066 – Meet the Kosher Willy Wonka David Levine

Gift biz unwrapped episode 66,

If you're happy and you're looking at positive things,

other positive things will follow.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to gifted biz unwrapped,

and now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to gift biz,

unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop

and grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Monheit.

Hi there.

I'm Sue and welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Whether you own a brick and mortar shop sell online or

are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I have joining us David David and his

wife, Melissa are the proud and smiling owners of Illinois nuttin

candy home of Fantasia confections.

It's been 11 years since they purchased the business.

The couple can take credit for sweet success.

Thanks to conscious thorough and ingenious branding efforts.

David realized that to distinguish his company from other candy companies,

he needed branding that not only differentiated his candy business from

the competition,

but differentiated his client from their competition too.

David began his plan with a memorable ending.

He closes every conversation with the now famous have a sweet

day. And when people ask about how business is going,

it's always and remains sweet.

Eventually David earned a name change with another claim to fame,

Fox business dubbed him the kosher Willy Wonka.

This was all the inspiration he needed to invest in a

complete Willy Wonka costume.

He now shows up at select networking events,

adorned in the purple top coat with all the trimmings he's

currently working on his first book on the subject of branding

and has a blog called life of the Candyman,

where he discusses the ups and downs surprises and utterly nutty

delights of life in a candy store.

Oh my gosh,

David, I just had to put all that in the intro

because it is so exciting.

I know we're going to just have a great time talking

together. Welcome to the Thank you super having me.

I really appreciate the opportunity.

Is there anything that we should include in your intro before

we start our contract?

I think you covered it all quite well.

Great. Wonderful.

As our listeners know,

we like to start off by asking you about what your

ideal motivational candle is.

It just gives us a little bit of an indirect view

into who you are as a person.

So David,

if you were to describe your ideal motivational candle,

what color is it and what would be the quote on

that candle?

See, that is the hardest question anybody had ever asked me.

Well, leave it to me.

I thought about it long and hard.

And I realized that unlike most people that would have a

single color candle,

my candle would have to be with our pink and all

the other colors that help brand us because it's,

you know,

you drive by my store in Skokie.

You'll see,

I have big candy canes in the front.

And so my candle would be pink and purple and white

and gold because it reflects our brand.

And tell us about a quote that would be on that

candle. I know I'm from Chicago and I'm a bears fan,

but one of the greatest quotes of all time that I've

definitely had with me since the time I've been a little

kid is from the great coach of the green Bay.

Packer has been some Barney.

And I think of it all the time.

Cause it was,

and the quotes were,

you know,

really resonates.

Success only comes before work in the dictionary or without hard

work, success cannot be achieved.

And it's something,

you know,

it's a quote that I live by because the reality is

we all want things out of life and we all want

things out of our jobs and our families and everything,

but it all comes down to hard work.

I pride myself in the fact that I work hard and

that, you know,

my staff works hard as well.

And that when we say we're going to do something,

we start a project at the beginning and we see it

through to completion.

I totally agree with you.

And I'm really glad that you brought this up because I

think a lot of people will think,

well, going into your business is so much easier,

right? You're not having to report to anybody.

You can do things your way and it's just going to

be so much better and so much easier.

And that could not be farther from the truth.

Would you agree?

And he wouldn't do the thing.

So neither own business is easy.

I got a one word answer and it's not.

The reality is owning your own business.

You have the hardest boss you will ever have in your

entire life.

You have the most demanding boss you will ever have in

your entire life.

Because if you care about your business and you are your

boss, you will put yourself through more than anybody else will

put you through at any given time.

Because first of all,

legally, they probably couldn't ask you to work 80 to a

hundred hours in a week.

But more than that,

and I think it's really important to realize is that you

put certain expectations on yourself.

You have the expectation to succeed and you have the expectation

that you want to do it in a certain way.

And so first you have the hardest boss in the world

being yourself because you're always the most critical of yourself.

But then in addition to being the hardest critical boss,

you have being,

you all your customers are technically your boss as well.

And I think people need to realize that,

that, you know,

you need to keep your customers happy.

And that the reality is at the end of the day,

they are paying your check.

And I think that's something that you need to realize There's

so much value to having your own business.

So there's,

there's pros and cons,

I guess I'd say and give biz listeners.

I just want you to know that David currently is driving

while he's doing this interview.

Don't worry,

he's safe.

He doesn't have a mic in his hand.

He's just talking on it a hands-free phone,

but to fit everything in a day and to be as

efficient as you possibly can.

What are you doing?

You're coming back from a photo shoot right now,

right? We're actually working on a campaign For our website.

Okay. So fitting things in you fit things in as you

can. You do as much as you can.

So Google says that you need to have video on your

website. So we actually are getting ready to have,

and we put together a series of 12 videos to have

one a month during the summer.

I mean,

we're all in the gifting business and we all know that

there's gifting season and then there's getting ready for gifting season.

And that's what the summer is for me.

We're working on the getting ready for the season.

This is one of our initiatives this summer was putting together

these videos.

So you'll be able to check them out on our website

every month.

Oh, good.

Well, we're going to talk about that a little bit later,

too. First.

I want to go back.

A lot of our listeners,

David are either considering a business or have gotten started,

and it's always very beneficial to hear other people's stories.

Talk to us a little bit about how do you identify

it. I know you purchased Illinois nut and candy,

but how did you identify the opportunity and decide to take

the plunge and make the purchase of the business?

Going back?

I was very,

I have a very interesting history work history and Lisa does.

I had wanted to be a high school teacher once upon

a time.

And unfortunately it did not work out for various reasons.

And that's a story for a whole other day,

but I went from education to it,

started doing corporate training and technical writing and technical support and

things of that nature and worked my way up to a

senior consultant and to a project director of the.com.

So I'm kind of giving away my age there,

cause I was peaking right as the dotcoms were going through

the exciting period they were in.

But then shortly after the dotcoms came,

the dot bomb they referred to me in WBBM years ago,

I was a.com

a refugee and I was unemployed for eight months.

I was unhappily,

employed, working at a job that did not give me the

creative abilities that I had when I was working for the

dot-coms. And my wife had worked at Illinois.

Nuts was actually called Illinois,

not outlet when she was in high school.

And when we heard it came up for sale,

everybody said,

do something you love.

And I was not doing something I loved at that time.

And I like eating and I love chocolate candy and nuts.

And it just seemed like the ideal opportunity.

And let's be real.

I'm like the equivalent of a alcoholic in a bar,

except I'm a candy Hollick in a candy store.

What are the types of things you need to look at

and consider when you're not starting out for yourself,

but you're purchasing what someone else has created Purchasing someone else's

business is a very scary proposition because you have what they

say that they have and they show you their books and

everything like that.

And then there are certain intangibles that you just don't know.

And I think that's really important and that you don't know

those intangibles and you don't realize what you're walking into and

looking back,

there are many things that if I were doing it again,

I would ask and your listeners are probably going to go,

what are those questions?

More so than the actual sales,

the business has probably customer lists and histories of those customers.

So it's great if you had a big month in September,

let's say,

but is that because you had two or three weddings,

you can count on those families having weddings again,

the next year you want to see more trends and it's

not just the trend of,

Oh, last year we did a great month.

So there's that.

And then there's what you really want to see the records

and you want to see their purchasing histories.

I didn't have a background in retail.

My background was customer service.

So I understood the whole customer experience.

But from the retail components,

I really was clueless.

And I,

you know,

I'm very honest.

I mean,

I had no idea what I was getting into,

I don't know,

Own the building or you lease your building,

but did you also look at that too?

I was not in the finance position to purchase the building.

The management company owns the building and I have a long-term

lease. Okay.

But in terms of maintenance on the building or anything that

you'd have to do,

I mean,

you have to look at the whole picture of the business,

just like you're saying,

you're walking into someone else's agreement,

Right? I mean,

you know,

you got to look at the agreement on the HVAC units.

You've gotta look at the agreement,

other general maintenance on the sewers and the pipes,

which is all my responsibility.

And you don't think about that,

but that's really when you're manufacturing product,

not a pretty conversation,

but let's be real.

We are in a industrial kitchen and we're on a schedule

to have our grease traps cleaned on a regular basis in

order to make sure that we have the water flowing properly

at all times.

These are things you don't think about,

or like,

you know,

the, who are they using as an exterminator?

Can you see the logs for what they had to see?

You know,

the history and now there wasn't a problem or anything,

but that's not something I asked to see going forward.

That's something you'd definitely want to see.

That's not something that anybody would say,

but you want to know.

Was there an issue at any given time looking back?

I didn't know the questions to ask.

And I think a big problem is people are afraid to

ask other people what questions they should be asking.

Best advice I could give to you is to your listeners.

I should say,

don't be afraid to ask questions because the more you ask

people, the more intelligent you'll be by learning from others.

Honestly, if they're hesitant to answer some of those questions,

then you should probably be a little hesitant about moving forward.

Right? I mean,

one of my friends was looking at a pizza business and

he talked to a friend of his in another city.

And the guy said him,

the only question that you really need to know is how

many boxes does he buy a year?

Which I thought was a really interesting question,

but it's something that you could kind of put into any

other industry.

If somebody said to me,

how many boxes of chocolate boxes do you buy a year

though? I don't have the number off the top of my,

and I probably wouldn't share it either.

That's a number I could easily get.

And then you equate that and build that up to sales

Because then you're able to say,

you know,

if they've had X number of boxes of pizza,

X number of boxes of chocolate,

and let's just say that it was at the lowest cost

per unit,

the worst case scenario their sales are at versus speculating.

That's something I learned along the way from a friend who

learned it from a friend.

Did you use legal assistance to help you with the purchase

in terms of the discovery?

Not just the contract part,

but discovering beforehand,

or did you bring them in right when you were signing

and finalizing the deal?

We brought them in to finalize the deal.

Okay. Cause that's another thing I know now just,

you know,

in looking at past businesses to sell or to buy,

you know,

that's another opportunity is to bring someone in who's used to

buying and selling businesses early on now to take a look

and help you.

We bought a second business along the way,

which is the popcorn business that we've incorporated into our business.

And it also depends on who you're purchasing a business from.

And you gotta be careful what you say about who you

say, like when we bought the popcorn business,

it was basically done on a handshake.

It was done on a handshake.

And then we had a paper document written because we knew

the people on a social basis.

And that was more old-school based on handshake and trust at

the end of the day,

buying a business is a scary proposition,

right. Especially if you don't ask the right questions.

Yeah. And again,

as we're talking about being the owners of our own businesses,

we live and die by our decisions.

So a handshake agreement for you could have been just fine.

You could have felt that that was perfect,

but then you live and die by that decision.

Same thing with anything that we do as business owners.

So great information though,

David specially,

in terms of,

you know,

if you are looking at purchasing someone else's business,

look at those things underneath the intangibles,

as David is saying,

not just what is on the surface,

not just sales last month,

even a calendar year,

look at trends.

And then also look at the full scope of the business.

If it's a commercial kitchen,

because you're in you're baking or doing whatever,

make sure that all of the services,

all of the vendors that they use,

you check all of that out.

And also the physical facility,

if that's part of your responsibility in the lease.

So all of those other things that you may not be

considering, David is advising.

I think that's very,

very good information for us right now.

Let's continue on and talk about,

so now you own Illinois nut and candy.

Let's talk about how you've built the business over the years.

I know you have a lot to tell us on the

branding end share with us some of your experiences as you've

grown. The first thing I realized when I bought the business

was, and this may sound crazy,

but the previous owner always said he was the kosher candy

store, which is great,

that you're the kosher candy store.

But at the end of the day,

I want it to be more than just the kosher candy

store. And my wife and I were looking at ways of

how to grow the business.

Well, there's a few things we realized right off the bat.

Number one,

we offered a lot of product in a lot of different

niches. We offer gluten-free products.

We offered sugar-free products.

We offered lactose free and KC and free products.

And we offered some nut-free products.

So that was option.

Number one was like building on the niches option two,

which, and these were all things we were doing together simultaneously

was that people buy candy by color.

So we started marketing by color and selling the candy by

the various shades of color.

And then the most important thing that we started working on,

which is something that I started working on was helping build

our brand and helping our clients build their brand.

We took a multi-campus.

Okay, so you,

number one,

we're not going to be yet another candy shop,

right. With another product.

So you really identified,

well, what are we doing differently?

Or what are we doing that we can really enhance and

present in terms of marketing to the world?

So those were your niches.

And then also the candy by color.

I think it was also expanding and saying,

Hey, we're not just as little candy store.

That is kosher.

We are,

you know,

largest kosher candy store in the Midwest.

We offer all these different variety of options and we offer

a lot of different things for our clients.

What portion of your business?

David is corporate business versus individual.

It depends on the season,

November, December.

It's more corporate.

Now, if you walk in the store today,

it's more individual,

but in November,

December, it's definitely more corporate.

Gotcha. So,

you know,

it's a seasonal,

you know,

there's like,

you know,

in this industry,

it's all happening,

Right. Overall,

what would be your mix?

Probably about 60,

40. Okay.

So almost pretty even there,

but I don't often hear of businesses talking about how to

help their corporate clients build their brand,

which is then pulling on your past experience,

applying it to Illinois,

nut and candy,

and then making your brand and working with you even more

valuable. Right?

In reality,

you could walk into a sales call and you can say

to somebody,

I want to sell you whether it's traveling gift baskets or

boxes of chocolate or whatever,

going back to my undergrad psych degree,

if you don't listen to people,

you're not going to be very successful.

And I think listening is a very important skill to have.

And then unlike in the psych last,

or they said you weren't supposed to offer solutions to people's

problems when you're listening to somebody and they tell you what

their problem is,

you want to give them a creative way to solve that

problem. You want to help them,

right? You want them to feel that you're not just there

for the quick sale and you're here today,

Given that you are a professional on branding.

If we have people who are listening,

who are just beginning,

regardless of what their business is,

they don't really have a brand yet.

Cause they're just bringing their product to market.

Can you give any advice in terms of how do identify,

define or create a brand?

Just a couple of tips.

So if you're looking to identify your brand,

it really comes down to sitting there.

And even before you come up with your name for your

business, or if you already came up with your own business

name, what are you trying to accomplish?

Who's your target market?

What is your message?

What makes you unique?

And I've had this conversation with lots of people.

If you could sit down and identify those items and you

could articulate those,

you're much more capable of starting on your way to building

a brand.

Yeah. Because let's face it.

Other people could have similar products that you do even David,

but it's the brand.

It's what else you bring to the table.

You have to have a quality product for sure.

But it's not just all about the product.

It's what,

all the other things that go along with it,

the customer experience,

the videos that you're now putting on the website,

you as being the kosher,

Willy Wonka,

just the whole thing.

All of that is encompassing in what your brand is.

And I really think that part of your brand is you,

but it's more than just you,

the person,

because the business is more than you.

I mean,

I might be the face of the business,

but right now I have staff that if I walk out

of the store,

I know they're carrying on the same philosophy.

This is a happy,

cheery place to come.

Our customers are happy to be in the store.

And that has to come from you.

That has to come from the top down and continually reinforcing

it. It comes from the top down.

It's a very hard message to put out there.

And to be perfectly honest,

finding the right staff is probably one of the hardest things

you can do.

And that's not disparaging anybody.

Who's worked for me in the past,

but finding the right group of people because it is,

you know,

it's a team and you know,

they always talk about team chemistry and all that good stuff.

And the professional sporting level to a certain degree,

there's some chemistry that needs to be in the retail level

too. You gotta have staff.

They don't have to like each other,

but they gotta respect each other and work together And pull

their own weight.

Yeah. Have you ever been in a situation where there's one

person who just does not do their full job?

So other people are having to compensate and the whole morale

of everything just goes down.

The second they're gone,

everything becomes more lively,

more productive work is fun.

Again, I've definitely been in situations like that,

but I've also been in situations where I've had employees don't

understand how come in their mind,

they're doing more than other people.

And I try to explain to them that as a manager's

responsibility, it's his or her responsibility to find everybody's strong point.

Not everybody could tie the perfect bow.

Not everybody could make a customer smile and sometimes you're better

off having that person.

Who's really good at making customers smile and really good customer

service take care of customers.

And that person who's really good at tying bows being the

back of the shop.

And I think that's your job as a manager slash owner,

is delegating people with tasks that they Excel at.

If you could make somebody a better employee,

they'll work harder.

I love that because the other thing is,

is if people know,

if they're in a job that they're not naturally good at,

and it's a struggle and it's stressful and all of that.

But if you are identifying just like you're saying David employees

and where their strengths are,

and then allowing them to be recognized for that and proud

of that because they tie an awesome bow or they're really

good people,

people up at the counter,

interacting with customers and each person can be recognized for their

uniqueness, with their strongest skill.

Then nobody's really competing with each other because it all comes

together as a whole of the experience that people are getting

when they're walking in the store or receiving And full disclosure,

my first X years in business,

I wasn't necessarily really good at that.

That's something that I've picked up over the years.

It's one of those things that like,

don't have somebody who's listening going,

Oh my God,

I'm not doing that.

Well, don't worry neither to die.

Just like you build your client list,

you build your,

you know,

your skill set or your toolkit.

So to speak,

you read books and you listen to other people and you

build on what you know,

and as you build on what,

you know,

you become a better manager,

owner, executives,

always a work in progress,

right? Oh,

it's every day is a learning curve.

You know,

we're always learning something now.

All right.

So since it's a learning curve,

take us to a time when business wasn't so great.

You might've been rethinking this purchase of yours.

You know,

give us a,

a point where you were really struggling with something,

you know,

share with us what that was.

And then what you did to overcome the situation.

I look back at the almost 12 years of this point

of owning the business.

And there are numerous times where I said to myself,

Oh my God,

what did I get myself into?

And I think it's a natural thing.

I probably bought the business at the worst time to buy

when the economy was not doing all that well,

2008, it took another dip.

And I really think that there are two ways to look

at it.

Everything at that point,

I do a lot of networking.

There was one woman who I would come home and tell

my wife,

she would complain.

She lost this account.

Then she lost that account.

And this person wasn't paying and my wife's dubbed her,

the Dorothy downer and her name wasn't Dorothy,

but she called her the Dorothy downer.

And I realized by talking to my wife about this,

she was bringing her own bad karma to the situation.

Nobody wants to do business with somebody who's always losing accounts.

Do we all lose an account yet?

People, you know,

your contact leaves and goes to another company.

The new person comes in and he,

or she brings her vendors with them.

You know,

companies go out of business,

but nobody wants to hear about it.

That's why I say it's always a sweet day.

You know,

if I got,

if I was at a networking event,

somebody go,

how's your day.

And I had a really bad day and I started giving

the laundry list of everything that went wrong.

Do you think anybody would wanna talk to me?

You know?

And so if I'm having a bad day,

I say,

it's nutty,

what exactly does money mean?

Who knows?

It makes somebody laugh.

You know,

it's my standard response.

Either sweet or nutty,

nothing, just men.

It was a wacky day.

And we were really busy.

The phone didn't stop ringing.

They don't have to know that I had a machine break

that the vendor,

you know,

here this past week,

we had a machine break.

One day we had the HVAC guy laying on the floor

for six hours,

fixing it or replacing the part.

And that same day we found that we had been closed

on Monday for a Jewish holiday that a vendor left the

pallet of candy in the alley that we had to destroy.

Oh my gosh.

That's not what I said.

But yeah,

there was an old one here.

Yeah. It was kind of like,

I call the vendor,

but he can't just drop product in an alley.

I mean,

I was actually very happy to say,

nobody stole a single box.

That being said,

there wasn't a bird that didn't miss landing on it.

And it rained and poor.

I mean,

you know,

but these are all crazy things.

So I'm going to day like that.

I'd say,

Oh yeah,

I had a nutty day.

You know,

people laugh,

you know,

and it's like,

it is what it is.

But in general,

Now I know your trick,

David, I'll be listening for whether it's none of your sweet

when I ask you for now.

But you know what,

when you say nutty,

it just means it was a hectic,

crazy day.

Doesn't mean it was necessarily a bad day.

You're still have a business.

You own a thriving business.

There's always going to be issues that come up.

So I think really what you're saying is it's a mindset,

You know,

and it really is the mindset.

Cause if Monday I would even walk it around after I

said the initial,

Oh, expletives,

you know,

and I was frustrated and we stood in the alley and

he was like 90 degrees on Tuesday when we were throwing

this stuff away in the dumpster,

it was frustrating.

I couldn't let that,

you know,

they talk about different color eyeglasses and everything and how it

shaves your day.

They could have put a total dark gloomy on my day,

as opposed to just being okay.

It happens.

I'm not happy it happens,

but it is what it is.

And it's done and you move on.

But I think too many people focus on the negative and

it's so much easier to focus on the negative than it

is to focus on the positive.

If you're happy and you're looking at positive things,

other positive things will follow.

I totally agree with that.

If you focus on the negative,

I don't want to say more bad stuff will happen.

But my wife,

I think said it put it best.

She told my kid one morning he woke up.

He was in a bad mood.

He goes,

you know,

you have the ability to wake up and you can decide

it's going to be a good day or a bad day

today. She's right.

He turns it around.

Thank God You attract what you give out.

I really believe That go to any networking event.

You'll see.

There's people that they stand in the corner,

not talking to anybody.

Those are the people I walk up to.

Cause I figured they're a prime target because they're just there

to eat or drink.

If they're not talking to anybody,

maybe they're shy and who knows.

But in general,

people that are not talking to people,

aren't going to get people,

have people talk to them.

People around them are talking to them.

More people want to talk.

Cause they're like,

Hey, what's going on?

And I think that's important.

It's all about how you hold yourself.

You know,

even if you're,

let's say,

if you're having a nutty day,

just the way you're talking about it,

instead of dwelling on it,

it helps you fix your mood too.

It kind of self-correct and go back into that positive trend.

And sometimes you just need a good night's sleep For a

good piece of chocolate.

Oh, you go,

All right,

let's flip this around then David,

and talk with us a little bit about things that you

see that bring business into the store.

Is there a trick you have or some type of promotion

that you do,

or some advice that you can give that you see moves?

The needle of sales?

Best thing I did was when we bought the business called

Illinois, not outlet.

We changed the name to Illinois and candy because candy sweet

and it brought people in.

But more importantly than that,

we changed the way our store looks.

We put a whole facade on that.

If you're driving down Dempster,

you'll see a big two big candy canes,

a big Starlight mint on top of the building.

And we invested a lot of money into the mural.

That's on the front of our building and became a landmark

in Skokie.

So people can't miss you.

That's for sure.

Now we're,

we're there.

Whether the village wants us there or not at this point,

And you sparked curiosity.

So people who haven't ever been by are automatically going to

see you and hopefully turn that wheel and drive right in

Which we have a lot of people do.

I mean,

even today,

I forgot how many years ago we painted cars.

You know,

now it seems like it's been painted forever.

And I know it's not,

I think it's like seven or eight years,

at least one or two people a week come in because

of the mural.

And I know every municipality has different rules and regulations and

they'll just Skokie.

Wasn't exactly thrilled,

but they approved mine mural.

That being said,

you got to find a way to stand out and distinguish

yourself. We've tried and there's gonna be a lot of people

in the advertising world are going to be really upset what

I say right now.

So I apologize to them first.

We've tried advertising on public transportation,

radio, TV,

print, think that's it.

Those are the,

I mean,

I know,

I know.

And the phone belt,

the old fashioned phone book and those,

Oh, I forgot.

And the mailer things that they send out.

So we've tried all these different media.

The best way to advertise is word of mouth referrals.

And you got to follow the old adage of people do

business with people that they know they like,

they trust.

And the more people that you know,

and if you have a proper work ethic,

they learn to trust you.

And hopefully they like you.

And that helps you build your book of business.

Two things then with the facade,

you know,

the difference in the facade of your building,

you drew attention to yourself and a curiosity factor.

You also adjusted the name.

So it was more representative of what you do.

And then when people come in,

you're offering a wonderful experience inside.

And obviously your product is spectacular.

I know that because I've tried it many a time,

but it's interesting that you say this,

you know,

you're getting down to really the basics of being a good

business and interesting that you'd put yourself out there in terms

of the advertising not being as much as possibly you would

have wanted it to be.

What do you say David,

about social media,

Social media.

There's a lot to say about social media.

Okay. Make it a one minute explanation.

So I think social media Can definitely help and can definitely

hurt. I mean,

Oh, that's interesting years ago.

I had a college intern doing my social media and remember

bubble boy,

that kid that went up in a balloon or something,

supposedly. Yeah.

Yeah. So my college intern thought it was the funniest thing

in the entire world and wrote,

what would you take in a balloon if you were stuck

in a balloon or I think,

I don't even remember what,

how high after whatever.

Cause it was so many years ago.

So she's buying,

trying to be creative and play off of something that was

pertinent in the news at the time.

And all of a sudden,

everybody in anybody,

cause she posted like seven 30,

eight o'clock at night.

I started getting emails and texts left and right.

And I'm sitting here going,

you know,

what's going on?

And then I started reading through what people were sending me

and I had like one person say you're a disgusting person

and you know,

Lottie, Dottie die.

How could you,

I'm never shopping your store again.

And I'm like,

what, what did I do?

So I like knew the person,

you know,

through networking.

And I responded like,

can I ask what I did?

And she said that post,

you just put out there and I'm like,

okay, let me apologize.

I have a college intern working for me.

What did she put out there?

And she told me,

I was like,

Ooh. So we get to take the down and apologize.

So, you know,

social media,

you need it because you need it.

Nowadays could bite you in the tail.

If you have the wrong post out there,

you have somebody that's really angry at you or at your

business. It can bite you in this bottom side.

That being said,

it's a necessary evil,

unfortunately. And you got a budget for it.

You budget for it in terms of ads,

are you running like Facebook ads?

I don't Know.

I don't pay for,

but you know,

So you budget for it in terms of someone having somebody

on your staff,

helping you,

I mean,

and your staff are bringing in an external company to help

you or like I'm doing the videos right now that falls

under the social media budget.

Right? I mean,

I don't think in this day and age,

even if you're a local location,

you can do without some type of website presence,

you know,

whether it's your own website or a Facebook page or an

Instagram page,

whatever, you have to have something online.

I mean,

I'll be honest.

You need to have a website.

You need to have all that stuff.

At least in my opinion,

because if you don't,

you're missing out on an opportunity.

If people Google you and you don't have anything,

then when it comes up,

you know,

it, it's interesting.

My nephew graduated the other day from eighth grade and you

know, they have the different quotes and they have the video

montages. And what have you.

And one of the kids in his class,

I thought it was the funniest thing.

One of the kids said something along the lines of mom

and dad.

I don't know how you survive without Google.

I think they're right though.

The reality is how many times do you use Google a

day? A lot.

I can't count.

And I think she was trying to be funny and everybody

laughed. Cause it was funny,

but there's a certain truth to it.

So the reality is whether you want to be in social

media or not,

you have to do it.

You have to bite the bullet and Yeah,

it's a different world out there.

Sure. Yeah.

Even with a brick and mortar,

you need to take the next step.

I agree.

All right,

David, we're going to swing now into our reflection section.

So this is a look at you and just some of

the things that you do yourself or call upon within yourself

to make you successful.

If there's one trait of yours that just comes naturally,

that you tap into throughout your day,

what would that be?

The trait that I tap into is hard work and it's

the motivation that drives me to succeed.

I don't like to lose and winning doesn't necessarily mean getting

into somebody,

but it definitely means that if you take on a project

and you promise somebody something that it's a win for you

and your client,

when you deliver what you promised in a positive light.

Yeah. I would agree with you totally there.

You know,

I heard something and I'm just going to slip this in

here about competition.

You don't have to be out trying to better your competition

because sometimes your competition,

when you're a hard worker,

like your talking about David is yourself.

All you need to do to be successful is to be

a little bit better than you were yesterday.

I would agree with that.

I mean,

I think that if you're willing to work hard and you're

willing to give it 180% or 200% or whatever that magic

number is that everybody talks about,

you're more likely to be successful.

That may be a good thing for those of us who

have our own businesses and know that a majority of people

who start their own businesses because they think it's going to

be easier.

They can make a ton of money.

It can be all theirs because it goes into their pocket.

They don't have to deal with let's say,

or they don't deal with the pallets that get left in

the alley.

Any of that,

they're not going to be successful.

You know,

and those of us that do that put in the hours

that work hard to continue to grow our companies because let's

face it.

Your company can't continue being today.

What it was five years ago,

the world has changed.

You have to change with it.

So you're always evolving.

But those of us who do are miles ahead of other

business owners who don't,

who want to take the easy route.

Yeah. I mean,

I I've told this to people,

you know,

they come in,

we've had some kids like,

Oh yeah,

I want to own my own business.

And the first thing I always tell somebody,

if they say they want to own their own business,

I'm like,

do you like hard work?

And if they looked at me and they're like,

Oh, but it's easy.

I laugh at them because owning your own business is not

easy. There's a lot of hard work.

I knew that I had to do a lot of things

today. I was in New York this morning,

before four 30 and it's not even Christmas season.

And you had to be on because you were videoing.

I had to be on and I had to be on

for the videos I had to be on for this.

Right. And I knew it had to be done today.

So I left while the birds are singing.

It's all good.

That's all good.

All right,

David, besides Google,

because you've already brought that up wonderfully already.

Is there any other tool or anything else you pull out

during your Workday to help you productive or to create some

balance? And maybe you're going to say it's a piece of

chocolate. I don't know.

But what would another thing be?

Let's see,

chocolate popcorn,

nuts and Google.

I think also talking to other people,

other business owners,

talking to my wife,

who's my business partner sometimes saying,

Hey, I got the following going on.

I think it's okay to ask somebody their opinion and ask

somebody else for advice,

get another perspective or something.

And sometimes you just need to talk to somebody else.

Who's not even working for you or a customer and you

need to have somebody you can say,

Hey, the following just happened and you believe it,

or what should I do the following just happen?

Or do you have a suggestion or how do you think

we should handle?

I think talking to other people and asking for help is

a good thing.

Good point.

I mean that doesn't make you weaker.

And as business owners,

we don't have to claim to have all the answers either.

It'd be nice if we limit,

that's not true.

Yeah. And also,

you know,

just getting someone else's perspective,

who's a little bit farther away from the situation can be

very enlightened.

Yeah. And it's definitely,

you know,

taking those three steps back and that's sometimes when you call

somebody else and be like,

Hey, what are your thoughts on?

Or how would you tackle?

You know,

it helps.

Absolutely. Is there a book that you've read lately or any

other source of information that you tap into that our listeners

would also find value in?

I haven't read it recently,

but I've read it in the past.

And I pull it out every so often and I refer

to it a lot,

the E-Myth and I don't know who wrote it and I

apologize to the author for not remembering him.

It's Michael Gerber.

It's a great book.

Go ahead.

I think what's interesting about the email.

It says,

it talks about a very important concept.

It talks about working in your business and working on your

business. And too often,

as small business owners,

we spend too much time working in our business and not

enough time working on our business.

And I think that if you take anything away from what

I say today is that when you look into your day

and I get it,

there's a holiday season when we're working in our business.

And that's what it is.

But really,

if you could find some time during the course of any

day to say,

how could I improve or what could I do better?

I think you'll be a much happier person and your business

will be that much more successful.

I highly endorsed this book as well.

And I'm glad you brought it up.

It is absolutely true.

And especially very applicable to people who are listening to this

who are in the gifting,

baking, crafting industry.

And so do you consciously throughout your day,

I mean,

I I've known you for a little while and it seems

like you are very frequently working on your business,

not in your business.

You know,

it depends on the time of year.

Okay. So you flip flop back and forth,

but you consciously know where you are,

which Right.

I mean,

during the month of December where I'm getting everybody's gifts out

the door,

I'm consciously working in the business,

you know,

I'm not trying to build it.

I don't have any great marketing ideas.

If my wife calls goes,

I got the greatest idea and it's December,

you know,

ninth or 10th.

I'm like awesome.

Email it to me and I'll look at it January 3rd.

Right. But I think it's very important also to know that

there's times of the year where,

or I'll even come up with a great idea.

Sometimes not as often as my wife,

she's definitely more creative than I am,

but you know,

you come up with an idea.

It's like,

Oh, that's a really good idea.

And I put it in my calendar and say,

work on X and then it'll pop up like a month

later, like,

Oh, I forgot all about that.

And then it gives me something to do those that are

entrepreneurs that are going to come up with these ideas and

you don't have time to work on them.

It's okay to put them in a notebook or in your

calendar or something and get to them at a later point.

Yeah. But I think what you just said,

there is really important too.

Don't let that great idea get lost.

You know,

if you're in the middle of December,

when it's all physical activity movement,

getting orders out the door,

et cetera,

and a great idea comes up already have a system for

me, it's my notes app on my phone,

but have a system to capture that idea because it may

never come back to you again.

I use outlook.

Perfect. Yeah.

One, whatever the system is,

you know,

just find something so that you,

you know,

or if you're in the car driving or you're at an

event, even if it's just a party,

those ideas can be so fleeting.

And then you're later like,

Oh Mike,

what was that?

I can't recall.

What, what did I,

what was I thinking?

So we'll give busy listeners.

The E-Myth is a fabulous book.

If you haven't read it,

I would totally endorse that.

And just as you're listening to the podcast today,

I know that E-Myth is in an audio book.

I've teamed up with audible and you can get an audio

book, just like the E-Myth for free.

All you need to do is go to gift biz,

book.com and make a selection there.

That's gift biz book.com.

Okay. David,

I'm going to challenge you now to dare to dream.

I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

This is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights

that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

So the quick answer is the winning Powerball tickets.

And how much is it worth this time?

Oh, well I'm mad,

greedy, whatever it was last week,

it was like a hundred million or a hundred million or

a half a billion.

I don't know.

Okay. Something like that,

something like that,

you know,

you could like have your retirement set for,

you can take care of your staff,

make sure their retirement's all set for make sure your kid's

college and very tired and set for.

So, you know,

the winning lottery ticket or Powerball would definitely be the,

a magical ticket.

Realistically being that it's like one of a absurd number,

what would be the magical gift?

You know,

that's a really good question.

And I think the gift would be,

and this might sound,

you know,

from one extreme to the other,

the ability not to,

I really have to say it's the ability not to get

jaded and not to lose the positive spin that I'm able

to put on things.

Because if I lose that positive spin or I start getting

jaded I'm toast on one hand,

you know,

you talk about the impossible dream of winning the big tickets.

You know,

the other hand,

not getting jaded and not losing that positive spin on things

is also equally important because if you don't have that positive

spin and you don't have any ability to keep finding it,

and it's hard,

there are days where it's a tough one,

but digging deep and finding the good inside of every day

keeps you going in the right direction.

Gift biz listeners.

It's the journey along the way that feels fulfilling and successful

too. Not just the end result of a successful company.

David, I don't know if you'll agree with me or not,

but you know,

when you're talking and someone says,

well, what do you do?

And you're able to speak with pride that you own a

business you've owned all facets of that business,

the highs and the lows.

And you can stand proud because you've had to endure so

much to get to where you are,

what would be the single best way.

If people wanted to know more about you or Illinois,

nut and candy,

where's the best place for them to reach out to you?

It's definitely a good org website to learn more about us.

That's easy to Canberra and I can personally email info is

not that com or do the old fashioned way.

Pick up the phone,

Say you heard me on the podcast and if I'm not

available, my staff will get me the message.

And I promise you,

I return all my phone calls and emails,

Super well gift biz listeners.

As you also know if you've been following me for a

while, there's a show notes page.

That's connected up with this episode.

It will have all of the information just in case you're

out and about.

And weren't able to capture any of the information in terms

of contacting.

And if you're in the area,

you absolutely have to stop by and try some of David's

product. I personally endorse most the English toffee,

FYI. It's my favorite.

I super appreciate you taking some time fitting us into your

day, David.

I really appreciate all that you've shared with us today.

Some pretty interesting things that we haven't talked through before yet

on this show.

So much success to you and Melissa,

of course,

and may your candle always burn bright.

Thank you so much.

Very sweet to you and your listeners Learn how to work

smarter while developing and growing your business.

Download our guide called 25 free tools to enhance your business

in life.

It's our gift to you and available@giftbizonrap.com

slash tools.

Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the

next episode.

Today's show is sponsored by the ribbon print company,

looking for a new income source for your gift business.

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