December 2, 2022 • 35 mins
In episode twenty seven, Accountfully's CEO and Partner, Brad Ebenhoeh, sits down with Manny L of Heaven's Pantry to talk about his line of wholesome Excalibars. Manny brings a ton of insight into ways he solves common business challenges by leveraging his background as an accountant and automations specialist. Manny's vast background in business and keen sense of ways to automate and streamline offer a unique perspective on managing and growing his CPG business, and he is not shy about sharing it. This episode is jam-packed with information, insight and knowledge that can be put to use in your daily business operations.
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▶︎ The Heaven's Pantry Website: https://www.heavenspantryllc.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:01):
Welcome to The Month End, a CPG community chat.
The Month End will provideemerging CPG brands real life
knowledge into the accounting,finance and operational world.
Our guests will be keystakeholders from those same
brands as well as other keycontributors in the industry.
Alright, welcome to Episode 27of The Month End podcast today
we have Manny L, co founder ofHeavens pantry. How you doing
(00:23):
Manny?
Manny L (00:24):
Oh, I'm doing fantastic. appreciate y'all
having me on the show.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:28):
Well, cool. Well, I'm super excited about this
one, we have a former CPA, so asa CPA chatting to another CPA
will be hopefully an interestingconversation for the listeners.
Additionally, someone who'sworking a full time job while
launching a CPG brand. So a lotto chat about. So I guess before
we get started, Manny, tell usabout yourself like what's your
(00:51):
background? And you know, wheredo you come from, on the whole
nine yards.
Manny L (00:55):
Oh, like you, I was a former CPA, I worked as a
consultant for Deloitte andTouche. And that experience has
taught me the meaning of hardwork, I have never never burned
the midnight oil as hard as Idid as as, as compared to when I
(01:16):
was at Deloitte. But I thinkthat was a very good experience.
I made a lot of friends, I met alot of people who really helped
push and develop me as aprofessional. And I also really,
I also think the opportunity tostudy and become a CPA really
solidified my quantitativechops, and it's really carried
(01:38):
over into the professional thatI became today. I then moved on
to business processtransformation, I work for a
large CPG called MarsIncorporated. I started off as
started off as a robotic processautomation analyst, put in my
time, got promoted. I ended upleading a analytics Center of
(02:01):
Excellence, and also being aexpert advisor to senior
executives at that firm. And Igrew my analytic Corp, using
data to help solve the businessproblems that a lot of managers
had in that company. And today Iwork today I work for a large
(02:22):
bank as a VP, I bought at aivies senior executives and how
to use digital transformationtools to streamline their
operations and their business.
Throughout my whole career, I'vealways thought to myself, How
can I create win wins? How can Imake sure that I'm winning, and
I'm getting good experience thatcan propel me to the next
opportunity? And, and also giveme takeaways that I can use to
(02:46):
build up my own business. Andthen, and then secondly, I also
made a point to make sure thatmy employer was also getting
their money's worth out of me aswell. I'm a firm believer in
mutuality. I think that's not Ithink that the best kind of deal
is a deal where both partieswin. And I really want the main
(03:07):
reasons why I wanted to be onthis podcast is because I feel
that you know, you can win, Ican win. And most importantly,
your listeners can win as welland take something away from
this.
Brad Ebenhoeh (03:21):
That's awesome.
First things first, in that,yes, anybody that works at a big
four accounting firm knows thatknows the hard work said at
least. Secondly, justfascinating. Background, can you
get a little bit more intoexamples of some automation that
you've done and how it I guesssupported Mars and different CPG
(03:41):
brands at a corporate level?
Manny L (03:46):
Sure, absolutely. So, our credit process was actually
grossly inefficient or this is acritic process for approving
customers for sales, there was avery convoluted process where
you would have a where you wouldhave a bunch of associates, many
(04:07):
of them who had been with thecompany for 510 years, the same
position. So people were verydeep into the tribal knowledge
and how the company works andhow and how the flow of
information works to thecompany. And one of the biggest
drivers of inefficiency at alarge organization is what I
call non utilized talents. Whenyou have someone with the
capability to do more.
(04:29):
And their skills, their theirtalents are not being properly
utilized. What these people didwas that every day in the
morning after they got theirmorning cup of coffee, they
would log into an ERP system,they will pull up they will pull
up the the credit worthiness ofthe customer. And then they
(04:49):
would and then they would theywould basically, they would
basically go on to anotherscreen and then either approve
or reject the order after crossreferencing probably at least
three different Excel files aswell. So this is such a joyful
process. And when I say joyful,I'm being very, very sarcastic.
(05:11):
One thing that we were able todo is that we were able to use a
technology called roboticprocess automation, which mimics
what a human does on a computer.
So for example, let's say you'regoing to, let's say you're going
into the system, and you'repulling up the data, you can
actually configure a virtualworker, and I use that term
(05:32):
virtual worker, because that'swhat a bot is, it's ultimately,
a virtual assistant mate meantto make your life easier. And
this vert and this virtualworker that we spun up, it
actually grabbed all the datafrom these multiple sources, and
then plopped it onto a singlelist, we ended up choosing
SharePoint as our list ofchoice. And then, instead of
(05:54):
having to go through multipledifferent systems, we ended, we
ended up, we ended up creatingan interface that is one single
source of truth, that has allthe different lists of criteria
and metrics necessary to the vetvalued customer credit
worthiness. And then we had acolumn that says, reject, hold,
(06:17):
for a set, or, and then once theonce an once it's once it's
picked up by the robots, therobots that actually pocketing
the data on that list. And it'salso reading, it's also reading
the data and the human input aswell. So that it so that they
can go into the ERP system andmake the necessary changes. And
(06:40):
once we, once we, once we, oncewe fully if once we fully have a
decision made on the on thehuman end, what's so beautiful
about the solution is thatyou're cutting down multiple
systems into one system, so thatthe end user only has to read
the data and use theiranalytical shops to decide
(07:01):
whether this customer is we'reextending credit to you. And
then hitting hold. Or set.
Brad Ebenhoeh (07:11):
That's, that's super cool. Yeah, I mean, it
sounds like kind of what everykind of tech, SaaS based
platform was trying to do today,right? Create efficiencies and
time and energy and give us youknow, basically organize data
and push us information and makedecisions. Super cool. So going
from this corporate world, andthis automation, robotics, kind
of the way your mind works here,like give us a little background
(07:35):
on Heaven's Pantry, like whyHeaven's Pantry? Why are you
also while you're working fulltime,
Manny L (07:40):
They say that that necessity is the mother of all
invention. That old adagecannot be any more true. When I
was working. Nine o'clock to 11o'clock, and that's pm not am at
Delloit's. One of the perks ofthe job was that you would get
(08:02):
free coffee. And when I walk,you know, I think the boys a
great company. I think that theydefinitely, they definitely have
a lot of perks for employeesthere. They, they understand
that, "hey, you're working a lotof hours, let's make this as
(08:26):
comfortable for you aspossible." So every day I wake
up, I drive to work. I will geta free cup of coffee from
Super cool. background of that,and a lot of things that come
Starbucks. I during theafternoons, my supervisors will
oftentimes send me out on coffeeruns that I never said no,
(08:48):
because that is my breath offresh air for the day. I will
have another cup of coffeeduring the afternoon. And boom
When evening hits. I can't go tosleep anymore. But I needed that
jolt to wake myself up and getready for another day's worth of
(09:11):
hard work. And then I look backon. So obviously this lifestyle
of over caffeination was notsustainable. I'm not knocking
caffeine, I still drink coffee.
I just think that, you know, Ijust I just think that it's
really important to have asustainable energy source as
(09:35):
well, that doesn't lead you tohaving a crash. I look back to
my childhood. And my parents,they used to cut up fruit and
nuts before I did my homeworkfor the day. And they explained
to me, the fruit was meant togive your brain a short boost of
(09:58):
energy than the nuts wasactually meant to give you long,
long lasting energy and alsoenhance your cognitive
performance as well. And Iactually ran a tutoring business
when I was in high school aswell. I fed my students the same
(10:20):
exact no fruits and nuts that myparents spared me when I was
younger, and their performancewent up. I had a I had a student
go up by 290 points on his SATs,and I, obviously he was a very
diligent worker, but also makingsure that he was well nourished,
(10:45):
that was also a critical factorfor success, in my opinion. So,
as I, so as I reflected on myexperiences, I realized, so why
don't I partner up with myfriends from college? Why don't
I create an energy bar, thatthrough and like really are
nostalgic at the end of the daydoesn't lead you to having a
(11:09):
crash midway through the day,and come from some sort of
childhood memory or which is thecase here. So you decided we're
going to launch Excalibur orand won't keep you up at night.
And thus, the Excalibur bar wasyour brand, you know, within
Heaven's pantry, like what wasthat process? I guess, step one
co founder, you said yourborn. I think it's a, you know,
it tastes a lot like a browniebuddies from college like, how
did you pick your co founders?
Like how do you get comfortablewith them? Like what are your
and a wrapper. And it alsodoesn't neglect nutrients as
roles specifically within kindof your partnership here?
(11:30):
So my friend, Rob was a veryavid Cook, and he still is, he
well. Because when you have foodthat isn't good for you, it
was actually baking recipes athis house. And then he really
tastes good, you're going to eatit, and you're going to feel
wanted to find a way to not justmonetize, because, ultimately,
very lethargic. When you have amood. That's, you know, that's
all three of us we have, we havegood corporate jobs, and we are
good for you, but it doesn'ttaste good. You're not gonna
not in this for the money.
Ultimately, ultimately, themoney is reinvested to create a
(11:55):
better product that can betterwant to eat it. So let's have
the best of both worlds.
serve our consumers. But, butultimately, my friend Rob, he
wanted to figure out how can wetake our cooking and culinary
abilities and spread the lovewith the whole world. And we
(12:15):
used to sell at farmer'smarkets. And those were a wild
hit. And that was I gave him alot of input for the recipe. He
gave me a lot of inputs. We alsohad a friend Justin as well, we
all went to we all went toschool together at Lehigh
University. We haveuniversities, a school in
Pennsylvania, very criticaltowards my personal and
(12:37):
professional development. Andafter we started selling at the
farmers market, Excalibur barwas born. They became wildly
popular with the market and thenwe ended up scaling up we rent
out a factory in California. Andnow we're now we're pumping out
tons and tons of bars.
Brad Ebenhoeh (12:58):
Cool. Where are you selling them? Outside of
farmers markets already startedlike, online retail, what are
you doing?
Manny L (13:04):
So we have multiple, we were an omni-channel company, we
sell an Amazon and our Amazonrankings have actually been
doing very well. So we areconstantly we are consistently
in the top 100 for the fruit andnut bars on Amazon. And on
certain days, we're actuallybeating out certain brands of
(13:26):
lower bars.
So congrats. So watch, watch outLara bar, you got competition
coming your way. We sell that wesell at a Acai bowl chain in
North Carolina called Palmberries shout out the palm
berries are very, if you're everin that area, I really recommend
you stop by great food and forthe people. We sit. We have a
(13:48):
few stores out in Californiathat we sell to and we also have
you in Pennsylvania as well.
This is where havinggeographically distributed
leadership is actually to ourbenefit.
Brad Ebenhoeh (14:00):
There you go.
Much easier distribution. Interms of inventory, you know, I
guess I'm one you have, youknow, one SKU or one bar you're
doing here You said you had afactory out in California are
you guys leveraging co packerslike or is your partner kind of
cooking? What's the what's themanufacturer creation?
Manny L (14:19):
We're leveraging a co Packer? That's a great question.
We're leveraging a co Packer.
But ultimately I think there's aright and a wrong way to use a
co Packer. I think the wrong wayto use a co packer is to have
them develop the recipe for youfrom scratch and just a set
whatever word of advice thatthey give as gospel. I think
it's always important to youknow to listen to their
(14:42):
expertise in the realm ofmanufacturing, but but
ultimately you are responsiblefor the success or failure of
your product. So our strategywas we come up with a recipe
ourselves a recipe that we feelproud with. And then we instead
of having them develop a recipe,we give them that recipe and we
(15:02):
tell them, This is what we wantthe bar to taste like, how can
you replicate this in ascalable, economic way, without
compromising customer quality?
Brad Ebenhoeh (15:14):
That makes a lot of sense. You know, you want to
have that ownership, you know,in your product and your brand,
and then clearly leveragingother people's knowledge or
expertise as needed. So I guessfrom that, then are they
sourcing raw materials as well?
Or is it kind of a mixed model?
Manny L (15:30):
So they are sourcing raw materials, but we are very,
very, we're very activeparticipant in this process. I
think, I think that when you,when you fully wash your hands
of the sourcing process, therecipe creation process, that's
(15:52):
when your brand starts losingits identity. So we trust them,
we tell them, hey, we want wewant this, we want high quality
nuts, we want high quality cocoapowder, come back to us with a
list of options. And, and tellus the pros and cons of each
(16:12):
that will that will partnertogether to make that final
decision.
Brad Ebenhoeh (16:17):
Gotcha. Super cool. Um, so then in relation
to, you know, selling likeeating, let's say, I guess, like
go to Amazon, where you'resaying you're getting like
really great ratings and rating.
Well, how do you? How do youdetermine success? Or what
metrics are you looking at,specifically, let's say on the
Amazon sales channel.
Manny L (16:35):
Number one, I think customer, I think the product
ranking is really important.
Breaking top 100 was a hugeboost of confidence to our team.
And that's when we realized thatour business had wheels stands
on, and it wasn't always in thetop 100. We were actually
hovering around the to the tohundreds of three hundreds when
(16:57):
we first started out, and thenover, over time, this product
just became more and more andmore popular, and ultimate. And
then for customer reviews. Ithink that having a good
product, there's really no wayaround it. As a entrepreneur,
I'm not in the business. I don'tlike to think of myself as in
(17:21):
the business of collecting andtaking people's money. I'll
think of myself as a guy whoprovides a valuable good or
service to the world. Andwhatever money that people pay
me. That's that's so I cancontinue to provide a valuable
good or service to the world andalso keep making a better good
(17:41):
or service. So we we really takeinto hearts What Our Customers
Are Saying we have a 4.9 staraverage on our Amazon product.
And I think that a good baselineis aiming for at least a 90%
customer satisfaction rates.
(18:05):
Ultimately not everyone's goingto like your product. Not
everyone's going to be in lovewith it's like what do you like
to eat Brad?
Brad Ebenhoeh (18:14):
I like meat.
Bacon.
Manny L (18:17):
Cool so do I. Why I'm a huge I'm a huge baking fan,
okay, but you know, you'reyou're you go to that local
farmers market and you get anice slab of steak or bacon, and
you'll jump for joy be reallyexcited. But one of the Viq
would have a vegan comes acrossthat slab of meats. He might not
(18:38):
be so excited at the concept ofeating that slice of bacon or or
slab of steak. So So ultimatelyyou have to remember you can't
please everyone, but but youstill want to have more people
who liked your product anddisliked it.
Brad Ebenhoeh (18:55):
Yes, I 100% agree you cannot have wholesale
agreement anything in life sothere's the push and pull of
what really is a kind of goodreview or a good kind of good
feedback to take not noteverything is good feedback.
Because they come from adifferent perspective. From an
Excel a bar standpoint orheavens pantry I you know, you
(19:15):
have this one SKU Is thereanything in the hopper moving
forward of different skews ordifferent flavors or kind of
different sales channels,
Manny L (19:23):
We actually have something in the pipeline for a
new product that's going to beannounced probably the end of
this year or early next year.
But we but in turn in terms ofdifferent channels. We we
believe in building strongrelationships with the local
community. I think that a lot ofsmall brands, they dream really
(19:46):
big and they think hey, let'stake over the world. But I think
that's before you make adifference in the world. You
have to be able to make a dentin your local community. So ours
sales process for getting intostores, a lot of it is just
going out, making friends,shaking hands. And then and then
telling people, Hey, this is ourproduct. Let me know if you
(20:11):
think a win win can be created.
If not, I'll see, you know, wecan still be friends, I'll still
like your stuff on Instagram,I'll still spread the good word
about your store. But if youthink that we maybe think that
we can make if you think that wecan boost both of our brands,
why don't you try selling someof our products at your store?
(20:34):
So it's really just low. A lotof it's really just local
outreach. We are also on a fewplatforms that are that are
specifically for wholesalebuyers. We're, we're a big fan
of maple. It's it's amarketplace for for people who
(20:54):
have stores and are looking tostock their stores with unique
wholesale goods, oftentimes fromlocal businesses like mine.
Brad Ebenhoeh (21:03):
Definitely maple pot foods fair, a ton of
different platforms for the CPG.
Folks.
Manny L (21:09):
I love how you read it out the main brands? You
definitely I can tell you beendoing this for a long time.
Yeah, yeah, if you have, pleasekeep seeing the growth and all
those across a lot of ourclientele so so kind of to loop
back around here and a couple ofthings. Number one, you're a
former CPA and accountant likewhat do you do? Who does the
(21:31):
accounting for? Excalibur? Doyou do it? So we have a, we have
a CPA that we partner with. Wehave a CPA that we partner with.
And I think that my backgroundin accounting, they have a
saying that the more you knowabout something, the more you
(21:51):
realize that you don't know,when a lot of people think CPA
equals good at preparing taxes,when in reality, a CPAs career
can take multiple differentdirections they can get they can
get the tax compliance, they canadd tax compliance itself has so
many different branches that youcan go down as well, you have
(22:15):
the standard, you have thestandard business tax
preparation. And you also haveniche specialists who focus on
specific credits, and, and canbuild lucrative practices off of
that alone, you have yourauditors who make sure that the
financial statements and thebooks look clean and in good
order. And you are and you alsoand you also have operational
(22:39):
accountants as well who, whoprovide the information to the
senior leadership. So they canbe equipped to make decisions as
to how my relationship is withthe accountant that I use. I
outsource most of my compliance,I outsource my tax preparation
and where and where myaccounting background comes into
(23:03):
play. It's really monitoringthose KPIs and building systems
that can alert me whatever,whatever there's a decision that
I need to make, for example,when do I need to restock my
inventory? When do it when do Ineed? When do I need to set
aside reserves to pay off my taxliabilities? And those are the
(23:25):
areas that the more high levelstrategic activities. That's
where my accounting backgroundcomes into handy and actually
enables me to be a bettercustomer to my CPA.
Brad Ebenhoeh (23:39):
Awesome. And then last kind of question before we
get into our kind of two finalquestions on this podcast.
Number one is how have youleveraged automation or your
background in that world tosupport Heaven's Pantry?
Manny L (23:55):
You know, Bill Gates once said, The best kind of
person to hire is a lazy person,because the lazy person will
find a the most efficient way todo something. Due to my due to
my background, and due to theway that I was raised, I was
always taught to work hardburned the midnight oil. And you
(24:19):
know, I pretty much since Istarted working. I think I've
been averaging probably 70, 80hours a week. Even even as I
exited the world of the bigfour, I never really scaled down
my hours, but ultimate ultimate.
But ultimately, I had to teachmyself how to be a little bit
(24:41):
lazy. I had to teach myself howto be a little bit lazy. Instead
of just doing the work. How canI figure out a way to do less
work? And that's whereautomation started coming into
handy. I used to manuallypopulate CRMs by hand by going
out online, and then lookingfor, and then looking for stores
(25:03):
that might be promising leads,and then entering them into our
CRM, then I realized, my time isa little bit more valuable than
doing data entry. And I thinkanyone's time is a little bit
more valuable than doingmindless data entry. And that's
where I realized the same toolsthat I was designing
(25:25):
architecting. And buildingduring my time at Mars
Incorporated, I can actuallybuild some of those tools for
myself. And one of my biggestwins was actually creating a
robots using a tool calledUiPath, which is a robotic
process automation software. Andthis software actually can go on
(25:49):
to I can I configured it to goon multiple websites, and then
populate Excel spreadsheet witha lot of leads complete with the
name of the store, contactinformation, email, phone
number, and then their generalindustry so I can prepare, I can
I can prepare myself to addvalue to them. So for example,
(26:14):
if it's a gym, I can tell themabout how my bar keeps people
energetic, and it can also be agreat purchase for people who
are, you know, attendees of afitness class, leaving their
spirits boosted up, if it's ahealth food store, I can tell
them about how, hey, we're asmall business, this bar is
going to make guys look reallycool. And the same kind of
(26:35):
people who reclaim your storeare probably going to fall in
love with our bar. So usingrobotic process automation, I
was able to automate a huge,huge, huge part of our lead
generation process, that aloneis stopping me from having to
pull my hair out.
Brad Ebenhoeh (26:57):
Amen on that it the time is money time, as you
know, one of one of the limitingresources that exists in the
world time, right time, money,talent. So as much as you can
get a, you know, automateanything that is kind of very
low ROI on the on the timespectrum, it makes a lot of
(27:18):
sense. So super cool on that.
So. All right. Well, this hasbeen a very interesting
conversation, I think, you know,Manny years had definitely the
best voice on any of our guestson the podcast, one of the most
interesting backgrounds, but youknow, a fellow CPG founder. So
he's got some do's and don'tshere for us to kind of chat on.
So number one, what is one CPGindustry do for the listeners?
Manny L (27:46):
Definitely. So if I had to have just one, do, it would,
it would be really simple. Neverforget why you're in business,
you are not in business, you arenot in business to extract as
much value as possible from yourcustomers. And I see within the
(28:06):
CPG growth life cycles. A lot oftimes as companies get larger
and larger and larger, theystart to lose touch with their
mission, they start to losetouch of wider business, and a
business will not survive.
Unless every day when you wakeup with the leadership wakes up
(28:27):
in the morning and askthemselves, What can I do to
provide a better experience?
Whether it's the product or thecustomer journey? How can I
provide a better experience tomy customers, and you have to
obsess over the customers. Sobefore we talk about anything
(28:48):
else, I want to put that outthere. But now that we put that
out there. The second thing Iwanted to talk about as systems,
you want to have systems inplace it in our society, we
think that success is bread allof a sudden aha moments, and it
is not. And I'll give you anexample, let's say playing the
(29:13):
guitar. You know, you walk yousee someone walk up on stage and
bust out a really six solo oryou see him sing lawlessly in
rhythm to a sock and it lookseffortless, but it is not the
part of the performer on thatstage is able to achieve those
results. Not because he had anaha moment on how to play but
(29:35):
because every day when he gotup, he had a system and he had a
process in place you know,drilling down those scales,
transitioning your your fingermovements from you know from
from the fretboard from adifferent strings to become more
synergized become and becomemore flawless and in tune that.
(29:56):
Those are all steps that youdon't see him talk about. You
don't see him doing. But a songthat you see a guitarist play on
stage was built by a, by asystem. Now for something way
more complex than just playing afew pieces of music, like
running, like like running abusiness. That's like that's
(30:19):
like a that's like conductingentire orchestra. If you're, if
even a solo musician needssystems to, to get their
business in order, then aorchestra needs to have even
more systems and be even moresystems minded. Thirdly, my
third and final do is, eventhough you want you want to be
(30:42):
lazy, and that you want toidentify and be very ruthless
with identifying non value addedactivities, you cannot be afraid
of hard work. And it sounds likea sounds like a contradiction,
but it's not a lot of peoplestart businesses because they
don't like working a corporatejob. In fact, they actually
(31:03):
think working a corporate job isone of the best ways to learn
and build a human capitalnecessary to propel your
business to the next to the nextlevel, there is no shame in
working a nine to five or a nineto eight. You know, you should
not shy away from hard work, butat the same time, you want to
(31:24):
work hard in a smart way. Sothose are my three, those are my
three dudes, in terms of adults,right? Don't be pessimistic and
focus on the short term. Youalways underestimate what you
can you always underestimatewhat you can accomplish in the
long term. But you people, as arule of thumb, always
(31:45):
overestimate what can be donetoday or this week. So you want
to focus on quarters, and youwant to focus on and you want to
focus on yours, as well as whatI'm doing in the short term
pushing the needle in the longterm. Because success is built
over a series of long termimprovements. Number two, you
(32:08):
shouldn't you shouldn't compareyourself to other people.
Ultimately, you should compareyourself to certain benchmarks,
obviously, but you got to bevery cognizant of who you
compare yourself to. So let'ssay in the CPG industry, right?
You shouldn't compare yourselfto maybe a tech maybe a tech
(32:29):
startup which might have biggermargins, more explosive growth.
You should be very you should bevery cognizant of who you
compare yourself to.
And then lastly my last don't is- don't have a ego leave your
ego at the door. The second youhave the second you have that
ego the second that you thesecond that you build up from
(32:53):
this sense of arrogance andconceit that hey up on the best
nothing can go wrong. That'swhen react that's when the hard
slap of reality will hit youacross the face. You always want
to you always want to listen tothe perspectives of other people
because that's how iron sharpensiron
Brad Ebenhoeh (33:12):
I love it. Lots of wisdom there great news and
great downside and I I can agreeand relate to a lot with a lot
of those so kudos for forsharing all those items, Manny.
But hey, we're gonna sign offhere this has been fantastic I
really appreciate your timereally appreciate you learn
about you and your backgroundand everything and clearly
(33:34):
talking about heavens pantry andhow your philosophy of running a
business as well as a CPG brand.
Before we leave where can peoplefind heavens pantry? Where can
they follow you, give us alittle background on that and
then we'll then we'll call it aday.
Manny L (33:48):
Awesome. So first and foremost, I love talking to my
customers, whether existing ornew or potential customers as
well. Shoot us a follow onInstagram. Our Instagram handle
is heaven's pantry. Follow usgive us a DM and I'll email and
(34:10):
I'll literally DM you a specialdiscount code that can be used
on Amazon. If you if you go onAmazon and look up Excalibur
bar. That's Excalibur exceptwith a a instead of a use of
Excalibur bar. And then you alsotype in Heavens pantry, you'll
see our product pop up. It's ait's a beautiful design with a
(34:33):
castle you can't you can't missit. You can buy us you can buy
from us on Amazon on ourwebsite. If you're looking for
wholesale orders, go to heavenspantry llc.com and click the
shop button and you can get intouch with us on how to buy
wholesale. Once again. I reallyappreciate the privilege of
(34:55):
being on your podcast and beingable to connect with your
customers and sure our pathswill cross again.
Brad Ebenhoeh (35:02):
Awesome. All right, man, man yell from
Heavens pantry. Episode 27 fromThe Month End podcast. So hope
you all enjoyed it. Thanks againManny.
Manny L (35:11):
Thank you
Welcome to The Month End, a CPG community chat.
The Month End will provideemerging CPG brands real life
knowledge into the accounting,finance and operational world.
Our guests will be keystakeholders from those same
brands as well as other keycontributors in the industry.
Alright, welcome to Episode 27of The Month End podcast today
we have Manny L, co founder ofHeavens pantry. How you doing
(00:23):
Manny?
Manny L (00:24):
Oh, I'm doing fantastic. appreciate y'all
having me on the show.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:28):
Well, cool. Well, I'm super excited about this
one, we have a former CPA, so asa CPA chatting to another CPA
will be hopefully an interestingconversation for the listeners.
Additionally, someone who'sworking a full time job while
launching a CPG brand. So a lotto chat about. So I guess before
we get started, Manny, tell usabout yourself like what's your
(00:51):
background? And you know, wheredo you come from, on the whole
nine yards.
Manny L (00:55):
Oh, like you, I was a former CPA, I worked as a
consultant for Deloitte andTouche. And that experience has
taught me the meaning of hardwork, I have never never burned
the midnight oil as hard as Idid as as, as compared to when I
(01:16):
was at Deloitte. But I thinkthat was a very good experience.
I made a lot of friends, I met alot of people who really helped
push and develop me as aprofessional. And I also really,
I also think the opportunity tostudy and become a CPA really
solidified my quantitativechops, and it's really carried
(01:38):
over into the professional thatI became today. I then moved on
to business processtransformation, I work for a
large CPG called MarsIncorporated. I started off as
started off as a robotic processautomation analyst, put in my
time, got promoted. I ended upleading a analytics Center of
(02:01):
Excellence, and also being aexpert advisor to senior
executives at that firm. And Igrew my analytic Corp, using
data to help solve the businessproblems that a lot of managers
had in that company. And today Iwork today I work for a large
(02:22):
bank as a VP, I bought at aivies senior executives and how
to use digital transformationtools to streamline their
operations and their business.
Throughout my whole career, I'vealways thought to myself, How
can I create win wins? How can Imake sure that I'm winning, and
I'm getting good experience thatcan propel me to the next
opportunity? And, and also giveme takeaways that I can use to
(02:46):
build up my own business. Andthen, and then secondly, I also
made a point to make sure thatmy employer was also getting
their money's worth out of me aswell. I'm a firm believer in
mutuality. I think that's not Ithink that the best kind of deal
is a deal where both partieswin. And I really want the main
(03:07):
reasons why I wanted to be onthis podcast is because I feel
that you know, you can win, Ican win. And most importantly,
your listeners can win as welland take something away from
this.
Brad Ebenhoeh (03:21):
That's awesome.
First things first, in that,yes, anybody that works at a big
four accounting firm knows thatknows the hard work said at
least. Secondly, justfascinating. Background, can you
get a little bit more intoexamples of some automation that
you've done and how it I guesssupported Mars and different CPG
(03:41):
brands at a corporate level?
Manny L (03:46):
Sure, absolutely. So, our credit process was actually
grossly inefficient or this is acritic process for approving
customers for sales, there was avery convoluted process where
you would have a where you wouldhave a bunch of associates, many
(04:07):
of them who had been with thecompany for 510 years, the same
position. So people were verydeep into the tribal knowledge
and how the company works andhow and how the flow of
information works to thecompany. And one of the biggest
drivers of inefficiency at alarge organization is what I
call non utilized talents. Whenyou have someone with the
capability to do more.
(04:29):
And their skills, their theirtalents are not being properly
utilized. What these people didwas that every day in the
morning after they got theirmorning cup of coffee, they
would log into an ERP system,they will pull up they will pull
up the the credit worthiness ofthe customer. And then they
(04:49):
would and then they would theywould basically, they would
basically go on to anotherscreen and then either approve
or reject the order after crossreferencing probably at least
three different Excel files aswell. So this is such a joyful
process. And when I say joyful,I'm being very, very sarcastic.
(05:11):
One thing that we were able todo is that we were able to use a
technology called roboticprocess automation, which mimics
what a human does on a computer.
So for example, let's say you'regoing to, let's say you're going
into the system, and you'repulling up the data, you can
actually configure a virtualworker, and I use that term
(05:32):
virtual worker, because that'swhat a bot is, it's ultimately,
a virtual assistant mate meantto make your life easier. And
this vert and this virtualworker that we spun up, it
actually grabbed all the datafrom these multiple sources, and
then plopped it onto a singlelist, we ended up choosing
SharePoint as our list ofchoice. And then, instead of
(05:54):
having to go through multipledifferent systems, we ended, we
ended up, we ended up creatingan interface that is one single
source of truth, that has allthe different lists of criteria
and metrics necessary to the vetvalued customer credit
worthiness. And then we had acolumn that says, reject, hold,
(06:17):
for a set, or, and then once theonce an once it's once it's
picked up by the robots, therobots that actually pocketing
the data on that list. And it'salso reading, it's also reading
the data and the human input aswell. So that it so that they
can go into the ERP system andmake the necessary changes. And
(06:40):
once we, once we, once we, oncewe fully if once we fully have a
decision made on the on thehuman end, what's so beautiful
about the solution is thatyou're cutting down multiple
systems into one system, so thatthe end user only has to read
the data and use theiranalytical shops to decide
(07:01):
whether this customer is we'reextending credit to you. And
then hitting hold. Or set.
Brad Ebenhoeh (07:11):
That's, that's super cool. Yeah, I mean, it
sounds like kind of what everykind of tech, SaaS based
platform was trying to do today,right? Create efficiencies and
time and energy and give us youknow, basically organize data
and push us information and makedecisions. Super cool. So going
from this corporate world, andthis automation, robotics, kind
of the way your mind works here,like give us a little background
(07:35):
on Heaven's Pantry, like whyHeaven's Pantry? Why are you
also while you're working fulltime,
Manny L (07:40):
They say that that necessity is the mother of all
invention. That old adagecannot be any more true. When I
was working. Nine o'clock to 11o'clock, and that's pm not am at
Delloit's. One of the perks ofthe job was that you would get
(08:02):
free coffee. And when I walk,you know, I think the boys a
great company. I think that theydefinitely, they definitely have
a lot of perks for employeesthere. They, they understand
that, "hey, you're working a lotof hours, let's make this as
(08:26):
comfortable for you aspossible." So every day I wake
up, I drive to work. I will geta free cup of coffee from
Super cool. background of that,and a lot of things that come
Starbucks. I during theafternoons, my supervisors will
oftentimes send me out on coffeeruns that I never said no,
(08:48):
because that is my breath offresh air for the day. I will
have another cup of coffeeduring the afternoon. And boom
When evening hits. I can't go tosleep anymore. But I needed that
jolt to wake myself up and getready for another day's worth of
(09:11):
hard work. And then I look backon. So obviously this lifestyle
of over caffeination was notsustainable. I'm not knocking
caffeine, I still drink coffee.
I just think that, you know, Ijust I just think that it's
really important to have asustainable energy source as
(09:35):
well, that doesn't lead you tohaving a crash. I look back to
my childhood. And my parents,they used to cut up fruit and
nuts before I did my homeworkfor the day. And they explained
to me, the fruit was meant togive your brain a short boost of
(09:58):
energy than the nuts wasactually meant to give you long,
long lasting energy and alsoenhance your cognitive
performance as well. And Iactually ran a tutoring business
when I was in high school aswell. I fed my students the same
(10:20):
exact no fruits and nuts that myparents spared me when I was
younger, and their performancewent up. I had a I had a student
go up by 290 points on his SATs,and I, obviously he was a very
diligent worker, but also makingsure that he was well nourished,
(10:45):
that was also a critical factorfor success, in my opinion. So,
as I, so as I reflected on myexperiences, I realized, so why
don't I partner up with myfriends from college? Why don't
I create an energy bar, thatthrough and like really are
nostalgic at the end of the daydoesn't lead you to having a
(11:09):
crash midway through the day,and come from some sort of
childhood memory or which is thecase here. So you decided we're
going to launch Excalibur orand won't keep you up at night.
And thus, the Excalibur bar wasyour brand, you know, within
Heaven's pantry, like what wasthat process? I guess, step one
co founder, you said yourborn. I think it's a, you know,
it tastes a lot like a browniebuddies from college like, how
did you pick your co founders?
Like how do you get comfortablewith them? Like what are your
and a wrapper. And it alsodoesn't neglect nutrients as
roles specifically within kindof your partnership here?
(11:30):
So my friend, Rob was a veryavid Cook, and he still is, he
well. Because when you have foodthat isn't good for you, it
was actually baking recipes athis house. And then he really
tastes good, you're going to eatit, and you're going to feel
wanted to find a way to not justmonetize, because, ultimately,
very lethargic. When you have amood. That's, you know, that's
all three of us we have, we havegood corporate jobs, and we are
good for you, but it doesn'ttaste good. You're not gonna
not in this for the money.
Ultimately, ultimately, themoney is reinvested to create a
(11:55):
better product that can betterwant to eat it. So let's have
the best of both worlds.
serve our consumers. But, butultimately, my friend Rob, he
wanted to figure out how can wetake our cooking and culinary
abilities and spread the lovewith the whole world. And we
(12:15):
used to sell at farmer'smarkets. And those were a wild
hit. And that was I gave him alot of input for the recipe. He
gave me a lot of inputs. We alsohad a friend Justin as well, we
all went to we all went toschool together at Lehigh
University. We haveuniversities, a school in
Pennsylvania, very criticaltowards my personal and
(12:37):
professional development. Andafter we started selling at the
farmers market, Excalibur barwas born. They became wildly
popular with the market and thenwe ended up scaling up we rent
out a factory in California. Andnow we're now we're pumping out
tons and tons of bars.
Brad Ebenhoeh (12:58):
Cool. Where are you selling them? Outside of
farmers markets already startedlike, online retail, what are
you doing?
Manny L (13:04):
So we have multiple, we were an omni-channel company, we
sell an Amazon and our Amazonrankings have actually been
doing very well. So we areconstantly we are consistently
in the top 100 for the fruit andnut bars on Amazon. And on
certain days, we're actuallybeating out certain brands of
(13:26):
lower bars.
So congrats. So watch, watch outLara bar, you got competition
coming your way. We sell that wesell at a Acai bowl chain in
North Carolina called Palmberries shout out the palm
berries are very, if you're everin that area, I really recommend
you stop by great food and forthe people. We sit. We have a
(13:48):
few stores out in Californiathat we sell to and we also have
you in Pennsylvania as well.
This is where havinggeographically distributed
leadership is actually to ourbenefit.
Brad Ebenhoeh (14:00):
There you go.
Much easier distribution. Interms of inventory, you know, I
guess I'm one you have, youknow, one SKU or one bar you're
doing here You said you had afactory out in California are
you guys leveraging co packerslike or is your partner kind of
cooking? What's the what's themanufacturer creation?
Manny L (14:19):
We're leveraging a co Packer? That's a great question.
We're leveraging a co Packer.
But ultimately I think there's aright and a wrong way to use a
co Packer. I think the wrong wayto use a co packer is to have
them develop the recipe for youfrom scratch and just a set
whatever word of advice thatthey give as gospel. I think
it's always important to youknow to listen to their
(14:42):
expertise in the realm ofmanufacturing, but but
ultimately you are responsiblefor the success or failure of
your product. So our strategywas we come up with a recipe
ourselves a recipe that we feelproud with. And then we instead
of having them develop a recipe,we give them that recipe and we
(15:02):
tell them, This is what we wantthe bar to taste like, how can
you replicate this in ascalable, economic way, without
compromising customer quality?
Brad Ebenhoeh (15:14):
That makes a lot of sense. You know, you want to
have that ownership, you know,in your product and your brand,
and then clearly leveragingother people's knowledge or
expertise as needed. So I guessfrom that, then are they
sourcing raw materials as well?
Or is it kind of a mixed model?
Manny L (15:30):
So they are sourcing raw materials, but we are very,
very, we're very activeparticipant in this process. I
think, I think that when you,when you fully wash your hands
of the sourcing process, therecipe creation process, that's
(15:52):
when your brand starts losingits identity. So we trust them,
we tell them, hey, we want wewant this, we want high quality
nuts, we want high quality cocoapowder, come back to us with a
list of options. And, and tellus the pros and cons of each
(16:12):
that will that will partnertogether to make that final
decision.
Brad Ebenhoeh (16:17):
Gotcha. Super cool. Um, so then in relation
to, you know, selling likeeating, let's say, I guess, like
go to Amazon, where you'resaying you're getting like
really great ratings and rating.
Well, how do you? How do youdetermine success? Or what
metrics are you looking at,specifically, let's say on the
Amazon sales channel.
Manny L (16:35):
Number one, I think customer, I think the product
ranking is really important.
Breaking top 100 was a hugeboost of confidence to our team.
And that's when we realized thatour business had wheels stands
on, and it wasn't always in thetop 100. We were actually
hovering around the to the tohundreds of three hundreds when
(16:57):
we first started out, and thenover, over time, this product
just became more and more andmore popular, and ultimate. And
then for customer reviews. Ithink that having a good
product, there's really no wayaround it. As a entrepreneur,
I'm not in the business. I don'tlike to think of myself as in
(17:21):
the business of collecting andtaking people's money. I'll
think of myself as a guy whoprovides a valuable good or
service to the world. Andwhatever money that people pay
me. That's that's so I cancontinue to provide a valuable
good or service to the world andalso keep making a better good
(17:41):
or service. So we we really takeinto hearts What Our Customers
Are Saying we have a 4.9 staraverage on our Amazon product.
And I think that a good baselineis aiming for at least a 90%
customer satisfaction rates.
(18:05):
Ultimately not everyone's goingto like your product. Not
everyone's going to be in lovewith it's like what do you like
to eat Brad?
Brad Ebenhoeh (18:14):
I like meat.
Bacon.
Manny L (18:17):
Cool so do I. Why I'm a huge I'm a huge baking fan,
okay, but you know, you'reyou're you go to that local
farmers market and you get anice slab of steak or bacon, and
you'll jump for joy be reallyexcited. But one of the Viq
would have a vegan comes acrossthat slab of meats. He might not
(18:38):
be so excited at the concept ofeating that slice of bacon or or
slab of steak. So So ultimatelyyou have to remember you can't
please everyone, but but youstill want to have more people
who liked your product anddisliked it.
Brad Ebenhoeh (18:55):
Yes, I 100% agree you cannot have wholesale
agreement anything in life sothere's the push and pull of
what really is a kind of goodreview or a good kind of good
feedback to take not noteverything is good feedback.
Because they come from adifferent perspective. From an
Excel a bar standpoint orheavens pantry I you know, you
(19:15):
have this one SKU Is thereanything in the hopper moving
forward of different skews ordifferent flavors or kind of
different sales channels,
Manny L (19:23):
We actually have something in the pipeline for a
new product that's going to beannounced probably the end of
this year or early next year.
But we but in turn in terms ofdifferent channels. We we
believe in building strongrelationships with the local
community. I think that a lot ofsmall brands, they dream really
(19:46):
big and they think hey, let'stake over the world. But I think
that's before you make adifference in the world. You
have to be able to make a dentin your local community. So ours
sales process for getting intostores, a lot of it is just
going out, making friends,shaking hands. And then and then
telling people, Hey, this is ourproduct. Let me know if you
(20:11):
think a win win can be created.
If not, I'll see, you know, wecan still be friends, I'll still
like your stuff on Instagram,I'll still spread the good word
about your store. But if youthink that we maybe think that
we can make if you think that wecan boost both of our brands,
why don't you try selling someof our products at your store?
(20:34):
So it's really just low. A lotof it's really just local
outreach. We are also on a fewplatforms that are that are
specifically for wholesalebuyers. We're, we're a big fan
of maple. It's it's amarketplace for for people who
(20:54):
have stores and are looking tostock their stores with unique
wholesale goods, oftentimes fromlocal businesses like mine.
Brad Ebenhoeh (21:03):
Definitely maple pot foods fair, a ton of
different platforms for the CPG.
Folks.
Manny L (21:09):
I love how you read it out the main brands? You
definitely I can tell you beendoing this for a long time.
Yeah, yeah, if you have, pleasekeep seeing the growth and all
those across a lot of ourclientele so so kind of to loop
back around here and a couple ofthings. Number one, you're a
former CPA and accountant likewhat do you do? Who does the
(21:31):
accounting for? Excalibur? Doyou do it? So we have a, we have
a CPA that we partner with. Wehave a CPA that we partner with.
And I think that my backgroundin accounting, they have a
saying that the more you knowabout something, the more you
(21:51):
realize that you don't know,when a lot of people think CPA
equals good at preparing taxes,when in reality, a CPAs career
can take multiple differentdirections they can get they can
get the tax compliance, they canadd tax compliance itself has so
many different branches that youcan go down as well, you have
(22:15):
the standard, you have thestandard business tax
preparation. And you also haveniche specialists who focus on
specific credits, and, and canbuild lucrative practices off of
that alone, you have yourauditors who make sure that the
financial statements and thebooks look clean and in good
order. And you are and you alsoand you also have operational
(22:39):
accountants as well who, whoprovide the information to the
senior leadership. So they canbe equipped to make decisions as
to how my relationship is withthe accountant that I use. I
outsource most of my compliance,I outsource my tax preparation
and where and where myaccounting background comes into
(23:03):
play. It's really monitoringthose KPIs and building systems
that can alert me whatever,whatever there's a decision that
I need to make, for example,when do I need to restock my
inventory? When do it when do Ineed? When do I need to set
aside reserves to pay off my taxliabilities? And those are the
(23:25):
areas that the more high levelstrategic activities. That's
where my accounting backgroundcomes into handy and actually
enables me to be a bettercustomer to my CPA.
Brad Ebenhoeh (23:39):
Awesome. And then last kind of question before we
get into our kind of two finalquestions on this podcast.
Number one is how have youleveraged automation or your
background in that world tosupport Heaven's Pantry?
Manny L (23:55):
You know, Bill Gates once said, The best kind of
person to hire is a lazy person,because the lazy person will
find a the most efficient way todo something. Due to my due to
my background, and due to theway that I was raised, I was
always taught to work hardburned the midnight oil. And you
(24:19):
know, I pretty much since Istarted working. I think I've
been averaging probably 70, 80hours a week. Even even as I
exited the world of the bigfour, I never really scaled down
my hours, but ultimate ultimate.
But ultimately, I had to teachmyself how to be a little bit
(24:41):
lazy. I had to teach myself howto be a little bit lazy. Instead
of just doing the work. How canI figure out a way to do less
work? And that's whereautomation started coming into
handy. I used to manuallypopulate CRMs by hand by going
out online, and then lookingfor, and then looking for stores
(25:03):
that might be promising leads,and then entering them into our
CRM, then I realized, my time isa little bit more valuable than
doing data entry. And I thinkanyone's time is a little bit
more valuable than doingmindless data entry. And that's
where I realized the same toolsthat I was designing
(25:25):
architecting. And buildingduring my time at Mars
Incorporated, I can actuallybuild some of those tools for
myself. And one of my biggestwins was actually creating a
robots using a tool calledUiPath, which is a robotic
process automation software. Andthis software actually can go on
(25:49):
to I can I configured it to goon multiple websites, and then
populate Excel spreadsheet witha lot of leads complete with the
name of the store, contactinformation, email, phone
number, and then their generalindustry so I can prepare, I can
I can prepare myself to addvalue to them. So for example,
(26:14):
if it's a gym, I can tell themabout how my bar keeps people
energetic, and it can also be agreat purchase for people who
are, you know, attendees of afitness class, leaving their
spirits boosted up, if it's ahealth food store, I can tell
them about how, hey, we're asmall business, this bar is
going to make guys look reallycool. And the same kind of
(26:35):
people who reclaim your storeare probably going to fall in
love with our bar. So usingrobotic process automation, I
was able to automate a huge,huge, huge part of our lead
generation process, that aloneis stopping me from having to
pull my hair out.
Brad Ebenhoeh (26:57):
Amen on that it the time is money time, as you
know, one of one of the limitingresources that exists in the
world time, right time, money,talent. So as much as you can
get a, you know, automateanything that is kind of very
low ROI on the on the timespectrum, it makes a lot of
(27:18):
sense. So super cool on that.
So. All right. Well, this hasbeen a very interesting
conversation, I think, you know,Manny years had definitely the
best voice on any of our guestson the podcast, one of the most
interesting backgrounds, but youknow, a fellow CPG founder. So
he's got some do's and don'tshere for us to kind of chat on.
So number one, what is one CPGindustry do for the listeners?
Manny L (27:46):
Definitely. So if I had to have just one, do, it would,
it would be really simple. Neverforget why you're in business,
you are not in business, you arenot in business to extract as
much value as possible from yourcustomers. And I see within the
(28:06):
CPG growth life cycles. A lot oftimes as companies get larger
and larger and larger, theystart to lose touch with their
mission, they start to losetouch of wider business, and a
business will not survive.
Unless every day when you wakeup with the leadership wakes up
(28:27):
in the morning and askthemselves, What can I do to
provide a better experience?
Whether it's the product or thecustomer journey? How can I
provide a better experience tomy customers, and you have to
obsess over the customers. Sobefore we talk about anything
(28:48):
else, I want to put that outthere. But now that we put that
out there. The second thing Iwanted to talk about as systems,
you want to have systems inplace it in our society, we
think that success is bread allof a sudden aha moments, and it
is not. And I'll give you anexample, let's say playing the
(29:13):
guitar. You know, you walk yousee someone walk up on stage and
bust out a really six solo oryou see him sing lawlessly in
rhythm to a sock and it lookseffortless, but it is not the
part of the performer on thatstage is able to achieve those
results. Not because he had anaha moment on how to play but
(29:35):
because every day when he gotup, he had a system and he had a
process in place you know,drilling down those scales,
transitioning your your fingermovements from you know from
from the fretboard from adifferent strings to become more
synergized become and becomemore flawless and in tune that.
(29:56):
Those are all steps that youdon't see him talk about. You
don't see him doing. But a songthat you see a guitarist play on
stage was built by a, by asystem. Now for something way
more complex than just playing afew pieces of music, like
running, like like running abusiness. That's like that's
(30:19):
like a that's like conductingentire orchestra. If you're, if
even a solo musician needssystems to, to get their
business in order, then aorchestra needs to have even
more systems and be even moresystems minded. Thirdly, my
third and final do is, eventhough you want you want to be
(30:42):
lazy, and that you want toidentify and be very ruthless
with identifying non value addedactivities, you cannot be afraid
of hard work. And it sounds likea sounds like a contradiction,
but it's not a lot of peoplestart businesses because they
don't like working a corporatejob. In fact, they actually
(31:03):
think working a corporate job isone of the best ways to learn
and build a human capitalnecessary to propel your
business to the next to the nextlevel, there is no shame in
working a nine to five or a nineto eight. You know, you should
not shy away from hard work, butat the same time, you want to
(31:24):
work hard in a smart way. Sothose are my three, those are my
three dudes, in terms of adults,right? Don't be pessimistic and
focus on the short term. Youalways underestimate what you
can you always underestimatewhat you can accomplish in the
long term. But you people, as arule of thumb, always
(31:45):
overestimate what can be donetoday or this week. So you want
to focus on quarters, and youwant to focus on and you want to
focus on yours, as well as whatI'm doing in the short term
pushing the needle in the longterm. Because success is built
over a series of long termimprovements. Number two, you
(32:08):
shouldn't you shouldn't compareyourself to other people.
Ultimately, you should compareyourself to certain benchmarks,
obviously, but you got to bevery cognizant of who you
compare yourself to. So let'ssay in the CPG industry, right?
You shouldn't compare yourselfto maybe a tech maybe a tech
(32:29):
startup which might have biggermargins, more explosive growth.
You should be very you should bevery cognizant of who you
compare yourself to.
And then lastly my last don't is- don't have a ego leave your
ego at the door. The second youhave the second you have that
ego the second that you thesecond that you build up from
(32:53):
this sense of arrogance andconceit that hey up on the best
nothing can go wrong. That'swhen react that's when the hard
slap of reality will hit youacross the face. You always want
to you always want to listen tothe perspectives of other people
because that's how iron sharpensiron
Brad Ebenhoeh (33:12):
I love it. Lots of wisdom there great news and
great downside and I I can agreeand relate to a lot with a lot
of those so kudos for forsharing all those items, Manny.
But hey, we're gonna sign offhere this has been fantastic I
really appreciate your timereally appreciate you learn
about you and your backgroundand everything and clearly
(33:34):
talking about heavens pantry andhow your philosophy of running a
business as well as a CPG brand.
Before we leave where can peoplefind heavens pantry? Where can
they follow you, give us alittle background on that and
then we'll then we'll call it aday.
Manny L (33:48):
Awesome. So first and foremost, I love talking to my
customers, whether existing ornew or potential customers as
well. Shoot us a follow onInstagram. Our Instagram handle
is heaven's pantry. Follow usgive us a DM and I'll email and
(34:10):
I'll literally DM you a specialdiscount code that can be used
on Amazon. If you if you go onAmazon and look up Excalibur
bar. That's Excalibur exceptwith a a instead of a use of
Excalibur bar. And then you alsotype in Heavens pantry, you'll
see our product pop up. It's ait's a beautiful design with a
(34:33):
castle you can't you can't missit. You can buy us you can buy
from us on Amazon on ourwebsite. If you're looking for
wholesale orders, go to heavenspantry llc.com and click the
shop button and you can get intouch with us on how to buy
wholesale. Once again. I reallyappreciate the privilege of
(34:55):
being on your podcast and beingable to connect with your
customers and sure our pathswill cross again.
Brad Ebenhoeh (35:02):
Awesome. All right, man, man yell from
Heavens pantry. Episode 27 fromThe Month End podcast. So hope
you all enjoyed it. Thanks againManny.
Manny L (35:11):
Thank you
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