Entrepreneurs: Tales from Beverly Hills' Best Chocolatiers with Tom & Tara Gallop & Others

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
One you can't need the money, and two you have to.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Be passionate about it that I can do this or family.
Why can't I do this for strangers?

Speaker 4 (00:17):
There is no block, There's so many things to do.

Speaker 5 (00:20):
I'm Richard Dearhart and.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You've just heard some snippets from our show.
Do you want to know more about starting your business?
Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Ramping up your business? The time is near. You've given
it hard, now get it in gear. It's Passage to
Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service
intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do
marketing for Gearhart Law and I have my own startups
in podcasts.

Speaker 5 (00:54):
Are you one of the two and five Americans wanting
to start your own business or already a business owner?
Stay tuned. This show is about starting and growing your business.
Welcome to Passage to Profit. The Road to entrepreneurship where
we learn why and how ordinary people just like you
started and grew their businesses. And we also talk about
the intellectual property that helps protect your innovations. We have

(01:17):
Tom and Tara Gallop, owners of Beverly Hills Toy Share
a chocolate shop, and you may recognize Tom from some
of his TV and movie appearances.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
And after that we have Michael Harvey. Do not put
a new roof on your house until you talk to
Mike or look at his website. I'm not kidding. And
then Llewell and Gannon Munsing. She is a poet photographer.
She has a couple videos on YouTube. We're and talk
about that blew my mind, so please stay tuned for that.

Speaker 5 (01:44):
Before we get to our guests, it's time for your
new business journey. Two and five Americans want to start one,
and so we want to find out from our guests
today about their business journeys. So the question that we're
going to ask is what what was your biggest business
mistake and how do you fix it. We're going to
go to the Gallops first. Tom, welcome to the show.

(02:06):
Tell us about your biggest business mistake.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
You know, I would say that for us starting our
chocolate shop, it's so important to know that you got
the right seats on the bus filled. And that starts
with your architect, and it starts with those people that
are going to help you get through planning, and it
helps with logistics and just making sure that you've got

(02:30):
good teachers, good people who have been there before, done
that and can walk you through. And we unfortunately it
was a tough mistake, but we hired someone who we
thought was a license architect.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
Did you think he was a license architect?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I did, sweetheart. Okay, Anyway, we drew plans up and
let's just say that we lost probably a month.

Speaker 6 (02:53):
It was valuable time because our business, we wanted to
be open in time for Christmas, huge chocolate holidays, the
biggest time of the year for most retailers, but particularly
for chocolate and time sensitive is like an understatement. And
the city of being in the city of Beverly Hills
is where we're located, it's quite a labyrinth to get
everything permitted and approved.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Of the code.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, so what did he screw up?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
For instance, one of the things it's really important in
our shop to have the plumbing. Plumbing has to be
you know, you've got to have a three compartment set.
Their health department inspecters are always coming through. And so
I think in an effort to try to maybe cut
corners instead of having an actual wall to separate the
front of house from the back of house, he had

(03:39):
kind of designed almost like a giant armoire where the
plumbing was going to go through that, and we were
going to be able to save money and cut corners.
It was going to be esthetically pleasing. At the end
of the day, it was you know, I think a
city looked at us and said, why do you.

Speaker 5 (03:52):
Guys do it?

Speaker 4 (03:53):
What are you trying to polls here?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
So that was a bit of a hiccup, and it's
somewhat costly, but I will say going forward from there.

Speaker 6 (04:00):
We found the guy. We found the guy, the guy
who just knew the right people to talk to and
exactly how to get it done. And we were open
by Thanksgidding.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, and we got a contractor. He's still to this
day a very good friend of ours. But he was tireless.
It was almost like he was opening his job because
he would work till ten at night.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, he was really fantastic. So that's why we talk
about the right seats on the bus. Knowing that you've
got people that kind of share your vision is so crucial.

Speaker 6 (04:28):
And well like, and especially in a food situation, people
who know what the codes are and even even the
lighting had The city has very specific details about your
lighting and if somebody doesn't know that, it can set
you way back.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
So I guess that the lesson learned is don't hire
a friend, hire a professional.

Speaker 7 (04:45):
Hey there you go.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
Well that's great, and like you said, the moral of
the story is getting the right persons to do the
right things.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
That's so important.

Speaker 5 (04:54):
Mike, tell us about your biggest business mistake and how
you fixed it.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, it's very SIMI aer to Tom and Tara. It
comes back to people and it's really picking the right people.
When we started to franchise, we had so many people
coming to us organically that we're wanting to franchise, and
the vetting process is so very important to get the
right people, and it takes time. And so you've got

(05:21):
people coming at you and throwing fifty sixty thousand dollars
at you. While money's great, there's assumptions that hey, they
see the business, they know what it is they gather
due diligence and hey, this person is going to do
it the way that you did it. And so we
had to really hit the pause button towards the end
of twenty twenty three and recalibrate our whole vetting process,

(05:44):
and so that probably took us about a month to
do in different types of tests that we have as
well as more questionnaires and then getting to know them more.
Just getting to know that the person is so very important,
and because it is a seat on your bus, but
for ten years, you're getting married in a way in
franchising for a long time.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
You know, I really have to pick up on something
you said there, because there's so much truth into getting
to know the person that you're hiring. You can't really
get to know them like you've known somebody for five years,
but getting to know them as much as you can
before you make a commitment to them is so important.
And I can say a lot of the mistakes that
I've made personally has been being too hasty in hiring

(06:29):
somebody and maybe being too trusting. And it sounds to
me like one of the things that you did was
you really didn't get to know some of the people
that you were working with. So now I'm very cautious
about hiring people. You know, I hire slowly and I
make sure I get to know them before I make
a final commitment.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
I don't know if an if you ever read any
of the books about McDonald's and how the McDonald's franchise started,
But it's really funny because he gave one of the
first ones to one of his friends, and the guy
would not do what he told him to do. He
did it his own way, so that guy only ever
got one franchise, while other people got like ten or
twenty franchises and got rich. So yeah, so a little
bit of bulb.

Speaker 5 (07:05):
Right, yeah, Llewellen, welcome to the show. Tell us about
your biggest business mistake and how you fixed it.

Speaker 8 (07:12):
Our biggest business mistake was so big we really couldn't
fix it. So I guess I would caution anybody starting
a business not to expand too quickly, because we saw
we had an opportunity to grow our.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Space larger and to take on this more space.

Speaker 8 (07:31):
What we were doing wasn't where it was projected to
be yet, but it was definitely moving in.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
That direction and all was well.

Speaker 8 (07:38):
So when this other space opened up that was going
to cost us more than we could afford. If it
wasn't going to start producing quickly, then, you know, so
we wet for it because we didn't want to miss
out on this.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
But we were paying like.

Speaker 8 (07:51):
Twenty thousand extra dollars a month for two years when
we tried to permit the space. There's just so much
to be learned about, like not pushing yoursel beyond where
you're ready to go and knowing where that is.

Speaker 5 (08:03):
It's really kind of about taking business risks right because
at the time you made the decision, you probably projected
that this space was going to be the right size,
and you were growing at a rate where it probably
made sense. You probably got cheaper space because you were
able to negotiate a longer term deal on a larger place.

(08:25):
But if everything doesn't keep up like you project then
you were either a business genius or it was a
business mistake. So Elizabeth, I think I.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Did something really dumb. So I had wanted to do
this website. I'm still working on it. It's a directory website,
and I had actually done it myself with this one
piece of software and this one theme, and it kind
of dug into websites a little bit, but I think
my biggest mistake I'm redoing it now was not knowing
enough about websites and how they really work and how
they're really put together and what's possible not. So now

(08:54):
I'm going back and watching videos and re educating myself
just on WordPress, because most people do their websites on WordPress.
So I'm trying to really learn WordPress and how everything
fits together and works because I have somebody working on
a website and I don't know how to talk to
him and what to expect, but watch out.

Speaker 5 (09:12):
So I have made so many mistakes I can't even
count them all, right, But the one that I think
is most instructive is I hired a COO, which is
a chief operating officer, and it was one of those
situations where he sounded really good and I fell for
his line hook line at Sinker, and it turned out
he didn't really know what he was talking about, but

(09:35):
he was able to be us his way with me
for six months. We ended up going through a software
transition that he recommended. He hired the person who was
supposed to do it and recommended the software and it
was a complete and total disaster. We have an intellectual
property law firm where we rely on deadlines, and we

(09:55):
have a lot of invoices to be sent out on
a monthly basis. We didn't send out any invoices for
two and a half months. Well, we weren't getting paid
and I was losing sleep. Most of this gray hair
I didn't have before that experience. Now it's very gray.
So I think that we eventually we did find somebody.

(10:16):
It ended up costing US hundreds of thousands of dollars,
close to two hundred thousand dollars to get this person
to fix everything. And everything's fine now everything's working great.
Not gun Wood, But looking back at it, I just
wish I'd been a lot more careful. So now I'm
like scared to hire injuns.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
It sounds a little bit like the takeaway from all
of this is that out your future employees all vendors.
Even if you feel like you've got a good take
it's like, oh, I could read people. It seem like
they can do the job. It's like there's a reason
that employers astra references really write them out because it's conceived.

Speaker 5 (10:56):
In the long run, I think you nailed it. Tom
I think that is a great takeaway.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Especially that they're on Upward Yeah Fiber or one of
those gig economy places. They're on there for a reason.
Some of them are really good and some aren't so good.

Speaker 5 (11:08):
I once had somebody tell me that hiring you never
really know what's going to happen. You can hire people
that have great resumes and they'll be a disaster, or
you can hire people you're not really sure about but
they turn out to be superstars. So I guess the
moral of the story is make sure you vet the
people that you hire. And now it's time for our

(11:29):
distinguished guests, Tom and Tara Gallup, owners of Beverly Hills
toysher a chocolate shop. Tom is an accomplished actor. He's
been in lots of stuff that you've probably seen, like
the Board series of movies, and Will and Grace and
the X Files, and we love all that stuff, so

(11:50):
thank you very much for your great work. There and
his charming wife Tara, together they have a podcast it's
called for Love and Chocolate, and they have this amazing
chocolate chop in Beverly Hills and they're really just the nicest,
sweetest couple and They're bringing a lot of romance back
into our lives. So welcome to the show. Tell us

(12:11):
why a chocolate chap Well, thank.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
You again, guys for him as on and why at
chocolate chop is a great question. And I'm going to
defer to my wife on this one because this is
all her doing. Honestly, I'm just I'm like Robin in
the Batmobile. I'm just long for the.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
Well, yeah, that's not exactly true. He's not always open
to my ideas. But when I have a good one
and he knows it's a good one, he makes it happen.
He is amazing that way. As you mentioned, he's an actor,
you know, and with actors, sometimes they work and sometimes
they don't. We thought we wouldn't it be fun to
have a little business together.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
We were looking for.

Speaker 6 (12:47):
About a year. We looked to college, different meetings, We
thought about all these different things, and then this just
fell from the heavens. My middle daughter was working at
the toy Shuret Chocolate shop in Beverly Hill has been
there for forty years and the family decided to go
a different direction make their own chocolates. Who were running them, well,
let me just say these chocolate shops are franchises out
of Switzerland. The chocolate's all made there.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
They're eleven in the world.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
We fly the chocolate in on luft Hansa Airlines. People
are emotionally attached to this chocolate. Not to mention all
the Europeans who live in Beverly Hills or in the area,
like they have to have good chocolate because it's just amazing.
So anyways, this opportunity just fell into our laps, and
I really pushed him to do it, but man, he
took the ball and ran with it. It was just
meant to be.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
The franchisee was actually across the street in Beverly Hills
where we are now, and she ran it for thirty
six years and then she retired and left it to
her adult sons. And you know, they got this idea
that they could do it better. They didn't want to
pay the export trees.

Speaker 6 (13:44):
I think they just really wanted something they could mass
produce more easily.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
But it's literally like if someone were to wake up
out of a dream and think, you know what, the wheel,
I can do better. I'm going to reinvent the wheel.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
So I have to ask you guys about this though
I on your website. Oh my gosh, the packaging. We
need to talk about that packaging that is beyond anything
I've seen for Bunny Chocolate Company.

Speaker 6 (14:09):
We have a lot of different choices for packaging and
they're all extraordinary and they're all designed by this man
named Felix date Wiler who's been working for mister Toysher
and Zurich since nineteen sixty one. And he is just
such a creative man. And so we have gorgeous of
floral boxes and so it's a gorgeous floral on a
box and then we put whatever chocolates inside you choose,

(14:31):
and we have them down from one piece up to
like a pounds and a half. They're amazing that we
have a little character boxes and it's reminiscent of the
Small World at Disneyland, right. They look like that and
they hold chocolates inside, and they're all like these little
paper and silk and ribbon. Everything's handmade in the factory
and we import it. Even the coffee we serve is
from mister Toysher's factory. We're strictly an import business.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
He is the real life William Wilger.

Speaker 6 (14:55):
He's in his eighties, and his father started the factory
before he was born. So he's literally they done nothing
his whole life but chocolate.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
So can you ship those across country? I mean, I
know what's really.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
About you can't imagine. Just to give you an idea
in the business, I'm the shipping magnet, so to speak,
and so over the holidays in December, I sent out
eight hundred and sixty three boxes of chocolate. So the
long answer is yes, we ship all over the country.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
In a refrigerated truck because it's like ninety degrees here,
I put it in thermal bag of ice packs. Okay,
we want to give a dart round daughter. Oh not words,
she's in Maryland.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Okay, we're here to talk about business. I wanted to ask,
are you making any money or are you eating all
the profits?

Speaker 4 (15:37):
It's a little of both.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yes, we get high on our own supply. That does.
That does, yeah, but it's you know what. When I
first spoke to the franchisee in La joya lovely woman.
She's a Swiss American, Karen Bacon is her name, And
when I was just kind of trying to figure out
if this is something we really wanted to go for,
she had two conditions by which this would be successful.
She said, One you can't need the money, and two

(16:03):
you have to be passionate about it. If you're passionate
about it, the money will come. If you're doing it
for the money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons,
because it's not a get rich quick scheme at all.
It's a lifestyle choice. We ride our bike store chocolate
shop every day. Right, It's not the worst way to go.
It's a lifestyle. We've gotten down to where we can
work three days a week during the summer and then

(16:25):
during December we work nine days a week.

Speaker 6 (16:27):
So and Beltis and the Golden Triangle of Beverly Hills,
it's just it's a real community, you know, Like we're
one block west of Rodeo Drive, and all the little
shopkeepers and owners know each other, and it's just it's
like a little family in Beverly Hills amongst the shopkeepers
in the little village here. And we are the best chocolates.
Although it's funny, it is known in some corners as

(16:48):
the Chocolate Triangle because there's so many chocolate stores in
Beverly Hills, but it's widely recognized that our chocolate is
far superior.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
Spell the name quickly.

Speaker 6 (16:58):
Yes, it's t E s c h Er. It's the
family name of the chocolate tear in Zurich.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
And the way to remember it is it's called toy shre.
So want a toy?

Speaker 6 (17:09):
Sure, that's how you pronounce it. We're right next door
to William Morris.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Kind of a funny story. This is a few years
ago Adam Sandler. Adam came in and bought some chocolates
for his daughter. He couldn't have been nicer.

Speaker 6 (17:22):
He couldn't have been nicer. They were very sweet. Now
we do we get a lot of celebrities we have
like the studios. We'll call us to send gifts.

Speaker 5 (17:28):
Tom and Tara Gallop, owners of Beverly Hills Toys, share,
what is your favorite chocolate?

Speaker 6 (17:34):
Oh, the champagne truffle is what we're famous for. It's
about eighty percent of what we sell and it is
the only truffle in the world made with Don Perrignon.
We are told it was discovered in a dream. So
Dolf toysher senior. It was one of the hottest summers
on record in the nineteen forties back in Switzerland, and
he was having a heck of a time. His chocolates

(17:54):
are melting all over the place, and we think he
maybe had a little too much bubbly before Ben and
he had been this very lucid dream and he woke
up with this amazing recipe in his mind to make
a champagne truffle. It was the first time that anyone
had ever made a champagne truffle, and to this day
it's still the only one made with dom Perignon.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, and in fact, there are only two people in
the world that know the recipe, mister toysher Junior who's
eighty four, and the I guess the lead chocolate here
and they never fly together.

Speaker 6 (18:22):
People use it for their weddings, their anniversaries, Valentine's Day.
There's a line around the block that's extraordinarily romantic.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
This truffle, that's amazing. We have to take commercial break
passage to profit with. Richard and Elizabeth Garrett are very
special guests today. Tom and Tara Gallup will be back
with more right after this.

Speaker 9 (18:41):
Have you considered getting life insurance but you smoke, and
you've been told more than once that you need to
pay smoker rates and those rates are too expensive for you.
Are you between the ages of forty and seventy? Now
you can call our special toll free number at the
term Lifeline and learn how to qualify for a life
insurance policy at non smoker rates. That's right now. You

(19:03):
can get a life insurance policy even if you're a smoker.
At non smoker rates. You can save significantly on a
life insurance policy. Call right now, ask our specialist how
you can qualify it for non smoker life insurance rates
even if you are a smoker. We'll shop all the
top life insurance companies and provide you rates that you
can afford. Call now and to ask our agents how

(19:25):
you can qualify for non smoker life insurance rates.

Speaker 10 (19:28):
Eight hundred five sixty five two four three oh eight
hundred five six five two four three oh eight hundred
five sixty five two four three oh. That's eight hundred
five six five twenty four thirty.

Speaker 11 (19:41):
Learn how thousands of smart homeowners are investing about a
dollar to avoid expensive home repair bills. John, a former
Non customer, said, my air conditioner broke and I had
to spend nineteen hundred dollars to fix it. Jeff, a customer, wrote,
my air conditioner broke and I got a new one
at no out of pocket ca Mary, a former non customer, wrote,

(20:03):
my heating system stopped running. I had to spend three
thousand dollars to get a new one. Lisa, a customer, wrote,
my heater stopped working. I got it fixed at no
out of pocket cost. For about one dollar a day.
You can have all the major appliances and systems in
your home guaranteed, fixed or replaced. Call now. If the
lines are busy, please call back.

Speaker 10 (20:23):
Call the Home Warready hotline now at eight hundred two
five five four nine four oh eight hundred two five
five four nine four oh eight hundred two five five
four nine four oh. That's eight hundred two five five
forty nine forty.

Speaker 12 (20:40):
Now back to Passage to profit once again. Richard and
Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
And our special guest Tom and Turret gallup all the
way from Beverly Hills, and boy, have they got a
podcast for you?

Speaker 5 (20:52):
Guys.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
Tell us about your podcast.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Our podcast is called for Love and Chocolate and this
was the brainshire of my wife, Missus Treble's We're Not
as Mister and Missus troubles.

Speaker 5 (21:05):
Sounds like something out of a children's book.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
I don't know, and so a little background. I don't
know if you guys have seen broadcast news, but there's
a scene where Holly Hunter is talking to the head
of the news vision and she's just a know it
all and he says, it must be terrible, it must
be hard knowing that every time you're with a group
of people you're the smartest person in the room. And

(21:29):
she says, yeah, it's awful, And I feel like, that's
my wife. She's so brilliant. I know the feeling, and
I come along kicking and screaming with right. And so
this has been going on for a year where she said, Sweden,
We've got to do a podcast. We've got all these stories,
these romantic stories of people that come in and they
just you know, they coming to toys or whether it's

(21:51):
in Zurich or New York or Chicago or Beverly Hills,
it's become a fabric of their lives. It's kind of
the they mark time with events based on our and
these stories have to be told. People are falling in love,
first dates, all of these things as a yeah yeah
yeah podcast. Anyway, Smash cut to last February, right after

(22:12):
Valentine's Day. We brought my best friend Tim Deckay and
his wife on the show, who I've known for thirty years,
and it was really it was an experiment. We didn't
know how it was going to go. We had so
much fun. They had so much fun. They had in
that hour had created an audio file for their kids
to listen to about how they met and fell in

(22:32):
love and how they keep love alive. And so now
we're fifteen episodes in and we broke the top fifty
comedy podcast on Apple. It's not something we expected we
were doing this.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
I thought this was about love. This is comedy.

Speaker 6 (22:47):
It's both.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
They're intertwined.

Speaker 6 (22:49):
It's a little bit of a variety show too. We
start adding a musical element because mister Truffles here has
a very pretty voice.

Speaker 5 (22:55):
How did you meet?

Speaker 6 (22:56):
How did we meet? We met getting takeout food in
Beverly Hills.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (23:00):
We're both getting a kale salad to go.

Speaker 5 (23:02):
Well.

Speaker 6 (23:02):
I was getting a few for myself and some friends.
He was getting one for his daughter. And we were
at the Honor Bar, which is a Houston's restaurant if
you're familiar with that chain. And it was just a
really if I'd been ten minutes earlier, he'd been ten
minutes later.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
It was Kismet.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
Yeah, then lightning struck.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
I just saw Taara was in a little black dress,
sipping what I thought was champagne out of a champagne flute,
and she just looked so beautiful. The light or just
like hit her. Felt like I'm that saint out of
the way, and you know, a screen test and we
remember this, and she was just kind of listed. She
was giggling at something I was saying to the manager,

(23:41):
and I turned around and I stared at her, and
I steered a little too long, and she finally said,
she said what, And I said, I have to say
I'm a fan. She said, what are you a fan of?
I said, I don't know. When you're sitting here getting
take out alone, sipping champagne little black dress. She said, yeah,
it's not champagne. It's sparkling wine. I said, it's sparkling

(24:04):
wine because it's not from Champagne France. It's this kind
of fun banter and this little this little love that
keeps percolating every day ever since.

Speaker 6 (24:15):
Yeah, we just keep finding new fun things to do together.
So we opened the chocolate shop, We got two dogs.
We have podcasts, and we bought an airstream trailer so
we'd like to go camping along the beautiful California coast.
And it's just that's part of our inspiration for like endeavors.
It's just fighting things we love to do together.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
In fact, we just bought, we invested in a mobile
podcast studio, so we've been recording couples on the road.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
We look for couples who have been married like yourselves
a long time.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
Seems like yesterday though for me.

Speaker 6 (24:47):
We find out how you met and mount in love,
and then we ask for your advice of how to
make love last because you guys obviously got it right.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Guys, just do everything your wife wants and it'll last forever.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
It's awesome, very good it.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
We also we end every podcast with a giant inoysier
swag bag that usually adds champagne. It's got our chocolate,
and it also has missus Truffle's body butter.

Speaker 6 (25:13):
Oh yes, this is another little side business. So I
make this amazing like natural body butter. That's just been
making it for myself for a very long time, and
I just started adding it to the gift bags and
now you can buy it in my shop too. It's
for Loven Chocolate Body Butter by Missus Truffles. It's all
the best things for your skin. It can order it
from our storm.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah on Beverly Hillstoysure dot com. Yeah, you can get
Missus Truffle's body.

Speaker 5 (25:38):
Butter, Tom and Tara Gallup. Why don't you give us
your contact information one more time, just to make sure
that people have it.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Our chocolate. You can find our chocolate at Beverly Hills
toy Sure and that's TEU s e h r dot com.
We do ship all of the forty eight contiguous to
the United States. And then our podcast can be found
on for Love and Chocolate podcast dot com. We're on
all the streaming services. We're on Spotify, on Apple, One, Amazon,

(26:05):
and it's a fun ramp. And another thing if you
do go to our website, if you listen to a
podcast and don't like it, if you write a question
into our mailbag and we use it, we send you
toyshuret chopin.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
That was amazing. So now it's time for IP in
the news and we have a very interesting patent from
none other than for Motor Company it's a patent application,
but it's all about monitoring your fellow drivers. So this
pat talks about technology that allows your car to monitor
the speed of other cars and if the other cars

(26:40):
are going too fast, they get reported to the police.

Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, and we found this on car scoops. It was
written by Stephen Rivers. Please can then decide whether or
not they're going to go after you.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
My first thought was that you're either going to be
tagged or all the other cars around you are going
to get their information sent to the police. Because who
travels the speed limit? I guess some people do, but
I'm also a little upset that somebody would think of
something like this because they really are kind of ratting
out your fellow drivers.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
Good luck using it on the Guarden State Parkway.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
I wanted to ask our guests w they think about
this patent.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Mike, Well, you know, hearing about it, I'm like there
would be a barrage of the reports coming in. There's
a lot of people that are leadfoots. But I also
do know that the insurance companies have these little modules
that they want you to put in the cars too
to track all of that data. So it's just kind
of like, who's thinking of this and why are they
trying to figure out how to monetize they think it's

(27:37):
a big bach Llewellen, I.

Speaker 8 (27:39):
Would have to say, this isn't serving anybody, Like what
are stacks of dad are going to do? If I'm
on the road and I don't like it, I want
to turn my camera on you.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 (27:47):
That will satisfy my road rage and be like, oh,
you know, I feel like this is what this is
doing is satisfying the cares of the road.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
There are krons of the road.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Tom, I'm going to play a little bit of a contrarian.
What I like about it is if it does get
that one psycho who's going one hundred and ten in
a sixty five off the road, then on for it.
But have you mitigated from just being a free for
all where every single person.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
Yeah, they had another patent that we talked about where
the car would turn itself off if you fell behind
on your car payment, so it would automatically allow for
the repossession of the car. But they let that one go.
There was enough of a public outcry that they just
abandoned the patent because people got upset about this idea,

(28:34):
so technology to be used for good and evil. You're
listening to Passage to Profit with Richard and it was Gerhart,
our very special guest Tom at twa gallop back right
after this, and stay tuned. We have secrets of the
entrepreneurial mind coming up.

Speaker 10 (28:49):
Hey, hear that. That's the sound of uncertainty lurking under
your hood. You know the feeling I know, I do
that sudden sinking sensation when you see a check engine
light or your car unexpectedly breaks down and you're faced
with sky high repair bill. It's time to shield against
unexpected repairs with Carshield. Carshield as America is most trusted
all a protection company and has an a rating with

(29:11):
a Better Business Bureau. Don't let the fear of a
breakdown keep you up at night. Trust the Shield Carshield
and say goodbye to terrifying repair business and hello to
peace of mind. Your plan also comes with twenty four
to seven roadside assistance courtesy tolling, rental car options, and
so much more. Don't wait till it's too late. Call
Carshield now before a breakdown, Protect your wallet, protect your

(29:33):
car with Carshield, get our best protection ever call now,
you'll thank me later. Eight hundred nine eight seven o
six one eight eight hundred nine eight seven six one eight.
That's eight hundred nine eight seven zero six eighteen.

Speaker 13 (29:48):
If you're worried about losing your health insurance through Medicaid,
we have great news for you. New government regulations have
expanded the Affordable Care Act, and now you may qualify
to get help insurance for you and your family through
the Affordable Care Act. Call now to learn if you qualify.
We know the healthcare regulations regarding Medicaid and we've helped

(30:09):
thousands of people find quality, affordable health insurance. Plus, all
our research is free to you, so call us. With
just one call, we'll shop from hundreds of different insurance
companies to find you the right affordable health insurance plan. So,
if you're worried about losing your Medicaid insurance, call right now,
speak with a licensed agent and find how you may

(30:29):
qualify for a new health insurance plan.

Speaker 10 (30:32):
Eight hundred four one oh five nine one four, eight
hundred four one oh five nine one four eight hundred
four one oh five nine one four. That's eight hundred
four one oh fifty nine fourteen paid for by the
health Insurance hotline.

Speaker 12 (30:48):
Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart, and.

Speaker 5 (30:53):
It's time now for Elizabeth's project. So tell us, Elizabeth,
what have you been up to.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
I'm still working on my website, which I had called
Fireside and then couldn't get the trademark force I'd made
it Blue Street. And that's why, as I alluded to
earlier in the show, I'm really digging in to figure
out exactly how websites works. I can get this right.
And Richard and I have been remodeling our podcast studio
in Summit, New Jersey, and it's coming along a little
slower than we'd hoped, but I don't see a huge

(31:21):
rush to it. I still am running the meet up
with Stacy Sherman, which is podcasting YouTube Creators Community. We're
doing it hybrid in person and on zoom, and we've
got quite a bit of interest to that. We've done
six of those. And then I'm still doing my cat
podcasts called The Jersey Podcasts with Danielle Woolley. I have
a lot up on talking about that.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
Can I just interject here because I'm reading over the
show notes and our program coordinator, Alicia Morrissey wanted me
to say something, so oh yes. So Passage to Profit
is heard on thirty six radio stations across the United States.
No matter where you are, you can find us or
just check for our podcastily ranked in the top three

(32:01):
percent globally on listen Notes, and we've also been recently
selected by feet spot podcast database as a top ten
entrepreneur interview podcasts.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Very nice, congrats, Thank you. If you want to find
out the best business podcast, go to feed Spot check
them out. Maybe you should apply if you have a
business podcast and you want to get on there. So
now enough about me and all of our accomplishments. I
was blown away by both people that are coming up next,
but we'll start with Michael Harvey with the roof Resource.

(32:33):
I've never seen anything like this, but it is awesome
if you have to have work done on your home.
So Mike, please tell us all about your company.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
It's a little bit of a evolution of how I've
come to be in the roofing industry corporate career twenty
five years I was transitioning out of corporate life and
a friend of mine said, hey, do you want to
get into roofing and I'm like, no way, I'm not
going to get up on roofs. I'm afraid of heights. However,
one of the things that I always tell a lot
of the people that I've coached is that you got
to get on comfortable and you got to get uncomfortable

(33:02):
is where you're going to learn and where you're going
to grow. And so I said, hey, let's do it, like, hey,
I don't know what.

Speaker 14 (33:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
But over the twenty five years, the consumer and the
home and that whole dynamic I was very familiar with.
And in three weeks we went out and we made
like one hundred and eighty five thousand bucks. And so
it wasn't so much about the money. It was really
about the experience that I thought that, hey, I could
make a difference with this roofing company, and let's try
to be a little different. You kind of get into

(33:27):
the business, you start learning a lot of what's in
the roofing industry. And I had a Jerry Maguire moment.
I went into a home and late thirties, couple, two
young little kids, they need a new roof on their home,
and fourteen thousand dollars for the roof I take one
thousand dollars off, it's thirteen. I can install that roof
for sixty two hundred.

Speaker 14 (33:47):
Bucks all in.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
I had walked off their porch when we were done,
and you know, they signed me. I remember looking back
at the door and I said, I can't do this anymore.
They went in their four oh one k and they
pulled out fourteen thousand dollars. I'm putting seven thousand dollars
of that right into my pocket. And I like to
say that it's about the how I earned my living
that makes me feel good, right. And so at the

(34:10):
same time, I had family members that needed a roof
on their I did their roofs at cost.

Speaker 14 (34:18):
My cost.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
And so I was standing in front of my grandmother's
home and I'm looking down the street and I'm like,
I just did this roof at cost. And which, by
the way, my grandmother did not know that I had
a roofing company because I wasn't sure. I wanted to
tell everybody, and she got two quotes fourteen twenty six thousand.
I did it for ninety one hundred and replaced both

(34:41):
in for skylights. And I said, if I can do
this or family, why can't I do this for strangers,
and so at that moment, I left that partnership and
I modeled out the roof Resource, which is now a
complete and virtual experience. Homeowners get a quote within one
business day, top quality installation, top quality roofing systems, no stress,

(35:05):
no pressure, no appointments. We call ourselves now the Netflix
of roofing. So that's where we're at.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Today at you franchise.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
This is that right, Yes, In the first year in
twenty one was my first year with one customer at
fourteen and fifteen, I actually had customers calling me back.

Speaker 14 (35:21):
And saying, what are you going to do with this?

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Like, not only did you save me five thousand or
ten thousand dollars, this process is great. And so I
didn't do it to build this nationwide company. I did
it because it was just the right thing to do,
and it made me feel good that I was saving
them money and making the customer experience so much easier
than that. And so over that next six months, I
went and met with some of the top franchise companies

(35:46):
in the country, Ifranchise Group SMB, Jack McBurnie with mcgrow
Growth Partners in Thousand Oaks, and everyone was like You're
going to change the whole roofing industry if you do this,
and you should do it, and you can scale it.
And so I I chose a company in late twenty
two because I wanted to continue to model this out
for another year, and Choles SMB, which is out of Philadelphia,

(36:09):
and they took the next ten months to obviously do
all the franchising documents and paperwork and everything that we
needed to do. And then I remember March thirtyth twenty
twenty three was so daunting because I got the phone call, Congratulations,
you're a franchis or you can.

Speaker 5 (36:26):
Now sell throughout the country.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
That ended up pretty daunting, exciting, and just a.

Speaker 5 (36:32):
Lot in there. Congratulations. I'm so impressed that you felt
uncomfortable having a high margin on the product that you
were selling. What do you think is fair under the circumstances,
I guess I'm kind of curious.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Well, yeah, and I get that all the time, right
because I will have customers, and our franchisees will talk
with customers and they're getting quotes and this is no choke.
Seventy two thousand, forty one thousand and work one team
one thousand, and it's not about the quality.

Speaker 14 (37:01):
It's not about the materials.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
We just decided that we would charge a fee and
be very transparent with the homeowner exactly where every dollar goes.
So it doesn't matter if we get tiled, doesn't matter
if they want synthetic groove or ash bull. We can
still deliver that experience to them at cost, and we
charge as a franchise. We charge a small feed for that.

(37:24):
It's small, but it's about scale. It's about Hey, we're
not going to do five hundred groops a year. We'll
do forty thousand roofs an eight.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
I do have to ask you, do you have a
franchise in New Jersey.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
We're going to have several new roofs.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
By the way, Well, I literally had people call me
up from Atlanta, Florida, Jersey. And we use a roofing
technology software so it's not Google images. We get to
see everything and I can provide you a market quote
typically within one business day and you have the number.

Speaker 14 (37:55):
And so that's not.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
At our roadmap right now to get out to New Jersey,
but it's there eventually. I mean, there's no brick and mortar.
We don't need roofing materials. We have set up all
the partnerships for the installation companies. We own the Preferred
Roofing Network, which made up of hundreds of license insured
roofing companies. We bring all the parties to the table.
They all win, but the number one person that wins

(38:18):
first is the homeowner. The homeowner wins first, and then
they get to see this experience. And that's where all
of our Google reviews have been amazing and they literally
tell their story, which is very humbling. I've had my
customer I went to his home because I wanted to
just check on the project. I didn't have to do that,
and Rob comes out of his home and he's like, hey, Mike,

(38:38):
this is amazing. I was able to learn so much.
And this gentleman was going to get a new roof
on his home. And he got a bunch of quotes
from twelve to twenty five thousand dollars and then he
got a hey lock. Because typically what homeowners do is
you throw out the lowest and throw out the highest,
and you go somewhere in the middle, right, and that's
that magnetic medal.

Speaker 14 (38:57):
They feel comfortable there.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
We were at ninety one, okay, with the top of
the line roofing system. And so I'm standing there in
his driveway and he goes, Mike, he goes, this has
been so great. He goes, So what I did is
I bought back from my kids. And he pointed in
the backyard and there's this huge pool with a deck,
and he goes, I bought that for my kids. And
at that moment, Richard was like, we're doing so much

(39:20):
more than just putting out a roof on someone's cuddled.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
Dude, you're going to have it, that's for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
I think customers say I'm taking my mom to Hawaii
because you were twelve thousand dollars less than what I thought.
I mean, I'm now putting up windows because we can
do windows.

Speaker 14 (39:35):
On a roof.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
There's so much more, And I truly get moved by
it because it's about that. And so as I go
into communities until we're there, then they're going to experience
the traditional retail model of earthing.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
Well, that was something I want to ask you about, Mike,
because I would love to see this around the world,
even like you know, other countries even besides this US.
But are you selling franchises to people right now?

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, So there's a process that we take everyone through.
I mean, right now, we've sold out half of Michigan,
we sold out the entire state of Florida. We opened
up in Texas. We're in Denver, Colorado right now, and
we get inquiries from individuals and people all across the
country that have watched the video went on our website
and they're aligning with the values of the company of
really just doing what's right for the homeowner. So it

(40:19):
is open and so we daily get requests from different states.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
That's great. Making more money by making.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Less well, you know, there's a saying less is more.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
Came from some place, Tom Tara.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
It sounds incredible and hats off to you because you're
kind of walking the walk and talking to talk and
the idea of pulling customer first is kind of an
ancient proper In a lot of businesses, right they're not
really thinking, they're thinking profit margins, How do I reduce
my expenses and increase my profits And the fact that

(40:52):
you're out there really helping the common man. And you know,
the idea that this customer was able to buy a
pool for their kids and it took their mom to Hawaii.
I mean, it's really beautiful and it goes beyond just
putting a roof on or.

Speaker 6 (41:07):
Can you just imagine the people who just don't replace
the roof because they just don't have that money, And
what are they like putting buckets out when it rains?
Like what do you do when you can't afford to
replace a roof?

Speaker 3 (41:17):
We just want people to know we exist, because we
say we don't sell roofs, We're just a service. We
just want them to know and be empowered with the information.
Then they can say, hey, this roof is not eighteen
thousand dollars, it's only ten and that's a difference. And
our customers are so wowed by it and they're like,
oh my god, I can afford it.

Speaker 14 (41:37):
And that's such a wonderful thing that we do.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
This doesn't sound like a roofing business so much as
a business model for many trades. I love the idea
that your franchisees don't need to know the first thing
about roofing. They just need to know how to reach
their customers, and they need to know how to put
their vendors in place. It sounds like you've already got
them in place ready to go.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Yeah, we put everything to the other for our franchisees,
so the networks, the partnerships are all there. We do
take them through training so they do get a roofing
want a lot of They understand some of the things
with the roof and some of the complexities so.

Speaker 14 (42:10):
That they do know that.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
But the model opens us up. We'll be doing gutters
and gutter guards at costs in the fall, and the
next fall we'll be doing windows, so we'll be able
to represent Anderson, Hello, some of the big names out
there and still bring the same experience. What's the name
of the business, theroofresource dot com.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
We all applaud you for what you're doing. This is
a fantastic business and it really is making the world
a better place.

Speaker 14 (42:35):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
You are listening to the Passage to Profit show with
Richard Elizabeth Gearheart on now to Llewel and Gannon Munsing.
And I looked her up on YouTube before the show
because I wanted to get an idea for how she
spoke and who she was, and I found these videos
that blew my mind. I had never really seen anything
like this before, so I kind of want to start
with that, Luel And if that's okay, yeah. Absolutely, my

(42:57):
spoken word. It's visual poetry.

Speaker 8 (43:00):
It's taking the poems and expanding on them with my imagination.
I'm a poet and I act and you know, create content.
So it's like bringing all of these things together and
keeping me busy and resting my heart.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
What are the names of those videos? Westbound is the
one that I'm on the train and I'm still creating.
So I've got quite a few. I only saw two,
they're sure, but they are one of the most creative
things I've seen. And I have really never seen anything
like that before. And I've gone to like immersive art
galleries and all this other stuff, but I've never actually

(43:34):
so I typed in your name lluellyn l l e
w e l l y n ganna g a n
n o n Munsing m u n s Yeah and
g I know that's a lot type that into YouTube,
and her videos came up. But if you do Westbound
and maybe just with your last name Munsing or something,
hopefully that video would come up. I encourage that.

Speaker 8 (43:54):
But anyway, why don't you tell us about everything else
you're doing. Well, I'm an artist. I've been creating art
my entire life, and you know, I've just kind of
been stockpiling it, collecting it. I mean literally like collecting
like old pieces of envelopes with poems written on them
from back in the day. Now I do it digitally,
but I still come across these old poems from my
childhood and young adulthood. So I put a book together,

(44:17):
you know, I wanted to take all of this stuff.
Starting at age fourteen, I got my old poems and
I edited, edited, and I put it all together and
I published this book in twenty eighteen. And from there,
the pandemic came and I was able to just take
all this free time and just keep working, and I
created another book and had extra poetry laying around. And

(44:38):
now I'm a two time best selling author and I've
been self published three times.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
I'm working on my fourth book. So spend quite the experience.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
So when you're creating, do you just sort of write
when the mood strikes you? How do you manage the
content creation?

Speaker 8 (44:53):
I write when the mood strikes me, and that's pretty
much multiple times a day, so I don't really have
to hold myself to it.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
And I'm like every artist.

Speaker 8 (45:02):
If I get writer's block or any kind of block,
all that means is it's time to edit. Like literally,
there is no block. There's so many things to do,
generally speaking, when I was creating the music videos and
you know things like that, I mean, i could be
working at it twenty hours a day. I'm not going
to sleep. I love it. It's all I want to do.
So I'm just doing what I love and I'm taking

(45:24):
the steps that it takes to do it and the
time that it takes. But to write a poem, most
of the time is going to come out in the
editing process.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Anyways. I'm just going to like put down what I'm thinking.

Speaker 8 (45:33):
It might be clever and it might not be, but
it's going to capture the moment thought that will pass.

Speaker 4 (45:39):
I love the name of this book that you wrote,
Blue Appetite.

Speaker 8 (45:42):
The title actually came from the stone blue Appetite, but
I changed the spelling to the hunger because I've really
loved the metaphor. The poetry is coming from this deep place.
The mood's a little blue, and so a lot of
people are hungry for that I am, so I felt
like it went just really really well with that. I

(46:03):
actually changed the name to that once I realized how
good it felt so Tom and Tara No.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
I just I love that the passion that she is
having is something that is not only something that she
can share, but that is appreciated by others, right. I mean,
I think the dream in our lives as business people
is how do we harness what we do best and
how to translate into something that we can actually make
a life and career out of.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
Yeah, lovely, what is your marketing plan for selling your work?

Speaker 8 (46:33):
I have the long game in mind, like just creating
as much as I can and being prolific, like having
a stockpile of art that I can always go to
to put out when the time calls.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
So marketing my art it comes to reaching.

Speaker 8 (46:48):
Out to the right people to have them help me
with these different platforms that I'm not familiar with, like Amazon,
and I was able to reach out to this woman,
Blair Hayes, who runs a company called Elite Publishing, and
she helps people who are self publishing, you know, like
I'm self published, but I worked with somebody just as
much as I needed to because I can do various

(47:10):
things on my own. But it really is about who
you know, and it is about reaching out bringing people
in to help you. It's not a normal business and
it doesn't follow a normal business plan. And I do
also have a normal business that I am doing, but
I don't love marketing myself and I don't love putting
myself in that position and being.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
Like, look at what I do. What I have noticed
about art and what you do is like your dharma.
You don't even pick it.

Speaker 8 (47:38):
Like, I didn't even know that this is something that
I do until I decided to share it on Instagram
and got like incredible feedback, and I mean like I
was humiliated, and I still am, like every single time
I put it out there, I'm just like, this is
so embarrassing.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
So no, I don't love it.

Speaker 8 (47:54):
But I love what it does. I love what it
does for me, I love what it does for other
people in the long run, and I don't always care.
I let go of that moment, but yeah, there's a
hurdle to jump over. And what I noticed is that
I'm doing something that's being received, So I'm going to
keep doing that and it's getting received well.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
When I watched Westbound, it was so interesting, and I
think what it was was it affected a number of
different senses and the way that you spoke the poetry
that doesn't happen in media, like that doesn't happen on TV,
that doesn't happen in podcasts. Even the way that you
spoke the poetry and put the pictures with it was
really interesting and really kind of had a far reaching

(48:35):
effect for some reason. So I can see why people
are very receptive to what you're doing. I think it's
beyond creative. I think it's amazing. Wow, thank you. I'm
glad that I reached you.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Can I answer gods? So Lleuellen, in the same way
that Mike has kind of broken the mold on roofing,
you seem to be somebody that has a passion for
what she does and has a business acumen. My challenge
is take that passion and use your business acumen and
sell yourself. Check the ego at the door, because guess what,

(49:04):
that's what we learned. We're loving our podcast so much,
but in the shop we literally tell every customer that
comes in, oh, by the way, we have a podcast,
and it's kind of a grassroots thing, but that's why
it grew up. It's not a sellout to actually sell,
and there's a way to do it. I think there's
kind of seamless where it doesn't feel like you're pitching
and selling. But the more people that see it, the
more will appreciate it. That's just my hotly.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
Yeah, that's great, and let me just share it. Something too,
is that you had talked about engagement, and all engagement
is good. All the algorithms feed off of that, So
that's really good. If you're getting positive engagement or if
you're getting a little bit of the negative engagement, those
platforms see that your product is engaging and they serve

(49:47):
it up more.

Speaker 4 (49:47):
If you watch for YouTube video. I'm going to keep
harping on this. I think you should take those YouTube videos.
I think you should get somebody to help you with YouTube,
and I think you should blow up YouTube with those
because they're amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (49:57):
I would love that, and I do plan on doing
that in moving forward with this whole project and the
new book that I'm working.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
On, and then these platforms that we talk about, the
digital platforms, you just don't know what's going to go viral.
I don't know when someone sees something or hears something
and they go, oh my god, you've got to see
this or you got to taste this. Chocolate that's got
Don Perignon and well, you know, next thing, you know,
it's viral. I actually did a video, a simple video

(50:27):
because it was like fourteen thousand views. But it was like,
I never thought that I could do a video and
get fourteen thousand views.

Speaker 5 (50:33):
You could do that.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
And share if you're connecting on deeper levels, that'll get
shared out absolutely.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
Llwell and Gannon Mansing Llwell and how do we get
a hold of you?

Speaker 8 (50:42):
So I'm on Instagram under the name Poet Underscore the
Underscore Moon. So Poet the Moon and I have a
budget of content there. I have a website Llewellingannon dot
com and you can check out my books on Amazon
dot com. I've got the book Blue Appetite that I
just released a couple months ago and Paper Lips. Those

(51:02):
are the two books that I've related that just really
followed my life and let you know who, I am
really excited about those and working on that third one
right now.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Excellent. You are listening to the Passage to Profit show
with Richard, Elizabeth Gearhart and our special guest Tom Tara Gallup.
We have had such a fun show, but don't go
away because the secrets of the entrepreneurial minds coming right up.

Speaker 15 (51:24):
I'm Jack CEO and co founder at ushabits dot com.
When I left my job as a Wall Street banker
back in my twenties, I felt completely lost trying to
navigate the process of hiring a financial advisor. I thought
it should be easy to find the right financial advisor,
so I created a place where young families could feel
understood and their unique needs would be met with empathy

(51:45):
and expertise. That's why I started usehabits dot com, where
we help you find your financial advisor free of charge.
Usehabits dot com.

Speaker 5 (51:54):
It's Passage to Profit. Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
Noah Fleischmann is our producer here at Passage to Profit,
and he just has a way of putting his best
memories in perspective.

Speaker 7 (52:06):
Nobody's diet is perfect, and neither is anyone's vocabulary. Even
if you speak the most patrician English in our civilization,
at some point you might utter a few exploits. It
might not be your style by design, but when that
fight or flight impulse arrives, those words are there on.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
The back shelf.

Speaker 7 (52:22):
That's how I learned those words as a child, use
only as directed a good Many of us aren't profane,
and certainly don't want to be, but there's no shame
in expressing anger, sudden fright, frustration. It only proves us
to be human. Doesn't mean we have to conduct ourselves
like creatures in some Kevin Smith movie or a contemporary
Broadway comedy. But it has been acknowledged by clinicians worldwide

(52:44):
that a verbal exclamation of those ugly forbidden words in
such aggravated moments will in fact resist and alleviate our stress,
maybe in the safest, healthiest way possible. That's why I
keep those words out of my regular diet. And something
unfavorable happens, I'm gonna need to know what to say.

Speaker 12 (53:01):
Now more with Richard and Elizabeth Passage to Profit.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
Now, it's time for Secrets of entrepreneurial mind. We are
going to start with Tom and Tara Gallup. Do you
have secrets that have helped you succeed or helped you
avoid mistakes or made you better at what you do?

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Yes, weah, and it took some time to figure this out.
But one of the things that I share with our
employees is that when customers come in to buy chocolate.
They're already on a high. They're elevated, they're happy, they're
about to buy chocolate. And what I explain to them
is your job is not to sell them chocolate. Today,
they're going to buy chocolate. Your job is to get

(53:42):
them to come back. What can you do? How can
you make this experience such that they can't wait to
get back because they're already here for the product, but
you're going to make them feel like they're with friends
and family. You're going to make it a go to
proposition for them. Every time they think, oh, I've got
a sweet tooth, I do I know toy shirt. They're
so lovely, they're so helpful. I love going there every time,

(54:05):
and I think that resonates and that's what I go for.
My wife jokes that working with me is like dinner
in the show.

Speaker 6 (54:10):
For every customer that comes in your dinner in the show,
they always walk out the door laughing after they've been
with Tommy. He likes to perform and entertain and put
smiles on people's faces. So it's so funny. People will
come back on their annual pilgrimage to La for whatever
it is, So they come in and they just have
such a happy memory of having been here before, They've
already come into this high expectation of having like a

(54:32):
great time again. So it's definitely not just about the
chocolate when Tommy's in the shop, and that's not an
easy thing to train people. But I feel like our staff,
everybody has their unique qualities that really resonate with our
customers that make them feel happy.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
Next time we're in California, we're gonna come by.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
We'll stop it.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
So, Mike Harvey, what's a secret you can share?

Speaker 3 (54:52):
What is the most beautiful sound to a customer or
to you guys, your name? What tom was taught talking
about right now was this level of connection. That little
tidbit is constantly shared with our trainers. It's the simple
sound of someone's name, and when you're using your customer's name,

(55:14):
that connection is so very key.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Okay, Mike, you're not getting a free box of chocolate, okay.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
L Well, Agannon, what's your secret like to share?

Speaker 8 (55:24):
I'm definitely following along with what I had said earlier,
knowing what to delegate out to other people, but what
you do and what you don't do another thing I
want to add for artists really keep creating, regardless of
whether it's for something or not. Because what happened to
me is I went to a really, really hard time
at one point, and so I got to continue to

(55:45):
be productive even when I wasn't able to create. And
it makes you so much better, so much better. So
just create, create, create excellent.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
I think mine is you know what, There's always going
to be stuff you don't want to do, you absolutely
don't want to do, but you gotta do it. So
I'm procrastinating on something right now that I know I
have to do on you, I know, and I just
have to kick myself in the rear and just sit
down and do it. And I'm going to figure out
a way to make myself do that.

Speaker 5 (56:15):
Yeah, you have been procrastinating.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
I know there's obstacles. I just have to say, Okay,
I'm just going to work through these obstacles. It's not
going to be that bad. I just have to do it.
I want to do it, but I don't want to
deal with the obstacles. There's always going to be stuff
you don't want to do, but you have to do it.
And maybe you can ask for help with it's something
you're really installed on. But there are things in business
you have to do that you don't want to do,

(56:37):
and you got to do them, and sometimes you're the
only one that can very good stuff.

Speaker 5 (56:41):
Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing
in thirty one markets across the United States. In addition,
Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by feed
Spot Podcasters database as a top ten entrepreneur interview podcast.
Thank you to the P to P team are ducer
Noah Fleischman and our program coordinator Alisha Morrissey and Risicatbasari.

(57:05):
Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts.
Our podcast is ranked in the top three percent globally.
You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, x and
on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on
this program is believed to be correct, never take a
legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearheart

(57:25):
Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs.
You can find us at gearheartlaw dot com and contact
us for free consultation. Take care everybody, Thanks for listening,
and we'll be back next week.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
The proceeding was a paid podcast. Iheartradios hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.