April 22, 2025 • 35 mins
Episode Summary for The Advisory Board Podcast
In this episode of The Advisory Board Podcast, host Dave Hansen sits down with Bennett Maxwell, founder of Dirty Dough, to unpack one of the most talked-about growth stories in franchising — and a masterclass in turning legal pressure into brand power.
Bennett shares his journey from door-to-door sales and a successful solar exit to buying a single cookie shop and scaling it to over 75 units sold in under two years. Along the way, Dirty Dough found itself at the center of a public legal battle with Crumbl — and instead of backing down, Bennett chose transparency, bold marketing, and an unwavering focus on joy and fulfillment to lead the brand through.
This episode dives into the mindset and strategy that fueled Dirty Dough’s momentum, including:
How he reframed a lawsuit into a national PR opportunity (and controlled the narrative).
The billboard campaign and viral video strategy that turned heads — and turned the tide.
Why “joy and fulfillment” is at the center of every business decision he makes.
How transparency with franchisees builds trust, loyalty, and long-term alignment.
What it takes to scale fast while staying true to your values — and when to ignore advice that doesn’t serve your mission.
The emotional toll of entrepreneurship — and how Bennett’s personal growth fueled professional clarity.
Bennett also opens up about his leadership style, how Dirty Dough’s scrappy playbook was built with national scale in mind from day one, and why being radically honest — with your team, your customers, and yourself — is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Special thanks to our episode sponsor, ClientTether, for supporting this inspiring conversation. ClientTether is helping franchise brands automate follow-up, streamline operations, and close more deals — faster.
👉 Don’t miss this one if you care about building bold brands, thriving under pressure, and leading with purpose.
Want to connect with Bennett or learn more about Dirty Dough? Visit dirtydoughcookies.com.
Let us know what stood out to you in this episode!
In this episode of The Advisory Board Podcast, host Dave Hansen sits down with Bennett Maxwell, founder of Dirty Dough, to unpack one of the most talked-about growth stories in franchising — and a masterclass in turning legal pressure into brand power.
Bennett shares his journey from door-to-door sales and a successful solar exit to buying a single cookie shop and scaling it to over 75 units sold in under two years. Along the way, Dirty Dough found itself at the center of a public legal battle with Crumbl — and instead of backing down, Bennett chose transparency, bold marketing, and an unwavering focus on joy and fulfillment to lead the brand through.
This episode dives into the mindset and strategy that fueled Dirty Dough’s momentum, including:
How he reframed a lawsuit into a national PR opportunity (and controlled the narrative).
The billboard campaign and viral video strategy that turned heads — and turned the tide.
Why “joy and fulfillment” is at the center of every business decision he makes.
How transparency with franchisees builds trust, loyalty, and long-term alignment.
What it takes to scale fast while staying true to your values — and when to ignore advice that doesn’t serve your mission.
The emotional toll of entrepreneurship — and how Bennett’s personal growth fueled professional clarity.
Bennett also opens up about his leadership style, how Dirty Dough’s scrappy playbook was built with national scale in mind from day one, and why being radically honest — with your team, your customers, and yourself — is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Special thanks to our episode sponsor, ClientTether, for supporting this inspiring conversation. ClientTether is helping franchise brands automate follow-up, streamline operations, and close more deals — faster.
👉 Don’t miss this one if you care about building bold brands, thriving under pressure, and leading with purpose.
Want to connect with Bennett or learn more about Dirty Dough? Visit dirtydoughcookies.com.
Let us know what stood out to you in this episode!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, I want to welcome to another episode of
the Advisory Board podcast where we bring in experts from
the franchise community to give you actionable insights and advice
that can help you to build a long lasting and
memorable brand. And I think I couldn't have picked a
better person to do for that latter part of building
memorable brands than having Bennett Maxwell join us today. And
those of you who don't know Bennett, he's kind of
(00:22):
the mastermind behind the Dirty Dough brand. And we're gonna
you're gonna see why I wanted to do Mark. We're
gonna talk about some fun stuff with him. But he's
built an exit at Solar Company. He built Dirty Dough
up to seventy five units sold with a bunch more
opening this year, and Craveworthyvan's Brands snatched them up because
they were an excellent, excellent concept. So fun things about
(00:42):
Bennett you should know before we before we jump in
and let him tell you about himself, is he's careful,
he's into jiu jitsu, pickle ball, really physically active.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
But also got a lot of if you'll see.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It, but he's got a great energy about him cause
he's also really into kind of mindset and had some
really early success with the solar company and figured that
there was actually a lot more important things to focus
on in life other than just making money. So I
think you'll find some great insights, some depth that you might.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Not have expected. Also, lost one hundred and twenty five
pounds in the last three years, right.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yep, that's been another journey of itself.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Three kids married, so great looking guy. Sorry, ladies, he's
off the market. But tell us a little bit, Benett,
just about you about your journey, and then we're going
to jump into our topic after that.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah. So I grew up in Utah. Turns out we're
just down the street from each other.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So arm Utah. One of nine kids, hustling with a
bunch of you know brothers in elementary and junior high
just selling whatever we could. That led to a Mormon
mission two years in Tijuana, which is great sales training,
you know, and rejection training.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, more than anything.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Then I got into the door to door world, which was,
you know, move out to a different city every summer,
knockdoors for four to five months, sell pest control or
home security or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Which is great. Is all commission.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
So it's like you're an entrepreneur, right, and then if
you want to be a manager, we'll go ahead and
be a manager. You just have to recruit and train,
but if they don't sell anything, then you don't get paid.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So that was fun.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Led me up to solar started Solar Company with my brother.
That was pretty short lived. Somebody wanted to buy it
after eighteen months, so we sold and I had just
purchased Dirty Dough. It was one store and I was
trying to run build things at the same time, and
that was hard. So when all in in Dirty Dough
and it was fun, exciting, crazy, stressful, all of the above.
(02:33):
We started franchising. Our first franchise opened up in June
of twenty twenty two, and by July twenty two two,
we had opened up right around one hundred locations plus
twenty brick I mean food trucks, and then we'd sold
four hundred and fifty or so in the first two years.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's crazy, that's crazy. I feel like the stats I
read off might have been a little aged. I think
I said seventy five. It was way off, dude.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And you guys, and the crazy part of that if
anyone who was paying attention if they've heard like the
Cookie Wars, there was like some really some really warm
marketing going on all up and down the valley as
you guys were in your like hitting your stride and growing.
And that's that's really like, that's at the core of
what we want to talk about today, which is how
do you how do you lean into the pressure and
(03:21):
the challenge of what's going on and actually see an
opportunity and then leverage it right. It's almost like you said,
you're in jiu jitsu, but like finding I've done a
little bit as well, but like someone's leaning and you
use their levers to flip them around right, like judo,
same sort of thing. But it's a great mindset. And
I'm wondering if maybe Ben, if you don't mind, let's
start off with you just sharing a little bit about
that situation. A lot of people didn't know what was
(03:43):
going on. I just happened to have a little bit
of an inside track with you, a springboard that one year.
So tell us about the situation with you with a
dirty dough to kind of be turned into a catapult
for you guys.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, So this was in May. I guess of twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
So right before we're opening up our first franchise, we
got sued by Crumble, and we're like crap. So the
month before that, April, you know, we were getting ready
to open our first store, so we put up some
billboards on the Interstate fifteen, which is really the only
highway in Utah, and we just happened to be kind
of across the street from Crumble, so we put up
(04:17):
some you know, thirty doll coming soon, digital rotating. You know,
you're spending two grand a month on a few billboards.
Then the next month when they right right after they
sued us, or sorry, right before they suit us, they
they threw up i mean fifty grand worth of monthly
billboards right like every third billboard. Was like we're the
number one restaurant company in America, and you're like crap. Anyway,
(04:38):
so they sue us, and I'm like, I just had
calculated that on one of their billboards that said one
million cookies a day, Okay, well what is the average
cookie sell for? And then New Times that by three
hundred sixy five days. Shit, they're a billion dollar company,
you know what I mean. And they're suing us, so
nothing like I got the lawsuit, stomach drops, You're like, crap.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
The first thought was definitely like.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I don't have money for this, Like, shoot, I just
lost all the money I spent buying Dirty Dough.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I think, like what am I going to do?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Then I read through the lawsuit and I just you know,
I'm like, I don't know how to read a lawsuit.
I don't know legal language, but I could tell you
that this doesn't make sense, Like you can't sue a
company over the shape of their box and then include
your trade dress in the lawsuit that says we do
not claim the shape of the box on this mark.
So like they're specifically excluding it on the documents that
(05:24):
they're suing us on and I'm like what. So anyways,
it was kind of like whatever, we'll just fight it.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Six weeks goes.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
By and enfranchising if you get sued, you have to
disclose it, right, you have to disclose it on your
FDD every potential franchisey.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So it's like, crap, We're just gonna have to figure
this out.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Then KSL, a local news article or a news station
picked it up, Crumble suing Dirty Dough and crape cookies.
So then it's like, crap, it's out there, might as
well stay on top of it, you know, Like I
could either answer all the questions individually or I could
just do it on social media. And then the way
that I wanted to do it was like, it's a
serious topic, but it's also like it's cookies, right, Like
(06:04):
it's not as serious. So I started making fun of it, like, hey,
you know Crumble suing a startup, a billion dollar company
suing a startup over sprinkles because they listed sprinkles in
the lawsuit that we used sprinkles and so did they.
And I'm like, well, you know, watch out, granny, if
do you Sprinkles are coming for you next, and I
think that was and then I don't know, so it
just was a lot of like snarky remarks on that.
(06:25):
Then I threw up some billboards in response to their billboards,
we put cookies so good, We're being sued, and I
had like a blurred out cookie image that said censored,
like it's a pornographic picture, you know, in you.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Talk ally taste or taste buds.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
So man, I'm forgetting them all. Now it's been a
little bit let your taste buds be the judge was
another one. Our cookies don't crumble with competition.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know. That was fun.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Then if anybody's seeing the squatty potty video of like
a unicorn pooping out rainbow ice cream that went, you know,
tens of millions of views, that the same guy that
directed that hit me up. He's like, hey, I want
to do some videos around this lawsuits. And then we
did videos with him, which was like what it would
be like to be in the boardroom a big cookie coat,
(07:12):
you know, Crumble when they decided to see these small companies.
So we just had a lot of fun with it,
and then it got us on I don't know, probably
one hundred news articles across the nation, but the big
ones were CNBC and Good Morning America. And then Crumble
didn't respond to even a single interview. So I controlled
the narrative the whole time because I was the only
one that would talk to the media.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, and then everybody like.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
You know, it's like David vers Goliath, and I was
very upfront, like I would address every single comment, any accusation,
and then I broke down the lawsuit into like a
thirteen part series like here's their thirteen claims, and here's
why they're all bs know. And again that openness I
think really got people interested in the drama, but also
(07:53):
like supporting the smaller company.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah I would, and personally, just as somebody who at
first I had no idea what was going on, sort
of seeing these billboards popping up and I was like,
what is this cookie war thing going on? So then
it became called it was called the cookie.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
We threw those on our billboards, we put hashtag. That's
when I kind of took off. So yeah, that was
the first we Yeah that it was the billboards that
that started the Utah cookie wars.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I want to take you back a minute though, because
you said somebody that I think it's critical and I
want you know, it's easy guys to get into chest
beating mode like, hey, this ended up really.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, going really well.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
But but a lot of franchise brands, when they're getting started,
lawsuits come out. Someone's like, oh, you don't have the
ip to do that. Oh that's my trademark. Oh this
is anyway. Some of that stuff is scary. And and
you mentioned like your your your stomach sunk, right, you
felt like, oh, I think it's a pretty natural human response.
And and and I tell people this all the time,
(08:49):
Like you have to decide in those moments of oh,
stomach sinks into your into your kneecaps, kind of moments
of are we going to get.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Bitter or are we going to get better? Right? Like
how much am I going.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
To shrivel inside myself and be like oh no? Or
am I going to say all right, well, how do
we leverage this? How do we learn about this, how
do we improve? How do I how do I apologize
if I just screwed something up?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Whoops?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Let me go clean that up and take care of
the mess. Like I was really impressed with your decision,
right because you made a decision as an organization, as
a leader that you weren't just gonna take it on
the chin and be scared and close up the shop.
That was classic big boy legal firm trying to bully somebody, right,
That's really what it turned out to be. And and
I'm not trying to just disparage anybody by saying that,
(09:30):
but it happens all the time. You know, people like hey,
rather than you know, buy them or do this, let's
just scare them. You know, and shoot a shot across
the bow. Really, in this case, you leaned into that.
So how did your team feel about that? Your executive team,
your management team. It wasn't huge at the time, right,
but how did your workers and people feel about you
(09:51):
guys deciding to do that rather than acquiesce and try
to make it go away.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I mean, I was definitely the one that was most
for it, and that's why we did it. So not
that anybody was like, don't do it, other than you know,
some legal counsel, not that I could tell you what
legal counsel is because and then it breaks attorney client privilege,
but whatever, you know, there's a lot of like, oh,
I wouldn't do this because this attacks the issue head on,
(10:16):
Like don't don't do a video that talks about sprinkles
when that's like actually in the lawsuit. And I'm like, no, no, no,
you don't understand. That's all I'm going to talk about.
I'm not going to talk about anything that's not directly
in the lawsuit. So my kind of comeback going into this,
it's like, Okay, attorneys know everything, right, you look up
to an attorney, you're you're paying five hundred bucks an
(10:38):
hour and you're just like, yeah, these guys seems they
don't know business. They're not they're not business owners, so
they can give you legal advice, but you shouldn't take
business advice from someone who doesn't run a business generally speaking, right, Like, yeah,
they could give you some good advice, but they don't
know marketing, they don't know pr Why am I going
to take their advice? So they would give me their advice,
(10:59):
and then my response be okay, but is it illegal
to do what I want to do?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And the answer is no, then cool, thanks for your advice.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
I'm gonna do what I want to do, though, because
it's it's it's me and I think it.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
It also made it a lot easier.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Like before that happened just three months before, I started
getting on social media, so that helped kind of already
establishing a brand presence. And then when it happened, you know,
I was kind of already out there a little bit more,
and then I'd already done core values mission statements and
like I've already I guess I already pre planned what
(11:34):
am I gonna do when.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
She hits the fan?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Because it always hits the fan, and it's we attack problems,
you know, with lightheartedness, like don't I forgot exactly what
I put in the in the core value. But we're
we're not surprised by problems.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
We're challenges.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
It's it's funny, like we get into business, we know
there's gonna be challenges, and then a challenge hits us
and we're like, oh crap, what's going on? And it's
like what, No, You're supposed to expect challenges and then
use them and have fun with them. So going back
to like the my mission statement Sorett was is all
around it join and fulfillment despite life startiness. Don't wait
for life to be perfect to have the joy and fulfillment.
(12:11):
So it was very easy to apply it here, like
what's more fun to go out on social media and
make fun of this? Is this gonna cause more join
fulfillment in my life? To pay these guys to do ads?
Is this more join fulfillment or less? And measuring my
decisions based on a mission statement and an emotional goal
seems to be a lot easier than what may might
(12:31):
make me more money. You know, It's like, but am
I in it for making money? Or am I in
it for join fulfillment. I'm in it for join fulfillment.
Let me just skip right to that when I'm measuring
my decisions.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
And you said something important, you know, you got legal counsel,
and remember spot on, because I remember this all the
time with professionals, like friends are like, oh my doctor said,
and like that doesn't make any sense. Your doctor said
to go swallow three pebbles from your backyard. Would you
do that? No, like you're supposed to. He's practicing medicine. Right,
These are practicing attorneys, but but they should be giving
(13:06):
you counsel. And then it's your decision and what you're
gonna do with that council, right, like you have to
use that as an input to make decisions. Then, like
you did lean on them to say, well, am I
gonna get Is the FCC going to come after me
if I do this?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Excellent? Thank you? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I can only imagine what those with those boardroom discussions
were like. And you got your attorney's probably walked away
thinking oh crap, or actually, oh good, this is going
to generate some more opportunities for us to help save us.
But so, oh my gosh, so tell me a little
bit about reframing, right, because you guys that that was
a strategy you guys took so when things get hard,
(13:44):
and I love the transparency one of what we share,
that core value or at least at least that personality flaw,
that there's no reason why you need to hide things
if you guys would have decided not to share or
not to lean in and not to be transparent about
the suit. And I mean the transparency of the suit
was actually something that I think embarrassed and made the
suit Eventually, it.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Was the the number one reason for them to really,
I mean, in my opinion, right, for them to get
rid of it was the public opinion and the public pressure.
I mean, you could go count probably ten thousand comments
of boycott Crumble over that.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And it's not that we want to damage somebody else, right,
But it was that the damage was being thrown at
you guys, and you just deflected and it almost inverted, right, It.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Really didn't negative.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
The issue is inverted to the franchise ease though the
Crumble franchisees they had nothing to do with the lawsuit,
and I spoke with dozens of them, you know, but
they're the ones especially in Utah that got affected the most,
and it's like, no, that was not the intention. And
anytime someoney on social media on like I'm never going
to go to Crumble again. I know, like if they're
commenting on something that I said, I would always respond
(14:50):
to them and say, Crumble has one corporate store, it's
an orm Utah. All of the other ones are are
local franchisey to have nothing to do with this. Yeah,
I don't not support them because corporate made a bad
business move.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And that's classy. That's just classy because it wasn't the intent.
The intent was like let's take them all down. It
was like, let's deflect the bull craft and let us
get back to work. But the fact that you leaned
into it, you created kind of a phenomenon, a phenomenal
like following and you got a lot of social buzz.
What was the net effect on the business growth?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, we had.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I mean we were off to a good start. So
we'd franchised in December. This is May, so it's been
six months and we'd sold about sixty units, so.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
We were going good.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
From from May to the end of that year. We
ended with two ninety so we sold another two hundred
and thirty in the next seven months, So that's you
know that the net impact was several million dollars and
franchise fees, some good publicity and pr and brand awareness,
but there was also a lot of negative like now
you have to go open up all of those and
(15:53):
we opened up fifty stores in a year, you know,
we we.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
That was really hard.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
So like at the beginning when you had seventy five
stores and I said one hundred, it's because we opened
one hundred and we closed twenty five stores, you know,
so it's like that was super hard. Half of those
were corporate stores that were like, yeah, it's just we
need to double down and focus on supporting franchisees. We
can't also run this many corporate stores. So there was
a lot of a lot of hard things as well.
(16:20):
But the net impact, I don't think there is anything
any amount of money really, Like if you would have
given five million dollars and said, hey, go sell four
hundred fifty franchises, how many people could do that?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Because yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Mean this was just that everything came together in the
right time and the right way for it to blow up.
But I do also I don't know. People are like,
so crumbles lossuit was like the number one thing that
exploded you, and it's like kind of I wouldn't say that.
I would say my response to Crumble's lawsuit is the
number one thing that propelled us, because they sued tons
(16:53):
of other companies, including the article, like the first article
that said Crumble is suing two cookie companies.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
It was that two cookie companies, Dirty Dough and Crave.
Crave didn't lean into it. They didn't do anything with it.
So it wasn't the fact that we got sued that
helped us. It was that we got sued and we responded.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, yeah, and I didn't I'd not actually followed up
on the Crave. Whatever happened with Crave like did so
they didn't lean into it, it didn't didn't push on it
at all.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
What I'm sure it went away.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah, from from what I understand, and I know Trent,
I haven't spoken with them a little a little bit,
but the owner there, they're around fourteen locations. Maybe they
opened a few more and then they closed a few.
I would guess that they're you know, still below twenty
you know in the and you know, we went from
h I mean one to opening up one hundred. I
think they opened up another handful, which is totally fine,
(17:41):
but it was a lot worse for them because they
still had three hundred K and legal fees just like
we did. But we collected several million dollars in franchise
fees and they didn't, so they had it was a
lot harder for them to battle up because of that.
But you know that was their strategy. And maybe I
mean is if I'm public with it, I don't want
(18:03):
to upset the bullie. I don't want to upset the
billion dollar bullie.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
But it's like, who cares.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
They're already suing you, Like, if they could have sued
me harder, they would have at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
It's not like they're like, oh, we're gonna do a
little lawsuit. No, like their intent was to put me
out of business, like they're not. You know, so let's
respond and let's see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I love that, And it just goes back to the point, right,
and you can the reason I asked about Craves is
kind of a case study, right. I love it when
you got an abe story and maybe it could have
been totally different. Maybe that worked out just the way
they wanted to. And this is not meant to be
disparaging at all, just it's an interesting thing to observe
when we see you leaning into it, really being transparent
(18:46):
about it and having a little fun like living up
to your core value of like, hey, we're gonna we're
gonna what did you call it? Join and fulfillment. You're
gonna find joy and fulfillment even though it's a really
crappy thing that you're dealing with right now. And that
mindset shifted the energy around the whole situation for you guys.
So I just I appreciate you sharing that. How did
you get to that core value, that joy and fulfillment
(19:07):
being like important in your business operations? Because I don't
know if I've been have one hundred plus people I've
had on the podcast, I don't know if anyone's ever
said those two words like that's one of my purposes
in running a business.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, So I sold the solar company.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I'm in twenty twenty one, and I had this goal.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
So I got up to three hundred and ten pounds.
That was not my goal.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
My goal is to be a millionaire. I don't know why,
Like it's just like that's.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
What you're supposed to do. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
So it's like, hey, I want to be a millionaire,
and I want to do before thirty because it sounds good. Well,
I sell the solar company, and I achieve it, and
it feels feel great, Like you check your bank account,
You're like, yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
You know, you felt you're like all the hard work.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
But the issue is what causes you to feel good. Dopamine,
you know, and these other neurochemicals, And the issue is
there's only so many in your brain. So like I
feel good when I eat something good, but that dopamine
needs to reset back to zero. That way, I could
feel good when I sell my company or when I
smell a flower. So like human biologies, you're not supposed
(20:11):
to hang on to these winds.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
It's like, I'm everything's gonna be perfect once I just
figure out my life, and it's like, no, it's not.
It's gonna be perfect until the dopamine goes back to zero.
So then it's okay, let's not go for dopamine. I guess,
like that can't be the goal or otherwise every time
I get it, it's just going to be fulfilling and
then empty. And I think we've all experienced that because
(20:36):
unless everything's perfect right now, like every time we've ever
set a goal and achieved it, it did not give
us the lasting happiness. So you know, we don't need
to look out word, let's just look in word. We've
never done it. So then what are you after? I
think it's joy, and I've chose joy over happiness because
it's like, you don't have to be happy every day,
but having a joyful life, you know there's gonna be
ups and downs. If you're smoking weed and super high
(20:58):
and happy all the time, is that enough? That's where
I got fulfillment from. I'm like, no, you want to
be happy in your life but also happy of your life.
So happy in your life is your happiness on a
day to day or your joy on a day to
day happiness of your life. So if you're smoking weed
and super happy all day, like you're happy in your life,
but are you happy of your life? If somebody said,
(21:18):
are you happy with where your life's going?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Maybe not? And you need both of those.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
So I just kind of transferred them to join fulfillment,
and then I threw in despite life's dirtiness because it
has to be now. It just didn't make sense to
me that I sacrificed so many years of being with
my wife and my kids on the nights and weekends
so I could work harder so I could be with
them later. And I'm like, what, it's like, I'm not
going to eat my dinner now so I could eat
(21:44):
it in six days. It's like, well, how about I
just eat dinner every night for six days, Like I
don't need to sacrifice anything now for anything later. And
then I threw so join fulfillment despite life's dirtiness in
myself and others. So you have to figure out yourself
first then kind of move on to others. And it
was for the longest time, like I'm a logical person.
(22:06):
I don't trust intuition. I don't even know what it is.
I don't know what emotions are. And then when you
really analyze, like what do you want, it is only
emotional That's all we want is an emotional state. So
what I should have done is I want a million
dollars because I think a million dollars is going to
give me more free time, which then I'm going to
(22:27):
go on vacations with my kids and my family. And
when I'm with my kids and family, I'm happy. I
just never put it together, like if I would have
just said my goal is to be with my kids
and family more so, I could be happier. I could
have realized easier. I could just do that every day.
I don't need a work past four o'clock.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, game on. That's such a great insight. And I
love that you're pulling the biology of the neurotransmission and
our brain into the whole story too, because it's true
a lot of people chase, and especially salespeople, right, You're
like constantly chasing the next buzz you get off of
closing the deal, and sometimes you're not going to close them,
(23:08):
so then you're not getting that And a lot of
people burn out, crash and burn because that's the only
thing that motivates them. They Solar has been brutal, right,
so if they switch to solar, they don't sell anything.
They feel like they sock and the world's falling down
around them. Like that's you're looking intrinsically or extrinsically at
your values and your self worth and that's that creates problems.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Great yes insights, great insights. Door to door.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
You start every day at zero, so it's like, if
I don't sell, I didn't make any money. And then
sometimes you not only aren't don't have any cells yet,
but you have a cancelation from the day before. It's crap,
I'm a negative one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I haven't even done anything yet.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And if you judge the success or failure on each
door based on if they bought, that's a really hard
thing to do. Like mentally, it's just gonna be really hard.
If I judged success and failure based on what who
are is becoming, and if I was becoming a professional communicator,
then it was easier, right because Dave told me no,
he doesn't want it because I'm the fifth Solar guy.
(24:05):
But if I could change my pitch to when I
talked to Dave's neighbor, I knock on the door and say, hey,
just got done with Dave's house.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I know what you're probably thinking. You're that I'm the
fifth Solar guy this week.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
The only thing I know he's not going to say
is hey, are you the fifth Solar guy this week?
Like they're not going to repeat that back to you, right,
So as long as I'm adjusting my pitch and saying
how am I becoming a better communicator and progressing, then
it doesn't matter if I sell, because maybe I don't
sell anything for two days, but I'm sharpening the saw,
so to speak. So now maybe the next two days
I'm going to sell five and kind of make up
(24:36):
for that.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'll show that soundby with my nephew who's out selling
shifted from solar to pest control.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Because it was just killing him. But he's a good
sales guy.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You guys would get along, you talked earlier on and
then I want to come back to this about building
kind of a playbook, right, a growth playbook that's rooted
in transparency and scrappiness and long term vision.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I think a lot of entrepreneur franchise owners, even developing,
growing and grow and big franchise brands still want to
have kind of that transparent, scrappy, long term vision plan, right,
And I think you've got a great idea of how
to pull it together. So share some insights with us
if you don't mind, about how do you do that?
Like what does that plan look like, how do you
pull it together? And then how do you execute on it?
(25:21):
That's what it wurts.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
So the plot at the beginning was we're going to
do a centralized production model to you know, take advantage
of economies of skill and then ship them out nationwide.
But the only way for that to work is if
you did a lot of stores, right, you have to
have volume on that. So knowing that going in, it
wasn't something like, you know, I open up a store,
kind of see how it goes, open up another store,
sew it goes. It was like I bought this company
(25:44):
to franchise it and go nationwide, So that that kind
of helped. Like that was the goal. So then as
we're making decisions on like which warehouse do we get,
which machines do we get, we were always benchmarketing against
you know, one hundred locations, two hundred locations to underdocate.
If it doesn't work for one hundred locations, let's not
throw it in for the seven locations that we have
(26:05):
right now. So really having kind of that end point
in mind, and how do you define that a little
bit more? I mean, yeah, you're doing you know a
five year projection plan and kind of seeing where you
want to be each year. As far as the transparency goes,
I think that's the easy part after you start doing it.
Maybe it's hard to get it to start doing it,
(26:26):
but like, I don't know, man, that's that's been a
really good decision on Like, there's nothing about my life
that you can't find online right now, like about psychedelic uses,
about traumas, about I mean just everything, and I've it's
very freeing and very opening. There's there's nothing that I'm
ever trying to hide or go behind somebody's back. And
(26:48):
I think a lot of it comes from I mean,
I'm new to the industry. Maybe I recognize what I
don't know. So if I'm talking with the franchise e
or an employee, rather than like, oh, here's my plan
in the background and I'm gonna just not do your
plan whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
It's open communication.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Hey, this is what I think would work better. And
this is why I think I want to do this
way because I'm trying to avoid this problem. If you
could come up with a better solution that also that
still avoids this problem, you know, I'm all ears, but
that does create more of a a transparent or like
open communication style with everybody in the team jumping on
(27:24):
and like, oh sorry, guys, I did that wrong, you know,
taking accountability or I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
You know, all of those things I think little by
little add up. And then being on social media, being
on podcasts, being able to talk about the lawsuit one
hundred times, you know, like people like that. People like
when you only tell them the good stuff, they don't
(27:45):
trust you. That's what I think in sells, so like
I purposely will plan things in my sales, pitch whatever
i'm selling to give the downsides, Like glow Tanning. That's
what I'm selling right now. Glow Tanning is great, fifteen
years in business, zero closures average or on their ride
of nineteen three hundred thousand plus dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
However, that's no guarantee that you're going to succeed.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I don't have to say that, but as soon as
I do, we connect at a different level. You already
know that that's no guarantee that you're going to succeed.
I know that, but I need to express that. And
then you're like, Okay, this guy's honest with me. Because
of course even with fifteen years in business and zero closures,
there's never guarantee that I'm going to be in business.
So I think putting out and addressing the negatives, whether
(28:26):
that be a lawsuit or anything, helps people connect with you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, I agree with you, and and sometimes they'll connect
with you deeper when you try to like almost you
unsell them, right, Like, look, these are reasons from what
you've said shared with me. I don't know if this
is the right solution for you. You're just trying to
be transparent, honest with them, but emotionally and this isn't manipulation.
I would never approach it that way, but sometimes you
make you force them to stop and think for a
(28:51):
segment about what do they really want? Right and if
the reality is like no, actually I really want this
and this is going to be good for me, and
this is what I want to do, and you're being
super transparent with me about what the problems are going
to be Like, I just I think people feel really comfortable,
like you're saying they trust you because of honesty, and
I well, actually, well we'll talk about that later. But
that's a book I'm outlining right now because I find
(29:11):
the world needs that a little more and it works better.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
It just works better.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
It works better to not go around thinking like, oh,
what if they find out that I'm in a loss,
Like that's a better way to like, I have so
many leads, and man, I just hope they don't find
out that I'm in a loss because I don't have
to disclose it just quite yet. It's like I've never
even tried to address that or played that game. It's
just like, this is exactly where we're at, and this
is where we're going. If you want to be on board,
(29:37):
you know, be on board, and it a little bit,
I guess is to clear my consciousness of like I
record every sales call, you know, make sure that we're
doing everything right, because you're putting your life on the
line a lot of the times to buy a franchise,
and statistically speaking, there will be people that lose everything
when they buy the franchise and it's just going to happen.
So how do you not so much prevent that? Obviously,
(30:02):
try to prevent it, but at least be upfront so
people understand the risk and they have risk is, yeah,
they lose everything, and.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Then you keep on living just like you did. Before,
and it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
It's more emotional stress than actual you know, it's not
like wherever going to be unsafe, but it's kind of
navigating all of those waters.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, it's true, it's true. But there's also your reputation.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Like I was a bit of a scully why grown up,
And one of my grandmother's dying was what her dying
advice to me is no joke. She passed me on
the cheek and she's like, you look so handsome without
your facial hair. And then then she says, she says,
you need to guard your reputation because that precedes you
everywhere you go. And she said that to me because
I was the grandson that got suspended for fighting in
(30:43):
high school, got arrested when I was in college, I
went to BYU and got arrested for still in road
signs Like again, transparency, I think is king. Somebody eventual
will find out about that, and I'd rather lean into it,
let them know, because it's funny when you tell people
about things like that and they judge you against what they.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Currently know about you.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
They're like, nah, people tell me like I don't believe you.
Oh for sure, no, that was for sure me just
any one of my teachers, my principals, they'll all collaborate.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
All my friends.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
My friends tell me like their parents wouldn't let them
play with me when I was as a young teenager.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
But doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
The point is like the transparency aspect of it helps
people trust you. They realize you're not hiding anything, and
I love that. And executing against a transparent plan as
a leader can sometimes be hard. You gave you gave
an example of how you approach it with a franchise owner,
because franchise owners they feel like even if you're not,
they feel like corporates holding stuff back, right, They feel
(31:36):
like the home office team isn't supporting them, and they're
looking for excuses to validate that that idea in their head.
If they're struggling, it's somebody else's fault. How do I
make that a reality? But I love the way you
approach that of saying, guys, like, this is how I
think we should do it. But do you have another
idea of like, let me listen to you too, because
sometimes and back me up on this if you've seen it.
The best ideas come from the floor operators.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Yeah, it's and it's really who cares whose idea it is, right,
it's just here's the problem this is, and this is
my suggestion to solve it. But it's more like I
just want to solve this problem, right, It's who cares
about how we solve It's just here's the problem. Who's
got the best the best methodology on that?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Agreed, some of the best development ideas we've ever gotten
have come from, you know, franchise consultants or franchise franchise
vers operating their platform. Like it's there's no no pride
for us to say, well, we didn't come up with that.
I'll even tell people if Harper gave me a cool
idea and we built it like that came from so
and so. Like I think it's actually a badge of
honor that people trust us enough.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
To give us feedback.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
So it's absolutely big part of a big part of
how to run an operation that's successful. Benett, if you
if you had a couple of words to share that
a growing brand it's struggling, Maybe they don't. They don't
know how to implement a change like this, going from
closed door strategy to being a little more open.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
What would you advise him to do to start to
make the shift.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, I mean having a personal and that's where people
are going to know you as a leader more than anything. Like, Yeah,
you could be on phone calls and you know you're
gonna meet your team here and there. But if you
have a personal brand and you're sharing your journey there,
people won it gets It helps you define what your
journey is. Right Like that, the more I talk about
the same story, the more I refine it, and the
(33:21):
more it sounds good, and the more it becomes clear
to me.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Like the first goal that I had for Dirty Dough
was dirty stores in five years.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Then it was one hundred stores, and then it was
a billion dollars and all of those. Anytime I'm very
I've always been very much against like I'm going to
hold my goals close to my chest, maybe out of
you know, embarrassment if I don't achieve them, or for
thinking that I could do these crazy things.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I had to get past that. Then I was very.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
Public about what I'm trying to do and the goals
not just finance the finance side, but we had that
clearly to find, but it was also what am I
trying to achieve on my personal life, which is the
joy and fulfillment, Because yes, that's my mission statement, but
if you go to Dirty Do's website, that's Dirty Dose
mission statement as well, finding joy and fulfillment despitelf's dirtiness
in yourself and others. So getting out there, I mean
(34:08):
defining it and then getting out there, sorry, defining it
and then getting out there and really sharing that from
a personal brand, throw it up on your website, like
everybody should know where you're at and where you're going
on social media, on the meetings, on really everything. And
then I mean, how else are they supposed to help
(34:28):
you get to one hundred stores? If they think your
goals two hundred stores, and if they think that you're
going to stop at one hundred stores but you're really
going to stop at a thousand, they're going to recommend
a software that only works for two hundred stores, right, So.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Really, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
It is scary to even say like, oh I want
to go this big and then it's like but once
you get out there, then you have more heads to
accomplish those goals.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Love it well, make the change now, Bennett, You've been fantastic.
Thanks for providing such great comedy for us on YouTube
with the cookie War videos, but also just the personality
sharing some of the challenges and the transparency and how
that's helped you guys a lot as you've leaned into challenges.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Been amazing.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Thanks so much, Thanks Stave
Hey guys, I want to welcome to another episode of
the Advisory Board podcast where we bring in experts from
the franchise community to give you actionable insights and advice
that can help you to build a long lasting and
memorable brand. And I think I couldn't have picked a
better person to do for that latter part of building
memorable brands than having Bennett Maxwell join us today. And
those of you who don't know Bennett, he's kind of
(00:22):
the mastermind behind the Dirty Dough brand. And we're gonna
you're gonna see why I wanted to do Mark. We're
gonna talk about some fun stuff with him. But he's
built an exit at Solar Company. He built Dirty Dough
up to seventy five units sold with a bunch more
opening this year, and Craveworthyvan's Brands snatched them up because
they were an excellent, excellent concept. So fun things about
(00:42):
Bennett you should know before we before we jump in
and let him tell you about himself, is he's careful,
he's into jiu jitsu, pickle ball, really physically active.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
But also got a lot of if you'll see.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It, but he's got a great energy about him cause
he's also really into kind of mindset and had some
really early success with the solar company and figured that
there was actually a lot more important things to focus
on in life other than just making money. So I
think you'll find some great insights, some depth that you might.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Not have expected. Also, lost one hundred and twenty five
pounds in the last three years, right.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yep, that's been another journey of itself.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Three kids married, so great looking guy. Sorry, ladies, he's
off the market. But tell us a little bit, Benett,
just about you about your journey, and then we're going
to jump into our topic after that.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah. So I grew up in Utah. Turns out we're
just down the street from each other.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So arm Utah. One of nine kids, hustling with a
bunch of you know brothers in elementary and junior high
just selling whatever we could. That led to a Mormon
mission two years in Tijuana, which is great sales training,
you know, and rejection training.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, more than anything.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Then I got into the door to door world, which was,
you know, move out to a different city every summer,
knockdoors for four to five months, sell pest control or
home security or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Which is great. Is all commission.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
So it's like you're an entrepreneur, right, and then if
you want to be a manager, we'll go ahead and
be a manager. You just have to recruit and train,
but if they don't sell anything, then you don't get paid.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So that was fun.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Led me up to solar started Solar Company with my brother.
That was pretty short lived. Somebody wanted to buy it
after eighteen months, so we sold and I had just
purchased Dirty Dough. It was one store and I was
trying to run build things at the same time, and
that was hard. So when all in in Dirty Dough
and it was fun, exciting, crazy, stressful, all of the above.
(02:33):
We started franchising. Our first franchise opened up in June
of twenty twenty two, and by July twenty two two,
we had opened up right around one hundred locations plus
twenty brick I mean food trucks, and then we'd sold
four hundred and fifty or so in the first two years.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's crazy, that's crazy. I feel like the stats I
read off might have been a little aged. I think
I said seventy five. It was way off, dude.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And you guys, and the crazy part of that if
anyone who was paying attention if they've heard like the
Cookie Wars, there was like some really some really warm
marketing going on all up and down the valley as
you guys were in your like hitting your stride and growing.
And that's that's really like, that's at the core of
what we want to talk about today, which is how
do you how do you lean into the pressure and
(03:21):
the challenge of what's going on and actually see an
opportunity and then leverage it right. It's almost like you said,
you're in jiu jitsu, but like finding I've done a
little bit as well, but like someone's leaning and you
use their levers to flip them around right, like judo,
same sort of thing. But it's a great mindset. And
I'm wondering if maybe Ben, if you don't mind, let's
start off with you just sharing a little bit about
that situation. A lot of people didn't know what was
(03:43):
going on. I just happened to have a little bit
of an inside track with you, a springboard that one year.
So tell us about the situation with you with a
dirty dough to kind of be turned into a catapult
for you guys.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, So this was in May. I guess of twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
So right before we're opening up our first franchise, we
got sued by Crumble, and we're like crap. So the
month before that, April, you know, we were getting ready
to open our first store, so we put up some
billboards on the Interstate fifteen, which is really the only
highway in Utah, and we just happened to be kind
of across the street from Crumble, so we put up
(04:17):
some you know, thirty doll coming soon, digital rotating. You know,
you're spending two grand a month on a few billboards.
Then the next month when they right right after they
sued us, or sorry, right before they suit us, they
they threw up i mean fifty grand worth of monthly
billboards right like every third billboard. Was like we're the
number one restaurant company in America, and you're like crap. Anyway,
(04:38):
so they sue us, and I'm like, I just had
calculated that on one of their billboards that said one
million cookies a day, Okay, well what is the average
cookie sell for? And then New Times that by three
hundred sixy five days. Shit, they're a billion dollar company,
you know what I mean. And they're suing us, so
nothing like I got the lawsuit, stomach drops, You're like, crap.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
The first thought was definitely like.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I don't have money for this, Like, shoot, I just
lost all the money I spent buying Dirty Dough.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I think, like what am I going to do?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Then I read through the lawsuit and I just you know,
I'm like, I don't know how to read a lawsuit.
I don't know legal language, but I could tell you
that this doesn't make sense, Like you can't sue a
company over the shape of their box and then include
your trade dress in the lawsuit that says we do
not claim the shape of the box on this mark.
So like they're specifically excluding it on the documents that
(05:24):
they're suing us on and I'm like what. So anyways,
it was kind of like whatever, we'll just fight it.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Six weeks goes.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
By and enfranchising if you get sued, you have to
disclose it, right, you have to disclose it on your
FDD every potential franchisey.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So it's like, crap, We're just gonna have to figure
this out.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Then KSL, a local news article or a news station
picked it up, Crumble suing Dirty Dough and crape cookies.
So then it's like, crap, it's out there, might as
well stay on top of it, you know, Like I
could either answer all the questions individually or I could
just do it on social media. And then the way
that I wanted to do it was like, it's a
serious topic, but it's also like it's cookies, right, Like
(06:04):
it's not as serious. So I started making fun of it, like, hey,
you know Crumble suing a startup, a billion dollar company
suing a startup over sprinkles because they listed sprinkles in
the lawsuit that we used sprinkles and so did they.
And I'm like, well, you know, watch out, granny, if
do you Sprinkles are coming for you next, and I
think that was and then I don't know, so it
just was a lot of like snarky remarks on that.
(06:25):
Then I threw up some billboards in response to their billboards,
we put cookies so good, We're being sued, and I
had like a blurred out cookie image that said censored,
like it's a pornographic picture, you know, in you.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Talk ally taste or taste buds.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
So man, I'm forgetting them all. Now it's been a
little bit let your taste buds be the judge was
another one. Our cookies don't crumble with competition.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know. That was fun.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Then if anybody's seeing the squatty potty video of like
a unicorn pooping out rainbow ice cream that went, you know,
tens of millions of views, that the same guy that
directed that hit me up. He's like, hey, I want
to do some videos around this lawsuits. And then we
did videos with him, which was like what it would
be like to be in the boardroom a big cookie coat,
(07:12):
you know, Crumble when they decided to see these small companies.
So we just had a lot of fun with it,
and then it got us on I don't know, probably
one hundred news articles across the nation, but the big
ones were CNBC and Good Morning America. And then Crumble
didn't respond to even a single interview. So I controlled
the narrative the whole time because I was the only
one that would talk to the media.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, and then everybody like.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
You know, it's like David vers Goliath, and I was
very upfront, like I would address every single comment, any accusation,
and then I broke down the lawsuit into like a
thirteen part series like here's their thirteen claims, and here's
why they're all bs know. And again that openness I
think really got people interested in the drama, but also
(07:53):
like supporting the smaller company.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah I would, and personally, just as somebody who at
first I had no idea what was going on, sort
of seeing these billboards popping up and I was like,
what is this cookie war thing going on? So then
it became called it was called the cookie.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
We threw those on our billboards, we put hashtag. That's
when I kind of took off. So yeah, that was
the first we Yeah that it was the billboards that
that started the Utah cookie wars.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I want to take you back a minute though, because
you said somebody that I think it's critical and I
want you know, it's easy guys to get into chest
beating mode like, hey, this ended up really.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, going really well.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
But but a lot of franchise brands, when they're getting started,
lawsuits come out. Someone's like, oh, you don't have the
ip to do that. Oh that's my trademark. Oh this
is anyway. Some of that stuff is scary. And and
you mentioned like your your your stomach sunk, right, you
felt like, oh, I think it's a pretty natural human response.
And and and I tell people this all the time,
(08:49):
Like you have to decide in those moments of oh,
stomach sinks into your into your kneecaps, kind of moments
of are we going to get.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Bitter or are we going to get better? Right? Like
how much am I going.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
To shrivel inside myself and be like oh no? Or
am I going to say all right, well, how do
we leverage this? How do we learn about this, how
do we improve? How do I how do I apologize
if I just screwed something up?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Whoops?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Let me go clean that up and take care of
the mess. Like I was really impressed with your decision,
right because you made a decision as an organization, as
a leader that you weren't just gonna take it on
the chin and be scared and close up the shop.
That was classic big boy legal firm trying to bully somebody, right,
That's really what it turned out to be. And and
I'm not trying to just disparage anybody by saying that,
(09:30):
but it happens all the time. You know, people like hey,
rather than you know, buy them or do this, let's
just scare them. You know, and shoot a shot across
the bow. Really, in this case, you leaned into that.
So how did your team feel about that? Your executive team,
your management team. It wasn't huge at the time, right,
but how did your workers and people feel about you
(09:51):
guys deciding to do that rather than acquiesce and try
to make it go away.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I mean, I was definitely the one that was most
for it, and that's why we did it. So not
that anybody was like, don't do it, other than you know,
some legal counsel, not that I could tell you what
legal counsel is because and then it breaks attorney client privilege,
but whatever, you know, there's a lot of like, oh,
I wouldn't do this because this attacks the issue head on,
(10:16):
Like don't don't do a video that talks about sprinkles
when that's like actually in the lawsuit. And I'm like, no, no, no,
you don't understand. That's all I'm going to talk about.
I'm not going to talk about anything that's not directly
in the lawsuit. So my kind of comeback going into this,
it's like, Okay, attorneys know everything, right, you look up
to an attorney, you're you're paying five hundred bucks an
(10:38):
hour and you're just like, yeah, these guys seems they
don't know business. They're not they're not business owners, so
they can give you legal advice, but you shouldn't take
business advice from someone who doesn't run a business generally speaking, right, Like, yeah,
they could give you some good advice, but they don't
know marketing, they don't know pr Why am I going
to take their advice? So they would give me their advice,
(10:59):
and then my response be okay, but is it illegal
to do what I want to do?
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And the answer is no, then cool, thanks for your advice.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
I'm gonna do what I want to do, though, because
it's it's it's me and I think it.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
It also made it a lot easier.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Like before that happened just three months before, I started
getting on social media, so that helped kind of already
establishing a brand presence. And then when it happened, you know,
I was kind of already out there a little bit more,
and then I'd already done core values mission statements and
like I've already I guess I already pre planned what
(11:34):
am I gonna do when.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
She hits the fan?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Because it always hits the fan, and it's we attack problems,
you know, with lightheartedness, like don't I forgot exactly what
I put in the in the core value. But we're
we're not surprised by problems.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
We're challenges.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
It's it's funny, like we get into business, we know
there's gonna be challenges, and then a challenge hits us
and we're like, oh crap, what's going on? And it's
like what, No, You're supposed to expect challenges and then
use them and have fun with them. So going back
to like the my mission statement Sorett was is all
around it join and fulfillment despite life startiness. Don't wait
for life to be perfect to have the joy and fulfillment.
(12:11):
So it was very easy to apply it here, like
what's more fun to go out on social media and
make fun of this? Is this gonna cause more join
fulfillment in my life? To pay these guys to do ads?
Is this more join fulfillment or less? And measuring my
decisions based on a mission statement and an emotional goal
seems to be a lot easier than what may might
(12:31):
make me more money. You know, It's like, but am
I in it for making money? Or am I in
it for join fulfillment. I'm in it for join fulfillment.
Let me just skip right to that when I'm measuring
my decisions.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
And you said something important, you know, you got legal counsel,
and remember spot on, because I remember this all the
time with professionals, like friends are like, oh my doctor said,
and like that doesn't make any sense. Your doctor said
to go swallow three pebbles from your backyard. Would you
do that? No, like you're supposed to. He's practicing medicine. Right,
These are practicing attorneys, but but they should be giving
(13:06):
you counsel. And then it's your decision and what you're
gonna do with that council, right, like you have to
use that as an input to make decisions. Then, like
you did lean on them to say, well, am I
gonna get Is the FCC going to come after me
if I do this?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Excellent? Thank you? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I can only imagine what those with those boardroom discussions
were like. And you got your attorney's probably walked away
thinking oh crap, or actually, oh good, this is going
to generate some more opportunities for us to help save us.
But so, oh my gosh, so tell me a little
bit about reframing, right, because you guys that that was
a strategy you guys took so when things get hard,
(13:44):
and I love the transparency one of what we share,
that core value or at least at least that personality flaw,
that there's no reason why you need to hide things
if you guys would have decided not to share or
not to lean in and not to be transparent about
the suit. And I mean the transparency of the suit
was actually something that I think embarrassed and made the
suit Eventually, it.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Was the the number one reason for them to really,
I mean, in my opinion, right, for them to get
rid of it was the public opinion and the public pressure.
I mean, you could go count probably ten thousand comments
of boycott Crumble over that.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And it's not that we want to damage somebody else, right,
But it was that the damage was being thrown at
you guys, and you just deflected and it almost inverted, right, It.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Really didn't negative.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
The issue is inverted to the franchise ease though the
Crumble franchisees they had nothing to do with the lawsuit,
and I spoke with dozens of them, you know, but
they're the ones especially in Utah that got affected the most,
and it's like, no, that was not the intention. And
anytime someoney on social media on like I'm never going
to go to Crumble again. I know, like if they're
commenting on something that I said, I would always respond
(14:50):
to them and say, Crumble has one corporate store, it's
an orm Utah. All of the other ones are are
local franchisey to have nothing to do with this. Yeah,
I don't not support them because corporate made a bad
business move.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And that's classy. That's just classy because it wasn't the intent.
The intent was like let's take them all down. It
was like, let's deflect the bull craft and let us
get back to work. But the fact that you leaned
into it, you created kind of a phenomenon, a phenomenal
like following and you got a lot of social buzz.
What was the net effect on the business growth?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, we had.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I mean we were off to a good start. So
we'd franchised in December. This is May, so it's been
six months and we'd sold about sixty units, so.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
We were going good.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
From from May to the end of that year. We
ended with two ninety so we sold another two hundred
and thirty in the next seven months, So that's you
know that the net impact was several million dollars and
franchise fees, some good publicity and pr and brand awareness,
but there was also a lot of negative like now
you have to go open up all of those and
(15:53):
we opened up fifty stores in a year, you know,
we we.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
That was really hard.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
So like at the beginning when you had seventy five
stores and I said one hundred, it's because we opened
one hundred and we closed twenty five stores, you know,
so it's like that was super hard. Half of those
were corporate stores that were like, yeah, it's just we
need to double down and focus on supporting franchisees. We
can't also run this many corporate stores. So there was
a lot of a lot of hard things as well.
(16:20):
But the net impact, I don't think there is anything
any amount of money really, Like if you would have
given five million dollars and said, hey, go sell four
hundred fifty franchises, how many people could do that?
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Because yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Mean this was just that everything came together in the
right time and the right way for it to blow up.
But I do also I don't know. People are like,
so crumbles lossuit was like the number one thing that
exploded you, and it's like kind of I wouldn't say that.
I would say my response to Crumble's lawsuit is the
number one thing that propelled us, because they sued tons
(16:53):
of other companies, including the article, like the first article
that said Crumble is suing two cookie companies.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
It was that two cookie companies, Dirty Dough and Crave.
Crave didn't lean into it. They didn't do anything with it.
So it wasn't the fact that we got sued that
helped us. It was that we got sued and we responded.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, yeah, and I didn't I'd not actually followed up
on the Crave. Whatever happened with Crave like did so
they didn't lean into it, it didn't didn't push on it
at all.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
What I'm sure it went away.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah, from from what I understand, and I know Trent,
I haven't spoken with them a little a little bit,
but the owner there, they're around fourteen locations. Maybe they
opened a few more and then they closed a few.
I would guess that they're you know, still below twenty
you know in the and you know, we went from
h I mean one to opening up one hundred. I
think they opened up another handful, which is totally fine,
(17:41):
but it was a lot worse for them because they
still had three hundred K and legal fees just like
we did. But we collected several million dollars in franchise
fees and they didn't, so they had it was a
lot harder for them to battle up because of that.
But you know that was their strategy. And maybe I
mean is if I'm public with it, I don't want
(18:03):
to upset the bullie. I don't want to upset the
billion dollar bullie.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
But it's like, who cares.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
They're already suing you, Like, if they could have sued
me harder, they would have at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
It's not like they're like, oh, we're gonna do a
little lawsuit. No, like their intent was to put me
out of business, like they're not. You know, so let's
respond and let's see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I love that, And it just goes back to the point, right,
and you can the reason I asked about Craves is
kind of a case study, right. I love it when
you got an abe story and maybe it could have
been totally different. Maybe that worked out just the way
they wanted to. And this is not meant to be
disparaging at all, just it's an interesting thing to observe
when we see you leaning into it, really being transparent
(18:46):
about it and having a little fun like living up
to your core value of like, hey, we're gonna we're
gonna what did you call it? Join and fulfillment. You're
gonna find joy and fulfillment even though it's a really
crappy thing that you're dealing with right now. And that
mindset shifted the energy around the whole situation for you guys.
So I just I appreciate you sharing that. How did
you get to that core value, that joy and fulfillment
(19:07):
being like important in your business operations? Because I don't
know if I've been have one hundred plus people I've
had on the podcast, I don't know if anyone's ever
said those two words like that's one of my purposes
in running a business.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, So I sold the solar company.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I'm in twenty twenty one, and I had this goal.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
So I got up to three hundred and ten pounds.
That was not my goal.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
My goal is to be a millionaire. I don't know why,
Like it's just like that's.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
What you're supposed to do. I think, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
So it's like, hey, I want to be a millionaire,
and I want to do before thirty because it sounds good. Well,
I sell the solar company, and I achieve it, and
it feels feel great, Like you check your bank account,
You're like, yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
You know, you felt you're like all the hard work.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
But the issue is what causes you to feel good. Dopamine,
you know, and these other neurochemicals, And the issue is
there's only so many in your brain. So like I
feel good when I eat something good, but that dopamine
needs to reset back to zero. That way, I could
feel good when I sell my company or when I
smell a flower. So like human biologies, you're not supposed
(20:11):
to hang on to these winds.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
It's like, I'm everything's gonna be perfect once I just
figure out my life, and it's like, no, it's not.
It's gonna be perfect until the dopamine goes back to zero.
So then it's okay, let's not go for dopamine. I guess,
like that can't be the goal or otherwise every time
I get it, it's just going to be fulfilling and
then empty. And I think we've all experienced that because
(20:36):
unless everything's perfect right now, like every time we've ever
set a goal and achieved it, it did not give
us the lasting happiness. So you know, we don't need
to look out word, let's just look in word. We've
never done it. So then what are you after? I
think it's joy, and I've chose joy over happiness because
it's like, you don't have to be happy every day,
but having a joyful life, you know there's gonna be
ups and downs. If you're smoking weed and super high
(20:58):
and happy all the time, is that enough? That's where
I got fulfillment from. I'm like, no, you want to
be happy in your life but also happy of your life.
So happy in your life is your happiness on a
day to day or your joy on a day to
day happiness of your life. So if you're smoking weed
and super happy all day, like you're happy in your life,
but are you happy of your life? If somebody said,
(21:18):
are you happy with where your life's going?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Maybe not? And you need both of those.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
So I just kind of transferred them to join fulfillment,
and then I threw in despite life's dirtiness because it
has to be now. It just didn't make sense to
me that I sacrificed so many years of being with
my wife and my kids on the nights and weekends
so I could work harder so I could be with
them later. And I'm like, what, it's like, I'm not
going to eat my dinner now so I could eat
(21:44):
it in six days. It's like, well, how about I
just eat dinner every night for six days, Like I
don't need to sacrifice anything now for anything later. And
then I threw so join fulfillment despite life's dirtiness in
myself and others. So you have to figure out yourself
first then kind of move on to others. And it
was for the longest time, like I'm a logical person.
(22:06):
I don't trust intuition. I don't even know what it is.
I don't know what emotions are. And then when you
really analyze, like what do you want, it is only
emotional That's all we want is an emotional state. So
what I should have done is I want a million
dollars because I think a million dollars is going to
give me more free time, which then I'm going to
(22:27):
go on vacations with my kids and my family. And
when I'm with my kids and family, I'm happy. I
just never put it together, like if I would have
just said my goal is to be with my kids
and family more so, I could be happier. I could
have realized easier. I could just do that every day.
I don't need a work past four o'clock.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, game on. That's such a great insight. And I
love that you're pulling the biology of the neurotransmission and
our brain into the whole story too, because it's true
a lot of people chase, and especially salespeople, right, You're
like constantly chasing the next buzz you get off of
closing the deal, and sometimes you're not going to close them,
(23:08):
so then you're not getting that And a lot of
people burn out, crash and burn because that's the only
thing that motivates them. They Solar has been brutal, right,
so if they switch to solar, they don't sell anything.
They feel like they sock and the world's falling down
around them. Like that's you're looking intrinsically or extrinsically at
your values and your self worth and that's that creates problems.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Great yes insights, great insights. Door to door.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
You start every day at zero, so it's like, if
I don't sell, I didn't make any money. And then
sometimes you not only aren't don't have any cells yet,
but you have a cancelation from the day before. It's crap,
I'm a negative one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I haven't even done anything yet.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And if you judge the success or failure on each
door based on if they bought, that's a really hard
thing to do. Like mentally, it's just gonna be really hard.
If I judged success and failure based on what who
are is becoming, and if I was becoming a professional communicator,
then it was easier, right because Dave told me no,
he doesn't want it because I'm the fifth Solar guy.
(24:05):
But if I could change my pitch to when I
talked to Dave's neighbor, I knock on the door and say, hey,
just got done with Dave's house.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I know what you're probably thinking. You're that I'm the
fifth Solar guy this week.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
The only thing I know he's not going to say
is hey, are you the fifth Solar guy this week?
Like they're not going to repeat that back to you, right,
So as long as I'm adjusting my pitch and saying
how am I becoming a better communicator and progressing, then
it doesn't matter if I sell, because maybe I don't
sell anything for two days, but I'm sharpening the saw,
so to speak. So now maybe the next two days
I'm going to sell five and kind of make up
(24:36):
for that.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'll show that soundby with my nephew who's out selling
shifted from solar to pest control.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Because it was just killing him. But he's a good
sales guy.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You guys would get along, you talked earlier on and
then I want to come back to this about building
kind of a playbook, right, a growth playbook that's rooted
in transparency and scrappiness and long term vision.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I think a lot of entrepreneur franchise owners, even developing,
growing and grow and big franchise brands still want to
have kind of that transparent, scrappy, long term vision plan, right,
And I think you've got a great idea of how
to pull it together. So share some insights with us
if you don't mind, about how do you do that?
Like what does that plan look like, how do you
pull it together? And then how do you execute on it?
(25:21):
That's what it wurts.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
So the plot at the beginning was we're going to
do a centralized production model to you know, take advantage
of economies of skill and then ship them out nationwide.
But the only way for that to work is if
you did a lot of stores, right, you have to
have volume on that. So knowing that going in, it
wasn't something like, you know, I open up a store,
kind of see how it goes, open up another store,
sew it goes. It was like I bought this company
(25:44):
to franchise it and go nationwide, So that that kind
of helped. Like that was the goal. So then as
we're making decisions on like which warehouse do we get,
which machines do we get, we were always benchmarketing against
you know, one hundred locations, two hundred locations to underdocate.
If it doesn't work for one hundred locations, let's not
throw it in for the seven locations that we have
(26:05):
right now. So really having kind of that end point
in mind, and how do you define that a little
bit more? I mean, yeah, you're doing you know a
five year projection plan and kind of seeing where you
want to be each year. As far as the transparency goes,
I think that's the easy part after you start doing it.
Maybe it's hard to get it to start doing it,
(26:26):
but like, I don't know, man, that's that's been a
really good decision on Like, there's nothing about my life
that you can't find online right now, like about psychedelic uses,
about traumas, about I mean just everything, and I've it's
very freeing and very opening. There's there's nothing that I'm
ever trying to hide or go behind somebody's back. And
(26:48):
I think a lot of it comes from I mean,
I'm new to the industry. Maybe I recognize what I
don't know. So if I'm talking with the franchise e
or an employee, rather than like, oh, here's my plan
in the background and I'm gonna just not do your
plan whatever.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
It's open communication.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Hey, this is what I think would work better. And
this is why I think I want to do this
way because I'm trying to avoid this problem. If you
could come up with a better solution that also that
still avoids this problem, you know, I'm all ears, but
that does create more of a a transparent or like
open communication style with everybody in the team jumping on
(27:24):
and like, oh sorry, guys, I did that wrong, you know,
taking accountability or I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
You know, all of those things I think little by
little add up. And then being on social media, being
on podcasts, being able to talk about the lawsuit one
hundred times, you know, like people like that. People like
when you only tell them the good stuff, they don't
(27:45):
trust you. That's what I think in sells, so like
I purposely will plan things in my sales, pitch whatever
i'm selling to give the downsides, Like glow Tanning. That's
what I'm selling right now. Glow Tanning is great, fifteen
years in business, zero closures average or on their ride
of nineteen three hundred thousand plus dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
However, that's no guarantee that you're going to succeed.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I don't have to say that, but as soon as
I do, we connect at a different level. You already
know that that's no guarantee that you're going to succeed.
I know that, but I need to express that. And
then you're like, Okay, this guy's honest with me. Because
of course even with fifteen years in business and zero closures,
there's never guarantee that I'm going to be in business.
So I think putting out and addressing the negatives, whether
(28:26):
that be a lawsuit or anything, helps people connect with you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, I agree with you, and and sometimes they'll connect
with you deeper when you try to like almost you
unsell them, right, Like, look, these are reasons from what
you've said shared with me. I don't know if this
is the right solution for you. You're just trying to
be transparent, honest with them, but emotionally and this isn't manipulation.
I would never approach it that way, but sometimes you
make you force them to stop and think for a
(28:51):
segment about what do they really want? Right and if
the reality is like no, actually I really want this
and this is going to be good for me, and
this is what I want to do, and you're being
super transparent with me about what the problems are going
to be Like, I just I think people feel really comfortable,
like you're saying they trust you because of honesty, and
I well, actually, well we'll talk about that later. But
that's a book I'm outlining right now because I find
(29:11):
the world needs that a little more and it works better.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
It just works better.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
It works better to not go around thinking like, oh,
what if they find out that I'm in a loss,
Like that's a better way to like, I have so
many leads, and man, I just hope they don't find
out that I'm in a loss because I don't have
to disclose it just quite yet. It's like I've never
even tried to address that or played that game. It's
just like, this is exactly where we're at, and this
is where we're going. If you want to be on board,
(29:37):
you know, be on board, and it a little bit,
I guess is to clear my consciousness of like I
record every sales call, you know, make sure that we're
doing everything right, because you're putting your life on the
line a lot of the times to buy a franchise,
and statistically speaking, there will be people that lose everything
when they buy the franchise and it's just going to happen.
So how do you not so much prevent that? Obviously,
(30:02):
try to prevent it, but at least be upfront so
people understand the risk and they have risk is, yeah,
they lose everything, and.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Then you keep on living just like you did. Before,
and it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
It's more emotional stress than actual you know, it's not
like wherever going to be unsafe, but it's kind of
navigating all of those waters.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, it's true, it's true. But there's also your reputation.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Like I was a bit of a scully why grown up,
And one of my grandmother's dying was what her dying
advice to me is no joke. She passed me on
the cheek and she's like, you look so handsome without
your facial hair. And then then she says, she says,
you need to guard your reputation because that precedes you
everywhere you go. And she said that to me because
I was the grandson that got suspended for fighting in
(30:43):
high school, got arrested when I was in college, I
went to BYU and got arrested for still in road
signs Like again, transparency, I think is king. Somebody eventual
will find out about that, and I'd rather lean into it,
let them know, because it's funny when you tell people
about things like that and they judge you against what they.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Currently know about you.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
They're like, nah, people tell me like I don't believe you.
Oh for sure, no, that was for sure me just
any one of my teachers, my principals, they'll all collaborate.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
All my friends.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
My friends tell me like their parents wouldn't let them
play with me when I was as a young teenager.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
But doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
The point is like the transparency aspect of it helps
people trust you. They realize you're not hiding anything, and
I love that. And executing against a transparent plan as
a leader can sometimes be hard. You gave you gave
an example of how you approach it with a franchise owner,
because franchise owners they feel like even if you're not,
they feel like corporates holding stuff back, right, They feel
(31:36):
like the home office team isn't supporting them, and they're
looking for excuses to validate that that idea in their head.
If they're struggling, it's somebody else's fault. How do I
make that a reality? But I love the way you
approach that of saying, guys, like, this is how I
think we should do it. But do you have another
idea of like, let me listen to you too, because
sometimes and back me up on this if you've seen it.
The best ideas come from the floor operators.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Yeah, it's and it's really who cares whose idea it is, right,
it's just here's the problem this is, and this is
my suggestion to solve it. But it's more like I
just want to solve this problem, right, It's who cares
about how we solve It's just here's the problem. Who's
got the best the best methodology on that?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Agreed, some of the best development ideas we've ever gotten
have come from, you know, franchise consultants or franchise franchise
vers operating their platform. Like it's there's no no pride
for us to say, well, we didn't come up with that.
I'll even tell people if Harper gave me a cool
idea and we built it like that came from so
and so. Like I think it's actually a badge of
honor that people trust us enough.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
To give us feedback.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
So it's absolutely big part of a big part of
how to run an operation that's successful. Benett, if you
if you had a couple of words to share that
a growing brand it's struggling, Maybe they don't. They don't
know how to implement a change like this, going from
closed door strategy to being a little more open.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
What would you advise him to do to start to
make the shift.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, I mean having a personal and that's where people
are going to know you as a leader more than anything. Like, Yeah,
you could be on phone calls and you know you're
gonna meet your team here and there. But if you
have a personal brand and you're sharing your journey there,
people won it gets It helps you define what your
journey is. Right Like that, the more I talk about
the same story, the more I refine it, and the
(33:21):
more it sounds good, and the more it becomes clear
to me.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Like the first goal that I had for Dirty Dough
was dirty stores in five years.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Then it was one hundred stores, and then it was
a billion dollars and all of those. Anytime I'm very
I've always been very much against like I'm going to
hold my goals close to my chest, maybe out of
you know, embarrassment if I don't achieve them, or for
thinking that I could do these crazy things.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I had to get past that. Then I was very.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
Public about what I'm trying to do and the goals
not just finance the finance side, but we had that
clearly to find, but it was also what am I
trying to achieve on my personal life, which is the
joy and fulfillment, Because yes, that's my mission statement, but
if you go to Dirty Do's website, that's Dirty Dose
mission statement as well, finding joy and fulfillment despitelf's dirtiness
in yourself and others. So getting out there, I mean
(34:08):
defining it and then getting out there, sorry, defining it
and then getting out there and really sharing that from
a personal brand, throw it up on your website, like
everybody should know where you're at and where you're going
on social media, on the meetings, on really everything. And
then I mean, how else are they supposed to help
(34:28):
you get to one hundred stores? If they think your
goals two hundred stores, and if they think that you're
going to stop at one hundred stores but you're really
going to stop at a thousand, they're going to recommend
a software that only works for two hundred stores, right, So.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Really, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
It is scary to even say like, oh I want
to go this big and then it's like but once
you get out there, then you have more heads to
accomplish those goals.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Love it well, make the change now, Bennett, You've been fantastic.
Thanks for providing such great comedy for us on YouTube
with the cookie War videos, but also just the personality
sharing some of the challenges and the transparency and how
that's helped you guys a lot as you've leaned into challenges.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Been amazing.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Thanks so much, Thanks Stave
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