076 – Actionable Advice with a Southern Living Flair with Eric Rion

Hi there.

This is gift biz on rapt episode 76.

And she says,

Oh, well,

what do you do?

I said,

well, I've got the shortbread cookies right across the way here.

She says,

Oh, well,

I'm the person you need to talk to.

No way way.

Hi, John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to gift to biz unwrapped,

and now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to gift bears,

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 Eric Ryan of willows

shortbread. After 28 years of fighting the stress of corporate America.

Eric joined the growing ranks of corporate expatriates and took on

the challenges of running a small business.

Willis shortbread is a family owned and operated business located just

North of Nashville,

specializing in handmade shortbread and savory cheese cookies.

Willa's currently offers over 20 varieties in their all natural all

butter products and is featured in gourmet and specialty shops,

subscription boxes,

and private labels all across the country.

Willis shortbread has been featured in numerous publications,

including Southern living magazine and winning their prestigious best of the

South award.

they've also been featured on unwrapped 2.0

What an exciting business,

Eric, welcome to the show.

Thank you soon.

Glad to be here.

I like to start out every episode by having us learn

a little bit more about you in a creative way.

And that is by having you describe your ideal motivational candle.

So if you were to do that,

what color would that candle be and what would be the

quote? Oh wow.

You're making me think this early in the morning,

painful, painful.

You are the one who said we had to do this

early, so you don't get out of that so easy.

No, I'm a morning person.

Believe me,

color wise.

I don't know if color of candle really matters.

I think,

you know,

I guess the fragrance matters more to me than the color.

So I need something that is soothing,

soothing fragrance.

That's not overly.

Okay. It smells like old spice.

Oh, old spice,

old spice.

I'm kind of a old school type guy when it comes

to that.

So go ahead.

So like the aftershave old,

like the aftershave,

Well, yeah,

now the new stuff is no good.

And the old,

the old stuff is,

So what would be the quote on that candle that smells

like old spice.

This is from a song that I like,

and it's,

it's a very simple quote.

It's breathe in,

breathe out,

move on.

And it related to Samantha,

hurricane Katrina.

And it's just,

you know,

Hey, you just gotta take a deep breath,

read that,

keep going.

And that to me describes love,

especially in small business.

Yeah, you're right.

You can't just dwell on problems because I think as an

entrepreneur and running your own business,

they're going to be problems every day.

You just have to tackle them,

get over it and carry on.

Like you said,

There's another little one here and I've got one over on

the wall and I'll go over here.

Cause this is by some old German guy.

It goes back to like 18 hundreds.

And it,

this quote goes whatever you can do or dream,

you can begin it.

Boldness has genius,

power and magic in it.

So the thing is,

you may be hesitant to start something,

but once you start,

you go.

So if you've done all your prep work and you go,

Oh, well,

if I can just get this done or that done,

then I can get going with it.

But the thing is,

the boldness comes from starting.

Once you start things,

start going,

you know,

falling into place.

Have you ever run into people who say,

well, I'm going to write that book or,

Oh yeah,

I'm going to start a business.

You know?

And it's always in the future,

but it never actually happens.

And I totally agree with you in terms of getting started.

I think that's the hardest thing.

Just taking that very first step.

Yeah. We all have dreams.

I mean,

Oh, I'd like to do that.

Well, okay,

go do that.

Right. But I can't do that.

I've got to do this and I got to do that.

Then you don't want to do that bad.

Right. Right.

Or you're fearful.

You're just afraid to take,

or you don't know the first step to take,

which is also possible.

Yeah. And that's why,

you know,

doing what you're doing here.

People have a resource if I'm starting a business or maybe

I need to hear from people,

more people who do this.

Okay. So Eric,

take us back to what will is starts with.

Cause that's a really interesting story.

And then how you integrated into the business.

Okay. Yeah.

Willa Allen,

the lady who started Willow's shortbread is my sister-in-law's mother-in-law Sister

in laws,

mother in law.

Okay. Got it.

For, for the,

for the uninformed of his it's my wife's sister's husband's mother.

Okay. Let's just go with a relative distant relative.

So had this business,

she had started from out of her home kitchen,

over in the Highlands of North Carolina,

back in the mid seventies and had grown it to be

a fairly nice business.

I mean,

they had,

it was probably half a million dollar,

a year type business that they had grown at two,

had a nice location,

pretty good comp client base.

Well, Willis husband had retired and she was getting kind of

tired of this,

doing it every day and,

and whatnot.

So she decided to sell the business.

Well, her son and I,

and our wives,

her sisters cooked up this great idea.

Why don't we take the company over and we can move

it over here to Nashville where we are and run it

as a part time.

Think how much fun would be.

Ha Yeah,

just shoot me now.

I'll get it over with bang.

So, and if the time it was like,

yeah, great.

I mean,

we all had regular careers to why for both sisters Clark

was an engineer and you know,

I was doing my sales gig,

just fat,

dumb and happy.

And so we did,

we kind of loaded everything up on a couple of trucks,

brought it over here and set everything up in the,

the luxurious building I'm sitting in right now,

which is a converted industrial strip mall.

Which, I mean,

she obviously gave you the recipe.

Did she teach you how to make the cookies?

Or how,

how did that transition?

That's funny.

Well, the wives went over and did the two days of

cookie school.

They called it over and that before we moved everything out

of there.

So they went and watched and actually got to play around

with it.

And of course her son had helped out there at the,

in the company as he was in high school and stuff

in college.

So he basically knew the basics of a,

we brought it on all over here and said like,

how difficult can it fate?

Well, yeah.

Good luck.

Two things.

First of all.

Yeah, you may have a recipe,

but if you don't know how to do it,

it's difficult.

What is the texture you trying to get?

What temperatures do you need to be working at?

Oh, Hey,

butter's better cold.

No, not when you're baking it.

Interesting. And those are little tricks of the trade that either

get passed on or you have to learn,

You learn the depositers that we have.

This is the machine that physically makes the cookies.

There's a video that I think you're going to put a

link onto here that shows our old cookie King.

It's a hand crank wire cut deposit.

Or that basically I cranked this thing by hand for over

10 years,

Willa said early on that thing is not a science.

It's an art.

And you know,

you blow that off and you think,

you know,

everything, your art,

but then when you start doing,

it's go,

why did these things not look right?

Well, I don't think fall.

Right? And Oh,

it's, it's,

it's a technique.

And it's a learning a flip of the wrist.

Or if the Doe's fallen in this way,

you can adjust this or you change how you drop on,

but it's,

and it takes years.

Now, this is significant because if some of our listeners are

thinking that they might acquire a business,

instead of starting something themselves,

is there anything hindsight now,

again, it was in family.

So you knew you had access to will,

if you,

if you had any questions,

that kind of thing.

But is there any advice you'd give our listeners if they're

looking at acquiring a business that you've learned now,

hindsight after taking it over?

Yeah. Definitely spend as much time as you can learning the

actual process and watch it participate.

If they'll let you come in and physically do it.

Oh, by all means,

please take advantage of every bit of that.

You can get,

it definitely will flatten out that learning curve so much trial

and error.

I pity the people who got our first cookies.

Unfortunately it was our largest customer at the time.

You know,

everybody goes through that learning process.

So it's not like you start a business and then you

just jump to perfection and winning the best of the South

award and all of that,

you know,

you have to go through these processes in these phases.

So I think it's a really good conversation to have,

because you can hear what Eric is saying.

I mean,

he was a professional from the corporate world.

He had someone who could train them,

who was in the family.

So what better in terms of a situation for wanting the

best for the product moving forward yet still there's a learning

curve and you have to go through probably those still very

delicious cookies,

but not shaped properly or,

you know,

whatever it was right in the beginning.

But that's how you get to the point of perfection with

your product is by taking that time,

going through those phases and learning what you have to do.

And it sounds to me like Eric,

cause I have watched that video and you and I met

years ago when you were having trouble with your shoulder,

from all that cranking.

Right. But it sounds like it's really,

it's the feel for the machine.

And I know how you've upgraded and replaced that machine.

I believe.

I just want to underline this for everybody that it's a

process. You don't go from nothing to perfection right away.

So be gentle with yourself and understand that it's going to

take a little bit of time.

Yeah. We were fortunate that,

you know,

Wilson was very into the physical business side of it.

The financials,

getting everything set up.

As far as the system,

we went from a very antiquated bookkeeping system and upgraded into

the time QuickBooks was state of the art,

having to transfer all this old programming and everything over.

So have somebody who can get that,

then you have to really start drilling down into it.

And it's one of the things that,

that I did for my past was be able to,

to develop spreadsheets and,

and look at,

you know,

actual costs and being able to take things and say,

okay, well we need to do some pricing adjusting here or

quantities. Something's not jiving and find out where you need to

be. So you're not just taking,

like we came in with existing price levels that we'll have

had been using and we rode with those for awhile.

But then we,

you gotta keep a very close eye on your cost and

watch your pricing.

And you know,

unfortunately for us,

you've got to also stay within a market,

you know,

price level,

I think for everybody,

I mean,

you had a different layer that people already existing customers already

knew a certain pricing schedule from you guys from the past,

but you always have to be adjusting and changing and you

know, your costs change too.

So the price of your product changes.

Exactly. Let's talk more about the pricing and how you made

your adjustments.

Did you go back to some of the existing customers and

then have to adjust their rates at some point Yeah.

Pricing you have to.

Now one of the things that we'll have had done for

last year or so of the businesses that she knew she

was going to be exiting this.

So they were taking a very close look at their costs

and had done things like started using margarine instead of butter

using a more and more margin into the product because you

know, it's a dollar,

a pound then versus $3 a pound or $2 pound,

whatever it was,

that's one of those decisions that you have to make.

They still had a flavor profile.

That was right.

But what I'm trying to get to here is that you

have to recognize the niche you're trying to go into all

right. We had it.

Yes. We had an existing customer base,

but if we're going to grow it,

what are we going to do?

And one of the things I had to do at that

point was to look at the product itself,

will ahead brought in and started using margarine,

using the lowest end of flour and just done some things

to drive as much cost out as possible.

My vision for the company was not that because you're,

if you're taking your price down,

if you're trying to sell price and compete with Nabisco and

all these other people,

you're at a business,

right? You can't compete with them.

All right.

They can kill you.

And they don't even know that they stepped on it.

And when we started this whole,

all natural clean products,

as you will,

if you will,

that are so big right now,

the whole foods and all that thing,

they were just really getting a handhold in this.

We didn't have a lot of places to go sell our

product. Whole thing with the,

with the all natural product is that the market didn't really

exist in a big form like it does now,

but you could see it was out there.

And the eye-opener was,

we had a meeting with whole foods and they sampled our

product. They said,

it tastes very good.

They took one look at the ingredients and they said,

Oh, our children can't do that one,

your sugars,

okay. You're using an enriched flour.

We see that as not a deal breaker,

but we really don't like that.

And you know,

they basically rip my product to shreds and I walked away

from that meeting and go,

you know,

what, if I'm going to play,

I got to make some changes.

So that was the big eye-opener to get rid of all

the margin.

We went to an unbleached on enriched and brominated flour,

whatever the bro mating is.

I don't know what that is still to this day,

but we are on whatever that is and cleaned up and

decided to go down this natural path.

So we cleaned all the recipes out all back to all

butter. Everything was all natural and just started really pounding that

in as our core.

So now we had a fantastic tasting product that let's just

people raved over it.

It was clean.

And that's my differentiator as danced Nabisco,

who's using hydrogenated oils and all the other crap that people

are saying,

that's going to kill you.

Right. So now I can say,

yeah, you can have a cookie and it's actually got good

stuff in it.

A couple of things I want to make mention of here

that Eric's talking about is he went out and did market

research. Okay.

So gift biz listeners,

if you have certain customers that you're looking to attract,

don't even think about selling them at first,

go in,

show your product and see what the response is.

So Eric was really smart because you went into a big

name, listened to what they had to say,

took that feedback.

And what happened.

This ended up being his differentiating feature because natural was just

coming on the market at the time.

So he would have be then one of the first to

provide this totally different than what a lot of his competitors

were doing.

So that's number one.

The other thing that I really like about what Eric's talking

about here is he placed a Mark in the sand.

If you will,

that he was not going to compete on price.

He was going to compete on quality.

He upgraded all of the cookies in terms of the ingredients,

and then he could go after a different type of market.

So all of these things are things for you to consider

with your product if you're in baking consumables,

but also if you create scarves or jewelry,

you know,

what kind of yard are you using?

Is it the high grade,

top quality or more medium range?

And either is fine.

It's just a matter of,

you need to decide who you are as a business and

what your product represents as a business.

So, okay,

Eric, back to this again,

how did you start integrating in all of the different flavors

of products and start expanding the product line?

When we took the company over Willa had her core four

or five that were her originals.

And most of those to this day are still some of

our best sellers.

And our number one seller is still our original classic shortbread.

Will's original recipe,

40 something years old,

but she had flavors in there such as a ginger.

It was a crystal crystallized,

ginger. There may have been a niche market for it.

And in fact,

I've still got some crystallized ginger here in our freezer.

From those days,

there was an oatmeal raisin.

That was a nice one,

but it didn't kind of fit in to where we were

going with our niche.

We did them enough times to realize it was a mess.

There was also a,

a peanut butter chocolate chip that they did several flavors that

were just kind of dated if you will.

So, you know,

we're looking at packaging,

we're looking at flavors.

The packaging at that time was very dated white.

Ten's a very stark,

you know,

almost sanitary looking packaging recognizing early on,

we need to expand on this.

Probably one of the first ones we did was actually in

the ginger snaps.

That was what I needed something for the holiday,

something new.

So we created a ginger snap and it's award-winning cookie for

us. I'm back.

We just baked yesterday.

The place actually still smells like ginger snaps in here this

morning. I wish you could bring that across.

Well, we did ginger ginger snaps and pumpkin spice yesterday.

Ooh, I don't know about one.

No, You don't because you don't call me anymore,

but I'm here now.

Well, you know,

and pumpkin spice,

you know how these things come about,

all right.

Some of the ones we've done,

I'll just kinda add,

we've got a pumpkin spice.

We do a Blackberry jam.

And that was kind of in response to a customer requests.

Let's talk about that.

Blackberry jam.

The original thing for the Blackberry jam actually comes from a

private label customer.

And that is Blackberry farm up in East Tennessee.

A very five-star place.

Very, very well-respected.

You can't even get on property unless you're invited.

Let me stop you right here.

This is what happens when you niche your product.

So you heard what,

what Eric was just saying is,

you know,

the top quality people are coming to him to create the

cookies that wouldn't be happening.

If he hadn't upgraded and decided that he was going to

go after the high quality businesses,

you know,

the, the upper scale businesses because of the product.

Okay. Eric,

I just wanted to jump in with that.

Well, interesting thing on that and where your listeners are going.

Well, I have my traditional ways to market.

This is how I'm going to go find my new business,

the way we found Blackberry farm.

Okay. I knew where they were.

They're up in East Tennessee.

They're not far from my daughter's house.

I had been there physically to their location,

taking samples in and really not knowing who to get them

to. You know,

I got a name and I took them in and said,

here's some samples,

you know,

kind of possible.

Well, now they're all busy.

Leave the samples we'll get back to,

well, really never heard back called did follow-ups.

It has nice.

They can we'll we'll consider it.

There is a biscuit festival in Knoxville,

Tennessee, every spring.

This is the international biscuit festival.

Now why would a shortbread cookie guy be at a biscuit

festival in Knoxville,

Tennessee? I,

it doesn't make much sense.

Does it with the exception of it's in downtown Knoxville,

you've got a nice clientele.

You've got a lot of people coming to see biscuits and

taste biscuits and the other things.

So we get into this thing and I'm very fortunate that

I'm beside mass general store,

which is another very nice company.

And you know,

we're going through,

we're selling some product.

It's been a good day and rough set up across from

us. Blackberry farm actually has a tent set up and they're

doing their stuff.

Oh. So I've been trying to get ahold of them.

Never really done well.

So at the end of the festival,

come towards the end,

I'd go over there.

And I said,

introduce myself.

And I said,

I've been trying to get our products in and get somebody

to, to recognize us,

you know,

up there or just at least get an audience.

And she says,

Oh, well,

what do you do?

I said,

well, I've got the shortbread cookies right across the way here.

She says,

Oh, well,

I'm the person you need to talk to.

No way way,

definitely. So I said,

well, let's step into my office.

So I'd bring her over.

And you know,

and we have a wildflower honey.

And so we,

you know,

a couple of others that I have brought specifically for this.

And she said,

Oh, that was a really nice,

as she said,

can I get some,

you know,

sample of certainly.

So I take her,

you know,

give her a few boxes of samples and get her information

the next day.

I mean,

my leave my daughter's house.

We're going to go up into the Smokies up in the

Gatlinburg for the day.

And I have literally just passed the road that goes down

to Blackberry farm and foam break.

Well, let's just lady from Blackberry farm.

And she said the,

the, the chef and the owner have tasted these.

And they're very interested in working with you,

like, okay,

I can turn around right now.

She said,

no, don't do that.

So they listed what they wanted to do.

And we got samples up.

They started selling our product as it is our packaging.

And Within,

Within a few months they said,

could we private label this?

And now we are.

In fact,

I've got,

you know,

next Monday we have another release.

So now I'm shipping out 300 boxes every other week for

Blackberry farm.

Now is that recipe proprietary to them.

Now We want to do things that are on their property.

That's their big draw,

right? Anything they do.

If they're doing meets,

they've cured them on site.

If they're doing preserves,

they've preserved it on stuff.

They've taken off site for the most part.

So I said,

fine. I mean,

what do you got?

He said,

well, we got Blackberry jam.

I said,

let's try it.

So they provided me samples of the jam,

played with the recipe a few times.

And it's like,

wow, this is really great.

They love it.

Then they came back and threw a thing.

It says,

we want to use sorghum flour in it.

For those,

if you have never worked with sorghum flour,

it is not fun.

So we had to go back and tweak it again.

And we had finally,

after six,

eight months,

we got it perfected.

Now, during this time,

yes, they were buying product,

but we keep tweaking it in.

So now we have a product that is the Blackberry jam

using their Blackberry jam to carry that into my world where

my generic people are.

I've got a jam company here in Nashville that we deal

with friend of mine for an electrical bit to see he

makes jams,

jellies and all that very successful with it.

So for my regular use customers,

I'm using his Blackberry jam and just labeling it as a

Blackberry jam shortbread.

So now I'm still using local.

It's very well done,

very high quality product in it.

But that's how you developed a little niche things because here,

you know that you've got a winner because Blackberry farms loves

it. Now you bring it into your regular thing.

Right? Right.

Wonderful story.

I'm so glad we got on this topic.

This was perfect.

Perfect of the other ones We started off with,

and this is another one that shows how these things can

develop. As I've told you,

we've done the market in Atlanta,

which is a great way.

If you're selling a product,

if you can get into some of these larger wholesale markets,

if that's where you're trying to go after is wholesale business,

you need to find at least one or two of those

that you can get to to get exposure.

If nothing else,

we were two boosts down.

I think it was the first year that we were actually

back in Atlanta with the company,

two boosts down from a little company called Savannah bee.

And those of you who are familiar with it,

I mean,

they've just grown exponentially,

paid the owners.

They're, they're doing the Biscoe commercials now for things,

but one of their honeys was a Tupelo honey.

And this stuff is absolutely fantastic.

I have never really been exposed to it.

So I'm walking by all the time.

I'm sampling their honey.

And I go,

wait a minute,

this be really good on one of our cookies.

So I go back and get them on swirl some on

it. And I'm like,

Oh man,

y'all got to try this.

So there are people loved it.

We loved it.

I went back and started playing around and developed a Tupelo,

honey shortbread.

It took a couple years,

but the next thing they're saying,

yeah, we'd like to do that.

Could we get those for us?

So we developed there again,

this is Savannah.

Be a lot of good exposure.

They did a private label.

They sell them primarily during the holiday season at that time

a tent.

And they sold like crazy.

So their customers loved them.

And to what portion of your overall sales mix is that

kind of product versus to the general public,

It's a small portion.

It would probably be 10% or less,

But it introduces you into different ingredients that you could then

go out and not duplicate,

but do something similar that then could be for the general

population. Exactly.

So we take the Tupelo,

which we done primarily for Savannah bee.

And I said,

well, this honey works really good.

And then as you learn about different honeys and their different

flavor profiles,

we go,

Oh, well,

let's try some other honey.

So we did a local wildflower honey that I get five

miles from here at the bakery direct from the beekeepers.

The taste is completely different between that and the Tupelo.

Okay, now we're onto something.

So now,

you know,

we went from doing the Tupelo.

It'd be just as a flute to get started doing it.

Now we offer four different honeys.

I have private labeled different honeys.

In fact,

we still do for Monta cello.

We actually make cookies for Monta cello using honey that is

produced all the Monta cello estate and they private label that

Beautiful look,

we've been talking a lot about things that have been great

and working well and the business building and all of that

bring us to a place where there was a real struggle

in this journey of developing and re-establishing Willis,

sharp bread,

something challenging,

something that was really frustrating.

And how did you overcome it?

Love the big sigh.

There's so many,

this is a very frustrating thing.

Sue and I,

and you were,

you were aware of this.

You were part of it.

One of the markets I identified with our packaging and we

went, we,

we redesigned our willows packaging.

We went to generation two,

which was very slick,

very colorful,

very bright,

nice Gable,

top box looked really nice.

And I said,

this is perfect for the basket industry.

Look at this basket.

People got to love it.

And we have one or two local ones here that embraced

it and did it.

So, And I used your product and you Most certainly did.

Yes. So I go to the national gift basket convention.

And again,

I've got huge expectations.

This has got to be big.

This is the national gift basket convention.

There's people from all over.

How great is this going to be?

I get there.

And yes,

it's a nice setup.

There's nice displays a lot of people.

As far as vendors set up to show their wares and

hopefully take orders.

And when the basket people come in,

they don't buy what is up.

Well, you know,

I see baskets everywhere,

FTD all these people.

Well, then he realized that this is pretty much a cottage

industry. They were so entrenched with buying the salty 25 year

shelf life stable product that I was radical concept.

Oh, Oh no.

Well, four months shelf life.

No, can't touch it.

I mean,

it won't work.

I need something.

I can sit there and sell a few at a time.

And you know,

there was a few people like you who said,

Hey, wait a minute.

I can do that.

It may be a seasonal item.

I can bring it in peak times,

but we can do it.

And I went back,

I did the second year thinking,

well, maybe that was a fluke,

but then you realize,

okay, this is a market.

That is not me.

The market is,

does not exist in the way I anticipated that.

It did.

So you got to make a change and pull out of

that. Right?

The other thing is just finding those markets.

When we first took this over,

there was not this gourmet craze,

this food craze that's out there.

The food network,

if it existed was very,

it was in its infancy.

You didn't have all these celebrity chefs and even locally,

I mean,

Nashville right now,

it's got this huge,

wonderful food scene.

When we started,

there was probably one other company in town that did the

sort of thing we did.

Where did you go to it?

Because you didn't have these gourmet shops and all these stores

and all these people.

I mean,

I busted it.

I traveled,

I visited every time that I thought we could do business.

And you know,

to scrounge up enough of this new business to,

to give us some measure growth.

I actually liked the story of the gift basket experience because

it shows that you do have to try some things.

And then when you see that it's not going to work,

don't just keep doing it over and over again,

release it and go and do something else.

Right? Well,

you know,

a couple things,

all kind of meshed together to finally get us to a

successful point.

Number one is when we took the company over ourselves,

the other partners got out of the business after my demise

from Westinghouse.

So I was free to do more.

The other partners,

you know,

they, they didn't want to spend money and to do it.

We had packaging and said,

well, we're going to run this packaging until we die.

I said,

no, we're not because it ain't working.

I mean,

look at it.

So we redid our packaging,

we cleaned the product up,

we got everything done.

And that coincided with this explosion in the food industry.

So we were the right product,

the right packaging at the right time,

kind of the moon and stars aligned there for awhile.

So it was really good.

If, if people don't think packaging is important,

you've seen our new package.

We went from a nice slick glossy,

nice looking box,

which the guy who does art,

who did our most recent packaging had looked at for a

couple of years before he actually did our work.

And he said,

it looks very nice,

but it looks like it could be Nabisco.

And I'm like,

ah, he said,

is that what you want to do?

No, it's not us.

I said,

well, think about that.

So when we redid it,

we went to the vintage,

look, the craft boxes,

the vintage look that kind of fit.

What was evolving.

I mean,

it wasn't big van,

but you could see it was coming.

The first show we went to with Atlanta in this,

we have a nice display,

very nice,

big, impressive display of these boxes set up with all our

product in it.

And I'll never forget day one.

This lady comes by,

we had only been open for about an hour,

but she walks by.

She turns around,

she looks at it and she says,

we've got to have this.

What is it?

Just by the box?

And I called up,

I've done a design work.

I said,

it's, Did you do any tests,

like focus groups?

Or how did you know that that was the right box?

The concept of the box originally was I wanted to emulate

a beehive.

So the way it does and it folds in the top,

and it's kind of like the lid on a,

on a commercial beehive,

the designer sat us down with several books of vintage packaging.

We knew we wanted to go vintage.

We knew we wanted to go crack because that was,

you could see the market was drifting that way.

Plus it aligns with your all natural ingredients,

With the handcrafted,

with the small,

Small batches and all that.

Yeah. They gave us books full of all vintage packagings and

go through here and pick out ones.

You'd like that gave us a thought process of where we

were going.

They took that input.

And the girl who actually did the design work is just

an absolute genius Legion.

If you hear this rock on your great we've tweaked the

design, it was probably a six month process actually from concept

to when we had the first finished look.

The other thing we went with when we were doing this,

now this is critical.

If you're talking packaging flexibility,

that's a big word.

Our previous stuff was like I said,

very slick four color process box.

When I ordered them,

I had to order 10,000

of each,

that was back the minimum to do Flavor any size.

We only had the one size in the box.

Okay. All right.

So, but it was,

I mean,

you're talking 10,000

of each and a minimum orders,

probably 20,000.

So I'm looking at 20,000

boxes. Every time I turn around,

well, 80,

20 rule,

guess what?

If you've got four flavors or six flavors,

two of those are going to be moving a lot faster

than the others,

which turns out to be very true.

So you're constantly watching your inventory because these boxes are move

real fast.

These aren't,

well, I've got to order 20,000

boxes, but I'm only at a one title.

What do I do?

Well? Okay.

So I'm going to split that up.

I'm going to hope that these do better here.

And then if you add a new flavor,

you've got the design work,

everything that has to go into that to create a new

one. And then you're out another 10,000

boxes. Well,

if it doesn't sell good,

guess what?

You're sitting on boxes.

I have thrown away no town,

how many boxes in my life since I've been here,

because it didn't sell,

it didn't sell enough or whatever.

So flexibility.

When we designed this,

the whole thing was to have one box on that box.

It has two different labels.

One of them is a flavor label.

It's a nice colorful disc.

And then the other is the ingredient panel.

So now I have one box that I can buy 20,000,

30,000 at a time,

whatever I need,

I can get to a nice economical quantity order.

Bam, bang,

no question.

Labels. Labels are relatively inexpensive and we have the capability to

actually print all those labels in house.

So I can,

if I want to develop a flavor,

when we went with this,

we knew we had six,

seven core products at that time.

I forget how many,

but we went ahead as part of the initial design process.

We designed all those flavor labels for those as well.

So you can pivot at any time I can pick.

Yeah. Now,

if I want to add a new flavor,

let's go back.

Right? So let's go back to the example of the Blackberry

jam. So I've done this for a quarter for a private

label. And I think in paint,

this could work now for me to create that all I

have to do is design a new label,

get it to sign.

I call it.

My designer said,

Hey, I want to do Blackberry jam.

Boom. In two days she sent me another label over.

It can move very quickly.

The ultimate example of that,

we, one of the big crazies here in Nashville now is

the hot chicken.

Okay? I mean,

it's big.

Everybody's doing hot chicken.

Well, we have a spice supplier that I use who has

a hot chicken spice blend.

And it's really good.

It's hot,

hot, hot,

hot. So we've been working with them and we'd done a

few sample test batches.

And it's like,

Hey, we're onto something here because I needed another savory flavor.

I had the opportunity to do a beer festival.

Remember we were talking about going to places you don't normally

go to shortbread cookies at a beer festival.

Is that going to work?

I don't know.

Let's go try it.

So I wanted to take a second savory flavor.

So I called my spice guy said,

Hey, I need a couple of pounds of your spice.

Okay. No problem.

And he already had a label designed by my label designer

that they used on their product.

I said,

you mind if I tweak that a little bit?

Cause I don't want to put hot chicken on my right.

He said,

nah, fine.

Go ahead.

So I called the designer said,

all right,

he's good with this.

I want to change it from Nashville.

Hot chicken to Nashville.

Hot. Ah,

you said,

Oh great idea.

You said have a teen a minute within 30 minutes.

Here's my new label design.

So I have my new flavor.

Labels ingredient panel is very easy to do tweak a few

things so that it's ready to go.

We bake up a nice batch of them.

We go to the beer festival.

I have a brand new flavor and 24 hours that didn't

exist the day before.

And I'm sitting here at a beer festival now with the

new flavor and guess what?

Very good acceptance.

They love the packaging.

They love everything else.

I said,

bang, guess what?

There's my new flavor.

That's how quick it can happen.

Yeah. You're adjusting your product to the event.

But then you're also getting some trial,

some research on whether it's going to go or not.

Yeah. Perfect.

Beautiful In flexibility.

Now we've taken that same concept with the box.

If you look again at the website,

we take the same basic design and we've moved in that

concept into the packaging we do for our 10.

So now I do a base label for the tens that

use the same flavor labels that we use on the boxes.

All right.

Give biz listeners.

I am making a decision because after all it is my

show, we are not going to do the reflection section for

time purposes.

No, no,

no, because I do want to ask you one more question.

So I want to get into one more topic.

And so I'll get biz listeners stick with us because I'm

sure you can agree.

This is super informative.

Talk to us a little bit,

Eric, about what happened with getting into Southern living magazine and

then also being an unwrapped Apple son wrapped the other 1,000

pounds. That 2.0,

so how like PR wise,

what did you do?

Or how did,

how did all of that come about?

We have been featured in Southern living five or six years

ago with our limit pecan shortbread.

So we had a contact base.

So had they come to you?

Did you present it to them?

How did We Southern living's headquarters are in Birmingham,

Alabama. And there again,

this is in that stage where you're trying to find business.

You want markets,

so you have to understand how they work.

I had actually contacted them.

I had taken out an ad in their holiday gift guide

to doing some other stuff,

which was a complete and total bust.

If you've been thinking about doing that,

call me first,

but it allowed me some contacts.

So if I'm going through Birmingham,

Alabama going to the beach or wherever I'm going,

I stopped.

And I drop a little package off at the front desk

and say,

Hey, can you get this to so-and-so or whoever's doing your

magazines now?

So if I had a new flavor,

so I'm ready to drop it by.

So they were doing a feature on lemon,

the feature of this page,

that there was lemon yellow,

and it was could be yellow paint.

It could be a yellow dessert or whatever,

but they picked our lemon pecan shortbread put in there.

Boom, quick feature where that was great.

So we had basic contact last year.

I made a decision to bring on a PR firm for

a little while.

It's so tough.

They're so expensive,

but you know,

can they be worth it?

They did some nice work us.

And I think one of the things was get a little

bit more exposure.

Now, Southern living.

I said,

we've been doing this long.

I don't attribute that to the PR guy,

unwrapped attribute to the PR guy.

They chose our Tupelo honey shortbread.

So they,

they have a best of the South awards and they actually

called us up.

Cause I had forgotten that this was going on.

I get a call from one of the writers or whatever.

It's a living and says,

Hey, the best of the South awards are ending next week.

Can we get a sample of some of your stuff in

here? I went,

Oh, Oh wow.

Yeah. So,

I mean they knew it's we're on their radar and they're

again, that's a lot of longtime stuff doing it.

They finally said,

Hey, you know,

somebody may have been in Savannah,

Georgia or someplace and tried some of our stuff or been

there and said,

Hey, wait a minute.

Willis needs to be in here.

Call them up.

So we got our samples down to them and sure enough,

they loved them.

And Well I think the learning here,

Eric is you need to be out and about.

You need to be sharing your product.

You need to be seen to get any type of recognition.

Someone has to know about you.

So your idea of just dropping off product is perfect.

You know,

anyone who is listening,

who has some type of consumable,

get your product out there And use them,

use them wisely.

If you're going to bring them in,

have a set of goals,

day one,

not just,

well, we're going to put you out on Facebook a lot,

or we're going to tweet you a lot or we're going

to send out samples every so often because it is very,

it's very expensive.

It can be worth it,

but make sure that you are on the same page as

the PR guy who's promoting you.

Because if you're somewhere else,

which is where we ended up being,

we ended up being different places completely.

I mean,

are you going no.

Well, you know,

we know PR we know what we're doing.

Well, you may know PR,

but you don't know my product.

You know,

we had a lot of difficulties,

which is why I'm no longer with them.

Would you do it again under a different environment now,

knowing what you know now,

would you hire a PR?

Yeah. Oh,

I'm looking,

I'm constantly looking for one.

You need somebody who's creative right now.

When I look at our business,

we're probably 85% wholesale is where it is.

I want to grow my retail side.

That's where I see it.

So how do I get somebody who can bring me that

business? Who understands take this back one step shortbread cookies.

That's something your grandma made.

We have no problem with that market group.

That's 60 years and older.

They know what it is.

They have no question.

These millennials have no clue what a shortbread cookie is.

So how do you,

and this is what I tell when I'm sitting down with

a PR guy and I want to see it.

And I say,

I make a cookie.

Okay. How do I make that cool to somebody who's 28

years old and got income.

And then I shut up and listen.

And if they got a stammer and stutter,

well, we're gonna put it on Facebook.

Okay. How now?

What do you,

what are you telling them?

How do you make it cool to them?

Because they got the money.

That's the work.

And I want,

I want those guys that are on the internet because it's

very cost-effective business.

And that's one of our big struggles right now is getting

that because I don't understand all the electronic commerce and how

that works.

I don't know the mindset of millennials Well,

and you want to stay in what you do well,

and what you do well is identifying all of these new

ingredients because you're connecting up with local people for all the

private label and then evolving that type of a concept into

a new product.

I can hear it in your voice.

I mean,

that's what you're good at.

You're good at dropping things off.

I know you're good in person selling the product cause I've

seen it several times.

So I think you're right in terms of getting someone who

knows that,

but the idea of goals is really important.

Again, another great piece of information that you've shared with us,

of course.

All right,

Eric, we could go so many other places.

I have so many other questions,

but I think we're going to have to start closing it

down because we all have to get onto all the other

things. There you go.

There you go.

But gift biz listeners,

you know that you can go over to the show notes

page, I'll have all the links.

FyreK also offered up.

If you wanted to call him about something,

it sounded like you were receptive to that.

If someone wanted to chat with you,

we'll have the website up.

We'll also have a link that I want you guys to

look at.

It's a video really interesting behind the scenes,

look at his business for those people who are on the

road, maybe they're running or they're actually working in their shops

right now while they're listening.

Eric, what is your website?

It's real simple.

This, if you'll go Google Willis,

shortbread, and w I L L a S shortbread Final thing.

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

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

This would be 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?

It's the,

a check from the person who's buying this business.

Okay. So,

so that's good.

So you have the vision of setting up this business and

having it prepared and ready to sell at some someday.

Yes. That is the whole goal.

Now. I mean,

this is not something that I don't think my kids want

to take over this.

Wasn't my dream of what I wanted to do my whole

life, but it is what I do.

So I want to be very successful at it and I've

become very attached to it to a degree.

But if I open that box up and there's a check

in there for the right amount of money that I don't

have to do this anymore,

hi, I'm fade off into the sunset nicely and go do

other things.

And I think that is your goal as well.

What do you want to do with your company?

Do you want to grow it into something that your can

prepare it and do all this wonderful stuff with?

Do you want to make a good living and be able

to get out of it?

My goal right now is to get this to a point

where it's so valuable that somebody wants to come buy it.

You never know.

One of our listeners might just have peaked up their ears

a little bit and you never know.

No, I'm not sticking a for sale sign out in front

of it.

But just like I don't physically have to go out as

often now or do things.

I don't have to go out and get business every week.

Now I've got people that are calling us up going,

Hey, can we sell your product?

I'm like,

great, wonderful.

I want that same thing.

I want somebody to call me up and go,

would you like to sell your business?

And my first answer is always yes,

because yeah,

I do.

I would love to sell it,

but I'm not going to give it away.

Well, and you've invested in it.

So you're definitely gonna want to sell it to the right

person. Who's going to take the concept,

carry on,

et cetera.

Yeah. Happy with it.

And in the meantime is to keep putting out a quality

product here.

Then people want to buy Eric,

thank you so much for coming on.

I'll be at very early in the morning.

Great information.

I really appreciate it.

You've taken us down some paths that I did not want

to stop because it led to really,

really important information for all of our listeners.

Wish you continued success.

I wish you at some point for that telephone to ring

with that purchasing call.

Not too soon though,

I have to say,

and may your candle always burn bright?

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 a gift biz quiz or from your phone like texting

gift biz quiz to four four,

two, two,

two. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for

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