, no business experience, no
business experience. And I just thought, if we could buy
it for this much, if we could sell this much,
if we can, you know, we'll advertise this way and
we'll you know. And and what I thought, honestly, I
thought what I was going to do was those pop
up shop style didn't plan to like disrupt the industry
(16:32):
and you know, become a thing and become a thing. Honestly,
I thought, because like the way we were doing those
type of sales, it was much more like running a
fireworks stand through the summer. You know, you get you
get Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, fourth of July,
all within a six week period, you know. And so
(16:55):
uh yeah, what I thought was I could do this
for a few years, makes it put some money seasons though,
and then we would do something and then we would
do something else. Yeah, that's what That's what I that's
what I kind of went into it. But as we
as we started we we we quickly started realizing, wow,
(17:19):
there's more to this as it started growing in because
originally we were buying from broker. We just had to
buy from you know, from a broker because because that's
all we could do. But as we started finding success
and getting more buying power, we started being able to
go straight to you know, manufacturers, and that's when I
(17:42):
really started learning even and even more how corrupt the
industry is. And and because even at that time, with
the like even working directly with that particular manufacturer, there
was still no way to know where the meat was
(18:04):
actually coming. So they can just yeah, like you absolutely,
and they do it all the time. They do it
all the time. It's a that's like it's it's kind
of a running joke in the meat world of just
how corrupt and how shady a lot of these guys are.
And again it's because there's loopholes and the laws that
(18:24):
they can get away with it, and you know, and
why not.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So it's so it's fascinating because a couple of our
past guests, a man, I'm thinking about doctor Harrison from
Mint Dentistry and Shannon McClendon from Farmhouse Fresh. They had
moments similar in different different ways, you know. Shannon said
she she sent a bottle of her product a footloation
(18:48):
to Oprah and Oprah was like, oh my gosh, this
is amazing nice. And then doctor Harrison was on a
mission trip and the dentist was doing work on some
of the teeth. He's like, hey, do you want to
pull this tooth? And he said after that, I was hooked,
and he was like a senior in high school. Wow.
But like, those moments happen and like do you draw?
(19:08):
And I feel like they do, but I'm gonna ask
you do you draw on those moments? And that push
you forward? Because I hear you talking about how important
it is to you American sourced meat. It's very clear
that that. I mean, obviously it's the ethos of your company,
but like it, it seems like that was just a
common driver of doing it ethically.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
So yeah, so, I mean it was it really So
it started as how can I provide from a family
of course, yeah, and then it and then it and
then it quickly pivoted to how can we provide better
meat that we can trust for our family because we're
(19:52):
very health consciousness as a family. And like I said,
we had just had our first baby and we have
four four now yeah side note, we started we had
our first baby in twenty seventeen, started the business at
the end of twenty seventeen, started the business at the
beginning of twenty eighteen, had our second baby boy, in
twenty nineteen, had our third, which is a baby girl,
(20:14):
in twenty twenty, then had our fourth and twenty twenty two.
So as we're building a business, we're also growing a family.
Really I don't recommend, but but it's been a it's
been a blast in a wild ride.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Do you have four k So you have I'm going
to say you have five? Five under ten? Yeah, exactly,
good ranchers being the other child in all of this. Yeah,
that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And so like I said, we once we you know that,
Like I said, that first first year wasn't really thinking
that we were going to actually build a real quote
unquote business. Sure, but then we went into twenty nineteen,
we saw really great success. And even in the first
year twenty eighteen was the first year twenty yeah, ok,
(21:02):
and then and then the same in twenty nineteen and
I remember talking to my wife and she was like, Okay, like, well,
what are we going to do next? Because this was
supposed to be like a temporary thing. And I said,
you know, I think this is what we're supposed to
do and UH, and went into twenty twenty with not
knowing COVID was coming, but went into twenty twenty with UH,
(21:27):
with the grand idea to because at the time we
weren't online, and we said, well, if we're going to
we're going to grow this, we're going to scale it.
We need more trucks. So we were in twenty eighteen
to twenty nineteen we would do like five or six
trucks at a time. And I'm gonna say trucks, I
mean like twenty six foot box trucks. You know, could
fit quite a quite a haul of meat on those.
(21:47):
And so went into twenty twenty with the idea to
have twenty trucks at a time and.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Were d you own these trucks or are you leasing
at least?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, least them and UH, which you know, we had
to have people to work them, and but really worked
kind of the off season in twenty nineteen going to
twenty twenty with this this grand idea of twenty trucks
at a time. And it was the best thing that
happened for us because when COVID, when COVID hit, and
(22:17):
we were, you know, the whole flare of emotions of
what's going to happen, right, none of us knew. But
for us it was actually very people. It was very good. Yeah,
it was very good for us because I don't know
if you remember this, but the grocery stores that ran
out of meat and restaurants are shut down, and so
(22:40):
we found ourselves having meat and having a good supply
of meat through that time. And I mean, we just
couldn't keep enough on the trucks. And I know COVID
affected a lot of businesses in negative ways. And so
I don't say that I don't relish at at all.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
But it's just such a it's such an interesting dichotomy,
right like where I'm sure there's a little bit of
you guilt's not the right word, but feeling like, oh wow,
my company's blowing up during this period, and like you said,
others are not, you know, And I'm not making light
in the least, but I had a mentor of mine
(23:21):
tell me one time. Within chaos, there's opportunity, yep. And
you know, sometimes you just have to be able to
see where the opportunity is. And I don't know that
you saw that immediately or did you like, oh wait, restaurants,
no restaurants plus no meat in grocery stores meets good
for good ranchers. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Where where I come from, we say, we say it
the same thing, but we say make hey, whant the
sun is shining absolutely and and that's you know, so
we saw that, and then we that's when we were
we had been talking already about and working to get online,
but then when covid happened, we were like that really
kind of as fast forward to e commerce for everybody.
(24:02):
But of course so we we we we quickly started
pivoting and trying to figure out how can we how
can we sell online? How can we you know, how
can we ship? Which if I would have known how
hard it is to ship perishool items, uh uh yeah,
I probably would have never done it.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Honestly, times, Oh yeah it is.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And you know, one one of your questions is like,
you know, what would you tell people who are thinking
about starting a business. And I tell people this all
the time, Like it's different for everybody. But we would
have never if if if I would have had like
n b as around me in the beginning, I don't
(24:40):
think we would have ever. Yes, yeah, and there was,
there was. There are several things that we just did
without counting the cost or weighing the if it doesn't work,
(25:01):
you know, because honestly, ignorance is bliss, and we're just like,
well this should work.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And sounds good. Thankfully it did.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Thankfully it did, and and and and looking back, like
like I said, like you know, it was. It was.
If we would have had people around us at the
time saying, well you got to put a business plan
and you know, you got to do this, and you
got to like this, like we had missed, we'd have
missed the we had missed the opportunity because we'd never.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Got there out of curiosity. You know. I have some
notes here. It talks about being on the ink five
thousand lists multiple years in a round all that has
anybody from a business school, anyone come to try and
do a case study on what you've done?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yes, yeah, actually e y they did did last Yeah
I did last year. And everyone that we talked to
they they kind of walk away with the same thing.
This makes no sense. This makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, and fact, and I just I got invited to
speak at Stanford Entrepreneurial Summit to tell our story as well.
And yeah, it's but again, it really doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So that's the blessing.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So yeah, So if you're out there and you're you're
thinking about starting a business, you're never going to get
it all perfect. You're you're never going to get it
all perfect. And you're not gonna I mean, I'm not
saying don't plan, and I'm not saying don't I'm not
saying because we didn't, you know, we're not winging it.
But it's never gonna all make sense. And even how
(26:39):
we start it to who we are today is very different.
But you know, you take that step, take that first step,
and and and that leads you to something. And I'm
a firm believer of of of when you commit your
heart to the Lord, when you commit your work to
the Lord, that the right doors will open and the
(27:01):
wrong doors will close and you don't have to think
too much about it. And and honestly, along the way,
everything that seemed like every because we definitely had some
closed doors, and every time a door would close, something
better would would would come up because of it, you know,
(27:21):
we would find something much better on the on the
other side of those closed doors.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Right, Yeah, if we just keep our eyes and our
hearts open. Yeah, yea.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And I think it's and I think it's a testament
of perseverance as well. Oh of course grit Yeah, word,
I love so okay, I do love grits.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Huh. I've achieved some pretty good recipes. Is there a
good Rnswers cookbook?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Not?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
No, we do have. We do we have.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
We have recipes, We have recipes online, and it is
something that we've been you know. We we find ourselves
all the time of there's so many things we can do,
you know, but you know, what should we do?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
And it's funny, I I you know, some people I
used to work with in the digital space, we would
talk just sometimes just because you can't do something doesn't
mean you should do it exactly, you know. And and
in business all the time, because you can go down
a road you're like, oh, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah? I like to think about Raisin Kanes, which shout
out to Baton Rouge because that's where they started.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Okay, Wall, they got to stop. Are you an LSU fan?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I mean I grew up in Baton Rouge, you know,
so I can't shout at Eddie Martini, my boss, big
Tiger fans sitting here with me. Yeah, I'm born and
raised Beton Rouge, So Tigers. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Hey,
Death Valley on a Saturday night, there's there's not a
better experience.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Hey, if you want to be on the LSU podcast,
we'll send you down the hall and you can talk
to them.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, let's go. But what I was going to say
is that if you look at Raisin Kanes, they sell
like three things and do it and they haven't deviated
from that. And they don't sell any desserts, no cookies,
no shakes, you know, and they could yeah, but you know,
they don't make a chicken sandwich. They don't like they
(29:11):
just they sell these three things and they're really good
at it and that and that's what they do. So
I think sometimes you can over overextend yourself, you know,
well for sure, And.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
There's also simplicity and you know, you talk about and
I've heard this before about the perfection thing like you know,
perfection doesn't really exist, No, but if you do, if
you talk about like the Canes model, you can be
really tarn good at three things and own those three
things and have a lot of success with that.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. What it's saying perfection is an enemy
of good?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Is that the sink? I don't know, but I like
it sounds good to me. All right, so we're look
it up. We're in agreement here, okay. So oh it's
pretty heavy stuff. So I like how you've dropped in you.
I did a case study on us. I'm speaking, It's
Stanford and you say it so well. I'd be big
time in people over something like that. So Ben, I
(30:12):
appreciate that. This is great. So fast forward today twenty
twenty six. Talk to me about how many people are
good ranchers? Where's the focus today? And then I do
want to get into some of the works you guys
do as a part of your success, which I think
is awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah absolutely yeah. So, like I said, we I'm going
to just finish the story. Quickly started selling the trucks.
COVID happened, we knew we wanted to get online. Went
into twenty twenty one with our toe in the water,
kind of trying to figure out how to ship meet.
Like I said, it's really hard to ship perish withal items,
(30:49):
at least to ship them. Well, so we still had
the trucks, and the trucks were making money, and online
was just losing money. I mean we were losing every
box we sold. We were losing money because it really yeah,
we only had one one warehouse to ship out of
at the time, and.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Oh and yeah it doesn't work, Yeah it does.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
It does not work. And so where was the warehouse
Saint Louis, Missouri, which so we thought right, you know,
we thought like right in the middle, but we were
quickly wrong. And because we had a ton of customers
in California and so so we a by the middle
of the year twenty twenty one, we opened up another
fulfillment center in California. So then we had the two
(31:31):
that made it a little bit better. And then we
made the decision to uh, I forget which old story
it is where they burned the boats. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Oh, yeah, that's that's a navy story.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, we made the decision to burn the boats, which
for us was shut down. The trucks go in go
on online, and again the trucks were making money online
was just losing money.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
But we.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
At this point, I guess we were four years into
good ranchers because yeah, twenty yeah, three and a half
years in, so I had learned a little bit more.
You know, I knew nothing about business going in, but figured,
if we can you know, if we can get to
this many customers online, sure you know, we'll be able
to make it. Because we I mean again were We've
(32:24):
been bootstrapped since the beginning. You know, we have to
kill what we eat, eat what we kill. We don't
we never took any money. We've never raised any money
like you know, so if we're not, if we're if
you know, we can't afford to miss, We can't afford
to lose. And so but made the decision shut down
the trucks go fully online in twenty twenty two. And
(32:46):
so we we started selling off, you know, all the
assets of the trucks, closing all that down towards the
end of twenty twenty one, with the with the ambition
to be fully online going into twenty twenty two, which
we did, and then I mean we we ten next
our growth in twenty twenty two, of course you did. Yeah,
(33:07):
and then we grew two hundred percent over twenty two
in twenty three, and then we grew fifty percent and
then to last year, which was like forty four percent.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
What are you doing? What do you here wasting time?
You're down to forty four percent growth?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I know, I know, I know. And like we we've
I kicked off the year with our with this year, yeah,
with our team, and because we actually had a saying
that we've said the last few years of we're building
the plane as we're flying it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And but again I've never done this before, so it's
all we know, you know, I think it's I don't know,
if you know. Adam and Danielle Busby, the they had
a TV show on TLC called Out Daartered. They had
quintuplet girls like five at one time.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
They're good friends of ours and they, uh, but when
you don't know any when you just have five at
one time and you don't know any.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
As a father of twins, yeah, there you go. My
wife and I like, yeah, you just kind of wonder
that you're looking at You just.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Got to figure it out, okay, Yeah, yeah, you just
got to you just got to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
For a few years. Are a black hole in my memory.
But you know, I mean, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
But that's kind of the thing. We didn't have any
other business experience to base it on. So, like I said,
when we talk to people now, they go, oh my gosh,
that kind of growth like it could it can? You know,
can it could actually kill a lot of companies. And
and but we've we didn't, you know, we just had
to figure it out along the way. And and and
(34:39):
thankfully I have to say this, like I've got a
lot of people that are much smarter than me around me,
And uh, what's smart enough to know? Like I know
what I know, but I don't know what I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, I think, But that's I believe. And I love
hearing you say that. I believe smart leaders reckon organize that.
You know, because if you're the one with all the knowledge,
then okay, then what do you need everybody else for?
But if you find good people and not that that
doesn't need to be shepherd and pointed in the right direction.
Sometimes you know, you're the keeper of the vision. I mean,
(35:15):
you're it was it was your concept from the beginning. Yeah,
but you bring in good people and I would imagine Okay,
so how how how how big are you know, how
many employees.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
At our at our home office in Friends would which
is where we run the business out of. We have
sixty five employees, okay, but we have five fulfillment centers
across the US, and we have and we work work
with uh maybe five or six different manufacturers partners, yeah okay,
(35:46):
and stuff. So we've we've intentionally tried to you know,
be asset light. That makes me sound smarter than I am.
We didn't have the money.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You are going to let a few of those things.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, well, I'm just and like we you know, but
the reality is we didn't have the money to you know,
like which was also a blessing in disguise because you know,
it allows us to focus on the things that we're
good at and course and outsource the rest. So but
sixty five w two employees that that we run the business,
(36:22):
but five fulfillment centers and between manufacturers because at at
like at each of our fulfillment centers and we have
dedicated lines full time that only ship for good ranchers
and the same thing at each of our at our
uh where we cut butcher like we have dedicated lines.
(36:43):
That's all they do is cut meat for good ranchers.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
So there's hundreds of jobs create it, but I'm only
responsible for I'm only technically responsible for sixty five of them.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
At this point, I have a couple of questions here
because I I love your story and congratulations. This is
amazing with the kind of culture you've built. Like you said,
like you're problem not running out and maybe you are.
And I don't know this, but you're probably not running
out hire an MBAs someone, doesn't you know? You probably
(37:17):
have a certain person that you look for that's going
to fit your culture. Yep, because you have a unique
culture that's driven a great deal of success. And I know,
I'm just sitting here with you. Don't take that for granted.
You can lightly say these percentages and we can kind
of chuckle about it, but like I know, you don't
take it for granted. No, not at all, And so
like talk to me about the culture, Like what do
(37:37):
you think about like inviting someone into a company a
of your it's only what ten years old? Eight? Yeah, okay,
eight years old? Sixty five, sixty two employees good size number,
but not massive, Like you have to really think about
culture when you bring someone in. Yeah, how do you
guys think about that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
So I think it was zig Ziglar. So you don't
build a business, you build people, and the people build
the business. And yeah, he was a he was a
brilliant man.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, he's he was known to be fairly intelligent and
smart about things.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Brilliant man. And and then one other I always get
his name wrong, but the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad,
doesn't matter, But I read that book one of uh
actually before starting Good Ranchers, And and one of the
things he said in there was most people think they're
starting a business, but all they do is create a
(38:28):
job for themselves. So if if you're going to truly
start a business, you have to get it to a
place where it can run without you. And to do
that you have to have good people, and you have
you know the right people around you.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
And so.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I'm I'm a firm believer in hiring for culture. I
think everybody says this.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah they say it, but do they mean it?
Speaker 2 (38:49):
And because you can you can train talent, but you
can't train the heart. That is what it is. And
in getting the right people, and especially today, I don't
want to be that guy that talks about AI, but
I mean there's so many you almost don't have to
really know anything anymore because.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
AI is just like, you know, a master, a master
of all.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
So yeah, we found that find people who are hungry,
find people who want to work, find people who are
passionate about about what about, you know, what they want
to do in life, and train them. And because I mean,
like I said, we have a lot of now we've
(39:35):
we have hired some industry experts around us at some point.
But in the beginning, I mean we were all figuring
it out. But we had a really great team of
guys around us and girls that just loved what they
loved the love, love the company, loved the mission, loved
what we did. And and you know, and it's as
(39:55):
scary as you know those big growth numbers that I
said are, it's also fun. You know, creates a lot
of Oh, of course, it's a lot of buzz.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Last time I checked it, winning is fun, right, Well,
it's it's interesting. You know, I think about hiring and
you said something I think about a lot is you know,
can't coach heart can't coach work, ethic and desire, you
can't fix stupid, yeah, and yet you cannot crazy crazy.
So so those are some things that live by there. Yeah.
(40:25):
So as the leader of a fast growing company that
I'm sure you got to have days when you get
calls from and I'm not making light of it. I
think it's massively impressive. And I love the story because
as a Midwesterner, the thought of a of a guy
deciding one day I'm going to build this company and
then Stanford calls and wants you to come talk to
(40:45):
them about how to get it done. I mean that's
like ad you know, win for the good guys Like
I love that story, thinking about what you've built, you know,
and I I talk a lot to our team here
about you know, getting to a number, you know, exceeding expectations,
all of those things. So often you want the big
(41:06):
moment to happen, and sometimes it does happen, the big
win or the big sale or whatever, but so much
of winning. And as we're talking, and I'm going to
guess you believe this, I believe is one in the
cracks in the gray spaces.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Absolutely, I kept thinking we were going to have this
big breakthrough. Yeah, and it's it's yet to Yeah, it's
yet to come. It's but it's it's all those it's
just it's just the the little things that just keep compiling,
and you just keep doing the right thing and you
keep I wish it was as easy to like just
(41:43):
do one thing and it just you know, explode your business.
But and you know, and some things are better than others.
Like I think it was in twenty two, Yeah, twenty
twenty two, Joe Rogan just randomly shared one of our
Instagram posts, you know, and and that just like exploded
(42:03):
for us.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Joe Rogan call out. We had an Oprah call out.
Maybe you and ever did something wrong. Well why don't
we have any We're gonna do the Good Rancher's cookbook
and bring it to uh Ben here will be like
shout out Ben.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah. Yeah, So I mean, so you have some some
little wins, I said, I mean that was a big win.
But of course, but even you know, but even things
like that, you know, it's still kind of a flash
in the pan and then you're back to reality and
it's like, you know, it's but it's just it is
much more of a compounding absolutely thing of perseverance than
(42:39):
any writ one thing that just changes everything.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Well, you said, I don't even know if you realize
you said it in the beginning when you said just
taking that next step forward, and you know, it's such
a great reminder of like, you know, we all want
the moment. It's kind of like it's why people buy
lottery tickets, right, Yeah, you want that one moment where
someone gives you five hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, win if you don't play.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
But you're right, absolutely, I want to touch on something
before we wrap up here. Every every box of good answers,
you donate ten meals.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yes, so we were we were doing we were doing
that in the early days. We still we still very
much donate meals. But it's not we were because when
we were doing the trucks, sure, I was actually I
was actually praying one morning before we'd ever sold anything,
and I was like, God, what am I doing? How
(43:34):
am I going to do this? And and you just
put on my heart to give, and and I was like, okay,
what does that mean? I thought, Okay, Well, if we're
going to go into these cities and and make a profit,
how can we give back to those locals.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Goes back to when I saw this, It goes back
to your moment in the parking lot.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Yeah, And so we made a decision to whatever city
like Waco was the first one. So we partnered with
the food bank there.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
And so we made every site a chop off site.
People and we would advertise on the radio and come
by meat, but also bring non parish well bring down
parishbal items and will donate them and then we would
give and then we would give a percentage of our
sales back to that local community. And so we did
that the whole time we had the trucks. But then
(44:20):
once we were online, it got a little bit harder,
you know, because we weren't in those same communities. And
so so we switched star We switched our efforts to
supporting to supporting veteran groups. So we've partnered with Paralyzed
Veterans of America Help Helping a Hero who builds homes
for for veterans. Were this year. We're partnered with the USO.
(44:42):
We just fed. We just did a big cook cookout
two weeks ago at Dacon Park. Wasn't in it made
where the Astros play for about two thousand soldiers that
were being deployed to Iraq.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
So just so you know, as a father of a marine,
mean you need to know how important those things are. Yeah,
their lives are a challenge outside of all of the
military commitment. It's just their lives are inconvenient, sure, and
those moments mean a ton. So thank you for doing that.
I think that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Yeah. Yeah, again, you know we are a for profit business,
but course, but I think you know that too much
is given much as required.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
And life's way too short to just try to see
how much money we can make If we're not helping you, yeah,
you can't. If you're not helping others along the way,
then we really missed it.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Absolutely, Ben, This has been a lot of fun, an
amazing story. I feel like we probably could go another hour,
but Amanda does want to go home. She's been here
all morning. So sorry, Amanda, We're gonna sit and probably
talk for a little bit over another Krispy Kreme donut.
But I want to thank you for joining us. Ben's
(46:01):
Bell Good Ranchers. You're doing great work, awesome product. Thanks
for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for
having me
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