084 – Customer Solutions Prove Profitable with Derek Thielke of Northwoods Cheese

Gift biz unwrapped episode 84.

Our business is not really a job.

It's not a career.

It's really a lifestyle.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to the gift of biz unwrapped.

And now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to gift bears on wrapped your source for industry specific

insights and advice to develop and grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Mona height.

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 Derek Belky of Northwoods

cheese. Derek is the president and majority owner of Northwoods cheese

company, which was started by Randy Krouse.

Henry's a Wiki and Derek almost 15 years ago.

Their mission is twofold to provide superior products and excellent service

and customer satisfaction.

One way they accomplish this is by partnering with green coat

industries in Monroe,

Wisconsin. This allows them to provide meaningful employment opportunities to people

with disabilities.

Northwoods cheese also offers a full range of products beyond their

wide variety of cheeses to be selected as one of their

manufacturers, they must share the same business philosophy.

They need to deliver the highest quality of materials,

flavor, and packaging.

Their newest venture company is milk truck cheese company,

which provides the Turkey brand of food products.

The first product offering under this brand contains aged cheddar cheese,

bacon, and a hint of jalapeno pepper flavor.

Oh my gosh.

Does that sound yummy?

Welcome to the show Derek.

Hey, thank you,

Sue. It was a great introduction.

I appreciate it.

I love introducing you because I've also tried your cheeses and

they are delicious.

And of course I used you back when I had the

gift basket business better.

Absolutely. We've known him.

We've known each other a long time.

Definitely A long time.

I think like we may even pass a decade at this

point. I'm not sure.

You know,

as I,

as they get older and older,

I think the timeframe is short.

And so I think we've only known each other a week.

Fair enough.

Well, I'd like to start off the podcast by having people

get to know you in a little bit of a different

way, and that is by having you describe your ideal motivational

candle kind of gives a different view of who you are.

So if you were to tell us your motivational candle,

what color would it be and what would be the quote

on the candle?

Oh, sure.

It's going to be a hard answer.

You were asking for the color,

but I actually I'm picturing this company.

I met these three ladies at Carlos Creek winery at the

grape stomp that they have every year.

They're called candle lady candles and they make candles are very

different and unique and they put wine bottle labels on them.

And so Dyneemas specific color.

I can't,

but to tell you about their business,

they're kind of motivational to me,

just great ladies,

great people,

hardworking and fun to be around.

And so it's not really color,

but it's a grouping of candles.

We can just go with the wine is the theme,

the candle.

How about that?

Great. That sounds good.

That sounds perfect.

And you know,

if I was going to put a quote on that candle,

and of course they put wine themes on their candles,

but mine would be,

have fun every day of your life work at what you

love and have God show you the way to be a

better person and get to your goals.

It's a long quote,

but It's perfect though.

And it sounds so simple,

but in reality,

it's really hard to do.

I agree with you,

but when you surround yourself with positive people and people that

are energetic,

and as you mentioned,

we work with people with disabilities.

They're always positive,

even though they may have limitations in their abilities,

they sure don't in their seeking out good things in life.

So anyways,

that's what motivates me.

They're a good role model for us all.

I think absolutely.

So Derek,

I want to go back to how Northwoods cheese formed 15

years ago,

give us a little feel as to how the three of

you came together and how the business developed.

What we basically we're thinking of doing two of us happened

to be working for one of our current competitors in a

basic way.

We were working for this company and what we didn't like

about what they were doing was they were very strict and

stringent on what they did.

So meaning like if you play snorter with them,

you had to wait five days before they'd ship it out.

And you had to adhere to all of these different things.

That to us just seem restrictive of building business and growing

a relationship together.

Because really when you look at it,

if we're in a people business and you have to treat

people right,

and you have to do things that are positive.

So anyways,

that was our thought was,

is that we just don't really like what they're doing.

So I wonder if we could do it ourselves.

I'm not naming this business,

but they were in the process,

although they didn't let their employees or people know they're in

the process of selling this business.

And we were looking at buying a piece of it.

So as time went on and things progressed,

they decided that they didn't want to sell the business to

us. And they decided that they no longer wanted us to

work there.

So basically they fired us and we were left to start

a new and what we wanted to do and starting this

business, you know,

as around the street,

trying to figure out we're going to,

McDonald's trying to figure out what are we going to do

next? We basically took what we felt was the right way

to run a business and the right way to treat customers.

And we basically said,

we're going to start a company.

The short and long of it is it took us a

lot longer than we thought to do it,

to start it from scratch.

But we ran into Henry's the Wiki,

who we had known for a number of years.

And we happened to see them out in Las Vegas.

And he listened to our story and you listened to what

we were looking at doing and what we thought about.

And he goes,

I like the idea.

He goes,

I'll give you some money.

And that's always started the company.

Although at that point we weren't anything.

We wanted to do cheese manufacturing.

And that was our main focus.

So as we started,

you know,

as we had this nucleus together to put together a business,

we started calling our customers.

And one of the things that we ran into was we

would call on people and they would say,

yeah, we like what you're doing.

And that's cool,

but we want you to make gifts.

And we're like,

no, no,

no, no.

We don't want to make any gifts.

We were just going to do cheese.

That's what we want to do.

Where they made gifts with teas in them.

Yeah, absolutely like gifts with cheese and sausage in it,

things that,

because we're kind of calling on some of our old customers,

people that we knew,

or they had contacted us and they said,

come and see us.

We want to see what you're doing.

So you're right.

It was gifts.

And so we said,

well, no,

no, no.

But at this one particular account happened to be in Chicago.

They said,

you're going to do gifts for us.

You don't have a choice.

And we said,

great. We said,

when do you need them?

And they said,

well, we would like,

this is four 30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday.

And they said,

well, we would like to have those gifts here tomorrow at

8:00 AM to show.

And then we'll tell you what we think.

And we're like,

No way,

no, wait.

Now had you even been producing cheese yet?

I mean,

were you even manufacturing yet?

So this was just pen and pen and paper at this

point. And all of a sudden you have a big order

potentially. Yeah.

That's due the next day.

Yeah. At 8:00 AM.

Yeah. So,

so we got on the parking lot,

started calling everybody that we possibly knew.

And we were able to secure some samples of cheese and

some sausage and some crackers.

And we actually contacted a group which was in Tomah,

Wisconsin that was called handy shop industries.

And it was a sheltered workshop is what they call them.

And they're basically,

they employ people with disabilities.

And when we got in contact with them,

they said,

well, yeah,

we can make cutting boards and we can put together gifts

and we can make crates.

And we can do a whole bunch of things like even

engraving, if you want it.

And we said,

great, we're going to be there at like nine o'clock at

night. And we got to work through the night to put

this together.

Cause we got to be to Chicago at 8:00 AM in

the morning.

And they said,

not a problem.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So we got a whole bunch of people together and

created 10 gifts.

We were a little late getting down to the meeting the

next day.

We didn't count on traffic.

We're not as familiar with traffic in Chicago,

but we were half hour late,

which wasn't bad.

Went to the customer and said,

this is what we have.

This is our story.

Basically just told them everything,

maybe a couple more details.

And they said,

great, we'll take them.

And we're like,

what do you mean?

You'll take them.

And they're like,

we love the story.

We love the idea.

We love what you're doing and we'll take all of them.

And we said,

yeah, but you always beat us up on pricing and this

and that.

And they said,

no, we're taking it as is price as is no problem

at all.

And they were our first customer.

Were they doing that because they wanted to support you in

your growth?

You think?

I think they liked us.

I mean,

I can also say it.

I think they liked us as people.

They liked what we were doing as far as our idea.

And they liked that we jumped through hoops to get it

there for them.

I mean,

it showed that we cared about them as a customer and

as people,

anyways, Sabre first customer,

we had to work on figuring out how to do the

rest of the stuff,

but we had a number of months to go.

So we were fine.

Stop you here.

Cause there's a couple more things I want to highlight for

our listeners.

The first thing is a lot of you guys I know

are still working a full-time job and possibly you're doing your

hobby on the side or you're building up your hobby into

a business on the side.

And you know,

so many people talk about escaping your nine to five,

you know,

all of that for a business.

But I think Derek here has mentioned a couple of things

that are interesting for you to compare with your situation right

now, when he was working for that other company.

Number one,

he's getting into experience in an industry.

So he's learning all of the behind the scene,

things of what it takes to manufacturer a product,

be it cheese or whatever.

And then he was also seeing what they were doing.

I don't know,

dare I say wrong or how he could improve it.

So there was a lot of,

lot knowledge that you also can pick up based on a

situation you might currently be in.

So reflect on that for yourself in terms of where you

are right now.

And can any of that be transferred over into what you're

trying to create And Sue,

I don't mean to interrupt you,

but I was going to just say also that,

you know,

in the niche industry that we're working in,

I've worked for all of my competitors over the years.

And I've always said this,

that I've had the best teachers in the world and the

worst teachers in the world.

And what I mean by that is that all of the

ones that were terrible on whatever,

and they tried don't,

don't get me wrong.

I'm not being mean.

I'm just saying they were terrible.

I watched what they did.

And they thought in my mind,

I'm going to do exactly opposite what they're doing.

And then I also had great teachers and I would take

the things that they taught me and showed me and combine

that together to form who I was and what my thoughts

were and what my philosophy was.

I'm not saying,

you know,

we can always do better and we can always be better

in all of that.

But my parents were both teachers.

So I've had good teachers in my life.

We'll just put it that way.

So then the only other thing I was going to say

too, as,

as you were talking,

I was thinking of this.

It's like,

you know,

I know what it's like to have another job and,

and, and be working that while you're trying to get into

a career with something else,

like starting a business of some kind,

when you were saying that the first thing that popped into

my mind was what we do or like our business.

It's not really a job.

It's not a career.

It's really a,

and you kind of get absorbed into it because that's who

you are.

That's your identity.

So I just wanted to add that because it just seemed

to fit.

Yeah, no.

Well said,

because when you are doing something that is your own,

you can't help it integrated into your whole life.

I mean,

you can say,

you know,

you're going to have personal time and you're going to have

business time,

but let's face it.

When you're a business owner,

there's always a portion of your mind.

I mean,

you might be in the moment in personal events,

but if something triggers a thought for business,

your business is always there.

It's always an underlying current,

no matter what.

Absolutely. And if that's not something that you want to do

or enjoy,

or be a part of it's,

that's probably not the best thing for you to start your

own business.

I mean,

even if you go on vacation,

I always case or look at the places that have gifts

in it because that's the industry I sell to.

I go to the grocery store and I look at packaging

designs and this and that.

And you go,

well, you just pick it up,

milk and eggs.

You know what excitement can you find there,

but there's always some discoveries happening anywhere you go.

And so it's pretty much except for,

for when you're sleeping 24,

seven job in a way or a career or lifestyle.

I totally agree with you on that.

The other thing I want to point out about your story

so far,

because there's a lot more to go here,

Derek, but his opportunity knocked for you.

And then also the company that you,

what was the name of the company again,

where you drove and they Shop industries,

candy shop Industries.

Okay. So Derek being in,

I mean,

so easily,

it could have been an obvious thing for them to say,

you know what?

We're not quite set up yet,

but I'm so glad you're interested.

We'll be back to you.

Did they do that?

No. They took the opportunity because they saw a sale.

They saw a way to get jump-started right away.

Even though you guys had to be shaking in your boots,

like, how the heck are we going to pull this off?

But they took that challenge.

And then what did they do?

They called this other company.

And that company also took the challenge because right away they

had to get in gear and perform and help make this

happen. So again,

challenges when they come up,

don't be so quick to say no,

or to put it off because it might be your one

big opportunity.

I always say,

you know,

when people say,

can you do that?

We always say yes.

And then sometimes it's a dumb thing to say,

but I'm most of the time you figure out a way

to do it and make it work for everyone.

So people sometimes will timidly ask me,

well, can you do that?

Like, yeah,

that's what we're in the business to do is find solutions

and answers for people.

I mean,

yeah, we're in the gift business and we're in the cheese

business and we sell sausage and this and that,

but we're really a solution company.

We're selling a product,

but we're not really selling solutions.

So What are the solutions?

What are you,

what solutions are you selling?

Just give us by example so that everyone understands.

What do you mean by that?

Most of the calls I get,

especially this time of the year.

Now we're talking November 1st.

Everybody forgets that Christmas comes on December 25th.

That doesn't change.

It's always there.

A lot of the calls that we get are,

or emergencies.

Everything's an emergency this time of the year.

We always say slow times of the year.

We deal in hours and,

and we deal in days.

Now we deal in seconds.

And so when someone contacts us,

they got a problem usually.

And so we find a solution for them,

which is,

well, guess what?

You know,

I know somebody that's right next door to you in the

same town,

that's got product.

They want to get rid of it.

They come on over,

they'll take those,

they'll give it their,

not give it to you,

but sell it to you.

You know,

I can ship that out today.

I can,

even though you're looking for a gift that we don't currently

make, we can design one for you.

You know,

things like that.

That's what I'm saying by solutions.

And if we have the philosophy,

if you need something the next day.

So I mean,

just I'm talking to you cause you're with,

you know,

within a driving distance.

I mean,

if we really need to drive it there and get it

to you.

Oh, you should not have said that.

Yeah. I know.

I figured that.

Yeah. I'll probably be in trouble,

but in all seriousness,

because of,

again, we're in the people business too.

I mean,

it's a relationship we've built over the years.

You wouldn't take advantage of me and do it every time.

But if you need it,

you need it.

So obviously that calls critical and we would take care of

it for you.

That's kind of how we are.

Well, and I can say that when I was using your

product in my gift baskets,

I would call you and you would do everything you could

to get it out that night so that I have it

the next day.

Absolutely. So what you speak is what you do.

I can say,

I can see that for sure.

Now, are you a hundred percent wholesale or do you have

individual consumers coming to your site and purchasing as well?

We do have people at probably our retail business.

If you want to call it that retail part of our

business has maybe 10% to 15%.

Most everything is wholesale.

Although we do have,

I didn't even mention this product,

but we also sell a fat-free cheese.

That's called lifetime cheese and that's an excellent product tastes great.

We're mainly a company because of how we're set up.

We fulfill orders for individual people throughout the United States.

Those orders are smaller,

but they're kind of neat because again,

as we mentioned,

we're employing people with disabilities so they can pull those orders,

put them together and ship them out.

They do a great job doing those things where it's a

six is threes,

tens, twelves,

you know,

pulling those orders together.

So, All right,

now you've already mentioned in the development of the business and

how you started to grow some of the challenges.

Is there something else that you encountered as you were growing

the business that was a real challenge for you?

Yeah. I think I'd want to point out two things.

One was our first year that we were open for business.

We did everything as a sales person,

we thought was right.

And we,

we did a great job.

We were really excited.

We came to our accountant at the end of the year

and who said,

Hey, guess what?

We made money this year.

And he goes,

no, no,

no, he,

you don't want to make money your first year.

You don't want to make money.

Your second year.

You don't want to make money your third year,

then you can start doing it.

And we're like looking at you're like,

what are you talking about?

Many of our listeners are saying the same thing.

Yeah. And I'm like,

why? You know,

cause I want to make millions of dollars the first year.

And he said,

no, it's just,

you just want to,

you know,

you have to take advantage.

I mean,

he bought all of this product,

you bought all of these labels and this and that.

There's things that you need to,

to write off.

And you know,

I don't know the accounting end of it.

Cause I'm just a sales guy.

Okay. But yeah,

he said,

yeah, that's what you want to do.

So we're like,

Hmm. Okay,

well let's go into year two.

So we went into year two and that was my first

problem. Here's my second problem.

My second year now I'm free with my money.

I'm like,

well, yeah,

I want to lose money this year.

That's what they call them set.

Let's go for it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So whether it was right advice or not from our accountant,

it doesn't matter.

We're into year two and we had some issues.

So here's the main issue.

This, the main thing I wanted to tell you about is

that, you know,

for instance,

Sue, you would call me and you'd say,

yeah, you know,

I'm thinking of making some gifts this year.

I'm like,

Oh, okay,

what shoes are you gonna use?

And he said,

I'm going to use roasted garlic.

Well then I just make a batch of raw roasted garlic

for you.

And then the next person would call.

And they'd say,

yeah, I'm thinking about doing this,

thinking about doing this,

all of a sudden we're taking everything that everybody's thinking about

and we're making against those things and we're putting things together.

And at the end of the year,

we're like,

why do we have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of

stuff that we didn't sell?

And we're going to have to throw away because it has

a short shelf life because your product is perishable.

Yes. And I should mention this,

that some of the things weren't perishable,

I'm like certain boxes and they do have a life and

labels and some crates and a whole bunch of stuff.

Well, let's put it this way.

We've been in business 15 years.

I still have some of that stuff from 14 years ago.

Oh my gosh.

And then it's a storage issue.

It's taking up space,

It's taking up space.

It's, you know,

it would be nice money that I could put in my

pocket and all those types of things.

So I got Some of that on eBay or something.

Get rid of it.

We Tried to do that,

but you know,

we bought a lot of stuff.

I mean,

you can buy a container of this and a container of

that. And all of a sudden it,

it adds up really quickly.

So there's one of my problems.

Okay. So let me ask you this.

So the,

for a couple of questions on the first year.

Okay. So the first year he was saying that,

because then you had,

you owed a lot in taxes because your company was profitable

right? From the start,

Correct? Yes.

Yes. And,

and there was things that we could have done differently.

You know,

again, that's more of a issue that I don't know anything

about. Yeah,

exactly. I know we made money.

Wasn't a lot of money,

but it was money.

Right. Okay.

So good point in terms of staying close with your bookkeeper

or your tax accountants or whoever to plan your path before

it actually happens versus afterwards,

I guess that may be a learning.

Now question for you,

you were still pulling a salary from work From the business.

Yes. We were Baking too much money or not making enough

money. Doesn't mean you're not getting paid,

but that was the point I wanted to try and get

to correct.

That's part of the cost of the business.

Even if you are a single person,

solo entrepreneur,

if you will making your product,

your salary is part of the business finances.

So when Derek says making money or losing money,

that doesn't mean they're not getting paid.

No, No,

I'm sorry.

I should've been clear.

No, no.

I just wanted to point that out to everybody just to

make sure we're all together on this.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so I think what it was is,

and again,

we're, we're just talking like a couple thousand dollars that we

made a profit.

Well, what we could have done differently because it's the same

LLC. So it's a pass through,

I don't know what I'm talking about.

So I'm just telling you what I thought we could have

paid ourselves a thousand dollars extra each or $500 each.

And we would have been taxed,

not as a business,

which I believe is 50%,

but we could have been taxed on our individuals because we're

still receiving any income.

We have to pay taxes on that.

Does that make sense?

Is that a little bit clear,

Right? It's just where the numbers fall and how they're all

accounted for.

So you could have done business exactly the same way.

And just by the actions that you took,

your end result would have looked better for year one.

So I love that you brought this up because it's not

something that we've talked about yet on a podcast.

And I think it's really important to understand that.

And again,

the whole idea is figure that out beforehand,

or keep someone who's financially savvy looking at the numbers so

that they can catch you before you do that.

I had a similar situation in that when for the ribbon

print company,

when I stocked up on all this ribbon,

we all of a sudden we're sitting on a ton of

inventory because we have to,

I mean,

we had to stock up,

have things in all sizes,

have lots of it.

And I got hit the same way.

Not understanding the implications.

Now I still have to stock up,

but could I have done it differently?

Could I have maybe purchased some in one calendar year and

some in another calendar year didn't even Exactly.

I, and I think,

you know,

when someone's starting a business and if we're talking that way,

I might be great at designing things.

That's fantastic,

but you also need to have somebody that's great at selling

the things.

And then in addition to that,

you have to have somebody that's great at either managing inventory

or doing the accounting or some control of what's going on

in the business.

And if you don't have those elements,

even though you might have the best design in the world,

you're not going to succeed.

And if you don't have all of those elements together and

maybe you're lucky and you are one of those kinds of

people, and I know some of those people,

you know,

you had to have all of that together.

Otherwise, like we were just sales guys.

We didn't know what's going on.

You know,

I don't know.

Well, and I could see some people saying,

yeah, well that's,

but I don't have any money to be hiring people.

I'm just getting started.

One way to overcome that situation is do some bartering.

If you're part of a chamber or you have friends who

provide those services,

and maybe you may candles,

maybe you do a trade.

You know,

I'll give you some candles that you can use for a

holiday gift.

Can you take a look at my numbers?

Like that type of thing.

So it doesn't always have to be hard dollars transitioning back

and forth.

I even think what you're doing here with the podcasts.

I mean,

that's providing information to people there's Google.

There's a whole bunch of different things that can allow you

to fine tune what you're thinking.

Sure. What types of things have you seen really help move

the needle in terms of bringing in sales?

I was thinking when we started,

you know,

again, it was a slow movement type thing.

We did one thing that really helped us a lot.

And it took a little bit of time,

but we did this outdoor festival.

I can tell you what it is and everything it's,

it's called Warren's cranberry festival.

And at the time when we started it,

they had maybe,

and I might have these numbers wrong.

So don't quote me on any of this.

But you know,

35,000 people show up at this event outdoor event.

And we thought,

well, why don't we do this cheese,

this cranberry cheese we can put cranberries and cheese.

That should be pretty good.

And so we went to the festival,

all excited and everything.

And while it snowed and it rained and we were in

a bad location and we sold and we were happy with

this, we sold $700 worth.

We thought that was great.

Right? So the next year we signed up again,

while they had a little bit more people coming to this,

we were in a better spot.

And we ran out of cheese in the first three hours.

Cause we thought we'll just double,

but we had more made.

So we ran not far away to get more.

And I mean,

it was a very successful event the second year.

And what came of it is,

it was an exposure for us to a different type of

market. So people are like,

well, I like your cheese,

but I see you make gifts because you have this website

and I want to order guests for my business.

Oh yeah.

Okay. That sounds great.

I mean,

I'm joking here when I say it,

but you know,

we're really just cheese.

That's really what we are.

And they said,

no, no,

you're going to make gifts.

And we're like,

cool. Okay.

So of course you are Derek.

You're from Wisconsin dad.

So, You know,

and then by the third year and the fourth year,

I mean,

it, it just exponentially increased in size for us as far

as the volume.

And they grew as far as a festival and we branched

out and did another festival and then that was an Eagle

river. And then we did another one in Minnesota.

And what,

I guess what I'm saying is,

is that we just went to this festival cause we thought

it'd be fun just to hang out and see if we

can sell some cheese.

But now our cranberry cheeses are number one best-selling cheese.

And it's not because of the business that we're doing at

the festival,

which is substantial.

It's good.

But it's a unique,

interesting product that has a year round use.

I mean,

it sells a lot for Valentine's day.

It sells a lot for Thanksgiving and Christmas and any time

of the year and we wouldn't have done it.

If Joe from handy shop industry said,

yeah, we're going to be in the parade at this festival.

You guys should bring some cheese there.

So anyways,

You had your eyes and ears open.

That goes to the point of you're always living in your

business, the business lifestyle.

I think the other thing is when we are so close

to our business,

we think that everybody knows everything we do.

And you said something really potent,

you know,

the festivals are great because they give exposure to different sides

of your business.

The whole gift thing that really,

you were just there to sell the cranberry cheese.

If people knew of Northwoods cheese,

I'm sure they would come up here to your table if

nothing else,

but to get samples so yummy.

But then they see the cranberry cheese and then they see

all these gifts that sparks an idea and what a successful

situation, right.

Then people buy for their business.

And then you just keep doing more of what works,

meaning going to the festival.

Well, we brought our catalog and then by accident,

we had some gifts like the second year we just,

somebody put them on there,

they sold out and we're like,

Oh, maybe we should bring some gifts.

The next time people are asking about gifts.

And you're saying like,

sometimes you think,

you know your business really well.

And you think everybody knows about what you do at least

in the last year.

The most common question that everybody's been asking me or saying

is, I can't believe it.

Oh, you guys do engraving of those cutting boards.

And we're like,

well, yeah,

didn't, you know that.

So we're doing a lot of engraving work this year too,

which is kind of Interesting.

Yeah. So yeah.

So make sure you're talking.

If you're in networking meetings or anywhere gift biz listeners,

make sure you're talking up other parts of your business that

you might not have talked about.

It seems so obvious to you,

but not necessarily to everybody else.

Absolutely. So let's talk,

I know that your values,

one of your big values is customer service.

That's really important,

both on the way you do business.

And then anyone that you bring in as a manufacturer for

you, that whole business philosophy is really important to you.

What types of things do you do to make sure that

customers really know you value their business?

Well, now everybody's going to know my trick and I've told

people, people know this and I talk about it,

but I use a program called act it's act with an

exclamation point.

I believe it's by Intuit,

but it's a customer database management type program,

the short version of what it is.

And I can go in more details if you want.

But basically way back when I started with act like act

one, and now it's 18.1

or something.

I don't know what the number is.

But anyway,

what it does is you basically put the people's name and

their phone numbers and emails,

and each time you contact them by email or calling or

talking to them on the phone,

I put notes,

this act program.

And so for instance,

say, if you called me on the phone,

we have caller ID.

So it has a phone number on there.

And you'll notice that I never answer on the first ring.

You'll find that about me.

It's usually on the third ring because I have to type

in the phone.

Now a lot of people have anonymous or it's blanked or

it's, you can't tell what the number is.

So once I answer the phone,

then I'm also,

you know,

they'll say,

hi, this is Sue from ribbon print.

Okay. So I'm going to type in Sue.

I'm going to type in ribbon.

And when I type that into this program,

it'll pull it up.

So say if it's sous,

there might be a hundred sues.

Okay. But I can narrow down that list to maybe five

or six because you have a Midwestern accent.

You don't have a Southern accent.

You know what I'm saying?

You can narrow it down and pretty much pick out who

it is.

And the reason I'm telling you all this detail,

this is what I'm doing.

When that phone call comes in.

And my notes,

if I do a good job,

keeping notes,

I can say things like,

Oh yeah,

it's so good to talk to you.

And they said,

Oh yeah,

you remembered me.

I said,

yeah, we talked.

And because it's right in front of me.

Yeah. We talked in March and you had said that your

daughter was having a baby.

Will she have a boy or a girl?

And it just adds a little personal touch to it.

And maybe it sounds like I'm manipulating the situation or whatever,

but I really care about the customers.

And so it's important to me that I have that information

in front of me.

So that's one of the things that I do By nature

of even putting it in there.

It helps you to remember it anyway.

Yeah. So that's kind of your backup and let's face it

as we all get older.

And when you grow and have a lot of customers,

it's unrealistic that you would even be able to remember all

of that at some point.

True. And I usually can remember people by their voice,

not their name,

it's a weirdest thing.

So their voice usually sets me going on,

who it might be.

And what also is important is,

I mean,

we're not perfect.

So we make mistakes,

we make errors,

we do things wrong.

And I have a good note system in here.

So like for instance,

if I sent an order to the wrong address before,

I don't know,

I'm making things up here,

but you know,

I can say,

cause you've never done that.

I've done it.

Yes, yes.

Not today though,

but, but you know,

I can say,

you know,

Alice or,

or Mary or whatever,

saying we shipped the wrong address as something.

I just want to make sure that I verify where I'm

shipping to this time.

So I don't make that error.

And people seem to appreciate that,

that you make sure or care that you're trying to do

things. Right.

Cause that's in the end of the day,

that's, you know,

that's what you want to do.

You want to do things.

Right. Right.

And I think if people really see that you're making an

effort and something does go wrong,

they're much more forgiving.

Oh, absolutely.

And the other thing I was going to say is this,

and it's might sound a little weird,

but I always say that.

Yeah. I'm just really more lazy.

I don't it's,

it's so hard to fix a error than it is to

do it right.

The first time.

So I will say I'm lazy.

I want to do it right the first time.

That's what I say.

That's good.

I like that.

Yeah. I don't know.

Yeah. It makes sense to me.

And I'm not lazy by the way,

but that's,

that's my,

how I say it.

No, I know you're not.

You're out and about.

It shows all the time and you're talking with customers all

the time that I know.

So Derek,

we're going to move now into our reflections section,

getting to know a little bit more about you as a

person and things that have helped you to be successful.

If there's one trait that you say you'd call upon regularly,

that's just an innate quality of yours.

What would that be?

Well, you know,

w I just said I was lazy,

so that's not it,

but no,

no, absolutely not.

I got to say it this way.

My father is somebody that I really aspire to be like,

and my dad is very hardworking and very dedicated to what

he does.

And he is a person that's now retired.

So he's only working five days a week.

This I'm telling you exactly what he says.

Now he's only working five days a week.

And I can't tell you his age,

but he's,

if you met him,

you'd say,

there's no way.

He's the age that he is.

And he doesn't even know how old he is by the

way. But I think that the trait of being very hardworking,

never giving up and never taking another,

I could tell the spot,

my dad,

my dad only missed two days of work in his entire

life. And it was,

he missed one day because his mom died in one day

because his father died.

That's I don't know if that's a trait,

but hopefully I'm encapsulating.

Ideally what I would like to be like,

or that's a trait that I show The whole idea of

being a hardworking,

dedicated to your business and loving what you do allows you

to do both of those things.

If you love what you're doing,

you want to be hardworking because you like being Well.

Absolutely. And I should say it this way,

also with a few exceptions,

I've had bad days,

maybe like three of them in my life.

But for the most part,

I've never really worked a day in my life.

It's just fun.

You know,

people spend time fishing,

hunting, playing tennis,

golfing, whatever.

To me,

that's like work because you know,

some of those I love to do of course,

but you know,

there's still kind of work because you have to work on

them. Well,

if I love what I do in my business and my

job and how I'm meeting people and talking to people,

that's fun,

you know,

that's, that's fun.

So I was like I said,

maybe three days I worked in my entire life and that's

because they were not so good days,

but that happens.

And if you can count them on a hand,

you're pretty lucky,

maybe two hands.

So you've already talked about apt a little bit.

Is there another tool that you use to keep productive or

is act the,

why Act as pretty much,

you know,

I, I talked about it in training classes,

you know,

for seminars that I've gone to,

I'm maybe not the best person to talk about it because

I know it so well,

I live it.

I use it every single day,

but I guess I really have to say whether it's act

or it's another database manager or,

I mean,

I know there's other tools that are out there that people,

I think what you're saying is some type of a client

contact manager,

being able to be closer to your customers and providing them

the service that they need and making them feel special because

you recall conversations that you've had in the past,

all of it.

And that's all important for me and my life is things

get busier time of the year.

Like I said,

we work now in seconds,

not minutes or hours or days,

if I don't keep track of everything,

I'll start to forget things.

I mean,

we work with about 4,000

different customers.

I just want to make sure that I have the right

stuff or the right information.

So, Yeah.

Yep. Got it.

All right.

Is there a book that you've read lately that you think

our listeners could find value in?

I met a really nice lady a number of years ago

and she told me,

Hey, you got to start reading the Bible.

So I started reading it and you know,

I don't want to get into that part,

but you know,

I started reading it and I almost got through it.

But what I found,

like start to finish.

Yeah, yeah.

Start to finish old Testament.

And that,

that was hard.

Reading. New Testament was good.

There's parts and pieces in there that I tried to incorporate

in my life.

And I'm surprised at how many people I run into that

are followers and way stronger faith than I I've.

You know,

my faith is very small compared to some people's.

And it's interesting.

You build a relationship with people of faith.

I don't know.

I should,

maybe this isn't a perfect thing to talk about in this

podcast, but I just thought I mentioned it Because it's anything

about you.

You know,

everyone comes from different places and is attracted to different things.

So that's perfect.

Okay. And give biz listeners just as you're listening to the

podcast today,

you can also listen to audio books with ease.

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

book. If you haven't already for free.

All you need to do is go to gift biz,

book.com and make a selection.

That's gift biz,

book.com. Okay.

Derek. Now I want to invite you 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.

So 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?

Well, most people would say that if I was trying to

pick the perfect thing to dream about maybe a lot of

candy, I don't know.

I like,

I like candy,

so, but that's not what's in this box.

So thank you very much for presenting it to me,

you know?

Yeah. And you think maybe the Cubs would win.

The world series would be in there.

That would be high on the list.

But Final game tonight,

we'll see what happens.

I'll keep it.

I'm going to keep this in if they win.

Yeah. Fair enough.

You know,

I guess what I would really like in that box is

a real clear,

it would tell me what my purpose is in life.

You'd say,

well, I don't get what you're saying.

So let me expound on it a little bit.

What I believe my purpose in life is,

is to touch the lives of every person in the entire

world and do something for them or with them that makes

their life better.

So I don't know if I'm,

if, if that makes any sense to you at all,

but I'm hopeful that this box that you're presenting me with

would tell me what my purpose is in life.

And that purpose would be what I just explained.

What do you think about that?

I think you're already doing it and you don't even know

it. That's what I think you just want me,

you just want confirmation that you're doing what you should be

doing. So,

yeah. Yeah.

And I don't think that's a selfish thing.

I think it's do you,

I don't know.

I was,

I was trying to figure it out.

Not at all.

I'm running it through my mind when I'm saying this and

I'm like,

Oh, that sounds selfish.

I don't mean it to be,

but wouldn't that be cool?

Because if it was,

if, if your answered was to come back and it was

different than what you were already doing,

you would probably pivot.

So if you go along with the idea that you're seeking

out to ensure that you're doing what you should be doing,

then if you aren't,

you probably going to get some messages,

I would think so and switch it up.

That's my,

that's what I think.

No, I think you're right on that path.

I think you're right there.

You know,

me well enough.

That's how I roll.

If that makes sense.

And that's kinda how I am and maybe other people would

say, Oh yeah,

I would like to have this,

this and that or whatever.

You know,

I think that stuff just comes to you naturally,

as you do.

What's right.

If that makes sense.

Yep. I agree with you.

Okay. So Derek,

how would it be best if our listeners wanted to know

more about North winds cheese,

what's the single best location for them to reach out to

you or your business?

Do you have a new website it's www dot North woods

with an S Northwoods cheese.com

Clean and simple,

and to the point,

all right.

Gift is listeners.

As you know,

there is a show notes page that connects up with this

episode. So if you also want to see what's up with

Derek on social media sites,

you'll be able to get all of that information over on

the show notes page,

Derek, thank you so much.

I really appreciate your being willing to come on the podcast.

You've shared such great information,

and you've been talking about how you want to touch lives

and make people's lives better.

And honestly,

a lot of the information that you've shared today about your

experiences and your advice I know is going to do just

that may your candle always burn out.

Thank you,

Sue. I appreciate it.

And thank you for the honor and privilege.

Where are you in your business building journey,

whether you're just starting out or already running a business,

and you want to know your setup for success.

Find out by taking the gift biz quiz,

access the quiz from your computer at bit dot L Y

slash gift biz quiz or from your phone by texting gift

biz quiz to four four two,

two, two.

Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the

next episode.

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