Crafting Success: Vox Pop Uli's Impact on Local Business

Andrew and Daniel Hajduk, father and son of VOX POP ULI, discuss their family business specializing in custom printing, embroidery, and laser engraving with host Rico Figliolini. The Hajduks share their journey through the evolution of printing technology and their approach to creating impactful branding for businesses. Discover how this family-owned business adapts and thrives in a rapidly changing industry. Don’t miss their insights into the power of branding and the joy of bringing client visions to life. Join us to learn how a commitment to quality and community shapes the future of a business.

Resources:
Vox Pop Uli Website: https://vox-pop-uli.com/
Facebook:   / voxpopuli.inc  
LinkedIn:   / vox-pop-uli  
 Instagram:   / vox_pop_uli  

Timestamp:
00:00:00 - Vox-Pop-Uli: Adapting to Changing Technology
00:03:52 - Customizing Solutions for Clients
00:06:05 - Branding Importance for Clients
00:08:56 - Providing Seamless Solutions for Businesses
00:11:38 - Delivering Quality and Value in Business Relationships
00:14:37 - Diversifying Marketing Strategies for Business Growth
00:18:11 - Commitment and Adaptation in Challenging Times
00:22:00 - Hiring for Attitude and Growth Mindset
00:23:59 - Fostering a Growth-Oriented Workplace Culture
00:26:49 - Navigating Deadlines and Expectations in the Promotional Products Industry 00:28:45 - The Evolving Landscape of Business and Community Growth
00:30:55 - The Rise of Retail Density in Peachtree Corners
00:33:45 - Navigating Family Dynamics in the Workplace

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Will we do whatever it takes to make a customer
look successful, and that is the greatest reward for us.
We eat.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You're listening to Peachtree Corner's Life, a podcast sharing ideas, opinions,
and news about the city of Peachtree Corners, the community
we live in and the people that are your neighbors.
Now your host, Rego Figliolini.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hey, everyone, this is Rico figlio Leini, hosts the Peachtree
Corner's Life. Appreciate you being here with us listening to
this either on a podcast through Apple or iHeartRadio, Spotify,
or on Facebook, on our live stream or YouTube as well.
So I have some great guests today, father son, Andrew
and Daniel Heiduke from vox Popular. It's a business that

(00:53):
I'm highly familiar with the space in the industry, have
done some work in it a little bit early on
when I was younger, God, when I was younger, and
but you know, you do need experience in this business
and it doesn't change. So, you know, putting things on objects, creating, marketing, collateral,
this is what you all guys do, right, I mean,
so tell us a little bit Andrew where this soul goes?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So, Hi, my name's Andrew Heiduk, the president of ox Popular.
I started the company in nineteen ninety six. At that
time I had a partner. We worked for a company
that was kind of similar to this, although the technology
has changed, but we thought we were smarter, we thought
we were better and decided to go out on our own.
We had a couple of clients that followed us, and

(01:39):
since then have always just worked to be super responsive
to our clients and go where the technology is going.
You know, when we started the company, digital printing didn't exist,
and we've gotten big into digital printing. We've gone into embroidery,
into laser engraving, and all the different things that help
companies communicate their brandy.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
It's interesting. I think it was Curiosity Lamp someone from
that that told me. I think they tried to do
Lewisville Sluggers the bat yep. They needed something printed on it,
and they were like, you guys can't do this, can you.
I forgot the quantity. It was ridiculously small considering you know,
it could have been a thousand or five hundred, but
it was a small number. You guys were able to
do that too. I think, just knock it.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Out We're actually on the next generation of that, and
I don't want to spoil anybody's surprise until that one
gets unveiled. But yeah, we did the first generation that
the city used in some travel and some promotions, and
it was it was a pretty cool combination because it
was a little mini bat that was engraved and printed
with city branding with the logos for Curiosity Labs and

(02:42):
some of the city stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
It's cool. I saw that on my little tour that
you guys gave me, So I appreciate seeing that because
I sort of got my mind moving along about what
else can he imprint? If I give him something, can
he do it?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
But that's, you know, one of the things that we
love to do, and one of the things that we
love about this location and where we're where we're at
and serving the people that we do is we love
getting people in here because you get to see what
we do. But once you walk around, you see that
and you're like, Okay, well could we do this or
could I do that? It's it's always a lot of

(03:16):
fun to walk people through here because they see what
we do, then they start to kind of make it
their own and see their logo on.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Things, and Daniel, you're in marketing and you've been here
about two and a half years.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
With you that I think, right, yeah, about two and
a half years.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
The summer of twenty twenty two, after I completed four
years in the Navy.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I wanted to.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
I realized I wanted to get back to something like this,
something that doesn't feel like work, mousts of time, something
that you're growing something constantly and doing something different every single.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Day, like the bats.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
I mean, that morning, no idea what we'd put on bats,
but that came up the next day and we have
bats going and we're even in the back right now
working on the new edition and.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
It's really fun and you can't shit with that is.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Not yet I don't want to. I don't want to
get in trouble with the city.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
First, i'd does did the military background help you a
little bit?

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (04:10):
I One thing I like to I always ask them
and question them on why we do things a certain way?

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Why do we do like this? How do you learn
how to do this now? Why is it like this?

Speaker 4 (04:21):
So it's it gave me an experience of one thing
the military is really good at is structure with things.
And I love mixing that the strengths of that with
our kind of complete customization on everything we can do,
and so really just maximizing what we can do for
clients and we can do for ourselves at the best potential.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
A bit of problem solving. Sometimes when a client comes
to and you're not sure, they're not sure maybe and
you have to guide them a little bit.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
It's trying to figure out and we ask a lot
of questions, and you know, there's there's there's there's folks
that we work phenomenally well with and we've got some
really good long term relationships, and sometimes it's tough because
you know, we in that initial period, we do ask
a lot of questions because I'm going to try to
help you get to what you're trying to do. And

(05:10):
you know, I've got another customer that says, Hey, one
of the things I like about you guys, is you
give me what I need, not what I always ask for.
But that's what we're trying to figure out, is, Okay,
how are you going to use this, who's going to
be putting it together, how's it going to be distributed?
All of those things to try to maybe get to
a better idea, maybe not and maybe what what we
originally started with is the best way, but we try

(05:31):
to get there.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, it's a philosophy that you want to share. I
mean a sense of philosophy in here.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
We will we do whatever it takes to make a
customer look successful, and that is the greatest reward for us.
I mean it's I love the project business. We we
love doing things. We're not coming in here this you know,
Daniel mentioned the bats, different things. We don't come in
here and do the same thing every single day. But

(05:58):
there's no greater reward than when we see our stuff
on TV at the Army Navy game, when we had
we did a bunch of stuff for the Sun Bowl,
when we saw that come back, and clients are sending
us pictures or are showing us how things work out,
and which ultimately leads to the greatest reward of all
is somebody saying, hey, here's somebody else in my company

(06:20):
that you should be working with.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, obviously you're based here in
Peacetree Corners, State of Georgia, but your stuff goes all
over the place, trade shows, Vegas, I'm sure, West Coast
and all over the place. What type of clients. I
know in sales you always ask I guests what you
preferred prospect you lead, Like, who is your clients? Who

(06:42):
would you say, even if it's a variety of clients,
how would you describe that?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
So I think, and you know, it sounds kind of
funny to say this sometimes, but the best client is
first and one that believed has a similar mindset that
we do, that believes that it's important to brand. It's
important to get your name, your logo, your look out there.
There's a lot of guys out there in a big
portion of our businesses, we work with a lot of retailers,

(07:07):
and we have retail customers you know that don't market
a ton. They don't worry about what the appearance of
the store is and things like that, and you know
that that ultimately gets reflected. But if you want to
convey a certain image right, and it doesn't mean you
have to spend a lot of money, but if your
branding is important, if consistent branding is important, if getting

(07:30):
the word out there right, and even for our B
to B clients, we've got some great B to B
clients here in Peachtree Corners right behind us as well,
and they they care. They want their employees to feel special,
they want their associates to look good. It's important that
their people look good in the marketplace, and that's the

(07:51):
best kind of client.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
I've been following you a bit on LinkedIn and commenting
and engaging a little bit on some of your posts.
I still one that had a deal with was with
truck wraps, and which really hit home for me because
totally totally don't understand why people can't get it into
the head that if the three years of something you
really do want to refresh it. It's almost like a

(08:13):
restaurant that opens up in another restaurant space and keeps
their awnings in sort of the three year old, four
year old decorations outside, rather than replacing it all. This
way you look like a new place. How do you
treat how do you do that? How do you know
work with people that you know. I'm sure you're doing
other things with them, but you may say to them,

(08:35):
you know that awning needs to be replaced to something.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
I try to bring it up. We do. We probably
wrap an average of six hundred vehicles a year for
our clients, and one of the questions that we often
get asked, is how long is it going to last?
And my response is it's going to last far longer
than it's useful life, meaning that you know it's going
to stop disrupting the environment. We have a phrase that

(08:59):
I like to use around here. I said, you've got
to be tastefully obnoxious, right, You've got to get people's
attention because over time everything starts to blend into the environment.
And so you know, if it's we don't think of
our vehicles in terms of marketing budget and quite honestly,
it's the lowest cost per impression that you can get
out there, and we should be looking at it and

(09:21):
not just not just rewrapping a vehicle, either when we
get a new one or when we wreck it.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, I mean that makes sense to me. They drive
the vehicles around, they park maybe in front of the
retail place of their restaurant and catering. I mean there's
a value for it to look a certain way. You
don't want it to look dingy if you're providing food
like this is just a real value I think. And
how you present yourself. So when it comes to marketing,

(09:46):
then how do you how do you approach companies? How
do you, how are you getting your business leads.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
So a lot of our business has come from other
clients of ours. So one person works out X company,
they either move to that company or have a friend
at this company they use us there. So it's kind
of just the domino effect of people just notice what
we can do for them, and it just.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Keeps growing and keeps growing, keeps growing.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
The beginning of last year, we took a different approach
and we really got aggressive, i would say, with trying
to really focus here in the Atlanta area to service
everyone around us and just really grow with everyone, like
our neighbors next door or someone two miles down the road,
or anyone here in the city. We know that there's
opportunity because there's so many great businesses in the area

(10:36):
and everyone needs what we're doing. And we know so
many people struggle with something that shouldn't be a hassle
on their end. It should be something they send to
us and we take care of and we deliver beyond
their expectations.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
So I was looking reading some of your branding in
the foyer in the entry, and on one of the alliance.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Was to.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Something that's used quite a bit, but it's interesting not
everyone follows strong turn key operation. Make it silly, stupid
for people, make it so easy for them that when
you deliver the job, it's done they don't have to
worry about anything.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
We had a this is why we see that there's
all this opportunity here and just be streit Corners alone.
We had a lady come in from a company that's
on the other side of that intersection down there, and
she called in and mentioned that she needed help with
hats because of the hat order she had got canceled
on someone online right before.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
The event and they weren't going to be able to
get it to her in time.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
She called in and said, hey, come in, let's take
a look and we'll figure this out. She came in
about ten minutes later, and within five minutes we had
hat picked out, They gave her pricing, we had proofs
to her that evening, and we.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Had the job to her two days later. So when I.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
Tell someone getting getting a bucket a hatch shouldn't be
difficult for your event, Getting employee apparel shouldn't be difficult.
Having a trade show backdrop shouldn't be difficult to get
whatever you need. It should not be hard You should
not have to be worrying about checking every step for approval.
We'll tell you what we're going to deliver till you win.
We're going to ask you questions. We're going to need answers.

(12:14):
That's just a guide us to the right product in
the right timing.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Cool when you're doing this and you know there's value
to what you do, right, Andrew the you know, I
know pricing is always an issue, well, not always an issue.
I mean the way I work is that I don't
go for the cheapest. I don't go for the most expensive.
I go for the quality, the delivery somewhere where I

(12:38):
trust that that can be waiting like all of a
sudden I have a job and then that stuff doesn't
show up. Yeah, but some people worry about pricing, and
you know, how do you make sure you hold your value?
You know, because there is a value to what you do.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
So, you know, I always tell people we should always
be in line. You know, are there times where we're
going to be more expensive and if you shop hard enough,
you're going to find something cheaper. We like to tell
people we give them back the greatest thing that we can,
which is time. You were talking earlier, about managing things
and going through it and stuff like that, and you
shouldn't have to It should be straightforward, it should be easy.

(13:19):
You shouldn't have to worry if your colors are correct,
or is there an instruction sheet with putting the hardware together?
Or am I violating any brand guidelines. We work with
a lot of national companies where brand guidelines are important,
so we try to do that, and you know, we
try to be very fair quite honestly. You know you
asked about philosophies and things like that, And call any

(13:42):
of my long term clients and they'll tell you that
they've heard me say this line a thousand times. Here's
the way I look at it. In every relationship, you
have a bucket of money. The more I can give
you for that, the better we all are. You grow
your business, that bucket continues to grow, there's more opportunity
for us to win, and we take. We try to
have very long term relationships based on that.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
So going back to what you said, Daniel, the referral business,
because that's what you were talking about before. Right, you're
doing a good job. People refer you, they go to
another place they want, they know you're the experience with you,
you're going to be the person in that door, in
that that new company. When you're dealing with a new
business that's that's coming in. Whether it's a retail place, restaurant,

(14:27):
let's sake that type of business, right sure, storefront, Let's
say they're brand new, they're maybe they're not a franchise
even because you know they want to do their own thing.
How do you approach a business like that when they
come to you? Do you are there certain staples that
you think they should be doing? How does that work.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
On over the I had to figure this out for
for something a couple of years ago. And with all
the rebrands that we've done, all the acquisitions and all
the stores we've opened over the years, from wolf Camp
to Errand's to Mattress Firms and so forth, we've opened
over seven thousand stores, wow, and all the way from

(15:07):
guys that they're opening their first unit to their two
thousandth whatever it is, especially in retail, and I think
it's more important than ever. There's two things that you
have to do. One, you have to create omnipresence, right,
so whether that's being on Facebook on social media platforms,
but also in print and out in the community. We

(15:28):
see all the time. Right, you're driving down the road
and you drive past the shopping center and you're like, huh,
when did they get there? Right? How long have they
been there? And maybe they just opened, but they didn't
do a good job of disrupting the environment. I believe
big time in guerrilla marketing, getting out there with the businesses.
If I was a local restaurant here, I would be
going and knocking on doors, especially as people are returning

(15:51):
to work, giving them lunch specials, trying to get people
out of the office, just to drive that traffic too
many times. And I tell you, I tell all of
my clients, is we can't just sit back and wait
for people to come. We've got to get out there
and let the community know we're there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
I can see what you I can see what you
mean by that. I mean they'll be doing the magazine
business for example, right, which is print, digital and everything
else that comes in there. So we talked to a
lot of people, and everyone has the philosophy and certain
businesses work a certain way. Maybe social media works better
for them than print. There's a variety of different things, right,

(16:30):
So we tried to produce content as well. But the
interesting part to me is this, There'll be a business
in business for six to seven months, they're all in
on social media, and then all of a sudden, six
seven months eight months later, they're realizing that's not it,
that's not working, and they're not doing anything else by
social media. Maybe they're not going to the festivals, maybe

(16:53):
they're not going out into the community, which they would
need branding to be able to do that. You can
just show up naked, right, You need that stuff to
be able to be out there. I mean when I
when I would participated in Pecun's festival, you all did
my table drape and attire and stuff. Can't tell you
how many people stopped at the booth or past the

(17:15):
booth to say, wow, look yeah we get that magazine
or we get the sister publication. Well we listened to
the podcast so something. So it was a good visible
place to be, right.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
But think about the you know, you're older like me,
so think about when we used to go to the
mall when we were kids and stuff like that. How
did the restaurants, how did the Chinese restaurant or the
pretzel place or any of those places drum up business.
They had people come out from behind the counter and
go up and hand people's samples and things like that.
And that's the kind of stuff that that businesses have lost,

(17:49):
you know, they've social media has to be a part
of it, it absolutely does, sure, but you have to
have other things as well. I mean, I see so
many businesses, you know that just rely on a single
channel of marketing and don't worry about getting the word out.
And you know, we're all we're all super busy. We
drive the same route every single day, stuff like that,

(18:11):
and you don't notice stuff. It's our job as marketers
to disrupt the environment so that when you're driving by
the shopping center, you're sitting there in the light, You're going,
holy cow, I didn't realize that that was there. They
must be new. I'm going to stop in and try them.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah, no, perfect, I love that. You're right. Remember reading
I think it was someone's the franchise manual for people
that started the franchise, right, And this was some of
years back. I don't even know if they do it now,
but one of the things they did say in that
was go check out all the commercial businesses within a

(18:44):
two mile radius and then within a one mile and
go bring them free lunch, every one of them free lunch.
And you know some of them may look at that
and it's going to say, well, that costs money. And
it's just like think about it when you're home and
you cook for your guests and they say this is wonderful.
Don't you want the same thing. So yeah, people are afraid,
I think sometimes to spend the money in but they'll

(19:08):
spend the money in ridiculous ways, but not in otherwise.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
So it's me. It's a commitment thing, right, If we
want people to make a commitment to us, we have
to make a commitment to them. Somebody's going to have
to go first.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
And you started this in ninety six, ninety six, so
that was I moved here in ninety five. Actually that
was the year of the Olympics.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Olympics. Kind of funny that way. I remember back then
I used to sell commercial sheet fed printing.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
You could be a lousy salesperson and still make good money.
Oh yeah, And after things stopped around yeah what year
it was? Now, things just got a little bad and
salespeople you could see the tree shake and all the
bad ones fell out. Did you feel that way sometimes?

Speaker 1 (19:54):
We We've gone through a couple different challenges, right, So
we didn't start because of the Olympics. We had some
Olympic work and things like that, but because when we started,
we were a little bit behind the curve there, so
you know, a lot of that stuff was already going on. Sure,
we were fortunate and we had we had two clients
that pushed us to really get the company going and

(20:15):
get it off the ground that you know, so we
weren't kind of in that survival mode from day one.
But then you had the dot com crash right in
ninety nine two thousand and there were so many people
that were printing just a bunch of stupid stuff, and
you know, you had to get through that. So that
was kind of I always say, it's it's it's a

(20:36):
flush that we need, but it's painful to go through.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
You see the same thing in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Absolutely, that's the next one I was going to go to.
You know, we were my two biggest clients in two
thousand and eight were Aaron Sales and LEAs and Mattress Firm,
and both Ken Butler and Steve Stagner. That ran those
companies respectively. They were very much forward thinking, and I
remember Steve saying, we've got to dial up the adizing
we have to work harder today to keep to get

(21:03):
the customer's dollar than when it was easy. And so
you know, for us it was good there, but we
saw a lot of guys and especially as digital printing's
going on, we've been on the cutting edge of that
since day one. And you'll see different people jump in
right every every sign shop comes in and they're going
to buy this. Every T shirt shop comes in and
they're going to buy this, and it goes on and on,

(21:23):
and those are the things that you know, create some
price pressure because everybody wants to give it away. But
then during those times it becomes real tough and you
see people start to fall out.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
So yeah, printing was that way too, absolutely yeah. And
I remember I used to tell the owner of the
print shop it was at commercial Printer, three million dollars
in sales and stuff business cards a loss. Leaders. I
give them a way to be able to walk into
a company with sixth century employees is the minute you
got into that whole way, you're like everyone's coming out
and say do you do this do you do that?

(21:54):
You know, do you don't even know? You're not bidding
anymore at that point, you know, getting the work?

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah, it was, it was, it was. It's a it's
a you know again when we used to go out
more and more, but it was you could just walk
around and pick up back in the day before email
and stuff like that. You just walk around and pick
up jobs. Yes, like that anymore.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
So I think, you know, two thousand and eight was
a bad one, but I think things have gotten progressively better.
Maybe we're heading into something who knows, you know. I
mean people talk about like another real estate except commercial
real estate this time versus residential bubble or something. But
you're when you're when you're hiring salespeople, what do you

(22:40):
look for in them?

Speaker 1 (22:42):
The number one thing we look for in anybody we
hire is attitude. I want to hire people that want
to grow. I've never had anybody not come to work
here because of the money, and I've never had anyone
leave here because of the money. Does that mean we're
the highest paying people out there? No, I think we're fair.

(23:02):
But we're also tough on the front end with trying
to find people. But I really want people that want
to grow. It's one of our you had mentioned our boards,
our vision boards out in the lobby. It's one of
the things that we look for right, one of the
things that we tell people. We're into personal development because
I think it's important that for the company to achieve

(23:25):
its goals, for the company to go to where it
needs to go, you need to achieve your goals concurrently
with that. You need to be on that right path.
It can't just be about working harder, working harder and
working harder. You've got a vision of where you want
to get to. Daniel's got a vision of where he
wants to get to. Everybody here's got a vision of
where they want to get to, and they've got one,
three and five year goals. When we can marry those together,

(23:48):
that's when the magic happens.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
So when you're doing that and there's a cross section
of people that you're dealing with, right, age groups, diverse
people and such ring not just salespeople, but employees. Right,
you want to be able to hire an employee and
know that they're going to do the right job, even
if it's a part time job, even if it's a
summer job. Do you put the same type of philosophy.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Into that for every single person here, you.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Expect them to show up on time hopefully and do
the work that they're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
We do, you know, and and and so so the
back one of that happens first, right, And look, nobody's
sitting here watching door swipes and things like that to
sit there and go, Daniel got here at eight oh
five today, I better go talk to them or you
know whatever. I want to hire people that understand we
have a job to do. Some days we have to
stay late. We had a client that was in a

(24:42):
jam the other night. A lot of us were here
till about eight o'clock trying to help them out. Right,
am I looking? No, we just we want that mindset
of people that want to grow, that want to be
better and continue on and I think, you know, are
we one hundred percent at the hiring on that, No,
absolutely not, but we continue you to get better and
better in that and especially making sure that we're good

(25:03):
on that on the front end, and it's worked pretty
well for us.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
We would talk a little bit about social media before.
I'm assuming that's your bold wax, if you.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
Will somewhat Megan my sister as well. She's the main
one who manages all that. But we're trying to come
up with some plans to because ourselves, we have to
put ourselves out on social media, because there's nothing you
can't get out there. You have to have social So
you can't just do print both because you're missing one audience. Kitt,
just do a direct mailer, because not everyone's going to
react to mailer, Kitt, just do a TikTok. Not everyone's

(25:36):
gonna be on TikTok. No one's gonna be on TikTok soon.
But if that goes through, we're the impact of what
you can do with the mix of both.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
So if you start seeing those trucks around in your
vehicles around and the signage and the sponsorships around, you
also see their TikTok that's funny on or their Instagram
reil or whatever their Facebook posts, it gets your attention.
They're in your mind.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
And so we're really trying to dial that in with
our else because we do a lot of cool stuff
here and like we said, when we bring people in
the show them something, no one usually leaves here underwhelmed.
Everyone's like, Wow, I had a guy that I saw
again for the first time last a couple nights ago,
for the first time since he was here. He was

(26:17):
telling people like, you guys have to go there and
check it out, like it's impressive. People think I got
people who give it nicknames and everything because they think
it's just some amazing place that where all the things
come to life, and they say, hey, I'm looking for this,
like you said the bats, whether it's even if it's
just a banner, it's just so cool to see it
in action.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
And that's what we're trying to put out there, and you.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Don't have it. It's funny because when I walked in
the back, I'm thinking, this is big, but it's not huge,
but you have so much packed in there that you're doing.
Every square foot has a usable there's a reason for
something to be there. Yeah, and yeah, I felt the
same way. It felt like my mind was going, what
can I use this for? What can I what can
I bring here? Who do I know that I want

(27:04):
to market to that I could do their marketing and
then and use what.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
You're doing here.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
That's the fun thing is literally you said, how how
do we when we start working with someone? How would
we start with usually we don't have to dig too deep.
Someone needs something, whether it is just some signage, whether
it is apparel, whether it is a marketing piece to
use at an event or a promotional item. We start somewhere,
then we can grow into the rest. And you don't

(27:31):
have to be able to let's do everything at box. No,
just come and do one thing with time. Naturally it'll
take over and.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
You do design work in Householso I think, right, And
you're setting expectations for people because a lot of businesses
are busy themselves, and all of a sudden, there the
deadlines become your rush deadlines, and you know they're they're
wait until the last minute and then like we need
it tomorrow, and you guys are stuck like delivering. Yeah,

(28:00):
setting expectations the right way, I guess.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
That's the that's one of the biggest challenges. Like we
always joke around here, you know, I mean the CFPS
here on Monday night, I am sure that you know
tomorrow we're going to hear something about well we just
about got it ready, right, and it's like they're not
going to move the day to the football game, but
we still have to to get the stuff done right.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
You mentioned we talked a little bit about community involvement,
so I just want to go back there for a
little bit. You're on the I think it was the
Development Authority.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, the DDA, the Downtown Development Authority in the city.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
You're seeing a lot of things. You know, obviously some
of it is it's well development work, not redevelopment per se,
although some things could be considered redevelopment. So do you
look at that and does that give you a different
perspective when you come walking into your business?

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, it does. All It all kind of plays together
because you know, you see one of the things that
we've been going through, and I think that you're going
to see a ton of this. We're seeing it with
our with our customers in and outside of Peachtree Corners,
but you see it in Tech Park and different things.
Is the return to work mandate, which is huge, saying
that we have several fortune fifty clients that have gone

(29:17):
five days in office beginning January sixth, So I think
you're going to continue to see that trickle down right
as the new administration takes hold, you know, in the
next week or so. That's one of their big things
and stuff, and personally, look, I believe that there needs
to be way more return to work. Right. There are
some jobs that can be done, but not every job.

(29:39):
You see what we do here. I can't put printers
in people's house, so we have to come in. But
I think that that's important. So as you see those
trends involved in the city, right, and the kind of
businesses that are coming in, then we start thinking, Okay,
how does that impact our business? How does that impact
our marketing efforts?

Speaker 3 (29:56):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
What opportunities does that give us in things like that?
But I also like seeing from a community perspective having
the right mix. This city has done a really good
job of balanced growth with the kind of retail they have,
the kind of business that they're bringing in, and it's

(30:20):
just a really nice balance to drive around and see.
I've seen other cities where you know, every single shopping
center has a vape store, a nail salon, and a
massage parlor and there's you know, seven of them within
a mile. But they don't have any of the big
national retailers. They don't have the tech companies and all

(30:40):
of that other stuff to come in. And you've got
to have that balance in a community for it to survive,
and it's a bit different.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
We were talking just before, we thought about John's Creek's
and Springs, Dumbwoodie, Chamblie, Brookhaven. I mean all very different
from each other. I mean when you look at it
and compare it to hear different types of store as
even different people.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Absolutely, and so you know, not not not to pick
on them, but you know, I John's Creek was home
for us, for it's where all three of my kids
grew up and where my wife and I lived for
twenty eight years. And they were super strict on the
signs and a lot of national retailers didn't want to
come to Johns Creek. It was tougher for them. And
the way then every shopping center got developed and literally

(31:25):
within our house, you know when we moved, because I
would go out and run. I could run past seven
vape shops and not even be it a mile. Well,
now that there's that, you know again you've got to
have that right balance and stuff like that. But it
can't all be that because we are going to see
a lot of empty retail. Is if that's if that's
what if that's the only place is that we can

(31:45):
go in there.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
I mean eventually. I mean, so if we talked about
the forum, for example, that's seventeen stores empty, storefronts empty
is I would drive through and I would literally count
how many stores were empty. Yeah, now I don't think
this is I think this maybe one or two that
still doesn't episode, at least to that I'm aware of,

(32:08):
not that this year their information with me. But it's
almost completely filled and there's more density coming right so
that the apartment saw Us I think is going to
be opening as soon as they finished Broadstone down the
block is like ninety five percent at least, and they
releasing really fast, I mean faster than they thought ahead

(32:28):
of schedule. So that just tells you that people do
want to be here because it's a straight shot down
to into Atlanta from P Street Parkway. So if you're
going to go into work, this would be a good place, right.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
And you have a town center. I mean, let's not
you know, and as we moved to the business moved
here in two thousand and five, and that was before
Peachtree Corners existed. We were still in Norcross and then
in you know two thousand and well was twenty twelve
when the city became a city. So that's why I say,
you know, we've been here, you know it's that time.

(33:01):
But we were just down the road in Northwoods. I
didn't see it with when they developed Peachtree, when they
developed town Center. I was over there maybe a year
or so ago for a Peachtree Corners Business Association breakfast
eight o'clock in the morning. I was amazed. There was,
you know, people out there doing yoga on the grass

(33:21):
and things like that. And if you go by there
on a Friday night when they're doing something and you're
trying to pick up pizza or something like that, it
is absolutely jam packed. So they have that center that
everybody comes in and these things to help gather around,
which is you know, just really a part of the
smart development of it.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
I can't wait until Politan Row opens. Yeah, that's gonna
be great. Yeah, And I think it's Millie's Pizzas one
of the new pizza place in the jewel box right
up front. That all right, Just to sort of wrap
up a little bit, I mean, for all the sun sister,
how many other members of the family, and my wife
works here too, family affair, you all work, Yes, this

(34:01):
is cool. How many employees. Does Fox Popperlar twenty seven gonna.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Chunk of those employees or family members of each other too. Really,
we have another husband and wife working here. We have
a father and a step son.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
So yes, it's cool. Everyone's committed. He has the reason
to be committed also to it life balance because of that.
Is there a good life balance that you guys tried
to keep? Work life balance is what I mean?

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yes, there is. So. I had the great joy of
working with my dad. He came to work here about
four years after I started the company, which was a
really tough dynamic with the father coming to work for
the son's company, and that created some interesting family dynamics.

(34:52):
But in the end, I knew that I wanted my
family to be part of my business when the kids
got older, and Cindy had been a stay at home
mom while the kids were all grown up. And I
think when my youngest went into eighth grade, she came
to work here, and then my daughter graduated college, went

(35:14):
to work for another agency, and then after a year
wanted to come to work here. Kind of Daniel. So
it's been and again I'm going to be the I
will never tell you that it's been one hundred percent easy.
The dynamic between all of us sometimes gets tough and
things like that, but at least from my perspective, it's

(35:35):
it's been a great joy for me, and it's also
helped address part of what happens to this when I'm done. Yes,
I know, I'm at the age where I start talking
to people and everybody's starting to think what their exit
strategy is and things like that, and they don't know.
I feel truly blessed to know that that my kids

(35:57):
will be here to take this to the next level
and stuff like that. But you know, we have to
work at it, so we have to work at it.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
It's cool that you have that, that you have a
succession plan and stuff. There's lots of families don't and
they end up closing Chop for one reason or another.
So it's kind of cool. The legacy lives on, right. Yeah.
So we've been talking to Andrew and Daniel Vox popular
great business here in Peter Cornas and to be transparent
and sponsor of ours as well. So we appreciate you

(36:25):
guys sponsoring our journalism, the podcasts and the magazines that
we do. Appreciate that you know and the podcasts actually
that we do as well, So thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Well, we're working. Thank you yeah, thank you for having us.
We love doing stuff like this and we are really
committed to this community and you know we want you know, selfishly,
I want to become the place for everybody to come
put their logo on something in in Peachtree Corners. And
if I can help your business, we all win. I
believe cool.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
Send us an email, yeah, come on, whatever it is,
we can help you out.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
In the show notes, we'll have the website address social
media and stuff, so pick up on it. Ask them
questions there are. They're always open, so just for any
new ideas. Thank you guys, thanks for cho Thank you all,
and leave a comment if you have questions, and check
the show notes for all the other information you need.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Thanks for listening to Peachtree Corner's Life with Rico Figliolini.
You can listen to the show wherever podcasts are found,
like iHeartRadio, Spotify and Apple Podcast. Leave us a review too,
it helps others find the show as well. Don't forget
to like our Facebook page and YouTube channel for notifications
of our live simulcast video streams of the show. Catch

(37:46):
our other podcast shows at Living in Peachtreecorners dot com.
In fact, you can listen to our other popular show,
The Capitalist Sage, twice a month podcast about.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
And four businesses.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
The show brings you interviews with this business owners, leaders,
and subject matter experts. Find what you need to meet
today's challenges that every business owner faces. Check out the
show at Thecapitalissage dot com