May 7, 2024 • 54 mins
Meeting Tom McManus of KegWorks.com
In this engaging podcast episode, Tom McManus, CEO of KegWorks, shares the journey of his business from a specialized eCommerce store to a prominent leader in architectural metalwork for the hospitality industry. Celebrating over 26 years in business, McManus discusses the strategic shift from offering a wide range of products to focusing on high-margin, specialized items like bar foot rails, which are now featured prominently in U.S. bar renovations. He candidly explores the decision to significantly reduce their presence on Amazon, describing the move away from what he terms "revenue heroin." McManus emphasizes the importance of concentrating on core products and direct relationships with clients, which has led to improved profit margins and sustainable business growth. The podcast is peppered with personal anecdotes, including the memorable story of McManus and Ethan's first in-person meeting, which humorously highlights their synergy and mutual business philosophies. McManus offers invaluable advice to other business leaders, underscoring the importance of trusting one’s instincts and prioritizing value creation over immediate gains. Ethan Giffin’s dynamic interaction with McManus not only brings out detailed insights into KegWorks’ strategic decisions but also offers listeners practical strategies for entrepreneurship and leadership. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone looking to understand the intricacies of navigating business growth and market changes.
Quotes From The Show"Every dad on our street had that one friend who had turned an old refrigerator into a kegerator; he was definitely the coolest dad around." - Tom McManus, 03:26 "We've shifted from being a primarily B2C company to focusing more on B2B transactions, which require a different approach and a longer sales cycle." - Tom McManus, 08:26 "I can walk into any bar and spot our products immediately. I once challenged someone by saying, 'Yeah, that's our foot rail. Tell me I'm wrong.'" - Tom McManus, 11:09 "Our growth strategy involved expanding through multiple channels, but we found that just led to trading dollars without real profit." - Tom McManus, 13:03 "The eCommerce landscape is a race to the bottom when you're just competing on price and presence." - Tom McManus, 13:26 "Getting hooked on revenue heroin is dangerous for your business—it's addictive and hard to quit, just like the real thing." - Tom McManus, 13:34
Chapters00:17 - Chapter 1: Introduction to Tom McManus and KegWorks 05:00 - Chapter 2: Doubling Down on Architectural Metal 11:37 - Chapter 3: The Downside of Omnichannel Growth 17:50 - Chapter 4: Deep product Knowledge Is Your Best Tool 23:54 - Chapter 5: Building an eComm Dream Team 30:31 - Chapter 6: KegWorks’ eCommerce Tech Stack 45:08 - Chapter 7: Tom’s #1 Mistake
ResourcesKegWorks.com - https://www.kegworks.com/ Rakuten - https://www.rakuten.com/ Magento - https://magento.com/ BigCommerce - https://www.bigcommerce.com/ HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/ Borderfree - Previously available at https://www.borderfree.com/ but now part of Pitney Bowes. Digital River - https://www.digitalriver.com/ Pitney Bowes - https://www.pitneybowes.com/ Celigo - https://www.celigo.com/ SearchSpring - https://searchspring.com/ Feedonomics - https://www.feedonomics.com/
About our Guest, Tom McManusTom McManus is the CEO of KegWorks, a leading provider in the architectural metal and draft beer equipment industry. Since 2005, Tom has steered the company through numerous
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Episode Transcript
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(01:00:00):
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the
E-commerce Masters Podcast,
the platform where we delve into the
stories and strategies
of e-commerce trailblazers.
I'm your host, Ethan Given,
and today we have the pleasure
(audio cuts out)
We are honored to have Tom McManus,
the CEO of kegworks.com join us today.
(01:00:21):
Kegworks is the leader
in architectural metalwork
and draft beer equipment
for commercial and residential bars.
Tom is also a certified
Pinnacle Business Guide,
coaching other entrepreneurs on their
climb to the summit.
Tom has been a long time client, friend,
and confidant to me, and if you meet him,
just be mindful that he
may make you smoke cigars
(01:00:42):
into the wee hours of the morning.
Tom, welcome to the show.
It's just a rumor, it's not true.
Okay, no, it is true, but
that's fine, that's fine.
It's great to be here, Ethan,
appreciate you asking me to do this.
It's an honor to be here.
And thank you, thank
you, thank you, thank you,
thank you for doing
it, and I'm very honored
(01:01:02):
that you would, you're a very busy guy,
and very honored you would
spend your time together.
You know, I wanna start things out,
just a little funny
story is that you and I,
I believe that we met
probably back in 2016 or 17,
I believe, in that kind of timeframe,
and we met over a Zoom or Google Meet,
(01:01:23):
you know, the first,
and then that led to us spending a night
at Inbound in Boston,
and you made me come out
after working the booth
all day, made me come out
and smoke cigars at your spot in Boston,
and so they threw us out
of there at two o'clock
in the morning, and you
know, I came in the next day
(01:01:45):
like coughing and
smelling, you know, smelling bad.
They didn't wanna let me
in the booth, and you know,
and so I appreciate that.
It's like a cigar bar and all,
and then the whole country too.
It is just some gross underground place,
and I won't even go
into the neighborhood,
but man, I love that place.
(01:02:07):
That's great, it's great.
Then I remember when I came to visit you
for the first time at
your offices, we literally,
you know, of course I
was in a rental car,
but we literally like both
had the same kind of brand
of car, I had a white
button down on with my sleeves
rolled up, you had a white button down,
(01:02:27):
and your staff kind of
looked at us together,
and they were like, oh
no, this is just mine.
Like we don't need two
of these guys, you know,
one here around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my staff will tell you
that I need two.
(laughing)
So, so tell our
audience a little bit about,
(01:02:48):
you know, KegWorks and what you sell,
what your products are.
So, KegWorks is 26 years old.
It was founded by my
previous partner, David and I.
He founded the company.
A few years later, he
hired me as the CEO.
(01:03:10):
A few years later, we became partners,
and we grew KegWorks
from our first product,
and our product line
was, our first product was,
you know how on your street,
everyone's dad had that
friend somewhere in his garage
that he had turned an old
(01:03:32):
refrigerator into a kegerator?
Like everyone's dad had that friend
somewhere on the street.
And--
Yes, the coolest dad on the block.
Exactly, exactly, and
when we were growing up,
you know, it wasn't a thing.
Like it was up, like you
had to work to do that.
Well, we figured out, my
(01:03:52):
old partner, David Rivers,
his dad owned a small
grocery store in Syracuse,
and it was a beer store
before craft beer was a thing,
and he sold the pieces and parts
to make these conversion kits.
David, in the late 90s,
God, it bounced me out
that I've been doing e-com for, you know,
(01:04:15):
I'm sniffing 30 years now, God.
Yeah, I know, this
goes back to the whole,
like this getting old shit,
sorry, I lost my language.
So we started with that product,
we grew it to
everything you find in a bar
except the alcohol, over
(01:04:35):
time, market trends change.
We really kind of
recognized what we were doing,
where our product lines were commoditized
and actively left certain product lines.
You know, it's hard leaving a product
that you've been selling for 25 years,
(01:04:58):
but we really in the last few years
have doubled down on architectural metal.
So what I mean by
architectural metal for hospitality
is it's the finishing
details you find in a bar.
So it is the bar foot rail,
is what we're really
known for in the marketplace.
So if you've been in a bar
(01:05:19):
that's been built or remodeled,
bar, restaurant, hotel bar,
anywhere in the United
States in the last 15 years,
and there's a foot rail on it,
there's a pretty good
chance it came from Keglarks.
Hey, there we are.
Please don't let this side crash,
please don't let this side crash.
(01:05:39):
So we, you know, styles of
brackets, different finishes.
We've grown architectural
metal to include drink rail.
So what drink rail is,
is when you're at a bar
on the bartender side,
there's that gutter
on the bartender side.
(01:06:01):
Usually there's a mat
in there or something,
oh, there we go.
We manufacture those
inserts and custom finishes
with drip trays on top of them.
We do architectural shelving
is something we've grown into.
And we still, you know,
we still have a pretty
(01:06:21):
significant B2C business
for our draft beer equipment.
But all of our growth
has really come, you know,
from being 50% of our
business of draft beer
to draft beers now 15% of our business.
Wow, wow.
(01:06:42):
Wow, so who's kind of
your target customer now?
What's your target market now?
So our target market
is really interesting.
We spend a majority of
our marketing efforts
talking to architects
and interior designers.
And what we do is we
(01:07:03):
make it really, really easy
for them to bring their
vision to life for this bar
in regards to finishes and
customizations to the product.
So they could either use our
standard off the shelf products
or we can bend them or we can custom
finish them or whatever.
(01:07:25):
So it really doesn't
matter who purchases our car
because in construction materials,
the key is being spec'd on the blueprint.
And that is the Willy
Wonka Golden Ticket.
If you are spec'd on the blueprint,
it doesn't matter who buys it,
(01:07:45):
they have to use your product.
So once you're spec'd,
there's no competition.
So we spend a lot of time making it easy
for those people to spec our products.
So we talk to designers,
we get involved in
(01:08:06):
projects very early on.
And on the other hand, sometimes,
we're the last thing
that sometimes separates
a certificate of
occupancy and somebody opening
that our customer is
getting off the site.
So it's not unusual.
I like to say our sales cycle
(01:08:27):
is either six months or six hours.
So it is--
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not unusual going,
oh shit, where do we get,
damn, I did it again.
Oh shucks, where do we get this?
And they give us a call and we get the
products out to them.
A very talented sales
(01:08:47):
team, great VP of sales
that really kind of
hold the customer's hand
and get them through this process.
It's been interesting
transitioning our company
from an e-com company first
to an e-com as just a
delivery mechanism for us
(01:09:10):
and really optimizing
our e-com experience
to number one, it's changing our
definition of a convergent.
You know, a convergent
used to be a traditional.
You know, credit card in, transaction.
Now, because of this, you know,
we've really changed our
definition of a conversion
to it's an inquiry besides
(01:09:32):
a regular transaction too
because sometimes that
inquiry is a lot more valuable
than the actual, you
know, small transaction.
So that was a really, really
long answer to your question.
Sorry about that.
It's fantastic answer, but
it's fantastic answer actually.
It's fantastic answer.
And it's kind of a blend
of a little bit, you know,
(01:09:54):
it's a blend of B2C and B2B, right?
Like you're kind of doing, you know,
you're doing cash and carry in six hours
or you're doing a
significant amount of planning,
you know, over the course
of looking at the blueprints.
And so, you know, if
anybody's been to our office,
I always like to have a
bar in our office location.
It's great for entertaining.
And we've got, you
(01:10:14):
know, fantastic bar rail
and your products that
are, you know, in our office.
And, you know, people always
talk about how great it looks.
And it was a fantastic
process to go through
with our architect to kind
of figure out with your folks
what we needed to kind of
make it all, to make it all work.
It is pretty sweet too.
(01:10:35):
Like the nature of what we do
and because we don't
have a ton of competition
and we have a lot of, you
know, designs that we made.
So I can walk into a bar
anywhere in the country
and like, "Oh, that's ours."
You know, I was down visiting my dad.
My dad took me to his club.
He said, "Oh, yeah, he's just remodeled."
(01:10:56):
I walked in, like, "Yeah, that's
Kegelerks foot rail in there."
He's like, "Really?"
I'm like, "He's like, "How do you know?"
I'm like, "That design, that's ours."
You know, Peter
Lugers in the new Caesars.
When I was out there a couple months ago,
I walked in there.
I'm like, "Okay, that
drink, well, it's ours."
He sent a message back.
I'm like, "Can we do Peter Lugers?"
(01:11:17):
Yeah, I'm like, "I can tell."
So it is pretty cool to do that.
That's cool.
That's always cool.
Sometimes I'll just
make it up to, I'm like,
"Yeah, that's ours.
How do you know?
I know."
I'm like, "Oh, tell me I'm wrong."
It's interesting.
When we first met, you
know, a bunch of years ago,
(01:11:40):
you were all about grow, grow, grow.
And then I remember
the conversation shifted
and that was through multiple channels,
marketplaces, Amazon, you know,
let's spread as big a net as possible.
And then I remember specifically a
conversation with you
where you said, "Huh, we're gonna pull,
we're just not making
any money on three quarters
(01:12:01):
of the things we sell on Amazon.
We're just like turning dollars over."
You know, and we're
lucky if we, you know,
ultimately by the time
everybody gets a cut,
we're lucky if we even like
break even on it at times,
right?
And I remember you started to shift that
and now you've gone through another
significant evolution
of that where you've paired
back your catalog even more,
(01:12:24):
you know, with that.
How is your kind of feeling on growth,
how has that changed and
evolved over the years?
So, it was, you know, we did,
we were growing
through multiple channels.
(01:12:45):
You know, so we had, at one point,
we were selling through
nine different channels.
Our website, our own team,
Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Rakuten,
I can't even remember all of them.
And it was just, like I said,
it was just trading dollars.
(01:13:05):
And it was a lot of work to
end up with not a lot left.
So we got rid of
everything except for Amazon.
And, you know, kind
of dug into the numbers
a little bit more, dug into numbers more.
And I'm like, we gotta get out.
(01:13:26):
You know, it's a race to the bottom.
And it really becomes, you know,
I like to call it revenue heroin.
It is so bad for your company.
And it is so hard to quit.
Even though you know you
need to quit, you gotta stop.
(01:13:48):
And it takes some fortitude
to wean yourself off of it.
You know, I can give two
speeches in a drop of a hat.
I can talk for 45 minutes,
I can talk for 45 minutes.
I'm just cuz, but I can
give you two speeches.
I can give it a drop of a hat.
Number one, why you
opening a bar is a terrible idea.
(01:14:12):
And the second one is,
here's what you should think about
before you put your business on Amazon.
And it took us two years
to get ourselves
completely off of Amazon.
And it was amazing how much noise
we took out of the organization
when we just focused
(01:14:33):
on doing our own stuff.
Okay, and you know, we were doing a
couple million dollars.
So this wasn't a decision
we took lightly on this.
And so we got off of Amazon,
but the focus we put on the rest of it,
we didn't see a top line revenue dip.
Okay, we were able to, you know,
(01:14:55):
if you look at our financials, you know,
it looks like we were
stagnant for three years in a row.
Until you look at the bottom line.
And, you know, doing a
lot less transactions,
a lot less of that.
So, you know, as we're doing this, okay,
(01:15:16):
so we still had our
full line of products.
And do you guys have
the big box store at home,
down by you?
It's like a home
depot for interior design.
I think Home Goods and TJ,
I think it's a TJ Maxx Home Goods.
(01:15:38):
It's in that corporate thing.
But like all those weird pillows
and like that crazy like branches
that your wife puts in a
vase that you have no idea.
Yeah, there we go.
You have no idea where
that stuff comes from.
Okay, it comes from this store.
Okay, so it's all this kind of stuff
(01:16:01):
that just shows up in your house.
And eventually you got to move.
And like, how do we get all this crap?
Okay, they get it at home.
And it had just opened up.
It was Christmas time.
I was walking through at home
and I bought my wife something small
(01:16:22):
and I was at the checkout.
And they had cocktail
shakers on the checkout
as like an impulse buy.
And it was at that very moment,
I'm like, I don't want to
be in this business anymore.
Like it is absolutely been commoditized.
Like it's like beer growlers.
I sold tens of
(01:16:43):
thousands of beer growlers.
How many of them do
you have in your house?
And I don't know how
many you use them anymore.
You know, like how many
cocktail shakers does a man need?
Does a person need, excuse me.
But you know what I'm saying.
So I'm like, you know what?
I'm done.
We're gonna work our way out of this.
And we've done that.
(01:17:04):
And we are out of everything
except for
architectural model and drafter.
And this year we may
break our sales record.
And it's not too bad with
the taxes I got to pay now.
(01:17:26):
Yeah, that's great.
You know what I'm saying.
No, that's great.
I mean, it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just a very interesting perspective.
And I think that people
get into that revenue heroin
as you say, and like get addicted to it
and they can't get out of it.
And it's very interesting, you know,
how you've doubled down on the products
(01:17:49):
that people know you for.
And I think even though,
and it's great that you manufacture.
I mean, do you, you
know, that you manufacture
a large chunk of what
you're selling now, right?
It just creates better margins.
It just creates
uniqueness in the marketplace.
It's not commoditized.
(01:18:09):
And the products you do
sell, resell for others.
You have such a deep
knowledge on, you know,
and things like--
I'll take an AOV of 3,000
versus 100 all day long.
Yeah, with a significantly better margin.
I'm not a rocket scientist by any means.
Absolutely.
(01:18:29):
So it's playing in Blue
Ocean versus Red Ocean.
And we're really digging our moat
in this architectural model thing.
And we're pretty excited
about the growth opportunities.
And we think we're just
getting started with it too.
That's great.
So is there a favorite
(01:18:50):
product that you've developed,
you know, under your
watch that's been developed
or an option that's been created
that's your favorite currently?
I love Drink Well.
I love Drink Well.
You know, it was
something that, you know,
we saw, we couldn't figure
out the best way to manufacture.
(01:19:12):
We finally found our
manufacturing partners with it.
We dialed in the finishes
and the ability to customize it.
You know, we use some
tools that allow us to look
at blueprints.
(01:19:36):
And this tool,
this tool allows us to kind of search
for keywords on blueprints.
And what we found was
Drink Well showed up
a lot more than Foot Well.
And then what it said was,
it was of the Drink
(01:19:56):
Well, it was never spec'd.
Okay, there was never
a manufacturer spec'd.
It was, you know, it was usually made
by a one-off machine shop
or, you know, mental shop.
You know, that the
millwork had a relationship with,
hey, can you make this?
Well, we made it a
lot easier for everyone
(01:20:17):
by doing it that way.
So I think Drink Well,
we just really launched it
18 months ago and it is
going like gangbusters.
And, you know, we see
quotes for spec'd on, you know,
so we know what's coming down the pipe
for the next 18 months.
So we're spec'd on Drink
(01:20:40):
Well all over the place.
And even though we're, you know,
when we're spec'd on Foot
Well, my team knows to ask,
how do we get into the Drink Well?
Can we do that?
Can we quote that to
like, oh yeah, you do that?
Great.
So, yeah, it's the Drink Well,
I think it's gonna be a
huge opportunity for us.
(01:21:03):
It's great.
How did you connect with David?
How did you, you know, what was your end
to kind of get involved with KegWorks?
So Dave actually worked
for me at another company.
I was the sales manager
at a web development shop.
(01:21:24):
Back in the day when we
used to sell web development
by the page, you
know, it was brochureware.
And you would sell it, here's the,
it's a 10 page site, all right,
this is, you sold it by the page.
He had just started KegWorks,
he wanted to learn
about what we knew about SEO
(01:21:47):
and internet marketing
and digital and development.
And, you know, he said, I'm gonna come on
as a commission only salesman.
And he didn't sell a thing, to be honest.
But we got to be pretty good friends.
And, you know, Dave was my friend,
I could drink expensive whiskey with,
everybody needs that friend.
(01:22:08):
And one night, we had
gotten our hands on a,
pretty nice bottle of, or
no, it was a bottle of Frank.
It was like a bottle of 30 year old.
I was working, I was in the alcohol space
in like a big data company,
but I had access to some good stuff.
(01:22:32):
And, you know, halfway
through the night he said,
you know, KegWorks is
kind of growing past me,
I think I'm gonna hire
a CEO to kind of do it.
And, you know, we were
just always talking business
and, you know, at the end of the night,
he's like, would you be
interested in something?
I don't know.
And then the next morning, he called me,
(01:22:52):
said, I'd like you to come
down for a second interview.
I'm like, really?
I didn't realize I had a first, but okay.
Maybe I'll actually prep this time.
So yeah.
Yeah, so I had the right
background of e-comm sales.
You know, I give him a lot
of credit to throw the keys
to a 35 year old guy who never, you know,
(01:23:15):
barely ran a team at
10 to run your company.
And, you know, yeah,
I, myself and, you know,
someone else in the
organization and outside investor,
we bought Dave out last year.
So Dave and I had an
18 year run together.
So we did some cool stuff.
We made a lot of mistakes,
but we did a lot of cool stuff.
(01:23:38):
That's great.
That's great.
The mistakes are, you know,
it's all about the journey,
right?
Like the journey is the story, right?
The mistakes are the journey.
So yeah, absolutely.
So that's cool.
That's a great run.
You touched on the coaching stuff I do.
And, you know, and that's
(01:23:59):
why people hire me for coach
as a coach or an advisor is like, look,
I'm not here to sell you a book.
I'm not a consultant
by, you know, by trade.
I said the biggest
compliment someone can give me
is to call me an operator.
And I can tell you, I've
been doing this for a long time
(01:24:21):
and I got scars and calluses
and I can tell you
all the mistakes I made.
And, you know, after
you make enough of them,
your pattern
recognition gets pretty good.
And that's why people
work with me to help them,
you know, take their
companies to that next step
to get that leadership team aligned,
to get that strategic plan in place,
(01:24:42):
but also to, you know, share experiences
on how I screwed stuff up.
Yep.
Yep.
What's your team look like now?
What's your e-com team look like now?
My e-com team.
(01:25:02):
So- Structure roles.
Yeah, yeah.
So e-com since I have a,
not even sure what his title is.
I got my main e-com guy, Ryan.
He's been with me a long time.
Smart guy started as
just like a PPC analyst
(01:25:24):
and has grown and matured and learned.
He's now our e-com director.
So he kind of runs point on everything.
We have one developer in house,
copywriter in house,
and a photographer,
videographer in house too.
(01:25:47):
So we have an outside, you know,
we have outside
freelancers that we bring in.
Hank, our photo video guys,
you know, kind of closest to, you know,
to an art, almost like an art director.
So he manages all our
outsourced resources,
you know, for print
stuff, for sell sheets,
that sort of thing.
(01:26:08):
We run really lean on that too.
Honestly, the more, you know,
it's a lot easier to
run a 1500 skew operation
than it is to run a
25,000 skew operation too.
You know, it significantly cuts down
the number of PPC
campaigns you gotta run.
(01:26:29):
That's for sure.
You know, once again,
it allows us to focus.
It allows us to dial in, you know,
there are keywords we
defend with a knife.
And then there's other
ones where, yeah, okay,
we don't have to do that anymore.
And it's been interesting transitioning
from a B to C to a B to B type operation.
(01:26:50):
You can take off a lot of
the things that you need
in a B, you know, that are, you know,
table stakes in a B to C, you know,
you know, on a B to B thing, you know.
Yeah, what are the main differences?
What I find too is you
(01:27:13):
are doing a little less,
a little more subtle selling.
Okay, you're pushing for
them to make the phone call.
You're pushing them for
their request more information.
You want to get them in versus,
pow, here's 10% off
for your email address.
Boom, here's a retargeting ad.
(01:27:34):
Two days later, pow,
shopping cart abandonment.
You know, we don't
have to do that anymore.
You know, I'm trying
to bring the modals down
to next to nothing on the site.
You know, it's not
like on that first page,
you're hitting them with a modal.
You know, it's a little more subtle now.
(01:27:56):
You know, they're in
there for a little bit.
You know, trying to
bring the carny element down.
You know, trying to,
you know, our customers,
the people that we're talking to are
high-end architects,
they're high-end designers.
You gotta, the UX UI needs
(01:28:16):
to be a little bit different
on that too.
And you're really playing the long game.
Yeah, I would imagine
trying to figure out
who these designers are
and the architects are
that spec your product is also, you know,
(01:28:37):
part of that as well.
How do you entice them to contact you
and to bring their
projects to you, right?
There's, you know, all
of that aspect of things.
And so when somebody does that,
does that go to a
salesperson on your side
or what is that process?
You know, it's interesting
(01:28:58):
because we get the blueprints, okay?
So if we're spec'd on it, you know,
they gotta send us the prints for us to
do what we gotta do.
So on that blueprint, you
know who the architect is,
you know who the designer is.
So we cross-reference that
(01:29:18):
to our internal database.
Do we know who these guys are?
Yeah, it's great.
You know, thank them for spec'ing us.
We appreciate that.
If not, we go backwards,
we introduce ourselves,
that sort of thing.
We're always trying to
get as wide as we can
in these organizations too.
And it's interesting,
you know, the closest thing
(01:29:39):
from a social media point of view
is trying to connect
with them on LinkedIn
because chances are we're either dealing
with the main designer
or we're dealing with
the most junior person
in the organization.
And they've been
tasked to go find bar rail,
go find drink rail, go find this.
(01:30:02):
So it's just as important for us to talk
to that junior person and
build that relationship.
So over time, as they
mature and they jump
to another company, jump to another firm
and they bring us along.
So it's kind of like a manuity, it
compounds upon itself
by getting in, getting as
(01:30:23):
deep into these organizations
as we can and then
getting as wide as we can
in the organizations.
All right, well, I think that segues good
into my next question of like,
can you break down your current
e-commerce tech stack?
(01:30:43):
What are you using, right?
So I know that you're on big
commerce for your platform.
(laughs)
You know, the technical questions I know
that you love technical questions, right?
Yeah, yeah.
But you're on big commerce for your
e-commerce platform.
So we run a triangle offense.
(01:31:06):
So big commerce, HubSpot and NetSuite.
And the joys of booming
data between those three.
You're using HubSpot for both email and CRM?
Email, CRM.
All right.
And I think we just moved
the blog off of HubSpot.
(01:31:28):
But yeah, so HubSpot,
CRM, chat ticketing,
sales hub, service hub, marketing hub.
Okay, all right, so three hubs there.
Just UNO for some of the modal popups.
Feedonomics, I think for some feeds.
(01:31:51):
Soligo for your NetSuite integration.
Searchspring for your site search.
And then I think border free right now
where it's gonna be Digital River.
The Digital River, yep.
They just sun-setting border free
for our international stuff.
That was an interesting journey.
(01:32:13):
We started with border
free 20 something years ago.
And then Canada Post sold border free.
It became E4X, E4X got bought by someone.
We went to Bongo,
when we were on Magento,
that was an unmitigated disaster.
(01:32:36):
And then we went to Pitney Bowes
and then Pitney Bowes bought border free
because of course
they bought border free.
And then they
sun-setted border free again.
So we've left border
free, I think three times
in the last 20 years.
None by really our choice.
(01:32:56):
(laughing)
And now we are just
launching Digital River
who we're excited about.
That's great.
It'll--
That's great.
Yeah.
That's great.
So all right, let's move
over into some kind of more
(01:33:18):
business related questions.
So I know that you've been
involved with EO for a long time.
I'm curious how being involved with EO
has impacted your
ascension as CEO and the growth
and how it's affected
you as a business person.
(01:33:39):
So what I can tell you about the,
so EO is short for the
Entrepreneurs Organization.
It's a global organization.
18,000 members across the world.
There are 225, 250
chapters all over the place.
(01:34:00):
The, you know, for EO it
is, man, I love how you guys,
you talk about something and magically
it shows up on the screen.
You guys are great.
So what it really is is you need to be,
you need to be the
majority owner or an owner
with operational control
(01:34:20):
doing at least a million dollars
a year in revenue.
And it's focused on peer learning.
Okay, so it is, you know, you're in,
you know, the main part of
EO is what's called a forum,
(01:34:41):
which are, you know, six to
eight other business owners.
And it is, you know, a
safe place that you can share
all the noise that's
going on in your head.
And it's not just business, it's
business, it's family,
it's personal
development, it is, you know,
(01:35:04):
involvement in the
community and, you know,
all the, you know, the legs of the stool
that make us entrepreneurs.
And when one of those
legs is wobbly, you know,
it's the stool becomes unstable.
So it is a safe place.
The tenants are, you
(01:35:25):
know, it's not solicitation.
No, it's not a tip club.
It is 100% confidential.
You break confidentiality, you're out.
And we don't give
advice, we share experience.
So when you're
presenting an issue, you know,
(01:35:48):
we're all trained on how to coach people
to help get to the
root cause of the issue
or at least get all the relevant details.
But what happens is when
you present this information,
if I was to give, if you
were to tell me something,
I'm like, you know what
(01:36:08):
Ethan, this is what you should do.
Well, number one, who knows if I'm right.
Number two, you know, what I may think
may be completely irrelevant.
And number three is
you may be withholding
the most important piece of information
that's causing this problem, okay?
(01:36:29):
Because you're embarrassed,
it's a trust thing, whatever.
So by sharing experiences, you know,
this is how I had
something similar to what happened.
These were the options I had.
This is the decision I made.
This was the outcome I got.
And by leveraging that
(01:36:49):
experience in the room,
you can take a little
piece about what I said
and a little piece about what John said
and a little piece of what Jill said
and put your own puzzle together, okay?
So, you know, and it's the place where
you can talk about it.
You know, I love my wife dearly,
but she is not the person to give me
(01:37:10):
human resource guidance.
You know, oh, you should fire them.
I'm like, okay, yeah,
that's helpful, thank you.
No, I can't fire them.
I'm just venting right now.
But, you know, in
that my forum, you know,
we're all fighting a
similar fight and we can do this.
(01:37:30):
The second part of what I got out of EO
that I think has really
changed me as a leader
is by taking on leadership
roles inside the organization.
So inside my chapter, regionally,
I've had some global leadership roles.
And what that does is
(01:37:51):
it teaches you to lead
without org chart power, okay?
So, you know, when we're
inside our organizations,
you know, we're the
boss, we're the last say.
We had the opportunity, you know,
we literally control people's future
a number of different ways.
(01:38:12):
When you're trying to get things done
in a volunteer-based
organization of entrepreneurs
who are all this, you
need to lead a different way.
And what I found was learning to lead
inside the entrepreneurs organization
changed the way I led
inside my organization.
And I think that's when that kind of,
(01:38:35):
that switch flipped.
That's when, you know,
we really started growing.
So it's just, it's a
different mindset of leadership.
It's more of the
servant leadership, you know,
flip the org chart upside down.
And, you know, you're there to, you know,
(01:38:57):
people ask me what my role is.
My job is to put out really big fires
and to knock down walls.
That's my only job.
And that fire better be really big
before it gets to my desk,
because all my team is empowered
to handle that type of stuff.
(01:39:17):
That is, you know, the fantastic thing
of working with KegWorks is
you've empowered your team
to make decisions,
to, you know, positively
and negatively, right?
To allow them to grow and develop
and bring them all forward.
And I find that, you know,
that's one of the most
noble things you can do
(01:39:39):
as a business owner, right?
Is it's, you know, you've
got to build and grow your team
and teach your folks how to evolve with
the business, right?
And so, you know, it's
definitely a key thing
that I've learned by watching
you do that in multiple ways.
I like to, you know, I
tell people all the time,
(01:39:59):
I am operationally
irrelevant to my company.
My company, if I'm here or I'm not here,
you know, we have a clear
vision on where we're going.
We have clear objectives of
what we're doing, you know,
from an annual, from a
quarterly to a weekly basis,
you know,
(01:40:20):
accountabilities are clearly defined,
people are empowered, you know,
bottlenecks are always
at the top of the bottle.
I don't want to be that way.
My team, you know, I have
three very strong leaders
on my leadership team
and they do a fantastic
(01:40:40):
job of running their teams.
And this is it.
All I kind of do is,
you know, set the strategy
and, you know, like I said,
put up really big
fires and knock down walls.
But the last thing you
want me is in the warehouse.
(01:41:01):
How is that lead?
Yeah, no, go ahead.
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
No, no, no, no, that was it.
You don't want me in the warehouse.
Like I tell people all the time,
someone will call me,
hey, I got this project.
Great, I'm gonna bring so and so into it.
(01:41:22):
He's a lot smarter than I am
and he's gonna take better care of you.
But I am there to make sure
if you're not getting
the service you need,
you can always call me.
But he does this every day
and he will take very good care of you.
And I just, I hand it off to the team
and they run with it.
(01:41:47):
Well, in fact, you did that with me
when our kegerator
was kind of on the frits
and your guy was like, oh, it's too warm
and your air pressure
is too hot, you know?
And so let's do these two things
and by tomorrow you'll be in great shape
and this is what you do.
And, you know, we used
to have tons of issues
(01:42:08):
and now we can pour a
pint that John Taffer
would be proud of out of our bar.
So, you know, it's good to have
that kind of knowledge on hand.
I respect people who
want them, do what they do.
And you also kind of evolved into becoming a Pinnacle
Business Guide, you know?
Yes, yes.
(01:42:29):
So you've become a
Pinnacle Business Guide.
It's a fantastic organization.
We run the Pinnacle
System here at Groove.
I'm pretty familiar with it.
Talk a little bit about that journey
and how you've gotten involved
in helping other
entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Yep, so Pinnacles, I'm technically not
(01:42:52):
a Pinnacle Guide right now.
I have another startup that I'm running
because I'm a glutton.
Or glutton for punishment, I should say.
I had forgotten how hard a startup was.
Especially in an industry I
didn't know anything about.
(01:43:13):
But sure, let's do that.
But I still am a business coach.
I have a number of clients.
I do one-on-one
coaching with a few companies
that I work with on
their leadership team,
coaching their leadership teams.
And what it is, is I like
to say I'm system agnostic,
(01:43:36):
meaning that if you wanna
use Vern Harness's words
and scaling up, we can
use Vern Harness's words.
If you wanna use EOS,
traction, we can use their words.
You and I ran traction for a long time.
We wanna use Pinnacle.
I like Pinnacle a lot.
I think Pinnacle is the most flexible
(01:43:56):
of the systems out there.
And we can implement whatever system
you as an organization want,
and I will guide you
through this process.
But it's important we have a system,
a strategic planning system in place,
a meeting cadence in place,
(01:44:16):
a way that we can bring
issues to the forefront
and address them.
How do we have scorecards?
How do we measure our progress?
What's our dashboards look like?
How do we know there's a
problem in digging into it?
You and I are both data junkies.
And I'd like to say it's
(01:44:38):
the Desert Island scorecard.
If I could get one email, if
I'm stuck on a Desert Island,
this is the email I wanna get.
And I can reply to that
email based on the data I see
where I can ask questions.
And at heart, I'm an old
school Peter Drucker guy.
(01:44:59):
You can't manage what you can't measure,
and what gets measured is what gets done.
Yep, yep, absolutely, absolutely.
What's the biggest
mistake you've made at KegWorks?
What's the biggest
thing you've learned from
in your time? Oh, geez.
(01:45:25):
We got three more hours?
No, you don't know what I'll say.
Is I, biggest mistake,
well, the most expensive mistake I made
(01:45:47):
was a magenta
implementation a long time ago.
Just anything, I've done a
number of platform changes
and everything that could have went wrong
went wrong on this one
from Google shutting us off
(01:46:09):
because we missed a tag on an
alcohol-based product
to going cloud versus big iron hardware
to the cut over,
it was bad, it was bad.
(01:46:34):
Brutal. Brutal.
My decision on opening a
really nice retail store
in hindsight wasn't good.
Those were probably two
of the biggest mistakes
(01:46:55):
that took us the longest to dig out from.
But the ones that kind of always ride me
are the ones where I let,
I didn't listen to my gut,
where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna empower this person and they think we should do this.
(01:47:15):
I'm like, that's not right.
Like, oh, you gotta do it.
They're hiring this person
or they're bringing this person on
or this is the direction we're gonna do.
Okay, and now there's
checks and balances in place
where things like that,
I still kind of am
(01:47:38):
included in the decision flow
and I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna do it in the decision flow
and refer to my right to veto something.
So it's the one,
a lot of them come down to bad hires
where someone else was in
charge of making the hire
and when I met the
person, I'm like, this isn't it.
And I didn't say anything.
And after I made that mistake,
it only takes me
(01:47:58):
three times to realize it.
And then now I'm more
involved in certain spots of it.
But those are the ones
that always grind me.
It's like, when like, you knew better.
(01:48:21):
Well, I think there's
always personal growth
that comes from big mistakes like that.
And I think that
oftentimes it can be expensive.
You wanna minimize that type of impact,
but it also creates the
biggest personal growth
when you're in those moments.
And so I think to not try things
(01:48:44):
and to not test new ideas as well,
like is just as dangerous, right?
To see businesses go out of business
because they haven't
evolved or made a shift or change.
Right, and there's risk.
Well, I've got two more
questions for you that I...
Always risk, always risk.
(01:49:05):
So I've got two more questions for you
that I like to ask
everybody on the podcast.
First is, what's keeping
you up at night currently?
My 17 year old daughter.
(laughing)
(01:49:28):
Let's keep her in the up at night.
Um, the...
You know what?
Sometimes really gotta be bothering me
to keep me up at night.
I compartmentalize pretty well.
(01:49:52):
I sleep pretty good.
Um, not gonna say my
startup hasn't kept me up
a few times in the last year,
but the...
That's my old fault.
And you're clearly not a
(01:50:14):
Virgo if you're sleeping well.
No, I'm definitely, I'm a Scorpio.
(laughing)
(laughing)
And the last question I like to ask is,
do you have one tip for another CEO
that's looking to scale
their e-commerce business?
(01:50:43):
I'm gonna go back to trust your gut.
Um, you know, an e-com business is,
um, the platform in
which we deliver value
to our customers.
Um, and it's no different
(01:51:04):
than any other type of business.
You need to give value,
whether your value is price,
whether your value is
product, whether you're giving
knowledge, um, give first
and the market will respond.
(01:51:29):
And going back to trust your gut.
You know, if your gut says
there's an opportunity there,
then, you know, do your
research and if you're,
50-50, trust your gut.
(01:51:51):
That's how you learn.
That's great, that's
great, that's great advice.
Great advice, great
advice, very valid, very valid.
Tom, I'm just very
appreciative of you, you know,
taking an hour out of
your extremely busy schedule,
honored to have you on the podcast.
Um, you know, I'm very,
very excited to see you.
(01:52:12):
I always gain, you know,
there's always something I gain
out of every conversation
with you and that's really
how I kind of measure,
you know, measure folks.
And, um, you know, every
time I wish we lived closer
and could, you know,
maybe not expensive whiskey,
maybe expensive
tequila, um, but, um, you know,
we could crack, we
could crack that open, so.
(01:52:33):
When you sent me that
bottle, you should have--
Of seeing you.
When you sent me that bottle,
the first thing I called you
and said, "I don't need another vice."
So, yeah.
I got a good eclipse story
in a bottle of classic sauce.
You don't need another vice.
(01:53:00):
We'll have to save
that for another episode.
Another episode.
So where can our
listeners find you online
if they want to connect with you?
Are you on LinkedIn?
Are there any social channels where folks
can connect with you?
LinkedIn's probably the best way.
Tom, what's my name?
TS McManus, I believe, is my
(01:53:22):
personal, nothing's hidden.
You know, Tom McManus,
Kegwerk, sent me a message.
He said, "If I can be
of service to anyone,
"please don't hesitate to reach out."
Always happy to help, always help you.
Always happy to
appreciate everything you do.
(01:53:42):
Appreciate our friendship and, you know,
got a lot of respect
for what you're doing too.
Thank you.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
All right, Tom, it's been an honor to be
with you here today.
I've taken just about an hour, you know.
(01:54:03):
Thank you again and I look to see you.
See you soon.
Great, thanks Ethan.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the
E-commerce Masters Podcast,
the platform where we delve into the
stories and strategies
of e-commerce trailblazers.
I'm your host, Ethan Given,
and today we have the pleasure
(audio cuts out)
We are honored to have Tom McManus,
the CEO of kegworks.com join us today.
(01:00:21):
Kegworks is the leader
in architectural metalwork
and draft beer equipment
for commercial and residential bars.
Tom is also a certified
Pinnacle Business Guide,
coaching other entrepreneurs on their
climb to the summit.
Tom has been a long time client, friend,
and confidant to me, and if you meet him,
just be mindful that he
may make you smoke cigars
(01:00:42):
into the wee hours of the morning.
Tom, welcome to the show.
It's just a rumor, it's not true.
Okay, no, it is true, but
that's fine, that's fine.
It's great to be here, Ethan,
appreciate you asking me to do this.
It's an honor to be here.
And thank you, thank
you, thank you, thank you,
thank you for doing
it, and I'm very honored
(01:01:02):
that you would, you're a very busy guy,
and very honored you would
spend your time together.
You know, I wanna start things out,
just a little funny
story is that you and I,
I believe that we met
probably back in 2016 or 17,
I believe, in that kind of timeframe,
and we met over a Zoom or Google Meet,
(01:01:23):
you know, the first,
and then that led to us spending a night
at Inbound in Boston,
and you made me come out
after working the booth
all day, made me come out
and smoke cigars at your spot in Boston,
and so they threw us out
of there at two o'clock
in the morning, and you
know, I came in the next day
(01:01:45):
like coughing and
smelling, you know, smelling bad.
They didn't wanna let me
in the booth, and you know,
and so I appreciate that.
It's like a cigar bar and all,
and then the whole country too.
It is just some gross underground place,
and I won't even go
into the neighborhood,
but man, I love that place.
(01:02:07):
That's great, it's great.
Then I remember when I came to visit you
for the first time at
your offices, we literally,
you know, of course I
was in a rental car,
but we literally like both
had the same kind of brand
of car, I had a white
button down on with my sleeves
rolled up, you had a white button down,
(01:02:27):
and your staff kind of
looked at us together,
and they were like, oh
no, this is just mine.
Like we don't need two
of these guys, you know,
one here around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my staff will tell you
that I need two.
(laughing)
So, so tell our
audience a little bit about,
(01:02:48):
you know, KegWorks and what you sell,
what your products are.
So, KegWorks is 26 years old.
It was founded by my
previous partner, David and I.
He founded the company.
A few years later, he
hired me as the CEO.
(01:03:10):
A few years later, we became partners,
and we grew KegWorks
from our first product,
and our product line
was, our first product was,
you know how on your street,
everyone's dad had that
friend somewhere in his garage
that he had turned an old
(01:03:32):
refrigerator into a kegerator?
Like everyone's dad had that friend
somewhere on the street.
And--
Yes, the coolest dad on the block.
Exactly, exactly, and
when we were growing up,
you know, it wasn't a thing.
Like it was up, like you
had to work to do that.
Well, we figured out, my
(01:03:52):
old partner, David Rivers,
his dad owned a small
grocery store in Syracuse,
and it was a beer store
before craft beer was a thing,
and he sold the pieces and parts
to make these conversion kits.
David, in the late 90s,
God, it bounced me out
that I've been doing e-com for, you know,
(01:04:15):
I'm sniffing 30 years now, God.
Yeah, I know, this
goes back to the whole,
like this getting old shit,
sorry, I lost my language.
So we started with that product,
we grew it to
everything you find in a bar
except the alcohol, over
(01:04:35):
time, market trends change.
We really kind of
recognized what we were doing,
where our product lines were commoditized
and actively left certain product lines.
You know, it's hard leaving a product
that you've been selling for 25 years,
(01:04:58):
but we really in the last few years
have doubled down on architectural metal.
So what I mean by
architectural metal for hospitality
is it's the finishing
details you find in a bar.
So it is the bar foot rail,
is what we're really
known for in the marketplace.
So if you've been in a bar
(01:05:19):
that's been built or remodeled,
bar, restaurant, hotel bar,
anywhere in the United
States in the last 15 years,
and there's a foot rail on it,
there's a pretty good
chance it came from Keglarks.
Hey, there we are.
Please don't let this side crash,
please don't let this side crash.
(01:05:39):
So we, you know, styles of
brackets, different finishes.
We've grown architectural
metal to include drink rail.
So what drink rail is,
is when you're at a bar
on the bartender side,
there's that gutter
on the bartender side.
(01:06:01):
Usually there's a mat
in there or something,
oh, there we go.
We manufacture those
inserts and custom finishes
with drip trays on top of them.
We do architectural shelving
is something we've grown into.
And we still, you know,
we still have a pretty
(01:06:21):
significant B2C business
for our draft beer equipment.
But all of our growth
has really come, you know,
from being 50% of our
business of draft beer
to draft beers now 15% of our business.
Wow, wow.
(01:06:42):
Wow, so who's kind of
your target customer now?
What's your target market now?
So our target market
is really interesting.
We spend a majority of
our marketing efforts
talking to architects
and interior designers.
And what we do is we
(01:07:03):
make it really, really easy
for them to bring their
vision to life for this bar
in regards to finishes and
customizations to the product.
So they could either use our
standard off the shelf products
or we can bend them or we can custom
finish them or whatever.
(01:07:25):
So it really doesn't
matter who purchases our car
because in construction materials,
the key is being spec'd on the blueprint.
And that is the Willy
Wonka Golden Ticket.
If you are spec'd on the blueprint,
it doesn't matter who buys it,
(01:07:45):
they have to use your product.
So once you're spec'd,
there's no competition.
So we spend a lot of time making it easy
for those people to spec our products.
So we talk to designers,
we get involved in
(01:08:06):
projects very early on.
And on the other hand, sometimes,
we're the last thing
that sometimes separates
a certificate of
occupancy and somebody opening
that our customer is
getting off the site.
So it's not unusual.
I like to say our sales cycle
(01:08:27):
is either six months or six hours.
So it is--
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not unusual going,
oh shit, where do we get,
damn, I did it again.
Oh shucks, where do we get this?
And they give us a call and we get the
products out to them.
A very talented sales
(01:08:47):
team, great VP of sales
that really kind of
hold the customer's hand
and get them through this process.
It's been interesting
transitioning our company
from an e-com company first
to an e-com as just a
delivery mechanism for us
(01:09:10):
and really optimizing
our e-com experience
to number one, it's changing our
definition of a convergent.
You know, a convergent
used to be a traditional.
You know, credit card in, transaction.
Now, because of this, you know,
we've really changed our
definition of a conversion
to it's an inquiry besides
(01:09:32):
a regular transaction too
because sometimes that
inquiry is a lot more valuable
than the actual, you
know, small transaction.
So that was a really, really
long answer to your question.
Sorry about that.
It's fantastic answer, but
it's fantastic answer actually.
It's fantastic answer.
And it's kind of a blend
of a little bit, you know,
(01:09:54):
it's a blend of B2C and B2B, right?
Like you're kind of doing, you know,
you're doing cash and carry in six hours
or you're doing a
significant amount of planning,
you know, over the course
of looking at the blueprints.
And so, you know, if
anybody's been to our office,
I always like to have a
bar in our office location.
It's great for entertaining.
And we've got, you
(01:10:14):
know, fantastic bar rail
and your products that
are, you know, in our office.
And, you know, people always
talk about how great it looks.
And it was a fantastic
process to go through
with our architect to kind
of figure out with your folks
what we needed to kind of
make it all, to make it all work.
It is pretty sweet too.
(01:10:35):
Like the nature of what we do
and because we don't
have a ton of competition
and we have a lot of, you
know, designs that we made.
So I can walk into a bar
anywhere in the country
and like, "Oh, that's ours."
You know, I was down visiting my dad.
My dad took me to his club.
He said, "Oh, yeah, he's just remodeled."
(01:10:56):
I walked in, like, "Yeah, that's
Kegelerks foot rail in there."
He's like, "Really?"
I'm like, "He's like, "How do you know?"
I'm like, "That design, that's ours."
You know, Peter
Lugers in the new Caesars.
When I was out there a couple months ago,
I walked in there.
I'm like, "Okay, that
drink, well, it's ours."
He sent a message back.
I'm like, "Can we do Peter Lugers?"
(01:11:17):
Yeah, I'm like, "I can tell."
So it is pretty cool to do that.
That's cool.
That's always cool.
Sometimes I'll just
make it up to, I'm like,
"Yeah, that's ours.
How do you know?
I know."
I'm like, "Oh, tell me I'm wrong."
It's interesting.
When we first met, you
know, a bunch of years ago,
(01:11:40):
you were all about grow, grow, grow.
And then I remember
the conversation shifted
and that was through multiple channels,
marketplaces, Amazon, you know,
let's spread as big a net as possible.
And then I remember specifically a
conversation with you
where you said, "Huh, we're gonna pull,
we're just not making
any money on three quarters
(01:12:01):
of the things we sell on Amazon.
We're just like turning dollars over."
You know, and we're
lucky if we, you know,
ultimately by the time
everybody gets a cut,
we're lucky if we even like
break even on it at times,
right?
And I remember you started to shift that
and now you've gone through another
significant evolution
of that where you've paired
back your catalog even more,
(01:12:24):
you know, with that.
How is your kind of feeling on growth,
how has that changed and
evolved over the years?
So, it was, you know, we did,
we were growing
through multiple channels.
(01:12:45):
You know, so we had, at one point,
we were selling through
nine different channels.
Our website, our own team,
Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Rakuten,
I can't even remember all of them.
And it was just, like I said,
it was just trading dollars.
(01:13:05):
And it was a lot of work to
end up with not a lot left.
So we got rid of
everything except for Amazon.
And, you know, kind
of dug into the numbers
a little bit more, dug into numbers more.
And I'm like, we gotta get out.
(01:13:26):
You know, it's a race to the bottom.
And it really becomes, you know,
I like to call it revenue heroin.
It is so bad for your company.
And it is so hard to quit.
Even though you know you
need to quit, you gotta stop.
(01:13:48):
And it takes some fortitude
to wean yourself off of it.
You know, I can give two
speeches in a drop of a hat.
I can talk for 45 minutes,
I can talk for 45 minutes.
I'm just cuz, but I can
give you two speeches.
I can give it a drop of a hat.
Number one, why you
opening a bar is a terrible idea.
(01:14:12):
And the second one is,
here's what you should think about
before you put your business on Amazon.
And it took us two years
to get ourselves
completely off of Amazon.
And it was amazing how much noise
we took out of the organization
when we just focused
(01:14:33):
on doing our own stuff.
Okay, and you know, we were doing a
couple million dollars.
So this wasn't a decision
we took lightly on this.
And so we got off of Amazon,
but the focus we put on the rest of it,
we didn't see a top line revenue dip.
Okay, we were able to, you know,
(01:14:55):
if you look at our financials, you know,
it looks like we were
stagnant for three years in a row.
Until you look at the bottom line.
And, you know, doing a
lot less transactions,
a lot less of that.
So, you know, as we're doing this, okay,
(01:15:16):
so we still had our
full line of products.
And do you guys have
the big box store at home,
down by you?
It's like a home
depot for interior design.
I think Home Goods and TJ,
I think it's a TJ Maxx Home Goods.
(01:15:38):
It's in that corporate thing.
But like all those weird pillows
and like that crazy like branches
that your wife puts in a
vase that you have no idea.
Yeah, there we go.
You have no idea where
that stuff comes from.
Okay, it comes from this store.
Okay, so it's all this kind of stuff
(01:16:01):
that just shows up in your house.
And eventually you got to move.
And like, how do we get all this crap?
Okay, they get it at home.
And it had just opened up.
It was Christmas time.
I was walking through at home
and I bought my wife something small
(01:16:22):
and I was at the checkout.
And they had cocktail
shakers on the checkout
as like an impulse buy.
And it was at that very moment,
I'm like, I don't want to
be in this business anymore.
Like it is absolutely been commoditized.
Like it's like beer growlers.
I sold tens of
(01:16:43):
thousands of beer growlers.
How many of them do
you have in your house?
And I don't know how
many you use them anymore.
You know, like how many
cocktail shakers does a man need?
Does a person need, excuse me.
But you know what I'm saying.
So I'm like, you know what?
I'm done.
We're gonna work our way out of this.
And we've done that.
(01:17:04):
And we are out of everything
except for
architectural model and drafter.
And this year we may
break our sales record.
And it's not too bad with
the taxes I got to pay now.
(01:17:26):
Yeah, that's great.
You know what I'm saying.
No, that's great.
I mean, it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just a very interesting perspective.
And I think that people
get into that revenue heroin
as you say, and like get addicted to it
and they can't get out of it.
And it's very interesting, you know,
how you've doubled down on the products
(01:17:49):
that people know you for.
And I think even though,
and it's great that you manufacture.
I mean, do you, you
know, that you manufacture
a large chunk of what
you're selling now, right?
It just creates better margins.
It just creates
uniqueness in the marketplace.
It's not commoditized.
(01:18:09):
And the products you do
sell, resell for others.
You have such a deep
knowledge on, you know,
and things like--
I'll take an AOV of 3,000
versus 100 all day long.
Yeah, with a significantly better margin.
I'm not a rocket scientist by any means.
Absolutely.
(01:18:29):
So it's playing in Blue
Ocean versus Red Ocean.
And we're really digging our moat
in this architectural model thing.
And we're pretty excited
about the growth opportunities.
And we think we're just
getting started with it too.
That's great.
So is there a favorite
(01:18:50):
product that you've developed,
you know, under your
watch that's been developed
or an option that's been created
that's your favorite currently?
I love Drink Well.
I love Drink Well.
You know, it was
something that, you know,
we saw, we couldn't figure
out the best way to manufacture.
(01:19:12):
We finally found our
manufacturing partners with it.
We dialed in the finishes
and the ability to customize it.
You know, we use some
tools that allow us to look
at blueprints.
(01:19:36):
And this tool,
this tool allows us to kind of search
for keywords on blueprints.
And what we found was
Drink Well showed up
a lot more than Foot Well.
And then what it said was,
it was of the Drink
(01:19:56):
Well, it was never spec'd.
Okay, there was never
a manufacturer spec'd.
It was, you know, it was usually made
by a one-off machine shop
or, you know, mental shop.
You know, that the
millwork had a relationship with,
hey, can you make this?
Well, we made it a
lot easier for everyone
(01:20:17):
by doing it that way.
So I think Drink Well,
we just really launched it
18 months ago and it is
going like gangbusters.
And, you know, we see
quotes for spec'd on, you know,
so we know what's coming down the pipe
for the next 18 months.
So we're spec'd on Drink
(01:20:40):
Well all over the place.
And even though we're, you know,
when we're spec'd on Foot
Well, my team knows to ask,
how do we get into the Drink Well?
Can we do that?
Can we quote that to
like, oh yeah, you do that?
Great.
So, yeah, it's the Drink Well,
I think it's gonna be a
huge opportunity for us.
(01:21:03):
It's great.
How did you connect with David?
How did you, you know, what was your end
to kind of get involved with KegWorks?
So Dave actually worked
for me at another company.
I was the sales manager
at a web development shop.
(01:21:24):
Back in the day when we
used to sell web development
by the page, you
know, it was brochureware.
And you would sell it, here's the,
it's a 10 page site, all right,
this is, you sold it by the page.
He had just started KegWorks,
he wanted to learn
about what we knew about SEO
(01:21:47):
and internet marketing
and digital and development.
And, you know, he said, I'm gonna come on
as a commission only salesman.
And he didn't sell a thing, to be honest.
But we got to be pretty good friends.
And, you know, Dave was my friend,
I could drink expensive whiskey with,
everybody needs that friend.
(01:22:08):
And one night, we had
gotten our hands on a,
pretty nice bottle of, or
no, it was a bottle of Frank.
It was like a bottle of 30 year old.
I was working, I was in the alcohol space
in like a big data company,
but I had access to some good stuff.
(01:22:32):
And, you know, halfway
through the night he said,
you know, KegWorks is
kind of growing past me,
I think I'm gonna hire
a CEO to kind of do it.
And, you know, we were
just always talking business
and, you know, at the end of the night,
he's like, would you be
interested in something?
I don't know.
And then the next morning, he called me,
(01:22:52):
said, I'd like you to come
down for a second interview.
I'm like, really?
I didn't realize I had a first, but okay.
Maybe I'll actually prep this time.
So yeah.
Yeah, so I had the right
background of e-comm sales.
You know, I give him a lot
of credit to throw the keys
to a 35 year old guy who never, you know,
(01:23:15):
barely ran a team at
10 to run your company.
And, you know, yeah,
I, myself and, you know,
someone else in the
organization and outside investor,
we bought Dave out last year.
So Dave and I had an
18 year run together.
So we did some cool stuff.
We made a lot of mistakes,
but we did a lot of cool stuff.
(01:23:38):
That's great.
That's great.
The mistakes are, you know,
it's all about the journey,
right?
Like the journey is the story, right?
The mistakes are the journey.
So yeah, absolutely.
So that's cool.
That's a great run.
You touched on the coaching stuff I do.
And, you know, and that's
(01:23:59):
why people hire me for coach
as a coach or an advisor is like, look,
I'm not here to sell you a book.
I'm not a consultant
by, you know, by trade.
I said the biggest
compliment someone can give me
is to call me an operator.
And I can tell you, I've
been doing this for a long time
(01:24:21):
and I got scars and calluses
and I can tell you
all the mistakes I made.
And, you know, after
you make enough of them,
your pattern
recognition gets pretty good.
And that's why people
work with me to help them,
you know, take their
companies to that next step
to get that leadership team aligned,
to get that strategic plan in place,
(01:24:42):
but also to, you know, share experiences
on how I screwed stuff up.
Yep.
Yep.
What's your team look like now?
What's your e-com team look like now?
My e-com team.
(01:25:02):
So- Structure roles.
Yeah, yeah.
So e-com since I have a,
not even sure what his title is.
I got my main e-com guy, Ryan.
He's been with me a long time.
Smart guy started as
just like a PPC analyst
(01:25:24):
and has grown and matured and learned.
He's now our e-com director.
So he kind of runs point on everything.
We have one developer in house,
copywriter in house,
and a photographer,
videographer in house too.
(01:25:47):
So we have an outside, you know,
we have outside
freelancers that we bring in.
Hank, our photo video guys,
you know, kind of closest to, you know,
to an art, almost like an art director.
So he manages all our
outsourced resources,
you know, for print
stuff, for sell sheets,
that sort of thing.
(01:26:08):
We run really lean on that too.
Honestly, the more, you know,
it's a lot easier to
run a 1500 skew operation
than it is to run a
25,000 skew operation too.
You know, it significantly cuts down
the number of PPC
campaigns you gotta run.
(01:26:29):
That's for sure.
You know, once again,
it allows us to focus.
It allows us to dial in, you know,
there are keywords we
defend with a knife.
And then there's other
ones where, yeah, okay,
we don't have to do that anymore.
And it's been interesting transitioning
from a B to C to a B to B type operation.
(01:26:50):
You can take off a lot of
the things that you need
in a B, you know, that are, you know,
table stakes in a B to C, you know,
you know, on a B to B thing, you know.
Yeah, what are the main differences?
What I find too is you
(01:27:13):
are doing a little less,
a little more subtle selling.
Okay, you're pushing for
them to make the phone call.
You're pushing them for
their request more information.
You want to get them in versus,
pow, here's 10% off
for your email address.
Boom, here's a retargeting ad.
(01:27:34):
Two days later, pow,
shopping cart abandonment.
You know, we don't
have to do that anymore.
You know, I'm trying
to bring the modals down
to next to nothing on the site.
You know, it's not
like on that first page,
you're hitting them with a modal.
You know, it's a little more subtle now.
(01:27:56):
You know, they're in
there for a little bit.
You know, trying to
bring the carny element down.
You know, trying to,
you know, our customers,
the people that we're talking to are
high-end architects,
they're high-end designers.
You gotta, the UX UI needs
(01:28:16):
to be a little bit different
on that too.
And you're really playing the long game.
Yeah, I would imagine
trying to figure out
who these designers are
and the architects are
that spec your product is also, you know,
(01:28:37):
part of that as well.
How do you entice them to contact you
and to bring their
projects to you, right?
There's, you know, all
of that aspect of things.
And so when somebody does that,
does that go to a
salesperson on your side
or what is that process?
You know, it's interesting
(01:28:58):
because we get the blueprints, okay?
So if we're spec'd on it, you know,
they gotta send us the prints for us to
do what we gotta do.
So on that blueprint, you
know who the architect is,
you know who the designer is.
So we cross-reference that
(01:29:18):
to our internal database.
Do we know who these guys are?
Yeah, it's great.
You know, thank them for spec'ing us.
We appreciate that.
If not, we go backwards,
we introduce ourselves,
that sort of thing.
We're always trying to
get as wide as we can
in these organizations too.
And it's interesting,
you know, the closest thing
(01:29:39):
from a social media point of view
is trying to connect
with them on LinkedIn
because chances are we're either dealing
with the main designer
or we're dealing with
the most junior person
in the organization.
And they've been
tasked to go find bar rail,
go find drink rail, go find this.
(01:30:02):
So it's just as important for us to talk
to that junior person and
build that relationship.
So over time, as they
mature and they jump
to another company, jump to another firm
and they bring us along.
So it's kind of like a manuity, it
compounds upon itself
by getting in, getting as
(01:30:23):
deep into these organizations
as we can and then
getting as wide as we can
in the organizations.
All right, well, I think that segues good
into my next question of like,
can you break down your current
e-commerce tech stack?
(01:30:43):
What are you using, right?
So I know that you're on big
commerce for your platform.
(laughs)
You know, the technical questions I know
that you love technical questions, right?
Yeah, yeah.
But you're on big commerce for your
e-commerce platform.
So we run a triangle offense.
(01:31:06):
So big commerce, HubSpot and NetSuite.
And the joys of booming
data between those three.
You're using HubSpot for both email and CRM?
Email, CRM.
All right.
And I think we just moved
the blog off of HubSpot.
(01:31:28):
But yeah, so HubSpot,
CRM, chat ticketing,
sales hub, service hub, marketing hub.
Okay, all right, so three hubs there.
Just UNO for some of the modal popups.
Feedonomics, I think for some feeds.
(01:31:51):
Soligo for your NetSuite integration.
Searchspring for your site search.
And then I think border free right now
where it's gonna be Digital River.
The Digital River, yep.
They just sun-setting border free
for our international stuff.
That was an interesting journey.
(01:32:13):
We started with border
free 20 something years ago.
And then Canada Post sold border free.
It became E4X, E4X got bought by someone.
We went to Bongo,
when we were on Magento,
that was an unmitigated disaster.
(01:32:36):
And then we went to Pitney Bowes
and then Pitney Bowes bought border free
because of course
they bought border free.
And then they
sun-setted border free again.
So we've left border
free, I think three times
in the last 20 years.
None by really our choice.
(01:32:56):
(laughing)
And now we are just
launching Digital River
who we're excited about.
That's great.
It'll--
That's great.
Yeah.
That's great.
So all right, let's move
over into some kind of more
(01:33:18):
business related questions.
So I know that you've been
involved with EO for a long time.
I'm curious how being involved with EO
has impacted your
ascension as CEO and the growth
and how it's affected
you as a business person.
(01:33:39):
So what I can tell you about the,
so EO is short for the
Entrepreneurs Organization.
It's a global organization.
18,000 members across the world.
There are 225, 250
chapters all over the place.
(01:34:00):
The, you know, for EO it
is, man, I love how you guys,
you talk about something and magically
it shows up on the screen.
You guys are great.
So what it really is is you need to be,
you need to be the
majority owner or an owner
with operational control
(01:34:20):
doing at least a million dollars
a year in revenue.
And it's focused on peer learning.
Okay, so it is, you know, you're in,
you know, the main part of
EO is what's called a forum,
(01:34:41):
which are, you know, six to
eight other business owners.
And it is, you know, a
safe place that you can share
all the noise that's
going on in your head.
And it's not just business, it's
business, it's family,
it's personal
development, it is, you know,
(01:35:04):
involvement in the
community and, you know,
all the, you know, the legs of the stool
that make us entrepreneurs.
And when one of those
legs is wobbly, you know,
it's the stool becomes unstable.
So it is a safe place.
The tenants are, you
(01:35:25):
know, it's not solicitation.
No, it's not a tip club.
It is 100% confidential.
You break confidentiality, you're out.
And we don't give
advice, we share experience.
So when you're
presenting an issue, you know,
(01:35:48):
we're all trained on how to coach people
to help get to the
root cause of the issue
or at least get all the relevant details.
But what happens is when
you present this information,
if I was to give, if you
were to tell me something,
I'm like, you know what
(01:36:08):
Ethan, this is what you should do.
Well, number one, who knows if I'm right.
Number two, you know, what I may think
may be completely irrelevant.
And number three is
you may be withholding
the most important piece of information
that's causing this problem, okay?
(01:36:29):
Because you're embarrassed,
it's a trust thing, whatever.
So by sharing experiences, you know,
this is how I had
something similar to what happened.
These were the options I had.
This is the decision I made.
This was the outcome I got.
And by leveraging that
(01:36:49):
experience in the room,
you can take a little
piece about what I said
and a little piece about what John said
and a little piece of what Jill said
and put your own puzzle together, okay?
So, you know, and it's the place where
you can talk about it.
You know, I love my wife dearly,
but she is not the person to give me
(01:37:10):
human resource guidance.
You know, oh, you should fire them.
I'm like, okay, yeah,
that's helpful, thank you.
No, I can't fire them.
I'm just venting right now.
But, you know, in
that my forum, you know,
we're all fighting a
similar fight and we can do this.
(01:37:30):
The second part of what I got out of EO
that I think has really
changed me as a leader
is by taking on leadership
roles inside the organization.
So inside my chapter, regionally,
I've had some global leadership roles.
And what that does is
(01:37:51):
it teaches you to lead
without org chart power, okay?
So, you know, when we're
inside our organizations,
you know, we're the
boss, we're the last say.
We had the opportunity, you know,
we literally control people's future
a number of different ways.
(01:38:12):
When you're trying to get things done
in a volunteer-based
organization of entrepreneurs
who are all this, you
need to lead a different way.
And what I found was learning to lead
inside the entrepreneurs organization
changed the way I led
inside my organization.
And I think that's when that kind of,
(01:38:35):
that switch flipped.
That's when, you know,
we really started growing.
So it's just, it's a
different mindset of leadership.
It's more of the
servant leadership, you know,
flip the org chart upside down.
And, you know, you're there to, you know,
(01:38:57):
people ask me what my role is.
My job is to put out really big fires
and to knock down walls.
That's my only job.
And that fire better be really big
before it gets to my desk,
because all my team is empowered
to handle that type of stuff.
(01:39:17):
That is, you know, the fantastic thing
of working with KegWorks is
you've empowered your team
to make decisions,
to, you know, positively
and negatively, right?
To allow them to grow and develop
and bring them all forward.
And I find that, you know,
that's one of the most
noble things you can do
(01:39:39):
as a business owner, right?
Is it's, you know, you've
got to build and grow your team
and teach your folks how to evolve with
the business, right?
And so, you know, it's
definitely a key thing
that I've learned by watching
you do that in multiple ways.
I like to, you know, I
tell people all the time,
(01:39:59):
I am operationally
irrelevant to my company.
My company, if I'm here or I'm not here,
you know, we have a clear
vision on where we're going.
We have clear objectives of
what we're doing, you know,
from an annual, from a
quarterly to a weekly basis,
you know,
(01:40:20):
accountabilities are clearly defined,
people are empowered, you know,
bottlenecks are always
at the top of the bottle.
I don't want to be that way.
My team, you know, I have
three very strong leaders
on my leadership team
and they do a fantastic
(01:40:40):
job of running their teams.
And this is it.
All I kind of do is,
you know, set the strategy
and, you know, like I said,
put up really big
fires and knock down walls.
But the last thing you
want me is in the warehouse.
(01:41:01):
How is that lead?
Yeah, no, go ahead.
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
No, no, no, no, that was it.
You don't want me in the warehouse.
Like I tell people all the time,
someone will call me,
hey, I got this project.
Great, I'm gonna bring so and so into it.
(01:41:22):
He's a lot smarter than I am
and he's gonna take better care of you.
But I am there to make sure
if you're not getting
the service you need,
you can always call me.
But he does this every day
and he will take very good care of you.
And I just, I hand it off to the team
and they run with it.
(01:41:47):
Well, in fact, you did that with me
when our kegerator
was kind of on the frits
and your guy was like, oh, it's too warm
and your air pressure
is too hot, you know?
And so let's do these two things
and by tomorrow you'll be in great shape
and this is what you do.
And, you know, we used
to have tons of issues
(01:42:08):
and now we can pour a
pint that John Taffer
would be proud of out of our bar.
So, you know, it's good to have
that kind of knowledge on hand.
I respect people who
want them, do what they do.
And you also kind of evolved into becoming a Pinnacle
Business Guide, you know?
Yes, yes.
(01:42:29):
So you've become a
Pinnacle Business Guide.
It's a fantastic organization.
We run the Pinnacle
System here at Groove.
I'm pretty familiar with it.
Talk a little bit about that journey
and how you've gotten involved
in helping other
entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Yep, so Pinnacles, I'm technically not
(01:42:52):
a Pinnacle Guide right now.
I have another startup that I'm running
because I'm a glutton.
Or glutton for punishment, I should say.
I had forgotten how hard a startup was.
Especially in an industry I
didn't know anything about.
(01:43:13):
But sure, let's do that.
But I still am a business coach.
I have a number of clients.
I do one-on-one
coaching with a few companies
that I work with on
their leadership team,
coaching their leadership teams.
And what it is, is I like
to say I'm system agnostic,
(01:43:36):
meaning that if you wanna
use Vern Harness's words
and scaling up, we can
use Vern Harness's words.
If you wanna use EOS,
traction, we can use their words.
You and I ran traction for a long time.
We wanna use Pinnacle.
I like Pinnacle a lot.
I think Pinnacle is the most flexible
(01:43:56):
of the systems out there.
And we can implement whatever system
you as an organization want,
and I will guide you
through this process.
But it's important we have a system,
a strategic planning system in place,
a meeting cadence in place,
(01:44:16):
a way that we can bring
issues to the forefront
and address them.
How do we have scorecards?
How do we measure our progress?
What's our dashboards look like?
How do we know there's a
problem in digging into it?
You and I are both data junkies.
And I'd like to say it's
(01:44:38):
the Desert Island scorecard.
If I could get one email, if
I'm stuck on a Desert Island,
this is the email I wanna get.
And I can reply to that
email based on the data I see
where I can ask questions.
And at heart, I'm an old
school Peter Drucker guy.
(01:44:59):
You can't manage what you can't measure,
and what gets measured is what gets done.
Yep, yep, absolutely, absolutely.
What's the biggest
mistake you've made at KegWorks?
What's the biggest
thing you've learned from
in your time? Oh, geez.
(01:45:25):
We got three more hours?
No, you don't know what I'll say.
Is I, biggest mistake,
well, the most expensive mistake I made
(01:45:47):
was a magenta
implementation a long time ago.
Just anything, I've done a
number of platform changes
and everything that could have went wrong
went wrong on this one
from Google shutting us off
(01:46:09):
because we missed a tag on an
alcohol-based product
to going cloud versus big iron hardware
to the cut over,
it was bad, it was bad.
(01:46:34):
Brutal. Brutal.
My decision on opening a
really nice retail store
in hindsight wasn't good.
Those were probably two
of the biggest mistakes
(01:46:55):
that took us the longest to dig out from.
But the ones that kind of always ride me
are the ones where I let,
I didn't listen to my gut,
where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna empower this person and they think we should do this.
(01:47:15):
I'm like, that's not right.
Like, oh, you gotta do it.
They're hiring this person
or they're bringing this person on
or this is the direction we're gonna do.
Okay, and now there's
checks and balances in place
where things like that,
I still kind of am
(01:47:38):
included in the decision flow
and I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna do it in the decision flow
and refer to my right to veto something.
So it's the one,
a lot of them come down to bad hires
where someone else was in
charge of making the hire
and when I met the
person, I'm like, this isn't it.
And I didn't say anything.
And after I made that mistake,
it only takes me
(01:47:58):
three times to realize it.
And then now I'm more
involved in certain spots of it.
But those are the ones
that always grind me.
It's like, when like, you knew better.
(01:48:21):
Well, I think there's
always personal growth
that comes from big mistakes like that.
And I think that
oftentimes it can be expensive.
You wanna minimize that type of impact,
but it also creates the
biggest personal growth
when you're in those moments.
And so I think to not try things
(01:48:44):
and to not test new ideas as well,
like is just as dangerous, right?
To see businesses go out of business
because they haven't
evolved or made a shift or change.
Right, and there's risk.
Well, I've got two more
questions for you that I...
Always risk, always risk.
(01:49:05):
So I've got two more questions for you
that I like to ask
everybody on the podcast.
First is, what's keeping
you up at night currently?
My 17 year old daughter.
(laughing)
(01:49:28):
Let's keep her in the up at night.
Um, the...
You know what?
Sometimes really gotta be bothering me
to keep me up at night.
I compartmentalize pretty well.
(01:49:52):
I sleep pretty good.
Um, not gonna say my
startup hasn't kept me up
a few times in the last year,
but the...
That's my old fault.
And you're clearly not a
(01:50:14):
Virgo if you're sleeping well.
No, I'm definitely, I'm a Scorpio.
(laughing)
(laughing)
And the last question I like to ask is,
do you have one tip for another CEO
that's looking to scale
their e-commerce business?
(01:50:43):
I'm gonna go back to trust your gut.
Um, you know, an e-com business is,
um, the platform in
which we deliver value
to our customers.
Um, and it's no different
(01:51:04):
than any other type of business.
You need to give value,
whether your value is price,
whether your value is
product, whether you're giving
knowledge, um, give first
and the market will respond.
(01:51:29):
And going back to trust your gut.
You know, if your gut says
there's an opportunity there,
then, you know, do your
research and if you're,
50-50, trust your gut.
(01:51:51):
That's how you learn.
That's great, that's
great, that's great advice.
Great advice, great
advice, very valid, very valid.
Tom, I'm just very
appreciative of you, you know,
taking an hour out of
your extremely busy schedule,
honored to have you on the podcast.
Um, you know, I'm very,
very excited to see you.
(01:52:12):
I always gain, you know,
there's always something I gain
out of every conversation
with you and that's really
how I kind of measure,
you know, measure folks.
And, um, you know, every
time I wish we lived closer
and could, you know,
maybe not expensive whiskey,
maybe expensive
tequila, um, but, um, you know,
we could crack, we
could crack that open, so.
(01:52:33):
When you sent me that
bottle, you should have--
Of seeing you.
When you sent me that bottle,
the first thing I called you
and said, "I don't need another vice."
So, yeah.
I got a good eclipse story
in a bottle of classic sauce.
You don't need another vice.
(01:53:00):
We'll have to save
that for another episode.
Another episode.
So where can our
listeners find you online
if they want to connect with you?
Are you on LinkedIn?
Are there any social channels where folks
can connect with you?
LinkedIn's probably the best way.
Tom, what's my name?
TS McManus, I believe, is my
(01:53:22):
personal, nothing's hidden.
You know, Tom McManus,
Kegwerk, sent me a message.
He said, "If I can be
of service to anyone,
"please don't hesitate to reach out."
Always happy to help, always help you.
Always happy to
appreciate everything you do.
(01:53:42):
Appreciate our friendship and, you know,
got a lot of respect
for what you're doing too.
Thank you.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
All right, Tom, it's been an honor to be
with you here today.
I've taken just about an hour, you know.
(01:54:03):
Thank you again and I look to see you.
See you soon.
Great, thanks Ethan.
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